has anyone actually purchased it? does it truly provide immortality?
If memory serves, someone ran the numbers, and at the rate that it takes to earn money at maximum efficiency, no-one can possibly afford it yet.
Is anyone even trying to farm money towards it? I kinda hope that they will include a way to send Echoes or money-earning items between players in a future update, if that is the case, I’m going to form a Hesperidean Cider-farming secret society. (in the interest of fairness, the one getting the cider would have to befall on an alt-account reprsenting the group with a password avaiable for all the members, so it wold have to be purely for scientific reasons.)
It’s possible it doesn’t do anything at the moment.
Yeah, I suspect that’s the case, I dont really see how the effect of the cider as described could be made to affect gameplay. Maybe it prevents you from acquiring wounds? That would not be worth it…
I think it theoretically allows you to return to the surface after dying in Fallen London. Presumably prevents further deaths as well.
Never heard of a way back though and there doesn’t appear to be a surface postcard area either.
It’s also implied that several figures from previous cities have partaken of it, which explains their continued presence here in London. So maybe it simply means that one is going to become one of the mysteries to plague the sixth and seventh cities?
[color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]Though, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not be around when the seventh city falls.[/color]
My theory, assuming Urthdigger’s hypothesis is in error, and I confess it’s at least as plausible as my own, is that when you are on the slow boat with that one chess-enthusiast, you can use the cider (either by drinking it or by possibly giving it to the enthusiast) to immediately take your wounds to zero. Will this consume the cider? Possibly. Will it take an action? Almost definitely.
It would also prevent more than a superficial amount of ageing, though I would presume that would be strictly flavor and not have a gameplay effect.
A slightly tangential question, when you are on the slow boat, is it mentioned anywhere in your profile?
That would be by far the biggest waste of echoes in the entire game. Especially considering wounds is perhaps the easiest menace to get rid of.
If you get lucky trading Broken Giant for Cellars of Wine you learn that [color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]the Cider probably doesn’t make you immortal by itself, but unlocks a quest chain that allows you to become immortal in some other way[/color].
I must admit to a certain curiosity as to what would happen to immortal people if they ignored the warning on F.F. Gabrandt’s Tincture of Vigour.
Reading the Failbetter blog, espescially the joking “admission” that the original proposed conclusion of the seeking the name storyline would cost a thousand fate to play and result in your character being deleted, I suspect that the FB guys are not above throwing in an item in the game that’s hella expensive,but which actually does nothing, just to drive curious people like me insane. Please tell me that SOMEONE is farming money for the Cider, I MUST KNOW!!! Ahem, I guess there’s a reason that people focused on Watchful quality in Fallen London frequently goes insane…
Hesperidean cider is a symbol of the correspondence
Given I already have a Goat, getting some Cider does seem to be the next challenge…
I’m expecting that, though it’s not seriously intended to be bought, at some point you’ll be able to obtain it and use it to do this as part of the endgame.
yeah, someday one hopes : )
It also struck me that the fact that it is a cider, suggests there are immortal yeast running around out there…
Immortal yeast would be a terrible, terrible thing. Like herpes.
As Sir Fred mentioned at the top, we ran the numbers a few months back. At the time, the “Pygmalion” storylets were proving to be the most reliable and profitable source of echoes-per-action, so we based our math on them:
>If you were an Exceptional Friend (and bear in mind, they didn’t come into being until mid-2011) and spent every single one of your daily allotted action points on grinding the Pygmalion quest for Echoes (your standard 80 actions points plus the bonus 20 for the Tweet/FB “echoing”), you would come up with a little over 112 Echoes per day (1.12Echos/action X 100 Actions).
>>Given that Hesperidean Cider costs 160,000 Echoes, at the above rate of Echoes/Actions, it would take 1,428-and-a-half days of grinding to afford H.C. That’s nearly 4 YEARS. EBZ is ~3 years old, so barring an “Act of Eaten”, the Cider is Impossible to obtain.
=>Anyway, my theory is in line with the ‘admission’ Owlor noted about the 1,000-Fate quest; The Cider is a Trap (at least at this point in time). It’s coded in so that anyone whom obtains it is instantly flagged by the system as hacking/abusing an exploit. They are then arrested, taken to Mr. Irons & and Properly Kneecapped.
Is it still a great in-story motivator/plot-macguffin? Yes.
Could it possibly have future functions in-game? Undoubtedly.
But mechanically, it’s like the Ark of the Covenant.
I was able to average 1.49 Echoes over 10 actions back when I still had Investigations in the University; an average which increased to 2.14 over 7 actions if I managed to draw a certain card. Now that I’m done and the University is worthless, I’m in the same boat as everyone else.