A big part of the fun of Fallen London is unraveling its mysteries, but the mysteries lose a lot of their fun if you don’t present them in a coherent way within the universe. One of the prime sources of incoherence is little flavor text like this, which seems to date from the early days of the game, implying that a bunch of everyday Londoners understand all this stuff about the Neath’s deeper mysteries, they’re just… inexplicably choosing to be cryptic with you about it. The actual narrative content of the game generally doesn’t make this sort of mistake.
This robs the visceral impact of actually solving the mysteries and figuring out what’s going on! Instead of feeling like you’ve gotten in on some secret knowledge, you just feel like you’re the last person to finally be invited the party that every other random person in the street is already a part of.
I’d say that the snippet does it’s job well - it gives you a mystery that you do not yet understand. I’d argue that…
a) ‘residents that have been known to say [since the Bazaar was between stars]’ is much smaller than it seems.
b) That even they do not fully comprehend what the phrase means, and operate on your level of knowledge after first reading the snippet, which would usually be ‘a long time ago the Bazaar was between stars, and I know that only from this one thing I’ve heard’.
[quote=Televangelist]
This robs the visceral impact of actually solving the mysteries and figuring out what’s going on! Instead of feeling like you’ve gotten in on some secret knowledge, you just feel like you’re the last person to finally be invited the party that every other random person in the street is already a part of.[/quote]
The common gossips are not necessarily correct. Then again, I am more bothered by the occasional snippets about Exceptional Stories, since they tend to drum up certain places and people far too much (I mean, who really remembers the Light Factory from Flint?)
I assumed that this was a figure of speech that townsfolk are liable to toss out, the way that we might say that something is “the greatest thing since sliced bread” without actually intending to compare something to sliced bread (or even necessarily personally claiming that sliced bread is especially great).
In my interpretation of the game, people use that phrase to mean, “a really long time ago,” but almost nobody understands -why- it means that … it’s just something they liked when they heard it from someone who heard it from someone, etc.
I never found them annoying. They’re vague on purpose, to show you how anecdotes are passed around in Fallen London.
They’re based on rumors, myths or testimonies, after all.
I truly enjoyed them during my first days of playing Fallen London, mainly to spend time while waiting for an action to be available.
I guess I have read them all since then. That said, comparing their contents to the situation "live" is still quite interesting.
I also could say that when you’re a seasoned inhabitant of Fallen London, the snippets could become quite boring, not to say an eyesore… actually it would be better to ignore them completely (something I would not do).
Here. For you.
plays the obvious, extremely known dedicated theme
P.S.: It’s all thanks to them that there is a stupid Starveling Cat poem in my signature. edited by Lestaroth on 11/16/2016
Remember that one storylet - I think it was seasonal - where some dweeb tries the “burn sinners for heat” line on you, and you can be so tired of his nonsense that you bop him on the nose?
plays the obvious, extremely known dedicated theme[/quote]
"Generally only contemporary authors are quoted; but where Parabola and/or the Brass Embassy is concerned, things are allowed to leak through from future decades. We have a firm house rule against pop culture references (although I put a mean joke about Batman in when I was young and foolish, because I don’t like Batman)" -Alexis Kennedy, 2016
It was from one of the Particular Day in the Neath access codes. edited by Optimatum on 11/16/2016
"Generally only contemporary authors are quoted; but where Parabola and/or the Brass Embassy is concerned, things are allowed to leak through from future decades. We have a firm house rule against pop culture references (although I put a mean joke about Batman in when I was young and foolish, because I don’t like Batman)" -Alexis Kennedy, 2016
Oh, thanks, that is why I tend to think that it’s a bit sad to be a newbie to FL… So much lore and anecdotes I couldn’t know about. edited by Lestaroth on 11/16/2016
The snippets fit best in the early days, when much of the lore was an opaque wall in front of the player’s seeking eyes. In a small number of instances, the devs may have even felt the same way.
As for the present, how could I say? We build ourselves on the rocks of the past, and risk a broken leg if we leap too far forward without preparation. If the snippets have a poor reception among the newly Fallen, that is useful Failbetter feedback
They are definitely rumors, and I really enjoyed a lot of them especially the Correspondence related gossips which really drove me to find out just exactly what it was. Additionally, I do not mind the Batman reference because that is literally what Black Wings Absinthe makes your character do and somehow it all fits into the lore about how the Masters are just big man-bats.
Anyway, here is my two cents on the whole thing. The little quotes are all london gossip and help inform your character of the world they live in, and these are important for the game world. There are things that your character is just assumed to know from spending time in the neath and the game references these without necessarily explaining them. False Summer, The Brass Embassy, animescence, how it snows in the neath, what the heck Hesperidean Cider is, and so much more. The best part of these little cryptic clues is that they are often wrong, thought provoking, and/or big hints to later content. As you progress throughout the game, looking down at the little words feels very satisfying when you finally understand the text you’ve seen thus far. It is like finally being let in on a joke you’ve been missing all this time.
You may want to put the spoiler thing at the Master thing since the knowledge of what’s under the hood is a big mystery for players who didn’t learn it.
*to ShrouydedinLight edited by The Master on 11/16/2016
I love the snippets - I agree, it’s like gossip. To me, it makes the world more real to find that there is a popular culture warped by the location.
I’m not a new player and I’m sure I’ve read them all by now, but I STILL find them immersive. (I also adore the sarcastic extra text provided in the title when one goes to echo them). edited by LawrenceKeyworth on 11/16/2016
The only thing that bothers me about the snippets is that so many of them reference interesting potential story hooks, or even whole branches of supernatural phenomena, that there is no way to actually encounter or study in the game.
Hopefully that will change some day, of course. But never ‘soon’.
