I did not play the story for May yet and it simply disappeared… on the 26th? What?
I am not happy at all right now.
They do roll-over at the last Thursday of previous month.
Aha. Glad to find out this way.
And why just remove the old story if I did not play it yet? I paid for it.
Oh well.
edited by Stealer of Thoughts on 5/26/2016
As with all Exceptional Stories, besides the one-week extension for the Seven-Day Reign, each ES begins on the last Thursday of the prior month and ends on the last Thursday of its month. I understand it to be so Failbetter will always be open on the intended day of the changeover.
Exceptional Friends do not need to play through the entire story in the month; playing the first storylet in the House of Chimes locks it so the story can be continued after the month, or even EF subscription, ends. If you neglected to do so I’m sure they can help: just email support@failbettergames.com.
Thanks Optimatum. Still the only reason I can come up with to simply lock you out of stories once a new one appears is to keep you pressured to log in. And I don´t like such practices, I paid for it already.
Not so. If they didn’t do it this way, i could buy a EF subscription today. I’d get may’s EF story and June’s EF story right off the bat, and much more easily than otherwise. Some months it might even be possible to get both the previous and next month’s story, in addition to the current- after all, the reason for the policy is because they can’t be sure anyone will work on the weekend, if that’s even something anyone does.
No, you paid for the membership. The membership has more benefits than just the story and in and of itself does not give you any qualities. Since it doesn’t give you any qualities there is no way for the engine to give you access to the story. There is minimal pressure to log in, yes. But it truly is minimal. Provided you are paying your membership the only compulsory things you have to do is to spend two actions a month and then you are guaranteed to have all the stories that cover your subscription period.
You could question why the engine does not give any qualities solely for being subscribed. I don’t know. It may well be not easy. I’d rather think it’s for technical reasons like that rather than some nefarious ones given the absolutely negligible buy-in requirements of two actions (beyond the value of the subscription itself).
edited by genesis on 5/26/2016
Failbetter is very clear on you having to unlock the exceptional story in the House of Chimes when you are a Exceptional Friend, because being a Exceptional Friend is different from buying a story. EF gives you the right (if you are so inclined) to unlock stories in the House of Chimes once a month, for a price that is a bit lower than the story itself, plus some benefits (bigger candle, bigger deck).
When you purchase the story in itself, it doesn’t disappear if you don’t “unlock” it. I know it because I purchased the Soul Trade separately from the EF, but it took me a while to be able to play it, and it was there, waiting for me neatly when I looked for it.
The first time you miss it, if you send a request to fbgsupport they will reopen it for you.
[quote=Stealer of Thoughts]Aha. Glad to find out this way.
And why just remove the old story if I did not play it yet? I paid for it.
Oh well.
edited by Stealer of Thoughts on 5/26/2016[/quote]
Note: You don’t have to play all the way through to retain access to each month’s Exceptional Story. Do the first step (in London) which tells you to go to the House of Chimes. Then do the step(s) in the House of Chimes - usually it’s only the one Action before it says you can now play through the rest of the Exceptional Story at your own pace. :-)
So what I tend to do if I know I’m going to be busy is: do the required actions to start the story and make sure I’ve got that part covered - then come back to it when I have enough Actions (usually after waking up the next morning, when my Actions are fully recharged) that I can push through it without having to stop every 10mins.
I didn’t play through Flint until a couple of months after it had been released, due to my own schedule.
But yeah, support@failbettergames.com may be able to help you out. ^_^
(Alternately, the Support button on the right-hand side of http://www.failbettergames.com/help-me/ is an alternate way of contacting someone.)