Liking and tips ... and rare success?

Did the liking/tips feature get nuked? Maybe I’m being obtuse, but I don’t see the option anywhere in my world no matter how hard I look (even with monetization turned on). There’s no changes to the subject in the documentation … and I know it existed before, as I accidentally &quotliked&quot one of my storylets and that still shows in the analytics.

If the tips don’t exist anymore, is monetization even still a thing? Refilling actions is still an option – I assume the world creator gets a cut of that if they have monetization turned on?

(Definitely putting the cart before the horse, here, but I’m getting ready to open my world up to players, and I want to give them the option to give me money in a way that also benefits Failbetter, should they want to.)
edited by mek on 10/1/2014

Hmm. I’ve just checked Rattus, as it still has the sellout shack (where you can use nex to unlock branches). However, yeah, I can’t see the liking/tips feature.

Would be moderately hmmpf if it had gone. Perhaps worth asking them on high?
edited by babelfishwars on 9/30/2014

[quote=babelfishwars]Hmm. I’ve just checked Rattus, as it still has the sellout shack (where you can use nex to unlock branches). However, yeah, I can’t see the liking/tips feature.

Would be moderately hmmpf if it had gone. Perhaps worth asking them on high?
edited by babelfishwars on 9/30/2014[/quote]

I take it the nex-locked content still works? I hadn’t planned on going that route, but well – if it’s the only option, maybe I’ll have to.

[quote=Roast Rabbit][quote=babelfishwars]Hmm. I’ve just checked Rattus, as it still has the sellout shack (where you can use nex to unlock branches). However, yeah, I can’t see the liking/tips feature.

Would be moderately hmmpf if it had gone. Perhaps worth asking them on high?
edited by babelfishwars on 9/30/2014[/quote]

I take it the nex-locked content still works? I hadn’t planned on going that route, but well – if it’s the only option, maybe I’ll have to.[/quote]

Didn’t have any nex to test. I’d assume so. They aren’t going to turn off monetisation, since that would defeat the purpose of SN.

Send in a support query? They will probably read this eventually. But that’s ‘probably’ and ‘eventually’.

I think the like/tipping feature disappeared a while ago - mainly because I think almost no one used it. Nex-locked branches still work and are still a really, really important part of driving revenue for your game (if used wisely). However, I think that refreshing actions is the single biggest source of revenue by far, for FL as well as SN games (from various things that FBG have said).

I was afraid of this. The system as it stood seemed like a very good way to keep track of what content players were enjoying, if encouraged to use it – with Broadcast Living Stories indefinitely bugged and this going missing, it’s getting harder and harder to monitor what players are doing. I’m getting a little melancholic by the steadily disappearing features … but I shouldn’t vent here. The good people at Failbetter have done what they can with their limited resources, after all.

(I’m honestly just a little confused about why they’d remove revenue options when they’ve stated that lack of income is why StoryNexus is in maintenance mode … but maybe it is a bug.)
edited by mek on 9/30/2014

I was afraid of this. The system as it stood seemed like a very good way to keep track of what content players were enjoying, if encouraged to use it – with Broadcast Living Stories indefinitely bugged and this going missing, it’s getting harder and harder to monitor what players are doing. I’m getting a little melancholic by the steadily disappearing features … but I shouldn’t vent here. The good people at Failbetter have done what they can with their limited resources, after all.[/quote]

I wouldn’t despair! Honestly, I think the liking/tipping thing was massively underused anyway, so didn’t really represent what people were really doing in your game. The most important thing is to keep talking to your testers, ask for feedback explicitly, make some surveys in Google Drive, etc.

I was afraid of this. The system as it stood seemed like a very good way to keep track of what content players were enjoying, if encouraged to use it – with Broadcast Living Stories indefinitely bugged and this going missing, it’s getting harder and harder to monitor what players are doing. I’m getting a little melancholic by the steadily disappearing features … but I shouldn’t vent here. The good people at Failbetter have done what they can with their limited resources, after all.[/quote]

I wouldn’t despair! Honestly, I think the liking/tipping thing was massively underused anyway, so didn’t really represent what people were really doing in your game. The most important thing is to keep talking to your testers, ask for feedback explicitly, make some surveys in Google Drive, etc.[/quote]
I’m afraid my testers have been fairly opaque so far, and I do get tired of having to beg feedback from them. And I suppose I’m a little frustrated by that P:

Maybe when I open the game to the public tomorrow some delicious discussion will start up.

[quote=Roast Rabbit]I’m afraid my testers have been fairly opaque so far, and I do get tired of having to beg feedback from them. And I suppose I’m a little frustrated by that P:

Maybe when I open the game to the public tomorrow some delicious discussion will start up.[/quote]

My solution: Employ people I know in real life. Hold relatives hosta… wait. No, I do not do that at all. That’s precisely what I DO NOT DO.

I did ask for initial feedback and then gave a mini survey on particular things I wanted to know the answer to. But that was afterwards, so it didn’t influence their thoughts. However, was a very very small alpha test, and carefully chosen individuals, not general beings.

[quote=babelfishwars][quote=Roast Rabbit]I’m afraid my testers have been fairly opaque so far, and I do get tired of having to beg feedback from them. And I suppose I’m a little frustrated by that P:

Maybe when I open the game to the public tomorrow some delicious discussion will start up.[/quote]

My solution: Employ people I know in real life. Hold relatives hosta… wait. No, I do not do that at all. That’s precisely what I DO NOT DO.

I did ask for initial feedback and then gave a mini survey on particular things I wanted to know the answer to. But that was afterwards, so it didn’t influence their thoughts. However, was a very very small alpha test, and carefully chosen individuals, not general beings.[/quote]
This method requires knowing people in real life, which requires not being a reclusive hermit. I do plan on getting some kind of survey out with this next phase of testing, though. Hopefully all of the testers see it and fill it out. Or even most of them – &quotall&quot is probably hoping a little high.

[quote=Roast Rabbit]
This method requires knowing people in real life, which requires not being a reclusive hermit. I do plan on getting some kind of survey out with this next phase of testing, though. Hopefully all of the testers see it and fill it out. Or even most of them – &quotall&quot is probably hoping a little high.[/quote]

Actually recruited regulars from here. How much feedback you can get probably depends on how big your game is … and used so few, it was very easy to email/chat via PM on here.

Hmmmm… No, you know, the more I think on it, the more I think enlisting hostages sounds like a fine idea. Players are flaky at the best of times – what better way to collect data than to be there as they produce it. At all times. Like some kind of data cows. And I, their dutiful data farmer.

…I’m tired. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

How to work best with testers is a subject for a long book (or series of blog posts) all by itself! But I think with any project like this (or any project, but especially one like this), getting it thoroughly and continually tested is the most important thing you can do. That and plan your marketing properly.

In terms of my own experience, my first goal with the game was to get it playable and therefore testable as soon as possible. That took about a month I think. I recruited testers on here, mostly - importantly, people who don’t know me at all. I think the best thing to do is to ask for negative feedback - what’s buggy, broken, unbalanced, unclear, confusing, what’s frustrating compared to merely hard, etc. That’s all actionable information, which is really important, and it’s also easier for your testers to provide. Positive feedback is motivating, obviously, but it’s negative feedback that’ll make your game better (as long as it’s put in a constructive manner, obviously).

Another key metric for me, given that my game is designed for open-ended play, what percentage of people keeping playing vs those who get bored and shelve it after a bit.

I don’t want to make a new thread for this since it’s sort of on topic for this one, but I just noticed the rare success option for branches is gone, too. But I can make multiple rare defaults now. Anyone know if that’s intentional? I’m hesitant to just make my rare successes rare defaults, as that’s still technically a failure. I’d just made a rare success as little as a month ago, I think – I’ve been using them for jobs in the game (rare default: really crappy day at work, default: average day at work, success: pretty good day at work, rare success: awesome day at work)

(I already sent a support ticket about the liking/tips and haven’t heard back yet … I’m hesitant to send another.)

ETA: I don’t know what the problem was, but the &quotadd rare success result&quot button is back and I can’t replicate the issue. So nevermind, I suppose!
edited by mek on 10/1/2014

[quote=Roast Rabbit]I don’t want to make a new thread for this since it’s sort of on topic for this one, but I just noticed the rare success option for branches is gone, too. But I can make multiple rare defaults now. Anyone know if that’s intentional? I’m hesitant to just make my rare successes rare defaults, as that’s still technically a failure. I’d just made a rare success as little as a month ago, I think – I’ve been using them for jobs in the game (rare default: really crappy day at work, default: average day at work, success: pretty good day at work, rare success: awesome day at work)

(I already sent a support ticket about the liking/tips and haven’t heard back yet … I’m hesitant to send another.)

ETA: I don’t know what the problem was, but the &quotadd rare success result&quot button is back and I can’t replicate the issue. So nevermind, I suppose!
edited by mek on 10/1/2014[/quote]

Think you have to set difficulty levels before you can use success branch… Might be something to do with that? Or is that too obvious and something you tried?

That is something I tried. I think my browser just had a small stroke or somesuch – “Add a success result” was sticking to the branch and not changing to “Add a rare success result” when a success result was added. Trying to add a second success result, of course, did not work.
[bewildered shrug]

More importantly, I did just hear back from Failbetter, and the missing liking/tips system is indeed intentional, as we figured. Oh well.

It’s working fine for me. It will disappear under certain conditions, but that’s just an interface bug. I think if you add a success branch, then add a rare default rare, the buttons for adding a rare success will hide. You just need to refresh the page. It’s always been possible (and always been a bug) that you’re able to add a lot of rare defaults, but I didn’t think they actually got saved? Never tried it myself…

It’s entirely possible that’s what I did – I was adding the aforementioned results to a job card, so just threw a bunch of Result types down and was confused when &quotRare Success&quot wasn’t an option.

I thought for sure I’d tried to add multiple rare defaults before and had them not actually show up as I hit the button, but I suppose I could be misremembering. I did try making a card with two rare default results earlier, but ended up deciding to go a different route on it. Maybe I’ll give it another go later and see if one of the results disappears.