If this actually works as intended - it would be great! :) Willing to take part in testing and help shaping the thing.
Best regards,
Det. http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Det
I was thinking about this too. Simplest would probably be to only have a "go to this storylet" option available for fixed storylets, not cards. It’s not so much that a particular card might be lucrative and that you might spam it (although that would be a risk) - more that, lucrative or not, you might not have a particular card in your hand, which of course is the only time you should be able to play it.
If simply using bookmarks it would be possible to reach opportunity cards, it would be exploited by now.
So, even if bookmark would show an opportunity card name and link, without card being in your hand link would be broken by game mechanics. At worst case it will be mild spoiler for those, who are not aware that the card exists :)
If you need anymore testers, please consider DragonRidingSorceress and/or Seeker of Names
Sounds very interesting.
If you need more testers, please add me as well.
(though I’m at the content boundary so it will limit the sort of Plans my character would pursue).
If you need more testers, I would like to be a part of this. MartzelDePamplona for both.
[color=#0066ff]Thanks for your thoughts so far! We now have enough testers for this function. Anyone who already commented will get access shortly if they don’t have it already.[/color]
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[color=#0066ff]If you can’t see Plans, try logging out and back in.[/color]
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[color=#0066ff]We’ll have a think about everything that’s come up so far and get back to you![/color]
Thanks, Hannah.
I’ve almost completely missed this whole post. If only there was some way to register for updates such as a new topic, or new posts in a particular topic… hint, hint… :-)
I finally got access to the new feature and it seems to be working as intended so far. It’s a useful way to keep track of what you were doing when you have gone away for some time. I don’t know if it has been mentioned but the interface for the Plan tab is quite boring and could use some interior borders to liven it up a bit. This is, of course, merely a secondary concern.
Props for a job well done, keep up the great work.
Thanks, Hannah!
Initial thoughts:
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Is there a reason why it’s only branches, rather than top level storylets, that can be flagged? For instance I currently have a "The plaster face is sneering" storylet in my lodgings that I keep forgetting about. Admittedly, I could flag one of its two branches but it’s slightly misleading as I haven’t figured out which branch I want to pursue, just that I want to start that storyline at some point.
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It would be useful (assuming it’s feasible to implement) to have some sort of sorting/organising feature - I don’t necessarily mean an automated one (and I can imagine that could be quite complicated) but perhaps just a manual ability to drag items up and down the list and, possibly, to indent or "group" them in some way. Just to give several scenarios why that might be useful:
2a. I currently have "Could you really have a long-lost daughter?" and "Could you have a long-lost daughter?" Fate branches flagged, which presumably start the same storyline. If I flagged them on different occasions they might not be next to each other in the list, which would be misleading.
2b. Some storylines are better played in a particular order even though they can be played in any order. For example, if I have access to both the Nocturnal Visitor opp card and The Gift, I want to remind myself that I don’t want to start the Gift until I’ve played through the Noctural Visitor cards
2c. It might be useful to group branches that give resources with branches that require those resources
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This feature is a veritable godsend when it comes to the stories hiding in "FIND NEW STORIES" in your lodgings. I always forget to look there as there are so many branch levels to navigate.
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If a branch is a fate branch perhaps it could be tinted yellow as all Fate branches are in the normal interface?
- I keep wanting to use line-breaks when entering notes. Not necessarily saying that you should accommodate that behaviour (although I personally would find it useful) but just flagging it as something one might unconsciously want to keep doing.
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It would be nice if we could echo the completed plans to the journal. I often forget to echo important once-only storylines and this could provide a useful backup feature.
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I don’t know whether that’s at all feasible to implement but one thing I often find myself planning is buying an expensive item at the Bazaar. As it’s not a branch you can’t add it to Plans atm but, imo, it would be a natural extension.
Overall, a great feature! Thank you.
I realise that many of the points above have been mentioned above but I guess it’s helpful to know how many people might be thinking about the same aspects…
edited by genesis on 3/31/2015
Another thought: if we do end up with some sort of "go to this storylet" function, then I think something that would work very well alongside that would be the ability to permanently pin a storylet (as opposed to pinning it, playing it and then recycling it from the "completed" section).
[quote=genesis]
- Is there a reason why it’s only branches, rather than top level storylets, that can be flagged? For instance I currently have a "The plaster face is sneering" storylet in my lodgings that I keep forgetting about. Admittedly, I could flag one of its two branches but it’s slightly misleading as I haven’t figured out which branch I want to pursue, just that I want to start that storyline at some point.[/quote]
I second this.
[quote=genesis]
2. It would be useful (assuming it’s feasible to implement) to have some sort of sorting/organising feature - I don’t necessarily mean an automated one (and I can imagine that could be quite complicated) but perhaps just a manual ability to drag items up and down the list and, possibly, to indent or "group" them in some way. Just to give several scenarios why that might be useful:[/quote]
Here was I typing up a post to just this effect:
It would be useful to be able to re-order the Plans. Or at least to list them oldest first. I just bookmarked multiple stages of a plan (to collect all the creatures for breeding), but they’re not in order any more. This isn’t helped by the fact it has JUST occurred to me that I should add a bookmark to Selling my Memento of Passion.
[quote=genesis]
3. This feature is a veritable godsend when it comes to the stories hiding in "FIND NEW STORIES" in your lodgings. I always forget to look there as there are so many branch levels to navigate.[/quote]
I had completely forgotten about this. I should do that. This is where being able to bookmark the story itself would be useful.
[quote=genesis]
- I keep wanting to use line-breaks when entering notes. Not necessarily saying that you should accommodate that behaviour (although I personally would find it useful) but just flagging it as something one might unconsciously want to keep doing.[/quote]
Seconded. Especially if a Plan is useful for two goals, or something like that.
[quote=A B Nile]
Another thought: if we do end up with some sort of "go to this storylet" function, then I think something that would work very well alongside that would be the ability to permanently pin a storylet (as opposed to pinning it, playing it and then recycling it from the "completed" section). [/quote]
Agreed.
It would also be really useful if I could add notes when I’m bookmarking, rather than having to go to the Planning tab again.
edited by dragonridingsorceress on 3/31/2015
My initial thoughts after some testing:
- It would be nice to have some way to easily distinguish storylet and card bookmarks (through sorting, or even some small icon).
- For card bookmarks it would be great to have a name of a card mentioned somewhere (obviously, since i managed to bookmark one of the options, i’ve seen the card already)
- For storylet bookmarks - the name of Storylet and an Area (like Lodging, Spite, etc).
Otherwise this would be just an abstract reminder, requiring to add manual notes (i do this now) or consult the wiki, if you forget where it is hiding :)
It would be good if my Bookmarked actions showed my notes as hovertext, instead of “Add this branch to your plans”. There’s clearly code which can tell the difference, since Planned bookmarks show up purple, instead of the usual red.
Initial thoughts:
Not very useful for my character at the moment. Being at the content boundary there’s little I need to "Plan" for.
If there’s a useful opportunity card, I play it, so adding it to the "plan" is not really helpful.
The one effect which is useful is that, regardless of a "Plan", this helps mark specific branches in carousels. Specifically, when I have nothing else I’m after I tend to spend my actions on the Affairs of the Box carousel. Adding the specific carousel actions to the "Plan" is not really helping (since there is no real plan), but it does allow me to mark the "correct" actions.
Basically, for each stage of the AotB carousel, I’ve added the correct option to the Plan and immediately played it. This marked the action as "Completed" in the Plan but that’s not the goal - because now, as long as I don’t delete the action from the completed actions in the Plan, I have the "correct" AofB action marked with a little green flag. This should reduce the number of mistakes I make as I go through the carousel for the millionth time (becoming a Turncoat because of a miss-click is annoying).
So, I haven’t yet found a good use for a Plan, but I am using the new ability to mark specific actions in repeated multi-choice storylets.
Oh, and one usability comment: the pop-up confirmation dialog box when deleting an item from the Plan is annoying and I believe should be removed (I think it’s fine when adding the item).
thought: Maybe a way to organize the plans might be to have them organize themselves by location? i don’t know if that would be easier than, like, just putting where the location on the plan itself. I can see how plans would pile up and be potentially hard to manage, though.
I don’t want to test this, but I would like to
- second the idea to display player note on the bookmarked branch (because even a “don’t play this” is a plan)
- suggest the ability to “prioritize” bookmarked branches (and storylets with bookmarked branches?) to show above non-prioritized ones, to minimize scrolling (some locations/storylets are several screens high for me, and I need to scroll up for result text and the “continue” button, and then back down for the branch I want to repeat)
Both of those suggestions would be awesome. I also wouldn’t mind being able to make a plan to play a certain action a specific number of times, but that probably has more limited use than anything else people have suggested.
I like the idea of being able to plan to buy an item at the bazaar. Perhaps the bookmark could be on the pop-up once you click BUY, so they’re not cluttering up the whole page on every item.
One other very specific thought: I’m planning to get married in St. Fiacre’s (about halfway there) - and the bookmark for choosing that venue is dangerously close to the option to Elope - especially on a phone. (I’ll be honest, even before Making Plans was introduced, this kept me up at night.)
It seems a shame that a misclick here could instantly undo months and months of planning. Perhaps for weddings there could be a confirmation page once you click a venue before instantly taking you to the wedding?
edited by Ginneon Thursday on 3/31/2015
Thanks so much for adding me into this! After poking about a bit, I’ve taken down some notes. Quite a few of them have already been mentioned here but I suppose that helps as well.
-It would be lovely if we could rearrange the order of plans to whatever suits our fancy (for example, grouping related or similar plans together, or arranging them in order of importance). If there was a way to link related plans, even better. To give an example: the Kindness of Ravens storylet has multiple outcomes, and relies both on opportunity cards and clicking in your item inventory. I understand that the hunt/not knowing the future outcomes is part of the fun, but because this path is not quite as linear as “go to location, continue story in same location” it’d be nice to group those steps together. Also because I keep forgetting I have enough Wary and Dazed Advisers and need to advance them to the next level.
-Can the “notes” box be a bit bigger, perhaps paragraph-sized? A single line makes it hard to write too much of substance since half of the sentence ends up getting lost. This will also be great for creating bullet points within our notes.
-It would be nice to lock plans so that they’re not “completed”, or perhaps categorizing them as “ongoing”. For example, in Prepare for An Expedition, I wrote a note on the Whispered Secrets option related to where I want to grind for Secrets when I’m running low, and it would be nice for that to just be hanging around as a reminder.
-Can you possibly distinguish Storylets/Opp Cards/Fate-Locked/Inventory-based Plans?
That’s all I have for now. All in all, a lovely feature! I’ll come back with more later, I just wanted to get down my initial thoughts.