[quote=SamNorrey]
But you can replay them later on[/quote]
Well that is good news! As I’m sure you can tell, I’m relatively new to this exceptional friendship/fate thing.
So, trying to take a slightly more objective viewpoint, I enjoyed some of the description in the story and absolutely loved the bound sharks. Would like to see more of them in the future - it’s genuinely tempting me to swap my yacht for a submarine!
On the downside, I would agree with Jolanda that the signposting felt a little off.
I enjoyed this story, although the end felt a little short.
[spoiler]I mostly enjoyed the investigation in the boat, slowly revealing the secrets of the parties involved.
At the end, however, I felt a bit dissapointed. My choices led me to visit certain location which I don’t remember having explored previously in Fallen London, and I am happy to see that place here. But I felt that we left that location largely unexplored, and the visit was brusque and short. I understand the restraints of the situation story-wise, but I was expecting at least a couple of choices to observe the activity there. For me, the visit was brief and superficial.[/spoiler]
Due to my choices I never even got to meeting the New Sequencers. From what others say, you could even visit the Grand Geode? Damn. Can someone link me to a profile showing that path of the story?
I also never found out the reason for the Binding of the Sharks. If that’s explained anywhere, I’d appreciate a link, too.
Once again, I’m fairly divided in my opinion about a Mary Goodden story. It always seems like in her stories, there’s too much content to be missed by a single click, and the endings are always very abrupt and often leave you with lots of unanswered questions. I realize that tastes are different and some players might like this style—I don’t.
Don’t get me wrong, Exceptional Stories having meaningful decisions is great, but I’d prefer making those decisions after I’ve seen everything the story has to offer. This story’s latter part apparently featured completely different routes—with different locations, different characters etc.—and while in-game, I’m perfectly happy with the route my character took, I, the player, will always feel regret about all those things I haven’t seen. edited by phryne on 4/27/2019
One decision -letting the Baron catch up- simply cuts you out of the rest of the story and gets you to an abrupt and unsatisfying ending. Which is not exactly signposted. So you miss out on a brand new location and opportunities to take this a different route that you didn’t even know existed.
It’s normal for the character to not have things go their way, but it’s a different story for the player, especially when they miss content for no reason at all.
I like to play the stories almost as soon as they come out but cases like that ensure I shall wait to be spoilered in the forum first, and then play, which I doubt is the original intent.
I liked this story. It did had signposts for all but the how fast your ship is going. I am curious about what being exposed to the Dawn Machine does.
I too wonder what happens with a sorrow spider egg and Dawn Machine’s light in your eyes. Maybe a mutant sorrow spider that’s in service to the Dawn Machine? A dawn spider? I also wonder if being Scorched by the Sun does anything?
The more stores I experience, the less human/normal I become. edited by Winthropx on 4/28/2019
[quote=Jolanda Swan]One decision -letting the Baron catch up- simply cuts you out of the rest of the story and gets you to an abrupt and unsatisfying ending. Which is not exactly signposted. So you miss out on a brand new location and opportunities to take this a different route that you didn’t even know existed.
It’s normal for the character to not have things go their way, but it’s a different story for the player, especially when they miss content for no reason at all.
I like to play the stories almost as soon as they come out but cases like that ensure I shall wait to be spoilered in the forum first, and then play, which I doubt is the original intent.[/quote]
FBG can’t signpost to everyone’s taste without displeasing some of us. Here’s an example:
My husband played the story and chose to stop the Idle Heir from harpooning the bound shark, figuring he’d try to prevent some violence. Right after that, the New Sequencers blew up the ship that the Baron was traveling on! "So much for curbing violence!" my husband said.
As someone who might be interested in getting that Dawn Machine light in the eyes (for outside-the-game reasons), would someone be willing to tell me/message me the ways that you can get cut out of that path? Also, what are the stats for it?
I’m on the other end: I’ve been paused at the coal-shoveling point all weekend because I do not want to risk Sian being influenced by the Dawn Machine, and Sian does not want to risk the same thing happening to the Heir. Is there a route, once the rendezvous happens, that allows both to return to London with reasonably normal eyes? If so, I’d love some PM hints about how not to screw this up. If not, I think he’ll just pull the plug and let the Baron catch up, “abrupt and unsatisfying ending” or no.
I got to the Geode and got us both home with the same eyes we left with. I can PM you the item you need if you want this ending if you’d like, though I believe it’s been mentioned upthread.
As somebody who only got into FL proper this year, and knew nothing of the New Sequencers, but was hungry for influence and power (and perfectly fine with using the Heir as a lever into that power), ended up getting herself Dawnburnt without realising what implications may result from that. I guess that status is just gonna stay on my character now until something comes up?
I’m going to join with those who found the ending of the story very abrupt, and rather disappointing. After all, we’re in the Grand Geode. I didn’t expect an entire new plot here or anything, but I did expect more than a single choice and a free return to London. In many ways, it feels similar to that lovely palace in Parabola from ES past: a fascinating location we get to see nothing of. Why bring us to a place that you know will pique our interest, if you refuse to let us actually see it?
On the other hand, at least we got to go somewhere. I confess to being rather disappointed at how little exploration has shown up in the Season of Explorations. The stories have been fascinating on their own, but not living up to expectations. I was really hoping for, say, Visage or Codex or something. (Confession: big fan of Apis Meet and Tanah-Chook.)
But, before I get too grumbly, I did enjoy the story as story (abrupt ending notwithstanding). I would have loved to have learned more about bound-sharks, but FB’s never been in the habit of dumping lots of content reveal at once. I’m happy enough with what we got. I’m also happy to see more of the New Sequence in FL; I’m always glad when things show up here that get more coverage in other games.
Caroline still is not completely sure what happened, but a group of enemies got their plans foiled, and that is a good thing. Between this and Seven Year Reign, though, she is so happy she never tried to join the Stags.
On a related note, I got a Mermaid’s Purse at the end, is that a pure memento or will it be a useful thing at some later point? Same applies to being Dawnburnt I guess too.
Hm, yeah, I’m a bit sad we never really learned anything about why the sharks were bound. I mean, they were cool and all, but it sounded like they were tortured just for the heck of it, for all we knew. Oh well. Does anyone know more?
I think it’s fairly clear they’re part of some long-term scheme. The Fisher certainly didn’t seem to enjoy the shark-binding, and if the Heir kills one, tells him ominously that "one day you’ll understand what you’ve done!" (A bit of a stock answer, perhaps, but upset people don’t have time to worry about originality.) What precisely that scheme is, we don’t know. Given the average FL reveal speed, the next piece of the puzzle will probably surface in 5-7 years.
The general thing with the "Seasons" has been that each Story in a given season gives you a small, non-statted "memento" item, either during or in the conclusion, and when the Season is complete and the bonus content arrives, you trade in all three to access it. The Mermaid’s Purse seems to be one of those.
Overall, I liked this one. I’m going to disagree with a few people here, in that I actually kind of like it when my actions have unintended consequences. For example, I didn’t intend for the Baron and his entire crew to be eaten alive by sharks while his son watched but I probably should’ve seen that coming, given the hints in the text leading up to that.
I went back and forth between feeling sympathy for the Idle Heir, and hating his guts, and I’m still not entirely sure how to feel about him. I can’t remember the last time I felt this conflicted about a character in FL, so props for that.
However, I agree that the ending was abrupt, and I’m also a little disappointed with learning so little about why the sharks are bound.
I think on balance I liked the Heir, he did seem like someone really stuck in his place in soceity but wanted to do good from that position? His flaws were almost entirely of ignorance rather than malice, and he gave me a much better impression than any of the other Stags for sure. That said, my character doesn’t make choices depending on who she likes, but rather on what she finds most useful to her personally, so the Heir is lucky that she knew nothing about the New Sequencers I guess.