So, does anyone have any idea which ending grants the Element of Dawn?
Edit: Please PM me if you could!
edited by Chuck on 10/2/2016
PM’ed
I didn’t care that much for this particular story, as I don’t have a lot of sympathy for religious fanatics. The story’s saving grace for me was strangely enough the reward, something that is almost never the case. Namely being rewarded with an Element of Dawn, a mystical object that would certainly intrigue my character enough to serve as motivation for doing something that she would otherwise have little interest in involving herself in.
While I don’t play a particularly moral character, I too welcome when there is the options for both sides available, both to play good and evil. The path of a moral or evil character alike (and any nuances in between) are all the more satisfying when it is your choice and not an arbitrary decision of the game itself.
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edited by Akernis on 10/2/2016
Kukapetal: A question. If your character tried to save lives by weakening both sides, couldn’t that still in the realm of RP be considered a moral choice? Though both you and your character misunderstood the effect (and I agree that it wasn’t clear enough) you tried to help everyone.
I don’t think there’s quite so big a difference between supporting one side and undermining both in terms of casualties as you’ve said though. As I understood the different endings, either way a significant percentage of both sides will die. Supporting one side means they have more survivors, while sabotaging both means a small number on both sides lives. There’s still no good choice, but the way I understood it your choice determines which survive rather than how many survive. (Also I got the impression that many of the fallen were injured rather than dead? I’m not sure how accurate that is.)
edited by Optimatum on 10/2/2016
[quote=Kukapetal][quote=Anne Auclair]
So you wish there was a neutral option where you could sit back and watch them burn the ship down without your involvement?
edited by Anne Auclair on 10/2/2016[/quote]
Ideally I’d like an option to try to stop the bloodshed. Neither side was evil or dangerous enough to justify killing them, so all three options were immoral. Why does the game assume I’ll see a brewing conflict and automatically join in the slaughter? Because those were my only options. "Actively work against one, actively work against the other, or actively work against both." What if I don’t want to do any of those things? The cult members may be idiots but they don’t deserve to be killed.
Said option doesn’t have to end with everyone holding hands and singing "Kumbaya," either. If the writers still want to give us a bittersweet ending no matter what we choose, that’s fine and there are plenty of ways to work with that. Maybe you can’t save everyone. Maybe, despite your best efforts, they still end up fighting and you’re forced to pick a side to fight for…purely to minimize casualties Then the ending would be similar to the one we got but you’d have a clean conscience because you at least didn’t actively provoke the conflict. Or maybe you’d be able to convince followers on both sides that this is lunacy and have them withdraw from the conflict and go back to London with you…but you can never convince everyone and the battle still happens but with reduced numbers. Again, in this case, you couldn’t stop it entirely but you minimized casualties. There’s plenty of options to give us a bittersweet ending while still acting morally.
If that’s not an option, then yes, being allowed to withdraw would be the next best thing. Just because I can’t stop potential trouble brewing doesn’t mean I have to join in. If they’re going to have an unjust battle no matter what, I’d rather wash my hands of it and let them duke it out than pick a side and join in the evil. However, I’m not a huge fan of this option because then you get the same problem "Discernment" had…throwing people out of exceptional stories they payed for because they don’t want to make their character be evil. People who RP moral characters would be unfairly punished/screwed out of their money.
If neither of those things are options and being evil is literally the only choice, then it should at least be clear WHICH evil option you’re choosing. If the only options are "unjustly kill these people," "unjustly kill these other people," or "unjustly kill everyone," then I at least know what option I DON’T want to pick. I was robbed of my ability to make an informed choice and duped into picking the most evil option because it was unclear (at least to me) that that WAS the most evil option.[/quote]
It seems you and your character tried to stop the war by sabotaging both sides and you’re unhappy that that didn’t work out. The game didn’t dupe you, it offered you a course of action and that course of action didn’t have the effect you hoped it would. shrugs It seems less like you were forced to do evil and more like you tried your best to get things under control and it simply didn’t work. You don’t choose for the final battle to happen, it’s the Visionary and Iconoclast who did, despite their respective gangs being weakened and demoralized. It seems that this battle would have happened regardless of what you did.
.
You have two cults of equal size, both unwilling to work together and both set on total victory. They’ve been skirmishing for some time before you show up. The Visionary managed to recruit half the Iconoclast’s flock and the Iconoclast got even more culty in an attempt to stop him. The two sides have apparently been having little battles in the tide marshes surrounding the ship. They both sent spies into the other’s flock in order to cause disruptions. So the war predates your arrival - it’s not something that happened because you showed up and it’s not something you provoke. Is it all that surprising that you cannot stop it?
edited by Anne Auclair on 10/2/2016
I disagree, it was pretty clear that you would be weakening both sides. It was just unclear what the results of this would be, besides pleasing the rather sinister Abiding Wife.
[quote=Optimatum]Kukapetal: (Also I got the impression that many of the fallen were injured rather than dead? I’m not sure how accurate that is.)
edited by Optimatum on 10/2/2016[/quote]
Why do we even think that any of them died at all? Or rather why do we think that they stayed dead? This is the Neath afterall, death is cheaper than unfashionable hats. Every member of both cults might easily be back around by dinner time comparing new scars earned in the line of duty.
I imagine that death by a conflagration of the soul would be rather permanent, but a simple fatal bullet or stab wound should have been shrugged off within a week at most.
I might have a problem with the way that the lack of death often ruins moments of drama if there’s then barely anything stake, but this could easily be seen as the kind of situation where a moral character could justify doing what they did to stop the conflict since everyone hurt would be back more or less unscathed before long.
Good discussion abounds, and all I have to offer is a parody:
Some time ago, the Pyres was wrecked. Run aground on a desolate volcanic island. Salvation is out of reach. All they have is their fire and their divaricated faith. But zealots can persevere through anything. And it’s quiet here with the evening sermons and the glass-like Unterzee. Peaceful, almost.
But then YOU arrived.
[quote=Akernis][quote=Optimatum]Kukapetal: (Also I got the impression that many of the fallen were injured rather than dead? I’m not sure how accurate that is.)
edited by Optimatum on 10/2/2016[/quote]
Why do we even think that any of them died at all? Or rather why do we think that they stayed dead? This is the Neath afterall, death is cheaper than unfashionable hats. Every member of both cults might easily be back around by dinner time comparing new scars earned in the line of duty.
I imagine that death by a conflagration of the soul would be rather permanent, but a simple fatal bullet or stab wound should have been shrugged off within a week at most.
I might have a problem with the way that the lack of death often ruins moments of drama if there’s then barely anything stake, but this could easily be seen as the kind of situation where a moral character could justify doing what they did to stop the conflict since everyone hurt would be back more or less unscathed before long.[/quote]
Dead tends to be more permanent far out on the Unterzee though. The Unterzee is…hungry.
The wreck was mentioned as being near Mutton Island though, right? That’s not very far out to zee, and in FL it’s entirely possible for the player to get wounded to the brink of death at Mutton Island and recover just fine.
Edit: what Optimatum just said. Missed it by three minutes XD
edited by Akernis on 10/2/2016
Because it isn’t fair from a gameplay perspective. It’s just pulling the rug out from under us and saying “Gotcha! your choice didn’t matter and you ended up doing the exact opposite of what you meant to do! There was no way to save them and by trying, all you did was kill even more!” It’s giving us a false choice and then leaving us sitting in the wreckage of our mistake soaked with the blood of the people we tried to save.
Sure, maybe it’s realistic, but…let me ask this. Suppose you were playing as someone who wanted to support the iconoclast. Everything you did in the story was aimed toward that goal…and then, in the end, you find out that the spies from the other side had infiltrated deep into her cult and were secretly working against you and everything you did you help the Iconoclast was somehow turned against you to help the other side. Your Iconoclast supporting playthrough actually propelled the other side to absolute victory and left you soaked in the blood of the Iconoclast and her followers. In fact, even more of them died than if you hadn’t supported her at all.
Sure, having spies pull the wool over your eyes and fool you into helping the other side might be realistic, but as a player…wouldn’t you feel cheated by the game? Wouldn’t you feel like your choices didn’t matter and were invalidated by gameplay mechanics beyond your control? Mechanics that the game didn’t even warn you about and instead revealed only after it was too late, leaving your entire playthrough of the story moot?
Realistic or not, it’s pretty unpleasant to be on the receiving end of such a mechanic.
(again, this is assuming that the “middle of the road options” were legitimately presented as “benevolent” options. It is entirely possible that they were always intended to be the most malevolent choice and either the writing was unclear or I’m just dense :P )
[quote=Kukapetal]Because it isn’t fair from a gameplay perspective. It’s just pulling the rug out from under us and saying "Gotcha! your choice didn’t matter and you ended up doing the exact opposite of what you meant to do! There was no way to save them and by trying, all you did was kill even more!" It’s giving us a false choice and then leaving us sitting in the wreckage of our mistake soaked with the blood of the people we tried to save.
Sure, maybe it’s realistic, but…let me ask this. Suppose you were playing as someone who wanted to support the iconoclast. Everything you did in the story was aimed toward that goal…and then, in the end, you find out that the spies from the other side had infiltrated deep into her cult and were secretly working against you and everything you did you help the Iconoclast was somehow turned against you to help the other side. Your Iconoclast supporting playthrough actually propelled the other side to absolute victory and left you soaked in the blood of the Iconoclast and her followers. In fact, even more of them died than if you hadn’t supported her at all.
Sure, having spies pull the wool over your eyes and fool you into helping the other side might be realistic, but as a player…wouldn’t you feel cheated by the game? Wouldn’t you feel like your choices didn’t matter and were invalidated by gameplay mechanics beyond your control? Mechanics that the game didn’t even warn you about and instead revealed only after it was too late, leaving your entire playthrough of the story moot?
Realistic or not, it’s pretty unpleasant to be on the receiving end of such a mechanic.
(again, this is assuming that the "middle of the road options" were legitimately presented as "benevolent" options. It is entirely possible that they were always intended to be the most malevolent choice and either the writing was unclear or I’m just dense :P )[/quote]
It seemed clear to me that "fuck over both sides" was the intention. Intentional sabotage on both sides. I don’t understand how you thought otherwise.
But I wouldn’t really call it malevolent. One side is literally going towards dying in a fire and the other side is pals with a brainwashing false deity. Break their little cults, and whoever’s left can at least have a chance.
I’m among the number of people who thought the middle of the road options would be the most benign. I thought that by sabotaging both sides, I’d put them in a position where they’d be forced to listen to me if I talked them down from the whole theological throwdown they were brewing.
That said, I ended up interpreting the end result as being influenced heavily by the Abiding Wife. I originally thought she was the steady voice of reason, and I took her ostensibly copacetic relationship with the Brazen Iconoclast at face value. I’ve come to believe that I was simply naive.
If we take the Abiding Wife’s name to indicate that her key characteristic is an extreme tolerance, then we have a character who has put up with a lot in her life, and that sort of thing often leads to resentment, even if its not entirely conscious. That’s what I believe caused things to go the way they did. I had believed the Abiding Wife was acting in good faith, and for all I know she believed she was acting in the Iconoclasts interests as well. However, she may well have harboured resentment towards the Brazen Iconoclast which influenced her machinations, leading them to have more vicious effects while on the surface still appearing to be in the best interests of everyone. She started picking up steam, and by the end her machinations lost all veneer of respectability. In the end, my character simply found themselves in an awful situation due to misplaced faith, and they had to figure out what to do when the person they trusted ended up turning the situation pear shaped.
Right. Like I knew we were sabotaging both sides but it felt like we were sort of undermining the two leaders’ authority to make their followers break ranks…instead of firing them up into an even worse frenzy. But again, I don’t know if the writing was unclear or if I just didn’t get it or made assumptions that had no real basis. All I know is that I was confused. Whether that’s indicative of an actual problem with the writing or just limited to me and a few others I don’t know.
Well, that’s kind of what I’m saying. At the start, it totally did feel like we were making the followers waver in their faith. But, as time went on, and the Abiding Wife allowed herself to act against the groups on the island instead of sitting by and, well, abiding, the undermining of both groups transformed into a more vicious, inflammatory sort of sabotage. IMHO, it kind of felt like a dam broke, and the Abiding Wife went from well intentioned meddler to viciously cold blooded saboteur over the course of the story as she let repressed resentment finally express itself.
This is also combined this with the fact that after undermining both groups repeatedly, you end up trimming away all but the most zealous of each cult’s followers. It’s not particularly surprising that sabotage got rid of the more moderate members of each group first, and that a powder keg was what became of the concentration of the remaining zealots.
I think it’s not quite that. People want some form of happy ending in a story that may end up redefining their character. They want to feel like they would have chosen their ending, instead of being railroaded into it because the game says no you can’t be happy.
But I don’t think that should apply to this story. The daily options got worse over time. From attend a ritual to convert followers to desecrate murals to help us leave/prepare. And everyday you could watch a fight nearly break out between the followers. Even not taking into account the wife’s plans getting worse over time, I felt it was clear you weren’t preventing anything.
C’mon now. I didn’t say all that stuff. I’m just trying to explain why the mechanics didn’t work for me. The writers can take it or leave it as they see fit, of course.
And I’ve never complained about there being immoral choices available. It’s great that players who want to play morally gray characters or villains get a chance to do their stuff too. The game gives them tons of opportunities. I just want those of us who play as good guys to be able to stay in character too. Like I said, I’m fine with there not being super happy endings even for the most moral of choices. Sometimes, life is just like that.
And I’m fine with hard choices too. I just want said choices to be clear. And I’ve freely admitted that that last issue could be on me rather than the writers.
I thought that at first, when the sabotaging was still more or less benign (keep them from spying on each other, things like this). Then, it became more alarming, but, to be honest, my character didn’t want any of the sides to win. While she could understand, she would not approve of the Iconoclast’s death wish, much less that she was basically talking others to go with her. And the Visionary just talked about things she has heard whispered here and there, and that didn’t sit well with her. I’m pretty sure she would try to, as Kukapetal said, expose the leaders and make as many people defect as she could manage.
Despite all that, it’s understandable that even the best intentions can end in bloodshed when fanatics are involved. I think that seeing a try at making peace end in a war is good for her character development, and actually helps her to get to the path I envisioned to her.
That said, I understand Kukapetal’s unhappiness with the fact that you are never in full control of your character’s personality in Fallen London. It often gives us messages like: you are either willing to commit robberies and treasons, or you can’t become great - to become great, you must sacrifice your morals. Being good doesn’t pay. Being good makes you mediocre. Good people are too pure to be great academics or to unravel the mysteries of Fallen London. Etc., etc.
I like the fact that FL don’t make you be either good or evil - you can be grey, as most humans are. But I do find it irritating that, many instances in which the game gives you what seems to be a morally good choice (for instance, helping an elderly lady) and you think "hey, I guess I’ll be good on this one, this person deserves it", the game often ‘rewards’ with you with a text that basically makes you a petty creature, want you or not. It’s like they are saying "you can be everything in London, but don’t dare to try to be a nice, honest and socially functioning human being, we don’t like it here".
It’s not that I want to always be a girl scout, or to always have happy hippie-ish ends, but when you can’t be good, choosing an evil option for profit looses all emotional weight it could have. You either quit the game or stop caring, choosing just whatever is most profitable. While making profit to buy things is a draw for many people who plays FL, it’s not what hooked me in in the first place. I like my choices to be hard, and they cease to be hard when you don’t care anymore and just want profit.
Lastly, I don’t think it’s the writer’s fault. I wouldn’t have played as much content as I could until I reached the end of regular content if I didn’t like the writing. I’m just saying that no one can deny that the game don’t let you play with a lawful good character, unless you want to quit midgame and start a morally grey character. It might be a stylistic choice, it might be accidental, but it is something that happens.
I knew you were talking about me, there was no need for me to dodge said "grenade." And since you were talking about me, i figured I should address it.
I don’t know why you’re acting like this though. No one else has resorted to personal attacks when discussing this story.
EDIT: I will also say that I never meant to imply that playing as a good guy is the "proper" way to play the game or that everyone who doesn’t do so deserves to be "punished" by the game. However, it is the way I like to play the game and I think there should at least be the option to play that way. I don’t think wanting an option that lets me avoid being responsible for scores of dead people is such an unreasonable thing to ask.
edited by Kukapetal on 10/3/2016