It would appear that several qualities in this story are uncapped for no particular reason, unless there are secrets beyond 77:
edited by TheThirdPolice on 10/5/2015
edited by TheThirdPolice on 10/5/2015
FB authors have started leaving gaps in qualities in case future expansions can make use of the space.
Itâs like when youâre programming in Basic, you initially start your lines in multiples of 10.
Edit: Ah, it appears that while I was technically correct, the information I was sharing had nothing to do with the issue at hand.
edited by Theus on 10/6/2015
By uncapped I mean it can be increased forever, even though no apparent content unlocks after values 5 or 10.
If youâre curious, each of the three qualities I posted increments by 1, presumably because they are story-specific so future-proofing is unnecessary. Taking a View on Abstraction and Discovering Events at a Salon do linger after the story, though, so we might see those resurface in future.
edited by TheThirdPolice on 10/6/2015
nvm
edited by mania on 10/7/2015
re: Enthusiastic Urchin: Discernment
The opportunity card says to give it a rating out of 5, but I donât know that â3 starsâ is sufficient feedback and here seemed the best place to share my thoughts. (Spoilers ahead, if youâve not played it.)
[spoiler]I enjoyed it, I really did. But the execution felt lacking. Admittedly Iâve been spoiled by the past few, and my Spiriferâs Fork and the chance to obtain a unique soul did steer my actions far more than would otherwise have happened.
But I canât help but feel the soul of Salome was more of a MacGuffin than anything else. I never found it, I didnât have the opportunity to go back and search some more, and could easily have been replaced with an "I left my decorative party hat at the salon. Can you please find it for me?" for all the difference it made. Heck, I donât even know who or what Salome is - and itâs from the forums I learnt that the item itself was just a generic coruscating soul.
As a character who had his soul removed (The Quiet Deviless was luckier than I ) then moped a bit and eventually decided soullessness wasnât such a big deal after all, collecting souls isnât an issue - so I didnât miss out on story in the same way that Soul Shepherds did. But I still feel there was more to that story that I could have explored, but didnât get the chance to.
I want to give it 4/5, because it explored some interesting stuff and I got a unique thing out of it (which Iâm hopeful will find a use in another story someday), but it ended rather suddenly and I felt that Iâd thoroughly failed in the task that brought me there in the first place. So, three stars.[/spoiler]
[quote=Kittenpox]re: Enthusiastic Urchin: Discernment
The opportunity card says to give it a rating out of 5, but I donât know that â3 starsâ is sufficient feedback and here seemed the best place to share my thoughts. (Spoilers ahead, if youâve not played it.)
[/quote]
[color=#0066ff]Weâd love to receive feedback via our imaginatively named feedback@failbettergames.com email, please. :)[/color]
The very first non-public storylet (Invitation to the Salon) - I gather there is an option for the Intimate of Devils. Is there a minimum level for that option to appear or some additional requirement?
I am Intimate of Devils 3 and would like to take that option but it doesnât show up for me.
[quote=genesis]The very first non-public storylet (Invitation to the Salon) - I gather there is an option for the Intimate of Devils. Is there a minimum level for that option to appear or some additional requirement?
I am Intimate of Devils 3 and would like to take that option but it doesnât show up for me.[/quote]
Itâs just one more way to gain "Known at a Salon", with an attendant (not too thrilling) piece of extra text. Like most of the other options, it gains you one point of "Known" at a time without costing you anything other than the action itself. I believe the unlock is either 6 or 8? My "Intimate" quality was at 8/9 when I made use of it, anywayâI always keep it around there for gifts/opera.
I have to say that I was pretty profoundly disappointed with Discernment. The initial premise ("Someone has stolen the (supposed) soul of Salome!") had me hoping for some very cool lore and a story of slightly larger scope than this, and those hopes were dashed thoroughly 'pon the rocks.
Lost in Reflections was genuinely staggeringâeveryone agrees on that. Cut with Moonlight, while a little janky in terms of narrative continuity, did a fantastic job of suggesting huge underlying scale. The Court of Cats was weird, mysterious and lore-laden enough (not to mention mechanically original enough) to meet with my wholehearted approval. The Last Dog Society was dark, deliciously factional, and put the player in the kind of genuinely uncomfortable position only good IF can. I was not yet an EF when Haunting came along the first time 'round, and havenât purchased it with fate yet, so I cannot speak to its accomplishments/areas of lack.
Discernment providedâŚ
some mildly amusing dialogue, a little bit of insight into how devils think/socialize, and⌠what? Slightly different dialogue trees based on what path you took in another fate-locked story years ago? A very straightforward "special offer" on a relatively common status item? A slightly interesting new item attainable only through one choice path? What did it provide in terms of narrative? Where was the pathos? ([banging fists on the table]: "want PATHOS! I wannâit!!" I do come from the frustrated Pratchett toddler school of criticismâŚ)
I dunno, it just seemed like it wasnât even trying to accomplish much of anythingâI almost prefer unrealized ambition to aims this (apparently) modest.
I would actually love a PM from someone who REALLY liked it detailing their thoughts/appreciations; when I "just donât like" a work, I always want to know what about it was "broadly" unimpressive, and what aspects provided others with an experience wholly unlike my own.
edited by Speethling on 10/13/2015
I am waiting outside the door with the deviless and am unsure how to best proceed⌠I see a few others acquired the unique soul - could anyone possibly PM me which way to go? Iâm hoping the decision wasnât further back in the storyâŚ
To answer my own question above, in case anyone else is stumped: the requirement is Intimate of Devils 5 and no YvoIC (which I did have).
For the early-exit option (involving a certain betrayal): http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Leo~Waynswood?fromEchoId=6773476
For convincing the UP to⌠maintain the status quo, I donât think there are any rewards, just as (I donât believe) there are any material rewards in any other endings (unless I am missing something really obvious). The main text is: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/mikey_thinkin?fromEchoId=6780149 and the two options are:
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/mikey_thinkin?fromEchoId=6780377
and
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Nigel~Overstreet?fromEchoId=6647572
(but itâs just text and some quirk changes).
As for what I thought of the story overall:
I really liked the story and the writing. In terms of lore I dread to commit heresy but I think this is my favourite story to date, trumping even July. While July was excellent it felt slightly inconsequential (in terms of real lore gained) because it all never really happened. This story provided many glimpses about devils, which I loved. To name some highlights:
-
While the devil-bee relationship is relatively common knowledge on the forums in terms of actual game content itâs not trivial to come across. This story further reinforced it in a way thatâs more generally accessible.
-
The fact that the John-the-Baptist bearing orchid wasnât common knowledge to a very knowledgeable devil was very interesting, suggesting that somehow the Elder Continent is not where devils have spent a lot of time.
-
Most significantly this little tidbit: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/mikey_thinkin?fromEchoId=6772983 - Itâs never been clear what exactly devils do with the souls and while itâs been generally acknowledged that they do not consume them that seemed to contradict the Infernal Somelier attitude (in the Infernal conversion storylets) of treating souls as having flavour. This new snippet suddenly throws doors on all sorts of new speculation: Souls need to to be in constant motion and devils are somehow responsible for effecting that motion; this has odd analogies with Rubberies exchanging amber to pass around vital essence. And the individual souls donât matter in this process, which causes some despair to discerning devils like the deviless and the Infernal Somelier - their job (whatever it may be) requires them to disregard the relative merits of different souls but their sensibilities urge them to seek out what they consider valuable ones.
In addition we are having more tie-ins to SS and the Blemmigan Affair is being cemented is one of the more consequential Fate stories to do (along with the Trade in Souls). We also got more exposure to the Bishop, who is shaping up to be quite a major character along with his other appearances in the game. I was though disappointed that more wasnât made of his snuffness when we were investigating him.
Finally, we have clamoured after previous ESs to have our prior choices to be more reflected in the available options and this story had this amply.
However.
I think given itâs specific mechanical implementation this was a poor choice for a Fate story. To rephrase - I believe this story has to be either free or have a different mechanical structure. The reason I enjoyed this story so much is because I played it on a few alts and spent several hours scouring other peoplesâ journals. Once all the bits were gathered together the story really shined. But if you canât do that then the story comes across as abrupt and disjointed. Now if the story were free that in itself wouldnât be an issue because players would freely discuss it and crowdsource the overall picture quite quickly. But that is not possible with the fate-locked content.
Just to reiterate. I am not saying that this story should be free per se. Only that it ought to have been free with this specific mechanical structure. And given that it wasnât intended to be free it needed to have a different structure.
1 Like
[quote=genesis]To answer my own question above, in case anyone else is stumped: the requirement is Intimate of Devils 5 and no YvoIC (which I did have).
For the early-exit option (involving a certain betrayal): http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Leo~Waynswood?fromEchoId=6773476
For convincing the UP to⌠maintain the status quo, I donât think there are any rewards, just as (I donât believe) there are any material rewards in any other endings (unless I am missing something really obvious). The main text is: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/mikey_thinkin?fromEchoId=6780149 and the two options are:
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/mikey_thinkin?fromEchoId=6780377
and
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Nigel~Overstreet?fromEchoId=6647572
(but itâs just text and some quirk changes).
[/quote]
FL has always been about choice, and this story is no exception to the rule. The mechanical aspect of the storyline, with Taking a View on Abstraction, brilliantly enforces that. Iâve seen the text on both sides of the argument, thereâs very little difference. Iâll PM you what I have.
Also, the echoes you quoted arenât from the main ending either, but rather from a kind of epilogue depending on what your main ending choice was.
This has propably been noted before but I find the âA second candle: Twice the actions! 40 at once!â advertisment misleading, I was expecting two candles which refilled simultaneously meaning actions refilling twice as fast. But I was disappointed to find out it only increased the max limit of actions that are accumulated, which is only 20 actions a day more in the morning, if you play every 3 hours anyway.
[quote=genesis]
[spoiler]
- Most significantly this little tidbit: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/mikey_thinkin?fromEchoId=6772983 - Itâs never been clear what exactly devils do with the souls and while itâs been generally acknowledged that they do not consume them that seemed to contradict the Infernal Somelier attitude (in the Infernal conversion storylets) of treating souls as having flavour. This new snippet suddenly throws doors on all sorts of new speculation: Souls need to to be in constant motion and devils are somehow responsible for effecting that motion; this has odd analogies with Rubberies exchanging amber to pass around vital essence. And the individual souls donât matter in this process, which causes some despair to discerning devils like the deviless and the Infernal Somelier - their job (whatever it may be) requires them to disregard the relative merits of different souls but their sensibilities urge them to seek out what they consider valuable ones.
[/spoiler][/quote]
The implications of that are astoundingâŚ
edited by Grenem on 10/27/2015
edited by Grenem on 10/27/2015