On Discussions of Fate-Locked Content

In an effort to avert the Haunting at the Marsh-House thread devolving into a meta-discussion I am creating a home for that discussion.

I hope that’s both ok and helps the other thread return to its topic to whatever extent there’s still discussion to be had on it. I presume we all agree that it’s desirable for FBG to earn a living making their game.

The idea has been floated a few times that it would be nice to have a forum area restricted to Exceptional Friends, where the rules on spoiler-posting could be somewhat relaxed. This seems elegant from a user perspective, although working out rules to make sure it didn’t devolve into something that reduced incentive to purchase back-issues of EF stories or other stories would have to be avoided. On the plus side, it could be billed as another EF benefit.

I suspect, however, that the current forum software can’t readily permit automatic access control to certain areas of the forum based on the qualities of a linked account. Depending on how difficult it would be to add such a feature, we’re probably looking at something expensive (which means less new content as dev-time is shifted, or something) or more likely a complete non-starter.

May I suggest a couple of less disruptive alternative ways to handle such a situation in the future without developer intervention required?

  1. Some kind soul could volunteer to accept PM requests for additional details. Then rather than everybody cluttering the thread with &quotplease PM me too&quot, it could be handled via PM. As long as that person didn’t get overwhelmed.

  2. We could spin off a separate thread just for the PM requests. It would get it out of the way of the thread discussing the new content.

I think an ‘Exceptional Forum’ would be a good idea, and I’m not sure it would be all that difficult to do. I’ve certainly seen boards with restricted forums before. Perhaps the initial sign-up would by necessity be a bit awkward - such as being sent a password in our FL-accounts, and then having to use that to upgrade our forum-accounts - but I’m fairly sure that it’s at least POSSIBLE…

There’s really no need for that. Alexis said echoing is fine and linking is fine. All people need to do is echo and link in thread, the end.

That is sufficient to simply transmit the information, yes. But it would be good to be able to also discuss without linguistic contortion. Also currently Fate-related content is fairly… compressed to a few threads, which makes it somewhat awkward to discuss different plots separately and coherently.

I think once people accept that linking and general discussion are allowed, we can encourage a forum culture that (a) splits up discussion on Fate-locked stuff and (b) talks in general terms – the bit about the eyes was really creepy, the choice seemed a little hard because I didn’t quite feel I had enough context, I’m really nervous what the hint about the explosions is going to lead to.

There might not be any NEED for it, but it would still be rather nice. The whole idea of the House of Chimes is that it’s an ‘exclusive meeting-place’ for Exceptional Friend. It would be only LOGICAL if that extended to an exclusive forum where the discussion could move a bit more freely. No?

If it were easy to link such a thing to current EF status, maybe–but there’s Fate-locked stuff that isn’t EF, so forum norms could still use changing, and I strongly suspect that it isn’t easy to restrict a forum to current-EFs-only, which means not worth it as there’s a lower-tech solution available.

Also, sometimes people are curious about the material rewards and stat changes from taking various actions in Fatelocked stories, and that can’t be ascertained by looking at linked journals.

As Alexis pointed out on the Marsh-House thread, that can be handled, if inelegantly, by noting the material rewards in the &quotnotes field&quot of the journal. People would have to start getting into the habit of doing so, of course.

Well, it only takes one person to do it! Well, one per option, I guess, but we’re community-minded folks, I’m sure we’d have all the relevant links posted fairly promptly.

The Journal has a notes field?

i[/i] That would mesh well with my idea of a &quotblack box&quot Chrome extension for FL…

To the drawing board! (Sweeps aside Zubmarine blueprints)
edited by Alistair Cray on 5/14/2015

The Journal has a notes field?[/quote]

I think Alexis was referring to the title of each journal entry. Or else there is a notes field and I never noticed it.

The current PM-based system has no vetting of any kind, so it’s essentially an honor system. If we accept that as our minimum standard, then there shouldn’t be any problem with just posting the Fate-locked content in a way no different than any other spoiler content. Obviously, this rubs people the wrong way, and it does make cheating the system slightly easier, perhaps.

It sounds like we can’t expect any code changes, which is fair, the number of people effected is fairly small compared to the whole user-base.

There are a couple of possible solutions (invite-only user-created google docs or forums being my favorite) but I think first we need to turn that first requirement from a soft requirement to a hard one. So here is the information I think we need.
1) Should it be possible to discuss Fate-Locked information you didn’t buy?
My guess is the desired answer here is no.
2) Should it be possible to discuss Fate-Locked information for repeatable content you’ve bought at least once?
What about if repeating costs Fate, but doing it once is free, like talking to Lilac?
3) Should it be possible to discuss Fate-Locked information for non-repeatable content that you’ve bought?
In theory this too is losing &quotpotential profits&quot in that someone could create an Alt to play the other path.
4) Do You need to cross-confirm multiple Fate-Locked content?
For example, the special Face Tailor content in the Marsh House, or the Trade In Souls content in Diocesan Intrigue (and several others.) Would you need to prove both, or would one suffice?
5) Would a Google Doc containing links to journal entries detailing each possible path be &quotdifferent&quot in a significant way from pasting the content directly?
I know that journal entries can be changed retroactively, and add a bit of hassle (having to click into them) so if they’re not a policy requirement, we probably wouldn’t use them.
6) What is an acceptable level of security to confirm you bought the content?
Honor System? Having another confirmed member check their journal? Having a community moderator check their journal? A quiz like &quotwhat is the name of the quality you get for beginning this content&quot?

I think knowing the exact policy answer for all of those would go a long way towards crowdsourcing the &quotright&quot solution to this.
Edit: For readability.
edited by Ian Hart on 5/14/2015
edited by Ian Hart on 5/14/2015

From a discussion I’ve had with friends, I would add:
7) Should it be possible to openly discuss the material rewards of Fate-locked content?

This is basically all people wanted to know in the Marsh House thread, and I don’t think it impinges at all on Failbetter’s desire to protect locked lore and writing, either in letter or in spirit.

[quote=Ian Hart][ . . . ] So here is the information I think we need.

[ . . . ]

6) What is an acceptable level of security to confirm you bought the content?[/quote]

I still don’t see how &quotecho to your own journal, put the material rewards in the title of the journal entry, link to those entries in the forums&quot doesn’t solve these problems.

Seriously. Alexis said,

What else is needed? What am I missing that people want to complicate this so much?
edited by an_ocelot on 5/14/2015

[quote=an_ocelot]
What else is needed? What am I missing that people want to complicate this so much?[/quote]

Effectively several improvements to the journal (Which, admittedly, Alexis said might be in the pipeline. But not for a long while). Off the top of my head, the things that the current system is less than ideal in accommodating:

  1. If you forget to echo. I am sometimes so excited about the story that I clock &quotOnwards&quot before I realise that I forgot to echo a particular story. You can’t &quotgo back&quot or &quotundo&quot and so if you missed the moment, that’s it.

  2. The title field is small and is intended to also fit the title (which in some cases, actually forms the opening of the text and so is not easily discardable). This is not usually an issue but has been an issue more than once for me.

  3. Journals are not searchable, which means that unless you are on top of the game the content drifts away. Only last month I PM’ed several people who had advertised on the forums that they had received a Christmas card from the Bazaar. I spent over an hour fruitlessly browsing their journals and never got any responses to the PMs.

There are definitely several issues being discussed here.
Some people want to just see the material reward to make the optimal mechanical decision. Echoing from journals is fine, assuming it can be done in a pinned post or some other way that’s easy to find.
However, some people also want to be able to talk about the fate-locked content in an easy to access way. My understanding is “the IRC” is the only way to do that currently, and I think a better method could probably be arrived at.
If those issues need to be further subdivided we can, but I think that first concern is pretty well handled, and any good solution to the second concern should only improve the situation.

[quote=genesis][quote=an_ocelot]
What else is needed? What am I missing that people want to complicate this so much?[/quote]

Effectively several improvements to the journal (Which, admittedly, Alexis said might be in the pipeline. But not for a long while). Off the top of my head, the things that the current system is less than ideal in accommodating:

  1. If you forget to echo. I am sometimes so excited about the story that I clock &quotOnwards&quot before I realise that I forgot to echo a particular story. You can’t &quotgo back&quot or &quotundo&quot and so if you missed the moment, that’s it.

  2. The title field is small and is intended to also fit the title (which in some cases, actually forms the opening of the text and so is not easily discardable). This is not usually an issue but has been an issue more than once for me.

  3. Journals are not searchable, which means that unless you are on top of the game the content drifts away. Only last month I PM’ed several people who had advertised on the forums that they had received a Christmas card from the Bazaar. I spent over an hour fruitlessly browsing their journals and never got any responses to the PMs.[/quote]

Cool, thanks for helping me understand.

  1. Crowd-source. Come to the forums and ask people to link if you forgot something. Encourage and thank people who regularly echo and link.

  2. I’ve never come across this limit, so I don’t know what it is; possibly that might be a relatively easy technical thing for FBG to change, or maybe not.

  3. Better forum norms: separate threads for specific content, link at the time now that it’s clear that we’re allowed to. People have been unnecessarily cautious about this–someone has actually PM’ed or emailed me to tell me I shouldn’t have echoed stuff, just echoed it! If people link in the forums at the time, then it will be more searchable.

(You can search profiles via Google–restrict it to fallenlondon.storynexus.com–and since the forum isn’t fully searchable, search that by Google too. I’d suggest we crowdfund an upgrade to the forum software, but honestly Google works fine for my purposes.)

(Come June, I will put my echoes and links where my mouth is, naturally. As some of you may recall, I have a passion for documentation . . . )