Lol. Guess you have to be careful scrolling through here with touch screens. Set the above post as the answer by accident and there’s no way to undo it.
I’m honoured! :-)
A couple particulars I feel are worth considering about the choices in this story, in terms of what I think "works" and "doesn’t work" – the latter in some cases deliberately, for narrative effect:
[ul][li]first, this a story about not having any idea what you’re walking into in the tantalizing wilds of the Elder Continent. This is why the ambiguity of the Knapt and the Word of Caution makes sense – that’s blind choice made on rumor and fragmentary information about an exotic land you’re about to march all over on a Bishop’s orders. You’re told to get these really important things that will help you survive which turns out to be a half-truth at best; the fact that you make basic preparations at all (bringing assistants and a deputy) ends up having more tangible benefit than your decision about which of these two mysterious and powerful items you bring. When you reach Caution and find out what significance the Word or Knapt actually has, the whole scene is much stranger than you could have imagined, with possibilities involving talking animals that you couldn’t foresee.
The ambiguity and blindness of your choice contributes to the themes of the story; imagine exoticized travel advice about Surface lands. "You can’t wear your shoes indoors in Japan, so you’d better bring your own slippers!" Not exactly right, not exactly wrong; other things matter much more. A thing to remember: aspects where your seemingly important choices don’t really matter the way you thought, or at all are of as much significance to a narrative as the inverse, just as white space is to a painting; they can be shaped just as much by a good author. The best-laid plans are still a way to make the gods chuckle at you. You can read this all as a meta-commentary about the exact kind of problems with branching and consequence that are being discussed in this thread; there’s a desire among many players (especially in say, big-budget games like the Fallout or Dragon Age series) to know exactly the consequences of every choice, far in advance, to be able to "play correctly." This precludes many varieties of drama; but what if the character is just wrong, misinformed, or ignorant?[/li][/ul]
[ul][li]At the moment of this actually-not-so-crucial choice between one mysterious valuable shiny and another mysterious valuable shiny, there’s a third choice: save an individual’s life. A snuffer’s life, to be sure; but a snuffer lives only once. That life turns out to be the only "permanent unique item" that you can’t later obtain if you don’t save her; even in the Neath, when you’re really dead you’re gone. Retrospectively, this throws your "which shiny do I go for" choice into sharper relief: that choice matters less, in the long run. Why did you choose as you did? Some of the most effective choices are the reflective ones, right? (And if you don’t know what a reflective choice, it may be worth knowing that the author of this exceptional story coined that term, which has gone on to impact other interactive narrative authors: http://www.failbettergames.com/the-decision-gap/)
And you can get both the Knapt and the Word if you sacrifice another woman’s life, the one who put you in that dilemma in the first place, caused the fire in the Light-Factory (I believe?), etc. If you want all the shinies, you can off her for them instead.
[/li][li]This also a story about supporting a companion on the edge of a bleak place. This is actually the aspect of the story I felt worked the best, AS a blind choice: picking your companion, choosing whether to be optimistic or pessimistic when hearing their troubles, and seeing that choice ripple forward into depression or hope. There is quite rightly no difference between the companions that you pick here – they all follow this structure. Why? Because you chose that person to come with you, in the absence of any reason why. There is no apparent efficiency or monetary benefit to picking one over the other. (Maybe Silas, if you think rarer is better, but in this particular case you’d be wrong.) That leaves sentiment! Sentiment – the reflective and expressive choice of who you want to have with you. Like the truthseeker, I also picked an optimistic choice despite usually picking pragmatic choices – and that’s because I genuinely felt why not? the sardonic music-hall singer seems pretty bummed out, I should cheer her up. If I’d been thinking more pragmatically, this expression might not have taken root; and this is a tightrope that Fallen London has become very adept at walking.
Interestingly, this is a choice that you could get wrong – fail to buoy your chosen companion up, and they may leave you forever.[/li][/ul]
In light of all of the above, I’m still trying to interpret the feeling that this story lacks choices that matter – and I guess I’m still concluding that it’s out of a perspective that what "matters" is the dross recording of numerical qualities, perhaps since they promise (not always truly) the possibility of forward interaction at a later date, of unlocks and connections to later stories? Or that what "matters" is a furthering of your character’s role in the grand stories of London – as a result of this expedition, it’s not as if you are now in league with or against the Dawn Machine, it’s not as if you’ve made friends with a royal, or advancing towards a particular destiny, or possibly doing something in Paris decades from now. Your future hasn’t acquired more marks of importance. But always wanting more of this is a little bit indulgent, isn’t it? Like demanding that every course in a meal come with its own dessert, because you enjoy a sweet taste, that centrality of your character. For another thing, fate-locked stories are always going to be a bit optional for an unfolding of a grand destiny; for another, your character is never truly central in the Fallen London of hundreds of thousands of players. (I mean, unless you’re NiteBrite.)
Which is more satisfying to play with? A traditional MadLib? Or one where all the words are filled in, but you pick from two different sentences for the ending? They’re different, certainly. But to suggest that MadLibs are somehow less than "choose between n pre-written sentences to add" is a little strange.
For the record, this isn’t my favorite or second-favorite Exceptional Story, but for me its flaws certainly don’t lie in the choice structure – they’re in the sprawling size of the thing, with a ton of different segments that feel a little duct-taped together. But hey, I’m looking forward to visiting Apis Meet again and going on other Elder Continent Expeditions that use the new mechanics, so I’m all for the coat-tail riding.
edited by metasynthie on 12/2/2015
I learned a fuckload about the Elder Continent and, as metasynthie says, chose to save a life and forge a relationship; I never felt that I was being unduly confined or that the overall choices weren’t interesting. I appreciated that there were lots of ways to generate passphrases on the spot, for newer players that didn’t have them to hand (though if there was an in-game hint about needing to bring wine, I missed it, and that would’ve been too bad). My only regret about the story is that I somehow missed the mini-quest in the jungle.
Has a dev said anything about us being able to go on more Expeditions into the Bleeding Forest?
[quote=an_ocelot] (though if there was an in-game hint about needing to bring wine, I missed it, and that would’ve been too bad).[/quote]Since I’m about to make the trip myself: should I make sure to bring wine with me? (how much and of what kind?) Any other items I’ll regret not having enough of?
[quote=dov]Since I’m about to make the trip myself: should I make sure to bring wine with me? (how much and of what kind?) Any other items I’ll regret not having enough of?[/quote]For one specific part of the story, any item with the Intoxicating quality works and you need as much as you want as it is optional content to explore.
Presbyterate Passphrases can be useful. You don’t need a lot of them as you can acquire some in the story but having a buffer of 9-18 could be handy.
edited by Travers on 12/3/2015
Bring at least five of anything with Intoxicating, and more if you want.
I suppose people are just used to past stories where a decision with different outcomes can be made at the end - that changes the effect of the story on the Neath. The Moonlight trade either continues in the hands of one or another or ends entirely. The Zee Club threw its lot in with a faction of your choice. July in Paris or not. These little records hype you for future consequences.
Flint, on the other hand, has only one outcome - the Bishop always get his essence. The patroness’s fate is not recorded, so the major differences for player will be what shinies they have and what they learnt.
I don’t really mind both ways - given the stake here and its EF nature, it can’t really have extremely different outcome since the Bishop is involved in too many things.
What I DO have issues with, is the awkward reuse of storylet - given how little deputies change Flint, it is all the more jarring when they have to share a generic optimistic/pessimistic/de-stoning result. Or how the Woman in Yellow’s deputy reward is a Snuffer’s Gratitude… that most player think of as the reward for the generic snuffer from Dish and Spoon. Skimping on these little bits are kind of weird.
Part one, perhaps, hyped us too much - at least the bit with assembling a team. Now that I think of it, it is too close to a Heist. Which most of us overprepared with 5/5/5/5 supplies and end the trip with 3/5/5/5. The lack of opportunities to use your deputy here’s a bit of a pity, too. Or how the Bishop’s like, "this Mountain-Sherd is probably not helping your perilous case" but I had a super happy safe zoo trip with talking animals or how "we need this Knapt and Word of Caution" but they didn’t turn out to be of much use beyond convinence. Although the Patroness did treat the Word with no respect at all.
[quote=metasynthie]
In light of all of the above, I’m still trying to interpret the feeling that this story lacks choices that matter – and I guess I’m still concluding that it’s out of a perspective that what "matters" is the dross recording of numerical qualities, perhaps since they promise (not always truly) the possibility of forward interaction at a later date, of unlocks and connections to later stories? Or that what "matters" is a furthering of your character’s role in the grand stories of London – as a result of this expedition, it’s not as if you are now in league with or against the Dawn Machine, it’s not as if you’ve made friends with a royal, or advancing towards a particular destiny, or possibly doing something in Paris decades from now. Your future hasn’t acquired more marks of importance. But always wanting more of this is a little bit indulgent, isn’t it? Like demanding that every course in a meal come with its own dessert, because you enjoy a sweet taste, that centrality of your character. For another thing, fate-locked stories are always going to be a bit optional for an unfolding of a grand destiny; for another, your character is never truly central in the Fallen London of hundreds of thousands of players. (I mean, unless you’re NiteBrite.)[/quote]
It’s not about always wanting more really. I am quite fine with playing smaller stories about investigating murders and stuff. But my character has his own agenda. Parabola is his main point of interest. Immortality and mysteries related to it are investigated as a point of self preservation. So it always feels out of character when a story involves one of those things, but the writing refuses my character chance to push that agenda.
I had the same reaction to Paris story which had a lot of outcomes all coming down to "You will be doing great things in Paris in fifteen years". One of them was even Parabola related. My reaction was "Why in fifteen years? I have the shard right here. Why do I need give it away, wait fifteen years to get it back and only then use it?" The answer is of course "Because the writers have not written more content yet" but that does not make the OOC feeling go away.
[quote=Estelle Knoht]I suppose people are just used to past stories where a decision with different outcomes can be made at the end - that changes the effect of the story on the Neath. The Moonlight trade either continues in the hands of one or another or ends entirely. The Zee Club threw its lot in with a faction of your choice. July in Paris or not. These little records hype you for future consequences.
Flint, on the other hand, has only one outcome - the Bishop always get his essence. The patroness’s fate is not recorded, so the major differences for player will be what shinies they have and what they learnt.
I don’t really mind both ways - given the stake here and its EF nature, it can’t really have extremely different outcome since the Bishop is involved in too many things.
What I DO have issues with, is the awkward reuse of storylet - given how little deputies change Flint, it is all the more jarring when they have to share a generic optimistic/pessimistic/de-stoning result. Or how the Woman in Yellow’s deputy reward is a Snuffer’s Gratitude… that most player think of as the reward for the generic snuffer from Dish and Spoon. Skimping on these little bits are kind of weird.
Part one, perhaps, hyped us too much - at least the bit with assembling a team. Now that I think of it, it is too close to a Heist. Which most of us overprepared with 5/5/5/5 supplies and end the trip with 3/5/5/5. The lack of opportunities to use your deputy here’s a bit of a pity, too. Or how the Bishop’s like, "this Mountain-Sherd is probably not helping your perilous case" but I had a super happy safe zoo trip with talking animals or how "we need this Knapt and Word of Caution" but they didn’t turn out to be of much use beyond convinence. Although the Patroness did treat the Word with no respect at all.[/quote]
I’m just here to say I completely agree with everything you’ve said.
I can see there was a huge amount of work put into the story and I appreciate it greatly - most of all I loved the expedition with lots of interesting opportunity cards - Alexis is a great writer - but as hard it is for me to admit, I’m just a tiny bit dissapointed. I imagine it might be because I was overhyped and the story was advertised as the best thing in FL.
TBH I think the best things in FL are permanent things. Stories are great, but you complete them, get your rewards and move on. Things like expeditions, repeatable stories like fidgeting writer, stay with you forever to play and enjoy at any time.
That’s why I love the decision to open Apis Meet, and why I’m very sad about flint expedition being one-time only.
I’ve been holding onto the Flint story at the point where you choose three people to go with you for some time. Is there a chance someone could tell me what supplies I should bring, (I heard wine was helpful?) And whether I need to have a boat, yet? I hate when I play a story only to not have the supplies to get more of the storyline, itself, and I really want to enjoy this one.
edited by Madame Mim on 12/8/2018
Since no one else is chiming in, I’ll go ahead and do my best despite this mostly being a non-answer.
The wine thing is uncertain. When Flint came out, it used a new-at-the-time mechanical system that let you use any Wine in your inventory. That system never got the wide roll-out that was expected, and has since been rolled back. Legacy content was allowed to keep it around, but the recent site redesign probably killed it.
We don’t know what replaced it. Flint is expensive, most players won’t play it more than once. So we honestly don’t know what happened to that item requirement.
You don’t need a lot of wine. At the time it required basically one wine of any type, I doubt the changes would have made it more expensive. Just bring a handful of the various cheap wines in case it requires one in particular.
I don’t remember Flint requiring any other London supplies than wine, although I tend to collect a lot of sundry and wouldn’t notice too much if I’m spending a dozen glim or a handful of relics or something. For the most part, it gives you what you need.
I think the game gives you either a boat or lets you take a ferry if you don’t have one. Either way, this isn’t something you need to prepare for. The boat is needed to start the journey, you won’t be turning around half-way through to get one. You might need access to Wolfstack Docks, if you don’t already have that.
I think I remember needing a few firefox candles, but I might be confusing it with Flit… take a look at the Fate-Locked content thread though, it might have better answers.
Reading through the Flint exceptional story thread on here (in 2 parts, IRC) is invaluable. There are areas that are extensive and change with “airs” (or similar feature), and it is easy to miss reams of content if you don’t know to hang around and rotate them.
[quote=Meradine Heidenreich]Reading through the Flint exceptional story thread on here (in 2 parts, IRC) is invaluable. There are areas that are extensive and change with "airs" (or similar feature), and it is easy to miss reams of content if you don’t know to hang around and rotate them.[/quote]Let me add the menaces "areas" which aren’t that bad, but it does consume some AP. Indeed, Flint is the best thing out there and the longest!
You usually need 50-100 Mysteries of the Elder Continent and about 25-50 Presbyterate Passphrase; even less as those can be grinded.
List of rare materials you can grind:
[spoiler]In Apis Meet you can grind the required resources if you want to farm the rare ones (Knob of Scintillack, Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory) without any problem.
In Caution you can trade these if you want:
4 Mysteries of the Elder Continent = 1 x Presbyterate Passphrase, 1 x Royal-Blue Feather
Zee-Ztory = 3 x Mystery of the Elder Continent, 1 x Deep-zee Catch
Vision of the Surface = 3 x Mystery of the Elder, 1 x Moves in the Great Game
Tale of Terror!! = 3 x Mystery of the Elder Continent, 1 x Solacefruit
[/spoiler]