As has been widely reported, there is an "easter egg" in the latest Exceptional Story. I’ll save the debate as to whether or not it actually qualifies as one for another time. For now, what I want to talk about is that the storylet that leads into it contains this phrase.
Requests like this in Fallen London are extremely rare. The only other instances I’m aware of are Ambition: Enigma and the end of Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name. I’ll be blunt. While it’s certainly within Failbetter’s right to make requests like this, I don’t think this request should be here.
The fact that requests like this work at all is a testament to the community. In any other game I would expect a full guide to Ambition: Enigma and a document with all the Seeking endings to appear right at the top of search results and I think that the reason they work is simple. In keeping these secrets we are preserving something for the other members of the community.
You can find all the text buried behind Ambition: Enigma’s wall of secrecy echoed on various mantelpieces throughout the Neath. But you will pry the secrets of how to get there from my cold dead hands. We don’t talk about Ambition: Enigma because all the joy it has to offer comes from finding and solving its puzzles. The wall of secrecy doesn’t protect hidden lore. It preserves the experience of the hunt for others. There’s a reason the item I’m most proud of is that eggshell sitting on my mantelpiece.
The Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name endings are slightly more complicated. Here, there is hidden lore buried behind the veil of secrecy. But it’s not the lore that’s being protected. Seeking is a spiral of obsession and self-destruction in pursuit of a mystery. The farther you fall the more layers you peel back. I haven’t crossed the threshold yet but I do have a character teetering on the brink; trapped between the pull of the unknown and fear of the finality of the price. I could just turn back here and if I already knew what was behind that veil, or even if I felt I could still learn it from others after turning back, this would be an easy choice to make. Here, preserving the secret means preserving this core Seeking experience for everyone else.
So what is this latest veil of secrecy protecting? What makes this different from the bad choices you make in things like "The Gift" or "Flint" or "Secrets Framed in Gold"? Why is there more secrecy here than there is for anything else in the story, or any other fate locked story, or things like the Passion destiny? Frankly, I don’t think we’re protecting some special experience for the rest of the community. All we have here is secret lore, and that’s no fun.
Lore collection in Fallen London (at least, at the community level) is a very collaborative experience. Fallen London lore is deep and detailed, but also scattered and mysterious. Hints are dropped everywhere, but there can be a separation of months or years between seeing two related hints. Being able to share what you’ve found with the community and working together to put together the pieces and build a fuller picture is all part of the fun. Lore locked behind a veil of secrecy flies in the face of that. It isolates you and isolation without purpose is just frustrating.
I think the broader point I’m trying to make here is that these requests for secrecy need to be used sparingly and for the right reasons. They’ve worked so far, but if they become common and all they’re protecting is the knowing of things they’ll lose their power. And I don’t want to see that happen because there are some secrets in this game worth preserving.
(Note: Please don’t PM me with request to know what’s being hidden. While I may not agree with this secrecy request, I intend to honor it.)
edited by An Individual on 8/26/2016