Personally, right now, all I want from FBG is some communication about their plans for Fallen London. Last year with the Reworks project it was very exciting. The content was a big part of that, but also the fact that we were told that Changes Were Coming lent an air of excitement, even in-between the actual unveilings. And, it took away a lot of anxiety to be kept in the loop.
Towards the beginning of this year, we were told that focus was on Skies, and that we would here more of plans for Fallen London later on. This was great. I vastly appreciated it. For a few months, I at least knew why we weren’t hearing much from FBG. However, it’s now the last day of July, and we still haven’t seen an update.
So, yeah, what I want is a statement. Of course, I wish that statement said “of course we’ll be finishing the Ambitions by the end of the year!” But even just a “nothing 'til next year, and here’s why” would be a big welcome.
Let me add my voice here too: while Exceptional Stories as of late are definitely best in mechanics and lore, I do ache for new content, and more than that - to any data of new content. While waiting, I got almost everything that the game has to offer, succumbing to most ridiculous task of Newspaper Titles in the end, as all the other ones are done.
Still I wait, as there is still hope and energy to wait - but some clarifications would be in order.
Actually, no progression occurred on the card throughout Jenny’s year. iirc players expressed a wish to see that change in future mayoral cards. Instead, what happened was arguably a regression. Feducci had less of an impact on London outside his Fate-exclusive story, with no continuity qualities like Jenny had from her FotZ appearance. Then the Contrarian’s term barely referenced his campaign platform beyond the card and he didn’t get a Fate story despite the plot hook. His seasonal content was enjoyable (imo better than his predecessors’), but we didn’t know that would be at the expense of following up on his actual campaign.
I really appreciate FBG’s community engagement on Twitter and occasionally seeing staff members on the official Discord. That’s why it’s worrying that player response sometimes seems to be ignored or misinterpreted, imo with increasing frequency since the end of the Reworks or the start of Skies’ development. I highly doubt this is out of malice, like, "no it’s the players who are wrong". But like others have said, it would be nice to see more communication to show that FL players are valued as much as Skies players. I personally believe that we are, but I worry about how it appears in general.
I admit that I miss free content the most - my eyes beamed when it was announced a new card would be added to our decks on Thursday. I understand that Sunless Skies has taken priority (and with good reason), but what I worry about is how the browse game seems to be so heavily neglected, Exceptional Stories no withstanding. I agree with prior comments in that I’m concerned about the possible long-term rammifications that might take place.
Even so, I don’t want to lose hope yet; as for late, the content and lore we’ve got in the lastest Exceptional Stories is amazing and beautifully written in my opinion, not to mention my huge soft spot for early-game stories and RP options and await patiently for the final Ambitions updates.
Skies above, not access codes! I don’t mind the occasional Darkdrop from some celebratory access code, but they should never gate something significant. For one thing, even though many Failbetter access codes are active ad infinitum, they generally fade from public knowledge in a short time; anything hidden away in them is effectively blocked off from anyone who plays afterward (or wasn’t active at the time), unless that person spends time on the thrilling task of hunting down years-old access codes.
Second, it breaks the basic narrative framework of the game. Most all of our significant items come from significant story moments in our game; they reinforce the storytelling aspect that is at the heart of Fallen London. (Even the Advent Calendar is part of a larger, significant cycle of events.) Depositing an item of importance in a place divorced from context, accompanied only by a string of necessarily generic text, undermines that core of the game.
Third, it warps game balance. Let’s say that Failbetter puts a new BiS Watchful item out there via access code. Well, by nature of an access code, my brand-new Surfacer can acquire that item. Now my entire early game is warped. Getting the item, effectively skipping the built-in progression and obviating all Watchful Bazaar items for that slot, now becomes standard practice for people in the know. Tasks like SotC 21 become permanently easier, which reduces the achievement and tends to create dissatisfaction among the old hands who’ve done it the hard way. None of this makes for a healthy game.
Fourth, it eats way at Fallen London’s uniqueness. One of the chief draws of this game is that it is different from anything else out there–different in tone, in feel, in mechanics, and in the way that it sells itself. For a lot of us, it feels like a refuge from the overcommercialized games that crowd the internet. A game that is constantly bribing you with little deals and trinkets, whose prestige items come down to who was active during which special promotion, has a way of feeling like it’s only an excuse to panhandle for your money. Failbetter has never done that. Indeed, the fact that Fallen London so heartily says, "Righto, come ahead!" to anyone, and at most offhandedly mentions the collection box that keeps the lights on, is a significant part of its charm. (I know that the very fact I don’t have to drop money every ten minutes is the chief reason why, when I can, I try to squeeze a few drops for them out of the stone.) Reliance on a gimmick like "must-have" access codes would weaken that barrier of distinctiveness, the hallmark creative integrity, and I suspect also weaken some folks’ trust that Fallen London won’t end up like its overcommercialized brethren.
Now, Failbetter has made use of things like this (including a limited-edition access code), but generally only as a Kickstarter reward when they launched a new game. I am saddened that my Parabolan kitten will never grown into a panther, and that none of my future characters will ever have a Judgmental Hat, but I can accept this because it is a rare occasion and marks something significant in the life of the company and the franchise. If, however, it became a common practice, well, I can imagine a world in which it grated so much as to eventually drive me from the game. I suspect I am not the only one.[/quote]
That is super fair, and I definitely wasn’t intending to suggest more frequent access codes.
Using the very general ‘stories and access codes’ wasn’t very useful in a nuanced thread about free content quality, sorry. I was thinking mostly of stories, including but not limited to seasonal events, and added access codes mostly as an afterthought. (I have complicated feelings about my Judgemental Hat, because while it’s pretty awesome it also means I’ve never worn either of my persuasive renown hats. On the other hand, the Sunless Skies launch codes didn’t give any particularly impressive equipment but I absolutely adored them for their narrative content, even though it started in a place divorced from context.)[li] edited by string on 7/31/2019
Personally, I don’t think the content is getting worse at all! Like others have said, this year they experimented with some stuff for festivals, partially due to player input.
It’s easy to forget just how massive Sunless Skies is, and it was definitely a passion project for such a small team. Fallen London hasn’t had as much action lately because it’s on the back-burner, presumably until around next year. There hasn’t really been time to do much besides the Exceptional Stories (and Arbor! Whatever that is, haha, I haven’t drawn the card yet).
However, I have seen the typos in recent storylets. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal- unlike some of London’s denizens, the Devs are only human, and this kind of stuff slips through the cracks when you have less people on editing. We’d all like less of them, but honestly, it could be much worse considering how much they’ve got on their plate.
New free content has turned up unexpectedly a couple of times recently, with no warning/fanfare – new heists in the Flit and the three new expeditions in the Forgotten Quarter. (And now this new card, though there was the day or two of notice.) So it can happen.
Regarding the Arbor new content: it is great to have it, I fell in love with the location, the writing and possibly an NPC, and it definitely shows London is not being neglected.
But many players have been asking for a continuation of certain storylets (ambitions, Dilmun, broken toys, pianist & spirifer etc). As a Parabola lover, and as someone who has already gathered the material for the Base, I am looking forward to the Rosers, but I am curious as to why the developers went for an entirely new story before the old, still-open ones were revisited. The one that was resolved, The Last Constable made a lot of people unhappy and split the London storyline in two, much like Feducci’s marriage. So yes, it would be great to have a word (on the forums or the blog) concerning FB plans. edited by Jolanda Swan on 8/1/2019
As phryne pointed out very early in this thread, the main issue here is probably, that Failbetter’s team got much smaller end of 2017.
If you take a look at the earlier Exceptional stories (e.g. this one), there are always lots of people involved to check everything. For the past months it’s always been just two people: Olivia and James. Sometimes only one of them. In addition, Exceptional Stories for the past 18-20 months have all been written by guest writers. This isn’t a bad thing, but it probably means that there is more work to be done during the editing/finishing process (putting it all into StoryNexus, etc.) while the team got smaller. I’m also sending in a fair number of tickets for all kinds of issues (typos, images, actual bugs, etc.) and it’s always Olivia and James answering (+ Henry for issues with the engine). So for me it seems that these two are currently the only people working on content for FL . Although both are apparently also involved in Skies, so it’s probably down to the equivalent of one person working full-time.
I agree the typos are annoying, but without investing more resources there is probably nothing to be done about it.
Also a few things that players in this thread either got wrong or that I don’t agree with:
[ul][li]Last year’s election had the exact same mechanics and amount of content (i.e. only one flash lay result and no cases and no social actions)[/li][li]The FL reworks project was in 2017. Cash did a lot of work for that before he left end of that same year :-/[/li][li]The last free content update before the Arbor-update was in March 2019, when we got the Circumspect Envoy Heist (which included quite a bit of text with its multiple endings) … plus of course the seasonal events (which we actually shouldn’t take for granted … that is a lot of new text each time!).[/li][li]Failbetter have said on multiple occasions how very important FL is for them and I don’t think we need to worry too much about the future of the game. (The last time I can remember was during the AMA on reddit when Skies was released earlier this year. During the AMA they also mentioned that Ambions should be finished soon-ish.)
[/li][li]BiS-items need not be free. The game is perfectly playable without them. Super endgame-y things like Paramount Presence get harder to achieve, but that is fairly negligible.[/li][li]I am around since end of 2014 and if you don’t count the reworks project in the second half of 2017, I don’t really think that there was more free content released in previous years. For instance, in 2015 we got the Carnelian Coast, the Wilting Dandy case and an update to Heart’s Desire. That’s all. In 2016 we got the Elderwick Heist, the first few Renown changes and SMEN (which was Alexis’ farewell gift before leaving) … plus we lost a bunch of content due to the mobile app (marriage, K&C, etc). There have probably been more updates before Sunless Sea was released, but since I’m around it hasn’t gotten worse.[/li][li]I don’t think Exceptional Friendship is too expensive. Watching a movie in the cinema is more expensive than spending an hour or two on the monthly story. This gets discussed a lot (also over at reddit) but I don’t think there’s a way to make this less expensive and still pay the people involved. I’ve heard arguments like "books have more text and cheaper" but this is comparing apples and oranges. There are a number of people X paying for EF and there is a number of people Y who need to be paid for creating the content. (Paying 45 Fate for that same story on the Fate-page is another story).[/li][/ul]
I hope I’m not coming across as condescending or aggessive. I also notice the issues mentioned in the thread and I think the typos are particularly annoying. But I also know how much work it is to create all that content and don’t think there’s an easy solution under the current circumstances.
Edit: Oh dear, this got way longer than I expected… edited by rahv7 on 8/2/2019
<snip>[/quote]
I’m with you on pretty much all of it. I also have a feeling that somewhere in London, someone was reading the first few posts of this thread and chuckling, "They don’t know what we’re putting out this week!"
Heh, yes, well, the new content certainly shut me up quickly on a few points…
I do agree with Jolanda on wanting some updates on long-pending, existing storylines, though–I get it may be more fun/easier to create new, (sort of) self-contained storylines, but again, some of those storylines are early game content, so it’s quite a lot of “litter” (for lack of better word) up front.
[quote=MrCandles]
Just delete this message, you think wrong. All BiS must be free, but hard obtainable. EF must have hard acces to BiS as normal players.[/quote]
Well that’s a bit rude isn’t it?
Don’t mean to correct your grammar, friend, but the words "a bit" seem to have wandered in from another sentence.
Mr. Candles, we need to talk. There are rules in this community, like any other, the most famous of which is "never post spammy advertisements from Asia," but only slightly less well-known is this: we do not disrespect one another. We can disagree, we can even argue, but we never take things to the point of arrogance or personal attack. It is this rule, above all, which keeps the forum a quiet and welcoming corner of the internet.
I am mentioning this not only because your dismissal of rahv’s carefully though-out post is a clear violation of that rule, but because you’ve made a pattern of it. As of this morning, your net reputation on the forum is -148. Please understand that this is not Reddit; people around here use that thumbs-down button only rarely, and almost always it’s because the poster has failed to show common courtesy.
Really, it comes down to your own reputation (and I don’t mean the numbers). How do you want people here to see you? How do you want them to take your words? Everything we say colors who we are and how people perceive us. A post like this last one says either, "I was never trained in common civility" or "I like to hear myself talk." Neither option makes people take you seriously. Is that really the reputation you want? I don’t think it is.
We want you to be part of this community; we want to hear your thoughts, and engage with them. However, we don’t want that so badly that we’re going to put up with continual discourtesy. Enough complaints about aggressive, uncivil behavior will get you banned from the forum, eventually. We don’t want that to happen any more than you, but if it’s to be avoided, then the tone of your posting is going to have to change.
Don’t mean to correct your grammar, friend, but the words "a bit" seem to have wandered in from another sentence.
Mr. Candles, we need to talk. There are rules in this community, like any other, the most famous of which is "never post spammy advertisements from Asia," but only slightly less well-known is this: we do not disrespect one another. We can disagree, we can even argue, but we never take things to the point of arrogance or personal attack. It is this rule, above all, which keeps the forum a quiet and welcoming corner of the internet.
I am mentioning this not only because your dismissal of rahv’s carefully though-out post is a clear violation of that rule, but because you’ve made a pattern of it. As of this morning, your net reputation on the forum is -148. Please understand that this is not Reddit; people around here use that thumbs-down button only rarely, and almost always it’s because the poster has failed to show common courtesy.
Really, it comes down to your own reputation (and I don’t mean the numbers). How do you want people here to see you? How do you want them to take your words? Everything we say colors who we are and how people perceive us. A post like this last one says either, "I was never trained in common civility" or "I like to hear myself talk." Neither option makes people take you seriously. Is that really the reputation you want? I don’t think it is.
We want you to be part of this community; we want to hear your thoughts, and engage with them. However, we don’t want that so badly that we’re going to put up with continual discourtesy. Enough complaints about aggressive, uncivil behavior will get you banned from the forum, eventually. We don’t want that to happen any more than you, but if it’s to be avoided, then the tone of your posting is going to have to change.
The ball’s in your court.[/quote]
Agressive?! I just have bad english.
[li]
I have a markedly different perspective from many members who have posted here; thought I’d share. I’m an EF and have been since pretty early in my FL experience (which has probably been 3 - 4 years now).
I’m not really understanding the justification for the complaint (or feedback, or ask, whatever sounds best). Some have used books and video games in comparison.
A video game may cost between $10 - $50 on Steam, as an example. Let’s say on the higher end of that spectrum, completing a core game and all side quests puts you at 40 hours of enjoyment. Even if you love the game and replay it a couple of times, that’s 120 hours.
The average book on Amazon anymore is at least $5 and could be upwards of $25. How many hours of enjoyment does a 350 page novel bring? 7- 14 hours depending upon reading speed. Again, you may enjoy that and read it multiple times. But you’re still looking at well below 50 hours.
And even if you’re talking about free Kindle downloads, again, it’s the same hours of enjoyment per book.
In my years of playing FL, it has provided countless hours of enjoyment. Not just the in-game experience but also forum participation, further reading on in-game lore and supplementary material, etc. I know that I have been enjoying additional fate content unlike some others here. But really, the volume of free content in this game is prodigious.
We all have our own budgets and our own priorities that we spend our money on. Some go to Starbucks daily and claim that they can’t afford other things that are a commensurate or lesser cost. To each his/her own.
Anyway, no judgement here, only a different lens. While I’m an advanced FL character who is at or near all content boundaries, I am still amazed that we continue to receive additional free content. I wish the same could be said for my favorite video games of yesteryear, or my favorite works of literature.
I not write "entirely". "Delete your post" because if some person from new team (who was made Skies) will see this idea, ALL BiS may become fate. "Delete" because this idea is too dangerous.
[li]