Particular parts of Fallen London that you like or dislike

[arandia]

I‘m currently quite tired so I feel I‘m not good at properly explaining my thoughts - but I would still like to mention some parts of Fallen London that particularly spoke to me, that touched my heart, and spontaneously come to mind now. There are many more than these.

I loved, loved, loved unlocking every single station of my railway line - and for some reason, especially Jericho Locks. The whole ambience made me glad to be there, made me want to explore.

In the current final chapter of Firmament, the descriptions of Destroyed Burgundy really touched my heart.

I loved planning our grand wedding with my old and dear friend Skinnyman, even though time and circumstance swept us apart before the actual wedding.

I always love reading about the orphans playing with my kitten for a day, and about the (albeit quite old-fashionedly romantic) afternoon my Ruthless Henchman experiences with a maid.

In SMEN, and I hope this is okay to mention, betraying someone who is dear to me and thus losing her in a most heartbreaking way. I loved her deeply. And the story’s ending. of course!

The wonderful names of some characters (mostly from ES), chief among them the Saucier Saucier and the Oft-Offed Revenuer.

Even though I realize some find her annoying, I have a real fondness for the Urchin Detective.

Finally becoming a Knight of the Golden Carapace after much grinding, and then delightedly finding that this has opened up a super-cool new card to me.

Just the delightfully silly idea of an owl lying on a table covered by my best tea-towel.

The endlessly cute Whitsun creature I may tug under my arm to use for making crême brulée.

This may be due more to Mask of the Rose than FL, but: Ferret. I have a real soft spot for them.

The early weirdness that was Enigma.

The almost insane moment I used Lethean tea-leaves the moment I had finished my ambition because I couldn’t live with the ending (before the 24-hour grace period had ended), and embarked from scratch on a different one.

The whole of Zailing, my delight upon finding that one size 50 mega treasure - and what happens every time I cash in my Diamonds from the Snares for Scrip. “And you should wash those more often.”

And probably many, many more.

[ragnardegenhand]

And there was revealed so much more than I even knew existed! Owls and tea towels? Crême brulée? Lethean tea leaves can be used like that!?

[arandia]

Oh, I hope I didn’t reveal things that I should have put within spoiler tags. But yes, Animal Husbandry yields such an owl (well, more or less an owl). One of the creatures bred from Whitsun eggs is adorable and belches fire fit for creating the sugar crust on a crême brulée. And Lethean tea-leaves are (or were?) an item you could buy for Fate (and quite a lot of it, too) if you wanted to reset your ambition at any point prior to completing it. And in my case, I saw the end, got a bad feeling about it, checked the Wiki to find out what my monthly Rewards of Ambition would be and decided that there was no way I could read this text every month to come, so I bought the leaves, drank the tea and forgot everything that happened (which is only possible, if I remember correctly, as long as no more than 24 hours have passed since finishing the ambition).

[enail]

I love the wry Londoner-who’s-seen-everything tone they sometimes use at weirdnesses, it perfectly captures the feel of longtime residents of a city about its familiar quirks, makes me feel like it’s really mine, but with how bizarre Fallen London can be, the understatedness becomes hilarious. And when they reference some of the big phrases in different or joking contexts (“a breakfast will not be postponed indefinitely” and the like); honestly just the big phrases in general, their sense of power and mystery and reinforcing it just the right amount without bringing them up too much. The gender thing about squid.

Aestivals. Each of them has been so unique and so intense and so much wild and varied fun, it really feels special to participate in each of them. The Parabola bit in Nemesis where you encounter Mr. Mirrors. The last two chapters of Firmament, especially Tatterdemalion’s betrayal, hit me harder in the emotions than anything else in more than a decade of playing. Exploring the Railway stations, especially the first four and the Hurlers. When we first got access to Parabola blew me away, what a wonderland of perfectly dreamlike weirdness and so many different cool activities, and the Airs descriptions are wonderful!

The descriptions of items, I love that moment where you get something new and get to hover over it, there’s so many delightful or mysterious little details there. My Grubby Kitten, Lamp-cats, my Semi-Automated Mary Lloyd. The Jovial Contrarian. The Last Constable; and the ending of that storyline is a love even though I hate it. Mr. Wines and Mr. Pages. Hearts’ Game and the Khanate are both the perfect balance of “can put a lot of actions into these without too much thought when I’m busy” and properly engaging and full of interesting details for me. The peace offering from the RNG every Christmas, and Mr. Sacks’ visits; the almost mythic or fairytale feel, the range of emotions from ominous to bewildering to pitiful, the perfect amount of mysteriousness for early players without being aggravatingly obscure.

Dislikes: I’ve always found Moulin a bit annoying; I find it an awkward one to remember what equipment to bring, and for the monographs I find I have to look up every time to make anything useful, and it’s a pain that you have to do both the expedition and the monograph to make much useful out of it. I’m a bit love-hate with the Bone Market, I did really enjoy exploring it and trying everything out, and I sometimes enjoy puttering around making skeletons still, but sometimes I just find it irritating having to calculate and track or find recipes - in something less good than Fallen London it wouldn’t make the negatives list. I don’t always love the High Wilderness-based stuff, it can get to feeling a little too far off and abstract. The way you used to have to do Surprise Packages one at a time without a “try again,” but they fixed that, so I guess that counts more as a positive now in that they’re always working to improve player experience.

[amalgamate]

Oh, yeah, exploring the new stuff is always great. Lots of banger aestivals. Railway definitely a winner.

[James_Sinclair]

I could write on and on about this topic, but for now I’ll restrict myself to one thing from each category that immediately comes to mind:

• I like the Candlefinder cases. I enjoy getting to see little grounded slices of the setting and solving intriguing mysteries, and also learning more about and interacting with the detectives of the Candlefinder Society. I really hope that FBG keeps up with writing a new Candlefinder case every couple of months – they’re like mini-Exceptional stories that add a lot to Fallen London as a narrative game, both for newcomers and for veterans.

• I don’t like how the social actions have become more limited over the past few years. I miss the chess games and the Sanguine Ribbon fights, and the dinner invitations and so forth. I’ve been around long enough to have played Knife-and-Candle and I miss it as well – Hearts’ Game is fun, but there’s no social aspect to it. I know that the multi-stage social actions were a support nightmare, but I do miss the more socially-interactive elements of Fallen London. Sending one-way letters just doesn’t have the same cachet. On the flip side, I think FBG has done a great job of developing community collaborative events (such as past Estivals and the recent rock mining event); IMO they’re not a replacement for the lost social actions, but they are something exciting and different.

[captainbloodstorm]

I like dealing with Parabola in general. Even after several of its grinds were nerfed, it’s a place where virtually anything can happen, like a more whimsical version of the Warp from 40K. I also like the community collaborative events to give London a sense of life, and the player a bit more agency even without a subscription.

…I wish Ambitions had more consequences and opportunities after their completion. I understand it’s a fine balance between acknowledging you’ve changed things and having to write a fundamentally different narrative about being Mr. Cards or whatever, but the nods here and there in ESes and such were nice and I feel like they’ve been dropping off as of late. Back to things I like, one of my favourite moments in the game throughout the years was being able to take flight before the Masters during the Starved Men war. I expected there to be many more chaances to fly during Firmament, and was bitterly disappointed.

[Sekai-Spring]

@captainbloodstorm

…I wish Ambitions had more consequences and opportunities after their completion.

Yeah, I totally agree.
It would be great if some stories had special endings that could be unlocked with the Treasures from an Ambition. I’ve been dreaming of this for a long time.

[H.Metropolis]

For people who dislike referring to the wiki often, may I suggest making your own notes?

I have a list of Khaganate notes that, while entirely cribbed from the wiki, are singularly focused on what I care about and organized based solely on my preference.

Some of my notes include how I’m feeling about a story as I go through it. I did this some with the railroad and I wish I did this through Firmament, too. Your notes can be as unrepentantly biased toward your tastes as you’d like.

For me it helps that many of my notes exist to share what I like about the game with someone who will never play it and appreciates some of the writing. I’m taking two kinds of notes; I have a particular audience in mind in addition to my own preferences. I find this really draws out and extends my enjoyment of the game.

I think one downside of the game is that grinding in order to obtain specific items tends to train me to click through repetitive-seeming choices without reading them closely. I struggle sometimes to switch away from that approach when I’d have more fun reading slowly through every choice. Taking notes helps me with this problem, but only a very little.

[Superhgb]

i really like the bone market, i think it’s both a fun puzzle and an amusing idea, but i can understand why people don’t like it because i REALLY don’t like the stacks, idk what it is about it, maybe it’s the constant outfit changes, maybe its because it’s deck focused but also strategically simple, but i don’t like it