This is my only real complaint. I didn’t particularly mind the grind, or the fairly strong negative payoff in the end for my choices (the above, and keeping all of my promises). A message that the story was over for now would have been greatly appreciated.
[quote=Blaine Davidson]Am I the only one who didn’t mind the slog through the Lifeberg? Thematically it made sense and it added to the atmosphere. You’re supposed to hate being on this near-corpse of a beast, it’s supposed to be a pain to move around on it. It drains the life of your crew and I think it was an apt way to "drain" the player metaphorically and literally.
I also didn’t mind the lack of a proper reward (Whirring Contraption earned here). That’s what makes your decisions have weight. I chose my option because it fit my character, not because I wanted more Echoes towards my Heptagoat. That’s what the Fidgeting Writer is for.
This has been my favourite Exceptional Story since Flint. A lot of them have been fairly forgettable for me, like the one where you bombed the embassy. I couldn’t even remember the name of it or the unique item from said story.[/quote]
I wouldn’t have minded the repeat of carving through the Lifeberg if there was content written for it. Even a repeat journey has a new story to tell, and there was ample room to describe the daily frustration and horror of carving through the back of living ice only to have it stubbornly reseal its wounds the next morning, but the identical actions only drew attention to the fact that you were grinding a mechanic rather than contesting against a living creature. In a story and choice oriented game, and especially in the case of Exceptional Stories, there’s no need to make grinds a feature.
just to be sure- is there any story after telling the bluejaket that the coffin is empty? i got the wirring contraption, which is fine with me, but i feels like there is an epilogue somewhere that i’m missing
[quote=Blaine Davidson]Am I the only one who didn’t mind the slog through the Lifeberg? Thematically it made sense and it added to the atmosphere. You’re supposed to hate being on this near-corpse of a beast, it’s supposed to be a pain to move around on it. It drains the life of your crew and I think it was an apt way to "drain" the player metaphorically and literally.
I also didn’t mind the lack of a proper reward (Whirring Contraption earned here). That’s what makes your decisions have weight. I chose my option because it fit my character, not because I wanted more Echoes towards my Heptagoat. That’s what the Fidgeting Writer is for.
This has been my favourite Exceptional Story since Flint. A lot of them have been fairly forgettable for me, like the one where you bombed the embassy. I couldn’t even remember the name of it or the unique item from said story.[/quote]
I applaud your emotion regarding this ES! Lifebergs do move and, if I remember correctly, they aren’t that aggressive. Even if a Contraption has few uses (Ambition, item crafting and Newspapers) it takes 44 AP to get one; so I think it’s a nice reward for people that need one.
If you don’t ask, you’ll save yourself a lot of strife.[/quote]
Secrets? Self inflicted strife? This is a thing which must be found!
If anyone would be willing to PM me vague hints about this it would be appreciated. I don’t want to know the exact what and how, but given that I only get one pass at this I’d like to make sure that I don’t lock myself out of it by going too far.[/quote]
If I’m reading the hint a over correctly, you need to gain 14 of the days on the lifeberg or whatever quality. Then…do something bad? It does say you’ve only enough supplies for a fortnight
[color=#ff9900]Please spoiler clues or guesses at clues to this. Lordy.[/color]
edited by Chris Gardiner on 8/25/2016[/quote]
(Sorry, I can’t get my spoiler to work…)
edited by Lara Jones on 8/26/2016
I really enjoyed the optional followup with your crew in this ES. It made my time with them more tangible and helped me learn that much more about the varied lives of zailors. I hope I can interact with these people again, even if it isn’t in the capacity of captain and crew.
Due to problems I’m having while trying to go back through my echoes, can anyone remind me what disaster resulted in the underzee being off limits.
Either that or provide me with the worst case senario that could occur from such exploration.
edited by Trilby on 8/26/2016
edited by Trilby on 8/26/2016
[quote=Trilby]Due to problems I’m having while trying to go back through my echoes, can anyone remind me what disaster resulted in the underzee being off limits.
Either that or provide me with the worst case senario that could occur from such exploration.
edited by Trilby on 8/26/2016
edited by Trilby on 8/26/2016[/quote]
A battle between the Admiralty and the khaganians pissed off some lorn flukes. And then the lorn flukes did their thing.
[quote=Dean Lee][quote=Trilby]Due to problems I’m having while trying to go back through my echoes, can anyone remind me what disaster resulted in the underzee being off limits.
Either that or provide me with the worst case senario that could occur from such exploration.
edited by Trilby on 8/26/2016
edited by Trilby on 8/26/2016[/quote]
A battle between the Admiralty and the khaganians pissed off some lorn flukes. And then the lorn flukes did their thing.[/quote]
Then get something tho map out the lorn fluke territory and fight somewhere else. Or alternatively stop fighting over… What were they even fighting over anyways? It’s not like they have much of a say in who owns what.
[quote=Trilby][quote=Dean Lee][quote=Trilby]Due to problems I’m having while trying to go back through my echoes, can anyone remind me what disaster resulted in the underzee being off limits.
Either that or provide me with the worst case senario that could occur from such exploration.[/quote]
A battle between the Admiralty and the khaganians pissed off some lorn flukes. And then the lorn flukes did their thing.[/quote]
Then get something tho map out the lorn fluke territory and fight somewhere else. Or alternatively stop fighting over… What were they even fighting over anyways? It’s not like they have much of a say in who owns what.[/quote]
That’s not quite what happened. The Lorn-Flukes are the masters of the deeps; both the Admiralty and Khanate had sent subs as emissaries. They were attempting to win the Lorn-Flukes’ favor through means RFH considered immoral, seemingly involving giving people to the Flukes for their unknown, but sinister, purposes. RFH was horrified by this and ordered his zub to fire on the Khanate zubs; the ensuing conflict angered the Lorn-Flukes and they destroyed most (possibly all) of the zubs present.
[quote=Robin Alexander]On another note: how do I get rid of the pinned storylet?
It’s driving me mad, as it’s just sitting there, in every single area of London I go to, right at the top of every single list of storylets . . . is it just going to sit there like an eye-sore for three months? :-/[/quote]
Hm, I think I would also find myself a little tired of it after a while. Perhaps they’ll consign the storylet to just your Lodgings or whichever district the Breakwater House resides in so we can still access it at our leisure without having it be in the way.
[quote=Blaine Davidson]Am I the only one who didn’t mind the slog through the Lifeberg? Thematically it made sense and it added to the atmosphere. You’re supposed to hate being on this near-corpse of a beast, it’s supposed to be a pain to move around on it. It drains the life of your crew and I think it was an apt way to "drain" the player metaphorically and literally.
I also didn’t mind the lack of a proper reward (Whirring Contraption earned here). That’s what makes your decisions have weight. I chose my option because it fit my character, not because I wanted more Echoes towards my Heptagoat. That’s what the Fidgeting Writer is for.
This has been my favourite Exceptional Story since Flint. A lot of them have been fairly forgettable for me, like the one where you bombed the embassy. I couldn’t even remember the name of it or the unique item from said story.[/quote]
I also definitely enjoyed the climb each day, for the 7 days required to get all the different content at the top. Should someone decide to stay longer for whatever reason, I imagine it would get increasingly frustrating and repetitive, but I can’t imagine why anyone would do that.
The lifeberg was quite an interesting development, disturbing as it was. Though I think upping the risk a bit might have helped; not anything that couldn’t be recovered from, but just some curveballs to make it a little more difficult rather than repetitive.
But the plot came to an excellent head, with quite the quandary presented at the end. Overall an exceptional Exceptional Story.
[spoiler]After all the wonderful maddening revelations that are uncovered in Fallen London, I took Harris’s word that whatever they did to appease the dwellers below was a grade-A "Very Bad Thing". While I may have my own zumbarine that I desperately hope he didn’t know about, unlike certain parties I have little interest in messing with such destructive forces (my own Destiny notwithstanding).
It was hard to let someone be killed in such a brutal fashion, much less let the Admiralty’s button man go. But the alternative was allowing the engineer to complete her work, regardless of the potential horrors she could unleash. Such is life in the Neath.
Perhaps, though, Bluejacket can at least have the opportunity to make peace with his son and himself.[/spoiler]
edited by FireOfUnknownOrigin on 8/26/2016
It’s a good idea, but difficult to implement. By its nature, Exceptional Stories have to be accessible to newer players with low stats, so making stat challenges harder to appeal to more experienced players would detract from the experience for others. One Exceptional Story, I believe The Frequently Deceased, had the challenge levels scale with stats so each challenge would have the same difficulty regardless of stat level. It felt rather odd though to fail at persuading random NPC servants and such with Persuasive 200, so that has its drawbacks too.
I would’ve been perfectly happy to get a Whirring Contraption even if it’s worth less on paper than the other rewards, because then I could run my newspaper again without having to go through Wilmot’s End. (But I just ran my paper for the first time the other day, so I can understand if the novelty has worn off for others.)
Outside of lost EPA, I think I may have actually lost money playing this story. I got a Whirring Contraption and various small items, but spent 15 echoes on keeping promises. I’ve played all but one Exceptional Story (and know the ending to the other) and aside from Flint there are only two I know which did not give a 62.5 echo item or multiple items with that total value. The first is Court of Cats, which iirc gave two 62.5 echo items. The second is Discernment, which was atypical mechanically in ways I do not recall well, but its option to sell a Coruscating Soul was such a loss that the rewards were significantly increased after release. So for all but one of the Exceptional Stories prior to this one, the lowest rewards given were all 62.5 echoes in value.
For a story with three different artificial action sinks, such a poor reward seems a bit silly. I’d be perfectly fine with just climbing back up the lifeberg each day - it may be repetitive, but at least it’s new content. Having to zail all the way there and do a full case as well is incredibly tedious - this is content I and many other players have seen plenty of times, and without anything new it’s just boring. When I play an Exceptional Story, I of course expect it to be an exceptional experience. And the story itself was exceptional - but the parts added to lengthen it were neither exceptional nor story.
It’s not true that the lowest reward is always that many echoes. I had a mere Constable’s Badge as my reward for June’s story.
This is only my second Exceptional Story, and the first time I’ve found the “Easter Egg”. But my heavens that was depressing. I’ve been in a funk all day at the horrific outcome. It’s actually given my character a totally new sense of purpose.
In other words… bravo.
A delicious story. I was tempted after examining the captain’s scrawls to hang around and see what other nightmares might be lurking but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Did anyone else lose their nerve before reaching the "Easter egg"?
(And yes, someone has echoed it. It was as I feared it would be.)
Delivering the lieutenant to his grave was most satisfying and his boots will, I’m told, sell well. Call it retribution for the…silences that punctuated our discussion when zubmarines were brought up. Granted, I’ll have little issue with quashing the investigations he started, but there’s a principle that must be stood for.
I’d have enjoyed being able to check up on the Jaunty Cannoneer though. Just to make sure she was comfortable after returning from the Horizon. Wouldn’t it be keen if those who kept their promises were to receive the same crew back, ready to zail to Mutton Island and investigate a ruined ship populated by a singular woman and her zealous devotees? Could they be swayed away from your service? Or taken from it?
Such possibilities.
If someone has echoed the Easter Egg, the bonus Seeking content, and the three possible endings for the story I’d appreciate seeing it.