That’s a reference to a story in Sunless Sea, Failbetter’s other game in the same setting.
Well, well, it looks like it’s time for me to come out of the closet. I had a box all this time! Not on an alt, but on the main account too. People tried to rob me a couple of times, but nobody succeeded. Oh and I tried to rob myself at least five times but never succeeded either. My alt wasn’t all that rich with Favors in High Places, so I just gave up and the box sat on the main account.
I have been wondering what "Trap a little sunlight in a Mirrorcatch Box!" does for ages, but since Sunlight event never came back and original owners kept quite I never found out. It has been eating me for some time. But then Sunless Sea happened and it became less important seeing as how people shipped ships full of boxes. And now we have a flood of boxes in London. Ah, not so special anymore.
I know that most of the famous/active forum players got mugged of their boxes. But I am wondering, who kept theirs intact? Anybody else wants to confess?
edited by Fhoenix on 8/29/2015
That’s a reference to a story in Sunless Sea, Failbetter’s other game in the same setting.[/quote]
I was less well-versed in FL lore the last time I played that story in Sunless Sea, but it occurs to me now that this was an incredibly clever and incredibly dangerous plan. The sort of idea an RPG player would come up with leaving the GM dumbstruck.
[quote=Fhoenix]
I know that most of the famous/active forum players got mugged of their boxes. But I am wondering, who kept theirs intact? Anybody else wants to confess?
edited by Fhoenix on 8/29/2015[/quote]
I confess! I stole one a couple of months ago. I saw someone with their box equipped on their profile and took it from them. It was very mean of me. Now it seems kind of petty given that almost every character in London has a box of their own.
[quote=Fhoenix]
I know that most of the famous/active forum players got mugged of their boxes. But I am wondering, who kept theirs intact? Anybody else wants to confess?[/quote]
I had a box on my main account for quite a while. I did end up moving it to an alt (Madison Lavery) when a mirrorsnatch attempt scared me, but that was only about a year ago if memory serves me correctly.
Likewise, if someone would be kind enough to do this for me as well, I’d appreciate it!
As above, I would love it if someone could PM the rewards for the options to me as well.
I don’t want to add another PM request to the thread. Are there any unique items (I haven’t heard of any yet)? Any endings with very high or very low payouts? I basically know what my choice will be but I’m interested in the options. Thanks :)
[color=#c2c2c2]I would likewise love to receive a PM about the rewards.[/color]
edited by Ysrthgrathe on 8/30/2015
Normally I’d link my characters’ profiles (at least for three of the four), but as they’re not working reliably the moment, I don’t think that it’s too much of a spoiler to say that the rewards are pretty much equivalent in value. I don’t know for sure about the option to favour the monocled gentleman, but I believe his reward is harder to come by than the others. Less useful, though.
Thanks! My reward didn’t seem terribly unique - a little memento (with some financial reward, of course) would be ideal. You could perhaps consider the boxes a memento, although everyone could get one.
The story was great this month, and I liked the mechanics despite finding them a bit more confusing this time. I’m very annoyed at myself for my final action, but that’s the fault of the internet here.
Thinking back, one of the things I liked about June’s story was that it literally captured your attention by taking you to a unique area. There were no distractions to the plot.
I’m wondering: does anyone else have a preference for stories in special areas over stories spread throughout London?
I haven’t played this month’s story yet but generally I think I prefer stories out of special areas for two reasons. 1. I feel the Travel function is underused and I really appreciate having a sense of relative space. As is you just camp at Flit or whatever is advantageous for your purposes and flip cards. I miss having a sense of exploration.
- When I pay Fate I like being able to fully pay attention to the story. However that is in tension with the desire not to waste actions. If the story is in London and for whatever reason I can’t pay attention to it then I can take it in small steps and sink the rest of my actions on something profitable that doesn’t require active attention. But if the story is in a separate location that you can’t Perhaps Not out of then I feel I either have to rush through the story (that I paid real money for and also can’t replay) or I have to sit in that area waiting till real life allows me to pay attention, wasting actions.
That said, special locations are super flavourful. So I guess ideally I’d like having a mixture as long as you can Perhaps Not easily out of special places (which might not always make sense flavourfully)
There needs to be a reason for them to make a special area though. As it stands, The primary setting of this story is "A nice house located in Veilgarden that is easily accessible" for the simple reason of "they are selling stuff".
Kind of like how if the Cheesemonger storyline would not make sense if they are locked to an area called "An ugly cheesy townhouse"…
You could consider the full boxes, and the continuing opportunity to purchase them, a memento?
Those are good points. I think you could make most stories have a specific location, though I think the open-ended setting was appropriate in this case.
My main reasons for liking the unique setting are 1) unique settings are usually interesting because I haven’t explored them (obviously) and 2) I think there’s less of a temptation to put off making your final decision. If you have the whole month to decide, it’s tempting to come to the forums and see which choices will give a desired outcome. I am definitely guilty - who wants a boring reward when there’s a unique object or quality? - but being forced to make a decision feels like more natural gameplay.
It’s probably my fault though, as I was traveling and had much sportier internet than expected. It interrupted the narrative flow quite a bit and made it somewhat disjointed. I wish I’d waited before starting it :(
One small note that just occurred to me. I enjoyed how most of the characters followed the standard “The Adjective Noun” naming style of Fallen London, but you also had Clarence. Poor Clarence.
[quote=Dry Fish]Why oh WHY did this have to come early?
I was planning on doing August’s story this very night as I hadn’t gotten around to it.
Does this mean there’s no way I can complete it now?[/quote]
[quote=Desiderius]
Playing the option in the House of Chimes (the one that comes directly after the Universal Storylet) unlocks the story permanently, so you can play it whenever you want. This is true of all Exceptional Stories. (The Universal Storylet is for everyone, then it sends you to the HoC to ensure you’re an Exceptional Friend, then you have a new story quality which will ensure it stays with you. If it only relied on the "A Story For Exceptional Friends" quality, it would be rather a bother to update it, since everyone would have so limited a time. Or so one can only assume.)[/quote]
Well, great. If that’s the case, if you’ve shaken your present and torn just a tiny corner of the wrapping off, you can unwrap it later. If you’ve set it aside untouched to leave for later, it gets "given away to charity!" like in Mommie Dearest.
Can I just say how much I LOVED the Wodehouse reference?
More Wodehouse whenever possible, please! I look forward to encountering a Far-from-Gruntled Gentleman at the Young Stags’ club one day.
[quote=PStrange]I feel kind of conflicted about this month’s story. The writing was top-notch, as ever, and I enjoyed the chance to delve deeper into London’s seamy under-underbelly as a morally ambiguous/ambiguously moral character myself. It felt nicely balanced to play through, too, with the centralised location as the focus and the odd jaunts elsewhere (out and about, and Upstairs).
However, Spoilered for story details
having gone through everything required to reach the end point - ingratiating myself into the blithe fellow’s company; carrying out his scut-work; earning his trust; saving his business, etc. I was disappointed to find that upon successfully negotiating the path of peace, cooperation, and (purely coincidentally) grotesquely lucrative criminal enterprise between my new best friends, they saw fit to reward my pivotal role in the founding of this new entrepreneurial empire with… a moderate amount of cash-money.
This was, for me, the crime equivalent of getting an unexpected Valentine’s gift from your one true love, only to find that it’s a gift voucher, "But you can spend it in ALL the high-street shops."
I’m not complaining, mind, but I’d much prefer receiving kinda/not-really rare items or something mechnically-useless-but-colourful as a final reward, to give the sense of having done something uncommon.[/quote]
I really, really enjoyed this story, particularly the open-ended nature of it. My character behaved in ways that may not fit in with the rest of him, but he’s an enigma; he does things for his own curious motives. I particularly liked how the final ending choice was left open in terms of motivation; any of the choices could have been made for a variety of reasons.
Specific response to your quibble:
I thought the ending ‘rewards’ were perfect. You joined on as a friend, not a business investor; the operation isn’t exactly lucrative. They rewarded you for friendship.
edited by streever on 9/1/2015
edited by streever on 9/1/2015
[quote=Sara Hysaro][quote=Fhoenix]
I know that most of the famous/active forum players got mugged of their boxes. But I am wondering, who kept theirs intact? Anybody else wants to confess?[/quote]
I had a box on my main account for quite a while. I did end up moving it to an alt (Madison Lavery) when a mirrorsnatch attempt scared me, but that was only about a year ago if memory serves me correctly.[/quote]
Well, while we’re confessing… Fred and Hubris both had one. And both got it stolen. And both tirelessly hunted down the thief and stole it back. Multiple times.