I don’t think they’d do it out of malice or anything like that, but IIRC the Master’s Secret is a reward for a cosplay challenge. It isn’t a stretch to think a goofy, just-for-fun challenge might yield an equally goofy, just-for-fun reward.
That said, none of this is worth getting my panties in a twist over, so I’ll do my best to bow out of this now and leave it to the people who matter.
Well, they’re not just doing the social rewards for giggles, or so people "don’t feel left out." They’ll get people talking about the Kickstarter, provide publicity, attract more pledges. That’s a direct material benefit - following it up with a "wos just havin a larf soz lol" would be a PR disaster, as well as rude, and I wouldn’t suspect FBG of either.
Regarding the backer rewards… I don’t envy FBG the responsibility of deciding those, 'cause if you go back and read some of the comments on the Sunless Sea KS, people were extremely nasty about them. Any in-game reward content was decried as a ripoff, a rort, criminality of the highest order. And, well, they’ll just as freely be accused of same for not offering said content. I’d be tempted to just have those in camp A sort things out directly with those in camp B, and not come back 'til they’ve come up with a clear consensus.
Haha, this all looks interesting!
As many, I admit that I wished to see some connections with FL. Didn’t buy the Robe this Sackmas because I wanted to save in case there’s a nice lore home comfort item with the KS. Like a lamp that gives +1 watchful or a black (all black) picture for +1 Bizarre!
In any case, I can’t wait!
KS draft (+1 eagerness, +1 Sky interests, +2 LoN)
If that’s the case then I would rather you guys focused on Fallen London’s current/future content, as opposed to sacrificing Fallen London’s current/future content for Fallen London centered kickstarter rewards.
The social challenges look pretty cool and I’m sure we’ll enjoy them. Is the Royal Society challenge going to have some sort of chart linking the number of backers recruited to a specific level of R.S. opulence/outlandishness? Right now the R.S. rewards for reaching certain backer levels are rather vague and it would be nice to have a clearer relationship between numbers and results (within reason of course). This would give us hard goals to shoot for.
edited by Anne Auclair on 1/21/2017
[quote=Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook]
Regarding the backer rewards… I don’t envy FBG the responsibility of deciding those, 'cause if you go back and read some of the comments on the Sunless Sea KS, people were extremely nasty about them. Any in-game reward content was decried as a ripoff, a rort, criminality of the highest order. And, well, they’ll just as freely be accused of same for not offering said content. I’d be tempted to just have those in camp A sort things out directly with those in camp B, and not come back 'til they’ve come up with a clear consensus.[/quote]
Well, if that’s the case, I can understand why they did it. Still disappointed, but I understand why it would be a hassle they’d rather avoid.
I shall definitely be contributing, probably a bit more than I really should, partly because I’m eager to try out FBG’s new game and partly out of gratitude for the enjoyment that the fruits of their labor have brought me so far.
I started out with Sunless Sea a few months ago on a whim: I had first seen Sunless Sea in a review somewhere comparing it favorably to No Man’s Sky, and tried it out. That eventually led me to Fallen London, which has now consumed my time available for gaming to the extent that I am on a hiatus from Sunless Sea. Both impressed me very favorably, and the total of my Fate purchases has not been trivial.
Where I live 100 pounds represents the approximate price of 14 pints of Guinness (or equivalent) in a pub, and 150 pounds will get you a good dinner for two at a relatively nice restaurant if you don’t go overboard with the wine. Sacrificing the funds necessary for a solid evening at the pub, or substituting a home-made meal for a night out, seems like a good tradeoff to me given what I’ve seen of FBG’s work so far.
Even though the largest T-shirt might be a bit snug for me (decades of carousing can do that to you), and I don’t have space in my study to display a star chart, my very positive experience with FBG games thus far has motivated me to be quite eager to provide support, even though I’d never considered KS support for any other venture previously.
I’m looking forward to hearing more details of the coming project, and to the KS launch.
I’m interested in Sunless Sky inspired FL content, but I don’t care if it’s exclusive to the kickstarter. I’d be fine with people being able to buy it later with fate. I take no pleasure in denying others the chance to get something cool, just so I can have it all to myself. If it’s something like an item or a companion, perhaps the kickstarter granted version can have a special message added to the description text like "Earned by backing Sunless Skies", so there’s a tiny bit of exclusivity for early backers without locking people out of anything important.
It does feel odd to me that there’s no FL content from backing whatsoever. The only reward over 30 pounds that I care about whatsoever is the star map, and I’m not paying 150 pounds for a single item that might be sold again later. I’m not even sure whether I will spend 30 pounds as a second copy of the game is useless for me.
If the issue is concerns over FL story rewards taking time away from Sunless Skies content, why would it have to be something as major as a story? I’d happily go from 30 to 40 pounds for the space equivalent of a Parabolan Panther item. As in, some equippable Sunless Skies-themed item appearing in both games, no story or additional content attached. I suspect that most of the time spent on the Parabolan Panther backer reward went to writing, coding, and testing the Panther’s story and the kitten mechanics, rather than writing and implementing the Parabolan Panther companion itself. (If Failbetter can implement three items and related storylets for each FL faction converted to Renown, a single item for a Kickstarter reward should be well within possibility.)
As for later arrivals missing out on backer rewards, isn’t that the point of Kickstarter? The entire model relies on backers coughing up money for a final product that doesn’t yet exist, may never exist in a form they want, and will cost less than most of the backer tiers. Giving backers something special to attract enough people is integral to the system, and often that something special is Kickstarter-exclusive. I’m disappointed that I missed the FL content for backing The Silver Tree and Sunless Sea, but I’m not angry it exists - I just hope it goes on sale eventually and enjoy the rest of the game in the meantime. Backer-exclusive FL content is barely different than all the free items no longer available, yet I don’t see people complaining about being denied Forbidden Map-Fragments or Primitive Hats or Archaeologist’s Hats or Marvellous Model Ships and so on.
If exclusive content is really that big a concern, why not make something where the exclusivity is time-limited? For example, let’s use my hypothetical 40 pound backer tier. Backers at that tier and above get a Space Telescope in FL, a Watchful +5 weapon: decent but nowhere near best in slot. Then after a set length of time - say, when Sunless Skies is officially released - anyone can purchase this Telescope for a higher price. (AKA higher than ten pounds, but I’m not sure how much Fate that would be in practice.) To keep the sense of backers getting something special, give them all a metaquality thanking them for the support*. Thus backers get something unique, and other players aren’t locked out forever.
*"I supported Victorian Space Imperialism and all I got was this lousy metaquality"
That’s essentially the same structure as Exceptional Stories have already. Anyone in the right place at the right time with the right degree of financial security has an incentive to spend money, and those who already would spend money get something in return. Latecomers or those who didn’t spend money can still get the reward, if they’re willing to wait for it to be available and then spend a higher amount. While I’ve seen occasional complaints about the ES model, the objections weren’t about the players supporting FBG financially getting a reward with a time-based incentive. (I think the complaints were mostly concerns over a monthly story taking time away from free FL content, which wouldn’t apply to a one-time small reward.)
So yeah. Myself and assorted others would definitely be interested in a FL backer reward, and would care enough to give more money (or to give in the first place). The delayed-availability ES model is a compromise between "backers get something special" and "non-backers are locked out", and I bet there’s other models I haven’t thought of. A simple reward wouldn’t have a big time cost, so why not offer one when it would attract more backers and a higher chance for the Kickstarter to succeed?
I was thinking some more about what Sir Fredrick said about people on opposite side of the issue needing to come to a consensus, and wondering if maybe there’s a way to deal with that issue. How about a poll? You could ask “would you be willing to donate money to the SSk kickstarter for a unique FL reward?” and then , as a followup question “how much would you be willing to donate for such a reward?” That way, FBG could find out how much money they could potentially receive or miss out on by offering/not offering such a reward. If it’s a lot, they’d know that offering something like this is a good idea for the kickstarter, and if it’s not enough to make a difference, they’ll know that offering such a reward is more hassle than it’s worth (in terms of both time spent creating the reward and the negative reactions from those wo can’t get it). As of now, they’re pretty much guessing based on the reactions of vocal people on either side of the issue, and have no idea what the silent majority actually wants.
Not sure where you’d host such a poll though. It’s already been pointed out that most FL players probably don’t read the forums, but maybe putting a link directly on the FL site would work. Or they could have an urchin stop by in-game and question our characters directly, like they used to do for feedback on exceptional stories.
No joke, I was willing to donate up to 100 bucks if the reward included stuff for fallen london.
I’m not really interested in a T-shirt, I’m barely interested in a second copy. I was very interested in Fallen London content.
I said, in the KS survey, that the biggest misstep of the old KS was the fact that sunless sea players can’t buy the backer rewards as DLC. This is true. It’s annoying as crap that it’s not available.
However, big however! I love the temple club and the panther in FL. I am not a backer for those, but I love that I got a kitten in FL and can get invited to the club. These are COOL. They add social interactions that make the user feel special and useful and desirable to the social players of the game, but seriously, a HUGE incentive for my donation was something for Fallen London.
[color=#0066ff]Funnily enough, we did a large survey about this Kickstarter which was answered by about 3,700 people, coming from these forums, the IRC and discords, reddit, facebook, twitter, tumblr, the Steam forums and through the link being shared from those platforms. [/color]
[color=#0066ff]
[/color]
[color=#0066ff]The survey didn’t include questions about how much people would be willing to pay (it’s deeply subjective and might not have reflected the value of the rewards or taken into account things that people can’t be expected to know about, like fulfilment costs), but otherwise the results of the survey were used to build the Kickstarter into what you see now.[/color]
After reading the thoughts of others, I do agree that some sort of small little pet like the Parabolan Panther could be a nice reward. One that only backers can get, but others can enjoy as well, as with the kitten-giving. But yeah, that’s as far as I’d go, as this is a Sunless Skies kickstarter, after all.
[color=#0066ff]Without spoiling the nature of some of the higher social rewards, I think you’ll be excited.[/color]
Excitement intensifies
[quote=Hannah Flynn][color=#0066ff]Funnily enough, we did a large survey about this Kickstarter which was answered by about 3,700 people, coming from these forums, the IRC and discords, reddit, facebook, twitter, tumblr, the Steam forums and through the link being shared from those platforms. [/color]
[color=#0066ff]
[/color]
[color=#0066ff]The survey didn’t include questions about how much people would be willing to pay (it’s deeply subjective and might not have reflected the value of the rewards or taken into account things that people can’t be expected to know about, like fulfilment costs), but otherwise the results of the survey were used to build the Kickstarter into what you see now.[/color][/quote]
Okay, fair enough. Thanks for explaining.
Can I ask a couple of other minor questions? What’s the reason for not revealing all the social rewards right away? And if the social rewards are supposed to be for FL players to unlock FL rewards, why is the best one (that we can see) Sunless Skies content (the extra port)? I’m curious as to the reasoning behind these decisions.
[color=#0066ff]When planning a Kickstarter it’s bad form to release all of your stretch goals and social goals upfront. We have balanced the whole campaign, including the currently-unseen goals, and will reveal them throughout the campaign when initial goals are met. The implication in revealing a Fallen London social reward is that there will be further ones. We predict that we’ll reach 2,000 backers in the first week, so of course we have to release the Royal Society information straight away.[/color]
[color=#0066ff]
[/color]
[color=#0066ff]I hope that goes some way to explaining, as I can’t really tell you any more. I hope you’ll trust that we’re doing the best we can to make the KS interesting to a wide range of players, and that we have fun ideas in store. It’s our fun ideas you’re interested in, I hope![/color]
Again, thanks for explaining. I appreciate it.
Hey all, I pretty much registered to say that I enjoy Sunless Sea a lot (I think I might have 300+ hours on Steam?) and I’ve been interested in seeing this game come to fruition. In particular I wanted to say that I’m really excited and a bit scared that there are stories with lingering consequences between games and captains. On the one hand, I’ve done some absolutely atrocious and game ending things in Sunless Sea so that I could see the text associated with them, and it would be a bit sad to have to restart completely to see new options. On the other hand, this is unexplored territory for me and I’m curious to see where you all go with it.
There are a few other thoughts that I have regarding the Kickstarter, but I just wanted to say thanks for making one of my favorite games and that I’ll definitely be funding if I can. I live in America so the conversion from our dollars to pounds is not insignificant for the higher rewards, but I can tighten my best for a couple of weeks if need be.
Will both copies of the game received through rewards offer the backer DLC?
I was quite pleased to learn that Planescape: Torment is an influence. The game had one of a few worlds that I’ve read of which have matched Fallen London in its bizarre wonder.