I have 13 “A Selection of Jilt’s Treasures”, they were temporarily available as one of the rewards for the option in The Flit that gives you random items as well as increasing casing. You can’t sell them and they don’t do anything, they’re just a curiosity item with some interesting flavor text.
Hmm. It appears I was a little preoccupied in Newgate while everyone got to enjoy the sun. Along with the unfortunate timing of losing my Connected: The Masters which denied me a River in a Box (not to mention the first disappointment of missing the fur coat), I will admit that I’m a touched peeved at the luck I’ve been experienced, and perhaps a little at Failbetter for allowing such situations to exist. While it may be great fun for the player of one week who gets an end-game item and secret, the devoted players who have played for years are practically given a smack to the face, all in the name of chance. I’ve read the explanation as to why this has happened, and still find myself unsatisfied: it feels insulting that these excuses should be enough, to be blunt.
Oh well, ignore the cat-profiled player sulking in the corner. Or the other half of the fanbase which has missed the event. Aside from a complete replay of this vital content on the Sun, I don’t see my feelings for this game being completely restored. This slight towards the fanbase as a whole has been sourly noted.
I played a lot when I first found the game, then I took a break. The last month or so I’ve been playing a lot more but I’m a little lost on some of the plots. Does anyone know about the River In A Box? I just wanted to see if it was part of some later plot before I decide to sell it. Its worth a lot.
[quote=Curses]Hmm. It appears I was a little preoccupied in Newgate while everyone got to enjoy the sun. Along with the unfortunate timing of losing my Connected: The Masters which denied me a River in a Box (not to mention the first disappointment of missing the fur coat), I will admit that I’m a touched peeved at the luck I’ve been experienced, and perhaps a little at Failbetter for allowing such situations to exist. While it may be great fun for the player of one week who gets an end-game item and secret, the devoted players who have played for years are practically given a smack to the face, all in the name of chance. I’ve read the explanation as to why this has happened, and still find myself unsatisfied: it feels insulting that these excuses should be enough, to be blunt.
Oh well, ignore the cat-profiled player sulking in the corner. Or the other half of the fanbase which has missed the event. Aside from a complete replay of this vital content on the Sun, I don’t see my feelings for this game being completely restored. This slight towards the fanbase as a whole has been sourly noted.[/quote]
Add me to the list of people who had no idea that this had happened. I think what I find most disheartening is that many days of the week I check in every hour or so for a block of between six and eleven hours…just not the day that would have made a difference, apparently. I’m not angry or complaining that things like this shouldn’t be done, I’m just sad.
I’m okay with giving out rewards and such, but would it be possible to give curiosities instead of goods for such short events (Dreadful Surmises are okay, since we had a fortnight for them, X-mas items were also okay, since we actually had some time for it)? Curiosities are merely mementoes and story-based items (except sapphires, rubies and Posi-equipment + scientific notes, which are mainly hoarded for selling in some way or another).
By making classified goods which haven’t appeared otherwise in the game yet available for a very short period, you make it impossible for us other goods collectors to get the items until they’re released otherwhere. (I’m okay with giving out Enigmas, Night-whispers, Coruscating souls and pretty much anything in the goods section that can be obtained in a different manner - Same with the rivers, since they’re mostly mementos).
Not to be one of ‘those,’ certainly not to misstate the case, but a bit of acting, a surprise reading, etc., are inherently transient. Something you write down isn’t, although I understand it would have required effort to make it more enduring. I would say no one expects you to work for free, but you sort of do, so that might actually be misstating the case. I am fine to pay for game content, simply because the whole ‘free to play’ model seems impractical to me. As long as you need to eat and the writing of this takes time, your time has value. I’d pay for a novel, even in installments; why wouldn’t I pay for something objectively more difficult to create?
Of course I respect and enjoy! your inclination to drop little nifty things into the game. As I wrote previously, I was just stating a preference for the Christmas game mechanics over the Feast finale event. I suspect most players experience enough missed opportunities, ambiguous results and blind choices that they look to FL for something different.
Not to be one of ‘those,’ certainly not to misstate the case, but a bit of acting, a surprise reading, etc., are inherently transient. Something you write down isn’t, although I understand it would have required effort to make it more enduring. I would say no one expects you to work for free, but you sort of do, so that might actually be misstating the case. I am fine to pay for game content, simply because the whole ‘free to play’ model seems impractical to me. As long as you need to eat and the writing of this takes time, your time has value. I’d pay for a novel, even in installments; why wouldn’t I pay for something objectively more difficult to create?
Of course I respect and enjoy! your inclination to drop little nifty things into the game. As I wrote previously, I was just stating a preference for the Christmas game mechanics over the Feast finale event. I suspect most players experience enough missed opportunities, ambiguous results and blind choices that they look to FL for something different.[/quote]
On the subject of free to play, Amanda Palmer’s recent TED talk makes sense of the matter nicely. t’s about music, but it pretty much still directly applies.
http://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_palmer_the_art_of_asking.html
I MISSED THE DAMN SUN!? BLOODY TOMB COLONIES!
Oh, I just heard that this happened. sadface
edited by Inky Petrel on 3/8/2013
[color=#009900]Last year, I ran a live one-off surprise event as a bit of out-of-hours fun, with content that changed from minute to minute, to mark the end of the Feast. The players who saw it mostly enjoyed it, but some of the players who missed it reacted with considerable anger: hence the thread above.
I’ve seen some folk assuming there’ll be a similar event at the end of the Feast. There won’t - I wanted to give the assumers a heads-up to stave off disappointment. This is because
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however loudly we trumpet the event, on however many channels, some people will miss it, again, and will probably react the same way. Some players were also angry because we didn’t run it in their time-zones, and obviously I can’t stay up all night to do that.
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something like this is time-intensive to run, and isn’t worth it unless it either makes us money or is fun for me to do - it doesn’t make us money, and the angry responses make it not-fun.
Instead, I’ve put together quite an unusual piece of content which is much more gently time-limited - it’ll run at least a week past the end of the Feast. I suspect this one will also divide opinion: but it won’t exclude anyone, and I’m interested to see how the experiment plays out. We expect to launch this tomorrow, alongside the weekly snippet.[/color][li]
I’d say something cautiously approving, but if I keep up this rate of being nice to FailBetter, people might think the moderator role is a paid one. :-p
I am moderately anticipatory. And I’m glad I won’t have to worry about not sleeping/hiding in work toilets/connecting the IRC thing to my brain to alert me at a crucial moment. Very glad. Especially as I’m going on holiday soonish, and will be relying on occasional cafe WiFi for my fix.
Thanks for the update! I appreciate it.
[quote=babelfishwars]
… people might think the moderator role is a paid one. :-p
I am moderately anticipatory.[/quote]
Pun intended? :-)
[quote=dov][quote=babelfishwars]
… people might think the moderator role is a paid one. :-p
I am moderately anticipatory.[/quote]
Pun intended? :-)[/quote]
Oh god no. Punning is immoral and makes you go blind. ;-)
Ah, excellent. The timing wasn’t an issue for me, but I wasn’t looking forward to managing my action use so I’d catch the start of the Sunlight with a full candle. Looking forward to the experiment! It sounds very exciting.
I’m sure last year’s content was fascinating, but as I have other commitments on the night of the 28th, I had resigned myself to missing anything ephemeral you chose to do this year. It’s nice to hear things will be a little less frantic.
[/color] [quote=Alexis Kennedy] [color=#009900]- something like this is time-intensive to run, and isn’t worth it unless it either makes us money or is fun for me to do - it doesn’t make us money, and the angry responses make it not-fun.[/color] [/quote]This is the only reason anyone should need. Why, it’s the same reasoning I use when I choose which cards or storylets to play! Except with the addition that it doesn’t just have to make money. It has to make more money than what I could otherwise be doing, level of fun being equal.[color=#009900]
[/color] [quote=Alexis Kennedy] [color=#009900]Instead, I’ve put together quite an unusual piece of content which is much more gently time-limited - it’ll run at least a week past the end of the Feast. I suspect this one will also divide opinion: but it won’t exclude anyone, and I’m interested to see how the experiment plays out. We expect to launch this tomorrow, alongside the weekly snippet.[/color][/quote]Thanks for the heads up! I was wondering where the new weekly snippet was, and for how long my fishes will have to keep giving me luck before I lose the annual opportunity to turn them into diamonds. ;)
Alexis, many, many thanks for saying this now. It will save me a great deal of anxiety and upset wondering if it will happen, when it will happen, and if I’ve missed it. Much appreciated. I’m looking forward to the unusual content.
[quote=Alexis Kennedy]
[color=rgb(0, 153, 0)]- something like this is time-intensive to run, and isn’t worth it unless it either makes us money or is fun for me to do - it doesn’t make us money, and the angry responses make it not-fun.[/color]
[/quote][li]
It’s also not worth it because the players who missed it had a very not-fun experience when they found out they’d missed a lore-heavy, profitable piece of content because they were at work or asleep. We’re not saying that justifies any of the more obnoxious complaints–we assume there were at least a few of those–but there was certainly reason to be upset.
This new plan seems to solve all three problems with style and grace. There is very few problems in life that cannot be solved by extending the deadline. One could argue that one could solve life itself with such a solution, but, alas, that is beyond us at the moment.
Regardless, we like this quote: it shows that how connected Failbetter is with its fans. If the players are unhappy, the dev(s?) is(are?) unhappy.
Alexis, any chance you’d share with us what the “Trap a little sunlight” was supposed to do? I understand your decision not to do the event, but this question has been eating me for a year now. And if nobody will ever have the chance to play that option…