[quote=streetfelineblue](For instance, i think that both the Bishop and Cora Bagley don’t appear outside of the Ambition. If something should cough happen to them, it wouldn’t disrupt much the Neath’s equilibrium). Possibly, the chance to learn something about some mysteries of Fallen London… Something more than just going to all of the players to convince them to do something they already should be willing to do! edited by streetfelineblue on 2/22/2012[/quote]
I think the Bishop do get mentioned once or two now and then.
The Devout Intriguer takes tea with the Bishop of St. Fiacres each Wednesday, in the Bishop’s private chapel. After the meeting, she goes shopping and blah blah blah blah…
But Cora does feel… rather disconnected from the rest of the world. Compare to other named ambition characters like Carrywell, she… feels rather unimportant.
Also…
“The marvelous is a card game that bet your soul for your heart’s-”
“Dear, anyone can just go up to the Brass Embassy and sit down for a game of cards.”
“Hey, aren’t you already soulless?”
Agreed on all accounts, Streetfeline. I chose Heart’s Desire because I liked the idea of the Watchful and Persuasive stats (I prefer to solve problems through intellect and persuasion rather than brute force), but the plot really does feel quite shallow. I’m hearing all these things about the gripping plots of the other ambitions, while all I’m doing is convincing a bunch of people to play cards…eh. I’ve invested so much progress in it that I doubt I’ll back out now, but I am rather disappointed. I do hope there’s a major plot twist coming soon.
At least the Manager seems like he might be intersting to look into, considering the speculation that he’s really the King of the First City. But I agree that the story really needs a good villain. Perhaps whoever forced Cora into hiding might make themselves known. Even if I was interested in the other storylines, though, Yana could not switch, as they’re after something no amount of money, glory, or blood can obtain. edited by Patrick Reding on 2/24/2012
The Bishop of St. Fiacres does indeed get a few other mentions. He shows up for a little bit in the second half of the fate-locked portion of the Labyrinth of Tigers.
Not quite the character that London’s other Bishop is, but he appears alongside Mr. Huffman and the Duchess in that portion, so it can be assumed he is intended to have some relevance.
I just read the plot lines of the other ambitions on the wiki and am now a little disappointed with the Heart’s Desire, if only because we haven’t had a unique location for our ambition…yet. I hope we will have one eventually to even it out a bit.
However when it comes to mysteries by themselves, I do think they’re fairly even. I mean, only the Light Fingers folks find out about the secrets of the Orphanage, but is the Orphanage even mentioned anywhere else? I’d certainly never heard of it. I was pretty curious about the red honey though and somewhat about the Vake from their mentions in sidebar text, but I don’t feel those are necessarily bigger mysteries than the Topsy King and the Hotel Manager (though I do hope we HD folks will find out more about the Manager as time goes on). Although, some pretty big clues to some pretty big mysteries are available in Venderblight, most of that information is also available elsewhere and it only further confirms suspicions. edited by KatarinaNavane on 2/25/2012
[quote=Patrick Reding]At least the Manager seems like he might be intersting to look into, considering the speculation that he’s really the King of the First City. But I agree that the story really needs a good villain. Perhaps whoever forced Cora into hiding might make themselves known. Even if I was interested in the other storylines, though, Yana could not switch, as they’re after something no amount of money, glory, or blood can obtain. edited by Patrick Reding on 2/24/2012[/quote]
There’s one thing that really sets me off about Heart’s Desire: it sounds incredibly heartless compared to others. I mean, after all Nemesis is a quest of righteous justice for your beloved dead; and while Bag a Legend is mostly matter of pride in taking down a mythical beast, it remains a quest to rid the Neath from one of his most dangerous monsters. Light Fingers SEEMED the most self-serving Ambition, but going on it turned out it allowed you to perform a quantity of noble and altruistic deeds… Heart’s Desire? You get to force a poor guy who lost his sanity on the Marvellous to play again T.T Especially disheartening if you consider that the Topsy King declared he’s been happy in his “walksies” for more than ten years; now, the Marvellous usually happens only when a very specific planetary conjunction appears, and the Blind Astronomer says there’s still five years to the next game unless you manage to make it start sooner; this means:
either the Topsy King didn’t play in the games played in the ten years he’s been mad, so it means the Marvellous can be played without him, and I see no reason to pull the poor chap out of his happiness to play again (and hopefully LOSE, because of course the player hopes to win :s);
or, the Topsy King is absolutely necessary to the game, and so for the last ten years no Marvellous was played. But this would mean the other players are EXTREMELY indifferent about what should be the most important game of their lives, passing like ten years without any chance to play it and apparently not giving a damn.
Either way, it’s anticlimactic T.T
Anyway; on Twitter Nathan Attford and OScarletO seemed to like this Ambition quite a lot, and told me that the real charm of Heart’s Desire lies in the subtle hints that gives regarding the other Ambitions and other secrets of Fallen London. So, it could just be that I’m too dumb to catch them, or maybe that I have to learn more of those mysteries from other actions and storylets (I’m not even at 50 Dangerous and Shadowy, I still miss a lot of content), so maybe I’ll start liking the Ambition more in the future. But in my opinion this still doesn’t make for the lack of an engrossing plot. It’s a shame, because at the start it really hooked me up; I was expecting very much. edited by streetfelineblue on 2/25/2012
I believe that Heart’s Desire is the Ambition that ties into the rest of Fallen London the best though.
I’ve seen a couple of places with options related to it that I couldn’t access, mostly when interacting with the Topsy King, and I’m quite interested in the unique method of leaving court that it offers.
Nemesis, meanwhile, hasn’t shown up outside of itself and the House of Mirrors.
It also seems to be the most popular, if the newspaper thread is any indication. That’s probably a combination of having ovbious tie-ins with various storylets (the Manager’s street-stalking, in particular) and the highly open-ended nature of the final reward. Two corpses and a giant gemstone pale when compared to “the one thing you most desire”.
I have a different theory about its popularity. Basically, lots of videogames have stealth and almost all games have killing things, but very few make persuasiveness and watchfulness into major game mechanics. Because Persuasive and Watchful are the skills that set Echo Bazaar apart from the crowd, it is natural that its fans would favour those skills over those less neglected by the rest of the gaming world.
I really enjoy the Heart’s Desire, I like learning about the Topsy King and the Correspondence. I was lucky to be able to get the First City coins pretty easily, but it’s really the information about the Correspondence and also the Manager of The Royal Bethlehem. I’m interested to see what actually happens in the end.
Heart’s Desire is also likely the first Ambition you are going to see because your first few actions are likely to be spent increasing your Persuasive in order to obtain a room in an Attic rather than paying for a lodging house, and when you see a new thing you tend to click it right away.
I do have to admit a certain curiosity as to how FBG plans to deal with the other ambitions. Once ours is finished, will we never be able to start a new one until we cough up 50 Fate? Will we get a free cup of Lethean Tea? Or will the lock on other ambitions just disappear?
Chances are, we won’t actually get our heart’s desire (or our character’s) and instead get to pick a reward from a small storylet (or not even have a choice). It might not even be half the size of that giant monstrosity back at the House of Chimes!
I don’t know about the ohters, but my choice was pretty much this. Actually the first Ambition that I found available was Nemesis, but at the time I had already decided for the Watchful/Persuasive build (a Philo Vance type, though he turned out more like a Wesley Dodds instead) so when I saw an Ambition based on those very Qualities I applied without a second thought ^^
@LukeMcMillan, may I enquire as to how you managed to reach the Topsy King 13 stage? I currently seem to be stuck at The Topsy King 9, and the only option currently open to me does nothing to move the story along, only increasing my persuasive qualities. I’m hoping I don’t need to save up 320 Echoes for a Patent Scrutinizer Deluxe but it’s starting to look that way…
If I may intervene, I proceeded SPOILER[color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]giving 3x Extraordinary Implications to the Devious Bookseller (you can create Extraodinary Implications from your “Myself” tab). Going to the Forgotten Quarter only wastes an Action, visiting the Topsy King ends up in you losing your copy of “On the Maladies of Goats”, forcing you to buy it back from the Bookseller (at a far higher price than the first time). I never tried the Patent Scrutinizer Deluxe option because I don’t have one.[/color]SPOILER. edited by streetfelineblue on 3/16/2012
[quote=streetfelineblue] If I may intervene, I proceeded SPOILER[color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]giving 3x Extraordinary Implications to the Devious Bookseller (you can create Extraodinary Implications from your “Myself” tab). Going to the Forgotten Quarter only wastes an Action, visiting the Topsy King ends up in you losing your copy of “On the Maladies of Goats”, forcing you to buy it back from the Bookseller (at a far higher price than the first time). I never tried the Patent Scrutinizer Deluxe option because I don’t have one.[/color]SPOILER. edited by streetfelineblue on 3/16/2012[/quote]
Ahh, thankyou very much! I don’t have enough resources to create said items, but I’ll keep your advice in mind :)
I’m also curious about whether I’ll be able to pursue other ambitions once I’m done with Light Fingers. Do you get the opportunity to attempt another one? I have Lethean Tea Leaves that were given to me at one point in this storyline, but I’ve refused to drink thus far. Would it be possible to do so after I’ve completed this Ambition, and thus attempt another? After all, if they’re all ambitions, I can be quite ambitious! :)