Hullo hullo hullo; here’s this week’s thread for Fallen London questions!
So why is St. Fiacre named after a type of cart, exactly?
A question from last thread made me think - why do Exceptional Stories lock forever if you’re not active, indeed? One could say it’s an incentive for players to remain active, but if they’re paying the subscription anyway I don’t see why it would matter. It’s not like forcing them to come back one a month is likely to lead into additional fate purchases - rather, it’s more likely to force people to cancel their subscription if they are afraid of missing the story. I also doubt there’s any significant amount of people who will purchase an older story after having missed it despite being subscribed (maybe a few, but probably nowhere near enough to make a financial difference).
It doesn’t make much sense from a gameplay perspective either - while you would get stuck with introductory storylets, this is still the case right now since after unlocking a story it always adds a universal storylet. You could also tuck them all away into a single storylet (e.g. “review recent exceptional opportunities” in your Lodgings or something).
Have FB ever commented on this, or does anyone have reasonable ideas?
I suspect that making Exceptional Friendship the unlock requirement for a storylet is much easier, both code-wise and in server load, than checking every single account for Exceptional Friendship every month to set a quality.
I’m sure someone asked this before, but can’t find the answer.
Do we know when the conclusion of the last season will be available? (Or… is it available now, somehow I missed the access point?)
It will be available eventually. Failbetter is busy with the website update so I imagine release of the conclusion is delayed.
The team working on the redesign presumably doesn’t include the writers designing the conclusion, but the release date tends to be unpredictable.
Thank you, both
I’m suddenly not getting any negative stat effects from my Companions. Negative effects from other types of item seem to be working okay. Is it just me?
You don’t check each account for EF. You do everything that needs to be done (which probably means setting the quality pre-emptively) as part of processing the EF subscription payment that you are already processing anyway.
The bigger difference would be that either EFs would not get to play the "free" storylet (which locks when the story itself unlocks), or the pre-emptive quality would need to be in addition to the already existing qualities, or the beginning structure would need to change somewhat to encode both the "has done the free storylet already?" and the "has unlocked the EF proper" bits.
Something about stats is weird, for me Slowcake is asking for 17MW to get from 4 to 5 Notability on 29BDR, which doesn’t sound right. Probably all the changes with the new site deployment borked something.
On the subject of equipped items behaving strangely, my Semiotic Monocle and Twelve-Carat Diamond Ring both ceased to give me stat bonuses today, which was once the case of my Pair of Kingscale Boots. I have reported this to the support@failbettergames.com mailing address.
There’s definitely item issues going on. In addition to those mentioned, the Gang of Hoodlums and Newspaper aren’t working. If anyone notices other items, make sure to report them!
You don’t check each account for EF. You do everything that needs to be done (which probably means setting the quality pre-emptively) as part of processing the EF subscription payment that you are already processing anyway.
The bigger difference would be that either EFs would not get to play the "free" storylet (which locks when the story itself unlocks), or the pre-emptive quality would need to be in addition to the already existing qualities, or the beginning structure would need to change somewhat to encode both the "has done the free storylet already?" and the "has unlocked the EF proper" bits.[/quote]
The issue is that a month’s subscription doesn’t only buy access to the ES active at the time of payment, it buys access to any ES active during those 31 days. (That’s why it’s sometimes possible to get three stories for only one month’s subscription.) As such, unlocking stories the way you suggest wouldn’t cover all stories available during the month. Off the top of my head, it would fail when ending a subscription, getting three stories with one subscription, and using the multi-month subscription bundles previously available through the app. The only way to guarantee catching everyone would be to check every account whenever a new story was released.
It looks like the Diamond Ring isn’t currently applying its stat bonuses. Is anyone else having this problem?
Several items aren’t working. I’ve emailed them myself about a few others (Semiotic Monocle and the Newspaper).
Guess some of those Renown 25 items are finally gonna see some use again!
[color=#9966ff]Hola. Just popping in to let you know we are aware of the stat/quality bonus issue and that some cards are acting suspiciously. We’re working to resolve this at the moment. I’ll post an update here when everything is back to normal. [/color]
Well here’s a question a little different from the new update ones. I am curious about one specific event, and that is the revel of the masters. After completing it it seemed seriously suspicious when it came to the reward, it did not seem Worth all the stuff I put into it. For someone who already has Connected with the masters above 1, is there absolutely any reason to even start the story over again? The things I invest do not seem to pay out well when I get my ‘‘reward’’ from Wines.
Yes, it’s a well-known resource sink – one to avoid if you can. And it comes back again and again.
St. Fiacre is a real life saint (or three) who was famous for his healing abilities, and the name is from pre-Christian Ireland. People think Fiachra might mean something like "battle-king", or be a derivative of fiach, "raven." The name "fiacre" to denote a carriage comes indirectly from the saint, rather than the other way around - the Hôtel de Saint Fiacre in Paris was semi-famous in the 17th century for renting carriages to patrons, and by this convoluted coincidence Saint Fiacre became the patron saint of cab drivers.
Edit: London doesn’t have a St. Fiacre’s Cathedral, although we know some saints had a name change after the Fall, and other obscure saints rose to prominence. Presumably (?) St. Fiacre’s is the Neathy analogue to St. Paul’s.
edited by Barse on 6/7/2018