Weekly Fallen London Questions, 11/04/2022

Here’s this week’s quick questions thread!

Update on ES subscription errors


It has now been almost a week since my subscription dropped out early and was renewed with just 29 days. The same happened to another member of the household.
I have written to Failbetter three times about this, updating my original email, and not had the courtesy of a reply.

I have also pointed them at last week’s FL questions thread, which showed not only that others were in the same position, but that this was a long-standing issue.And that people aren’t pleased.
They’re usually good at this kind of thing, but not this time. Maybe all down with the virus that has supposedly disappeared? Or already off on their Easter hols?

Even if this service is outsourced, some kind of holding message along the lines of &quotwe know about this and we are dealing with it&quot would have been appreciated.
I have played without a subscription at times and will probably do so again, depending on how irritated I get about this. I already know this month is going to be a day short, so I expect the next renewal won’t go smoothly, either.

I decided to check my transactions history and there’s something odd. Up until August '21, the billing was always on the same day (except when the account didn’t have funds). But afterwards it started moving 1 day; 29th Aug, 30 Sept, …, 30 Dec, 31 Jan, 1 March. But now I see that I will be billed on the 29th (or 30th); this date should be the one according to the history.

This may be a problem with the payment provider so the communication may be delayed, but I can’t argue that it’s been more than a month since this issue was reported over Discord.

That’s interesting; it looks as if days may have been added at one point and are being deducted again now. I’ll have to check my transaction history as well. Thanks for the idea.

What should one do with 3200 pieces of scrap? I’ve got more than 3150 and expect to hit 3200 in the near future so I’m wondering what item from the Relickers is the best to &quotbuy&quot. Some I’m sure have become available via alternative means (Rat Market, the various caverns recently opened under Fallen Londen, etc.) so I don’t want to &quotwaste&quot this vast junk collection on one of those. What does that leave?

@ Skinnyman

Finally had a mail from FB today who informed me that my subscription was “functioning” but had nothing to say about the “dropout” or what was going wrong.
I’ve always thought the canny placement of EF subscriptions to harvest a maximum of ES with a minimum of cash was too much of a faff, but I may have to rethink that.

I suppose they all have alternate sources at this point. The Reported Location has several, including Cabinet Noir, Rat Market, and I believe you’ll get one (for a fair price) while building the railroad. Breath of Void can be obtained in Moulin; the Network from a Cabinet Noir; and Veils-Velvet from no place.

Personally I would rate the Veils-Velvet as the most difficult to obtain otherwise, but it’s reasonable to have a different opinion.

I haven’t finished my railroad yet. There are a lot of late game projects that I’ve done a little bit with, like Wars in Parabola, but they all take so long with little measurable pay off apparent to me that I lose motivation to continue. Feels like too much grind for too little reward. If I’m hobnobbing with The Masters and running the Great Hellbound Railroad, why do I have to brawl on the docks to get metal that I then have to forge into rails to personally deliver to the workers?

[quote=DTravel]I haven’t finished my railroad yet. There are a lot of late game projects that I’ve done a little bit with, like Wars in Parabola, but they all take so long with little measurable pay off apparent to me that I lose motivation to continue. Feels like too much grind for too little reward. If I’m hobnobbing with The Masters and running the Great Hellbound Railroad, why do I have to brawl on the docks to get metal that I then have to forge into rails to personally deliver to the workers?[/quote] Making an expensive skeleton and selling it to the Enthusiast of the Ancient World could source a solid chunk of Bessemer Steel and add some variety.

But, your general point definitely stands: there are many points in the mid-to-end-game where the player is asked to just plug away at something for a while to see some new story or get a new item. I think you can get all the Bessemer you need with 3 weeks of straight grinding (less if you never waste an action, but at that point a fuse in my brain would blow and I would just stop playing entirely), but that’s definitely not very engaging. Not sure there’s an elegant solution, though; if the resource costs are trivial, why do we have resources at all? There’s some fun to collecting things, but I’m fairly sure they’re mostly there to stretch out content and occupy end-game players who’ve eaten up all the new story and are waiting for the next batch. Without that, I expect more of us would go dormant and check in every month or two, which would certainly affect both revenue and player retention.

[quote=DTravel]What should one do with 3200 pieces of scrap? I’ve got more than 3150 and expect to hit 3200 in the near future so I’m wondering what item from the Relickers is the best to &quotbuy&quot. Some I’m sure have become available via alternative means (Rat Market, the various caverns recently opened under Fallen Londen, etc.) so I don’t want to &quotwaste&quot this vast junk collection on one of those. What does that leave?[/quote]If you don’t have any of the T8 items, just hold onto those 3200 in case you’ll ever need any of the 4 ASAP.

[quote=Meradine Heidenreich]@ Skinnyman

Finally had a mail from FB today who informed me that my subscription was &quotfunctioning&quot but had nothing to say about the &quotdropout&quot or what was going wrong.
I’ve always thought the canny placement of EF subscriptions to harvest a maximum of ES with a minimum of cash was too much of a faff, but I may have to rethink that.[/quote]Sub does work, but with a delay. That was the initial issue. :( Let’s hope we’ll get more info or that this will be fixed.

But if it’s solely related to their payment processor, I’m not sure there’s much FBG can do.
edited by Skinnyman on 4/16/2022

Are we not having Whitsun this year? What the deuce &quotformer prince of hell&quot has happened to it? As I recall, it was celebrated around surface Easter-tide.

EDIT: Sorry about my formatting. Things went a bit askew with my post!
edited by Vorwoda Hawksby on 4/17/2022

Whitsun usually starts in May. I doubt it’s tied to the actual date of Easter, since Easter itself is notoriously motile.

Of course, “Usually” is going off of only two data points. But those two data points are the 10th and 11th of May.

Thank you, Garak! It seems my memory played me false!