I started the game and got out of the prison. So far simple enough I suppose. I want to be watchful and I was told Ladybones road is a good place to practice. Done! I can’t remember what button I managed to press but I manage to accidentally stumble my way to the opportunity and storylet page. I guess this is just how the story tab is going to be from now on. So just scanning some of the options I have I’m starting to get confused again. This opportunity deck thing, it says I have 6 cards waiting. From what I understand that means it’s like a 6 card deck and drawing one is a random event. Storylets are events that are basically what it says on the label. I can barely understand where I am now so I figure I’ll go with the storylets. The obvious choice for me was to find lodgings. Don’t want to get caught by the constables for vagrancy. I don’t know what that means but it sounds bad. I click go and it’s nice enough to show you the story and give you choices before it consumes your action. It seems like you can preview storylets and only when you’ve committed to something does it take your action. I don’t know what secrets are but I already made a post asking about all the confusing rent nonsense. Now of course the problems continue after choosing to learn secrets to pay rent. I click the go button and success! I learned the secrets, paid the rent, and now I’ve got a home. That’s 1 action but that’s ok. There’s plenty more. Onwards! Decipher graffiti, listen to gossip, last constable, no maybe not now. I mean I got my new room I want to explore what that all does for me now. I think you’re supposed to get more story stuff right? I can travel between my lodgings and ladybones road so let’s see what that does. I’ll just click perhaps not since I don’t really feel like doing these things now and my opportunity deck and travel button seem to have disappeared. "Find somewhere to live!". Wait what? I just did that. Well crap it took my action and didn’t save. That’s fine 1 point isn’t much anyways. Click, click, back. WTF it took another point but it still didn’t give me my lodgings? I keep trying, I’ve refreshed the page but it isn’t working. It’s taking my points, and hell I even get to keep the experience for doing it but I just want a place to live. Is there going to be a penalty if I can’t get my lodgings in time? I want to do other things but it seems like progression is just…bugged. What gives?
If you want a place to live and that option seems to be bugged, it MAY help to just buy a place to live from the Bazzar for a cheap option. A Rooftop Shack can be brought for 150 Primordial Shrieks and A Smokey Flophouse Dormitory can be brought for 200 Rostygold. There are other options but it depends on what you can afford. And I’m not SURE it will help but it may.
I thought secrets were the currency in fallen london. What’s the bazaar? What’s a primordial Shriek? What’s a smokey slophouse dormitory and where are they located? I want to stay in ladybones because it said that’s how I learn to be watchful.
Strangely it doesn’t cost Actions to travel to other parts of the city, so your best bet may be to simply travel to your lodgings through the storylet, as it might eb that using “perhaps not” to avoid it just throws you back to a storylet where your only choice is to go to your lodgings as part of the pseudo-tutorial. You can then return to do watchful storylets in Ladybones Road as soon as you’ve showed the game that you so indeed know where you live.
I’m not quite sure I understand the problem you’re describing. Are you saying that you’ve unlocked your Lodgings - that, when you click on the Travel button, your Lodgings are a valid destination appearing at the top-right of the map - but the "Find somewhere to live" story is still appearing, and still deducting Secrets from your inventory when you use it? Do you think you could post a screenshot of the option you’re playing and the result you’re getting?[li]
edited by Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook on 2/11/2015
In the travel button there is always an option for lodgings. However your lodgings under the myself tab were always labeled as the prison cell. You can travel to your lodgings even if you didn’t do the story yet. There is a storylet called find somewhere to live. By clicking that button it takes you to the next page where you choose how you pay for rent. You have an option to steal secrets, learn them legit, or pay with rostygold. I click to learn them legit. It brings you to the success screen, deals out xp, and takes away an action. When you press onwards it takes you to another screen. It does not bring you to what I would call the main story screen. It presents three new storylets and nothing else. There is a button that says perhaps not that will take you back to where you can travel, and use your opportunity deck. The three new storylets also disappear from the list. I don’t know what you mean by deducting secrets or what inventory you’re talking about. All I know is there is a button that says earn 15 secrets legitimately to pay rent and I pressed it.
Ah, apologies - it’s been a while since I ran that starting content, and I misremembered. Okay, the trick here is that there’s an option to -earn- secrets to pay rent, and an option to actually -pay- the rent using those secrets. Once you have 15 secrets, you can use the “Rent a room” option to spend them, and get a new Lodgings.
Never mind I got it to work. So apparently yes you HAVE to not only play through the extra storylets but you have to GRIND them as well. You have to choose the storylet to find somewhere to live. Then you have to choose how you want to do it. That alone consumes an action but does literally nothing. All it does is enable you to choose how to REALLY want to earn those secrets, which in turn consume an extra action. After you choose how you actually want to earn your rent you’ll be given secrets. But wait there’s more because even though it specifically says you will be given 15 secrets you may only get 6 or 10. After that it’ll take you to the main story menu where you have to go through the process again until you have 15 secrets. These secrets are tracked so if say you earned 6 and then 10 the second time, it totals it and the third time you choose to find somewhere to live, you’ll see an option to unlock your lodgings. Terrible design that just blatantly lies to the player. This alone is a big black mark that makes me hesitant to continue. No telling what else the game might lie about. it already hides so much.
Honestly, this is just a simple misunderstanding. It’s a tutorial of sorts, meant to show you how to travel to different areas and how to earn items (in this case, Secrets.) It gives you a quest - earn 15 Secrets to pay rent - and then sends you to an area where you can carry out that quest. Once you’ve earned 15 Secrets, you trade them in for your Lodgings and the quest is complete.
Also, if you look in the Myself tab, you’ll find that there are whispered secrets in your inventory.
I’ve decided to check this out, so I’ve created a new character.
After escaping from New Newgate prison, you get a mandatory storylet (no other option available yet - not even to travel) which gives you a Magnificent Diamond and explicitly tells you "Sell your Magnificent Diamond at the Bazaar to raise funds!", and "Click the Bazaar tab to visit the Bazaar, where you can sell your possessions and buy wonderful things.".
Then you are moved properly to your location of choice (e.g. Ladybones Road) and can see the available storylets and opportunity card deck. Indeed, if you click Travel, your Lodgings is an option, which might be a bug. Travel does not consume actions.
Now there’s the storylet called "Find somewhere to live!", which is unlocked by the "Homeless!" quality (which should have probably blocked access to the Lodgings). This storylet is Universal and iwll appear anywhere in London as long as you’re Homeless. As a tutorial, it gives you 4 options to get what you need to get this Lodgings - each option corresponding to one of the 4 main character attributes, and to one of the 4 starting areas in London:
[ul][li]Charm your way - required Persuasive, and directs you to Veilgarden to increase it[/li][li]Steal Whispered Secrets - requires Shadowy, and directs you to Spite[/li][li]Learn Whispered Secrets - requires Watchful, and directs you to Ladybones Road[/li][li]Earn Rostygold - requires Dangerous, and directs you to Watchmakers’ Hill[/li][/ul]Choosing to Learn Whispered Secrets (as you say you did) increases Watchful., moves you to Ladybones Road (if you weren’t there already), and presents you with several storylets which can help you learn secrets. I think this is where you got confused. At this point you’ve learned no secrets yet and didn’t pay rent. The "Learn Whispered Secrets" option simply put you on the path to get them. Choosing one of the options now available (e.g. Decipher graffiti") and succeeding the challenge gets you a reward, which includes "You now have 5 x Whispered Secret ".
Choosing an action on a storylet costs an action (unless otherwise specified). So choosing to "Learn Whispered Secrets" costs an action (it does increases you Watchful quality). And choosing to "Decipher graffiti" costs an action, etc.
Once you’ve played enough storylets in Ladybones Road to collect 15 Whispered Secrets, then the "Find somewhere to live!" storylet has new options in it: The "Learn" and "Steal" options are replaces by a "Rent a room" option, which indicates the 15 Whispered Secrets prerequisite. Choosing that option you get an explicit message that "You’ve lost 15 x Whispered Secret (new total 0)", and that you’ve moved into your new Lodgings.
I hope this makes things clearer.
I think Fallen London can be a bit confusing at first. There’s all these different cards, qualities, items and locations, and the writing’s always keeps to the FL style, so it might not be terribly clear from a game perspective what’s happening. The key is, when the card is new to you, to read carefully both before and after you click. You’ll soon start to get accustomed to the different cards, and how the general gameplay works. It sounds like you just missed the fine print, so to speak.
I beg you to stop with the giant walls of text. I stared at the OP for so long I began to see Correspondence sigils behind it.
Fortunately more patient people than I seem to have been able to answer your question!