Hi Everyone. I’m in the process of writing a short story. Its quality is currently 81 (potentially exceptional) and I presume I could publish it in that state and then sell it for a few echoes.
My question is: is it worth upgrading the story higher? I’ve got some trade secrets squirrelled away and quite a few zee stories and the like. I could get to quality 200+ with a little effort. Is it worth much, or should I spend the trade secrets elsewhere?
At the moment, I’m all about the echoes - I need upgrade my gear.
Thanks for your help.
(edit: forgot to mention - I don’t want to sit on it forever as I want to get kicked out of the palace at some point and the short story is blocking progress in that area). edited by RandomWalker on 12/15/2013
I am also mostly about money, so I’ve done some calculations on making money off of short stories. And yes, I’d say that it pays to upgrade your Short Story to Potentially Masterful. And then stop right there, delinquent dilettante! A joke!
Here are some numbers:
Potentially Exceptional = 60% x 60 + 40% x 30 = 36 + 12 = 48 Echoes
Potentially Masterful = 60% x 80 + 40% x 60 = 48 + 24 = 72 Echoes
Upgrading your short story from Potentially Exceptional to Potentially Masterful would involve the following:
5 Actions: Add a dash of zee-adventure! -> Potential 91 (5 x Zee-Ztory)
2 Actions: Weave in esoteric elements -> Potential 101 (2 x Extraordinary Implication)
So that’d be 7 Actions to gain 24 - 7.50 = 16.50 Echoes of average value
This seems like a good deal once you’ve already spent time and resources on getting as far as you have. Though I found that spending time and resources writing short stories in the first place was not the best way for me to make money.
Spending Trade Secrets on short stories is purely for getting the bragging rights of a Classic Short Story. If you want money, you could just trade in your Trade Secret by clicking on it in your inventory. This should give you a Searing Enigma and a Primeval Hint, which you can then sell for 125 Echoes. Which is significantly more than selling the Trade Secret directly to the Bazaar.
Thanks guys - really appreciate the feedback. Thanks especially to Gillsing for the breakdown of the odds. I wasn’t able to find the value of the high-level stories, so was unsure what they were worth.
Trade Secrets add 25 points each, with no chance of failure, if the wiki I read is to be believed. Of course, it seems as though that is a waste, but it’s nice to have the option.