The issue with Aiding a Deputy in Hallowed Ground has been resolved. Thanks for the catch!
@Tamir: the reason we’ve left The Skunk Brothers Farm as Pinned is that with its current tiered content scheme, a player could end up drawing and discarding it many, many times with no new content available. I’ll consider alternatives. Thanks for the feedback!
(All of the Ally cards do two things: provide a stat increase and X, where X ranges from exchanging an item to affecting your Menaces. Not all of them may be visible to start.
The exception is Warren: he alone has only one branch for now, which gives a 30% chance to raise all your Styles by 1.)
It seems i might have hit a snag of sorts on the ‘spurs’ story (i think it was that one). I got the necklace, got auto sent to the burrows but have no opportunity or pinned cards
now a card had appeared that sent me to the burrows place, and there was a location quality as well as it telling me it sent me there. Thanks :) (the latter obviously referring to your questions not the card in question :p ) edited by Rune Hofseth on 9/20/2012
In response to some good feedback from our closed beta testers, the following changes have been made:
[ul][li]Previously, the Doc and Cityslicker grinds for Day 1/Afternoon did not have additional rewards for rare successes. Rewards have been added. If your Doc or Cityslicker Styles are too high to qualify you for those grind branches, private message me and I’ll reply with the rare success texts and manually add the rewards.
[/li][li]The Skunk Brothers Farm has been tinkered with on the back end and is now a series of Opportunity cards. This will hopefully preserve the feel of it being a ‘grind’ option.[/li][/ul]
Aaaagh my post just got eaten. D: I remember there were a few typos in the new Harvestman story, can’t remember the specifics, but I think most of them were in the second “Assisting Doc Roslyn” part. Also there was a typo in the “Asking ‘Padre’ Charlie Directly” branch of the first new Hallowed Ground card. I think there was a typo in the Miz Nils card too somewhere?
-“Slipping On Some Cuffs” card: Deputy Kellum seems to possess some ability investigate on his own. Shouldn’t there be a “to” in between there? Also, super nitpicky, but: ”Here’s the plan,” The bolded quote is an endquote, not a start quote. Word does that sometimes.
-The presence of a certain lawless element in the Mission that leads you to feel more secure… The “that” there feels somewhat awkward; the sentence doesn’t read right to me.
-“The Texan Job” card: Every few moments he sweats reflexively at the flies.
And that’s the end, it seems? Hm. Shorter than the previous block, but still good. I can’t seem to get TPRH 2, though. Is it an opp card?
Day 1/Afternoon is indeed shorter than Day 1/Morning. There are a few reasons for this:
[ul][li]Day 1/Morning included a lot of “general” content.
[/li][li]Day 1/Afternoon was designed to be a transitional phase between Morning (which introduces you to the world) and Evening (which advances the plot in a big way.)
[/li][li]We intended originally to release each Day as a content bloc instead of separating them into Morning, Afternoon and Evening. But the Season of the World competition convinced us to chunk out the playtesting schedule so we could get as much good feedback as possible. (Also we were really excited about Morning and wanted to get it out ASAP!)[/li][/ul]
It’s a Pinned card, but it’s restricted to a specific Area. Although I’ve changed that since you posted. I went back and forth on it… I think we’ll try it as an “anywhere” card for now.
OK, still playing. When you are trying to (SPOILER) make off with the diamond necklace, your unorthodox location will trigger the ‘Something’s gone Terribly Wrong’ location-error card. Using it will dump you back at Burrow and Briar, with no qualities changed.
ALSO: If you run out of actions during a MUST card, you’ll have to refresh the story in order to have the ‘Go’ buttons thaw.
ALSOALSO: If you’re ‘planning the switcheroo’ and get away with the necklace, the ‘tell the Sergeant you don’t got it’ option has this typo:
“Maybe you’ve even decided to cross both of them and keep the ring for yourself.”
It’s a necklace. The ring’s at the other place. edited by ladymadsci on 9/22/2012
It did indeed. I was able to get in, get out, and get the ‘package’.
Also, for the Big Fred rare success: “All natural. Plant-based. Highly addictive. Don’t overdue it.”
Should be ‘overdo’. The same goes for the item description.
Also: Charming the Hon. Ms. Dowd doesn’t say when it’s increased to 3, 4, etc; just that it’s Increasing.
I’m getting used to Opportunity style. It is more Elegant.
Alsoalsoalso: I finished ‘Afternoon’! This block of content looks quite nice. I’m ready for any directed feedback questions you have. edited by ladymadsci on 9/22/2012
Is it possible to set the grind cards so that they don’t show up once you have passed their Skill cap? It is kind of sad to be searching for Ally cards and spend 5 actions just re-spawning the skill cards… My first though was that it might just be a limitation of Story Nexus, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask. Also, is there an ally opportunity card for the Honorable Ms/Mrs Dowd? (Apologies if I got her name completely wrong, memory is not doing well today.
Right now, the functionality that lets us include Quality levels in the Quality Change Description (QCDs) doesn’t seem to be working. Or else I haven’t figured out how to work it. Either way, the plan is to include that information… but it’s not gonna happen today.
I’m glad you liked the content, and I’m especially glad you like what we’re doing with Opportunity cards. Thanks as always for the feedback! :)
Unfortunately we’re bumping up against a StoryNexus limitation. We could separate all the ‘grind’ branches into separate Opportunity cards with skill caps, but then you couldn’t discard them if they happened to be in your hand when you passed the cap.
I think this problem kind of solves itself once we have more content in place, but we’ll see!
There are Ally cards for both the Honorable Ms. Dowd and Chief Nicco Carfora, but they aren’t available until after Day 1/Afternoon.
DIRECTED FEEDBACK FOR DAY 1/AFTERNOON
(although as always we’re happy to hear whatever feedback you have in whatever way you want to give it!)
1.) How do you like our current Opportunity card setup? Are the ‘grind’ cards appearing enough? Are the Ally cards showing up too much? Have you drawn Absolom the Tinker a lot, or not very much at all?
2.) We would like specific feedback on the subplots you picked: what you liked and didn’t like about their structure, their plot, the quality of prose, their mechanics – whatever you’d like to tell us.
3.) Who are your current favorite characters? (Or other setting elements?)
4.) Once you’re done playing with Day 1/Afternoon: how high is your Cityslicker?
5.) What plot pieces are you currently interested in following up?
And two more general questions:
6.) After Day 1 is finished, there will be a longer-than-normal delay between content releases. We’ll be using the time to create Menace results, our first Nex-locked content bloc (see below), and generate a similar amount of content for Day 2/Morning as you saw in Day 1/Morning. Given your druthers, would you prefer to have the new content all at once, or have us release it in phases (e.g. first the White Noise menace, then the Heavy Hand of the Law Menace, then the Nex-locked content, etc.)?
6.) We anticipate releasing our first bloc of Nex-locked content in the near future. We have two different content blocs in mind: a mechanics-light sequence about the early years after the Longest Day, and a mechanics-heavy action sequence that gets a little monster-heavy in the middle. We will release BOTH of these content blocs eventually – but which would you like to see first?
I think it’s alright, the grind cards showed up frequently enough for me to feel I wasn’t lacking them, (although I might wish I was when I outleveled them) as for the ally cards, I like the fequency as is, even if it is a bit rarer. as for the Tinker, I believe I got it twice or so. I’m okay with this though as I don’t want to overlevel and miss rare success chances this evening.
As I said last time, I continue to follow the Harvestmen and hallowed ground. For hallowed ground, I found the hints of Padre’s past most interesting and would very much like to know more on how the two know (knew?) each other. As for the Harvest, I like the way the storyline is going, but I think the inclusion of both a must card grind, as well as a second quality grind shortly after might have been a bit overkill. as for the writing itself, I had very little issue with it, (apart from typos already mentioned by others, the gist of what you were saying was still there however)
Favorite characters: Padre is shaping up to be really interesting to me, and I was happy to see jack again as I found him interesting in the opening block of content. I’m actually signifcantly intruiged by Officer Kellum, as he seemed to show up in both my sub-plots, and seemed a little different between the two of them. (fair enough I suppose, he was at a murdur scence, and that can put a damper on anybody.) I am also enjoying my interactions with Doc Roslyn.
Currently it’s at 19, which is in line with my other stats.
The Texan Job seems pretty interesting, although I’m a bit unsure how that will work considering my newfound alliance with The Chief. I’m still most curious about that card with the door I was given. As well as what I might find from the items I have in my inventory.
I think I’d prefer to have it all at once personally, that way I can go in and enjoy it all without walking around going “When’s the next bit going to come? When will it be out?” althoguh from your perspective I suppose that might actually be a favorable outcome.
The second 6. I’d probably prefer the sequence about the longest day. Nothing like world building to get more of an investment in the things that are happening now.
I didn’t use the deck much, because my qualities were already dangerously high, but it did feel like the grind cards appeared far more often than the ally ones. I have not drawn the Absolom card at all yet.
[quote]2.) We would like specific feedback on the subplots you picked: what you liked and didn’t like about their structure, their plot, the quality of prose, their mechanics – whatever you’d like to tell us.[/quote]
Hm. Well, to be honest, I don’t think there’s much to think; the new subplot additions were quite short. I felt the Harvestmen one was pretty grindy, in particular, especially since you’re trapped for the first grind. (Which also led to my Doc shooting up above the content cap on the grind card…) It also didn’t feel like it advanced the plot much, but at least I have someone else in the investigation with me now. The Hallowed Ground block was better, I thought, though even shorter, if I recall? I chose to [color=#ffffff]talk to Charlie instead of SotM[/color], which may have cut down some time, possibly? I’m not sure. But again, didn’t seem to advance the plot much, and I’m not entirely sure what direction the story is going in. I suppose I’ll find out in the next block.
Doc Roslyn. It’s funny, she’s actually somewhat of an escapist character for me – someone who is highly rational and intelligent, yet uses that knowledge for philanthropy instead of personal gain, is kind of the idealized archetype I want to be. :p
Why Cityslicker in particular, and not the other two styles?
The same ones I said last time, of course…though I’m now a bit more interested in the Wall, in particular. [color=#ffffff]Why was it built? How does it work? Does it divide east and west or north and south? At first I thought the former, but it seems like it’s the latter. Yet it doesn’t seem to function as containment or defense, as northern tourists can apparently cross it without issue.[/color] Most curious.