Anne Auclair
Posts: 2215
10/3/2016
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Lamia Lawless wrote:
By the way, did anyone side with the Iconoclast and echo it? I really want to see what happened.
Ask and you will receive.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Anne%20Auclair
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Lamia Lawless
Posts: 604
10/3/2016
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Thanks!
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The Harmonic Hellfarer
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Optimatum
Posts: 3666
10/4/2016
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Anne Auclair wrote:
Optimatum wrote:
The wreck was mentioned as being near Mutton Island though, right? That's not very far out to zee, and in FL it's entirely possible for the player to get wounded to the brink of death at Mutton Island and recover just fine. There are shipwrecks on the island itself and a continuous stream of wreckage washed ashore, likely from the wrecks that regularly occur off Mutton Island (good lord, how many zailors does that island kill?!). However, you don't see the lights of Mutton Island, so its not right offshore.
The shipwrecks of course occur because the villagers of Mutton Island purposefully block all light from the windows facing out to zee, so that doesn't strike me as a good indicator. For all we know the Pyres could be fifty feet away, or it could be out somewhere more around the Shepherd Isles.
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Optimatum, a ruthless and merciful gentleman. No plant battles, Affluent Photographer requests, or healing offers; all other social actions welcome.
 Want a sip of Cider? Just say hi!
PM me for information enigmatic or Fated. Though the forum please, not FL itself.
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Anne Auclair
Posts: 2215
10/4/2016
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Optimatum wrote:
Anne Auclair wrote:
Optimatum wrote:
The wreck was mentioned as being near Mutton Island though, right? That's not very far out to zee, and in FL it's entirely possible for the player to get wounded to the brink of death at Mutton Island and recover just fine. There are shipwrecks on the island itself and a continuous stream of wreckage washed ashore, likely from the wrecks that regularly occur off Mutton Island (good lord, how many zailors does that island kill?!). However, you don't see the lights of Mutton Island, so its not right offshore.
The shipwrecks of course occur because the villagers of Mutton Island purposefully block all light from the windows facing out to zee, so that doesn't strike me as a good indicator. For all we know the Pyres could be fifty feet away, or it could be out somewhere more around the Shepherd Isles.
The Shepherd Isles move around quite a bit and can be very far out to zee. Also, the Bluejacket makes no mention of them.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Anne%20Auclair
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Optimatum
Posts: 3666
10/4/2016
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Anne Auclair wrote:
Optimatum wrote:
The shipwrecks of course occur because the villagers of Mutton Island purposefully block all light from the windows facing out to zee, so that doesn't strike me as a good indicator. For all we know the Pyres could be fifty feet away, or it could be out somewhere more around the Shepherd Isles.
The Shepherd Isles move around quite a bit and can be very far out to zee. Also, the Bluejacket makes no mention of them.
My point being that we don't really have any landmarks or specific location knowledge, the Shepherd Isles being an example.
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Optimatum, a ruthless and merciful gentleman. No plant battles, Affluent Photographer requests, or healing offers; all other social actions welcome.
Want a sip of Cider? Just say hi!
PM me for information enigmatic or Fated. Though the forum please, not FL itself.
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Anne Auclair
Posts: 2215
10/5/2016
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Optimatum wrote:
Anne Auclair wrote:
Optimatum wrote:
The shipwrecks of course occur because the villagers of Mutton Island purposefully block all light from the windows facing out to zee, so that doesn't strike me as a good indicator. For all we know the Pyres could be fifty feet away, or it could be out somewhere more around the Shepherd Isles.
The Shepherd Isles move around quite a bit and can be very far out to zee. Also, the Bluejacket makes no mention of them.
My point being that we don't really have any landmarks or specific location knowledge, the Shepherd Isles being an example.
We have testimony that Pyres is close to Mutton Island. This testimony is borne out from the wreckage of shipwrecks regularly washing up on its beaches.
It slipped my mind that the Mutton Islanders blocking their lamps to cause the wrecks would stop us from seeing Mutton Island (omigawd, what is wrong with me?). But we don't see Mutton Island with our ship's lights and it plays no role in the story, which probably indicates its a little ways off.
edited by Anne Auclair on 10/5/2016
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Anne%20Auclair
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dov
Posts: 2580
10/6/2016
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I've now played (most of) this story, *after* reading this forum thread (I don't mind most spoilers).
I have to say that I mostly agree with Kukapetal. While I don't personally feel 100% responsible for the eventual carnage, I think that the story's choices were not well designed and communicated.
Even knowing full well in advance (from this thread) where the story goes, I could find no indication in the story's text which would lead me to believe that the "middle" option is not benign (until it's too late to do anything about it). And there's no reason why the game wouldn't offer an option to wash our hands clean of the whole mess and just leave.
[spoiler]Personally, I've played the "middle" option twice, and aided the Conflagrati once, and ended up with no choice at the end except aiding the Wife and watch both sides go down. Given the options, I would have liked to aid the Conflagrati, but apparently this is only an option had I supported them at least two days out of the three. There's no in game indication of this!)
And another weird thing: After the big showdown, we meet the Visionary, apparently "his faith broken". Huh? Why? Because his followers died? This is never mentioned or explained. That's quite a change for a religious zealot leader. The game also tells you that "something must be done with him". Why?? It's not like he was ever our enemy, or it was our mission to deal with him and his cult.[/spoiler]
That said, this story includes one of my new favourable Fallen London quotes: "She rewards you with a smile like a cat who has not only gotten the cream but also the home address of the milkman." Love it.
Overall, I liked the lore (Animescence, Conflagrati, New Sequence, ...), and some of the characters. The story *mostly* made sense and some of the options were fun. The mechanics were mostly OK, though a bit tedious towards the end. But the way the options led to limiting our eventual choices and consequences ended the story on a sour note for me.
Here's my revised list of Exceptional Story ranking:
Excellent:
Lost in Reflections
Cut with Moonlight
The Frequently Deceased
The Waltz that Moved the World
Flint
Where You and I Must Go
Good:
The Pentecost Predicament
The Calendar Code
The Art of Murder
The Chimney Pot Wars
Our Lady of Pyres
Five Minutes to Midday
Discernment
The Haunting at the Marsh House
Meh:
The Last Dog Society
The Seven-Day Reign
The Court of Cats
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edited by dov on 10/8/2016
--
 Want a sip of Hesperidean Cider? Send me a request in-game. Here's an_ocelot's guide how.
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
10/6/2016
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I wasn't entiiirely happy with not having any option to prevent bloodshed... but I can accept it as part of the story. Here's two groups of fanatics, absolutely determined to kill each other off - that's going to happen with or without you. I do think the middle path does minimise the damage - weakening their resolve, scaring off all but the most fervent believers, giving more people a chance to get out before things get really serious.
That element aside, the Conflagrati were an amazing group - thoroughly believable as a Victorian art-cult.
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Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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_Andy_M_
Posts: 15
10/11/2016
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Has anyone echoed the results of giving the Iconoclast the bequeathment after you have brought her back to London?
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MidnightVoyager
Posts: 858
10/11/2016
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dov wrote:
And there's no reason why the game wouldn't offer an option to wash our hands clean of the whole mess and just leave.
Actually, there is an excellent reason for this. It's not really great game design.
It's not like A Bard's Tale which was a parody and put the "walk away" moment right at the end of the game so the most you miss is a single boss fight replaced with a laugh. It's more like Far Cry 4 where you can end the game just by waiting instead of leaving when the villain has to leave for a minute. Yes, it's perfectly valid as an option, but now you've ended the game before you played any of it. Which is fine... when you can reload a save and go about the game properly.
I know we love our moral high grounds here, but I cannot imagine for a moment people picking that option and NOT coming into the forum, angry that it just skipped the whole story, even if they did consider that the moral high ground. They would have just paid to play a story that they then skipped.
Besides, people don't tend to play a game so that plots can resolve themselves. They play and expect to resolve plots.
_Andy_M_ wrote:
Has anyone echoed the results of giving the Iconoclast the bequeathment after you have brought her back to London?
I did!
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/MidnightVoyager?fromEchoId=9739121
edited by MidnightVoyager on 10/11/2016
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Midnight Voyager - A blood-cousin to predators. Collector of beasts. Affably mad.
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_Andy_M_
Posts: 15
10/11/2016
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Thank you!
[spoiler]I'm rather fond of Agatha, but I may end up choosing this one - I kinda wish it was possible to split the bequeathment between Mildred and Agatha[/spoiler]
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dov
Posts: 2580
10/11/2016
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MidnightVoyager wrote:
dov wrote:
And there's no reason why the game wouldn't offer an option to wash our hands clean of the whole mess and just leave.
Actually, there is an excellent reason for this. It's not really great game design.
[...]
Yes, it's perfectly valid as an option, but now you've ended the game before you played any of it.
But that's just one way to go about it, and I agree that it wouldn't be a good design.
I was not advocating an option to skip the whole story from the beginning. There's no reason not to go and experience the factions on the Pyres, get involved in their activities, etc. But at the very end, when it becomes clear that the factions plan to move against each other, the game gives you 3 specific choices: support one faction, support the other, or undermine them both. At that point in the story, it would have been nice to have an option which said: "You know what? I'm not getting involved. This little feud is not why I came here.". Then you can wait it out on your ship, hearing the clash of the factions, and the end can be the same.
This is, of course, only one way to do it. Notice that I don't even mention a "happy ending". Just an option which acknowledges that the conflict between the factions is not the reason our character is there, and that we're not trapped there and can leave at any time.
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Want a sip of Hesperidean Cider? Send me a request in-game. Here's an_ocelot's guide how.
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BomiBoogie
Posts: 15
10/19/2016
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Kourkoumpina wrote:
I always feel a bit sad doing these and not being able to play them through multiple times to see all text.
I am still doing it and I am playing both sides as both seem mad to me.
The issue is that as a new player of this wonderful game I have no clue on what either side represents and I cant say there is a lot of info in the story itself...
As such, I really have no reason to support either from an RP perspective. My character is self centered and wants to make the most out of this situation and gain the most... I hope I am not shafted for trying to play both of them.
As a new player, I have the same issues, although knowing the Conflagranti is more established, yet still a cult in my eyes. As a character who tends to be rational, I would rather not support either of them, although I cannot stay neutral as I would like to be, because it would need a higher number in "Conspiring on the Pyres" than I could acquire.
That is why I also regret that going through the story is a one-time chance, I understand it makes sense though. I would love to side with the Abiding Wife though, as she is far the most sane person in the whole story.
EDIT: I found the answer for my question in the previous comments of this thread, you have to observe the events before conspiring.
edited by BomiBoogie on 10/19/2016
edited by Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook on 10/19/2016
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/BomiBoogie - Seeking knowledge and eager to make this forsaken Neath a better place as humanly possible.
Motto: "Never look a gift squid in the mouth."
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Kukapetal
Posts: 1449
10/19/2016
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Soooooo....on a mostly unrelated note, can anyone tell me why worshiping the Dawn Machine turns your teeth red?
The multiple references in the text to the otherwise adorable Visionary's red stained teeth weird me out :P
I'm assuming he's not a vampire or a red wine addict, so it's probably a side effect of being a Dawn Machine devotee, but why? Glowing eyes I can understand. Red teeth I can't :P
Someone please enlighten me :P
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Snowskeeper
Posts: 575
10/19/2016
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Unlocked the lifeberg story, then this one, then completed that one. I no longer seem to have the option to sail out and find the Conflagrati ship. Sailing out normally doesn't help, either, and there's nothing at Apis' Meet. Anyone know what happened?
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S.F., a midnight midnighter and invisible eminence. Impossible to locate them, personally, but there are dead drops and agents.
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Catherine Raymond
Posts: 2518
10/21/2016
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Mr. Sails wrote:
This story unfortunately didn't resonate too much with me. The main reason is perhaps mechanically related. I was quite confused as to what I was supposed to do once I reached the wreck, and what you did during the "day" didn't seem to impact the rituals too much anyways. You were free to choose sides as you wished. I spent more time being confused about how to snap up as much information as possible than actually chewing the cud.
Secondly, the situation seemed somewhat forced to me. We're on a wreck, there's this nutty Narcissus who wants to burn up and be left alone, this other dude who thinks he's a Dawn Machine prophet and a bunch of followers, with on information on how they're sustaining their communities. The worldbuilding aspect was completely ignored in favour of character building, but somehow the characters didn't strike me as particularly interesting anyways.
After last months powerstory that completely pivoted my character into an entirely different view of life and philosophy, this was a bit of a letdown. However, seems like there's lots of other peeps on here who enjoyed it, so I might just have esoteric tastes.
edited by Cantankerous Captain on 10/1/2016
edited by Cantankerous Captain on 10/1/2016
I agree with your first objection, Captain. I've just started the story, having my first chats with the Iconoclast, and the story interface gives you no hints as to why your attempts to offer the Bequeathment elicit no apparent reaction from the Iconoclast but only raise Sequencer Ascendancy.
[spoiler] Yes, she says, "I won't accept my lover's guilt" and complains that he didn't come himself. He's on his death bed, and she rattles on about swabbing the deck after a poisoning. Very strange, in my opinion, and to me it makes it harder to suspend disbelief. [/spoiler]
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Cathy Raymond
http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/cathyr19355
Catherine Raymond aka Mrs. Rykar Malkus http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/Catherine%20Raymond (Gone NORTH)
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Catherine Raymond
Posts: 2518
10/21/2016
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phryne wrote:
Well, this one wasn't for me. Which is fine, as I've loved 90% of Exceptional Stories so far, it was bound to happen sooner or later 
It was the third ES I played within a week, after Calendar Code and Where You & I Must Go, and after these two excellent ones, Our Lady of Pyres was a major disappointment. Sorry, but I just could not care for anyone in this silly story. All I wanted to do at any point of it was wring my hands in despair and shout at these madpeople to leave me the f___ alone! Religious wars, meh.
From my (purely personal) pov, I would've loved an option to just walk away from it all in the middle of the story. Or at least an option at the end to harangue the Bluejacket for wasting my time like that. Silly old bugger...
edited by phryne on 10/3/2016
I'm not even at the end of Wreck of Pyres and I can already see how much fun it would be to give the Bluejacket the rough side of [my character's] tongue! I guess that's the way some of us felt about the Revolutionary and the Secular Missionary squabbling outside the Cave of the Nadir. ;-)
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Cathy Raymond
http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/cathyr19355
Catherine Raymond aka Mrs. Rykar Malkus http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/Catherine%20Raymond (Gone NORTH)
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Shadowcthuhlu
Posts: 1557
10/21/2016
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Dirae Erinyes helped the aiding wife, less then satisfied with the results. The cults did appeal a bit to their heterodox religious side. Still, not a fan of the Dawn Machine, and that Iconoclast's cult could be particularly deadly to their wife judging from their adventures in the East. Saved the iconoclast, gave the beathquement to the wife.
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https://www.fallenlondon.com/profile/Dirae%20Erinyes. Closed to calling cards, but open for all other social action. I also love to roleplay.
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Snowskeeper
Posts: 575
10/22/2016
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Snowskeeper wrote:
Unlocked the lifeberg story, then this one, then completed that one. I no longer seem to have the option to sail out and find the Conflagrati ship. Sailing out normally doesn't help, either, and there's nothing at Apis' Meet. Anyone know what happened?
Still need help with this.
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S.F., a midnight midnighter and invisible eminence. Impossible to locate them, personally, but there are dead drops and agents.
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Catherine Raymond
Posts: 2518
10/22/2016
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I just finished the Our Lady of Pyres.
There was some impressive descriptive writing in the middle of the story, but I agree now with the folk who complained that the mechanics made it difficult to meaningfully decide who to support.
I think this story had some of the same problems you see in live-action role playing games where the GM have set up the plot in a way that they believes encourages a particular result not realizing that the players, with their limited knowledge of the game secrets, have no particular motivation to act in ways that would advance the plot as the GMs hoped.
[spoiler] I chose to bring the Iconoclast back to London but to give the Bequeathment to the Abiding Wife. What a lose for me. Somehow, I think a bottle of airag was too poor a reward for spending that much time trying to thread a path between two rival sets of fanatics. On the other hand, I have reason to believe from the ending I saw that both the Iconoclast and the Sear-Eyed Visionary lived, and less damage that could be expected was done, which is what my character would have wanted.
I doubt I would have achieved that result, though, if I hadn't read the comments on Our Lady of Pyres before I played it. [/spoiler]
edited by cathyr19355 on 10/22/2016
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Cathy Raymond
http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/cathyr19355
Catherine Raymond aka Mrs. Rykar Malkus http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/Catherine%20Raymond (Gone NORTH)
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