#tranderas

[tranderas]

My email to Failbetter Games

I rarely see a reason to hide my motivations or actions. I don’t have a lot of regrets in life, because as I got older- I’m 34 now- I came to understand that it’s pointless. Try to learn, grieve things like lost friendships and loved ones as best you can, and be the best person your emotional and physical state allows you to be.

Anyway

To that end, I thought I’d air out my grievances to FBG in a rather long email. It was a long time coming as I wasn’t convinced emails would do anything. Elias on the Failbetter Community discord server suggested I at least try, and I spent a week of proofreading to make sure I was as courteous as I could manage to be despite my feelings. I’m angry, angry because this game was so dear for me for so long and it feels like the current team has taken it in a direction so much in the opposite of what I find fun.

That anger is unhealthy, of course. Art evolves. Bands change their sound because they get bored or they want to make money tapping into a new audience. Painters refine and improve their style. Writers improve the range of their vocabulary and change tone. Everything shifts in this world. The healthiest thing to keep in mind is the fact that the thing you loved was there for that point in time and nothing can take that away from you, from your favorite game as a child to your favorite bands in your teenage years, you’ll always have those moments of joy.

I want to hold onto this moment of joy that I experience with Fallen London as long as possible, so I wrote this email in the hope of convincing them to alter their direction so I can enjoy it a little bit longer. Except for the signature that contained my real name at the end- not that it’s hard to find if you care, as my facebook url is /tranderas- the text is unmodified. Hopefully this shines light on what I want. 

What I don’t want is discussion about my needs. This is my place to explain, to vent, to point people to instead of typing everything out every time someone asks. But enough stalling.

___

Hello, I was encouraged in a Twitter interaction to write in and expand on my thoughts on the game so I figured I would do so now. Since I started writing this email before reading the December balance announcement, I'll address that at the bottom. The sparknotes version of what I'd like is as such: More content in London itself (especially socials), more Zee destinations, a profession uptuning, a fundamental rework of the deck that goes beyond favors, and a non-docks favor buff. From most to least important, the things I'd like to see addressed are:

1. The lack of endgame content within London itself is concerning to me for two reasons:

a. I play FL because it is a social electronic game, and I want to stay in zones in which I can continue to do social interactions. This is the reason I stay in London rather than going to Iron Republic and Port Carnelian, my first and second favorite zones respectively. If I wanted a story rich solo game I'd play Sunless Sea; if I wanted an analogue experience I'd play Blades in the Dark or read one of the books that influenced FL's style.

b. I simply don't like the mechanics of lab or parabola or how they gatekeep content. Because of this I haven't had any free content to pursue since the release of the new heists, and for a much longer length of time before that.

2. I'd love to see the remaining tier 3 professions given something they can do at lodgings. In general I prefer buffs instead of nerfs, especially in story games, and think it would be silly to nerf midnighter/correspondent/crooked-cross downward. Instead, give the others roles, perhaps in special options in the 4/5 card lodgings.

3. With the changes to Paramount Presence and the BDR power creep Notability has been significantly de-emphasized. I'd like that changed. To me the notability grind had the best balance of difficulty to cost-benefit analysis to end reward in the game, and while overcapping removed that, I would like something to use it again to make going above 10 worthwhile more often. Recent BDR items should make going even beyond 15 possible for very lategame players.

4. In addition to more endgame content within London, I'd like more midgame content at Zee. Sunless Sea got me especially interested in Frostfound and Irem, and a roleplay point for my OC is that she'd like to quite literally punch Mt. Nomad to death. Please don't feed us to spiders, though. The ones in London cause enough sorrow.

5. I would enjoy more free spouses that are not seasonal, and more ways to interact with player spouses. Again, it's a social game, and it makes sense to reward a desire to be social with the community. On the other hand, the NPC spouses in the game are limiting in their roleplay potential to the point that I've created a character around the Esoteric Accomplice for one of my OCs to get involved with between one roleplay relationship and another. Now allow me to take a deep breath while I discuss the proposed balance pass. The short version here is that I think it's wrong to release a deck refresh nerf without a fundamental change to what cards appear in the deck, and that the nerf to docks favors and yet another nerf to revs favors is misguided.

Here's the long version: I actually support a removal of the deck refresh mechanic. I got in trouble for calling flash lay resets an exploit on a private Fallen London fan server, and refused to use it until the lab convinced me it was a mechanic intended for use by FBG.

The widespread use of deck resets isn't a problem in its own right; rather, it's a symptom of how fundamentally broken the deck is in its current state. You have cards that are so bad that the narrative acknowledges they're awful and the mechanics give you a way to get rid of them at the cost of objectively worse lodgings. You have story signpost cards that clog up space held by desired cards. It can be nearly impossible to get Portly Sommelier (before deck refreshes i was getting one a month playing 60 actions a day) and dream qualities (my PoSI-ready SMEN alt has DbW3 playing every dream card that comes around). And most lodgings have cards that are objectively bad in a way that no new player can know without reading the wiki or asking someone- the exact problem you claim a desire to address in your announcement.

It's telling that players will do SMEN- a quest chain ostensibly about how much you're willing to sacrifice to some faceless maybe-god- in order to get rid of bad lodgings. I personally only bought back salon (Notability grind), rooftop shack (3 epa wine option), and bazaar premises (5-card potential plus good certifiable scraps/money option) after Trand got St. Beau's Candle, and JanieS only ever got the bazaar premises, her Remote Lodging, and the Orphanage. Even the other 4-card lodgings are only good under specific circumstances, and the rest of the 3s have worse cards with no endgame benefit.

Tranderas and JanieS both use remote lodgings. Trand is stuck with the Advertisements of a New Venture and Devices and Desires cards in his hand. Advertisements is an Abundant-rarity card. Since I have no intention of doing railroad due to disliking its mechanics the card simply sits in my hand. If I discard it, its rarity means it pops back up quickly. I think a way to opt out of story signpost cards such as aunt and railroad would be good progress toward solving the deck problem. There could be a large action or monetary cost involved with both removing it and reactivating it to balance, but without a way to get rid of these story hooks I need to keep refreshing to draw other cards around them.

As for the favors, I consider that part of the change mostly good. However, the docks favors -> Silk expedition doesn't really compete that well with other endgame grinds at the moment. Further, the Revolutionaries favor turn-in was already reduced dramatically this year, and I don't think it needs further tweaking. Rather than tuning docks and revs down, I would prefer to see the other factions tuned upwards, and the cost of earning favors eliminated from their cards (no 10 rostygold donation to the Church, for example). I'd still like to see the faction cards remain in the deck after they're given storylet sources, but made more rare, with the conflict options getting a boost to remain attractive in line with my proposed buff to payouts as they are good for London from a flavor/narrative perspective. In closing, it feels like the current FBG's team has a vision for the game that doesn't mesh well with how I see it and want to play it. Content has consistently moved away from what I want to do, leaving me with only SMEN and cider as goals to pursue (and as mentioned, I've run two characters- Samia R and Tranderas- through the quest chain to its completion). I obviously care about the game enough to want more things I like or else I wouldn't bother writing and proofreading this post or discussing and debating changes on the community discord, so I hope you'll take these opinions and suggestions into consideration moving forward. Regards,

Tranderas

[tranderas]

The Alt, the Candle, and the Name

I thought I’d give a quick update as to my progress in Fallen London, as my conjecture on the lore surrounding a certain Drowned One got a bit of attention previously.

Spoilers, duh.

First, the links to my character profiles. I didn’t intend to make my alt public, but I want it to be out there so that I can prove it’s me when she enters Horizon, for purposes of asking other Seekers about the other two endings.

Tranderas: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Tranderas

Samia: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Samia%20R

I basically took the summer off from FL due to a lack of sense of direction on Tranderas. I had already done all the stories I felt I could do without losing important grinding carousels. When it occurred to me how short a clock I would be on to try to push for Cerise’s candle by Sacksmas, I came back and gave Samia Exceptional Friendship. Here’s where we are now:

Tranderas came out of his hiatus and immediately found Jack-of-Smiles, which I incorrectly assumed would lock me out of the Velocipede Squad carousel (aside: Polythreme is my least-favorite zone in FL). He then finished the story of the Cheery Man and the Last Constable, which is a story I’m mad at because of how emotional it made me. As of this evening, he has stepped off his ship after a few successful terms as Governor of Port Carnelian, and is awaiting his invitation to return to the Traitor Empress’ Court.

Samia hit PoSI shortly after her return to the Neath. She immediately set to work obtaining a Tramp Steamer and a Gang of Hoodlums, the latter of which she is using to steal Bazaar Permits for her future home. Now she awaits word from a certain Firebrand so that she may piece together his relationship with that oh-so-distant Missionary.

As for me, I’ve continued to question what, exactly, you’re doing when you hit that black-bordered card and start down the worst path of your life. The game tells you the name; forum hints suggest that you’re not becoming the Drowned One; and the multiple endings suggest that there’s power in A Question. I know what I’m doing. I know the costs. I know the time investment. I don’t know why.

That appears to be the point of The Seeking Road. It was meant to ask players why they keep punishing themselves through video games that are hard just for the sake of being hard, with no reward other than having done it. In this case you actually have a reward in sight- the story at the end, and the ability to say you did it.

But seriously, why? I mean from your character’s point of view this time. Let’s look at the beginning of SMEN. He has gone on expedition after expedition, collecting some small treasure caches and bits of stories about the Fourth City. Then suddenly, there they are- the seven stones! They have letters of the strange language he’s seen around London, especially in the Bazaar, and they shine with a weird light. This is obviously quite the find! Now he takes these stones home, and tries to study them, but finds a mark scratched off of them. Curious, he takes the Stones to an expert, whose eyes start to bleed from a failed attempt at understanding them. No matter. Our character craves knowledge. He tries again. His sleep suffers, but for the most part, he’s fine. Then, one night, he hears a whisper. It’s not just gibberish; it’s instructions. He follows them, curious about what will happen. He lights a candle. The flame burns into his retina. He knows. A strange hunger overtakes him. He sates it with some raw meat, because that’s the only thing that seems like it will satisfy it, but it doesn’t. Those whispers get a little louder. He’s still hungry, and now a voice is plaguing him. Now it tells him to meditate, to form a fist, breathe, and release everything you knew. His senses immediately dull. Things are fuzzy and hard to remember. What was I doing? And why do I hear laughing that appears to come from nowhere and everywhere at once?

What manner of being keeps pressing on after all that?

 It’s a preposterous proposition for the character, and that’s only the beginning. By the time the first candle is obtained, he’s died... I believe at least eight times, but probably more. He’s been to prison at least seven times and been driven mad (by FL standards) at least seven times. He can’t dream without feeling shackles. He has scars that won’t close. And his very sense of himself feels... broken. And there’s still six candles to go.

Perhaps it’s beyond the realm of rational comprehension on purpose. It’s obsession, it’s madness. It starts at curiosity and ends at oblivion.

I’ve written a lot about The Name and London itself, without even discussing some of my other theories and comments on what I know so far.

Another time, perhaps. 

[tranderas]

[Spoilers] Speculation on Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name

Let’s say this right out of the gate: While this post contains information that is readily available if you search online for it, especially on Spacemarine9′s tumblr, it’s going to talk extensively about the story of The Seeking Road. If you want to discover it all on your own, turn back now.

I also note that this is coming from someone who has yet to go Seeking. My main character has SMEN = 4; the alt I made exclusively to pursue this long and lonesome road is not yet a PoSI. This is all speculation on my part based on what information is readily and publicly available.

If I had already finished seeking, I wouldn’t post something like this. When you already know the ending, and the author has explicitly asked you not to share that ending, it’s really hard to know where the line is. Once my alt has gone past the Avid Horizon, I will very likely stop talking about it except to tell people whether or not it was worth it- or, if they have characters that went for one of the other two endings, to share what occurred in the one I’m going for.

With that out of the way...

The Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name quest in Fallen London is, by design, the most brutal chain of events in any video game. When I saw the little button during Sackmas, giving me a point of Unaccountably Peckish and asking if I was ready to go down The Seeking Road, I was like “Hell yeah!” After all, it’s a game. It won’t ask me to give up everything, right?

...right? Hello?

After some reading, I came to find out the quest chain does just that. It forces you to obtain everything, give it all away until you have nothing, then takes that too. There’s individual steps that can take over a week even for Exceptional Friends. There are actions that you need to take that only make sense if you’re Seeking (what exactly is a fluke-core, anyway?). And the ending? It locks your character behind the Avid Horizon. It must be something major.

For most people, the quest chain will start after you’ve found the seven Correspondence Stones in the Tomb of the Seven, obtaining the Scholar of the Correspondence quality. The Correspondence is a secret language the Masters use to communicate, the true nature of which is still debated by people who don’t work at FailBetter. 

A card you receive after finding the Correspondence Stones tells you that there’s some text scratched off them- a word between ones for void and hunger. An option pops up in the Forgotten Quarter during certain Airs of the Forgotten Quarter (a random number changed on doing actions in that zone) and at Nightmares 5+ to hear Mr. Eaten’s voice in your dreams, egging encouraging you to seek him out.

My first question in the Seeking Road is this: What is our end goal? 

The quest is called Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name, but people who have played through at least one December may already know the name. An A Taste of Lacquer card tells you of Mr. Eaten’s former name. He was Mr. Candles, a Master of the Bazaar. So if you’ve seen the Sackmas card related to SMEN, you already know Candles. You know that he was betrayed by the other Masters, and that they really do not want anyone else finding out about him.

My hypothesis on this first point is that it’s not about finding the name, but rather the person behind the name. He must exist, or at least an avatar of him must exist, or else the voice wouldn’t come to you in your nightmares to begin with. Given the nature of London, it’s possible that he exists as an ideal, or a non-existent figure, or dissolved into the miasma of the city, but these seem unlikely.

It’s entirely possible that Mr. Sackmas is, itself, a Mr. Eaten avatar, given the fact that you can receive SMEN and some of the items required for later steps during the holiday. At the end of the season, Mr. Sackmas is “arrested” by the constables, and dissolves into nothing. That leaves a host of other questions, like “why does he have enough power to do this during Sackmas but not any other season?” It makes sense as an in-joke- a mysterious being comes from the North to deliver presents- but not in the context of Fallen London. That would seem to support either the miasma theory or the idea that he can possess Londoners, but erodes them slowly. I think it’s an avatar, as even a fallen God should have that much power.

There’s also the Starveling Cat. In a game where nearly every detail is considered, isn’t it interesting that that particular creature is so strongly connected to The Drowned One? The cat and the Master, as one. It’s a symbol of the alliance between The Duchess, who sold the Third City in exchange for her pharaoh husband’s life, and Mr. Candles. Per Spacemarine9, the two of them didn’t agree with the plans for the Fourth City, and Mr. Candles’ life was the price paid for it. The Starveling Cats, then, are very likely to be either cats that came in contact with the Master himself and share his long “life,” or are beings that feel Mr. Eaten’s influence strongly due to that alliance, or are given to Mr. Eaten by the Duchess herself to serve as avatars to spread his influence. I think it’s the latter. After being betrayed by the Masters by her husband being left in a state of perpetual pain and agony, and watching her strongest ally be betrayed through ritual sacrifice, she has as much motivation as Mr. Eaten to bring fury down upon the Bazaar. A reckoning cannot be delayed indefinitely.

The last really big question on my mind relates to the God-Eaters. That name suggests that the Masters are effectively gods in the Fallen Cities. If that’s true, why do they bother with material wealth at all? Why do they bother giving their attention to individual Londoners? Why do they even allow themselves to lose things, such as Mr. Fires losing one of his yachts as one of the options for obtaining your ship? As an extension of that: They would’ve known the Correspondence Stones are in the Tomb of the Seven. Why leave them there? Why not destroy the Tomb itself if they were going to leave the stones there, or destroy the stones themselves? It feels like they want the Correspondence to be an open secret- known to those privy to their wishes, and known to be dangerous. If you’re a powerful enough individual to be able to brave the path to the Tomb, you’re important enough to be on their radar. They don’t admit it, but then, gods need not give anything away.

I have other odd questions, such as: Do the Masters hear Mr. Eaten’s voice in their nightmares the way Londoners who understand the Correspondence do? Why do you need to know the Correspondence to hear his voice? How is it that one candle does not exist, yet is required to seek out the Avid Horizon? Why do you need the seven candles to go to the Avid Horizon when the text for going there suggests that there’s scholarly reasons for wanting to make the trip? Why do the God-Eaters reassemble your body for you after they bleed you out and take your head? Are the Parliamentarians privy on the Correspondence, on Mr. Eaten, both, or neither? 

The most important question of all, though: What lies beyond the Avid Horizon? I grieve for the Drowned One, and Seek to deliver his reckoning.

[tranderas]

Twitch and me

Those who follow my Twitter may have noticed a few recent changes. Specifically, I created a new account to follow and retweet political content such as NAFO-related business, and have focused my primary Twitter on streaming and gaming. I’ve also been streaming more and promoting my friends’ streams more, and doing more to participate in those streams.

I joined Twitch when it was Justin.tv, in May 2009. This was right after I’d returned home from Kentucky, fresh culinary degree in hand. I don’t remember what led me to JTV specifically, but I remember seeing UStream for whatever reason and deciding to look for alternatives. At first JTV seemed like just a bunch of watch parties and vlogs, but I found the gaming directory and was amazed at the concept. Chilling with someone, communicating in realtime so we could discuss the game and what they were doing in it at that particular moment? It was a blast, and I spent my early time in the gaming category watching CoD MW2 and Halo streamers.

When I first started watching itips I was turned off because he was high-pitched and rather nasal sounding, so I went and watched another streamer named WhiteSammy. It took a few weeks before I realized that Sammy himself was the streamer with the weird voice, and that tips’s audio mixer was amplifying how annoying his voice sounded.

I’ve used the site fairly consistently since. I believe the longest I took off was 6 weeks at the beginning of the adblock war as Twitch started trying to fight off adblockers by using software that would circumvent them. I personally think that’s the wrong strategy in the same way Gabe says piracy is a service issue. I think Twitch Prime was a decent value rolled into Amazon Prime, but having to pay an extra $9 above Amazon Prime is unreasonable, so there’s been a bit of disagreement about how to proceed. But I stayed on the site because I missed the interaction that YT sorely lacks.

14 years marks the longest I’ve stuck with one thing, and I think it’s time to cement it as a hobby. To that end, I’ve decided to be less of a viewer and more of a participant. Less of a user of the service and more of a member of the community. To that end, I’m doing my part to help my favorite smaller streamers grow- doing fan stuff for them, presenting more activity and less drama, and building my own community.

I’ve put 970 hours into Bannerlord since I bought it in early access. Not all of that was good content, or at a time when I would want to stream, or even actually playing (consider time testing/fixing mods, dealing with runs that would die for whatever reason, getting 10 years into a game only for a mod conflict to kill the run at a point in the story). But I think about how much of a community I could’ve built around that game. And then I think of other games I play and how I could’ve done the same. It adds up.

I’m now making a legitimate push for affiliate. I’m not doing it for the money, although I enjoyed hearing from a friend that he’d be happy to sub to me. I’m doing it to contribute something more to a site I love, and for chat integration options. Cult of the Lamb and BLT mod for Bannerlord are two examples of games I’m interested in playing that utilize CP rewards. I want to do other cool stuff too, like a redemption to make a character in Wrestling Empire, or to play a specific game from my Steam list, or sound effects. I want to make a fun environment for people to relax in, like so many others have done for me over the years.

I’ve been working on some things behind the curtain as well. I’m making Gorons my “brand” if you will, hoping to make cute tributes to them. If I run afoul of Nintendo over it I’ll likely switch to a medieval fantasy theme, but for now I’m content to have artist friends draw up the hilariously derpy creatures as my profile pictures across sites. I’ve also started making a Discord that can be public, looking at friends’ servers as models to make it work well with stream so I have a private place to joke with friends while on the air.

Expenses on Twitch will be modest since I’m not making it a career. Besides having someone make me a couple emojis and picking up a theme song on Fiverr, I’m not spending a lot. I’m not upgrading any equipment or paying for expensive software. It’s an add-on to what I’m already doing.

And I enjoy doing it, so I’ll keep on doing it until that changes. It’s better than sitting alone in my room all day... or at least I tell myself as much.

[tranderas]

PixelsOrDeath- an 8ish year retrospective

Sometimes I like to look back at things I did and think about how they made me feel, what worked, what didn’t, and how they changed who I am. For now I’m looking once again at PixelsOrDeath.com, the now-defunct gaming journalism website I wrote for during a short period back in the day.

I’ll start by saying I loved the sense of purpose writing for PoD gave me. It was a rare time in my life when it felt like my writing mattered to someone, and I enjoyed the chance to work with talented editors and fellow writers. I had one article published and contributed to a second during my time.

The first was a compilation of tips I’d picked up from watching various casters play League of Legends, along with my own experience as a support main. Cracked.com was still an actual site people actually read then, and I realized that the list format was drawing a lot of clicks back then, so I formatted my article in a list form- Seven Ways to Get Better at League of Legends. Simple. And because of the influence I had at the time as one of the early adopters of jtv/ttv- I joined justin.tv in May of 2009 (!)- along with the simple and easy-to-understand format of the information, that article became the most-searched writing on the site by a large margin.

After my successful LoL article the others at PoD- especially Caitlyn Oram, who I have a huge amount of respect for- got me access to a few closed beta tests. One was for FireFall. I miss that game so much. I could write an entire article on my nostalgia about that. But we also got into the closed press beta of a fledgling MMORPG called Neverwinter, tasked with writing about our experience and holding a short interview with the devs. I was one of a handful of people who streamed the press beta, and hit my top viewer count at 40something during that time. The problem came when it was actually time to write the article. I wanted to talk about the good and the bad of the beta, because if you’re going to have me review a game I’m not just going to kiss the dev’s ass. I wanted to put together a balanced piece that discussed what the game was doing really well, what I was on the fence about, and what needed improvement before release. My editor insisted that writing anything negative would come off as petty, so my contribution to Caitlyn’s article was cut from five paragraphs to one.

I pitched three more articles after this. The first was a discussion of how to get into EVE Online, recognizing that when you still had to learn how to learn it was difficult to get into and offering tips for new players. My editor insisted that EVE is not hard to get into, that he had heard otherwise despite not having played it, and wouldn’t let me write it.

The second was a discussion of who could be a competitor to twitch. My editor’s argument here was that it was a topic everyone else was already talking about so there was no need to rehash it. I argued that if it’s being widely talked about, it’s also a discussion being widely read about, so it’s something we could do that would draw attention to the site.

My third article actually received the green light and a rough draft. It was similar to my LoL article, except written about World of Tanks. I even had contributions from WGLNA Gold finalist Heywod, who I was preparing a full-on interview with. When I got my article back, it was full of so many revisions my editor insisted I throw it out and start over. Already feeling sour over the rejection of my other article ideas, I left the site instead.

Looking back 9 years later, I don’t think leaving was a mistake, nor was doing the writing to begin with. I learned that when it comes to factual information, people want clear and concise writing. People expect the same out of reviews, but if you leave out your rationale they’ll accuse you of some sort of bias, whether for or against the developer. I learned the age-old adage “writing is rewriting” and grew increasingly frustrated with the process. I learned how important not just having a good editor is, but making sure you have the right editor, one that fits you. I had a much better relationship with the one in charge when I joined than the one in charge when I left, and I feel like it showed in my writing as well.

In hindsight, I wish I had done more to remain a voice in gaming. I wanted to do a podcast with Tom McDonald (then blackhawk88, now Tommy_ on Twitch) discussing ranked Overwatch from the perspectives of a gold Mercy main and a diamond DPS main, but it fell through over our inability to find a program to use to record before our differences of opinion led to bad blood. I’ve obviously used this page to write, and hit a groove with Fallen London lore, but that dried up. I streamed on Twitch but just... stopped. I don’t even know why in hindsight.

And I can’t decide if I want to talk gaming more or less in 2020+2. I’m in a weird spot where gaming feels bad but talking about gaming feels good. We’ll see where it takes me. But wherever it goes, the lessons I learned from the Pixels or Death team will guide me.

And seriously, someone not named Mark Kern please make FireFall 2.

[tranderas]

On my Torn factions

I’m posting my Torn faction history in case anyone feels like checking me out. I don’t hide much of my activity in the game and I’m not ashamed to discuss what I’ve done and why. So here’s my factions in order of oldest to newest. By the way, if you don’t know what Torn is, you should take my invite link and check it out. https://www.torn.com/2271053

1. Killer Clownz- After telling friends who started 2 weeks after me I wasn’t interested in factions, I joined theirs in order to help them along. After a few days I recognized that factions are too hard for new players to manage so I left to be on my own and maybe look for someone to help me grow. The leaders still play, but aboone12 is factionless.

2. Get Stuffed- I joined because I thought the name was amusing, and stuck with them through my first war, against Green Street and allies. Shortly after the war they decided to focus on growth and dropped the travel item perk down to 7, which was unacceptable to me given my goal of maximizing profit at the time, so I left.

3. Plushies Without Borders- This travel faction was a good fit for my goals at the time, but turned out to have stunted my growth. There were strong conflicts of message between officers who wanted to fight for the one territory they owned and the married co-leads who wanted full peace. In the end I was kicked due to the demands of player Rattis, who was upset with me for negotiating a peace agreement between two players, one of whom he wanted to keep attacking. At this point I’d reached my Torn goal of $1 billion net worth and purchased my PI and two profit BBs so I was ready to take a break from the game.

4. Octogenarian Dirtybombers- Though I was offered spots in both Sykoz and Chimeras to protect from Rattis, I decided to instead join my sister in ODB, a faction she would eventually lead. I appreciated the casual atmosphere and the ability to do my own thing.

5. 89 (now Catalylylylylysis)- My desire to grow and beat midget_dance, who at this point had been mugging me weekly for roughly nine months, led me to try out a HoF faction. I immediately felt out of place with their culture and community, and though I got along great with Valkyrie and even helped Cristen start a soon-abandoned sister faction, I ended up leaving for more casual waters after my first chain with them. I made a point to stay for the chain so no one could say I leeched perks.

6. ODB/Green Street- I went back to ODB but in my pursuit of Steadfast joined Green Street as they were on the decline at the time. They still had all the perks expected of a land-holding fac with 1.4 million res but weren’t chaining anymore and weren’t enforcing activity reqs. A fac that once had 100 members was down to 39 total, only 20 of which were actively playing and 12 of which could be relied on in wars or chains. I stuck around for friend Slayra’s sake and went back to ODB when they needed war help, eventually leaving Green Street for good a couple weeks before it was sold and returning to ODB.

7. Invictus (current home)- I had a lot of disagreements with my sister on how a faction should work, and since she had been promoted to leader of ODB there was no real way for me to stay. After all, a sibling duo where one wants to constantly undermine the other is no place anyone wants to be. So I searched for the proper balance of casual atmosphere to good perks and landed on Invictus, a faction whose recruiter Robinhood promised a 2500 chain every other week and not much warring. A week after that they announced their first attempt at a 5k; a couple weeks after that we joined with ODB and their newly-formed Hood Alliance to attack SMTH and Silver Hand. We bailed when Vinerri marked Torn history by taking the most respect from a faction in a raid when they dropped a dirty bomb on the attacking MMCP.

Nowadays I’m known as the grumpy guy in Invictus chat. I am almost always scheming behind the scenes, whether that means retaliations for Inv or my sister, attacking in benefit of Hood Alliance’s wars, playing mediator between facmates and people camping them, helping ODB gain new allies, or advising my sister on faction matters. My goal of catching up to midget_dance and the other higher-tier players that wronged me while otherwise playing the game casually hasn’t changed, but as Valkyrie once acknowledged, people’s priorities evolve with time. 

[tranderas]

Tranderas’ Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name Diary, Part 7

This is a blog about the Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name storyline, the longest quest chain in the Fallen London browser game, from the makers of Sunless Sea.

This blog is spoiler heavy. It includes info gleamed from the game itself, discussions with Seekers who have completed the quest chain, and cross-references from other media such as Sunless Sea and the game’s lore wiki.

I highly recommend you experience the story yourself, and that you don’t read this blog if you intend to do so. I also must warn readers who feel the need to see things to completion that I will not be revealing the ending to this quest chain. FailBetter Games have explicitly asked Seekers not to discuss the ending of the quest with those who have not completed it, and I intend to honor that request. This blog series will end right before the final step.

With that out of the way, let’s move on.

When I left you, I’d just received St. Arthur’s Candle, the first of the candles of the false saints that lead us North. Doing so gave us this option in the Seeking Road storylet in our lodgings:

There was some nasty SMEN math involved with getting the levels of the Seeking Mr Eaten’s Name quality I needed for this candle, but we got there, as one does. St. Beau’s gimmick is that it lies at a crossroads, where you are to choose between steering off the road or staying on it. It requires a trip to Mrs. Plenty’s carnival, arriving at exactly midnight. Doing so unlocks a version of it nicknamed the Nightmare Carnival or the SMEN Carnival, depending on who you ask. It’s a warped, twisted place...

Note that you lose all your tickets when you enter the Nightmare Carnival. That means you’re left buying tickets when you get in, and if you want to see the sights you will need quite a few- 3330 is the bare minimum. I took quite a few more and saw some of the sights. Now, the normal carnival is actually quite an exciting place to be, with an excellent big-top full of attractions, a delicious food pavilion, and a fortune teller profiting off petty superstitions. The Nightmare Carnival is brutal, with disgusting food, shows that haunt your... well, your nightmares, and terrifying whispers of your impending doom.

Once you’ve seen everything there is to see, you attempt to find a specific mirror calling to you in the House of Mirrors. 

In the time since I started this blog, I’ve decided that I’m not a big fan of huge screenshot dumps. It takes some of the magic away and puts the options directly in the face of the reader in a way I don’t like. My logic is that there may be some Seekers simply skimming through the blog to find out what they might miss or what to expect resource-wise. As a result, though I have screenshots of the next steps, I won’t be posting them here just yet. Instead, if you wish to learn more about the Lady in the Mirror, I advise you to look at this journal entry and follow it forward. The only step I missed was the chess success.

I would remind readers that in Fallen London’s world, dreams exist in a real place called Parabola, a place somewhere between the Neath and the surface. One’s consciousness may travel there through tastes of Prisoner’s Honey; one may physically travel there through mirrors. This is one of the reasons this variant of the carnival is called “Nightmare Carnival.” This is likely the reason the House of Mirrors exists in the real carnival. And behind this mirror, in this place, in this time, is the candle we seek.

But who is there, and why is that person there? Ah, ah, ah. I must save some mystery for next time. What I will say, here and now, is that this truly is the point in the quest where you make a hard decision on just how much you’re willing to give up. And after the next blog, which will cover the second half of the Nightmare Carnival and obtaining St. Beau’s Candle, we’ll dive deep into my decisions surrounding the next candle, some optional side stuff, and why I made the choices I did.

He gave everything. You only need give even more.

[tranderas]

Tranderas’ Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name Diary, Part 6

This is a blog about my run of the Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name quest, Fallen London’s longest and most difficult quest chain.

This blog is spoiler heavy. Every post discusses my experience with the quest, including screenshots, cross-referencing from Sunless Sea, research into the three wikis from the game, and discussing the experiences of past and present Seekers. If you intend to do the quest chain yourself- and I highly encourage you to do so- please avoid this blog chain and see it blind.

You should also avoid this series if you are the type of person that demands closure. FailBetter Games, the developers of Sunless Sea and Fallen London, have explicitly asked that Seekers refrain from sharing the ending of the quest chain with those who have not completed it. This is a request I intend to honor. The chain ends with your character passing through a gate. Once mine reaches that gate, the blog goes silent.

Sorry for the delay! It turns out that when you micromanage your actions for 3 straight months, you burn out. I’ll explain why I was in such a rush in more detail in a later post.

For now, we last left off at our own betrayals. As part of the path to St. Arthur’s Candle, we are required to receive 7 Weeping Scars, 7 Stains on our Souls, and 7 Memories of Chains. The Memories are obtained by laying a false trail, hinting that you possess secrets that can be used against those in power so that they arrest you and throw you into New Newgate Prison without trial. We know there is no trial because the SMEN imprisonments don’t add to your Criminal Record quality, which is gained when you go before a judge upon getting to Suspicion 8. Those in power are keeping you locked up, but they are playing right into your hand.

Betrayal is a common theme throughout the SMEN storyline. It’s the plot reason the storyline exists.

After obtaining all 7 Scars, Stains, and Memories, it is time to betray others seven times. You can betray spouses, Midnight Matriarchs, Nomans, and other players. Betrayals of NPCs cost Searing Enigmas; the Stench of Betrayal quality you gain from each option requires a Searing Enigma to convert into one point of the Footsteps of the False Saints quality. Seven Footsteps buy a candle.

I apologize for this, but I seem to have failed to screenshot most of the betrayals I did. The spouse was the exception:

I didn’t notice the Enigma loss as I was too caught up in the excitement of the moment. Note that I had two at this point.

I only knew of needing seven Enigmas for this entire process- one to convert each Stench of Betrayal into a Footstep. I had three Enigmas at the start, plus four Trade Secrets, so I thought I’d have enough. I ended up being wrong, and didn’t figure it out until I’d also betrayed four (!?!) Midnight Matriarchs. I needed to fix it.

For the first time in the SMEN storyline, RNG gave me a gift. During Sacksmas, an advent calendar opens, which gives a gift each day. One of the rewards was a Rat of Glory. The Rat is a devious little bugger, who can randomly steal all your candles including the SMEN candles, be converted into one of the better all-around companions in the game, or have a high-percentage chance of converting into between 1 and 7 Enigmas.

I weighed my options and determined that, on the long run, converting the Rat to Enigmas will yield roughly 3 per use, including the chance of the Rat eating all your candles using this option.

Jackpot.

Enigmas in hand, I went on to finish my betrayals. Sacrificing four Midnight Matriarch owls cats, one particularly unhappy spouse, and two gracious players gave me this option.

“What’s one more loss?” is also a common theme of SMEN. It’s that sunk-cost fallacy that poisons the mind of real-life humans and Fallen Londoners alike. “You came this far, might as well keep going, even if it destroys you.” Alexis knows our weaknesses, and exploited them well throughout his tenure as loremaster of London.

At this point, we’re at Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name 21. We’ve destroyed our souls. We’ve killed ourselves seven times (6 for scars + 1 more for the last Stain). We’ve spent months of ingame time in prison. We’ve ruined what close relationships we have. All for this.

All for this foreboding candle.

All for this.

And we paid for it. Note the SMEN gain. Note the stat loss. 

But what’s one more loss, in the face of the Name?