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.

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.

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

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’ 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’ 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?

The WoW problem

It’s hard to explain things in 280 character posts on Twitter, and when such problems arise, I tend to turn to this blog to talk about them.

I returned to WoW a few months ago for the last stage of Legion, so I could level with one friend and raid with another. After trying two classes at 110, finding no enjoyment out of the classes I chose, I went to level a couple other classes. Before getting them to max level, Blizzard introduced a new patch which made scaling of all content below Legion much, much higher, along with increasing the exp required at certain benchmarks. The net result was making leveling much slower, and doing dungeons to level no longer worthwhile, with the stated goal of forcing players to enjoy the story that they’d laid out.

There’s numerous problems with this whole thing.

First, WoW is, at its core, a raiding MMORPG. That is the main thing differentiating it from the competition right now. We have a lot of free/freemium MMORPGs popping up, but few of them involve raiding with the healer - DPS - tank triangle that Blizzard perfected years ago. Dungeons and raids are the big draw of the game. It blows my mind that Blizzard would simultaneously make doing dungeons pointless and increase the amount of time the player is required to wait before raiding. That’s taking away the draw of the game entirely, putting it farther and farther out of the players’ grasp.

I don’t accept the story argument because WoW’s quests don’t actually involve uncovering the story. The majority of these quests are fetch quests that give very little in the terms of lore, or “kill X monsters” quests, or “kill this specific boss” quests. That has always been WoW’s biggest weakness, and why I preferred RuneScape over WoW in my early days of having both available. RS has only a couple of filler quests. The majority of them lead into long, arcing storylines that tell a tale about an entire region of the game world. The Myrique quests come to mind. Not only do they give immensely valuable rewards- access to a new region of the game which is good for mining and slayer, along with massive xp and item gains- but they also tell why that area exists, what’s going on in it, what the threats are and why they’re threats, and what you, the common adventurer, can do about it. There’s combat sections, there’s sneaky sections, there’s puzzles, and there’s a large variety of areas that all fit a general theme.It’s meaningful. Compare that to the opening quest chain of the Warlords of Draenor expansion, which involves killing some troops, killing some more troops, breaking some prisoners out of their cages (while killing more troops), killing troops protecting allies in a cave, killing 999 enemies in an arena, taking a tank to kill an entire army, then escaping to make a camp from which you can kill the enemies of local tribes. There’s nothing to it. It’s filler, it’s background noise, it’s an excuse to transition from place to place and kill progressively stronger monsters more than an actual discovery process. And it’s dull.

That questing problem is compounded by the requirements that you do world quests to upgrade your artifact weapon in Legion. I get that an MMORPG is designed to have you spinning on a hamster wheel. That’s how they earn their money, by keeping you spending and keeping rewards just out of your reach. But most hamster wheels at least have a TV next to them so you can enjoy yourself. WQs are a grind for the sake of grinding, instead of a grind with the possibility of some great reward as dungeons or raids are.

Then, as if to spit in the face of everything I find fun, Blizzard announces the allied race system for Battle for Azeroth. Before I go into this rant, I should preface by saying I think that whole concept is great. The two major factions *should* be trying to form alliances with subraces. That should’ve been a goal of the leaders of both factions four expansions ago. The fact that I’ll get to have a more-badass cow is neat. But then Blizzard goes and mucks it all up by requiring a rep grind to unlock them (more questing yay!), and feeding bonuses that are only available if you level a character of the subrace to max level.

So I’m frustrated. I’m a healer. It’s all I’ve done in WoW since I discovered how much fun healing is, in the first couple weeks of IceCrown Citadel’s release. To have Blizzard make it nearly impossible to level as a healer, to make that leveling take longer regardless of the spec I use, and to leave me with a requirement of spamming not-healing after hitting max level is infuriating. I’m playing a raiding MMO. I want to raid, not to listen to (generic NPC) talk about how (generic enemy) took his (generic item) and needs you to kill (generic enemy) and recover 15 of them. That’s not fun, that’s not good game design, and it’s leading me to sit out from WoW until Battle for Azeroth releases.

Damn the raid bosses in Antorus are fun, though.

Tranderas’ Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name Diary, Part 5

This is a blog about my attempt at the Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name quest, the longest and most difficult quest line in the Fallen London browser game.

This blog series is spoiler heavy. It deals not just with my experience doing the quest line, but also cross-references to other FailBetter works, extensive digging in the wiki, and discussions with others who have done this quest and many more. If you intend to do the quest chain for yourself- and I highly recommend you do- you shouldn’t read this.

FailBetter Games has explicitly asked that those doing this quest line not share the ending. I intend to honor that request. The last post I make in this series will be the last thing my character sees before completion.

The first stretch of the Seeking Road is probably the hardest on your character. She undergoes a very rapid descent into madness once she hits SMEN 14, the kind of madness that would make one want to destroy his very being for the Name. Seven wounds that will never close, the imprint of chains so strong on your skin that they remain permanently etched in your memory, and stains on your soul so toxic that you feel as if your very life force is being torn at the seams.

That’s the beginning of Seeking.

It makes one wonder what kind of monster can inspire such madness. 

From a player standpoint, it leaves us interested in the quest, as we want to find out about this monster. It’s that “wait, but what about-” aspect that is key to good mystery writing.

From the standpoint of the character, it’s a terrifying obsession, a brutal series of self-mutilating rituals meant to find a higher plane of understanding. At some point your character starts going through a form of sunk cost fallacy- he reasons “What’s one more loss?” when confronted with having to give things up at various points in the chain.

SMEN21 is where those losses first start to bear fruit. From a mere look at the bottom of the Seeking Road storylet, we can see that we’ll require seven candles before going North. SMEN21 is where your character realizes such.

It’s also here that you can figure out that the candles actually refer to real saints- or at least, real saints from history. There’s an implication here: Your character doesn’t even realize what he’s attempting to accomplish until he’s already destroyed his body, mind, and soul. That’s insane. That’s worse than insane- it’s madness to the highest order.

But it’s the sort of suffering a character goes through in the name of the Name.

Since my last post two weeks ago, I reached SMEN 21:

I had saved a Mood (+30 to a stat, goes in head slot) for my last week of Drowning Your Secrets rolls, and with that 46% starting chance, I managed two successes off five rolls. That gave me SMEN18, putting me comfortably in range of getting Cerise’s candle during Christmas.

Before we get into St. Arthur’s candle- something we will do in a future post- we need to talk a bit about what it takes to get those two screenshots.

Scars, Memories, and Stains. The very concept is terrifying to me, especially the last Scar. Weeping Scar #7 requires a 70/30 luck check. Success means you die and get the Scar; failure means you die the wrong way and need to recover before attempting it again. I succeeded on the first attempt.

Not just killing oneself in the name of the Name, but having to force oneself to drown, under one’s own power, with a fresh, deep wound having torn apart the shoulder. Note the menace quality, too. You’re on that boat for awhile.

Memories are weird, but feel like the least-detrimental for your character of the three. It doesn’t feel good to have the sense of something on your wrists while you sleep, but it’s not painful, just unpleasant. The currency loss from the betrayals required hurt, though.

It actually ended up helping me because it introduced me to the Repentant Forger, one of the four acquaintances that help you around London. Not knowing one loses Secrets for this, though... ouch.

The Stains were physically painful for me to read, not just because I hate that damned Cat, but because the very concept of damaging a soul makes me shiver. After all, at least in FL, the soul is a significant part of the being. To hear the devils tell it, having a soul improves the perception of beauty and happiness. Giving it away leaves one melancholy and occasionally indifferent. What must tearing a soul that one is still using do?

I don’t have anything to add to this. I find the whole sequence of events beautifully terrifying. Experience it for yourself, please. Even with the milestones posted here, there’s a lot of cool text I’m not posting from various steps in between and you should experience it.

This time we betrayed ourselves; next time, we get to let others taste it. Until then.

Tranderas’ Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name Diary, Part 4

This is my continued journal about The Seeking Road, the longest and most difficult quest in Fallen London.

This blog series is spoiler heavy, discussing not just the full text and effect of individual storylets, but also plot implications cross-referenced from various sources, both inside and outside the game. If you want to experience the quest entirely for yourself- and I encourage you to do so- please avoid this blog series.

I also remind you that FailBetter Games has explicitly asked that Seekers not share the endings with anyone who has not gone North himself, and I intend to honor that request. Once my character has reached those beautiful white gates, the journal of her exploits will fall silent. If you want to find out, you’ll need to Seek, as she is.

My goal in starting SMEN when I did was to be in a position to get St. Cerise’s Candle by Sacksmas (Christmas). St. Cerise requires that you make a great sacrifice to draw her candle from the well: The highest tier of short story you can make, seven fluke-cores, an ubergoat, or a long-lost daughter. Alternatively, during Sacksmas, you can throw your Noman down there. I decided to save myself a bunch of frustration and go for the Noman.

This required a bunch of very boring math on my part, and the conclusion I came to was that, from starting the previous week at SMEN12, I needed 2 at least. There’s an option during Sacksmas that gives you a point of SMEN- it’s how Trand started down the Road last year- but I don’t know the maximum value it can give nor whether or not it will even show up.

So assuming that option would be there, I’d need 2 levels from the Appalling Secret-burning option of Drowning Your Secrets, and then I’d be cutting the menace zone grind toward the first candle very tight.

Alternatively, if I got 3 successes on Drownings, I would be comfortable in earning St. Arthur’s Candle just before Christmas, going to Winking Isle for 7 SMEN, then returning to do Beau’s and Cerise’s in one swoop.

Four successes allows me to be in a position to do Cerise’s a week early, and also gives me a buffer should something unforeseen happen.

This meant that I would be uncomfortable with anything less than 3 successes. Without getting out the spreadsheet and calculator, I’ll tell you that I had roughly 48% chance 12->13, 44% 13->14, and 38% 14->15. Grinding the University -> Flit loop all week gave me enough Secrets for 8 attempts guaranteed if I failed the first 7, and 7 attempts 100% even if I got three consecutive successes.

I got 3 successes.

I post a shot of the entire storylet so you can see the preposterous amount of resources and menaces we’re dealing with on the Road. Note the 3 Unaccountably Peckish from my 3 successes, as well. It was a hard-fought victory, and one I savored for awhile. Those three UP levels actually saved me an action harassing my cat as I went to draw my Marsh-Mired card for the week.

SMEN16 is where the second option that leads to St. Arthur’s Candle opens- the ability to be betrayed for Marks of Chains. We’re not doing that yet. You lose a bunch of items (I haven’t checked which ones! It’ll be a fun surprise!) and it’s a bunch of time in prison and I still have more University looping to do. However...

She did die, for the very first time. Not the last, though.

Again I post the actual storylet, this time for the irony of “You were fortunate!” on an option that kills you, gives you a permanently-bleeding wound, and makes your stomach feel like a black hole. 

As an aside: Look for me to write a page from the diary of my character about this first death from her perspective. It must be crazy to come to the Neath thinking you’ll do some writing then go back to the surface with some money and experience only to have this happen to you.

Back to the meat of things: scars 2-7 kill you, with scar 2 being a 50/50 luck check on which failure gives you some Scandal, and scar 7 serving up a 70/30 luck check on which failure kills you the wrong way, forcing you to come back from the boat and try again to earn your self-destruction.

At the suggestion of Alan on the IRC, I have held onto a key item: A Mood. Moods come from rare opportunity cards, go into a head slot, and boost one of the main stats by 30 for one hour. Given that they take up that slot, your effective gain will be 30 - your best hat for that stat. I have a +8 Watchful hat (gloam-foam), so I will get a 22 point effective boost. That means that I’ll be rolling for another Drowning at ~223 Watchful at the end of the week. One success puts me in Stains range after I do MMiDoS; I’ll have 5 attempts at about 46%. That one success means I get Arthur’s on Dec 13th at the latest, as I stop Drowning for now and start Dreaming.

I would advise against anyone rushing any part of SMEN as I am doing. It’s a fantastic story and a lot of fun to play and I’m missing some cool Unaccountably Peckish card text by doing this. The only thing I could really advise against in the early stages is doing the Blacken Your Mind Like Paper option, because it halves your watchful and the text isn’t worth it. These stories are meant to be fun, so have fun! Well, as much fun as tearing your character apart piece by tiny piece can be. It is neat to see a storylet in which killing yourself is a success, and killing yourself is a failure. It makes you think about the kind of insanity your character must be going through as the whispers drive him ever-deeper into madness. When killing yourself six times is the first part......

I wouldn’t be surprised if people who had been on board with Seeking stopped right around where I’m at now. The grind to St. Arthur’s Candle is by far the longest part of SMEN because it’s very resource-intensive and requires a ton of baby steps that set you back by seemingly arbitrary amounts of stats and items, and all before you’ve unlocked the Winking Isle carousel that gives 7 levels of SMEN through Fasting and Meditating to a Foolish End. You either take things slow and do a single point of SMEN a week through the Marsh-Mired in Dreams of Sustenance cards, or you burn a ton of Secrets/Enigmas/Mourning Candles pushing yourself through. It’s insanity.

The perfect set up for the rest of The Seeking Road.

Tranderas’ Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name Diary, Part 3

This is the third installment of a journal detailing my expectations, preparations, speculations, and actual experiences doing the Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name quest line in Fallen London.

Speculation comes from talks with people who know the lore better than me, reading the wiki, and cross-referencing material from Sunless Seas. Potential spoilers abound. If you’re interested in ever attempting the quest line yourself, I strongly encourage avoiding this blog series until you complete it! All of the blogs in this category are marked with the tag #TSMENDiary, so if you prefer to read these and no other entries from me, feel free to follow that tag.

Edit from earlier post: I forgot my one additional warning: FailBetter Games has asked that players not share the ending of the Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name storyline. I intend to honor that request. If you’re reading this blog expecting to find out what happens at the end, you’ll be disappointed. Once my character reaches the gates of the Horizon, this journal series will end.

First, a little progress update. And the progress is... not much.

I failed seven consecutive attempts at drowning secrets on Saturday, at a 52% success chance. The chance of that happening is in the low single digits. As a result of these failures, I fell behind about a week compared to where I expected to be.

On the other hand, there’s a user in the IRC that offered a bit of help...

The “normal” way of finding the calling card involves going to God’s Editors and giving them the correct number of Proscribed Materials later on in the line. If you haven’t actually done it, I encourage you to do it- the text is cool as hell. It was spoiled for me at some point, and it is the single best piece of SMEN lore I’ve read to date. Please, do it.

Otherwise, know that the calling card opens up Winking Isle at SMEN21, no wounds or nightmares, and A Question? (meaning you have to Hate or Grieve before going- that option opens at SMEN12). The Isle is where you get the book required to get to the Chapel of Lights for candle #6, and also allows you to do a convoluted series of luck-based checks to get 1 or 7 SMEN levels depending on how far into the carousel you go. It’s almost mandatory for those who want to Seek, as beyond a certain point it’s the only method of getting levels that won’t have astronomical costs. There are rumors of one seeker attempting to go down the Road without using the Isle for anything except the book...

Millicent Clathermont is the wife of the guy who runs the tattoo parlor, and is also the one that does the +BDR tattoos during the Feast of the Exceptional Rose. There are mentions of her throughout SMEN, including on Mr. Eaten’s twitter. Why? I legitimately want to know. It’s the second most interesting mystery to me, besides what lies beyond the gate.

I personally think she’s going to be the lady who allows you to become Obscure in the Nadir. Part of her quest line is that she’s trying to be lost and forgotten. The Nadir is the perfect place for such a person. It would make logical sense, then, that not only does she attempt to be forgotten, but that she helps you do the same. As an added bonus reference, she knows what you’re on about when you ask for a certain tattoo during the Feast of the Exceptional Rose. If she knows The Name, she needs to hide in the Nadir for most of the year, for fear of coming under scrutiny from the Masters.

The only other possibility that comes to me offhand is that she’s the Lady in the Mirror that asks for a sacrifice in the nightmare version of Mrs. Plenty’s Carnival when you go for St. Beau’s Candle. Whoever is in that mirror mentions having gone Seeking once, and failed, which would be consistent with Millicent’s desire to disappear.

That’s the main mystery left for me, beyond the actual Gate itself. I still think Sunless Seas had it right when it suggested the gate isn’t a literal gate, but rather the physical manifestation of the laws of the Judgments which oversee the Neath- laws which, by invoking the forbidden Name, you are violating. I still think it’s sunlight that lies beyond the gate on the Hate ending, because sunlight reaching the Neath is a violation of the Judgments and kills (or at least, is supposed to kill) anyone exposed to it down there. Sunlight is so forbidden that smuggling a sunbeam in a mirrored box is profitable in SSeas. The Hatred ending, in which Eaten seeks revenge instead of retribution, would then kill the Bazaar itself.

The Grieve ending is still up in the air under that hypothesis, but my best guess is that you open the gates to spread nightmares specifically to the Masters and the Bazaar itself (the fact that the Masters and the Bazaar are different entities was an interesting revelation in itself) to drive them insane. That would kill or disable the Bazaar and allow forgiveness of a society which has no knowledge of the betrayal of Mr. Candles.

The other possibility is that Grieve reaches out to the Duchess, his ally in the Third City, and in some way helps her- perhaps by lending his remaining power to her precious Cats, or spreading his Name to them so that they may spread it, or sending The Name to the Duchess herself. Whatever the case is, it will be something that has the potential to cripple, but not destroy, Fallen London.

Before I go, I have an amusing tidbit to share. Someone in IRC joked that I was turning SMEN into accounting. Payable: a reckoning. Receivable: Secrets and Enigmas. He wasn’t kidding. Here’s a picture of my SMEN math.

I’m excited to be on the Road, and I hope you’re excited to share my journey with me. If you want to follow my progress in realtime, check my alt’s journal, as I save echoes of interesting steps along the path. 

Thanks for stopping by! Next update: Will Trand get 16 SMEN off secrets this week? Will RNG murder him again? Tune in to find out!

Tranderas’ Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name Diary, Part 2

Welcome to the second of a long series of posts about my journey down The Seeking Road in Fallen London.

I’ll remind readers that these posts will be spoiler heavy, as they discuss information available in the wiki, the specific text of ingame actions, cross-reference from Sunless Sea, and discussions with people who have a much deeper understanding of the lore than I do. They will contain screenshots, as a warning to mobile users.

Most importantly, I would remind readers that I intend to honor Failbetter Games’ request that the text of the story beyond the Avid Horizon be kept secret to those who have not completed the quest chain. Once my character has reached Horizon, the series will end.

This entry is going to be about the preparation required for the early stages of the Seeking Road. We’re at the end of Samia’s first full week of seeking! I actually made more progress than I expected to:

I thought I’d get maybe SMEN8 in my first week, intending to hit 7 with Appalling Secrets then go to 8 with the Marsh-Mired in Dreams of Sustenance black cards. This expectation was a miscalculation of the scaling of the Watchful check and the number of Secrets I’d had stashed away compared to how many were required for the check as SMEN increases.

Unfortunately, there was another miscalculation along the same lines. SMEN takes a lot of Secrets. I assumed that a better way to raise SMEN would open up once I had my first Weeping Scar. This turned out to not be the case, as the Take a Wild Guess option only gives Wounds, Nightmares, and a Searing Enigma. Here’s the SMEN-increasing options I have at SMEN10. Note that all of the options are marked as unavailable to me because I have some Sudden Insights, and lack Mourning Candles and Searing Enigmas:

The Watchful check for Drown Your Secrets is 20 * your current SMEN level and it requires 77 * your current SMEN level Appalling Secrets to attempt. Set Fires Around the City is a Watchful 15 * SMEN check and requires 77 * SMEN Mourning Candles, but gives a significant boost to Watchful on a success. The Char Yourself option is a Watchful SMEN * 10 check and requires 7 * SMEN Searing Enigmas. It gives a dramatic increase to Watchful on a success.

Blacken Your Mind Like Paper halves Watchful so just don’t do that. Pervert Your Studies requires Scholar of the Correspondence = SMEN squared, and since that quality maxes out at either 23 or 24, the option becomes impossible beyond SMEN4.

Right now I’m looking at 770 Secrets for a 45% chance, 770 Candles for a 60% chance, or 70 Enigmas for a 90% chance at another SMEN level. And that’s 10-11, on cards that grow exponentially in both difficulty and required materials, with 151 effective Watchful.

I mention all this to highlight just how brutal the Seeking Road is at the early stages. These options, plus the black Unaccountably Peckish cards, are the only available ways to raise SMEN from here until 18, at which point a horrendously resource-intensive option opens. You get two “freebies” when you earn the first two candles, then an “easy” way to grind SMEN the rest of the way opens at SMEN 29. In practical terms, that means someone rushing down The Seeking Road- which I don’t recommend, by the way, at least not with a new character- will need tens of thousands of Appalling Secrets, or to go slowly and do Unaccountably Peckish cards.

“Unaccountably Peckish cards? That sounds neat, Trand! Tell me more!” Well, sure. Unaccountably Peckish is a measure of Mr. Eaten’s influence on you. The quality goes from 0 (not hungry) to 10 (a black hole consuming your entire being). Each level of Unaccountably Peckish puts another black-bordered card that has severe consequences and cannot be discarded into your deck.

You’re Seeking, though. You know that “severe consequences” = “story progression” already. Such is the case with UP.

With a single exception, the most damaging option on a given UP card will increase your SMEN by one level, provided it is below 3 * the UP required to receive the card. So the Four of Eyes can raise your SMEN up to 12; the Seven of Words can raise it to 21.

Manipulation of your Unaccountably Peckish stat is important, because the options on these cards that give SMEN either don’t lower UP, leaving you with a ton of black cards with dire consequences. Further, using one of these cards to raise SMEN gives you a quality called Marsh-Mired in Dreams of Sustenance, a quality which is cleared by Time, the Healer and exists solely to prevent players from using UP cards more than once a week.

One can gain 3 points of Unaccountably Peckish with a Starveling Cat; Lyme can reduce the quality by 3 points, and the Labyrinth has an option to lower it by 2. This manipulation can get you to SMEN27 on its own if you’re willing to wait.

In summary, if you want to get started on The Seeking Road, I would advise the following:

1. Grind out thousands of Appalling Secrets. The best route for this is to investigate the University murder for Cryptic Clues (note: the last option costs Cryptic Clues), then use the Investigating... gained to Raid a Message-Drop in the Flit

2. Raise your modified Watchful as high as you can stand to. This is a secondary benefit of the University grinding you’ll be doing. I strongly recommend taking time to grind out some money to buy the best Watchful gear you can get.

3. Get a Starveling Cat. While I’ve talked about the Cat’s relationship to Mr. Eaten in a past blog, suffice it to say that you should have at least one now, and a total of four by SMEN18.

4. Unlock the Labyrinth of Tigers and Mahogany Hall if you have not done so already. The Hall will save a step later on and gives you access to Lyme’s UP-reducing option.

Next time: Some lore speculation and another check on my character’s progress! If you’d like to follow my progress in real time, you can watch my alt’s profile, as I Echo interesting steps along the Road.

Happy Seeking!

Roundup of games i’m playing/interested in playing/no longer playing 11/1/17

Games I’m currently playing

* Three mobile games: FF Brave Exvius, Fate/Grand Order, FF Mobius

* Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain- is in my top 10 favorite games of all time. I intend to unlock the Raiden suit but for now I’m just playing online unlocking outfits and raiding FOBs

* War Thunder: I am doing the “should I/should I not” thing with this game, but for now, I’m stuck here.

* Wurm Unlimited: I’m building a world to play on with friends

* Divinity: Original Sin 2- I got this on release, but since I only play it when Eric is online to co-op with, progress is slow.

* OverWatch- The game needs more support mains, so no matter how frustrated I get, I don’t think I’ll ever truly “leave” it.

Games I’m going to start playing fresh or continue playing in the near future

* Starbound- I didn’t finish this game because I didn’t want it to end, I had so much fun. We’re going to by the end of November

* Stardew Valley- I never finished year 1 due to a combination of boredom regarding fishing in winter and frustration over not knowing how important the achievements in the abandoned town hall are. I’m going to return and marry the cute artist.

* Star Wars: The Old Republic- Tommy told me he’s interested in playing and I’ve been looking for a game I can raid heal in. My Corruption Sorcerer is going to get a workout.

* Witcher 3- I have the season pass for this, and just never got around to finishing it. I’m on the “gather allies” segment having done neither of the big expansion packs. Yenn is terrible and I regret my decision.

* Papers, Please- Tips_ gave me this game for Christmas two years ago and I still haven’t played it

* Undertale- Eric gave me this game for Christmas last year and I still haven’t played it

* Fallout 4- My grandfather bought this because he’s interested in the Fallout universe but he hasn’t been home enough for us to play it together.

* Minecraft- I’m renting a Sky Factory server for my sister’s birthday.

Current games I’m no longer playing

* Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor- I had the same problem with this game as I did with the Assassin’s Creed games. There’s too many important maneuvers that use the same buttons and it makes it awkward to try to move around and do combat. I also found the targeting to be incredibly bad, and died a few times simply from attacking guy 3 when I wanted to hit guy 4 that was about to smack me. QTEs are unresponsive as well

* Hand of Fate- Same problem with the combat system. It sucks that your character defaults to hitting a guy on the ground when you’re holding movement keys away from him, where there’s a guy coming at you.

* Darkest Dungeon- I picked it up again for the first time since the month of its release and it feels like more RNG was added that can screw your team over before it even gets a chance. I get it’s supposed to be dark and gritty and hard, but it went from “hard” to “cheap.”

* Secret World Legends- A toxic community combines with a bad combat system. The game felt dead as I wandered around the world.

* Black Desert Online- My frustration with this game mostly came from the fact that I felt like I was in a weird place gear-wise. Starting area monsters were too weak for my progression; Midevah(?) enemies were too strong. I decided I don’t like the gear advancement system of sinking hundreds of millions of silver into intentionally failing just so you get a high% chance at success on a real item.

Those are my plans through the end of the year. My streams will likely be Minecraft and Wurm Unlimited world building; otherwise, you’ll see me on one of the two PvP games I’m playing now.

See you on the battlefield!

Tranderas’ Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name Diary, Part 1

I’ve written a bit about how big a fan I am of Fallen London. I love the style, I love the setting, and I love how deep the lore goes. One can start a conversation with a single question at noon and come out the next morning with more questions about that subject than answers. It has been both a master class in writing and a constant diversion from the usual video game.

The biggest story in Fallen London is Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name. It is the un-quest, meant as an experiment to see just how much players are willing to sacrifice for no reward other than having done so. It is long, brutal, and unforgiving. At every step along the Seeking Road, the game tells you to stop doing it. An item is even placed in your inventory to let you opt out at any time. 

And it is here where my current interest resides. I started down The Seeking Road on my main character; but after having read how brutal it is, I decided to start an alt for it.

She has started down that long Road.

This series is meant to serve as a diary along the way. It will discuss my expectations, from having read SpaceMarine9′s fantastic blog on the subject to doing my own digging around the wiki and discussions with forum members. And as I go along, I’ll discuss how those expectations differed from the reality of the quest. I will take you all the way to the Avid Horizon, but leave you there, as I intend to honor FailBetter’s request that what lies beyond the gate remain secret to those who have not completed the chain.

I’ll be tagging every post with #TSMENDiary so they can be easily perused at your leisure. Those links contain spoilers, as does this post from this line down. I’ve also included images, so be wary if on mobile.

I started down The Seeking Road during Sackmas (Christmas) last year. During the holiday season, an option on one of the cards can start you down the Road with SMEN 4, skipping a painful step. The alt got no such luck. She did it the usual way- the Seeking Curios and Secrets in the Forgotten Quarter card with nightmares 5+ and Scholar of the Correspondence 1+. There’s other ways to do it, but I can’t recommend them.

This is my current The Seeking Road card in my Lodgings. Only the first two options are available at SMEN3, which is where the non-Sackmas options place you. Blacken Your Mind halves your Watchful, with no second chances allowed. Pervert Your Studies requires Scholar of the Correspondence 16, and halves that. Those are expensive. Don’t do them to get to 4. Instead, fish for a rare success in the Labyrinth of Tigers, head down to the Nadir, or use one of the Unaccountably Peckish cards (more info about those in the future) to get a “cheap” point.

The “Drown Your Secrets” option burns 77*SMEN Appalling Secrets for a chance at a point of SMEN, and outside of the Unaccountably Peckish cards is going to be your cheapest SMEN option in the early game. SMEN 4 is where you use these, as due to the formula it gets exponentially more expensive to do this.

Okay, so that’s the start of The Seeking Road. Now I want to talk about what I’m getting into a bit. If this isn’t your thing, if you only want to know about my progress without the discussion of my hypotheses regarding my future on The Seeking Road, I thank you for reading this far and hope you will join me for the next post. This section has spoilers that go a bit deeper yet.

My original impression of SMEN was that Seekers are searching out the true name of Mr. Eaten, before the betrayal that put him beyond the Horizon. That belief collapsed almost immediately when I discovered a holiday card that calls the Drowned One by name- Mr. Candles. 

Sunless Sea offers a clue as to what’s going on, in its quest to go East. Much like SMEN, it is a difficult, brutal quest. But it has a quality to it: Letters of the Name-Which-Burns. You know that Salt is called Salt. You seek to learn its Name in Correspondence sigils.

We learn through various Opportunity cards that the Correspondence has power. This is especially obvious when attempting to study the Correspondence in the Forgotten Quarter, and from the description text on Correspondence Plaques. The symbols burn. Mr. Eaten’s name- or rather, the forbidden sigils that comprise his name in the language of the Correspondence- must be fire.

That’s a means, though, not an end. Knowing The Name isn’t enough. Something must be done with it. A hint as to what you might have needed to do is found when asking Millicent Cathermont for a tattoo. But that is not the current end goal. The goal is to open the gate at Avid Horizon.

Why? How do the candles and The Name help? Why are there so many references to Millicent Cathermont in SMEN?

I don’t know, and I’ll leave my hypotheses for next time.

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. 

Unlimited Possibilities

I’ll be starting a Wurm Unlimited server for my friends in a few days and I wanted to talk about it because I absolutely love the game.

Between WU and its parent mmorpg, Wurm Online, I have close to 700 hours played. This includes a lot of double-character time on WO as I used one character to build ships to sell and the other to drive the boat on which the first would ride back after delivery. It was a nice setup as the alt was grinding up to become a priest.

My 250 hours on Wurm Unlimited were mostly positive with a very sharp negative at the end that’s 100% to do with the sort of drama that happens when you’re on a community server. I enjoyed my role on Sklotopolis as a ship-builder and the only shieldsmith that was selling shields on a regular basis, and I would blow so much time fishing in the middle of the map’s bay. My one neighbor on the peninsula was extremely friendly, and had his own pet project of building a bridge to connect our peninsula with the mainland across the bay.

Wurm has such wide possibilities of activities for a survival game. You can specialize in anything from ships to metal weapons to fletching. There’s the standard light - medium - heavy armor and light - heavy shields of fantasy. Being a priest in Wurm means more than just a holy symbol and a prayer, having world-shaking consequences. There’s bosses, and the gods’ avatars, and mining, and fishing, and crafting, and monsters, and champion versions of those monsters, and monster breeding, and lots and lots of building.

The priest part is the most fascinating to me because of how much different it is from any other fantasy game. Priesthood unlocks powers, but in WO, and in its default state in WU, it carries heavy penalties. Once you become a priest of one of the four gods, many activities become forbidden to you, including skills to craft the gear you need to survive. Sure, you have powerful spells to help those around you, but you’re also reliant on them to make things you need. Priesthood brings about this codependence that you don’t see in most survival games. And each god has an epic spell that requires multiple high-level priests to cast and gives benefits to the entire world. Vynora’s Rite of Spring, for example, gives every one of her followers on the entire server a rested bonus and a stat increase. Priests give powerful tools at a steep price.

There was a time when I was the only WU caster on Twitch, and I enjoyed my role as a gatekeeper of sorts to the game. I had at least two people come in and tell me that the fact that communities exist for the game, and watching my gameplay, convinced them to buy it. That interaction with a community, talking and casting and teaching, is so exciting to me.

With WU’s stint in a Humble Bundle coming to a close, I bought a few copies to send to friends. Server hosting appears to be about $15 a month for a server good enough for a couple friends on a small-ish map, so we’ll see what happens.

For people who do know the game well enough, I’m going to list the rules I intend to set:

* Basic deeds are free; expansion costs money, as does upkeep

* Just no griefing, don’t be dicks ffs

* All skills are going to start at 25 for all players; each new player will be able to PM me for a 30ql weapon of his choice

* Skill xp will be doubled

* PvP will be off unless the group of people I invite want it turned on

* Priest penalties will be turned off; however, with that comes a limitation of only one character per player

* If I run the server off my PC, I will only grind my character’s skills when someone else is online, so I don’t get any unfair advantages in the trading department. If I decide to buy an online server, my primary character will grind just like everyone else. Either way, the GM character will only be used for building the castle at the starting area, settling disputes, and handing out prizes for building contests.

* Money will be obtained through selling to the trader or the token as per WO. The amount of silver that the traders have will be adjusted as time goes on.

* Should the server ever get so big that we feel the need for more RAM or more involved rules, I’ll start a new server with a new world and ask for donations to help pay for it

My main goal of making my own server is to be able to experience the “endgame” of WU, of building and making my castle and exploring and fighting and crafting, on my own terms. Someone wrecked my deed on Sklo and it killed my drive to play there, and I want a place where, if I build something, then feel like taking a break, I can come back and it’ll still be where I left it. I hope my friends are willing to come on that adventure with me, because it’s a fascinating game.

An INTeresting Proposal

This is kind of an open apology to Justin, and a bit of explanation of where I am in life right now.

There’s a difference between having the time for something, wanting to do something, and having the energy to do it. The first two apply to the offer I was given; the third does not.

I was offered the chance to come back as the community manager of INT, an offer I initially accepted. The day after, before signing the NDA, I went through all of the social media, checking views, measuring public metrics, figuring out what needs to be done. I talked to friends, assessed comments, and put together a plan.

As I did so, there was a growing, nagging feeling, one that brought on a full-on panic attack Tuesday night.

INT is in a very, very early stage. We’re talking “there is a single gameplay video that covers the first 10 seconds of the demo and only has the PC moving in it” early. It will probably take a year to grow that community, even if the demo were to come out by the end of the month.

That’s the thing, though: It won’t. And with every single person I talked to, with every comment I saw on the social media, the thought was that social media is being pushed too early. People want to see a demo. My best friend used the old “putting the cart before the horse” saying. I came to agree, and the plan I put forth reflects that.

So you have this project that I believe in, and have since I first joined the team as a writer, but that would take a massive amount of energy to convince others to believe in with me. It wouldn’t require a lot of time, mind you, but the energy required to build from the social media interactions the game has now to the point that you and I would want it is astronomical. And it’s at a time when I’m playing less games and feeling less excited about games, as I try to find a way to advance in a career in addition to finding a job.

It’s not that I don’t love the games industry or love INT. It’s that I love INT enough to not want to give myself to it unless I had the energy to push it as hard as I can. I don’t; you, and this game, deserve someone who does.

I believe in the plan I put in your inbox, and I hope both you and the person you find to fill that role do, as well. It was written out of love, for a team and for a project. I know I lost some goodwill, but I hope it doesn’t ruin our friendship, because man, I disappointed both of us.

INT will go on- maybe even with my help someday! And the team, the game, will be stronger for my absence.

[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.