Tranderas' Musings

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.

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.

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,

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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?