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[nenjin]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's the Ambition: Light Fingers storylet. I assume each ambition is a completely different storylet.

[Theodolus]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ah, that explains it. Mine was the Vake Hunting. I'm very sad that they haven't made anymore progress on the ambitions. I'd like to eventually hunt the blasted thing down and make a cape from its hide.

[baruk]

 Getting back into this - I'm enjoying the action limit being increased to 20, and I notice additional options cropping up on cards quite frequently. I'm particularly pleased that they made it a lot cheaper and easier to obtain strong backed labour - the last time I lost interest in the game was after long sessions grinding wilmot's end for them, but I notice that they now cost 1250 pennies in the downward engineering corp, bazaar sidestreets (think it used to be an eye-watering amount of compromising documents and incendiary gossip). So I'm now the proud owner of a clay sedan chair, with ambitions toward evicting an army of rats from a certain marble gymnasium (or vice versa).

[nenjin]

Sadly, we'll be back down to 10 actions come the New Year. The buff has really helped though. I've been trying to get through as many grindy Running Battles and Pygmalion's as I can before it's over.

No idea how I'm going to get anything done with 10 measly actions. As much as I don't really want to pay up, I may have to become an Exceptional Friend for a while.

[E. Albright]

I'm dreading the first of the year for those selfsame reasons. Dark times ahead, indeed.

Might there be any scandalous, suspicious soul about who would be more interested in correcting those problems than in making waves in society? If so, I'd love to know, that I might invite them to a lovely dinner at Dante's Grill...

[nenjin]

In other news, the game has been getting some nice updates.

New card art is sweet, and generally loads and processes faster. Also the Gear page under Myself has been revamped, so instead of processing your entire inventory when changing gear, it only processes each type (so head, body, hands, ect...) So changing gear is A LOT faster now.

[E. Albright]

So I found in my letterbox an unsigned missive from someone asking me for a certain sort of skull. Now, to be sure, I don't collect such d______e abominations, but I was wondering if someone here might have been the cur who would impute otherwise.

[Theodolus]

Ahem, I would know of no such missive. You may want to check your box once again as it may have been a sad mis-delivery of a letter from another entirely unrelated party.

((It was from me, though I thought it would at least sign it with my username. However, after sending the missive I returned to my wanderings about the quarter and promptly stumbled across a skull of my own. Seriously though, I spent at least 2-300 actions wandering the quarter trying to find the flippin' thing and it had to pop up immediately after sending that request. *sigh*))

[baruk]

 So I just tried a new option on one of my residence cards that required 100 society - an auction of a couple of precious items. So this happened:

You've lost a quality: Connected: Society.

It took the whole lot... which I wasn't expecting - a lot of the older cards have the decency to warn you when they are going to take a big chunk of your connecteds. It got my making waves quality from 8 to 15, which doesn't seem like a fair exchange. It was enough to give me a 50% chance with slowcake's amanuensis, however I failed, dropping making waves back down to 8 (I'm at notability 2 at the moment - did anyone else manage to get very far with it?). Things like this encourage me to check the wiki extensively before trying out any new action...

New card art is sweet, and generally loads and processes faster. Also the Gear page under Myself has been revamped, so instead of processing your entire inventory when changing gear, it only processes each type (so head, body, hands, ect...) So changing gear is A LOT faster now.

Yes. This is fantastic. I found myself strategising around costume changes to keep them to a minimum, since it was so painfully slow to switch things out for trivial stuff.

[nenjin]

It took the whole lot... which I wasn't expecting - a lot of the older cards have the decency to warn you when they are going to take a big chunk of your connecteds. It got my making waves quality from 8 to 15, which doesn't seem like a fair exchange. It was enough to give me a 50% chance with slowcake's amanuensis, however I failed, dropping making waves back down to 8 (I'm at notability 2 at the moment - did anyone else manage to get very far with it?). Things like this encourage me to check the wiki extensively before trying out any new action...

Yeah, it's irritating when some cards level with you, and others don't. Going to Enforcer took my Connected: Criminals from 20+ to zero.

As for Making Waves, I wouldn't worry about it. It seems to only be a thing for events. Otherwise I don't think it serves any function.

[nenjin]

Small spoiler for Hunting for Exhibits for Mr. Inch.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Don't bother unless you're hard up for Primordial Shrieks. Tons of grinding, up to 15 Running Battle, for a modest chance. Bunches of different things to hunt, all giving the same relative reward. Blech. Spent like 2 days doing this.

[baruk]

I wrote an exceptional short story this week, and used it to advance my profession from journalist to author - your little red note book¹ gets replaced with an Appreciation Society² - about time too. The weekly income turns out to be quite generous:

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 The payment for a speaking engagement. A gift from a wine merchant. A rather frank letter from an admirer of your work. Not bad at all. You've gained 1 x Blackmail Material (new total 17). You've gained 2 x Night on the Town (new total 8 ). You've gained 4 x Stolen Kiss (new total 36). You've lost 1 x An Earnest of Payment (new total 0). Connected: Bohemian is increasing... 35 36 You've gained 1 x Cellar of Wine (new total 4). You've gained 500 x Whispered Secret (new total 3470). You've gained 250 x Cryptic Clue (new total 2215).

I also messaged support about losing 100 connected society from the private auction on the lofty tower card. Apparently it's all fair and above board (the consensus from fallen london forumites is that it's a horrible trade, at best a 75% loss in efficiency), but it sounds like they will be adding a warning to the card in the future.

You're right about it being unexpected - it's a very fair reward and Connected: Society is relatively easy to come by, but there should really be a note on the card. Thanks for flagging it up, and sorry about the shock!

_{1. A weapon with} 

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+6 persuasive +6 watchful

_{2. A pet with}

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+9 persuasive, +9 watchful and +1 respectable

[Theodolus]

Good on you Baruk. I got that card today and it noted that there was an exchange of 100 connected society points for the auction. The making waves is the big draw to that I think. I'll be honest though, at this point I'm debating seeing if I can just start back over at bottom level. Having started up so high I feel like I'm constantly missing a bunch of really interesting low level stuff. One of the most annoying issues I just ran across was quitting my job as an enforcer and then discovering that they changed the job system so I have to get notability 2 before I can advance further in my career... ah well.

[nenjin]

Well, so much for the Cheesemonger.

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In some ways it was a devil of a decision. In others, not. I knew I'd be getting my hands dirty in the Great Game, but The Cheesemonger seemed intent on murder and ruination. Killing isn't an occupation of mine, it just happens to be a useful tool applied selectively. When she proposed her plan to me, I knew I didn't want any part of it. The real question is what was I willing to do?

Turn about is fairplay, as they say. She should have known better. To make her offer knowing that refusal meant my death, what exactly did she expect me to do? It wasn't my involvement that ultimately undid her. It was her sheer hubris. She better than anyone should know, no one wins the game. It just keeps on going. I don't know what they did with her and frankly, for my safety's sake, I don't want to know.

That said, the "payment" was laughable. I could have made more than that just strolling through Spite. I suppose I'm just glad to be rid of the whole endeavor.

Theo if you do restart I'm willing to spend some actions on holding stuff for you. Restarting after that long can't be an easy choice. That said, also knowing what storylets aren't really worth your actions would be a pretty big boon too.

[baruk]

 I just discovered that failbetter are doing a sort of advent calendar thing on their twitter (wish I'd found out sooner). Log in using the link that gets posted up each day and you get a little gift. Today I got some deep amber, sudden insights and a very welcome reduction in my nightmares.
https://twitter.com/echobazaar