Thursday, July 18, 2013

There is a new public release in town...

...And it's here to party! Grab it, quickly!

http://mdqp.nachtwolf.at/Tales%20of%20the%20Drunken%20Cowboy%20-%20Chapter%201%200.71.rag

To run it, you'll need the 2.4.14 version of RAGS, that you can find here:

http://www.ragsgame.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=894&start=20

If the forum is down (it seems to happen from time to time), try this link:

http://mdqp.nachtwolf.at/RagsSetup.2.4.14.msi

Things that were added since last release:

More scenes to Malena's romance;

The beginning of Piper's romance;

A new planet (Verania), which includes another part of the main quest and at least 3-4 side quests (you might not see all of them, depending on your choices) some random events, new NPCs and items;

Some more random events during travels;

The groper scene on Europa 4 has other scenes after the first one;

The sexy lingerie is not just a useless waste of money anymore;

You can build your own fighting drone;

I added a mini-quest to follow the "vase retrieval quest" (incidentally, I also made this quest easier, and hopefully fixed some old issues it had for a while);

More dialogues with your crew;

And a lot of minor things here and there (scenes changed/improved; some code optimized, the usual stuff. Oh, and you can skip the first mission, now, so you don't have to go through it again and again and again. You still can't skip the intro, though! You'll have to click that "continue" button a lot!).



I honestly hoped to squeeze in some more content (maybe improve on Kantor, and add more side-quests), but I feel like I need some rest from the game for a week or two, and it's been a long time since my last release, so I thought to push things a bit and wrap things here, for the moment. There are a couple of quests on Verania that not even my testers saw (so they have something to look forward, too!). They are short, and I made sure to test them out properly, but in case you find bugs, it's probably my fault, so don't blame my testers! ^_^

I think when I resume development my focus will go on side-quests, at least for a while: I need to code at least 5-6 of them, to properly "fill" the game (right now I am a bit behind the curve), and then I can go back on the important stuff (main quest, crew's side quests, maybe improve the romances). If I just did the main parts, I could probably release a version with the whole main story in it before the end of the year, but with the side stuff involved, I think I'll need more time. Oh well, we'll see.

No video for this week, as I am a little exhausted...

Also, I think I forgot to mention the donors this last few weeks (damn it! I knew I was forgetting something! I am always forgetting something!), so here they are (I hope I am not forgetting anyone, or citing someone twice, for that matter!):

M. A.: 30€

Kleana: 42.38 australian dollars.

This should be everything! I'll make sure to update the link in the widget, too so there won't be any problems. You can report all the bugs you find in the comment section, or at the hypnopics collective thread.

Have fun! ^_^

57 comments:

  1. Time to put Celeste in even more embarrassing situations!

    I can post a video for this week if you want.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Humoring spelling error in the second Train groper scene "... wonderful sensation in your breasts, and in your crouch."

      Delete
    2. Okay, I'll trust you with the most important thing on this website: poor/short review of great animes, including youtube intro video! Don't let me down!

      Fixed the typo (no matter how many I fix of these, they never stop appearing. Sometimes I wonder if someone doesn't add them in the game just to screw with me... That someone is probably myself, though... ^_^).

      Delete
    3. Got an Email i could possibly ship it to?

      Delete
    4. send it at mirko.della@tiscali.it

      Thanks for subbing for me! ;)

      Delete
  2. During the intro, clicking continue after choosing to wait under the table:

    "Rags can not process the command correctly. If you are the game author, please correct the error in this command:CT_MOVECHAR" Repeats twice

    "Rags can not process the condition check correctly. If you are the game author, please correct the error in this condition:Music Drunken Cowboy check:CT_Player_In_RoomGroup - Drunken Cowboy - -"

    "Rags can not process the condition check correctly. If you are the game author, please correct the error in this condition:Music Downtown? check:CT_Player_In_RoomGroup - Downtown - -"

    Then RAGS crashes due to an unhandled exception.
    "************** Exception Text **************
    System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
    at Rags.frmMain.c16f20f19536af362c5e437fe3b72ea8b()
    at Rags.frmMain.ce200544896df1b6d0f0b8e63ec1c22bf()
    at Rags.frmMain.c1c7e722e9171a93d5f29b3f1a6c671a7(Object , EventArgs )
    at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.RaiseEvent(Object key, EventArgs e)
    at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem.OnClick(EventArgs e)
    at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleClick(EventArgs e)
    at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleMouseUp(MouseEventArgs e)
    at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEventInteractive(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met)
    at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEvent(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met)
    at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mea)
    at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripDropDown.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mea)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
    at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)
    at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.WndProc(Message& m)
    at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripDropDown.WndProc(Message& m)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
    at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)"

    Using version 2.4.14 as linked in the post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can't reproduce this bug... Do you have more than one version of RAGS installed?

      Did you try downloading the file again?

      Did anyone else have the same problem?

      Delete
    2. Interestingly enough, I can't seem to reproduce it again either despite being able to do it twice in a row when it originally happened.

      So... sorry for the false alarm I guess.

      Delete
    3. It's okay. :)

      RAGS is a bit unstable at times, and I have seen some weird things, both as a player, and as a developer, so I understand you perfectly. ^_^

      Delete
  3. what happened to my friend the travel sphere? I miss him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Its presence wasn't planned, at first, but once I forgotten to remove it from the public version, I decided to leave it there (removing that version and uploading a new one just for that was silly). This time around, I simply remembered to make it hidden, as it should be.


      Leaving cheating tools around is just too tempting, and it makes it harder to get proper feedback on the game (is the game too easy/hard? Are there enough ways to make money? Do you have enough time to see what's in the game if your mental resistance starts to drop?).

      There are some things I can't just leave to the testers, who are used to the quirks of the game by now, I must know how it works for players in general, too.

      Delete
    2. On loading an old save I still have it, anon. I suppose if you really need it you will have to do it that way, if you kept the older version of tales handy.

      Delete
    3. If you use an old save, I am not sure if the game loads the new stuff, though. Could you try and tell me if that's the case? Can you access the new content that way?

      RAGS is very particular about how it handles conflicts between information stored in save files, and the ones in the game.

      Delete
    4. Yeah with no trouble whatsoever I picked up where I left my previous save in the previous version and freely accessed both Verania and the additional subway scenes -I didn't check everything. You simply get an error message asking if you are sure you want to lead the save for the new version of the game. If you hit yes it does it easily enough.

      I think the travel sphere is slightly different than how I remember it too. I think everything goes smoothly to how you have it in the new version.

      Delete
    5. That's good, then. I remember trying doing something similar for my own game some time ago, but it didn't work as I expected. Maybe an update improved the compatibility? Anyway, if it works just fine people will have that option too, now. Usually you'd have to start from the beginning whenever a new version is out, because of compatibility issues.

      Delete
  4. Hey awesome, but when did RAGS get an update?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's still in beta, so maybe that's why you missed the update. I thought by now we would have a proper update, but it's been more than a month without hearing anything from the RAGS author about this, so I have no idea how things are going over there. Heck, my license expired in the mean time, so I'd have to buy a new one, if there is ever another update. For now I'll keep using the 2.4.14 one. It seems stable enough, and it allows me to convert the game to a web format.

      Delete
    2. Ok thanks, but is the game stable with RAGS 2.4.0.0?

      Delete
    3. No, downloading the 2.4.14 version is a requirement, sorry.

      Delete
  5. An update, awesome!

    And as great as everytime!

    Im curious how the malena romance will develop further :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hey mdqp!

    I wanted to give you some feedback, dont know if you really want it :) But here it comes.
    And i want to apologize in advance if i sound like an angry ass. Because hands on heart, this is the best rags game i have played. And i have played them all. Or close to.

    I can only speak for myself, but for me the sphere is essential. And that is because else the game is just trying too hard to give me all kinds of different game overs. Gahh i hate getting game overs.
    It feels like my mental resistance drops to -10 even before i really get anywhere :P
    So i need to cheat.

    Another problem i have is that the game dosent give any warnings at all if im about to go somehwere with some tough opponents. So im pretty much screwed. This happened yesterday, so i had to start over. And it sucks sooo much if you have put 4+ hours in already.

    And i just killed my new save again in the "temple, priest map." The game didnt warn me about using mental powers. So basically i screwed my game long time ago, just didnt know it and kept playing to the end battle that was already lost 30 min ago, without my knowledge.

    The game has so many of these traps. One click there, and 30min - 1 hour later the game says: "haha fucker, game over. Your quicksave wont help you, because you have already quicksaved 20 times on another game over traps. muhaha."

    But the good thing is that you are cool enough, hell you are the only 1 i know who is not selfish enough to lock a free game up ;) There are other open games, but none which is this big and complex.

    I have already modded my game a bit. I have the sphere, and my mental res cant drop below 1. Muhahaha. Now i just need to add in so i can raise Janes fatigue + some other small cheat tweaks.

    Sorry for the long post. I just wanted to give this feedback because maybe there are others like me out there, but who cant edit rags games. And that means, they are totally fucked. And probably crying in frustration right now :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am always looking forward more feedback, and if I never got any criticism, the game would probably be worse now.

      Well, if you are playing it "seriously", it should be relatively easy to avoid getting your mental resistance to drop too much, but I can imagine a lot of people also want to fool around. I just felt it wouldn't mean much if you could just to do whatever you want AND keep the mental resistance high (we can discuss if the mental resistance is a good mechanic or not, but now that it's there and it's a core part of the mechanics, I can't simply toss it away, so it's there to stay).

      Is combat really that hard? There are a lot of consumables to help in the fights, and picking the right weapon/bullet combo should make them all doable. And there are also the upgrades for your weapon, as well as some traits that improve your battle performance. With this being said, the game is still being built, so I can imagine some encounters aren't well balanced yet. I think I will add a difficulty setting for the battles, anyway, because this isn't the first time I was told the fights are hard (I might do that by just increasing Celeste's base attack and defense a little. Usually the fights need only a little push to become much easier, especially since the shields recharge after each battle, which means you only have to manage your HP between them).

      But, but! I really like long-term traps (and bad ends in general)! XD

      I try to drop hints here and there in the text, but I can imagine them being hard to catch, especially on the first time experiencing a certain quest. I just don't like puzzles where you can easily go "I'll just reload until I get it right LOL", it defies the purpose of having a puzzle to begin with, and a text-adventure without puzzles is basically a pick your own path adventure. Nothing wrong with those (I like several of them, in fact), but they are not what I was aiming for. I do try to offer some alternative solutions to the puzzles, so that it might be easier to avoid getting stuck, but there is only so much I can do.

      Did you know I wanted to make the game a bit harder and more complex, at first? Good thing I didn't do it, after all! ^_^

      Well, my games are open mainly to allow people to learn how I did this or that, if they want to make a game themselves and wonder how I did something (although I don't comment the code, so it's probably a terrible learning tool... -_-), but if that's the only way you can enjoy the game, go on and mod it, I am fine with it (just don't go overboard! XD XD XD).

      It's always good to know what players think. I might not always do what they suggest (I might have my own ideas on the topic), but I need to understand what people like and dislike about my games, if I want to improve them. So I am happy you took your time to write this comment. :)

      Delete
  7. i hate mental resistance plz but the cheats back or just destroy it

    great update it was worth all the waiting

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have been asking around if people would be okay with simply having an "easy mode", which makes fights easier, and makes it so you need more travels before you trigger the bad end related to low mental resistance.

      Would that work for you, or do you still prefere having the cheats?

      Delete
    2. thanks for answering
      for i think i prefer the cheats.......

      thanks alot

      Delete
    3. We'll see about it, then. The game isn't complete yet, so leaving cheat codes in isn't a big deal, but I don't know if I would want to leave them there for the final version.

      Delete
    4. I would like an option to have the Travel Sphere in too. Not that the game is too hard, but after I beat a game legitimately I often go back through with cheats turned on, to one-shot enemies that gave me trouble and to see content I chose not to access my first time.

      For this kind of run, cheats let me get there faster with less repeating of stuff I already did; that is the only reason I think the Travel Sphere should be optional (maybe with gratuitously insulting messages suggesting our intelligence and ability to play is subnormal, I can take it. :3)

      Delete
    5. As I said, I'll think about it. Having cheats in isn't a big deal, when the game isn't finished, and adding it as a bonus for those who want to play the game again after completing it is fine, too.

      Maybe once I finally add some more ways to recover MR, things will improve on normal difficulty, too.

      Delete
  8. About Darenzia Kasparov.
    I dont think its really important, but... most usual surnames of the people living in the CIS add "a" in the end for females. So, Kasparov is a male surname and Kasparova - female. Its definitely right for that surname. (i live in Russia, i know)

    End...i never heard name Darenzia. (if its name pretend to be real) Looks like mix between Dar'ia and Zinaida :P

    sorry for bad english.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Eh, eh, I actually know that. ^_^

      Basically, Kasparov isn't her real name, she just picked one she thought sounded cool (and since she doesn't know about how surnames work in Russia, she made a blunder). That's also why her name and surname don't work well together (although names don't always reflect your homeland, it depends on your parents, too). I probably shouldn't have left such an obvious hint about her name, knowing that there are a few people from Russia playing the game.

      There are a couple of reasons why she lies about it, and once I add the her side quest to the game, you'll get to know why... ;)

      Delete
  9. I also dislike the mental resistance game over. Basically you're getting punished for trying out all the good stuff and at some point the game just says "Nope, that was too much fun, try again but this time ignore the fun stuff". Ofc you could manage a library of dozens of savegames and hammer that load button so you don't end up with a mental resistance dead end but that's not a lot of fun either.

    I guess the cheat tool would at least be a decent workaround but couldn't you do a "bad end" instead of the game over? I just want to turn Celeste into a slut and keep playing (with all the story consequences) but the game won't let me :p

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But, but! Aren't my game overs all fun? I go by the idea that losing is fun! XD

      Turning Celeste into a slut and continuing to play would require me to add variations to almost all dialogues to fit that change (you can't have a slut Celeste being against ALICE's suggestions, after all), it's a practical matter, not just a design choice (I would have needed to cut the size of the game drastically, to have a chance to manage such a thing).

      I might have some "extended bad ends" in the future, where you keep playing for a short while as a slave, but that's about it, at least for chapter 1.

      Delete
  10. My own feedback on the mental resistance:

    My main problem is not the 0 resistance game over (I actually like to roleplay that management), but the unavoidable "time limit" game over. I've just lost a save because of it, which was kinda frustrating, because there was no much I could do. I was at 4 resistance at the time and pend most of the game around that, so it came out as very sudden to me. With some testing I discovered I hit in a dead end because I, much earlier in the game decided to play around, traveling back and forth without having my resistance maxed out. Unknown to me, this action pretty much doomed my game as I had now a very limited amount of travels I could do even with mental resistance of 4.

    For me, the main problem is the consequences of 'wasting time' is not very clear. Sure, the game kinda tells you about it, and you get some foreshadowing scenes. However, since my resistance kept high, I thought there was no problem. As a suggestion, I would get away with this bad end. Instead, I would make that you get a travel event every so often (probably more often the longer the game goes) that auto decrease your mental resistance. That way, the game becomes more transparent, as the urgency of the situation can be better felt.

    Another thing is that there is a limited ways to get your resistance up. Once you used them up, that is it, it is only downhill from there. Again there is a lack of transparency as it is impossible for the player to tell when they arrived such situation. This only overly encourage over cautions gameplay as it is the only safe way to go by. Sure, I like the resistance management, but playing safe shouldn't be the only way to play the game.

    A solution to this would be making more events to raise resistance, but this is still not ideal alone, specially if it is possible for an unaware player to go through all of them at once and, thus, potentially dooming their game latter. For me, however, the best solution would be creating one or more ways to constantly raise resistance. So, no matter what, you won't be stuck with 0 resistance. To avoid having the opposite problem (people easily having resistance 5 all the time), this way should have a cap. So, the event would never raise your resistance over 2. This way, you can be guarantied you can scape from an almost hopeless situation, but you will still have to be cautious even then.

    Well, that is it. Sorry for the big post. I don't think the mental resistance system needs to go away completely. I rather like it. But it should be less opaque for the player, and shouldn't put you in a impossible situation with too much time of advance.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I get what you mean. I tried to give the ending proper foreshadowing, with the short scenes you get during travels whenever you get closer to the ending and the changes to the text when you examine yourself, and I also tried to warn people at the beginning of the game, right after ALICE goes bonkers, but it can be a little obscure, given how the ending is triggered.

      People should be cautious, though, that's kind of the idea. I don't like leaving no real consequences for fooling around, and the final destination for a weak-willed Celeste is always slavery, make no mistake about it.

      It's like telling me that in a FPS you should be able to go for a walk in front of the enemies every now and then, and you shouldn't die for it. I am not saying I couldn't have made a different game, but it's hard to scrap those systems from the game now, it is designed around them, for better or for worse.

      Maybe I should make the variable that tracks down your enslavement visible? Would that change make things better?

      Also know that your enslavement progress slows down, if you do certain things (buying a new engine makes travels shorter, which gives ALICE less time to mess with you, being smart gives you more resistance to ALICE, and you can get from Mr. Nice Guy an electric device that interferes with ALICE influence over you).

      The game will have more ways to raise your MR (I had plans to add those for a while, now), so things should at least get easier (and together with the easy mode, this should be enough for people who want an easier time around).

      Delete
  11. The peoblem with your warnings and foreshadowing is that they are very common in games, but usually are just bunk. Mass Effect is a primary example of that. This is why I suggested a way to make the path to the end more clear, by impacting your mental resistance more clearly.

    Having real consequences is I agree, I agree. But, from a game play perspective, it is a problem when you can identify exactly the cause when they come around, or when you can only see them when it is too late to do anything. Also, it is annoying when the consequences come from what you think is playing well. As I said, I expend most of my game with a MR of 4. I thought this was high enough to protect me so I never made any effort to raise it up. In fact, I would purposefully bring it down if it maxed out, to make sure I would not 'waste' a MR raising opportunity.

    It is interesting you mentioned FPSs. You probably have noticed most FPSs nowadays have some sort of regenerating health. This is precisely so you can effort taking a few shots every now and then and still be possible to finish of the level latter on. In old games, it was quite possible to be so low on health that progression becomes functionally impossible, forcing the player to restart the level.

    The idea of a way to perpetually raise up MR to some minimum came from these FPS, in fact. Again, the idea is not to make the game easy that way. Just to make so a bad end is not unavoidable. If you don't like that suggestion then another idea would be lowering the cutting point for when the bad end happen. Like, the "timer" still progress if under 5, but you only get the actual bad end if it is under 4 or 3. Or maybe you could just raise the maximum, as someone else suggested. Either way, it would be nice to have a clearly indication of where the cutting point is (maybe using words such as 'high' and 'below average') so that it is clearer how much is 'safe' and how much is not.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oops, it seems I made a normal comment instead of 'rispondere' to the appropriate comment. I think it is clear enough, but this is a reply to mdqp's reply above.

      I forgot to mention a couple of things anyhow:

      Making the enslavement variable visible would be artificial looking, but enough to save my previous game, I think. As I said, I spend most of the game with MR of 4, so the only reason I got the bad end was because I fooled around, not knowing it would kill me latter.

      Personally, I prefer the idea of the bad not triggering unless you have low MR better, though.

      Anyway, I complained a lot and did not give you the praise you deserve. Make no mistake, I really like this game. The fact I am willing to replay even after a frustrating bad end is a testament of that. This is one awesome protect and I really hope you keep it up.

      To finalize, as small suggestion: Make so that certain subplots are less reliant on random voyage events. I believe you can only advance some romances with them, right? This would make idle voyages are not needed for you to experience some of the content. There is so much random events right now I believe that you won't view them all if you only make relevant travels. This is a good thing on itself, but can be frustrating if you want to progress in some aspects.

      Delete
    2. Please, don't mention ME to me, or I'll feel the need to start a thirty page long rant. XD

      I get what you mean with making things more clear, it's basically about giving enough feedback to the players as to what's going on, and make at least the most important consequences more obvious.

      Regenerating health is the spawn of the devil, and nobody should mention it, unless they are on sacred ground. Seriously, that is the stuff that haunts my nightmares.

      I can see how having a larger "mental resistance safe zone" would make things better, maybe I could do that (although if someone just keeps the mental resistance at 4, they can do at least 14 travels, which are probably enough to see everything the game has to offer right now, anyway. And this assuming they don't have the smart trait, didn't buy the engine upgrade or took the device from MR. Nice guy, or there would be even more travels. In fact, having all three of these would mean no enslavement increase at MR 4, even in the current game).

      What would be a proper way to name the various mental resistance level, in your opinion? I mean, one that would make it obvious when you are in troubles and when you are not?

      Happy to know you really like the game! ^_^

      There are no random events to advance the romances. Some scenes aren't triggered unless you talked to them at least for x times, or you have high enough relationship with them (and some are tied to the planet you are in: Malena lives on Europa 4, so the first few events all need you to be there, and one scene with Jane requires you to be on a "proper planet", as you go shopping for grocery with her, so you can't do that on Florence station, for example. The game also don't trigger more than one scene during travels, to avoid being interrupted by 3-4 scenes one after the other, which would be silly, so it might look as if they are triggered randomly, but they actually aren't.

      The only romance with actual random chances in it is the one with Malena, as meeting her the first three times on Europa 4 are random events.

      I have been thinking about changing the maximum number of events per travel to 2 (1 random event, and 1 non-random event, if there are any available, of course), but I am not sure if it would confuse people (I had done something similar for one of the closed beta, and all testers seemed a bit surprised).

      Delete
    3. I feel your pain regarding ME. =P I mentioned mostly because its influence on this game is obvious.

      Concerning the timer bad end. The three ways to starve of the ending did not much good for me. Mostly because I did not meet any of them. The utility of the engine was particularly opaque to me. I did not buy mostly because I was waiting to see if I could bring the price cheaper. But now I know it is something it is better to get earlier than latter.

      As for names for the MR levels: I have no idea, to be honest. I mentioned mostly because I felt that if level 4 was something like "below average" instead, I could have understand better it was not to feel safe with it. With numbers 4 out of 5 seems fairly excellent to me, which is why I did not worry. But I don't know how to figure out the correct words, specially when 5 of them should be negatives and only one positive.

      As for random events. Sorry I expressed myself badly. I noticed they were not random, but they still trigger after voyages. That way, it encourage you to fly around if you want to see them to progress, which is bad for obvious reasons.

      If you allow more events per travel, how about changing the trigger of the non-random events? Instead of being triggered strictly by traveling, tie them up to some other action, to avoid clutter of events.

      Take the 'Jane in the shower' event, I don't know if it is the case, but for the sake of the argument, lets assume it is not random. After a travel and possibly after see the random event, the player will notice Jane is not in the Bridge anymore. If they decide to look for her, they will find the event in the bathroom. That way, you have two events in a single travel while not cluttering the events together.

      Delete
    4. Well, adding more than 3 ways to lower ALICE's effect on you seemed a bit too much, so I didn't go overboard on that side, I thought finding at least one would have been relatively easy. Should I make it more obvious in the text that buying the engine might be useful against ALICE?

      I am not exactly good at figuring out the correct words for this kind of stuff, either. I am not a native english speaker, after all. I'll try to think of something, but I am not sure if I'll manage it.

      The thing about those scenes, is mainly for a matter of pacing, too. It would be weird if you could speed through romances in one go, for example, so using the travels as a way to deal with this problem seemed reasonable.

      What if I split travelling in two? After setting the route, you don't automatically trigger the travel, but you can still move arond the ship, until you go to sleep in your bed (which would afterward trigger the random events). It would make each travel slower (since you'd need to go to your bed each time), but maybe it would work better for what you have in mind?

      P.S.

      Jane in the shower is a random event, in case you were curious. ^_^

      Delete
    5. Yeah, there is no need for more ways to lower Alice's efforts on you. And they are, indeed, easy enough to find. My problem with the engines (the easiest to find) is that their benefits are not immediately obvious and they are quite costly in the early game. And since they have the chance to become cheaper latter on I figure out I could just see if I could buy them latter if they got cheaper. So have a more obvious indication of their utility is good enough for me. It actually gives a nice small dilemma: buy them now for max effectiveness or latter for (possibly) cheaper?

      About the pacing of the scenes. I do agree it would be weird to speed up the romances in one go, which is why my suggestion included leaving the travels as the marker for when a new scene is available. Only not to tie all the events to the traveling itself.

      Pacing is precisely the problem of the current 'one event per travel', I believe. I believe there are, currently, more events than the number of the travels you would otherwise need to "finish" the game. Which only encourage idle traveling at some point of the game.

      Splitting the traveling in two could indeed, solve the problem, but, as you say, it slow the game down, so I am not sure it worth the trouble. Another idea is to have other events to count as a "travel" for the purpose of event triggering (and maybe bad end triggering?). Some missions span more than a day after all.

      Another suggestion would have a "calendar" system. That way you could track down the time and allow events to happen in a reasonable pacing. Having a way to track down the time spend would make more obvious the risk off wasting too much time. I suppose this could be unpractical to implement, though (it would need to look back to each mission to figure out how much time they take and then there is the problem of balancing).

      That said, I am starting to worry if I wasn't only overreacting. The current system is not so bad that it worth risking breaking the game to try to solve it.

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    6. I added a comment from Celeste when she finishes talking with the shipyard manager, now it should be pretty much obvious the engine's effect.

      Remember that you can avoid some of the cluttering during travels if you cut down the romances you are not interested in early on. Keeping all of them going makes the situation worse. Currently there are 11 non-random events: 3 of them are dreams (you always get one after a major event, like leaving Europa 4 for the first time, and progressing through the main quest). As for the rest, the majority of them are tied to romances, so you can easily avoid 3-5 of them, if you don't try to chase everyone at once. The other events are minor, have low priority and are tied to some of the things you have done.

      Everything else are random events.

      Having events outside of travels to count as travels, or adding a "calendar system" is a bit of a problem, because I don't have nothing resembling even a basic time system. There are a few reasons for that, but without going into details, it would be hard to implement your two suggestions to fix this (as you thought yourself).

      Yes, there is a reason if the system is the way it is, it's the one with the best result/effort ratio, and it's easy enough to understand, once you experience it. A real time system would be slightly better, but would require some serious work to properly function.

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  12. An small bug/typo with Piper's romance: After the sexy lingerie scene, the game tells I gained +1 relationship with Jane instead.

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  13. Your game is awesome and the side quests really shine. I know you incorporated the ideias you recevied well and i really enjoyed playing them.

    Also blackthorn was really a shock. I thought there would be another way to tease your way around him. But it felt right too.

    My suggestion on the enslavment would be a trigger not directy to a bad end but instead to a scene, then if resistance is below x gameover, if not warn the player he will get a gameover as soon as Alice finds a chin in the armor ;)

    Just my 2 cents

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    1. Well, I can only answer this to your first sentence: ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^

      Well, I decided a long time ago that if you kept messing around with Blackthorne, you would be forced to deal with the consequences, sooner or later (the longer you keep doing it, the worse it is, in fact). There were slightly bigger plans for him, but I am not sure if I should put even more time to add them, since he is just a side-character.

      Maybe a last warning might work, but I thought that having the scenes prior to the ending was warning enough (the scene that precedes the ending has "your time is running short, now." at the end, I assumed that was more than a veiled threat). Once I change the system, you shouldn't get the bad end if you have MR above 3, that should be good enough, I assume.

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    2. About that Blackthorn scene, personally I aways find annoying when I find myself in a deterministic situation with no way to even try something else. The 'help Alexis to find his body' have the same problem, in which, unless you are 'lucky', you are forced to have sex with some guy no matter what. Having an option to say 'no' would be nice.

      I am not saying it needs an easy way out. In these cases it probably should jeopardize the whole mission at the very last. I just feel it needs to give you a choice, even if the consequences of such a choice is not a very favorable one.

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    3. I understand where you are coming from, but sometimes it's really hard to add ways out everywhere, it can make things very complex, because all of a sudden you must take into account for players leaving a quest midway, with all the possible consequences of such a choice. I try to have a few chokepoints, to deal with those situations, but sometimes it requires a lot of work for very little in return.

      As for the specific events, I wanted the resolution with Blackthorne to be negative for the players, and having no way out after tricking him twice felt the best way to express it.

      You can also get past the manager in the Alexis quest if you have the smart trait (at least you should be able to, if there aren't any bugs ^_^), which means you can actually get forced to have sex with him with only one build (sexy, perceptive and athletic). It felt like a reasonable trade-off, at the time.

      All in all, I'll try to be more mindful of this in the future, but changing past missions might be a little too hard, now that everything has been coded.

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    4. I have no problem in not being able to trick Blackthorne this time around. I just feel there should be a way to just flat out refuse him, even if it means failing the quest. Even getting a bad end there would be more satisfying than having no option at all.

      As for Alexis mission. That trade-off is reasonable enough. As I said, is more about having an option than having an easy way out. There is already an option to not accepting the mission at all, failing the mission could lead to the same consequences as that.

      Anyway, it is sad to hear there is little chance of these missions changes, but it is nice to know you will keep it in mind. It is awesome you are willing to listen to the fans. :)

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    5. I try to keep an open mind when it comes to feedback. I am far from perfect, so there might be flaws in my ideas I didn't consider when I implemented them. ^_^

      Whenever the game gets more railroaded, it's usually because I felt the time and effort needed to add certain choices might be wasted, if the choice isn't too meaningful (almost all quests have a drop out choice at the beginning, and the main quest should be something Celeste has to do no matter what, so having her quit halfway isn't something I always consider).

      Basically, I try to cut corners here and there, hoping people won't find it a problem, because I don't have enough time to do everything I would like to do, so sometimes I must take decisions I am not necessarily fond of.

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  14. About MR:

    I agree there should be consenquences for having too low MR, like the enslavement ending. However, taking too much time shouldn't really be in there, IMO. It really forces you to try and do everything you can on one visit, especially if you fool around with less than 'ideal' MR.

    The scenes that come from travelling a lot are fine. Maybe even have them come more often as you travel more, with auto-lowering MR, like suggested. However, like I said, enslavement for taking too long just doesn't float my boat. At least, not if you're 'playing well.'

    My suggestion is that you could combine the two. With 4 or 5 MR, you can't get a game over, no matter if you have traveled a lot with the 'boosts' like the engine, program, etc, or not. However, Having 3 or lower means you can get it, and be given a warning that says you're getting too complacent. The lower the MR, the less time you have, with the items boosting them up as they usually do.

    Now, if you change from 3 or lower to 4, there could be a 'refresh the timer' type deal, where if you stay in the 'safe zone' for 'x' amount of time, you can start those days over, since you've effectively built your mind back up. If you slip back down, you don't get any refresh and start right back where you left off.

    Also:

    Long time no see. I can't wait for that other game that you said would explore that bondage VR thing more. ^_^

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    1. Well, the whole "MR+travelling enslavement" thing was born out of me growing tired of the most common system in MC games out there, the willpower one. Usually, unless you are actually trying to see a particular bad end, managing willpower is a trivial matter in MC games, which makes it pointless. As I saw this in my previous games, I decided to do something about it, in a way that wouldn't determine insta-death once you reached 0.

      I am okay with extending the "non-progressing enslavement area" to MR 4, instead of keeping it for just 5, which should effectively make it impossible to get the ending on those levels of MR. About the warning, should it be given when you travel with MR of 3 or less? Since MR can raise and lower multiple times, I can't just give a warning the first time you hit 3.

      The kind of system where you can "refresh the timer" is too exploitable, I would be better off removing the system altogether, instead of making it so easy to circumvent.

      About the bondage VR thing, could you refresh my memory? I have a few ideas, but I can't remember which one I mentioned to you, and I wouldn't want to have forgotten about it... -_-

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    2. Yeah. give some warning when travelling at 3 MR or less. And not in the way of 'images,' since you'd be doing that no matter the MR. :P

      In any case, the way I set it up wouldn't be as exploitable as you may think. Especially since you'd have to use up your MR-Boosting methods rather quickly to 'exploit' it, and if you do it once thinking you're good and go back down right away... well, that's no good. Then again, travelling is a cinch, so yeah, maybe it would be.

      You told me you'd make a whole new game about the bondage aspect. Then I told you, I only really care about sexual slavery, and a bit forced, if not completely. :P I dunno what you told me after that, though.

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    3. I have already made an update, we'll see how this goes, and maybe I'll add the warning, if there is still a need for it.

      It's kind of exploitable-ish, especially if I add more ways to replenish your MR, you can just travel back and forth until you are fine again, the enslavement is currently the only penalty for wasting time like that.

      I think I remember what idea I was talking about, now. I have a few plans right now, and I am thinking about which one to follow after I am done with chapter 1 of TOTDC, so I am not 100% sure that will be the one I will focus on.

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  15. the download link doesn't work :(

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    1. for the rags 2.4.14, I mean

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    2. Here is an alternative link:

      http://mdqp.nachtwolf.at/RagsSetup.2.4.14.msi

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