ker Wrote:I have no plans of getting rid of the dark path, don't worry about that. I was just wondering if more people would enjoy it if the dark path was a bit less brutal sometimes. Some people will only enjoy one path I know that, but if the dark path is only enjoyed by a small fraction of players, well that's something that I can improve. How can I make Ralph a callous bastard but still make it exciting for as many people as possible? Like Seyser's suggestion is excellent, and one I will definitely be thinking of as I write more dark scenes.
Given that the dark path is staying (which was never in question) what can I do to make it more exciting and interesting? I suppose that would be a better way of stating what I was asking. Not whether or not the path will exist, but how to make it better.
Oh, and you'll have the ability to rename the player in 0.6. Although I will always still refer to him as Ralph in the threads just to avoid confusion.
Well, to be honest, here's train of thoughts about this:1) you've got the dark, evil-guy beating of the women, selling them for material profit, humiliation. and the heroic light side is also covered. Basically, you've got the baseline requirements down, and that's
really good. Many games might miss that, whereas you provided generous amounts of the stereotypical goodguy/badguy story elements.
2) perhaps train a protege? Train someone to be your right-hand man/woman; Samantha and Tomas (friend of Jessica) comes to mind for the Dark Path, and Donna and the loyal friend of Jessica for the Light Path. I haven't played this game for a bit, so I apologize for the spotty memory.
3) The person [people] you select to be your chosen ones will be basically a "converted follower" to follow in your actions; i.e. Samantha becomes a strong but sadistic madam, or Donna becomes your main choice of righteous counsel for yourself and others.
4) Maybe make a dramatic scene where Samantha snaps and show the character development of her downward spiral. On the flipside, Donna could either become an awesome healer where she grants access to Light-path only characters, like how Rhea was, when she soothes their hearts / heal their pain. Ham it up if you want
5) Allow cross-path development. Say, you've gotten Samantha down to the most evil she can be. Suddenly, the main character has a change of heart. Show her surprise (and disgust) at your soft-heartedness after what you've made her into. She then has to screw some sense into you.
Likewise, Jessica's loyal friend might have been trained to become your righthand man in saving women (gotta mix up the examples, yeah?). You suddenly start beating Rhea or something, he could intervene and initiate a mock-battle scene, where you get some sense knocked into you. Stuff like that.
6) I'm slightly disappointed by the lacking number of beast/monster sex. >_>; But I guess this really doesn't fit your game plan, so this might not be relevant. But it might be good for humiliation and the "dark path"....
LOTS OF MONSTER SEX PLZZZZZZZZ7) As for the angel/demon woman... maybe allow access to their scenes in CG Mode? =[
8) Oh! I just thought of breaking in Terra. Maybe her mysterious rescuer comes to get her, only to find her a broken harem member, willing to be the main character's property now. Or perhaps split it up into two "dark" paths, where one she can resist if the main character isn't dark enough and she gets rescued, and the other path where she's been sufficiently taken by the dark main character.
9) dark path idea: chain disobeying/rebellious harem members in public displays in stocks (no, not the financial kind of stocks. the wooden kind.) and have villages do what they want with them.
10.a) OH. ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE CUSTOMIZABLE CONTENT? Like, I like how you take over the Desert Fortress for your own residence, and it felt like an upgrade from the island base. Have you played Swegabe's "Legend of Queen Opala" 1 & 2 games? She codes the game so that you can prettify your houses/mansions with artwork, or furniture. But instead, for Harem you can allow customization of a base for fetishes, or for normal scenes. (Ex: sex swing, normal bedroom, pool where harem women can lounge about naked/in bikinis
)
10.b) A town to conquer/convert Conquer in the case of Dark Path, and Convert in the case of Light Path? I mean, think about it, a Dark town would have either rebels being humiliated by the Dark Ralph, or willing male accomplices + minor harem members (girls who are just eyecandy and perhaps maybe scenes, but not relevant to the storylines). A Light town would have a town full of people idolizing the Harem women, and maybe shrines to general female fertility / beauty? Scenes for a Light town would involve pseudo-Light Path "conversions" of women, and potentially...
cuckolding scenes? zomg.
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I am out of ideas. That was all I came up with on the spot for the last 10-20 minutes.
I would be glad to contribute more ideas, and possibly bug reports too, and suggestions for improvement in NPC text/chat. But I require big releases to do so =[. I have a bad habit of waiting on 3-5 updates before playing a game if I know I will burn right through each small update. I don't like pushing myself to comb through a game for mistakes/errors/glitches... when I add input here on Renara's forums, it's always from playthroughs where I genuinely explore the games for stuff.
Hope this was some help... If not, eh, only 20-30 minutes of my time gone, nbd.