Guys, what do you think about the permanent affinity system? Judging from what I saw in Chapter 8, MС will become much less manageable and will be able to make only two choices (neutral and DIK/CHICK). For me, this is one of the interesting and contradictory things. For example, Jade is willing to help if only you fuck her. And two choices. Agree or refuse. On the way chick has for example a choice you to tell Burke.
The ending was pretty creepy, especially after Josie's words about a bad feeling.
It's a simple enough way to keep the 'feel' of the major decisions now that we've set our Affinity in stone, but it's not very exciting. We can choose the DIK/CHICK path (as appropriate) or go with a watered down neutral option that seems to have minimal effect. That implies that we aren't going to auto-decide any plot-relevant crises this way, which would have allowed DPC to channel the story into more predictable routes.
More importantly, it means we're still arbitrarily elevating random decisions above others purely for gameplay purposes. Why is encouraging Derek to get revenge on Ron a much bigger decision than encouraging him not to bury the hatchet with the preps?
I don't think Tommy will simply be a client of Vinnie's, I think he will be what Lily is to Quinn, his agent for a new market for him thus increasing competition for Quinn (who Tommy wants to punish).
Yeah, I'm thinking along the same lines. Tommy isn't buying from Vinny directly, he's going to be one of Vinny's dealers in exchange for some product of his own.
Does make me wonder if Vinny was expelled for drug dealing; it would be jut like Tommy to rail against Vinny for doing something that put the DIKs in danger, then do the same thing himself now that he needs his fix.
DPC has said he pretty much has the overarching story planned out and he fills in the gaps as he goes along. If he sticks to that plan, and the game ends when it was initially intended to end, that's great. But if he pads it out, delaying the ending so as to keep the game going for as long as possible, that's when we'd have issues.
Milking doesn't necessarily mean delivering fuck all and taking money for it (e.g. ICSTOR), it also means dragging something on well past its used by date. The updates could be be large, but the story will start running all over the place if he won't let it end.
I don't think he's gonna do that, given that he already successfully ended his first game, and he seems like an intelligent fellow, so milking it would only sully his reputation.
It's entirely a moot point anyway. Right now it seems like we are somewhere near the middle. None of us have any idea what direction the story will take now that we have seemingly locked in a love interest.
But for now, the Interlude could be a while away, so let's just wait and see.
I don't think DPC is drawing out the game to get more money from the Patreons, I think he's drawing out the game because he wants more time to pass between certain events - both for story and for game reasons.
For story reasons, it's because characters like Jill and Bella need a long warm up to emphasize that they are not running into a relationship, or Sage needs time to make a smooth transition from stranger to secret fuck buddy to public fuck buddy to serious relationship. Likewise it makes things like the MC getting accepted into the DIKs more meaningful if we've spent a lot of time working towards the goal. That doesn't mean DPC is doing a great job handling all those stories; I think Sage's transition wound up needing more time than she got while poor Maya & Josy have been left in limbo for most of a season. But I think that's what DPC is aiming for.
From the gameplay side, DPC wants to put a lot of distance between some decisions and the consequences. That makes it a lot less convenient to simply replay the game to avoid the consequences of your actions. It's pretty clear DPC does not like metagaming (hence he hides most of the game mechanics and hardwires the game code to disrupt cheat mods). Spreading our decisions out over a long period of time is his most effective tool to encourage us to lie in the bed we made.
Personally, I suspect that DPC could probably trim the game down by 2-4 episodes and more than compensate by tightening up the stories and doing more to integrate them with gameplay mechanics. But that's just my take, and it's hard to say for certain until we really know where the game is headed.
Where do you get this info?
I've always assumed the process involved very powerful drugs.
Earlier in the thread someone pointed out that if an MC that is in the threesome consistently favors one of the girls over the other differences begin appearing in their sex scenes. I haven't explored it a lot but I don't know if it's even possible to choose Josy or Maya solo at the DIK's breakfast table scene, so I'm not sure how you would keep a path open, or if one even exist.
From what I can tell, you will get a montage of Maya, Josy and then both Maya and Josy if you are on the throuple path, but you can only choose them as a set (and indeed will choose them by default if you aren't pursuing any other LIs). You will see a montage of Maya or Josy alone if you told Derek you still had feelings for one of the girls in Episode 5, but you cannot select her.
That might indicate you'll only get a shot at one of the girls solo if you opt out of the throuple, but I suspect that will not be the case. Josy will wear the MC's old sweater if he consistently chooses to spend time with her over Maya, so I think that one of the ways the throuple could potentially fail is if one of the girls feels left out. That might not lead to a particularly happy ending for the other girl, but it would still lead to a solo path with the preferred girl.
I may be wrong, but I think DPC intends to give us multiple chances with the various LIs as the game plays out. Yes, we just theoretically made the choice, but it will need to be confirmed at least once more before we're done (IMHO), so it would make sense that there could be a final chance to join a path at the second opportunity (if you played your cards right). The only options that I think might be closed off permanently at this point are the M/J throuple (we'll can still get them solo, but I think we only get one shot at the combo), Quinn's path (assuming she really can get her own path, I suspect it will be mutually exclusive with Maya's) and
possibly the romance with Bella.
I’m quietly optimistic that the structure the choice at the end of Ep8 brings will help DPC in the future. I’m rapidly coming to believe that the reason some of these plot elements were shit is because they were added in to stall the LI’s. All the shittiest parts were elements that stopped LI’s in their tracks.
Theres a relatively flowing story to each LI but they move at different paces so DPC has to put in afterthought storylines to keep everyone on level pegging as other elements are introduced.
Jill was stopped dead for a few episodes by the blackmail. Maya/Josy are in an indefinite holding pattern until her tuition is sorted. Sage was kept in place by Chad and the cheating. Bella was primed for this date a few episodes ago and just sorta existed until the trigger was pulled and everything with her moved more in half an episode than it has in the last 4.
Almost all these stalls were unceremoniously removed in Ep8. He clearly didn’t give a shit about Chad, the blackmail or Sage’s reluctance to date.
It doesn’t make the writing any better but it can also be salvaged. These shitty plot lines have hopefully served their purpose. With any luck he doesn’t repeat this bullshit and just conjure up new roadblocks outta Zoey and repeat himself. Maybe now we can have structured plot lines with conviction that doesn’t have to stop every other episode to let everything catch up.
Sadly, my fear is precisely that we'll be stuck trudging past a new set of roadblocks in Season 3. For all the stalling this season, the 4 potential relationships are still at very different points and moving at very different speeds. Given how much DPC likes big melodramatic moments to end seasons on, I'm skeptical he'd allow the different paths to move at their own pace, especially not with all the emphasis he's putting on Zoey's return.
This is one occasion where I'd be very happy to be proven wrong, though!
I think the most obvious answer is Lynette. Soon we will get to the part of her diary where she finds out about her pregnancy, so we can finally see how things turned sour between the MC's mother and her family. The pregnancy test is just an easy trap so people would play the guessing game.
There's no way the pregnancy can be Lynette's. The MC just finished reading her diary before the closing montage and she had barely met Neil; you don't need to have passed Sexual Education 69 to realize she can't actually get pregnant from his flirting attempts. If the pregnancy test was supposed to be Lynette, that would mean the closing montage is trying to play up the suspense by using a flashforward to a future flash
back of an event we've known about since day 1. Even DPC wouldn't go that far just to amp up the drama.
Alright....
Before I even consider coming back to this game after hearing the blackmail bullshit had a somewhat happy ending, is there an official WT PDF for Ep. 8? Or do we just have the fan one for now?
Not using mods for this game anymore. I learned the lesson with that.
Welcome back! I think you'll be happy with the outcome; you need to pursue Jill pretty diligently and not be a DIK, but that shouldn't be a problem given your usual playstyle. just remember to keep practicing the guitar.
The official walkthrough isn't out yet. It usually takes ~3-4 weeks after release, so it will probably be out sometime in December. Then again, between the Steam release and the still-very-nebulous Interlude, it's possible the walkthrough might be delayed this time. IMHO, the two
fan-made walkthroughs are superior products anyway.
