Yeah. We're maybe focusing on whether it's technically NTR or not too much. You'll find slightly different definitions of NTR wherever you look, and there are different ways to interpret those individual definitions. Maybe it's not NTR. That doesn't change in the least that an awful lot of people hated it. It was a colossal miscalculation on DS's part. I think it comes from him not getting the incest genre, and not understanding how people could or would get upset over seeing family members they lusted after and loved get screwed by some guy that was clearly an asshole. But the only person who could see that was Max. Had Ann responded differently to any of Max's accusations or evidence, that would have made a difference too. It wasn't just that Eric was fucking Ann and at the very least trying with Lisa and Alice. It was that he was turning them against you, and doing it so easily.
So Eric needed to go. In fact, he needed to never have been there in the first place. He still acts as a barrier to new people playing the game. He never needs to come back. There does need to be more challenge to the game other than the grind and the waiting for X day and time to come along. But it definitely doesn't need to be by bringing Eric back, or any other male antagonist. It just needs some creative or even not so creative thinking by DS. Except at this point, I don't really care about the challenge anymore.
I'm not, and I don't think that anyone is, calling for Eric to come back. Once he's gone it would be a stupid idea, especially in the ways that he can go.
The whole way Eric was handled was a misstep. It COULD have worked, but it would have required going all in on the possibility of NTR and making it a race for corruption. It would have required making the choice to be friends with Eric actually meaningful, and also required making Eric more vulnerable when you go to war with him. So you choose: Go to war with a superior foe, or let him teach you and help you get laid but the price is he's top dog, for now. It would still have the NTR whiplash effect that many people feel at the start, but at least it would justify his existence in the game.
We can imagine a BB where Eric never existed, but sadly that's just not a thing that can now happen. The entire front of the game revolves around him being there, and the back half exists BECAUSE he left. And with the gameplay as butt awful as it currently was even WITH Eric, I have no idea what sort of actual gameplay you could have now without him. Most of the systems in the game were set up to deal with that fucker. Now DS would probably be better off releasing porn comics of the new scenes.
Mainly, I want this game to be over with because the longer it goes on in it's current state, the sadder it gets. Even if we got sex with Ann and Lisa in the next update (which I know we won't), it won't mean as much to me as it would have even just a few months ago because neither character is as interesting to me anymore. I fell in love with my interpretation of earlier versions of these characters, before it became clear that Ann had an awful lot of baggage, or when Lisa was more innocent and the possibility of an actual romantic relationship seemed realistic. But Ann seems borderline insane from her past, and it feels kind of awful to be piling on to that by seducing her. Lisa, on the other hand, doesn't really seem to care for Max in a romantic way. He's convenient and has money, but that's about it. He's a fling and a sugar-daddy to her.
I do agree that the characters have more or less gone insane over time. Kira went from the lusty aunt to the honeypot manipulator. Alice went from the bitchy sister to a dom in training. Ann went from the overbearing mother into a broken drugged shell, and Lisa went form the kinda innocent but not naive girl into a sub who in no way takes her relationship with Max seriously. I'm in it for the scenes at this point.
I just don't see the ending of the game coming together in a satisfying way for me, especially the longer it draws out. I'm going to like Ann, Lisa, and Alice less and less with each update, and find the game more frustrating as it further diverges from what I wanted in an incest game. There's no option for romance, or redemption for Max, by either making him less of an ass, or less of a spectator in his own life. There's no choice that really matters. At this point it's just follow DS's story to the slow conclusion, and hope that he doesn't do it too badly.
Just quoted because that's a perfect encapsulation of what has gone wrong over the last four updates. I'd like this post twice for it if I could.
