Java Lilith's Throne [v0.4.10.7 Hotfix] [Innoxia]

[DR3M3R]

This was going to happen sooner or later...

This is unfortunate because LT had one of the best early story content I've ever seen in a customizable text-based game. Before stumbling upon LT I avoided these character creation/customization games like it was the plague. I used to specifically add the "character creation" tag to the excluded list every time I was searching for a game here in F95, because from what I've experienced with games like C.O.C and C.O.C 2 I had little to no expectations for these types of games to have an engaging story. Then I got into LT and I was pretty surprised by the writing and the inclusion of an MC that was interwoven into the story making the story many times more engaging compared to having a mute protagonist or the stereotypical "special rando with the power to the save the world" schtick. But then that very thing that was special about LT was changed.

The game is fragmented into tiny pieces and that comes with a cost. Either you have an open-ended game that expects the player to do all the legwork themselves, or you create and flesh out an experience for them. It will be extremely hard to deliver a finely crafted balance of both. In a sense, the former is easier because all you have to do is give the player a canvas for them to paint on on, with minimal work for yourself. However, those who wish to paint inside the lines of grandiose designs are going to be disappointed. This game is a canvas, not a coloring book.

In the early parts of the game the Dev or the story writer(s) was doing a fantastic job of balancing the customizable aspect while still being grounded in an overarching story. The MC was not just a rando that just appeared out of nowhere. The story was written in a way that made the MC a part of the core story itself. So unlike dragonbron from Skyrim being a stereotypical "rando with a special power to save everyone", MC of LT is connected to the story through their aunt Lilaya and even Lilith herself. And that emotional connection was what made them special, not their special power. Because of this having actual dialogue between the MC and other characters became essential and the writer was balancing all that so very perfectly at first. But then they slowly made the MC a mute shell instead of an actual character. Now only NPCs have emotions, personalities, and reactions. The MC's interactions with the world and its characters has been reduced to second-person narrations. I think It's unacceptable to remove such an essential part of the story in a texed-based game while earning more than 6k a month.

Of course, this can also be attributed to the developer's waning interest in the game, lack of motivation, or all of these things together...

Well, with their income it'd be quite easy for them to hire more writers while they themselves focus on the coding side of the game. Heck, if they're that uninterested they could probably hire someone to do the coding too. If neither options are possible then idk. Abandon the game maybe? Because right now LT is like a toxic relationship that neither party is ready to let go of despite knowing that it's progressively getting worse by the day.

 

[IvoryOwl]

This is unfortunate because LT had one of the best early story content I've ever seen in a customizable text-based game. Before stumbling upon LT I avoided these character creation/customization games like it was the plague. I used to specifically add the "character creation" tag to the excluded list every time I was searching for a game here in F95, because from what I've experienced with games like C.O.C and C.O.C 2 I had little to no expectations for these types of games to have an engaging story. Then I got into LT and I was pretty surprised by the writing and the inclusion of an MC that was interwoven into the story making the story many times more engaging compared to having a mute protagonist or the stereotypical "special rando with the power to the save the world" schtick. But then that very thing that was special about LT was changed.








In the early parts of the game the Dev or the story writer(s) was doing a fantastic job of balancing the customizable aspect while still being grounded in an overarching story. The MC was not just a rando that just appeared out of nowhere. The story was written in a way that made the MC a part of the core story itself. So unlike dragonbron from Skyrim being a stereotypical "rando with a special power to save everyone", MC of LT is connected to the story through their aunt Lilaya and even Lilith herself. And that emotional connection was what made them special, not their special power. Because of this having actual dialogue between the MC and other characters became essential and the writer was balancing all that so very perfectly at first. But then they slowly made the MC a mute shell instead of an actual character. Now only NPCs have emotions, personalities, and reactions. The MC's interactions with the world and its characters has been reduced to second-person narrations. I think It's unacceptable to remove such an essential part of the story in a texed-based game while earning more than 6k a month.




Well, with their income it'd be quite easy for them to hire more writers while they themselves focus on the coding side of the game. Heck, if they're that uninterested they could probably hire someone to do the coding too. If neither options are possible then idk. Abandon the game maybe? Because right now LT is like a toxic relationship that neither party is ready to let go of despite knowing that it's progressively getting worse by the day.

From what I've seen, development goes through different, long-lasting phases.

Inno prefers to finish off areas before moving on and that means being stuck in one particular place for several years - a portion of that time is dedicated to progressing the story and then another (perhaps the biggest) chunk used to fill it the area with side-content. This coincides with the timeline of the game - the early game felt like a story-oriented rpg and eventually turned into a sandbox experience when development shifted focus.

We're once again in the phase of extending the story, which should be followed by another long period of side-content being added... assuming history repeats itself and Inno's motivation and interest doesn't run out. There's a chance she may go back and revamp or fill in areas that need it but do keep in mind we're talking about a timespan of literal years. There's an equal chance that things will never go back to what they once were, in which case you're probably better off only checking this game once a year or scratch it off your list of interests.

One could argue that the success of the project has become its own prison. 7k a month is nothing to sneeze at and she gets it regardless of her shortcomings and excuses. What incentive does she have to change, really? If the issue here is her mental health and exhaustion, then she is screwed. She's her own boss - when and how much she works is up to her. There are few jobs out there that offer the same flexibility, benefit and compensation as this. If she's struggling with her own project, with all these advantages, then it's safe to assume she wouldn't last long in an ordinary job unless she's one of those people that perform better under pressure, with supervision and real consequences for failure.

This game has become her lifeline to put food in the table and pay the bills. It's draining every ounce of her will but she cannot let it go because the alternative is scarier. Better pay doesn't always mean better conditions and a happier disposition, it just means it will be harder to let go when shit hits the fan... which it did and still does. And she can't delegate tasks to an official team because then she'd lose agency and ownership over the game and its content. There were projects in the past that got ruined because of disagreements in the dev team.

 

[Skooky]

There are many ways she can get someone to help - a ghostwriter, a junior dev straight out of college, paying the people that make mods in her community on a per release per contribution basis, options a plenty. But she either is greedy and wants the whole cake to her self or my personal belief - she is burned out/depressed to shit or both and is like a horse with blinds following the ruts in the road.

Case in point: the companion system.

It's something everyone following the game wants but as Inno stated, it's a very repetitive and long process that drains her so she's shelving it.

Solution: Go to linkedin, look for a 20 year old with Java knowledge and be like "oi m8, imma give you 15 british quid an hour do this horrible shit I don't wanna do, innit?"
It's an oversaturated market, 100% someone's gonna pick up that offer.

 

[Sharo]

Case in point: the companion system.

It's something everyone following the game wants but as Inno stated, it's a very repetitive and long process that drains her so she's shelving it.

Solution: Go to linkedin, look for a 20 year old with Java knowledge and be like "oi m8, imma give you 15 british quid an hour do this horrible shit I don't wanna do, innit?"
It's an oversaturated market, 100% someone's gonna pick up that offer.

I didn't know the companion system was perma dropped, I thought it was on pause until other stuff gets sorted (which i know is about the same thing). Man it sucks that we can't bring up constructive feedback coming from a positive place in the discord. If only we could muster a positive and supportive zerg rush of the discord

 

[Shorsey]

If only we could muster a positive and supportive zerg rush of the discord

We are all probably end up getting banned without achieving anything. Her White Knights are really strong.

 

[Carl0sDanger]

Inno prefers to finish off areas before moving on ...

Which, I should point out, is contrary to the stated development roadmap. According to that, she's supposed to be finishing the main story to provide a "complete" game, before adding side content indefinitely. Such side content could be voted on by financial supporters, thus providing a genuine incentive to support the game.

This is actually a really good development strategy that other devs have used successfully to create a game that keeps producing income.

If she's struggling with her own project, with all these advantages, then it's safe to assume she wouldn't last long in an ordinary job unless she's one of those people that perform better under pressure, with supervision and real consequences for failure.

I suspect this is exactly why she continues to set self-imposed deadlines. Back before she got into this, deadlines set by other people would motivate her effectively.

 

[ririmudev]

The UK has always been ruled by a demon queen and her endless furry rape orgy.

I don't remember this from any history classes. Kinda makes sense tho.

 

[ta.m.ika.wilkin.s.on.t.mp]

Looking Through The Files, What Is This Happiness Character

 

[tehlemon]

I don't remember this from any history classes. Kinda makes sense tho.

If it were true, I'd really have to respect the royal family a lot more than I do now lol

Looking Through The Files, What Is This Happiness Character

Gonna have to be more specific than that, sorry. Where did you find this, or what's their name?

 

[AH-64E]

I didn't know the companion system was perma dropped, I thought it was on pause until other stuff gets sorted (which i know is about the same thing). Man it sucks that we can't bring up constructive feedback coming from a positive place in the discord. If only we could muster a positive and supportive zerg rush of the discord

Was announced a while ago, probably a year or two? Thing is, there hasn't been any substantial new content out of Dominion (which is when companions become unsupported), so as of yet the change isn't noticeable. At this rate, probably never will be.

Discord servers tend to turn into the worst kinds of echo chambers. Most people will just surround themselves with people that agree with them at all times, if given the chance. That sort of environment feels nice, but does fuck all. Most hilariously, the people blindly supporting her socially/financially are likely the reason the game hasn't progressed whatsoever for years. Inno has learned she'll still be respected and paid even if she does nothing at all. And things like turning off being able to leave comments on her blog speaks volumes. Basically any utterance that reminds her of her lack of progress, or criticism, upsets her. This, again, is the fault of her blind supporters. I'd even bet one of them recommended to her something to the effect of "Just turn off comments and only read stuff on SubscribeStar and things your Discord mods let through".

 

[ta.m.ika.wilkin.s.on.t.mp]

If it were true, I'd really have to respect the royal family a lot more than I do now lol



Gonna have to be more specific than that, sorry. Where did you find this, or what's their name?

txt,encounters,dominion character name happiness

As it gets closer, you see that its eyes are a marvellous shade of bright blue, and, kneeling down to encourage it to approach, you can't help but smile as it walks right up to you and nudges its head into your hands. Letting out a little laugh, you playfully stroke and scratch the silver fox's ears, before moving down to ruffle the soft fur around its neck. As you do so, you feel that there's a band of soft fabric around the animal's neck, and, tilting your head to take a closer look, you see that the fox is wearing a cute little collar. A round, metallic tag is attached to the front, and, tilting it to the light, you see that it reads:
</p>
<p style='text-align:center'>
<i>Happiness;<br/>Please take good care of me!</i>
</p>
<p>
After a little while of stroking and playing with the silver fox, you stand back up and get ready to carry on your way. Much to your surprise, Happiness instantly moves to follow you, and, as you continue walking down Dominion's empty streets, the fox shows no sign of leaving your side...

 

[Sharo]

Was announced a while ago, probably a year or two? Thing is, there hasn't been any substantial new content out of Dominion (which is when companions become unsupported), so as of yet the change isn't noticeable. At this rate, probably never will be.

...

Yeah, sounds very comfortable for Inno. Makes me wonder does Inno have 0 real life contact with humans that can tell her that she is not doing ok, like a friend or sibling or parent or spouse or imaginary friend or anthropomorphic pothead towel just something. Cause looking through this thread and the discord makes me feel bad for Inno. Im sure Inno can wipe away all the tears with dollar bills at this point but still, cant help but feel sympathetic

...

After a little while of stroking and playing with the silver fox, you stand back up and get ready to carry on your way. Much to your surprise, Happiness instantly moves to follow you, and, as you continue walking down Dominion's empty streets, the fox shows no sign of leaving your side...

That sounds adorable in a world like Dominion. But if the companion system was binned because it was a chore to work on I'm willing to bet flames this was binned as well.

 

[Shorsey]

txt,encounters,dominion character name happiness

As it gets closer, you see that its eyes are a marvellous shade of bright blue, and, kneeling down to encourage it to approach, you can't help but smile as it walks right up to you and nudges its head into your hands. Letting out a little laugh, you playfully stroke and scratch the silver fox's ears, before moving down to ruffle the soft fur around its neck. As you do so, you feel that there's a band of soft fabric around the animal's neck, and, tilting your head to take a closer look, you see that the fox is wearing a cute little collar. A round, metallic tag is attached to the front, and, tilting it to the light, you see that it reads:
</p>
<p style='text-align:center'>
<i>Happiness;<br/>Please take good care of me!</i>
</p>
<p>
After a little while of stroking and playing with the silver fox, you stand back up and get ready to carry on your way. Much to your surprise, Happiness instantly moves to follow you, and, as you continue walking down Dominion's empty streets, the fox shows no sign of leaving your side...

One of the more recent updates included a toggle for feral content. I guess this character was for testing, but left unfinished.

 

[tehlemon]

One of you two

txt,encounters,dominion character name happiness

As it gets closer, you see that its eyes are a marvellous shade of bright blue, and, kneeling down to encourage it to approach, you can't help but smile as it walks right up to you and nudges its head into your hands. Letting out a little laugh, you playfully stroke and scratch the silver fox's ears, before moving down to ruffle the soft fur around its neck. As you do so, you feel that there's a band of soft fabric around the animal's neck, and, tilting your head to take a closer look, you see that the fox is wearing a cute little collar. A round, metallic tag is attached to the front, and, tilting it to the light, you see that it reads:
</p>
<p style='text-align:center'>
<i>Happiness;<br/>Please take good care of me!</i>
</p>
<p>
After a little while of stroking and playing with the silver fox, you stand back up and get ready to carry on your way. Much to your surprise, Happiness instantly moves to follow you, and, as you continue walking down Dominion's empty streets, the fox shows no sign of leaving your side...

Oh interesting. It's in \res\txt\encounters\dominion\generic.xml if anyone else is curious.

I'm going to guess its part of the old companion system, now scrapped. It's in the copy in the public github, and it says the file was last updated two years ago. So probably nothing that'll ever come to fruition.

Ninja edit: Found it in the commit history for 2019. So definitely dead content.

 

[NoStepOnSnek]

I could tell you, but I kinda wanna see how deep of a narrative you can spin around this

 

[Sarkath]

It's an event that can only occur if your player name is "Kinariu" (com.lilithsthrone.game.dialogue.encounters.Encounter:236). Happiness isn't a companion, but is a rather charming health and mana boosting status effect.

I don't get the reference. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[tehlemon]

It's an event that can only occur if your player name is "Kinariu" (com.lilithsthrone.game.dialogue.encounters.Encounter:236). Happiness isn't a companion, but is a rather charming health and mana boosting status effect.

I don't get the reference. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

...

A fox companion would have been more fun.

I'm going to be honest, once I saw that it was from 2019 I didn't give enough of a shit to actually look for the trigger or effect. But if it is just a health/mana boost, that's super boring. But I suppose I should have expected that.

A quick google search makes me think that's not a reference. The top results were like, an everquest player name and a youtube channel with no videos. And its not actually a word, so I'm guessing this is content that was added for a subscriber.

A companion would have been far more interesting.

 

[Shorsey]

Yeah it's just a insignificant buff

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I googled fox+happiness and it brought up a russian instagram account from a girl who's running some kind of "find happiness in your life" consultation business. Part of the description translates as "help you finding happiness".

Looks like it was a commission from a patreon.

 

[tehlemon]

I could tell you, but I kinda wanna see how deep of a narrative you can spin around this

Okay, have we figured it out yet?

 

[DR3M3R]

From what I've seen, development goes through different, long-lasting phases.

Inno prefers to finish off areas before moving on and that means being stuck in one particular place for several years - a portion of that time is dedicated to progressing the story and then another (perhaps the biggest) chunk used to fill it the area with side-content. This coincides with the timeline of the game - the early game felt like a story-oriented rpg and eventually turned into a sandbox experience when development shifted focus.

We're once again in the phase of extending the story, which should be followed by another long period of side-content being added... assuming history repeats itself and Inno's motivation and interest doesn't run out. There's a chance she may go back and revamp or fill in areas that need it but do keep in mind we're talking about a timespan of literal years. There's an equal chance that things will never go back to what they once were, in which case you're probably better off only checking this game once a year or scratch it off your list of interests.

One could argue that the success of the project has become its own prison. 7k a month is nothing to sneeze at and she gets it regardless of her shortcomings and excuses. What incentive does she have to change, really? If the issue here is her mental health and exhaustion, then she is screwed. She's her own boss - when and how much she works is up to her. There are few jobs out there that offer the same flexibility, benefit and compensation as this. If she's struggling with her own project, with all these advantages, then it's safe to assume she wouldn't last long in an ordinary job unless she's one of those people that perform better under pressure, with supervision and real consequences for failure.

This game has become her lifeline to put food in the table and pay the bills. It's draining every ounce of her will but she cannot let it go because the alternative is scarier. Better pay doesn't always mean better conditions and a happier disposition, it just means it will be harder to let go when shit hits the fan... which it did and still does. And she can't delegate tasks to an official team because then she'd lose agency and ownership over the game and its content. There were projects in the past that got ruined because of disagreements in the dev team.

I think I understand a bit more about the dev now. She has no urgency to work on the game because she's her own boss - no repercussions and all that. She's a chronic procrastinator. It's unfortunate really. LT had potential but I think when a project gets bigger, the person behind the project should also start expanding. Meaning, she should've started hiring people to work on the game a LONG time ago. And i'm not talking about handing the project over to a separate team but hiring people as employees. This way the main dev could've still be on the team to direct where she wanted the game to go while not being stressed about having to work on the game all by herself.

I still have some hope left for the game somehow so I'm gonna keep an eye on this until v1.0 which idk will prolly take decades at this rate