Content vote for LaS
Depending on the path you played you might have encountered a screen in game, saying something about a path being added to the vote pool.
This post is dedicated to explain this whole vote thing and how it will affect LaS. (As a side note, there will be another post where I will discuss the feedback from you guys and the direction of LaS as well as talking a little about 0.08.)
But first, let me take a self-... I mean let's take a look at the voting system (sorry got my chainsmokers playlist running while writing this
).
Why a voting system?!
With LaS offering quite a high amount of characters and many possible combinations the amount of paths is nearly endless and also impossible to update all at once (more paths/combos are coming with each update). To "solve" this problem, it makes sense to focus on a few paths and add "meaningful" progress to them, instead of giving all paths a few renders. Again, I'm not the fastest developer out there (bet you figured out that one) and I want to change that. Allowing me to focus on certain paths, will help the creation-process-speed.
How much is "meaningful" progress?
That's a good question veq! And the answer is unfortunately not simple, since it strongly depends on the character and the path we are looking at. Either way it's about driving the relationship/ownership (lol) forward and while the last update kinda left an "it's all about the story" impression, that's not what LaS is intended to be.
LaS is also about having different relationships with multiple characters which will lead to steamy and hot scenes and just like Amy, LaS is starving in that matter.
What's the procedure?
So far the plan is to have two different rounds of voting. The
primary vote and the
secondary vote.
Path(s) that "win" the
primary round will be included in the update no matter what, meaning that I will only release the update after I finished including that path progression. Plat-members will be taking part in this vote.
Path(s) that "win" the
secondary round will
very likely be included in the update, and yet it depends on how fast I'm able to work. Plat and Gold members will be taking part in this vote.
Awesome, now every update will only contain CHARACTER X... you idiot.
Don't worry I got ya covered! Since I'm the one deciding which path will make it into the vote, I'm also looking at ways to balance things out (spoiler alert, no carol solo options for 0.08). I'm aware that it will never be possible to make everyone happy, but creating smart votes can help to balance things out.
How many paths will you update with each release?
Well to answer this question let's look at what an update will have with every release:
Main story progression: The main story is a big driver for each update and something I start working on after game improvements/maintenance and while you guys make your votes. The main story content is completely mapped out and I finished planning how far I go with each update, BUT I decided to be more flexible in order to find a good ratio between main story progression and relationship progression.
Path introductions: Another thing the main story provides, is unlocking characters for relationship progression. The introductions might not be huge scenes, but the goal is to give you an good idea where you can go with those characters.
Relationship progression: Now that's the stuff you vote for and will be part of every upgrade. Ideally there is a healthy amount of primary vote winners and secondary vote winners. And even in the worst case scenario, primary votes will make it.
Game improvements/maintenance: Bug fixes, map button, save-game rename, etc. You name it (you actually do XD). This is the most ungrateful work since no one would go "damn, thank you for adding that map button!" but rather "Was about time you fixed it, moron." *cries*.
And yet it's only fair, cause if I was a talented developer, those complaints wouldn't exist in the first place. But I'm still learning and by implementing those things, I improve as a developer and the game gets more fun. The only big issue here is the amount of time it requires. It can go from 100 years to 1 week, and while I would love to invest all my time on content creation it's not realistic at all.
To finish this gigantic post and to answer the question:
The amount paths that will get progression-updates strongly depends on all the other factors that require time, this can vary from update to update. Still, my goal is to include both primary and secondary vote winners, and only if $h!ts on fire, would skip on the secondary vote winner.