VN Ren'Py Our Red String [Ch. 12.3 Beta] [Eva Kiss]

[jimul18]

It might speed up production in the sense you effectively remove half of the story along with characters which are interacting only with the removed MC, but you're doing it at the cost of upsetting at least half of your playerbase who do like to play this character. So i don't feel like it's a tradeoff the game would benefit from.

True and this conversation is moot anyway since EK isn't bleeding patreons, so there is no incentive to change anything.

 

[Arata20]

Eva isn't going to change the core structure of the game just because of a user-base preference.

And this is her mistake when creating ors.

 

[fatpussy123]

Eh, I think ORS is good in spite of the dual protagonist system, not because of it.
I think Eva has floundered around doing revisions and making character changes that it's pretty clear that the dual-protag system is a concept that is hard to develop for a single writer at the scale that she's working with.

Besides, I think there is plenty of content and themes to explore with female main characters that are interesting. Eva doesn't want to be "the one" to explore all of them, that's fair enough.

I have no wish to see Ian removed, not while the game is being made anyway. Even if I had such a wish, I don't see the point when the game's already as far along as it is in development. I'd have still preferred the game be without him if it was only just coming out now, but that's neither here nor there.

The dual protagonist system has raised issues for the development, but it's still the key feature of the game. So much of the game is designed around it, the cheating, the influencing characters affecting others routes, and the general concept of having the ability to sexually romance the majority of characters in a believable manner. In a male MC game Jeremy would not get any scenes, at most a sharing scene, and vice versa in a female MC game all the women would be force written to be bisexual. ORS doesn't have these problems. And also as was pointed out earlier cutting Ian's content would remove key arcs in the story, all of Alisons content, Cindy's entire slow disillusionment with Wade, Hollys romance plot, the whole lot would not exist.

Its great that you specifically don't want Ian's part to be cut, but there are absolutely people here that want this game to be single protagonist and it's them who I was addressing.

 

[dolfe67]

In a male MC game Jeremy would not get any scenes, at most a sharing scene, and vice versa in a female MC game all the women would be force written to be bisexual. ORS doesn't have these problems.

Though there are female LI for Lena but no male LI for Ian

And also as was pointed out earlier cutting Ian's content would remove key arcs in the story, all of Alisons content, Cindy's entire slow disillusionment with Wade, Hollys romance plot, the whole lot would not exist.

It would exist, but not from an active role. And people complain that Lena has no decent male LI except Ian, he could have been a NPC

 

[Leonardovisk]

To be fair Ian is not that bad. Well at least he is better than 99,99% of males chars in other renpy games.

The problem is...Lena choices, personality, texts, options, arcs...is soo much better.

And, don't forget we all came from GGGB

 

[GokutheG]

To be fair Ian is not that bad. Well at least he is better than 99,99% of males chars in other renpy games.

The problem is...Lena choices, personality, texts, options, arcs...is soo much better.

Ian's a decent guy protagonist but he is not the reason I play this game.

I personally feel that Ian holds back the full potential of Lena's path. There could be much more branching choices if the dev also didn't need to maintain the 2nd protagonist. Most of Ian's content could easily be shifted over to Lena by making his friends and their stories her's.

The only difficult changes that I could think of are new roles for Alison and Minerva. Everything could stay mostly stay the same if Ian was removed(I'm not arguing for that tho).

 

[Leongen43]

To be fair Ian is not that bad. Well at least he is better than 99,99% of males chars in other renpy games.

The problem is...Lena choices, personality, texts, options, arcs...is soo much better.

And, don't forget we all came from GGGB

The factors could be several and the first is obvious: followers prefer Lena but it could also be that she receives more attention because it is easier for EK to work with a female character than with a male one, right?

 

[ffive]

The problem is...Lena choices, personality, texts, options, arcs...is soo much better.

So long as Cindy is only on Ian's side Lena's choices are, at best, a draw.

(but a bit more seriously i can't really think of any choices Lena has that i'd consider "much better". In fact, complaints about Lena's options being pretty shit in general are quite common)

 

[Gicoo]

In fact, complaints about Lena's options being pretty shit in general are quite common)

Pretty much why I favor Ian over her. Technically Lena is better since she is a hot girl and Ian a random guy, but if we think one step further (a simple task which the patreon poll and its voters fail to acomplish) and consider the content they unlock, then Ian grants access to most girls (and Ivy currently being only an option for Lena is one of the bigger criticism) while Lena has awful options like Robert, Stan and so so like Jeremy or Mike. Axel and Seymour work, but they are flat out irredeemable antagonists.

 

[lorkdubo]

So long as Cindy is only on Ian's side Lena's choices are, at best, a draw.

(but a bit more seriously i can't really think of any choices Lena has that i'd consider "much better". In fact, complaints about Lena's options being pretty shit in general are quite common)

The loyal Ian+Lena path is such a breath of fresh air. If not Lena is the cookie cutter slutty female main character that's is boring as stale bread. The path with Semyour is boring shit as 50 shades of grey were, mind you if you like that stuff but it's not original. Actual characters that behave normally in an AVN. WOW!!!

 

[Gicoo]

The loyal Ian+Lena path is such a breath of fresh air. If not Lena is the cookie cutter slutty female main character that's is boring as stale bread. The path with Semyour is boring shit as 50 shades of grey were, mind you if you like that stuff but it's not original. Actual characters that behave normally in an AVN. WOW!!!

Even for generic romances Lena isn't particulary interesting. Mostly, because she has too much drama and is not in a position in life in which she wants to pursue a stable romance. I'd rather have Ian with Holly or Alison for a vanilla romance, since those girls are far more willing to commit (Alison only gets off the road if Ian rejects her).

 

[Leonardovisk]

The loyal Ian+Lena path is such a breath of fresh air. If not Lena is the cookie cutter slutty female main character that's is boring as stale bread. The path with Semyour is boring shit as 50 shades of grey were, mind you if you like that stuff but it's not original. Actual characters that behave normally in an AVN. WOW!!!

Im part of the small group that finds Lena and Seymour is the way. I think its the most well writen arc.

Not 50 Shades influence but the Eyes Wide Shut influence.

 

[Leongen43]

Even for generic romances Lena isn't particulary interesting. Mostly, because she has too much drama and is not in a position in life in which she wants to pursue a stable romance. I'd rather have Ian with Holly or Alison for a vanilla romance, since those girls are far more willing to commit (Alison only gets off the road if Ian rejects her).

What has to do with relationships, Ian has a huge advantage since he has more options to have a good relationship while Lena, with the exception of Ian, the other male characters are a disaster because they are losers, toxic or dangerous for her, so at the same time Unless they are with Ian, it is better for Lena to be single until she has the option of having a relationship with a girl (Holly/Ivy), right?

 

[jaylop09]

Playing Ian is not bad per se. But in games like this it feels better to corrupt the female main character with our own choices. Meanwhile, playing a male it feels like a free harem at your disposal...which honestly is not that fun.

 

[ffive]

Im part of the small group that finds Lena and Seymour is the way. I think its the most well writen arc.

To each their own, but the only interesting aspect of that arc to me was whether Lena would manage to get out of the spiral if she was initially enthusiastic about it. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be option whatsoever, and at this point it gets increasingly likely it won't be. And i can't say the generic "a fat dude pays a girl to play with herself for him" is of any real interest as far as story arcs go, because this is very much a copy of what Lena is doing with her Stalkfap.

 

[digiguyalex]

Playing Ian is not bad per se. But in games like this it feels better to corrupt the female main character with our own choices. Meanwhile, playing a male it feels like a free harem at your disposal...which honestly is not that fun.

What you woud like more than a harem at your disposal? Would you like to grind more the relationships?

 

[dolfe67]

The loyal Ian+Lena path is such a breath of fresh air. If not Lena is the cookie cutter slutty female main character that's is boring as stale bread. The path with Semyour is boring shit as 50 shades of grey were, mind you if you like that stuff but it's not original. Actual characters that behave normally in an AVN. WOW!!!

In what the loyal Ian+Lena path is original? You may not see that often in these porn games, but you see it in mainstream romcom

 

[Krysis_here]

The Game Started with Two MC stories, One was for Ian and the Other was for Lena. Can say Many Toxic Male Characters made the Options for Lena a bit confusing for her future, And As for Ian (the Girls were Medium to Good). Now after coming so far choosing one is a bit weird as they pull the Whole Game . As it will be more satisfactory if Ian and Lena get Votes close to Each other but there is a lot of Difference.

 

[Leongen43]

In what the loyal Ian+Lena path is original? You may not see that often in these porn games, but you see it in mainstream romcom

It's true, that's why I don't like them being together even though I know that the best option for Lena is Ian to have a healthy relationship, I like to create opposite stories for them to see the differences, I would like to have the option to have a relationship with a girl with Lena, that would be interesting to me, right?

 

[ffive]

In what the loyal Ian+Lena path is original? You may not see that often in these porn games, but you see it in mainstream romcom

As you note yourself, it's common in mainstream romcoms but not in porn games. And the romcoms generally don't feature this amount/level of porn. So as far as combinations of content and story go, this is pretty unique.