hah ya, I figured that fear of NTR complaints is what keeps devs away from that.
I think it'd be cool to have situations where a character you're interested in can get hit on by other guys and if you've dismissed them or basically not secured exclusivity with them yet, they can act like a single person would - doesn't necessarily mean anything would happen there if you interjected, but for example with Summer's Gone, as the game develops maybe MC has some disagreements with some of the jocks on the basketball team and one of them is interested in one of the girls the player is interested in and it creates some competition. That would lead to the dev having the freedom and creativity to build some scenes / situations involving that other male competitor that if you navigate well, just like IRL, the feeling of success is even better when you beat a male rival for a woman's affection, which is a real-life thing and feels great.
Now it would definitely be more complicated for the dev, as they would have to code options into the game to make it so the player could reject the girl if she went too far with another guy (player didn't like their behavior, etc.), that kind of thing, but I think it'd be pretty cool and make the games feel more real. I liked in "Leap of Faith" how you could help your buddy get with Linda if you weren't interested in her, and they were a couple at the end of the game, too, so situations like that where the girl ends up with someone else even though you weren't interested would be cool because it creates more realistic situations and outcomes.
I like your idea on the rival heroine - makes me think a little of Zara here in SG where she tries to compete with MC, although they already seem to be getting a little lovey dovey in certain situations if the player chooses right. But yeah if they write a character who really isn't able to be romanced until much later in the game because she's written to literally just cause problems all through the game for the MC and then later on in the story circumstances evolve to create situations conducive to romance development would be cool, too.
Ya, I remember reading in the "Where It All Began" began thread where Ocean talked a little about the NTR options being more realistic and I had said basically I'm cool with those types of things being in the game as long I have the option to reject the woman if she does something that I consider over-stepping. Because as you said, it's realistic for the female characters to have other guys interested in them, they're not all just going to love the main character...and yeah, a girl that looks like Mila...holy hell, they would have a line of dudes just following them around all day long. Amber is the main girl I'm interested in for SG, and I would bet it wouldn't just be the Holgersons chasing her, it'd be every guy she met, so yeah, big fan of more realistic situations. Makes the achievement of exclusivity more valuable, too.
