Stillmatic

Newbie
Dec 18, 2019
76
11
the lack of strong male characters allied with the MC was a decision made in the planining fase because the dev fear backlash from the player base, SL suppose even orcent will be barely accepted by the community.
I'm sorry I'm kinda new here why would a player base get mad at competent male characters outside of the MC?
 

Snugglepuff

Conversation Conqueror
Apr 27, 2017
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I'm sorry I'm kinda new here why would a player base get mad at competent male characters outside of the MC?
Largely they wouldn't... However there's always a vocal group of pointlessly jealous insecure idiots.

The fear, is fear of them having sex with a harem member. be it current (at time of meeting) or potential future addition.
Seriously, just go through the thread and look at all the times people were getting seriously bent out of shape over the succubi (Yara and Qum) at the first Gathering - fucking with orcs (including Orcent) and other succubi.
 
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Fulminato

Well-Known Member
Oct 17, 2017
1,204
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I'm sorry I'm kinda new here why would a player base get mad at competent male characters outside of the MC?
first, this is the first game of this dev, so a lot of planning before the developing was done "on paper" without real knowledge. and players can grow jealous of strong allied male characters. the community grow around this game isn't, but the effect exist.
another mistake "on paper" the dev admit was the size of the harem, in mostly harem centric porn game women are "collected" and after completing the corrispetive storyline leave to take duusk in some shelf. but well, people playing this game are grow attacted to the cast, and a smaller cast with more deeper background and story evolution is a better match with the playerbase, but you know... in retrospect everything seem easy.
 

manscout

Well-Known Member
Jun 13, 2018
1,203
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Largely they wouldn't... However there's always a vocal group of pointlessly jealous insecure idiots.

The fear, is fear of them having sex with a harem member. be it current (at time of meeting) or potential future addition.
Seriously, just go through the thread and look at all the times people were getting seriously bent out of shape over the succubi (Yara and Qum) at the first Gathering - fucking with orcs (including Orcent) and other succubi.
The problem is also that SL ultimately made a harem game where the vast majority of the early game and setup is predicated on the game saying "this is not a harem". Most of the women that join the "harem" early on do not do so under the pretense of being "fully commited and exclusive wife #12 for Simon", most of them are not really signing up to be exclusive to Simon in a "harem-like" relationship with one-sided exclusivity. Also at the same time, SL simply wrote Simon to be very respectful of the wishes and autonomy of his partners, so she wouldn't write Simon to ever demand or request exclusivity if it wasn't something he was willing or able to reciprocate.

The result ends up being that SL needs to write the story in a way that the women in the harem just never want to sleep with any man other than Simon, which ends up with almost all male characters being uninteresting, evil, sexually unavailable, or deceased, so that there is never a reason for them to even think about it. While I definitely do not think it reflects the intentions and thoughts of the author, I do think that, combined with SL's feminist tones in her writing, it can sometimes accidentally result in some misandrist worldbuilding, or at least be perceived as such.

I think the game could have had more interesting male characters and also kept them sexually apart from the harem, but such a thing would probably also need an explanation that may also not have been what SL ideally wanted for the story. I think she just had to compromise somewhere and she chose to not have interesting male characters rather than anything else.
 

Fulminato

Well-Known Member
Oct 17, 2017
1,204
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I think the game could have had more interesting male characters and also kept them sexually apart from the harem, but such a thing would probably also need an explanation that may also not have been what SL ideally wanted for the story. I think she just had to compromise somewhere and she chose to not have interesting male characters rather than anything else.
i'm not talking about guessing, the two answers are the official dev response to the question about the lack of strong male allies and the (eccesive) size of the cast.

the dev before starting working at the game was concerned about player base reaction about adding male allies to the MC. and based on the amount of noise less then a dozen sex scene not having simon included have generate, even in this thread, i cannot say in good conscience she was wrong.
 

Lolicon Kami

Well-Known Member
Nov 3, 2019
1,520
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made by a woman, for women, despite the MC being male.
God forbid women coming out of the kitchen and paving a life for themselves!

The sexual deviancy of women indulging in erotic games!

What a horrific, godless, criminal conspiracy for women to play as male MCs in games!

Jesus, our savior and benevolent lord, smite these witches and shackle them back to the domestic sphere of life!

/s
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manscout

Well-Known Member
Jun 13, 2018
1,203
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i'm not talking about guessing, the two answers are the official dev response to the question about the lack of strong male allies and the (eccesive) size of the cast.

the dev before starting working at the game was concerned about player base reaction about adding male allies to the MC. and based on the amount of noise less then a dozen sex scene not having simon included have generate, even in this thread, i cannot say in good conscience she was wrong.
Her fears were definitely not unfounded, but my point is just that she still chose to placate that type of excessively jealous player, and she chose to do so by having very few positive male characters other than the MC in her story. Was it a wise and necessary compromise for the game's success? Was it a mistake spawned from excessive caution and misjudging the game's actual audience? I don't know and I don't want to debate the merit of her decision, just assert that her choice is a fact and that it affects the story the game tells.

Also, I do believe complaints in the sense of a lack of positive male depictions other than the MC have floated around as far back as chapter 3, for at least a few years. I know SL is a methodical writer and she already had the story mostly planned out from even before the start of the game's development, but it is not like she is beyond changing some elements of the story (i.e Lilith's 1000 year loli stuff being her original main fetish). That she has pretty much stayed course on the subject of not adding more male allies indicates that this is the closest the game will get to the story SL wants to tell, and that is not above being criticized (although I personally have enjoyed the depiction of the male characters in the 2nd part of the succession crisis and the more sensible one of the 2 givini twins after Warden of the South, just maybe too little too late).
 

lostone2

Member
Jul 1, 2017
123
88
Her fears were definitely not unfounded, but my point is just that she still chose to placate that type of excessively jealous player, and she chose to do so by having very few positive male characters other than the MC in her story. Was it a wise and necessary compromise for the game's success? Was it a mistake spawned from excessive caution and misjudging the game's actual audience? I don't know and I don't want to debate the merit of her decision, just assert that her choice is a fact and that it affects the story the game tells.

Also, I do believe complaints in the sense of a lack of positive male depictions other than the MC have floated around as far back as chapter 3, for at least a few years. I know SL is a methodical writer and she already had the story mostly planned out from even before the start of the game's development, but it is not like she is beyond changing some elements of the story (i.e Lilith's 1000 year loli stuff being her original main fetish). That she has pretty much stayed course on the subject of not adding more male allies indicates that this is the closest the game will get to the story SL wants to tell, and that is not above being criticized (although I personally have enjoyed the depiction of the male characters in the 2nd part of the succession crisis and the more sensible one of the 2 givini twins after Warden of the South, just maybe too little too late).
To be fair, if the complaints were made here, SL don't/didn't know about them. I have seen these kind of complaints in other places but I think that they were more recent. At the end of chapter 3/early chapter 4, most of the complaints where centered about the flow of the story: how the end of chapter 3 should have been the end, hoe the Tower seemed to appear out of thin air and so on.
 

maroder

Member
Jun 17, 2017
210
164
lack of good male characters always was one of bigger problems for me.one of reasons why i stopped playing. you cant create these interesting and believable world and then make most of male characters expect mc useless or evil.
 

Rugerrell6

Active Member
Jun 26, 2020
780
1,369
lack of good male characters always was one of bigger problems for me.one of reasons why i stopped playing. you cant create these interesting and believable world and then make most of male characters expect mc useless or evil.
Yea but you also have to remember what forum we are on. If you even hint that there are other male characters besides the MC on these forums people scream ntr ntr ntr!!! Until they pass out! So to avoid unnecessary headaches she probably made the right decision. More male characters would be interesting but I care more about women characters anyway.
 

maroder

Member
Jun 17, 2017
210
164
Yea but you also have to remember what forum we are on. If you even hint that there are other male characters besides the MC on these forums people scream ntr ntr ntr!!! Until they pass out! So to avoid unnecessary headaches she probably made the right decision. More male characters would be interesting but I care more about women characters anyway.
i really don't think that it would have such negative reaction because we already have male character's who have sex with a lot of woman , problem is they all are evil. if ntr haters can live with them they probably wouldn't drop game for few good ones. not having them just breaks my suspension of disbelief a little to much.
 

Gehoji

Newbie
Sep 17, 2019
63
63
I chose Varia Dominated quite a while back then. Is there a cheat option to switch to Varia Reshaped?
Technically you could use a save editor to do that, but I have no idea how many things that choice also triggers, so it might be a bad idea.
 

manscout

Well-Known Member
Jun 13, 2018
1,203
1,886
Honestly I don't know why slut Altina and dominanted Varia a thing it's obvious that it's not good decisions the choice itself shouldn't be considered by Simon
Mostly those choices are there because early on the dev wanted to offer the player more choices and because they appeal to some fetishes (dominated Varia for the doll/robot fetish, slutty Altina to have a hyper slut character that isn't a succubus). I agree reshaped Varia and saner Altina are choices that make way more sense for Simon's character, specially with the overall wholesome direction the story took in the long term, but there is some logic to defend the slutty Altina and dominated Varia choices:

For slutty Altina, at the time Simon wasn't sure of how much Altina would be able to recover, starving her out from sex was painful for her and saner Altina still suffers with self-esteem issues and a bit of depression for quite a while in the story while she tries to recover. Slutty Altina on the other hand is very happy right from the start, even if she doesn't recover her old faculties, Simon takes care of her and she is able to thrive without as many self-esteem issues in her new cock-crazy self. It is a very "ignorance is bliss" take but it is not a cruel choice for Altina.

For dominated Varia, simply put, reshaped Varia also involves a bit of brainwashing, there is no version of Varia where Simon doesn't use his power to violate the integrity of Varia's "self". If Simon is already having to use his powers to brainwash Varia anyway, one could argue trying to preserve most of her old self is not inherently a moral absolute, since Simon is already being forced to use the powers he does not want to abuse. The rationalizations can go in a darker direction if you consider Varia was a bandit and dominating her can be a deserved "death sentence" for her old self, so that she can then be reborn into Simon's servant. Also overall dominated Varia is a more powerful servant since she is singleminded in her goal to serve Simon, and she could also be argued to be happier since the only thing she cares about is doing Simon's bidding, she is no longer bothered by the tragedies of her "former" life.
 
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kakabbage

New Member
Nov 20, 2021
8
12
Technically you could use a save editor to do that, but I have no idea how many things that choice also triggers, so it might be a bad idea.
Well, the question is How...
I tried toggling 'Varia RESHAPE' (264) and 'Varia DOMINATE' (263), but that didn't change anything. Based on save editer's stats screen, I think there are 2 characters both named Varia, and game decides which one joins your team. No idea yet how to switch.
 
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Stillmatic

Newbie
Dec 18, 2019
76
11
Largely they wouldn't... However there's always a vocal group of pointlessly jealous insecure idiots.

The fear, is fear of them having sex with a harem member. be it current (at time of meeting) or potential future addition.
Seriously, just go through the thread and look at all the times people were getting seriously bent out of shape over the succubi (Yara and Qum) at the first Gathering - fucking with orcs (including Orcent) and other succubi.
Wow really? I didn't know that dudes were insecure like that on here.
 

Snugglepuff

Conversation Conqueror
Apr 27, 2017
7,159
7,481
Wow really? I didn't know that dudes were insecure like that on here.
It's not that guys on here are that insecure, but that guys that insecure exist.
You just see it more due to the nature of these forums and the different works/projects you find here.
 
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