Agree that's what I mean remember the shit they went through with SG. They didn't even have sex and they didn't make it easy. The original WIAB had sex with Leia, Katie, Scarlett and if I remember Helen. So Thats why I think they did that. Again it's an assumption.
I quoted this one rather than link all the posts I though I could add something further, so it's a combined reply
This is one of the most direct screens (unpatched) that shows Ocean has been thinking about this for a while:
Again the think to keep in mind is that with Willi and Leia confirmed to be related, there is incest unless Ocean demotes Leia as an LI (super unlikely). This means that further family relationships are not any bigger a problem. Ocean has confirmed Leia and Willi. So incest potential is not the reason for the change. Ocean confirming Leia and Willi are related means he'll have to change friend to sister in the script. So those screens are old Ocean worried about Patreon, which is no longer an issue. So to make the story make sense without a patch, he's taking the step of confirming that Leia and Willi are indeed blood related, but also that they are the black sheep, unrelated to anyone we've met so far in WiaB.
Even in the unpatched version you had:
Which might not have to change - do Willi and Leia even know whether they're related? I'm going to assume Ocean will change as few renders as he can, he'll most likely add/extend scenes for extra details.
If it was me writing this change, I'd have Leia reveal it to Willi when they have the heart to heart - she would find out when she's hospitalised after he leaves. That would be the simplest explanation. Then they both have to question Dylan (because Helen's not talking) about who their real parents are and why they were adopted from birth.
This would be the simplest way with the most minimal changes to the current chapters, it could be done with just a few sentences in the script. Leia and Willi still grow up being little shits to Katie, they still call Helen mom etc. I have two friends who only found out they were adopted when they were late teenagers, so stories like this don't seem farfetched to me. If Willi already knew he was adopted, he'd still call Helen mom like every other adopted person I've met who has been adopted at an early age. No one calls the "caregiver Helen" or something inane like that. It's also less problematic calling Helen mom than it is to admit Willi's related to anyone, so now we know that, it's all about what narrative Ocean chooses to move forward with.
As a side note, original WiaB had sex with Donna, Katie as a non canon side piece, Miru, Zoey, Emilie and the girl in prison from memory. Leia was oral, and I don't recall anything in the story with Scarlet or Helen (there was a side piece with Helen as a futa doing Miru) other than minor lewds. I admit to not having exhausted all the potenital choices in the old one.
I think this is where the crux of the matter lies, and I'm going to echo borrowed words "make things better". Anyone who has been following WIAB for a long time and/or forever knows that this was an incest story, but with twists and turns that made it more interesting than the rest. Dylan is the biggest example of what I am saying, despite his human mistakes, he is a great father and that is something you don't see anywhere.
So, what did the old guard expect? A different incest story, better than what we have perhaps.
As you say, to make it a cosmetic change is to do the same thing everyone does, to break the story now is to break the story we liked. It's the mental save that manga always keeps to facilitate the "but we're not really family" developments.
And that, it's lazy for what we've been having....
Expectations, you name that as if it wasn't a big deal, but precisely, the hype in a story is completely built on the expectations, without them, it's just another game.
Even so, we still don't know what it's about, how the change will be and what the future is, but if a change like this discards the 300 of us who have been on patreon for 17 months and earns 1000 new SS and 1000 new on Steam, well, congratulations to Ocean, WIAB will survive.
I understand this, I'm not denying that expectations are real, the thing is that since the rework, there's never been any real lewd action to support those expectations, so the consolation prize is you haven't lost content you already liked about the rework. I'm saying that as a purely pragmatic statement, because yes, there are supported who support because it started as horny MC screws everyone in his family in an edgy noire who dunnit. So the support feels like its been for nothing, and on false premises. That is truly an awful feeling for anyone.
By confirming one family relationship, we still have the main part of that premise. Helen was really a hope of content from the old prerework and the massages in the new. Katie as incest is the thing that's lost that is the biggest change. There's more Kat in the current version, Scarlet's old scene was on par with old Miru for being disturbing purely because it was so unattractive. The main path that people hope for is still there (assumption) and has been canonised. So it's not completely a case of AVN sleight of hand, "look over there, nothing to see here, whistling". Ocean's finally cut the ambiguity so there can be one canon version without having to dodge the questions any more, at least that's how I'm understanding it.
I'm not insenstive to the support concerns either. The question for me is will it be a compelling story, compelling enough that we enjoy it more than the fetishes we might prefer? Every AVN that wishes to be a great game needs to be bigger than any single fetish, and it has to be founded on something compelling enough to keep us engaged. We can't tell if this is a great move until we play the new chapter and see if it fits seamlessly and whether the change has been worthwhile. If it's done well, hopefully we'll gain a stronger story.
And yes, Dylan, the uncertain dad who admits weakness but tries to hold things together. OCean has created father figures in both games who don't need to die, and this is nice.
Indeed. Like Bob said:
And it will. I'm gonna speculate a bit here, but I think the new theme will be "adoption".
We will see how landlord Dylan and landlady Helen adopted our incestuous siblings. And my guess is in Season 2 the title will be reworked into something like "
Where the adoptions began". I can already see the season starting with a flashback of a tiny House being adopted by the trees in a forest in Wollust after being abandoned by a Farm. That house grew up and adopted a pair of orphans, none other than landlord Dylan and landlady Helen. They have a child, who they name Katie. Then they adopt a Pool. A few years into young Katie's life they decide to adopt a new pair of orphaned siblings (mirroring their young selves) and they all become roommates and landlords in the House where it all started.
But here is the twist, remember how the tiny House was abandoned by the old Farm? The House had a roommate too. And that House adopted landlady Helen's sister Scarlet and her future husband Uncle Joe. They had two little roommates of their own called Katerina and Lucas. That's how the Family came to be. And then we move on to where Season 1 left off with all the backstory we needed.
"
You don't turn your back on family. Even when they do." -Dom Toretto
EDIT:
Epic!
...but Dana shall be the only landlord!
