I just fail to see what's so great about having somebody jump at the throat of everyone daring to admit wishing for a harem ending.
The extent it's playing out in this thread almost amounts to kink-shaming at times tbh.
I've played this game from the start, I love it, I support it, I understand it won't happen, I understand it wouldn't be a really realistic ending, but fuck that, I would still have loved a harem ending and still hope we get one as a sort of alternative what-if scenario bonus ending outside of the main game.
It's like this for me with any game where I like most or all of the ladies, choosing one over the other is not something I want to do.
Sure you can have different play-throughs, but if I made a play-through for ANY girl I like, I would end up with one for any girl outside of Teresa and maybe Wanda. Not impossible but it would take a fucking long time, even if you just skip to the choices. So I will definitely try for play-throughs with a combination of as many LIs as possible.
Not to mention that you still have to let-down all the other girls and women in each playthrough who also like the MC, it's not his fault he is so utterly charming.
Anyway, my favourite combinations (or the ones I see as possible would be) Monica and Zarah (very much looking forward to that), Katie, Lily and Debbie (let's see how far we actually can get with this in the beach house), I see a very tiny slight possibility for Elaine and Bella due to how her characters are written, of course without them doing anything with each other due to patreon.
I can also see Angel and Wanda as one pairing, Jenna and Jolene still seems possible and I can see either Angel and/or Wanda as an addition in a relationship with other characters mostly for a Monica/Zarah run.
I think the game will end with some mini harem if we go after after specific girls:
Katie, lily, debbie is the obvious one as well as my favorite route
Jenna and Jo is kinda obvious with what we have seen already( jenna spying on mc and jo having sex and the hints that jenna likes jo)
Bella and Elaine can be a trio with monica and zahra as an alternative
Angel and wanda with mc and angel as dominant and wanda the submissive one
I just fail to see what's so great about having somebody jump at the throat of everyone daring to admit wishing for a harem ending.
... I understand it won't happen, I understand it wouldn't be a really realistic ending, but fuck that, I would still have loved a harem ending and still hope we get one as a sort of alternative what-if scenario bonus ending outside of the main game.
Me too, on my main playthrough up until the hammer drops & we're forced to choose. Then I'll start splitting out the plausible pairings into separate saves.
These particular devs are very generous in offering a fast-start mechanism, so it's far easier to create new saves following particular paths mid-game.
Still need the man-whore run to see how we crash & burn though.
I just fail to see what's so great about having somebody jump at the throat of everyone daring to admit wishing for a harem ending.
The extent it's playing out in this thread almost amounts to kink-shaming at times tbh.
You have a point botc. The collective "we" probably do get too much of a kick out of watching Ava vehemently defend the no harem stance, but I think in general she doesn't mean any harm... aside from those who don't use the search function. She is just emotionally invested and finds the realism of characters who can be more realistically possessive and jealous helps that for her. So it's hard to fault her for that.
Just as you and others (it is an especially guy thing) can want our harem and to eat it too. To not have to break any hearts in our head cannon and being able to go forth and multiply with our chosen waifu's. Trust that evolution made us think this way and our nether regions create billions of soldiers who can deploy in all directions with that very idea in mind. Needless to say I enjoyed Sisterly Lust as much as the next guy.
For me though since coming to create and love WTHI like the rest of you hopefully... There are some things I've come to understand better from a developers perspective. Though we always planned and still plan to bend the rules on realism to fit our medium as far as possessiveness and jealousy goes, we can't go totally off the reservation. Not so much because you can't have a good or even great story where our chosen protagonist ends up at the top with everything he desires, but because for a story like the one we are telling, there is a certain loss of drama, danger, and suspense if our players know there is a single path to perfect nirvana. Plus there is something to be said for replay-ability by having lots of paths to explore.
What I'm getting at though is our primary selling point hasn't just been the story, sexy art, or the kinks (they help though). But it's the impact and variety of the choices you can make as a player to change your narrative and the story itself through them. I've played A LOT of other games and I'm proud of how we stand apart in that regard. Even when it gives me a headache while writing. Every time Cheeky and I sit down to create, even with an arc in mind... We always try to provide our players with the most tools to impact the story we can without us totally losing control of the number of directions you can go. It's quite a tightrope I can tell you, and likely not an undertaking we can take to this degree again. So I hope we don't fuck it up and that everyone can enjoy the ride as much as possible no matter your preferences. Sorry this turned into a text wall. It just happens sometimes.
You have a point botc. The collective "we" probably do get too much of a kick out of watching Ava vehemently defend the no harem stance, but I think in general she doesn't mean any harm... aside from those who don't use the search function. She is just emotionally invested and finds the realism of characters who can be more realistically possessive and jealous helps that for her. So it's hard to fault her for that.
Just as you and others (it is an especially guy thing) can want our harem and to eat it too. To not have to break any hearts in our head cannon and being able to go forth and multiply with our chosen waifu's. Trust that evolution made us think this way and our nether regions create billions of soldiers who can deploy in all directions with that very idea in mind. Needless to say I enjoyed Sisterly Lust as much as the next guy.
For me though since coming to create and love WTHI like the rest of you hopefully... There are some things I've come to understand better from a developers perspective. Though we always planned and still plan to bend the rules on realism to fit our medium as far as possessiveness and jealousy goes, we can't go totally off the reservation. Not so much because you can't have a good or even great story where our chosen protagonist ends up at the top with everything he desires, but because for a story like the one we are telling, there is a certain loss of drama, danger, and suspense if our players know there is a single path to perfect nirvana. Plus there is something to be said for replay-ability by having lots of paths to explore.
What I'm getting at though is our primary selling point hasn't just been the story, sexy art, or the kinks (they help though). But it's the impact and variety of the choices you can make as a player to change your narrative and the story itself through them. I've played A LOT of other games and I'm proud of how we stand apart in that regard. Even when it gives me a headache while writing. Every time Cheeky and I sit down to create, even with an arc in mind... We always try to provide our players with the most tools to impact the story we can without us totally losing control of the number of directions you can go. It's quite a tightrope I can tell you, and likely not an undertaking we can take to this degree again. So I hope we don't fuck it up and that everyone can enjoy the ride as much as possible no matter your preferences. Sorry this turned into a text wall. It just happens sometimes.
Good points, but it's not like I was asking for a harem ending, trust me I know EVERYTHING that YOU or CHEEKY (AS IN PEOPLE ACTUALLY INVOLVED IN CREATING THE GAME) have said about that. So I'm not arguing against any of the points you make.
It's perfectly understandable that people get frustrated about constantly repeated questions (hell, I do as well),
that's why my point is solely about the way posts about a harem route are handled in this thread, you can engage or disengage, offer your opinion or not, but as a rule of these boards, if you do, you have to do it in a civil and friendly or at least neutral way (we are normally ALL being held to that), so why is it okay to go after these posts so viciously at times and treat the people asking or wondering about it as idiots or assholes? That happens in no other game thread I've read through and to be honest it has been vexing me for some time.
And I can absolutely fault people for it and do (though I'm intentionally not singling out any specific person) because as I have pointed out in the past, if there is an actual harem route in a game, it is easy to avoid it and never encounter anything of what you deem unrealistic.
How is acting as if a harem route would destroy the game for you any different from the argumentation of reactionary twats who complain about inclusive characters in video games?
Those get pissed off about the possibility of lesbian or gay romance options and about transgender NPCs and here posters get pissed about people hoping for a harem route, even though in both cases one could just avoid playing what they don't like.
If you play the game for the first time or are new to this thread or the boards in general, it's a perfectly legitimate thing to wonder about, if you are into it, as it was in general BEFORE Cheeky said anything definitive about the topic (which happened way way later than some people claim), you can't really expect people to read through 940+ pages of thread.
It's not really different than if people start praising one girl over the others, if you don't agree, or speculate about a plot twist they think possible and you don't.
One example, I really like Zarah and have so from the second or third episode, there have been so many posts about how ugly and disgusting she is in the past, don't you think I wanted to tell people to fuck off over it? Yet I either stayed polite or humorous or didn't engage at all, at least I did after the mods/staff/site started demanding that from all of us.
What I like about that is we have to make some tough choices, it's not about realism to me. Having all or 3 women living with MC...both are unrealistic but having to make choices is realistic at least.
