AA2 was a sandbox game the way Dwarf Fortress or The Sims are sandbox games. Simulation is the main reason people remember it so fondly and why it has a decently active community today. Decline in simulation mechanics went hand in hand with decline in game quality and decline in the company as a whole.
The main reason are the crazy customization options with the powerful true sandbox for creation. That's why tons of games were developed with renderings from Illusions sandbox over a decade.
People used to play their games for the simulation elements and customization options, that's where their fame originally came from. It was not because of "Studio.exe" like you are saying.
Most Illusion games didn't have a "powerful true sandbox for creation". You're specifically talking about KK and HS and completely ignoring the entire rest of their library that goes back like 30+ years.
Yes it was, I played it around that time and everyone spoke about it. It was the only alternative to the old "3D Sexvilla" by TK17 and it was ahead in terms of graphics. Nobody was fascinated by the generic 0815 story-sandbox that offered what 1000 other titles did as well.
Then ask yourself why they survived 30+ years, then became the state of the art developer of true sandbox and managed to still die off after that.
There's a reason why KK and HS resulted in a decade of hundreds of VN's made with it. Their other titles are nothing in comparison.
I played Illusion games and never once used the Studio, and I've never played a VN built using the same but I'm going to go out on a limb and presume that they're shit. You should probably stop just presuming that your opinion is equivalent to a general consensus, as it seems to deviate significantly from the norm.
It's funny how your last sentence speaks directly to yourself. You claim that "you" have never used the Studio or played a VN that uses Illusion assets, therefore it can't be popular.
Many of the best rated and most popular games of all time on this site were / are being made with Illusion assets.
Oh boy, the cringe. Next time think twice about being so bold when you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
Irony 1
They have nothing to do with "illusion assets", most if not all of those games use mod assets created by modding community. You have no idea what you're talking about.
Irony 2
That's bullshit. They even use the 1:1 sex pose animations from Illusion, you'll see them over and over across dozens of games. And you're not creating original content just because you modificate some Illusion assets. It's still Illusion as the base, and without it this wouldn't be possible.
Irony 3.
You think you can create those characters without using any mods
Yeah champ you go ahead and make your own game using only "illusion assets", I'll let you know how shitty it is.That's a good point, to be clear my closing comment was in reference to your opinion deviating from the norm in this thread. As in you're one of a minority pushing for this particular title to abandon development of its core gameplay loop. I have no idea how many or what percentage of users actually buy or pirate those crappy VNs.
That's the reality, whether you accept it or not. I suggest you to take a look at the many Illusion-based games here.You think you can create those characters without using any mods
My post had the multiple times of likes than people saying he should rather focus on the story mode, so like I said it's rather your opinion that's deviating from the norm in this thread.
Since Harem Hotel has over 4637 paying members on Patreon alone, with Tiers ranging up to $10 per month, many people do.
The VN creator market is huge. There are thousands of people buying assets who will stop developing their games after just the very first months - but the sales for the assets were made. That's typical on the asset market. People are eager to develop something, they buy stuff in bulk and then they just end up not doing anything.
He's not late into the project lifecycle, they just started over again. The only thing that's far developed is the sandbox. The story does only exist on paper at the moment. And the sandbox is..
..what people actually are paying for, since it's the only thing they could play for years.
Reality is I have not moved "goal post", you either have reading comprehension issues or don't know who and/or which post you are replying to. Let's see your example game(Harem Hotel):
Pointing at two random posts and counting the likes isn't a great metric, for example I could point at this one where you made the same suggestion and this response telling you to shut the fuck up and I'd come to a completely different conclusion.
And zero of them paid for those Illusion assets. Maybe one did if the creator didn't pirate it... one sale! In the big bucks now lads!
Huge! They could grab a fraction of thousands of users!
They've got quest systems, pathfinding, combat mechanics, an entire world map blocked out, agent behaviour (including combat AI) and they are
All of this would essentially be wasted effort if they do as you suggest and abandon all that functionality and frankly I think you're unhinged if you think it would be well received by supporters.
Jep you did, when you tried to change "nobody is making games from Illusion assets" to "they don't all do games with Illusion assets only". Two keywords that completely move the goalposts because you figured out you've been wrong all the time, so you're trying to make your argument a bit more flexible. Yet you still fail to understand the essential aspect.
And yet it can then all be done in that easy-to-use environment instead of having to learn Blender and to it all by yourself from scratch or work into a way more complex software. That's the point of the entire argument. And if these assets and mods are sold through a marketplace with a provision to the developer, then that means profit. If you deny that fact, then you also deny that VAM or the UE marketplace makes serious profit for content creators and the developers behind said marketplaces.
You started it when you tried to derive the general consensus of the thread from 2 pages of conversations, but I am glad you realized your argument was not well thought out.
Read your question again without trying to move the goalposts. Spoiler: You asked how many people are buying the "crappy VN's", - the games made from Illusion because you couldn't believe this is a thing. Your reply has nothing to do with your original question.
Again, you market it at both - see VAM.
Which is all sandbox stuff and not story. Do you know what a story is? The tools you listed help creators to create content with the sandbox.
It's what the supporters are paying for, whether you like it or not. You pay money to get instant access to what's currently there, and that's been the sandbox since it was released on Patreon - period.
This may have escaped your notice, but with crowd funding you usually pay once and then wait happily for the game being developed and released. If you pay for monthly updates because you want access to the little new stuff, and the new stuff is sandbox only, then you're clearly interested in the sandbox aspects.
Hmmm... did I really ask that or make any attempt to estimate it?
Oh, nope, I didn't. In fact I explicitly called out that it doesn't matter, which is getting to be a bit of a recurring theme in this discussion given that your next comment is claiming I've never played an Illusion title... I've played every Illusion title, and I'm a developer. I just haven't used Studio.
The textures only drop when there is like ram or vram limitations or something, it's essentially automatic. For example I never get that texture loss even on max settings, I have to be in a very intensive sandbox map with lots of characters before it starts happening.Ok, thanks I will try that
But what do you mean by hardware limitations? Is it related to my hardware you mean? Because the game runs smoothly, no lag at all.
Yes, you did.
You did, there's the screen white on black.
You're wasting my time, that's a big difference. See here:
To sum it up:
I know, I literally quoted that post, but saying that I don't know something != wanting to know something. And my literal next sentence was highlighting that this is a moot point. You just suck at reading comprehension which basically sums up the last few pages of discussion with me and purple heart.
Bruh you're telling me the 30+ year old company died off after becoming a "state of the art developer of true sandbox" and you still aren't seeing the extremely obvious connection.
