Friday, April 21, 2017

TLS 0.26.0 Released! (+Demographics!)

New update for patrons! Version history updated, you know what to do, etc.

Version 0.26.0
 - New section setting the stage in Eustrin and Aram.
 - Two new plot sex scenes.
 - Party switching mechanics implemented in preparation for upcoming content.

Lots of new content I hope everyone will enjoy, but not a lot to say about that now. Big thanks to everyone who filled out surveys! I've just made my Patreon post on the subject public. Feel free to read it if you want to see the results in considerable detail along with some analysis and the Patreon discussion of those results:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/8851324

But even if you don't read that, I hope you want to see the results of all the character voting! I decided to do it in the style of those manga popularity polls for fun. ^-^ Here it is:

33 comments:

  1. It's interesting how completely I disagree with the order of favorite characters. :) For me, it's something like Sarai, Orcent, Tyna, Esthera, Ginastra, Simon, ...

    Regarding the Patreon post's section about Varia and Altina, I did not choose the domination routes, despite occasionally enjoying that fetish, because of the lack of consent. It's not a political or moral issue for me (in a game, obviously); I just have no desire to dominate or force sex on anyone when offered a choice. I might have Simon indulge a character who got off on being dominated or humiliated, but that's about it.

    I think you're on to something about the tone though. In a game where the whole point is domination, it's a different vibe and I can go with it. But Simon is trying to be a good man, if sometimes a ruthless one. It doesn't feel right to have him make those choices.

    But then again, I'm writing a walkthrough which refuses the brothel deal, doesn't allow Trin to do her thing in the bank and saves the men in the pass, so I may not be representative. :)

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    1. Thanks for your thoughts!

      As for the walkthrough: is that a WIP, or do you have it posted somewhere? If so, link it on the wiki, people will appreciate it!

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    2. It's only complete through early chapter 2, though I do have the bulk of my upcoming choices mapped out. I plan to post it on the wiki in sections like Rafael367's walkthrough assuming no one there has an issue with that. I'm not sure how long it will take me to get current with the game and edit/format the walkthrough, but I expect somewhere between a week and a month.

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    3. We will be happy to have it in the wiki! If you need any help with the edits or formats, feel free to contact Decanter or me in our walls.

      See you there!

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  2. Hey Sierra, two little things I found so far:

    One, at the Aramite military outpost you can't actually get back out of the courtyard. Two, I wiped out the infested cave network before going to the Maranites and it seems to have screwed up a quest.

    Other than that great update so far-especially like Metran and his constant bullshit. Still playing through it.

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    1. Also you can have multiple Nejanda's in a room when she's at the Mausoleum and her views on her husbands philandering.

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    2. Glad you like it! But FYI, Patreon is the best place to report bugs until the public version, as that's where most of the discussion is.

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  3. For the lord of Fucks, we give no fucks, lmao.

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  4. Man, "everyone" was an option ?
    Now i feel cheated, i actually spend around half an hour sorting out my feelings and trying pick just one.

    Also i wanted to ask, what about the characters not featured in this poll(picture) like Xestris or Implevon the third for example ? Zero votes ?
    And if so why only specify the Fucklord ?

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    1. You're not the only person to feel that way. If I ever do this again (it wouldn't be in the near future) I would probably tweak that question.

      As for the Fucklord bit, that's just a joke.

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  5. Some Characters are still missing here like that Zeolot Pristess, and Baiyu.

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    1. and Start and impaler.

      PS. No surprise the Fucklord got no vote his an idiot narcissist.

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    2. Yes, the graphic doesn't include everyone, as that would be a very long image. If you click through to the Patreon post, you'll see the total list of votes - Stark and the Impaler did get one, actually, I just chose not to put that tier in the image because so many were ambiguous.

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  6. Riala does have a point... Care to remedy that, Sierra? :P (not pushing, but...)

    I wanna comment on your thoughts about the cockwhore/dominated Altina/Varia, specifically on Varia (as I am a part of that small minority, that has chosen dominated Varia).

    First I wanna start with Altina though. Both Altina versions seem fine to me, though truth be told, I have seen just a few lines from cockwhore version. But as far as I can tell, she looks fine as a character, it just feels to me, that people who like this game prefer the saner version. Basically, what I'm saying is, that cockwhore Altina is not badly written, just people who would prefer cockwhore Altina tend to not like/play this game in the first place.

    But enough about Altina, no one really cares abou you! :P (j/k) For me, honestly, (it might come as a surprise to you) but I really strongly dislike reshaped Varia. I don't know, if you remember (you probably don't), but I'm the guy who disliked Megail quite strongly (for her not so favorable life choices, when Simon acquired her), but I learned to tolerate her (still feels weird to me having Megail on 100 RP and feeling about her like... "meh"; but w/e). But I could really NOT learn to tolerate reshaped Varia (unless she changes a lot since Reunion, which I doubt). Now to be fair, I tried playing with her till like, Reunion or some such (to see how she feels to me), but still, her weird get-chained fetishes, her "stupidity" (you know what I mean, no?) and her "sadness" (might have something to do with my own life, but w/e) are all strongly off-putting for me. To put it short, if I couldn't choose dominated Varia as my option, I would have probably stopped playing the game like a year ago. I mean yea, 1 less player = no one cares, I know, but still... I'm saying this option MATTERS to some, ME specifically. Now I'm not saying dominated Varia is my most favorite character. But honestly? She DEFINITELY ISN'T my least favorite one. Even though I learned to tolerate Megail for example, I still like dominated Varia a bit more than her, for example (I could try to think, who is my least favorite character, but I won't). I mean yea, dominated Varia is a bit plain from time to time, her ONE sex scene is QUITE lame (I mean I have her on 100 now and still only 1 scene? ...), but there were a few moments/lines, where she made me chuckle, you know, that small unexpected brilliance. And for that I value her more than Megail, for example (poor Megail, I know :D). Why don't I like Megail, whom I mention so much? Well, I see Megail as useful for Simon. That's it. USEFUL. Not the best quality in a character I'd say. There wasn't a single moment till now, when I would feel that I like Megail. I slightly respected her, when she told Simon, what she did to become "Megail", and also, I felt just slightly connected to her when acquiring Min, but then again, it feels to me I just liked Min, and BECAUSE Megail liked her as well, I felt that we (Simon=I and Megail) liked the same thing. That was THE CLOSEST through the entire game I felt to Megail. And there might be someone I dislike as a character even more, but I don't really wanna think about those things, better to forget and move on.

    So what I'm saying is, that IF there is a character of them all that is weak, it's NOT dominated Varia. (ehm, Megail, ehm). To be fair though, I feel that Megail as a character is fine, just I PERSONALLY don't see anything to like about her. To be fair I don't like Wynn (for obvious reasons) as well for example, but Wynn to me is at least interesting as a character, even though I'd slap that bitch till she'd come to her senses. :P

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    1. I suspect the distance to Megail is intentional, a function of her own issues and neuroses. She obviously LIKES being with Simon, for reasons personal and financial, but well.

      She's really not good at the whole 'playing nice' thing, she couches everything in her own worldview as a merchant, as far as I can remember she has very few scenes with the other haremettes.

      For Varia, I have a save where I let her get raped first to appease Aka and one where I went in and busted up her mutinying bandits, but in both cases I picked Reshaped Varia. That's just on me, not on the character though: I almost always pick good-to-neutral options when playing games. It's easier to feel good about what I'm doing if there's at least a veneer of altruism involved. Same reason I've explored putting in a fountain (not worth it as that one turned out to be, updating Carina's shrine and rebuilding the elf slum in one save.

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  7. I'll wait for updated versions, although I'm surprise this came actually early, for an update I assumed it was going to be huge, I expected 6-8 weeks for this patch to be ready.

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    1. I try to get new versions out at a faster rate than that. This one was slowed down by the demographics survey and post, otherwise I would have had it released earlier in the month.

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  8. I saw 'Lexande' and 'Xestris' get one vote each, and went "Legitimately who?" At least Xerxes had (the Anak) after his name to help jog my memory.

    It's interesting that Lynine scored worse than Orilise only on the 'pick more than one favorite character' portion. So people who voted for multiple people voted for Orilise over Lynine.

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    1. I like Orilise more but I couldn't find where Orilise was during the choose who you ally with during the elf portion, it's not really that obvious she's inside a tree xD so i just decided to stop wasting time and go with Lynine. I hope she has plenty of spare to get her to 100!

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  9. hey i read the data results and I kinda wanted to give my two cents for the varia/ altina questions. So I picked having saves for both because its true. I run two saves. One which is basically me winging everything. If theres an important decision I make it on the spot without thinking too hard, if theres a hidden reward thats not too obvious I may or may not miss it. A second run that I try to optimize as much as I can. I have saves for most choices in case I have to go back and redo from that point. If (and it actually might be because I dont have 100% from the slum petition house) I need to go back to chapter one to redo the investments I'll do it all over. I think overall getting the reshaped/saner version is better for RP, so on one hand I prefer that version but on my non-optimal save I had dominated/cock slut version. I would favor that path because I really like the idea of rethinking and breaking normal ethic codes. In contrast I guess most people like you said would rather remain in keeping to of the ethos of the game and life in general. So that's a valid conclusion I'd think because I preferred the other path for the exact opposite reason of that. But if you asked me to choose one save over the other I'd pick the optimized one because I like optimizing and really analyzing which choice is better in games.

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  10. I do wonder, how does Cockwhore Altina handle the elf sections? Sane Altina and Aka had some legitimately cute bits, and I'm not sure if Cockwhore Altina has the mental faculties to manage them. Maybe she's even funnier, though!

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  11. The choice with varia might have been different if the stakes were bigger. The choice was basically between punishing her for her missdeeds and have a power trip with an obedient dominated slave vs forgiving, giving a second chance and get faithfull loving follower. With that choice, I'm reshaped Varia all the way.

    Could be interresting if the player got a true choice between forcing his will on someone or not getting anything at all, or even worse, have the person go against his will entirely. Like if a usefull person refuse to help or try to go against him. For instance, what would players choose if forcing your will was the only way of making Ginasta an ally (and harem member) and the best you could obtain while respecting her free will is to have her fight the other incubis kings on her own while not meddling in your affairs (or having her as an antagonist if your rp is too low)?

    Then again, it is usually the choice you get whenever you have the chance to use Trin, but it is usually with despicable, undevelopped characters.

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    1. Sure, that would be neat.

      It would be difficult from Sierra's perspective though; you could never have a situation that can only be solved by a person the player may or may not have. Like, Altina can be helpful sometimes with the elf slum, but you can never depend solely on her.

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  12. > #24

    goddammit I came here for laughs not to feel shitty about me missing obvious plot hints

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    1. Honestly, missing Altina is such a big deal, that you should seriously consider playing the game again from the beginning... (I also missed her in my first playthrough, luckily had a save before going after Varia, so that fixed that) I'm not saying she's critical for your playthrough, but really, that's like the one thing you really SHOULDN'T miss.

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    2. If I wasn't already really far past the point where you rescure her I would absolutely go back, but I hate backtracking at all in games. So I'll save her for either 2nd run or NG+ if that ever becomes a feature (which it absolutely should)

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  13. shit that king can see the four wall? or i am reading to much of the '...' plus that lines he say that make me think that world= game

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    1. With this graphic, I think the 4th wall is a moot point. Rather, I think he's staying in character by not seeing any point in commenting.

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    2. Yeah, the contest is just a joke that exists on our side of the fourth wall. Don't worry, TLS will not break the fourth wall.

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  14. Anak of Philon, don't be sad bro, this stuff doesn't matter, you're sexy and mysterious in your own way!
    Sorta sad Altina is so down low, but what can ya do. Yay for demographics! Glad Aka's high up, I thought only I liked her!

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