BEW - Ongoing Dev Thread (DAZ Artists Still Wanted)

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How would you prefer to see BEW released?

Poll ended at Sun, 15Feb15 09:41

Original release schedule including Bar and Strip Club date venues and associated Act 1 love interests.
8
20%
Move strip club Venue and love interesto, including associated Faith and Emily paths to the first expansion, to be released after Act 3.
6
15%
Release in Episodes, with the current Demo as Episode 1. Asking the community to Vote for which content they'd like to see first for the next Episode.
26
63%
Do something else.
1
2%
 
Total votes : 41

Re: Work in Progress - BEW - (DAZ Artists Wanted)

Postby Wolfschadowe » Sat, 15Jan17 23:42

LRM wrote:Something else was me. I thought it might cause you to knit your brow.
Aha! got it. Thanks Lou!

M wrote:Actually, what's your current best guess for an Act 1 release time?
Act 1 with the Strip Club content is about 2000 pages away, so maybe 18 months or so. removing the Strip Club content leaves about 1000 or so pages remaining, so 9 months or so. Those are quick, off the hip guestimates.

--Edited-- When reviewing the voting, i'm considering the Two Act 1 as a whole release options together against the Episodes release. If the Act 1 in a single release method wins out with it's combined votes, I'll consider the winner of those two as the delivery method. So it's a closer contest than immediately appears. :)

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Re: Work in Progress - BEW - (DAZ Artists Wanted)

Postby M » Sun, 15Jan18 01:27

In that case I think I'm shifting my vote to the episodic release.
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Re: Work in Progress - BEW - (DAZ Artists Wanted)

Postby Squeeky » Sun, 15Jan18 02:03

M wrote:In that case I think I'm shifting my vote to the episodic release.

I don't think that is actually possible, I feel that you are only allowed 1 vote which cannot be changed.
If that is the case then Wolf will undoubtedly have noticed your comment.

I've just checked the PHPBB board and found that there are permissions which an Admin can set to NEVER for changing votes - I believe that Shark has adopted that.
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Re: Work in Progress - BEW - (DAZ Artists Wanted)

Postby Wolfschadowe » Sun, 15Jan18 02:17

M wrote:In that case I think I'm shifting my vote to the episodic release.
Noted. [img]images/icones/icon13.gif[/img]

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Re: Work in Progress - BEW - (DAZ Artists Wanted)

Postby crossy » Sun, 15Jan18 02:29

I voted for the episodes, as you said it is how it is being released to the Play testers and I quite enjoy it.

But im not sure about something you said above:

Similar to some of Sharks games where you use a code to continue the second part, in the case of BEW, it would be loading a save-game to continue on with the new content, or play again from the start to discover new content and paths.

I think this means what I want it to mean but I'm not sure. I would strongly recommend that you keep it as one game that just keeps having new content added to it. I really like the achievement system and wouldn't want to loose the aspect of cross-episode achievements - I wouldn't want to see a separate game for each realise where you type in a code to continue from a point. Even when Ariane did this it just wasn't quite right IMHO.

But I think your "loading a save game" comment is what I am talking about.

The games kind of advertise each other. Every time I released another, new people found the earlier ones. So the momentum builds. Waiting years and years to release a single giant game takes away that positive feedback loop.

As always Tlaero is on the ball. This is exactly what you want, you'll finally get out of the "projects" section of the lagoon (not that there is anything wrong with it) more people will see your game and interest will grow as well as potential support.

My 2 cents ( probably up to what like a $1.50 by now [img]images/icones/icon14.gif[/img] )
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Re: Work in Progress - BEW - (DAZ Artists Wanted)

Postby Wolfschadowe » Sun, 15Jan18 02:46

crossy wrote:I voted for the episodes, as you said it is how it is being released to the Play testers and I quite enjoy it.

But im not sure about something you said above:

Wolfschadowe wrote:Similar to some of Sharks games where you use a code to continue the second part, in the case of BEW, it would be loading a save-game to continue on with the new content, or play again from the start to discover new content and paths.
Yup, I can see the confusion. The Episodes method would release almost exactly the way it's going to playtesters. So it's not separate games when each episode is released, but that the game keeps growing.

Using an example from the Demo, there is a choice of going to the bar or the strip club, except the strip club link is labeled something like "Go to the Strip Club" (Disabled in demo)" For the Episodes format, that link would change to something like " Go to the Strip Club (To Be Continued in Episode - Strip Club Start)" The label is so it's easier to know what you are voting for.

Another example is in the strip club available to the playtesters, where it says (Disabled - Available in the Azumi Expansion) would change to "(To Be Continued in Episode - Azumi Inclusion).

At either of these points, the player could create savegame, Name that savegame whatever they want, and go play a different path in the game. Once the Episode releases, and they download the patch, they'd launch the game as normal, load the save-game and select the now active option, continuing right where they left off. That's the best case scenario, although there is a chance that if I don't get everything planned perfectly, the "Inclusion" episodes may break save games requiring restarts, although I will know that before voting for the next episode begins, and it will be noted in the poll.

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Re: Work in Progress - BEW - (DAZ Artists Wanted)

Postby crossy » Sun, 15Jan18 09:14

Perfect! Cant wait!
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Re: Work in Progress - BEW - (DAZ Artists Wanted)

Postby MysteryMan2333 » Sun, 15Jan18 19:42

I'm conflicted on this. I'm not a part of the playtesting group yet so I'm not sure exactly how much of the strip club scenes have been created yet. I was looking forward to taking Emily and Faith there, and now it seems like that has the potential to be cut entirely if this starts going episodic. It also seems like there was already a lot of time and effort devoted to those scenes. To just remove it entirely (well, at least for a year or two) seems odd to me.

I get why you want to have voting options to determine what people want to see next. However, what if the strip club options never get voted for? It seems likely that people are just going to keep voting for the next storylines of Faith and Emily considering people are invested in those characters at that point. Why would they throw a vote towards a segment of a storyline they care nothing about? Along those lines, people that potentially want to see something new are going to keep being stuck going along with the masses.

Additionally, doesn't this make the game way harder to code for? If people just keep voting for options later in the story, doesn't that mean that when you have to go back and do earlier parts, later parts will have to be rewritten in order to take into consideration the different interactions that take place in earlier days? Or now will everything become so separated that it doesn't really matter?

Even though I have some concerns with this (valid or not), I'm still looking forward to this game. I have no doubt that the game will still be great, and ultimately if this ends up in getting releases out to people quicker then maybe it's for the best.
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Re: Work in Progress - BEW - (DAZ Artists Wanted)

Postby Wolfschadowe » Sun, 15Jan18 20:36

MysteryMan2333 wrote:I'm conflicted on this. I'm not a part of the playtesting group yet so I'm not sure exactly how much of the strip club scenes have been created yet. I was looking forward to taking Emily and Faith there, and now it seems like that has the potential to be cut entirely if this starts going episodic.
Not Entirely. The first official Episode release would be:
  1. Bar Start (The current Demo)
  2. Club Start (The Strip Club option)
Voting would commence after that point.

MysteryMan2333 wrote: However, what if the strip club options never get voted for? It seems likely that people are just going to keep voting for the next storylines of Faith and Emily considering people are invested in those characters at that point.
That's a possibility, although at some point, dependencies would cause content to begin catching up. Also, the release of the Strip Club Start branch is to help mitigate this, as everyone will get the chance to meet the new characters before voting starts.

MysteryMan2333 wrote: Additionally, doesn't this make the game way harder to code for? If people just keep voting for options later in the story, doesn't that mean that when you have to go back and do earlier parts, later parts will have to be rewritten in order to take into consideration the different interactions that take place in earlier days? Or now will everything become so separated that it doesn't really matter?
Not as much as you would think. The initial design of the game is modular. The story branches and converges, branches again and converges again. It's hard to explain without resorting to spoilerish flowcharts, but let's take the bar scene as an example again, in spoilers for those that still haven't explored all the options.

The first branch is where you can spot the woman in black, and chase her, or not. From the point the player clicks on the window, a new module is accessed allowing for chasing her, or staying with Faith. Staying with Faith returns to the main module, chasing her is completely separate, running in parallel, and rejoining the main module when the discussion turns to Faith liking to watch. I could remove the link for the window, then delete the chase module and nobody would be the wiser, and the game would continue normally. Another separation of modules occurs when Emily arrives. yet another when Faith watches. Yet another module begins where Brad has the option to rub Emily instead of her rubbing herself. And another module where Faith joins. All of these modules converge later. Some converge with the choice of following Emily to the bathroom, others when Brad goes home. In every case, I could delete the associated content, remove the link accessing the module and nobody would be the wiser if they hadn't played the game before. There are dependencies later of course, but those dependencies are also modular. There are also some modules for the Bar scene that I left out, that could someday be reinserted.
Another example, less descriptive is how I've released some content to playtesters. For the Day 2 office, I released the initial story module, then the Bar Side Module, then the Strip Club side Module. It's pretty much how the game was designed, for plug-in modules. The only real change I'd have to make is to more distinctly define and separate the content in the code and folder structures, which I haven't bothered much with lately. That conversion may be an initial headache that lasts a week or so, but after that it wouldn't be an issue.

Finally, dependencies will come into play as well. Move too far ahead on one storyline and suddenly options get restricted quite a bit, and more and more "To Be Continued in Episode XXXXXX" begin to show up. Some are hard dependencies, others soft. Hard dependencies are aspects where the game won't work or make sense without earlier content. Soft dependencies are those I define, such as, if you want to take Faith and Emily to the Strip club, the Strip Club Start must be available. Remember also, I would control what get's voted on. :)

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Re: Work in Progress - BEW - (DAZ Artists Wanted)

Postby Chappers » Mon, 15Jan19 23:32

I'm up for episodic content.

It should be a win/win scenario, people get to experience more content, Wolfschadowe gets feedback and additional enthusiasm from people making (hopefully) positive comments.

But at the end of the day, its your baby, I'm sure most of us would be happy with what ever you decide, we just want to play it :)
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Re: Work in Progress - BEW - (DAZ Artists Wanted)

Postby Wolfschadowe » Tue, 15Jan20 00:46

Chappers wrote:I'm up for episodic content.
--SNIP--
But at the end of the day, its your baby, I'm sure most of us would be happy with what ever you decide, we just want to play it :)
Thanks for the feedback Chappers!

I don't have a strong preference either way. Both methods have some upsides and downsides. I'll wait until either 50 votes, or Feb 1 before making a decision, whichever comes first. :)

Meanwhile, I'm putting finishing touches on my updated modeling tool and mapping out the full logic flow of Act 1.

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Re: Work in Progress - BEW - (DAZ Artists Wanted)

Postby Bonhomie » Tue, 15Jan20 12:39

But at the end of the day, its your baby, I'm sure most of us would be happy with what ever you decide, we just want to play it :)


Of course the words of the Goddess tlaero carry a quadruple vote factor ..................
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Re: Work in Progress - BEW - (DAZ Artists Wanted)

Postby Super » Thu, 15Jan22 03:50

For what it's worth, I'd like something smaller at this point. And not really interested in something incomplete so yeah
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Re: Work in Progress - BEW - (DAZ Artists Wanted)

Postby Wolfschadowe » Thu, 15Jan22 16:19

Bonhomie wrote:Of course the words of the Goddess tlaero carry a quadruple vote factor ..................
Just quadruple? [img]images/icones/icon17.gif[/img]

Super wrote:For what it's worth, I'd like something smaller at this point. And not really interested in something incomplete so yeah
Thanks for the feedback Super! I appreciate the input.

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Re: Work in Progress - BEW - (DAZ Artists Wanted)

Postby Pok23 » Fri, 15Jan23 01:08

Episodic content gets my vote, either adding girls to existing scenes or opening new ones based on what is released (i.e. Jasmine)
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