Whore Master Cathexis

[ShikinamiFan91]

I've been playing Sim Brothel 1x lately, and one thing that has that WM could do with is the girls' weekly schedule planners - allowing easy selection (via drop-down) of jobs for each girl for each day of the week.  The thing is that Sim Brothel 1x plays 1 day at a time so it doesn't really need a weekly planner so much, whilst WM has each turn being a week but with only 2 shifts to select for, really feels more like it's also 1 day per turn.

IMO effective use of a weekly job planner could really add to the game, as well as simplifying quite a lot of things:  Fatigue can be simplified by having each girl require a certain number of shifts as "rest/time off" per week, depending on her stats & talents - so an average girl would maybe need 4 half-day shifts off in a week, whilst a girl with high Constitution and talents like Construct or non-corporeal would be fine on just 1 shift resting per week.  That way you can ignore fatigue calculation most of the time, and simplify it the rest - if the girl gets the required amount of time off there's no need to calculate fatigue.  Overworking (set less shifts as rest than required) adds to fatigue and unhappiness, over-resting (set more to rest) recoups them, simples!
 
Similarly libido/sex weariness can be simplified as the number of shifts per week a girl can work as a whore - that could be a soft limit that results in penalties if you go over, or it could be a hard limit that stops you selecting more than the girl's maximum completely.  A useful side effect to this would be forcing the player to develop and make use of the non-whore jobs, and also manage the rotation of girls across multiple jobs to keep them earning, unlike the current WM vanilla situation of set all to whore as default and just manage fatigue. 
 
Disobedience and refusing jobs can also be tied in with this - overworking, and working at or above (if allowed) her libido limit will increase the chance of a girl refusing to work, extra rest and working less shifts as a whore reduce the chance.

This is a very good idea.  There should definitely be an emphasis on each job.  That said, the way I'd do it is by giving each job a unique function.  That said, I'm a little rusty on the game mechanics, so I can't really give any ideas as to what those unique functions would be.  Sorry.

[Jasuke]

I'm assuming this project is still on-going since no-one said otherwise. And it looks pretty good thus far. Though one feature that I would think could make the game little better is the involvement of the player in things within the game; like for example having a bunch of stats on the player and allowing the player to certain number of actions per week and for example go into the dungeon himself and based on that include a battle mechanic to make the game more fun, other thing could be to be able to choose the gender of your so called "whore master" and such. These suggestions mostly are based on other games of this nature that have done similar things to a positive result.

[Tantor]

I just found this thread and something mentioned early on worries me.  I understand in combat that the is no difference in 1 vs 100 or 100 vs 10000 in values, BUT girl levels and catacomb levels are not things of the moment like combat but values used by the player to measure game progression.  the lowest level of the catacombs holds the best girls and therefore should only be reached by mid to late game.  the problem is with only 5 levels you are spending years of game time on each level.  This can give the player a feeling of spinning his wheels and getting nowhere. I would suggest splitting each section into 5-15 levels to give the player a feeling of accomplishment and advancement while still controlling how soon the player has access to high rank girls.  The same thing can be said about the girls levels too, with only 5 levels it will seem like they either max out to fast or aren't progressing at all, I would suggest 20 levels with something similar to what is done in D&D with attribute increases every 4 but other minor bonuses given on the other ones.  I know the numbers seem like fluff but games need some padding on their bones.  Because even if there is no difference between your lvl 5 girl and my lvl 20 in values it still gives the player a better sense of achievement to have reached lvl 20 instead of only lvl 5.

But in the end this is all just pacing stuff and probably won't be relevant till much later.

[blind]

                        graodearia you are a gentleman and a scholar.  Thank you for doing this project.

I've read through your posts and I'm excited to see the final outcome.  A few things I would like to ask are:

1. Your class/level system for the girls, would it be possible to have a girl start as - Class E lvl 1 - then reach - Class E lvl 5 - and have an option to advance to - Class D lvl 1 -, that way you can continue to progress girls.  If that's not the case and I can think of reasons why it would be, can there be a very rare one time use item to enable it?


2. I read the combat system post and think it's an amazing idea, I really like the idea of spells learned.  My question is can there be a similar thing for combat?  I know you listed temporary buffs they can "cast" but I was thinking more along the lines of Combat abilities such as "Dragon Punch" in place of the magic equivelent "Fireball".


Thanks again.

[Lloyd]

Just wondering if this game is still being made, but i have to agree with graodearia. The combat is not the main focus. and you are a blessing my friend.

[Orden]

Hello,


It's a good news that you rebuild the whole game from scratch but I think this discution about girls stat is not a good starting point. I played Whore Master and found it fun but I also played Slave-Maker, Marvel-Brothel and Sim-Brothel. Slave-Maker is great and well finished, Sim Brothel 2 on the contrary was beta a long time but its latest rebuild is good. You have to think about what is Whore-Master compared to similar games.


WM is not a collection of girls stats, it's:
   Brothel-Management (like SiBr)
   Gangs and territory
   Submission and torture in dungeon (submission but with more violence than in Slave-Maker)
And for me each mechanism should intereact with the others. For me WM it's Sex + Violence.


The stats and traits systems in WM1 was a bit too complicated, I had to read the source and create a manual myself to realy enjoy the game. You have to imagine that the player will not fine tune all the 20 characteristics. If you chose to create 6 combat traits, you have to create a real turn-based combat game or just have one "combat" skill. With 6 skills you have to show each turn in a dramatic way; if you plan to only diplay the combat outcome, just use one combat stat.
The skills are only here to support a game mechanism, if it's not used, or if it's too close from another stat, just remove it.


For example: the trait big-boobs, what should I do with it ? Sure a customer can be a fan of big-boobs but it's only a random event. In SimBr you can advertise Big-Boobs on radio to get more of theses customers. In WM it's just a random bonus, you have no decision to make about it.


I think players don't like too much game mechanism, but they like the richness of the world and the discoveries. Instead of creating too much stats, you can have special habilities that are not present at the beggining but are nice to discover to keep the pleasure of playing. Theses features should be well explained when they are used the first time.

Here are my sugestions:
A: Don't show unfinished features.
B: The core game should be reduced with 25 well detailed girls. It will be easier to download. Additional packages should be available allong.
C: Create a small documentation about the core mechanisms of the games. All the rest should be explained on the spot.

I hope WM2 will keep it's specificities and increase its playability.

[Lloyd]

Orden....... i think your fucken brilliant.

[Orden]

I want to dig a bit more the idea I have about what made WM original in comparison to other games. For me it's the mix of violence and sex:
As a player I found fun to get a character depicting a normal woman to start and to push this character to more extreme practices. You are rewarded with hot descriptions and corresponding images. For this the submission of each girl should be progressive and the discovery of each girl should be progressive also.
We can imagine a game where you have a city divided into districts. Each district is dominated by a mafia thanks to gangs. Each district can have a house an girls can work in houses or in the street of the district. They can also have non sexual jobs to start.


You have to conquer the districts to get the girls and you can also steal girls in other brothels. Once a girl is yours, she will not accept any job or any practice. You have various means (dungeons) to make her accept the most lucrative practices.


To sum-up: I conquer with gangs => I get the girls => I convince and train them => I get the money => I pay the gangs to conquer


In comparison with the current game mechanics:
- Girls will not accept to work as a whore since the beggining, they can start as a waitress, maid, dancer... Create a normal girl story, the life "before".
- Make clear the link between what the girls accept to do and all the domination actions in the dungeon.
- The most extreme pictures are available only when she accept extreme practices (beast, group)
- Gangs can scout to display where the houses and the girls are.
- Keep pregnency but daughters should not be used as future whores, but they can rather be kidnapped and used as such by rivals.
- Simplify the combat system, remove magic, nets, weapon level, healing potions, anti-preg medecine stock management.
- Remove grand theft and dungeon exploration in the first version. I should be added as a special plot and not as a generic game mechanism. Events like "raped by monsters" are nice.

[Aika]

This thread's been receiving a lot of attention lately. The last time the OP was online was 2 months ago, so I'm not even sure this project is still active. If it is I would offer to help, but until I hear something from the OP I'm going to assume this is dead.

[Xela]

This thread's been receiving a lot of attention lately. The last time the OP was online was 2 months ago, so I'm not even sure this project is still active. If it is I would offer to help, but until I hear something from the OP I'm going to assume this is dead.

 Yeah, most people don't realize how much time and skill you have to put in into creating a game like WM... Most projects die off fairly quick, I mean, even WM wasn't properly finished

 There are other WM2s being made out there, stay put, someone will make one eventually.

[necno]

I'm gradually working on a WM2 official. Although it is going to be different game. It is still at least 6 months from having anything to show since it incorporates a lot of procedural generation.
These things definitely take time, I wrote the original WM in about a week and still have no idea how I did it though the first release didn't work (released it on hongfire originally).

I've always been surprised at how popular it became. The next game is going to have more polish to it and is being written in C#/XNA. I won't go into too much detail since it is still very much
in an experimental phase but it has more rpg elements, alife simulation for townsfolk/workers and kingdoms(they mostly just influence prices of trade goods), procedural dungeons and explorable
environments.

The city is also procedural although not so much variation.

That is about all the information I can give out as it is like I said about 6 months from having much to show, I'm working at a company involved with game development now so time is
a little constrained so don't expect updates frequently. Also birthright is still being worked on although in a very limited rate (also it will first be released on android devices which is a little
different). Neway, can't wait to see what these other WMIIs will come up with and fully support them (indeed they did ask permission from me to start them which I ok'd)

[kenoichi]

this sound great... ^_^
but to be honest with you...
you shouldn't have mentioned that you're working on a new WM... (official WMII) till you were near releasing the first version of it...
as it will only cause people to ask for more info, release date and any small amount of information about the game and progress
now i myself can't wait to see anything about this and of course i can't wait till its going to be released ^_^
but even with the new style of the game i do hope that it will still allow building and expanding of the brothels and other structures

anyway keep up the good work and keep us informed about the developement when you find the time or when you think its appropriate to release more info ^_^

[Xela]

Good to know that there will be an official second version although it is weird as the first one never went out of beta.

I'm gradually working on a WM2 official. Although it is going to be different game. It is still at least 6 months from having anything to show since it incorporates a lot of procedural generation.
These things definitely take time, I wrote the original WM in about a week and still have no idea how I did it though the first release didn't work (released it on hongfire originally).

I've always been surprised at how popular it became.

Procedural generation sound complicated But games like WM have always been popular, stat raising and favorite anime characters, what's not to like?

The next game is going to have more polish to it and is being written in C#/XNA. I won't go into too much detail since it is still very much
in an experimental phase but it has more rpg elements, alife simulation for townsfolk/workers and kingdoms(they mostly just influence prices of trade goods), procedural dungeons and explorable
environments.

The city is also procedural although not so much variation.

That is about all the information I can give out as it is like I said about 6 months from having much to show, I'm working at a company involved with game development now so time is
a little constrained so don't expect updates frequently. Also birthright is still being worked on although in a very limited rate (also it will first be released on android devices which is a little
different). Neway, can't wait to see what these other WMIIs will come up with and fully support them (indeed they did ask permission from me to start them which I ok'd)

Yeap, we did ask for permission and ours will also have RPG elements, random tiled dungeons and explorable environments (but in 2D) and I am fairly sure ours will be built on inferior algorithms to procedural generation. Kind of hoping we'll have a beta sooner then 6 month

[Romanul]

It's good to hear you're working on WMII. WM is my favorite indie game. I can't believe you've coded it in a week. 

[Xela]

It's good to hear you're working on WMII. WM is my favorite indie game. I can't believe you've coded it in a week. 

A non working first release on hongfire should be doable in a week