General Discussion

[DarkTl]

Some options for armors I found in 10 min search.

Are you really ready to use these sprites in the game right now? I'm not, because they look too ominous and heavily armored for generic ones. Maybe, just maybe we could use them for warriors only.
Naturally I tried to find an all-purpose female silhouette or something, but without success.

And sprites look a lot better. There is no reason why both cannot be allowed to give us and modders choices.

Like I said, I think we should use neutral sprite + emotional portrait most of the time. While we shouldn't forbid other ways (why even bother?), in many cases because of differences in clothes and pictures quality sprites sets look unnatural.

[Xela]

Are you really ready to use these sprites in the game right now? I'm not, because they look too ominous and heavily armored for generic ones. Maybe, just maybe we could use them for warriors only.

Those fully qualify as generic female battle sprites. I'd use them without giving it a second thought before a better alternative presents itself.  These things are best solved within wider community if we cannot find better option  ourselves.

[Xela]

Like I said, I think we should use neutral sprite + emotional portrait most of the time. While we shouldn't forbid other ways (why even bother?), in many cases because of differences in clothes and pictures quality sprites sets look unnatural.

I gave this some thought and you guys are prolly right... this has too many advantages to disregard. Sprites can still be used when possible and sensible.

[livingforever]

Hi again!

It's the only thing that is really "engaging", hiding images before seen once is redundant, neither thing is disruptive as gameplay is not blocked. I haven't seen many of the images in CWs packs before.

Personally, I cannot see this working out well for several reasons without putting some serious effort into it...

Your reluctance to implement easy and intuitive things while refusing to tackle more complex and flexible systems because the game "isn't nearly finished" and "everything can be improved later" never fails to astonish me.

But hey, I love productive discussions, so let's break this down step by step:

• You haven't seen many of the images in CW's packs
  
  This clearly is a problem with tags and their usage and musn't be solved by simply unlocking the image eventually.
  Look at the tags the image has - there must be one of two issues: Either some of the tags used are unnecessary because they are never used in the game, or they are never used because they are unnecessary, too detailed, not detailed enough or whatever.
• Your approach isn't disruptive
  
  First of all, I wasn't talking about gameplay. Blocking gameplay because the image isn't unlocked would be insane.
  I was talking about the user experience. Assuming that the above mentioned problem wasn't fixed, you're more or less actively hiding images from the user until he completes a certain amount of content and he doesn't have any way of accelerating that process.
• Hiding images before seen once is redundant
  
  In terms of only having an image unlocked after seen once, yes. More importantly though, it's a lot more intuitive, for two reasons:
  First, it's always clear which image was unlocked in the gallery. Your approach requires random selection. It could of course be limited to certain tags, but at the end of the day it's still random.
  Second, I'm not trying to hide any images - they are all potentially available from the start, completing the appropriate content - no RNG involved - will unlock them for the gallery.
  
  Compare it to your approach:
  As mentioned before, you want to unlock an image after it has been seen any amount of times. As soon as it was seen at least once, it is equally or more redundant than what I suggested. If it hasn't been seen by the player yet, it is completely disconnected from what he did to unlock it and therefore confusing and unintuitive and feels less rewarding. Why? Because "here, have an image unlocked that doesn't have to do anything with what you just did... you propably didn't want to have it because you just did something else but still here it is".
  There is an option to make it feel more rewarding: Tie unlocks to tags. You can't tie them to content because packs and content are potentially user generated, so tags are the only option. However, that brings up the problem mentioned earlier (see point 1) and, propably more important for you, makes your approach almost equal to mine.
• Your approach is the only encouraging one
  
  Bullshit. Simple, plain bullshit.
  In terms of motivation, my approach is almost the same as yours, but less random and more intuitive (I know I've said that a couple of times already). Claiming that your way is the only way is just wrong.

Have fun!

[Xela]

Your reluctance to implement easy and intuitive things while refusing to tackle more complex and flexible systems because the game "isn't nearly finished" and "everything can be improved later" never fails to astonish me.

And yet we run a one of those rare dev teams that didn't fall apart three month into development right after they've established some base code

I disregard easy stuff that I consider useless + noone on the dev team considers very important to them and delay complex and flexible stuff we can do without at the moment until we have resources to tackle it down and don't mind people being astonished by any of it.

This clearly is a problem with tags and their usage and musn't be solved by simply unlocking the image eventually.
Look at the tags the image has - there must be one of two issues: Either some of the tags used are unnecessary because they are never used in the game, or they are never used because they are unnecessary, too detailed, not detailed enough or whatever.[/li][/list]

I didn't mean "in the game" but in general, he is looking for stuff in a lot of sources so I generally didn't see a lot of images in his packs before he put those in the game.

First of all, I wasn't talking about gameplay. Blocking gameplay because the image isn't unlocked would be insane.
I was talking about the user experience. Assuming that the above mentioned problem wasn't fixed, you're more or less actively hiding images from the user until he completes a certain amount of content and he doesn't have any way of accelerating that process.

Mission Brothel did that and game was very well received. Enabling content as the game progresses is a valid development tool. We can always add an option to pack makers to enable all images from the get go or gradually.

In terms of only having an image unlocked after seen once, yes. More importantly though, it's a lot more intuitive, for two reasons:
First, it's always clear which image was unlocked in the gallery. Your approach requires random selection. It could of course be limited to certain tags, but at the end of the day it's still random.
Second, I'm not trying to hide any images - they are all potentially available from the start, completing the appropriate content - no RNG involved - will unlock them for the gallery.

Compare it to your approach:
As mentioned before, you want to unlock an image after it has been seen any amount of times. As soon as it was seen at least once, it is equally or more redundant than what I suggested. If it hasn't been seen by the player yet, it is completely disconnected from what he did to unlock it and therefore confusing and unintuitive and feels less rewarding. Why? Because "here, have an image unlocked that doesn't have to do anything with what you just did... you propably didn't want to have it because you just did something else but still here it is".
There is an option to make it feel more rewarding: Tie unlocks to tags. You can't tie them to content because packs and content are potentially user generated, so tags are the only option. However, that brings up the problem mentioned earlier (see point 1) and, propably more important for you, makes your approach almost equal to mine.

I misunderstood your approach a bit, this makes more sense.

Your approach is the only encouraging one

Bullshit. Simple, plain bullshit.
In terms of motivation, my approach is almost the same as yours, but less random and more intuitive (I know I've said that a couple of times already). Claiming that your way is the only way is just wrong.

I understood your proposal as a suggestion that we keep stuff as it is, hide all images in the gallery and unlock them one by one as they randomly appear during the gameplay (we do this with Mobs at the moment). Since you propose introduction of gradual unlocking through tags/events and basically the same thing as I've suggested minus unlocking on level-ups.

======================================
This whole thing is easily beaten by adding new classes, events, locations, modules and quests to the gameplay at this stage of development. So coding in an image unlocking system right now is not something I'd invest time in until much later in the development. This is purely a theoretical discussion CW has started (and remained silent for a while now)

[livingforever]

Hi!

I misunderstood your approach a bit, this makes more sense.

I understood your proposal as a suggestion that we keep stuff as it is, hide all images in the gallery and unlock them one by one as they randomly appear during the gameplay (we do this with Mobs at the moment). Since you propose introduction of gradual unlocking through tags/events and basically the same thing as I've suggested minus unlocking on level-ups.

No big deal.
Essentially, yes, the main difference is that I don't want to unlock any image, I want to unlock the one that was actually shown - unlocking every image as soon as it is shown for the first time is just the easiest way to implement it.

This whole thing is easily beaten by adding new classes, events, locations, modules and quests to the gameplay at this stage of development. So coding in an image unlocking system right now is not something I'd invest time in until much later in the development. This is purely a theoretical discussion CW has started (and remained silent for a while now)

Definitely. Keep up the good work.
Have fun!

[DarkTl]

I don't understand that unlocking thing. We don't use closed databases, you can look at pictures anytime you want right after downloading a pack. Semi nude pictures idea makes sense in terms of gameplay (more disposition = more trust = less clothes sometimes), but a gallery is something different.
Mobs gallery could have some info about them at very least.

[livingforever]

Hi!

I don't understand that unlocking thing. We don't use closed databases, you can look at pictures anytime you want right after downloading a pack. Semi nude pictures idea makes sense in terms of gameplay (more disposition = more trust = less clothes sometimes), but a gallery is something different.
Mobs gallery could have some info about them at very least.

That is not the problem. We could just use a password-protected zip file or even a binary format (which could also speed up the loading process slightly because only one file section has to be loaded on the drive).
I won't implement this feature right away since this is more or less undecided, but the option is there.
Have fun!

[Xela]

I don't understand that unlocking thing. We don't use closed databases, you can look at pictures anytime you want right after downloading a pack. Semi nude pictures idea makes sense in terms of gameplay (more disposition = more trust = less clothes sometimes), but a gallery is something different.
Mobs gallery could have some info about them at very least.

We're just throwing ideas around CWs proposal, how it can be implemented gameplay/development-wise. There are good good arguments not to implement it at all like yours (we dropped this a while back after a really short discussion).

Pics in the girl management screen should be displayed based on traits/stats/other factors. We'll do after tagging concept is advanced.

[CherryWood]

Thanks for ideas!
About this unlocking thing - I personally pay no mind to the in-game gallery for reason Darktl said: anyone can look at the all pictures in packs folders and I'm really not fond of the idea of restricting access to the image files in any way. I'm using it mostly just for tag checks.

I was only wondering about selecting (manually, it's not suitable for all girls so I don't believe it could be randomized with good result) some images to be not used for profile/jobs until reaching some condition in game, like rank 6, service>200, love status etc.
Or use the system to switch girl appearance image sets, like between schoolgirl and magical girl look for maho shoujo series or something like saber/sakura to saber alter/dark sakura in Fate, because that could have some event potential.

I just wanted to ask about it once before rettaging, I don't consider it important or care about it that much (and definitely don't have any ready content at hand) so denying it once again is totally fine with me too.


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There is not reason we couldn't allow both sprites and portraits. We'll have to set up some ground rules for all kinds of sprites at some points. Maybe your approach where you can create json file to accompany sprites images when required is the best we can do atm. Simply an modifier to any height/width parameters set by the game will solve most issues, if not all (I gave this some thought and it should work and will be very easy to code for the game to do completely automatically).

I gave it a second thought and for battle sprites it seems to be enough to just have two sizes of them, one default humanoid sized one and one large - for big monsters but also humans with long polearms could use that too, there's not a real need for precise scaling I guess. If the game could use the larger one in case there is not normal sprite, then I believe we could manage with just that.


For non-conbat sprites and portraits, all tags are already there (except telling full-body sprite from VN type ones), so what we just have to do is to rewrite current portraits usage to look for indifferent one at default (or make that joy-based)

And maybe to look for male MC candidates that have more than one expression too

Those fully qualify as generic female battle sprites. I'd use them without giving it a second thought before a better alternative presents itself.  These things are best solved within wider community if we cannot find better option  ourselves.

I had no luck either yet. I'm thinking about more common look, like hooded figure or something, because it doesn't seem very likely that a girl without battle sprite would be a warrior in a first place.

====================

 Done with the descriptions. Posting them for acceptance. Check them Cherry:

Thanks! I use most of them right away. Only for the ice boots/clothes I want to add something little more about how unpleasant they are, because these are a real deal, dropped from Ice girls at frozen cavern 


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Yup. I personally have another proposition. There are pictures with semi nude characters that still cannot be classified as completely nude, ie without cloth or with striptease. They exist in profile and rest categories mostly. We could use them only with high enough disposition. I usually use undress tag for them.

There is also that mysterious "exposed" tag   
I believe I was dropping those to striptease category sometimes, especially if there was not much variety there.
(btw,we need to have our next talk about those with more examples, for me it's hard to visualize what you guys mean with just text.)

It's not so evident now with the filename tags, but before I had a lot of pics named "U" in my packs, and all of those were ones I had trouble placing somewhere. Mostly nude and swimsuit pics, but also things like gym clothes but not exercising, maid/bunny costume but not cleaning/waitressing, carresing without sex, those mentioned undress pics - all kinds off stuff to consider.  (I'm pretty sure that I reduce my packs to half when it all becomes more clear)

[livingforever]

Hi!

I was only wondering about selecting (manually, it's not suitable for all girls so I don't believe it could be randomized with good result) some images to be not used for profile/jobs until reaching some condition in game, like rank 6, service>200, love status etc.

You want to introduce conditions for certain images to reflect some kind of progress?
Well... it's doable. But is it worth the effort? Looking at my own image pool I don't see many characters for which this could be used, mostly because there is no obvious progress.

Or use the system to switch girl appearance image sets, like between schoolgirl and magical girl look for maho shoujo series or something like saber/sakura to saber alter/dark sakura in Fate, because that could have some event potential.

I see what you want to do and it can be done with scripts that swap certain images. How would you want to use this, when do you change the set?

I had no luck either yet. I'm thinking about more common look, like hooded figure or something, because it doesn't seem very likely that a girl without battle sprite would be a warrior in a first place.

Agreed. I'll keep an eye out. You can also send me a fitting picture with existing background, editing it away is a task of minutes.
Have fun!

[Xela]

Living is right, that stuff is very simple to script but you'll have to do it manually unless new tags are introduced to make that more convinient... we'll add this to new tagging discussion when we get to it.

[CherryWood]

Living is right, that stuff is very simple to script but you'll have to do it manually unless new tags are introduced to make that more convinient... we'll add this to new tagging discussion when we get to it.

Ok, thanks guys.
I don't mind doing it manually, It's just I had no idea is it's something plausible or not as the game doesn't allow something like changing images files midgame yet so there's no reference.

Hi!You want to introduce conditions for certain images to reflect some kind of progress?
Well... it's doable. But is it worth the effort? Looking at my own image pool I don't see many characters for which this could be used, mostly because there is no obvious progress.
minutes.

Dunno  , it's probably too much based on personal options and each girl to generalize. In it's all stripped form it's just about making some pics unavailable from the start, whatever selected. If you don't like the idea right away (and I'm not 100% convinced myself) then I say to drop it and I wouldn't force it into my packs either (but I probably still try that set swap event someday).

There are still options even now with current tags for similar effect, like forbidding some happy pics in actions that the girl doesn't like, and thing like forcing the girl to be nude all day should also work (but no matter how awesome it is, the prospect of having to add condition like that to every case of showing a pics is really unpleasant, could there exist a better way?...)

The point that the modder could make the selection himself when placing pics into categories (like exposed pics as normal profile for some shameless girl) is valid, but only for unique girl, not random ones, so it's still best to try to do it by traits/stats when we can (and those can change through gameplay too, not mentioning that the prospect of the girl changing her closet by making her morals change is kinda interesting).

I see what you want to do and it can be done with scripts that swap certain images. How would you want to use this, when do you change the set?

Not sure if I get the question, but let's see...

The main Evangelion girls like Asuka or Rei have so many pictures, that they are capable to do all the jobs (except service that use maid costumes) in both their schoolgirl or plugsuit outfits. So I though it may be maybe possible to let them start the game in their schoolgirl outfit, with the option for player later to go through some quest to acquire the pluigsuits for them, enabling the option to tell them to wear it in their jobs too as "reward".

Or differently not so serious, I would probably change Matou Sakura (Fate) to her Dark Sakura form whenever she's pissed, just for the fun of it, like every time her joy drops too low or you do something bad in interaction    (it was not so nice for her in her route, but it was used as comical effect in spinoffs afterwards so...)

If it's something that could be done just with a script, then I can manage with event system/custom interaction labels, outside the main game files, right?

It's just that I am so unconfident in writing normal stories, that I'm clinging to the visual stuff like these 

[Xela]

Ok, thanks guys.
I don't mind doing it manually, It's just I had no idea is it's something plausible or not as the game doesn't allow something like changing images files midgame yet so there's no reference.

It is but it'll require a bit of work (that you could simplify with a tagger I think). Some time ago I created possibility of "starting labels" for all girls on your request, this is where you modify it, for example:

Lets say we create a complex Sakura (Haruno from Naruto) story with pre/post skip pics.

You'd have to so something like this:

Code: [Select]

python:
    sakura_preskip = set([*images])
    sakura_postskip = set([*images])
    tagdb.tagmap["Sakura (girl id here, I think it's Sakura for her)"] = sakura_preskip
This will allow you to control what images are being displayed, you can set to postskip images when your custom story gets to that point. It can be simplified (significantly) if you add something tags like "main_girl_quest_1", ..., "main_girl_quest_n" to the tagger (no need to type in hundreds of image names manually, you can just call up required imagesets on tags).

You can obviously combine different sets (like if you have images that would fit any storyline).

We can automate this process if there is demand for this in the future.

[CherryWood]

Ok, thanks, I'm saving your post for later playing with then