This release adds the ability to manually pair concubines and beasts by dragging and dropping in the minion list.
I learned a bit of JQuery to do it, so there’s a high probability of n00b mistakes. In principle it should work on touchscreen devices too, but so far I’ve only been able to test on a battered old iOS 4 phone. Let me know if it breaks on your device.
Err… 500 internal server error.
I got 20 mana stolen after recruiting a second beast before an apprentice, and then… apparently there was supposed to be some sort of option or other, but I got an error instead, when I clicked the “continue” button.
“Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error and was unable to complete your request. Either the server is overloaded or there is an error in the application.”
http://www.fleshcult.com/select_event_option
I assumed that the server might be overloaded, so I gave it about 10 minutes, but clicking again led to the same result after that period of time.
That’s a shame.
Nope, it was bugging out whenever you had more beasts than concubines. It’s fixed now.
I gotta stop deploying releases just before I go to bed. From now on, dinner time at the latest so I’m awake to fix stuff like this.
Ah, fixed nao?
Awesome.
I’ll continue havin’ a look at stuff, then.
Oh, one other thing I forgot:
Do you propose to do something about the whole “replacing minions” thing to make it less of an abandonment of perfectly good investments, or is that already in its final form?
Nah, I like the way that works. I see it as being like gems in Diablo. They present a interesting decision: do I spend resources upgrading what I have now, or save resources to upgrade what replaces it?
So it’s in its final form or something similar to it in terms of “crunch” or effects on gameplay.
Fair enough, I suppose.
Is the “fluff” going to be changed so that it’s less of an abandonment of a recruited character, in RP terms, or is that in its final form too?
Well, I’ve been thinking about theming it as sacrificing them to Narcissus instead. Gaining his favour would get you some kind of random mysterious benefit. Though I worry that it’d make players feel bad and render the game less sexy.
To be sure, that would make it MORE of an abandonment of a recruited character, not less of one.
A more overtly fatal abandonment, whereas now you seem STILL to abandon them despite your promises – AND THEIR CONTRACT – to the contrary, but at least you might just abandon them to wander defenceless on the surface until the office of the witchfinder general kills them or something.
Like I’d said before, if it was just a question of sending them to some less luxurious part of your lair, where their productivity mightn’t be as high but they were still in your service and under your protection, it’d be less jarring RP-wise.
Regardless, whatever solution you come up with, I’d hope it isn’t a solution that suggests “hey man, this giant fuckin’ hole only has room for 6 people unless I build some sort of mana-eating bedroom or something, and even then I’m going to have to toss you guys out left, right and centre when I finish building like … 6 beds, or whatever.)
The “less sexy” thing has already been done, the only question now is how and if you’re curing it.
Maybe along the same lines as a sacrifice to Narcissus, maybe the player could “drain dry” one of the concubines, effectively ending them for a big mana boost or faster upgrade completion.
Maybe you could use them to upgrade part of your lair by transforming them into things. Defenses and whatnot.
Maybe you could sell the contract to someone else for some small return?
Or maybe just they become some other unimportant cog in the machine that just isnt tracked at all 😀
Perhaps since you let them go but they are still technically under a contract they would stay nearby and form a settlement of some kind? You could even make it so that the settlement can come under attack and you have to send beasts to protect it. Which in turn would leave your base open to attack (risk vs. reward) but when the danger to the settlement has been dealt with you get some kind of reward.
A similar idea could be applied to sending apprentices out to train to increase their rates. Sorry, i’m not trying to tell you what to do. Just random thoughts I had and wanted to share.
I like the settlement idea. It can be both above and underground but separate from your actual lair. The above-ground ones have as their job is to basically form and spread your cult. The underground one act as servants, construction and cleaning and cooking and the like.
I think the best solution is to add a justification to the limit. you already have something similar to a dungeon heart (the loom), you could simply state that for someone to be a beast, concubine, or apprentice they must be magically linked to it and it can only manage a limited amount of servants at a time (upgradable).
When someone is cut off from your dungeon heart loom they lose their levels. If they are re-recruited they must be leveled up again from scratch. Either losing the cosmetic changes or ideally they keep cosmetic alterations (with the more inhuman looking ones confined to underground) but lose the levels those changes provided (with relevelup either being forced to reactivate those or adding the ability to make cosmetic alterations that does not confer levels).
They can either be possible to re-recruit or made such that once disconnected they are permanently barred from reconnecting. Either way they end up getting sent to either the underground or overground village.
Given it some extra thought…
Having a cult aboveground has some drawbacks too, not sure if should.
Aside from that, above-ground and underground could be mentioned in the tab description but both should be handled in the same window simply titled “settlement”.
Those in the settlement should have a flag that determines if have been disconnected, or were never connected. If they were never connected they are reserves and can be connected. (to be never connected you have to have recruited them when your lair was maxed out and chose to send them to village directly.
I forgot to mention in last post but: “Those who have been connected once but since disconnected cannot be reconnected” – this is a LOT easier to program and implement and furthermore it means that the settlement does not provide a big ol safety net
It occurred to me, that while I care about abandonment not everyone would.
One option is to make it optional. You could have several options with players given a choice on what to do.
Ideas on what options to give the player are:
1. Throw them to narcissus.
2. Settlement
3. Start constructing your own demiplane similar to marcissus’ much more expensive in terms of how many people you need to put in and much less efficient in rewards; with some rewards being just not available… but its yours so you can freely enter and leave and its not abandonment.
4. Release them from contract and just kick them out above ground to do whatever they want.
I’m not enamoured with the whole settlement idea (it’s straying a long way away from the game being about sex), but the idea of constructing your own plane of existence is just so cool I’m thinking about working it in somewhere. Maybe the final stage of lair building or something.
Could be a private demiplane sort of thing. Would take a hell of a lot of essence to maintain, but it could bring some massive bonuses in exchange (or allow for something that the player wouldn’t normally be able to do).
that would be pretty neat
Ok so, what if instead of a full blown settlement it was just a 4th minion type?
So the types are: Concubine, Beast, Apprentice, Servant.
Servant: Useless for anything except minor insignificant functions like cleaning, cooking, etc (in game effect is that they do nothing at all). Servants are not magically connected to you via your lair’s power matrix (whatever that is called) and as such don’t count against your limit?
Rather then dismissing/sacrificing low producers you demote them to Servant status.
Servants?
Hmm.
They’d still be in your service, AND still under your protection.
Hell, you could even have sex-scenes with your servants.
I have absolutely 0 problems with this.
I’d have preferred that they could be replaced into the actual mana-production/beast lineup or whatever after being demoted to servants, just in case you had to have it done or FELT like doing it at some point, but in terms of concept, the idea works perfectly for me.
Hell, it would even be an answer which doesn’t detract from the proper focus of a sex-game, namely the sex, under all possible circumstances.
I’m ON BOARD.