Narcosis

I've been playing Survarium for the past few days; one of the reasons I became preety much non-existent on the net as well. Since I've always been a huge fan of Stalker series, this game is basically a dream come true, especially considering the content they're planning to add soon. So far, Survarium is highly playable even despite being an early beta and graphics look incredible, especially if you own a powerful PC and can set preety much everything to maximum.

Looks nice, indeed. Can't say much more, though. I wouldn't say it's not otaku-pandering, though - it propably panders to gothic lolita fans, artist's choice aside. I'll be glad though, since anything outside your average moege designs is like a gift from heavens nowadays.

New event's up. Guess I'll try a bit harder this time, provided I'll manage to grab more gems from the expert songs I didn't managed to FC yet. That card looks so great. I'd say the non-idolized version is even better, which is perfectly fine with me

I don't even think that Sims 4 can be called a finished game at the moment; it suffers from the exact same problems most modern games do. Creators release a massively cut-down version of the game, and save the implementation of the said elements for future DLC's. In the end, it will result in people paying few times as much to get something they should get on the game's release, whilst it will still leave a big thirst for more content afterwards. I remember TERA being like that as well and it was an awful experience; I don't even think it changed at all, judging from the current content updates it's receiving.

Yeah, waste few times as much money untill the game starts looking like a "finished" product.

I'm in the "rocking the boat" part of the society.

Ren'Py became so powerful at the moment, you could basically take your time and develop your own enviroment from scratch and then reuse it for every next game, benefiting from any upcoming updates. Considering a lot of games (like WAB series, for example) are basically different stories set within the same distinct design range, it could cut down the costs of production tremendously and allow developers to focus on the most important parts of the design.

Priopertary means made-in-house. They are engines written by the studios, completely from scratch in a way that best suits their needs for their games. Because some of them are easy to work with and allow huge modifications, they often become popular enough for the devs to consider selling it to other studios or even release them as full development suite. Just like UE3 and cryEngine.

A lot of studios use their own priopertary engines, though KiriKiri still remains one of the most popular public engines available on the market. Ren'Py seems to be slowly gaining more attention as well. NScripter is already outdated.

You're quite the worker, aren't you? The common issue with most otakus is that they do not reach beyond their point of interest, which makes them susceptible to any kind of bullshit creators of these mediums shove down their throats, no matter how absurd they are. It often makes them biased and unable to perceive differences, or truth. I'm actually glad there's a bunch of people around these corners, who know a thing or two beyond just chit-chatting about favourite waifus and Majikoi; it provides some sort of a ground for reasonable debates. I like heroines with deep personalities and these can't evolve without some sort of a solid trigger. Traumatic backstories and troubled pasts often accompany them like a shadow.

Being a moderator would mean I'd have to drop my current lifestyle; I'm way too used to it. It's a lot more... interesting to remain within the shadows and continue manipulating people, fufufu~

You're dwelving into a dangerous territory, man. Fictional characters aren't supposed to become your love interests. I'm not sure whether you're simply talking about character traits, or something more. Just like with protagonists, a lot of heroines are often flat (and by that I don't simply mean being flat-chested), two-dimensional and written in the kind of way, that serves it's purpose only as the background for the work itself. They are created to suit the reader's tastes, as most of eroge simply serves to satisfy their peculiar needs ("girl's galore" games, as we often call it). Like with everything, exceptions happen, but they are rare. I'm not simply talking about traits - if you're looking at those characters like that, then it's perfectly fine. But the issue arises when you try to relate to them on a personal level; most writers fail tremendously when that happens. It's quite repulsive, to be honest. I like when writers put effort in the characters they create. When you read a novel, and see them as living, breathing beings with their own share of problems; when story gives them a definite reason to exist in the first place, instead being just a bunch of preety girls protagonist can toy with, you know they did a good job. Sadly, the vast majority of visual novels aren't like that.

Duh, of course they are a reflection. Writers generally base their writing either on things they are familiar with, or something they can somehow relate to (as in, themselves in most cases). Anything beyond that requires actual knowledge (also known as research) and most mature writers typically do not dwelve into unfamiliar territories, unless prepared. This also concludes, why we see so little variety within moege (and vn's in general) - it's basically a self-driven market, which produces and consumes everything by itself. One of the reasons why moege protagonists tend to be so simplistic is because it's supposed to make them much easier for an average person to relate to; the less nedless traits a character has, the more of a blank slate it becomes. It's a form of game design with it's roots reaching as far as to first eroge. Unfortunately, most of japanese scenario writers lack any sort of proper writing knowledge and base most of their experience from the exact same enviroment they create for. It's a vicious circle without any possibility for redemption and that's the whole issue with the japanese visual novel industry as well - it's a closed enviroment; one that produces and consumes everything by itself, not allowing any other forms of freedom or freshness, as they often shake the foundations. In this case, they might even actually perceive it as dangerous for their own well-being. You should stop calling western cultures emancipated and frank; that's one of the biggest asian misconceptions about gajins. In overall, people are once again mixing reality with fiction. Written fiction bases on it, but has nothing to do with reality. Most of those protagonists aren't meant to be "real" in the first place. Everything is written for the pleasure of it's readers and that's the objective of most eroge. Whether one likes them, or not is up to their personal preferences.