Today’s Updates
- Figure News: Koharu Biyori symmetrical docking Yui and Minori
- Eroge News: English localized ero RPG Lightning Warrior Raidy now on sale
- Figure Review: Miyabiya’s Bible Black Imari Kurumi
- Anime News: TV anime Slayers REVOLUTION official site open
- Figure News: Goodsmile announces Ryougi Shiki PVC
- Figure News: President Japan “Shining” series trio preorders open
Other updates tonight pushed today’s Mainichi post back, so consider this space held until I can fill it with something a bit more substantial tomorrow morning in tomorrow’s update.
A topic for discussion if people feel like weighing in in comments: both EvoSpace and Zepy have written on ai sp@ce over the past day, and I’m curious what people think about the concept. I personally don’t see the appeal of dating a virtual girl in the online company of other guys who are also dating virtual girls, and can’t see how the online, persistent, and/or multiplayer nature of the game would provide interest or benefit to the player that a similar single-player dating simulation game would not. Any thoughts on this?
Shingo out, for the sleeping.
Well, it has Otome in it, so if I didn’t have a job, I would totally be on that bandwagon. But since I have a job, I can’t be a MMOG hikikomori.
I could do without the other people though.
So yeah. More Otome (and Nagisa) is a good thing, but having other people around wouldn’t be for me. I guess you could compete for the same girl, but wouldn’t we all lose?
>>Draenor
What I really don’t understand about this project is the online aspect. With the limited pool of characters to draw from, duplicates of the same girl on a server would be inevitable - I don’t see the appeal in chatting with other guys about who’s raised your cloned version of the same virtual girlfriend better.
I think an offline implementation with occasional patch updates or distributed user-generated content would be a much more interesting idea.
I feel like they’ll just end controlling all the content and pricing. Want glasses for your girl? $5 plz. D: Whether it’ll be subscription based or ‘free’ with microtransactions for items hasn’t been confirmed yet, but I can totally see that happening, haha. I’ve seen people milked dry from microtransaction based games, it ain’t pretty.
I don’t really see the appeal of the online part either. I know some people are fond of virtual hang outs (like Second Life and stuff) but what’s the point with limited content?
>>Ana
My guess is that your prediction regarding the micropayment scheme is spot on. It’s an effective way of making money when it works, but I’m still not seeing the hook here that will attract the mass of players to the “free” component of the game and create the sort of demand for virtual products necessary for micropayments to start generating serious revenue.
At this point it’s not looking like much more than an online version of Jinkou Shoujo to me, and that seems like an incredibly failing proposition unless it’s somehow geared toward providing a rich single player experience, or creates an advanced ecology/economy with different roles the players can take. Barring that, I think most of us will stick to our ronery threads and dakimakura slumber parties instead of paying to compare different versions of the same character that we’ve personally groomed to our specifications.