Loren VS SOTW

[DarkWolf]

I had recently played both those games and I was very surprised to found out that Loren is a lot more popular then SOTW because I thought that while both games are good, SOTW is the one that is a lot better of the two. So I thought of doing a compression between the two and say why I think that SOTW is a better one.

Firstly characters, I thought that characters of SOTW ware a lot deeper then in Loren witch can be easily seen as all characters in SOTW have their own chapter for backstory explaining how they got where they are, what had they done before that, and deepening their personalities. Also in SOTW there was a lot more interaction between characters and lot better character development. But most of all I thought that romance in SOTW was a lot better then in Loren, alright maybe I am not qualified to speak about romance in a game as a whole as I had only played G X G romances but they at least ware done a lot better in SOTW. While romance in Loren wasn't bad I also didn't think it was anything special, especially when it comes
to Chambara X Elenor whose relationship seemed as it was more based on sexual attraction then on romance. In SOTW I thought that Romance was amazing, for example the "Lowe confession" between Althea and Chalassa was among the best one and most touching I saw and I watched, read and played many romance games/VNs, anime. You could really feel how strong their emotions for each other are. I also liked their interaction
afterward and Chalassa's ending was also very sweet and touching (The true ending in DLC/Expansion), In Loren when it comes to romance and ending of the game you only get a few lines saying what happens with them after.

When it comes to Choices, I thought that you had a lot more of a choice in SOTW then in Loren but also that those choices metered more. In Loren for example even if you choose to support the way of Amazons and discrimination of males the game will ignore it and will always assume that you ware against it, and game ignoring choices you make is not something I appreciate.

When it comes to story Loren did have some originality in it but is mostly a classical epic fantasy story, (Demon lord raises and hero gathers and unites army to defeat it). SOTW was a lot more original with it rather then having one clear big goal you go and deal with things that come up exploring the setting of the world never knowing where will it lead you next.

I also thought that writing in general was better in SOTW then in Loren.

And lastly and obviously gameplay. Both Loren and SOTW had a very interesting and fun gameplay and as an experienced hardcore gamer I can say a very good one. But between the two SOTW had a lot better one. Gameplay in SOTW had a lot more waraity then in Loren and was a lot more of a challenge. Also it was a very well balanced. I could talk a lot more about gameplay of both games but as point of this thread is comparison of Loren and SOTW and not a review it seems unnecessary (And I had been writing this post for nearly 2h already and is time to bring it to an end).

I think that Loren is a very good game but I think that a SOTW is an amazing one.

There ware probably more things I wanted to say but I can't remember what I am forgetting so I will end it here, but before that I would like to say one more thing regarding (probably) a leader's of Winter wolf's post "Changing your mind".

In part of this post s/he talks about Loren and SOTW putting them as an example of how he needs to adapt at what people want. I don't think that lesteing to your fans is a bad thing but I do think that completely pandering to majority is, especially when considering that majority of VNs and VN-like games fan base is made of people who would gladly trow quality out of the window for the sake of fan-service.
I could be misunderstanding this post and I can only hope that I am indeed misunderstanding it and that it doesn't mean what I think it means, and that it doesn't mean him/her disading to go down the fan-service route.

[jack1974]

In part of this post s/he talks about Loren and SOTW putting them as an example of how he needs to adapt at what people want. I don't think that lesteing to your fans is a bad thing but I do think that completely pandering to majority is, especially when considering that majority of VNs and VN-like games fan base is made of people who would gladly trow quality out of the window for the sake of fan-service.
I could be misunderstanding this post and I can only hope that I am indeed misunderstanding it and that it doesn't mean what I think it means, and that it doesn't mean him/her disading to go down the fan-service route.

Just wanted to clarify this point.
I won't just make fanservice games. I mean, I might make some silly/comedy ones like Roommates but here I think we're talking about RPGs. RPGs will always be a bit more "serious", though with fun moments (like happens in Loren and SOTW).
The reason I say that SOTW vs Loren was a good example, it wasn't because SOTW is an inferior game. I consider it myself a good game at least on par with Loren but with different strong point/weaknesses (I made a comparison post a while ago in my blog).
The real reason was the popularity/sales. And while you could say "of course, you come from a VN/dating sim background, so clearly your fans will like more a game like Loren and less a game like SOTW that has more gameplay".
Yes, if I was comparing only the sales I got from my site, that could be the reason. But on Steam ? on Steam should have been the opposite, since even if recently there are more VN/dating sims, "pure RPG" fans should surely be the majority. Instead as posted a while ago, SOTW did VERY BADLY there.

This was the last drop, also considering all the months I spent designing the skills, stats, gameplay and balancing it. I was burned out

So: much less sales than Loren + extreme burn out = changed my mind about future RPGs.

That's the reason, sexy stuff or fanservice has nothing to do with it in this case.

[Aura_E]

Having played both games, I must say I enjoyed them both greatly. My only annoyance with Loren is that after the end of the storyline Loren+Elenor, at some point in the "what happens in the future for those two", Loren dies unnecessarily, and I thought, why oh why? Yes, I know it's the writer's prerogative to kill their characters, but when we talk about romance, one convention readers/players expect is the "happily ever after" at the end. With Loren, it wasn't happily ever after.

With SOTW, I enjoyed the writing and sought to do the ending that keeps Chalassa alive (can you spot a pattern here?). From the writing perspective, I thought SOTW was well made, with interesting and deep characters, I cared about. Comparing the writing of the two games, I'd say my preference is for the SOTW. If I'd written that, I'd be happy. Not that Loren's writing was inferior. Just that looking at it from the writing perspective (I'm also a writer), my preference is with the SOTW.