Might want to use the spoiler blurs if you’re asking something that is a big spoiler.
And I don’t think you can save either one of them.
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Summary
Yea, I know I’m just echoing what you said but I 100% support TD for standing their ground. I don’t like when people pressure others to change characters sexuality (straight, gay, bi, whatever) just because they (the person) wants them to. I think I’ll copy you and just leave it at that other wise ima go into a incoherent rant about it lmao
'm sure i’ve said that before but it made me so unbelievably happy when i found out Saren was gay
@Midnitewulf01 they die either way R.I.P
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But it’s… it’s Saren. He’s one of the most repugnant characters I have ever seen in interactive fiction. But, you know, you actually have me genuinely curious. What could happen in a Saren romance that elicits a response as strong as ‘I would die for him’? I’ll see if I can find out.
@nulCat thank you both lol. I was debating whether to reply at all mostly because I didn’t want to start anything. 
But I do feel strongly about the characters that I do put behind a gender-lock. I know we play these games to escape reality but it always seemed totally unrealistic to have a gay or lesbian character suddenly begin to switch.
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Will there be such character in the sequel?
She did say there would be more ROs in the sequel to I’m expecting she’ll make more diverse ones i.e. pan, trans, maybe even an ace RO. That’d be nice, because I’ve never seen a COG or HG that includes an ace RO
@Cari-san There will be a lesbian RO in the sequel.
I would need to do more research and talking to people who are actually ace, especially since from what I’ve known and talked to, aces are very diverse in exactly how they go about romance. But I agree, I’d be interested in an author doing such thing as well.
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Die for him might be a bit much but if you get your relation up with him and get his full story he’s not a bad guy at all. If you follow all his side story bits you’ll also learn he’s not even that much of an asshole, he’s just got a pathological need to win due family stuff. Teaming up with him in the tavern and cleaning house at cards is an example one funny moment where he’s cool.
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So, here’s the thing about Saren. And when I say ‘the thing’, I mean ‘the huge rambling tl;dr essay’ that I apparently couldn’t stop once I’d started’. For the sake of spoilers I’m gonna hide it all under one of these little arrow things.
Here we go!
At the beginning of the game, Saren is always a massive jerk. No getting around that. But if you don’t add fuel to the fire, it’s not long before his attitude starts to shift, first in small ways and then in bigger ones. By the ending he obviously liked and cared about my MC, and it felt very rewarding to have seen that transformation take place, chapter by chapter. And it’s not like you have to grovel and sacrifice your own character’s pride, just…treat him as you want to be treated, and he’ll catch on.
If you sit with him for lunch, he’ll be baffled but won’t chase you off (unless you’ve already dropped his relationship score too low). If you take the wilderness survival class together, he complains but then tries to cooperate. If you compete in the same racing group, you have the option of attacking him to ruin his race, but he will always play fair – and whether it’s you or him that gets first place, he’s a good sport about it.
Pick the right choices, and during the Festival of Amour he’ll genuinely apologise for how he acted, and also explain the reason he was in a bad mindset during the Golden Chance race – but at the same time, he makes it clear that he knows personal problems don’t excuse bad behaviour. Which is pretty mature, really.
All of his dialogue during that chapter is interesting, not only the apology but how wary he gets if you try to be too nice. If you offer him a gift, he’s scared you’re going to snatch it back. If you invite him to watch the fireworks, he’s scared you’re setting him up. It’s not a dismissive ‘I don’t want the nice thing you’re offering me’, it’s more like ‘I do want the nice thing, but I’m afraid to admit it because that makes me vulnerable’. I think a large part of Saren’s aggression is actually defence; he’s not used to people treating him kindly, so he’s going to shout and posture and scare off anyone who might be a threat to what he’s managed to scrape together for himself. He’s not rotten to the core, he’s insecure and jealous and covers that up by acting like an idiot.
No matter what words come out of his mouth, he does want to be included in things. If you’re on friendly terms during the Team Cup, he’ll help out by getting you some insider info. If your dragon gets injured, he’ll take your place in the next event and give it 100%, and be in good spirits afterwards despite his bruises. If you decide to sit with your injured dragon, and your team members all like you enough to trigger the ‘Best Friends’ achievement, then Saren can show up too.
“Shush, don’t get used to this,” he says as he puts the drink down. “I…” he begins, but he can’t seem to find a suitable reason for him being here.
"Like us and wanted to be here," Nyx giggles, and he rolls his eyes but smiles regardless.
Male MC can also be treated to an example of peak tsundere that’s fooling nobody (you need 5+ romance points to see this).
“Trust me, I factored that in. I guess your little group isn’t as annoying as you seemed. But does that mean you’re staying? I thought you’d be the first one out of here.”
“Yeah, I’m staying.”
Saren nods with a smile. After realizing that he is indeed smiling, he blushes and tries to hide it.
"Saren, do you want me to stay?" you ask, half-jokingly.
"I still need a rival, is all," he asserts, still failing to hide his blush. "Anywho, you should get some rest for tomorrow."
And here’s what he says after the Team Cup award ceremony, to a MC who has a 60+ relationship with him…
“ I’ve learned something while being here, after getting to know all of you. What I have back in Ampleforth isn’t a home or a family. When my sister died, that was my family. Now I have a new one, and I’d rather stay with them.” You smile, nudging Saren softly. He chuckles and nudges you back.
“ Don’t make this a habit,” you warn him, and he grins.
If he’s invited to the tavern, he’ll come along and play cards with you. When he’s invited camping, he’ll pull the usual ‘ugh why would I want to do that’ routine, but then come along and also flirt with a male MC who’s been building up romance points. He’ll hang out with you on the coast at Snakecairin, and if you’re dumb enough to swim too close to the mystery monster, he’s the one who pulls you back to safety. During Burning Grounds, he might not act pleased to see the gang, but compare the text for if you send him away with a poor relationship…
“I’m with Shader on this, Saren can surely take care of himself,” you smirk.
“You’re right, I can,” he tells you, then turns away from you as he walks back into the darkness that seems to have crept towards your group.
…to the text for if you send him away with a good (50 or higher) relationship…
“I’m with Shader on this, Saren can surely take care of himself,” you smirk.
Saren bites the inside of his cheek, avoiding your gaze. He nods and turns around without saying anything, creeping back into the darkness.
It’s not a long description, but it’s quite poignant. That second one is definitely someone who’s just been rejected from a group he wanted to be part of. So yeah, while he’s always snarky as hell and has zero chill, he’s also perfectly capable of self-awareness, teamwork and trust, given time, and he’s happier having a friend rather than a rival.
…Also I personally have a bad habit of being drawn to the character who has the biggest T for Trouble hanging over their head, and that’s totally him. When his romance starts up properly in book two, I imagine it’s going to have a dynamic where they’re still pretending to insult each other while making obvious heart eyes (and then if someone else insults either one for real, they get obliterated because how dare you call my boyfriend garbage, only I’m allowed to do that ). And I think that’d be really cute and entertaining to see.
So yeah, that’s why I like Saren and kudos to anyone who actually managed to read all of that, haha.
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If you think Saren is repugnant, what you become if you choose to become evil, even in this Book 1, is 100 times worse. Heck, I can’t stand even the first 10 minutes being evil in Dragon Racer because of how… childish it makes you out to be.
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Oh goody, after reading that I really really have to do another playthrough building relationship with Saren so I can romance him in the second book 
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I’m really enjoying Dragon Racer - or I was - but this Solo 100% bug is really screwing me over. Cass, Nyx, and Shader are being really snippy with me even though I haven’t annoyed them and have taken Team options at every turn. I made friends with Saren but he’s still acting like we’re enemies. My romance, Shader completely failed despite my taking romance options at every turn, because they seem to think now that I’m a loner who doesn’t make friends or get close to people. Even my dragon is behaving like I’m only out for myself and don’t care about him at all. And, to cap it all off, I am losing races badly because I refuse to do the selfish Solo action and my Team stat is so low that anything I try fails miserably.
Please let us know when you update the game with a patch, ToxicDreams!
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I have sent the updated game files multiple times but I have heard no word that they have received the files or not. Perhaps they are busy? I don’t know, but I’m trying and can only do so much before it’s out of my hands.
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Until the updated files are implemented, I’d suggest that anyone who wants a high Team stat pick the option This is my dream, simply put. It will give you +5 Solo, but that’s a small dent which is easy to recover from. I finished my last playthrough at 31% Solo and 69% Team.
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Thanks for the tip! I tried to soldier on after the bug but ended up writing off that entire playthrough. I want to come back to the game but thought I’d have to wait until an update came through.
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Alright, first off, let me just say I’m posting this because I love the story and the characters. @ToxicDreams you’re great at writing compelling worlds and characters and giving us reason to care about them (I love your other wips as well, btw). So when I write what I’m about to it’s because I really want the best for your games (even though I’m sure this shit’s already been mentioned in this thread).
First off, yes there’s bugs, but that’s a fact of coding and something you can fix anyway.
Basically, you have a really, really bad habit of putting words and/or actions in the player’s mouth (can actions be put in a mouth?) that (I find) really ruins the immersion that you feel when playing the game. I find myself repeatedly being thrown out of the story because my character acts in a way that just makes me balk and feels totally out of character for whatever my character may be. It’s a kind of thing that if it happened once or twice I wouldn’t care, because it’s probably mostly my side. But I find it happens so consistently throughout the story, that again and again I find myself having to stop and think “did the game really just have me say that?” because it feels so totally off or out of character to me.
Off the top of my head, a really good example of this would be when the player is (falsely) given the offer to join their rival team. Even if you turn them down and didn’t believe them at all, the game has you yell at duncan and vanora that they were going to drop you anyway and believed what you were told, because I guess it assumes the fact you were curious to what they had to say at all means that you’d believed them, even though you had no idea what it was they were going to say to you (or maybe it had to do with having 30%ish relationship with saren? idk).
It feels increasingly like regardless of what choices we the player make, we’re playing a pre-determined character, rather than the character we the player want to play as. I played the nicest most understanding character I could and still found that I was (not constantly, but often enough to be aggravating) making an ass of myself to other characters for no reason other than the game made me, and that’s something that I find really throws me off personally, and damages player immersion.
Likewise, another thing that throws off immersion, I often found myself the character in game making decisions that I just really didn’t agree with, or were otherwise unclear. I can understand that this one’s a bit of a balancing act, as you can’t give the player unlimited choice, but in cases like capture the flag, where you can choose to fight or regroup, regrouping lead directly into me to trying to sneak up and steal another team’s flag, despite the fact I had 0 investment in stealth and really had no reason to think I could succeed at that (ironically, I was building magic and knowledge, so I really should’ve known better). This lead to Cassius saving my ass by giving up a flag, etc etc. This is one isn’t as bad, as it’s more a problem of framing than of putting words in the player’s mouth. Yes, the player character took actions that felt totally off and out of character, and I knew I had zero chance of succeeding at the action- however, if it was framed instead as maybe a stealth check because you have to hide until your team arrives, rather than having the player do something they know they’re going to fail at, then that would’ve been a totally understandable non immersion breaking situation (it’d maybe feel a little bad, but it happens).
Long story short, I loved the game. The characters were believable and I enjoyed getting to learn about their past and see how they grew. I also am incredibly gay for Nyx and suspect I’m gonna be really sad in the next game, even though I ended the romance on a positive note. But hey, that’s okay, because as long as it’s not the player blurting something out that’s out of character, I accept that.
I just found that I kept having the same problem with the story in that I would often found myself really enjoying the story and immersing myself in it and then being thrown out because the player character did something I felt was really out of character for the character that had been established within the game.
I’m excited for the next game, but also a little worried because I’m afraid of that being something that’s going to keep being an issue for me.
And honestly, hey, if you choose to do something about it, that’s great, and as a player I thank you.
But if not, it’s your intellectual property, and that’s really up to you and I can’t stop you. You’re just a great writer and captured my imagination with your storytelling and characters, so it made me sad to constantly feel this way while reading.
Also, it really bothered me that the game tells you you get a good look at whatever the creatue was that lived in the sea cave when you’re at the coast with nyx and saren, and then proceeds to never actually tell you what it looks like.
But honestly that’s just me being too nosy and curious for my own good.
holy shit this ended up being a long post
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+1 on the CTF event. It was my least favorite event, not becuase it wasn’t interesting but becuase there was very little you could actually do, especially if you lack the needed stat.
for me the wrong / true choice is the most kill joy of the game, how come the mc fail a hard turn if he is pretty high skilled, and im talking about that example but there are other choices that seems like no matter what stats we have the true choice is what determine the outcome rather than what our mc skills are. In that aspect the same happen to the aptitude the mc have is almost all predetermined except maybe a bit when you have a choice of how to act.
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Looks like the update’s been put out on Android at the least! Time to finally get around to finishing this little gem.
The reason the MC can fail a simple turn even if he’s high skill is becuase the game made a point of explaining to you how to do it, and you were expected to remember.
You could be the most talented rider in all the land, but if you forget the basics it’s still going to hurt you.
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