Also, the Ex-Police Officer starts out very weak in one of the most important stats (Leadership). He isn’t in much of a position to be the leader of Dino’s gang, for example.
Vendetta, how many chapters are you working towards in total?
Am I the only one who rescued Carina because she is the only one who really seems to need it, while simultaneously giving the most financial benefits, but then didn’t pursue her romantically in the hopes of meeting someone with a bit more in common with the protagonist?
I guess Angel sort of fits that mold, but it kind of feels like she’s only into you because you killed she guy she was an teenage sex slave to, and that has always made it feel a bit creepy to me.
@Vendetta welcome back, im looking forward to buying RoaG when its released, but im wondering if Angel is still going to be a romance option
@Ramidel True enough, although in my mind I do pin his poor Leadership firmly to his background rather than to the man himself, in the sense that initially it’s all about gaining trust and commanding respect, and with criminal types generally being more reluctant to either trust or respect an ex-cop. It also helps to balance him better though, being generally pretty decent in virtually all the other stats important in the first two chapters!
@CJW I’m still aiming for five Chapters in total in Vendetta #1, or, to put it another way, somewhere between 7 and 10 hours for a single ‘proper’ playthru, depending how fast you read and whether or not you delve into some of the bigger missions along the way, such as the Hellions revenge raid sequence or Fat Eddie’s farmhouse mission.
Because it is such a looong game, I’m vaguely playing with the idea of later doing something (perhaps as an IAP) that would allow you to “fast-forward” through the first chapter or two, making all the critical decisions and adjusting stats accordingly, but without all the blurb to click through. By this means your character would still develop precisely as you want him to, but you can easily skip past the early scenes you’ve read so many times before… I’m still undecided on the subject though.
@Shoelip Interesting thoughts - I’m curious to see how many others look at it the same way.
@Lobo420 Thanks, good to be back. 
Where Angel’s concerned, I will say that I haven’t ruled out the possibility, but that it likely won’t be easy.
@Vendetta That makes sense and was more or less what I was hoping for, a challenging campaign where the main handicap is not having to work with stunted stats (aside from leadership), but through creating new difficulties only that character would face.
@Ramidel Yes, at 10 the Leadership stat is easily my weakest area, but after taking every opportunity to improve it during the demo I finished with a less than impressive but significantly improved 25. So with a Persuasion of 47, 58 Streetwise, and 66 Awareness, there might still be some hope for leading Dino’s gang yet.
@Vendetta Well, I mean, it’s not something I think you should get rid of. It works with the setting and time period. She’s a perverse character with a perverse background. The PC’s relationship with her is potentially the least perverse thing in her life. It’s got a bit to do with anachronistic standards. In the game’s time period I don’t think she’s considered nearly as immature at her age as she would be today.
Anyway, I think we’ve discussed this before. The Fat Eddie mission made me realize just what my character would be looking for in a woman. 
@Vendetta i am really glad to see you are back, it has been a long time since we last saw each other…
@Vendetta I think an IAP to skip the scenes and get the stats would discourage people from trying new options in the parts where it is skipped. I mean, If I bought something I might as well use it for as many times as possible
@RupertDragoul Interestingly, there you’re (obviously knowingly!) taking the background with the worst Leadership and trying to achieve the one thing requiring the most early Leadership – taking control of Dino’s Crew by the end of Chapter Two. These types of “the odds are against you” scenarios are the sort of thing I do want to make possible (if only just) so that more ‘Achievements’ in Vendetta – when I get around to adding them – actually have real meaning… I hope you’re signed up for the full playtest? 
@Shoelip We have indeed, but it’s the one overall topic I’m still so unsure of in my own mind, I think I’ll probably always take every opportunity to prompt for more discussion and opinion on the subject! It’s a tricky one, that’s for sure, as Angel is clearly very popular.
@WiReDcHiMpAnZeE Good to be back. Been about ten months I think, but in some ways now seems only a week or two.
@Xt1000305 You’ve hit upon the precise reason why I’m still so unsure about it myself. It may just be a question of timing, i.e. it wouldn’t be immediately available when the game is (finally) first launched, so by the time it does become available I expect any player keen enough to actually want it would already have played all the early scenes to death… (literally- and figuratively-speaking!). Still, it’s not something I’d consider doing unless there seemed to be a reasonable demand for it, as it’s a lot of re-coding to get it exactly as I envision it and be genuinely quick & useful.
@Vendetta Myself, I found all 4 routes intriguing and would give all of them a shot. I gravitate towards Dino’s gang the most for the sake of completing that self-imposed challenge of forcing my character to overcome his weaknesses. I’m not signed up to the full playtest at the moment, what exactly would it entail and how would I get involved?
@Vendetta, is the hard save feature going to ship with the final version of the app?
If so I’d say skipping the first two chapters is unnecessary as for simple replays of a particular scene I’d simply load the most relevant saved game. In the play-test last year I’d only ever restart completely to begin with a different background and since choosing a different background most often means radically different choices I’d actually want to play through the beginning again.
Also several people, including myself, mentioned this on the Choice of Rebels thread already but there are several problems with in app purchases, the most prominent being that Google Chrome apparently doesn’t support them, so you’d be locking those of us who prefer to play on our personal computers out of some features.
The second reason, more specific to my own situation, is that I’d prefer to pay more up front because my bank charges a disproportionate amount on small transactions, like most COG games.
Are Donna and Carina mutually exclusive characters? I liked Carina as my bar girl but I’m really intrigued by Donna as a love interest for my character.
I agree with @Shoelip
@RupertDragoul Sounds like ideal playtester material to me. 
If you’re interested, just send me a PM containing the email address you’d like to use. When we get it all back up & running again, I’ll email you with the link details and other guidelines. All I ask of playtesters is that they occasionally post any thoughts & suggestions here - i.e. precisely what you do anyway…
The Vendetta playtest has its own server and ‘hard save’ system, and uses your email address to identify your saved characters. It uses both ‘checkpoint’ saves at various points, so you can reload / replay any saved character from any of those points, and also ‘quick saves’ before almost all significant choices, so you can try an option, reload, try a different option, reload, etc. before continuing down a particular route. In addition, you can ‘clone’ a character at any save point, by simply giving him a different name, to head from that point on down two or more different main routes with identical characters. All of these features are designed for thorough playtesting, but there’s also nothing to stop you from just playing ‘normally’ as well.
@idonotlikeusernames The save system in the final, published version will be whatever CoG decides is best. I would hope there’ll be at least a checkpoint save at the start of each new Chapter, as it is a long game and death lurks around many corners. I guess it’s also possible there may only be one save for each character, so you can never go farther back than the start of the current chapter… There definitely won’t be any ‘quick saves’ or character ‘cloning’ though – those are strictly playtest features, designed specifically to make thorough testing as easy as possible.
Your points concerning IAPs are well taken, as they do only apply to particular users. I’m still generally out of touch with all the debate on the subject, all the various pros and cons, but it does sound like I’ll need to look into it all in much more detail before making any real plans / decisions. I’m not a huge fan of the whole IAP concept myself, tbh: like you I’m definitely more the “give me it all and just charge me extra” type, but I’ll have to rely on CoG’s own recommendations / preferred way of doing things as I suspect that you and I may be in the minority camp on this one.
@hahaha01357 Monique, Carina, Lucinda and Donna are indeed all mutually-exclusive, I’m afraid (for reasons of replay variety more than anything). Donna will only be encountered if you choose not to linger at the Bathhouse (i.e. with one of the others), and so have some spare time before attending Gina’s funeral. In the survey we ran last year, about 25% of the 47 respondents routinely chose not to ‘linger’ there, which was a significant enough percentage to warrant an alternative, early potential romantic interest of their own. More possibilities do come along later though, regardless of your early choice.
@ChimeraLord Thanks for letting me know.
@Vendetta Will we be able to ‘repay’ Nick Morello for getting our sister killed in the future? I think that would be interesting.
Damn I used to know all the exact choices to get my perfect play through and now I can’t even remember how to avenge billy the nose
Maybe I have a bad link but have you uploaded any of the chapter two to the demo or is that for the closed betas?
I personally despise IAP enhancements (not including DLC-esque post-publication new content) with every fiber of my being. It’s like the Navy SEAL option in Choice of Zombies; you’re paying a bribe to get a better character.
That may, may, be tolerable in “free-to-play” MMORPGs (I don’t have any opinion there because I don’t play any such games). In a game like this…no, just give us the whole game that you’ve made for us at publication time for a standard price, plox.
Now, if you (for instance) were to add a Gunmoll path with some modifications to several scenes, and wanted to sell that as a DLC, I wouldn’t object to that.
Yea not a big fan of DLC as it always feels I’ve been cheated out of something that should have already been included. The hard save works beautifully, would be great if you were to keep it.
Question about future business, but would Ma Gioverdi Dina be up for grabs if Donna becomes a Romance? (With time catching up with the old girl, I assume Donna would take over?)