Gentlecolt Collaborations

Alright, I will be answering 5 questions tonight.  You haven't heard from me (Jeff) in awhile, have you? There is a story behind that.  Check the blog.
Anyway,  first question. 
This one is from shikyokage742, who asks, 
"Will you be able to play as a filly? I'm a girl and would rather have the option to be a girl then a colt...."
The answer is yes.  We want everyone to enjoy this game in their own way.  But, Filly Mode will not be in the demo, but is planned to be released with Act I.

BND asks,
"I am fully aware that there's going to be a Rule 34 version of the game as well as a more safe version, but is there going to be some sort of "in-between" option? Something that isn't full on R34, and not completely worksafe at the same time?"
Well, at the time being, we have no idea how the Rule 34 version is going to play out because we are working on just the clean version at the moment.  Expect the start of Rule 34 discussion after the release of act III.

aaron asks,"will it be our actual full name in the game or a name we create? if it is full name then is there a way around that?"
I am pretty sure what you meant by that was if you make a name for the game?If so, then yes.  It's not going to steal any personal information or anything, it's not going to ask for your credit card and social security numbers, any of that.  In the beginning, it is going to ask, "Are you a boy?  Or a girl?" and what your name is.

Not OneBlood asks,
"How goes the progress on the demo? Namely as to whether or not the demo is still on track for late September-early October estimate on the FAQ. I'd also be interested in knowing what exactly is the most time consuming aspect of the game that your team must handle. Just for the sake of curiosity."
I have unfortunate news.  The game has in fact fallen behind, because we haven't gotten all the artwork in, and we had to set the writing deadline to 9/30/11 due to unforseen setbacks.  And the most time consuming aspect?  I would have to say either the artwork or the programming.
Emil's edit: Programming? Time consuming? Not at all compared to everything else, if you continue being snails. Seriously, you should have known your "deadlines" were way too optimistic.

Finally, RPG asks,
"Hello there, Gentlecolt Collaborations. First of all, I wish you all good luck with your project, can't wait for the demo. And now, for the question. I know that the options to romance are the Mane 6, (TGAP)Trixie, Spike and BigMac, and possibly other male character, but the question is: What background ponies will we be able to "interact" with? Best regards, good luck and thanks for your time."
Well RPG, that is a good question.  Firstly, Spike is NOT romancable, we (read: most of us, not all) decided that he IS a baby dragon after all.  (But, we might throw Rainbow Dash's new color scheme in there as an Easter Egg!)  But all of the romancable characters are,
The mane 6
The Great and Powerful TRIXIE!!! (Oh god do I hate her)
Big Mac
LUNA!!!
Soarin
And maybe possibly another male...


Well thats all for now, keep  those questions coming!
-Jeff

UPDATE::: aaron sent me this message clarifying what he meant."I realise too late that I was really unclear in my previous question and for that i apologise. Its the same aaron from the big answer update and my origional question was "Will it be our actual full name in the game or a name we create? If it is full name then is there a way around that?" I was talking about donating and the the thing where our names would appear in the credits. So the question I was trying to ask but completely failed at was "When we donate do we have to use our full names, fake ones, or our choice? If it's our choice or a fake name then how does it work when i donate using pay pal or credit card?" (I plan to use pay pal.) so if you could change that for me or if you want keep the origional and add this in seperately. I would really appreciate it. And sorry for any confusion, iconvience, or trouble i have caused. Also sorry about the long message and sorry if I am doing this in the wrong place. I couldn't find any other way to directly contact you about this problem other then by this. Is there a way to directly contact gentlecolt collaborations for general stuff like this? Can't wait to play this game, and good luck to everyone/everypony."
From what I can tell, its going to be the name you donated with.  And if you have a GENERAL QUESTION, you can email me directly at GhettoGarden1@gmail.com
-Jeff :3

There should be a text field that says "name" or "comment" when you donate. You can write the name you want to be credited as there, or simply state that you want to be anonymous. If nothing is written we'll take your real name. You should send everything to our official @gentlecolts.org adresses. General questions can go to contact@gentlecolts.org.
/Emil

Not Oneblood asks: While we all know you're current plan is to get the demo complete, and then work on a variety of things from thereon. Once you find the game 'Complete', have you put any thought into what the team might do afterwords? As it would seem somewhat odd to make a completely custom forum for the game, and then to not have something afterwords to have it used for. If your plan is only one game, I'd assume that a generic run-of-the-mill format would've been enough, unless your estimation is that fully completing it will take a while.

Well, yeah, we're counting on this project taking several years. What happens after that will be decided when we get there.
/Emil

JOHNMADDEN asks: How far will we able to get in the demo? I mean, relationship-with-other-pony wise?

The demo will just be a demo. A short demonstration. There won't even be any romance in the whole first act. You have to build friendship relations first.
/Emil

Okay, so, we have gotten alot of smart questions.  And I like that.
But we have gotten a few stupid questions.  For example, this one, sent in by anonymous.\
"will there be a rule 34 in this game?"
This is a very stupid question, and we plan not to answer these.
If you paid attention to the last EqD post, (The one where this link came from), you would see that "There will be r34, we are just not that sure how it will play out".
So I think that's about it.  Just wanted to put that out there.
-Princess T.rollestia

Jeff, you could be a bit nicer... but yeah, don't ask us these things. Please at least read the other posts first. Especially the FAQ.
/Emil

Nemesis asks: So I donated to you from link on top right but, How will you know I donated to you? Did you guys get my email from my paypal donation thing? P.S. You need more updates on how the game is going ect.

We can see your PayPal email from the donation notification, yes. That's how we contact you. We assume that everyone has access to the mails they use for their PayPal accounts... otherwise it would be reckless and insecure.

As for updates... we don't really have much to say. We're continuing to work, as usual. Some writers are more or less done. Some artists have started sketching the required images (I think I'll go post some in the gallery section...). I can't really do any programming until I have all the finished scripts and images, but I'm working hard on the Genltecolt Collaborations Forum right now. We are planning to release it alongside the demo.
/Emil

DeathNight78 asks: Will this take place in all of Equestria, or just in Ponyvile/surrounding areas?

As far as we've planned, it will just be around Ponyville. That's where all the ponies will be, after all. At least for the first act...
/Emil

Cokegamer asks: Will you be able to choose if want to be a earth pony, a pegasus or a unicorn and if so, will that change what you are able to do?

No, we decided that it would be too hard and pretty unnecessary, so you'll just be an earth pony.
/Emil

We got this question from Not OneBlood, who asked:
"How overworked is poor Emil?"
My answer is, pretty overworked.
We don't feed him either.
But in all seriousness, he is very overworked from my perspective, but he says he enjoys working alone, so if he is fine with it, that's alright with me.
-Jeff

I don't have much to do at the moment, so no, not really. I'm just taking care of the site, handling all the donations, advertisements, keeping track of statistics, building the forum...
Just small things while I'm waiting for the others to be done so I can start programming.
/Emil

gekiganwing asks: What sort of difficulty level do you intend to create? Do you want to make a game that challenges the player with elements such as stats, schedule management, and relationship balancing? Or do you intend to create a simple game, where the player can get a decent ending without having to use guessing or strategy? An aside: in case you were curious, I've played two difficult romance games recently. Just yesterday, I re-started the indie game Spirited Heart, and was reminded that it's quite challenging, with many random events that set the player back. And a few days ago, I was getting back into the fan translated version of the second Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side DS game, and was reminded that the more characters the main character meets, the tougher it is to work on stats and schedules. Thank you. -gekiganwing

We don't really have a goal as for what difficulty we want the game to be. It will be pretty simple though, no stats or that sort of thing.
The game will only keep track of two things: How nice and flirty you are to each pony. We call them "friendship" and "romance" points. You start of with 0/0 for all characters. When you make choices, you will sometimes gain or lose points. Like, if you say something nice, you might get +1 friendship points for that character. But if you instead say something really rude, you might get -2 friendship points. And if you say something that could be considered... flirty... you might get some romance points. To successfully romance a character, you'll have to balance these points carefully. It's ALWAYS good to have lots of friendship points with EVERYONE. If you act like a douche to even just one character, the others won't like you either. But if you go around flirting with everyone, they'll think you're a pervert, or that you're not being serious. Only try to get romance points with ONE character. But you'll also need friendship points, especially with that character. If you're too flirty compared to how overall nice you are, you'll be compared to Blueblood. Certain characters will also require different balances between these, and will be differently difficult to get, in different ways. Rainbow Dash, for example, will require very little romance points, but many friendship points. She'll think you're too "mushy" if you are too obvious with your feelings. Rarity, on the other hand, will surely appreciate every little compliment she gets, thinking that you're a real, romantic Gentlecolt™. She won't require as many friendship points, however.
And we're also planning on having some conversation options only available if you have a certain amount of points or higher (or lower). Like, if you start off being rude, more douche options will appear in conversations. But if you're nice, eventually more friendly options will appear. And the more you flirt with somepony, the flirtier conversation options you'll get. Think Mass Effect 2.
/Emil

BassAnly asks: Are the mass quantities of Fluttershy on the Tumblr actually pictures for the game?

Yes, our outdated tumblr contains early concept art for the game.
/Emil