diasporatheblog

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Dashingdon

Hey, all.

We know about the impending Dashingdon shutdown. We have the latest version of Diaspora saved in multiple places, so please do not feel the need to 'rescue' it, as I've seen some folk discussing for old or defunct WIPs. In fact we'd prefer you didn't, given the current climate w/r/t AI and all of that.

Needless to say, the demo will be coming down for a while, but it shouldn't affect much in the long run. We still have work to do, and while we are only sporadically doing that work, there is movement.

No estimate for completion or anything; we're having some trouble securing art, and personal difficulties, and so on, and so forth.

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GASP!!!!!! Aisling’s dream! The one about the wolf! The dots! I’ve connected them!!!!! They’re connected!!!!!!

You may have indeed connected some dots, anon.

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playing through diaspora on a boat has got to be the most thematically appropriate thing i’ve ever done. cheers to this amazing story that i’ve had a great time rereading over the past few days!

Glad to hear it!

Also, sorry we're super slow to answer asks, y'all, we are not closely monitoring the blog at the moment.

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Hello, love the first chapters can I ask if your close to finish the story ?

The rough draft is done, and is what is publicly-available anyway, so if you've read through everything there is, that's that!

The actual publishable version of the story is... well to be honest we're not working on it at the moment. We had a fair bit done that we then lost to a data incident, so it's been pretty demoralizing. All we can really say about it is we'll finish when we finish.

But that version will just be some improvements on what's already there, not any major changes or anything.

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It's always such a treat to see fanart! Your designs are super cool; I love the use of the Maghnus colors. :)

I took my sweet time playing through @diasporatheblog these past few months and finally brought myself to finish it yesterday (so sad it's over sobs)

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(spoilers)

hi! I've been messing around with the chapter eight skipping point after hearing you can get other people than Cormac to accompany you on the island.

I saw in an earlier ask that it's supposed to be whoever you have the lowest personal affinity with, but after testing multiple times it seems to be decided by whoever needs saving on the ship on the way to the Eye. I was trying to get Pan, and with high affinity with them + them being my RO + saving them on the ship, in chapter eight they were with me on the island.

(got Cormac when I chose him to be the one who needed saving)

tl:dr, just curious what personal affinity meant in that earlier ask, and if i misunderstood. :)

The person you have the lowest friendship value with is the one who will need saving, and then consequently end up with you on the island, if everything is working as intended.

You shouldn't be able to choose who needs the rescue, supposing I'm remembering this right. Then again, it's been years since we wrote that part and I have the worst memory ever, so I may be mistaken. I'm almost certain I'm right, though, and there's a priority order in the event of a tie for lowest.

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can i ask you guys what happened to your Patreon page? I can't find it at all ><

We took it down ages ago, anon. We were getting a bit frustrated by the need to make content for it monthly when we were already struggling with the game, and so made the executive decision to close it.

I apologize if there are still stray links floating around; I'm trying to get rid of those as I see them, but there may be some on old posts I don't get around to.

Thanks for asking, though. :)

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hi sorry if this is a dumb question or (already answered, but I couldn't find one) but how exactly does roise survive being executed when you refuse to surrender the Eye? she tells us how she escaped captivity, but never actually explains how she survives getting killed like adriana/baltasar intended. i always thought it was surrender the eye OR roise dies, not both. or was it a bug? thanks (^:

Not a dumb question at all. The basic version is: Adriana/Baltasar did that on purpose. The idea was, they knock her out (allowing everyone to think she is dead), store her away for a while, and then when the PC hopefully dies in the ensuing battle, they can trot out the only other really workable leadership figure the Cine have (Roise) and renegotiate from a stronger position.

Something like "give me the eye and you can take your remaining leader and leave."

While taking it off the corpses of the whole clan is also an option, both of them are interested in minimizing their own losses for various reasons. Baltasar additionally would really prefer not to kill Roise (or the PC for that matter, but they've sort of forced his hand) for sentimental reasons relating to Orlan.

We're going to redo that part of things, actually. The Eye is not such a huge advantage in the battle that game balance says Roise should actually die for it, but there really should be more consequences than there currently are. This much, however, will remain basically the same. Adriana and Baltasar are thinking ahead and keeping in mind that their real goal (aside from keeping/taking possession of Tarracina) is the artifact, not wiping out the Cine.

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Hi guys!! How are you?? Any update on when the book would be out?

Hey anon,

No major updates yet. We're still working on a few changes to the draft (complicated by the fact that we've temporarily lost access to some of what we were doing and are trying to get that back).

All to say, still not sure, but we haven't abandoned it or anything.

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I've been doodling a lot of Diaspora these past few weeks and have somehow ended up giving James Acaster's face + hair to Sang 😳 I don't think I'm too far off but still. A fun fact for you if nothing else ❤

There are definitely people you could pick who are much further off, for sure.

Also if you'd ever like to share the doodles, we'd love to see them. :)

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Hi, I just found the WIP and I wanted to know who are the ROs. Is Daghan romanceable? I need to marry this man.

Hi anon,

That information is on the pinned post, under the cut. The ROs are the characters with the [RO] note at the end of their descriptions. Daghan is, alas, not among them.

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(Spoilers) Does Iomhar always betray you if you side with the Empire? I always thought I did pretty well with him (got him to call off the raid and got him to help me talk down the Iskendi etc) but I still got the dialogue that he’d arranged the Chief’s kidnapping, though I don’t remember if he ever actually showed up again in the final battle or anything to prove either way? Just wondering if there’s a variable or if he just depends on who you ally with

Iomhar always does that, as I recall. The one that has a variable for whether he sticks with you or betrays you and allies with the Iskendi is Daghan.

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Any idea yet when y'all will have it published? No rush intended, I'm just excited to see the finished product for the one that got me into interactive fiction <3

No estimate yet. We're a bit on hold at the moment as other life events resolve, but we'll be back into editing as soon as we can. We know it needs a lot of work, but in the interest of actually finishing, we're going to try for a few major things and a few minor things and then call it good, I think. :)

Ideally we'll have it submitted sometime in the middle of this year, and after that, it's in the publisher's hands.

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(possible spoilers) - in chapter 8, in the island part, is it possible to have any other company besides cormac? every playthrough of mine i get stuck with him lol (good thing I love him but anyways-)

It's whomever you have the lowest personal affinity with. Honestly it's a bit surprising that you're always getting Cormac; most people end up with one of the Castulians because they've had less time to build affinity with them!

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I was wondering what age rating is diaspora. I haven't finished it quite yet or gotten to any real romancy vibes so I was wondering if I shld anticipate any steaminess or no?

There's definitely no R-18 stuff or anything haha. I'd put it at maybe PG-13, maybe higher if you're particularly averse to depictions of violence. (There are definitely no explicit sex scenes. Everything in that department is quite tame.)

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hi! i uh... may or may not have been entirely consumed by Diaspora for the past few weeks of my life. thank you for making this. truly. thank you for providing a joy in my life that i'd feel emptier without. i never thought i would like politically inclined games but this completely changed any and all my perceptions on such.

thank you again and congrats on all you've accomplished! :)) (i did not expect to love cormac that much, please give that man a bear hug from me)

Thank you so much! It's always amazing to hear someone liked it this much. We're thrilled it managed to get you to like a game with political elements. (Also, Cormac would give fantastic bear hugs; your taste is impeccable.)

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What happened to your patreon? If it's gone forever, is there a way we could read the side stories you posted?

We were finding that keeping up with the patreon content was hurting our ability to work on the game. We may find somewhere else to put all the old bonus contents, but right now we're just focused on trying to get things ready for submission. :)