To re-derail the topic: I wasn't around for the anti-massager debate, but I have a question: Was there more than one Puritan Extremist in the against side of the debate?
I wouldn't characterize them like that, but there were about 5, which was far fewer than I expected. I suspect that a lot of the "against" views stem from fear of embarking on a "slippery slope" (har har) that brings down the game. It was surprisingly a non-event, we've had more intense debates about adding more flavors of soda. A small number of people went, "don't do it, it's bad!", to which we replied, "why?"... the only answer given was that it crosses a taboo about having sexuality in games, which... pfff, if I cared about game taboos I wouldn't be making the game in the first place.
<soapbox>Considering that all the game needs to keep going is a handful of people to not get sick of working on it, I'm not sure why people are so concerned about the popularity of the game. The only reasonable thing I can think of is the dominance of commercial games leading people to conflate popularity with ability to continue the project.</soapbox>
Personally the number of people playing isn't what keeps me going, it's HOW MUCH some players get out of the game that really makes me proud of it, and makes me want to keep making it better.
ed: sex based happiness bonuses?
If by that you mean only girls get the benefits, not a chance. You're free to not use it, it's the same choice you have IRL, but I'm not going to code in that it's not possible, because it sure as hell is.
We can always split the difference - put all of the "adult" themed items in a mod that's installed by default. Gimp suit, lost submissive and prostitute professions, "personal massager", etc. Make it enabled by default and you have the... well... best of both worlds.
This would be awesome.
Someone can feel free to submit the PR that does this, and I'd take it if it works properly, but I'm not personally convinced it's worth the trouble, the same as the "minimal items" mod that keeps being brought up, but that no one has ever put any work into.
EDIT: In other news, we finally took the plunge and moved to c++11, expect significant performance improvements.