Narrative Complaint

[Sparks]

Whatever their personality Steele Jr. treats the galaxy like their personal playpen and doesn't generally act with a sense that their actions have any consequences, that they're in any real danger. This is in stark contrast to many of the characters they meet who're in crippling debt or otherwise in way over their heads in some sinkhole of a situation that's designed to legally screw them. Steele's default response to these is "why not just buy your way out of it? Here's some money, my daddy is giving me tons of it for playing scavenger hunt."

That's being a spoiled rich kid. The Akane content seems aimed specifically at Steele's sense that their adventures are consequence-free and every situation will have a way out of it that'll lead to fun and profit. It's running into the wrong person and getting screwed over and/or humiliated with no two ways about it. Complaining that it's not fair is missing the point of it, I think.

Depending on your personality, several options are barred off to you. Blowing up the black void base with Kara for one. And you don't start out rich, unless you call 500 credits and an old out of date ship rich and spoiled. You have the money from doing work, either by finding resources out in the wilds or hunting bounties and clearing out pirate bases. Most rushers are as wealthy as Steele is and live, as you say "treats the galaxy like their personal playpen".

 

[null_blank]

Depending on your personality, several options are barred off to you. Blowing up the black void base with Kara for one. And you don't start out rich, unless you call 500 credits and an old out of date ship rich and spoiled. You have the money from doing work, either by finding resources out in the wilds or hunting bounties and clearing out pirate bases. Most rushers are as wealthy as Steele is and live, as you say "treats the galaxy like their personal playpen".

That's part of the curse of being born from money. People can just assume you've had an easy ride your entire life.

Imagine choosing the Austere upbringing, trudging through the jungles of Mh'enga in the most basic of equipment with barely any credits in your pocket, only to find your cousin has beaten you to the probe with his gunship, personal bodyguard and plasma pistol.

...and then I made 400 million creds suckin' dick at Beth's because starting from the bottom is my RPG fetish

 

[Linarahn]

Hard Steeles aside, Victor's plan for his kid was to go through similar hardships than he did to prove their worth and give them the tools necessary to run the company in Victor's image - charm, martial prowess, knowledge and a knack for handling all sorts of different people (and arguably, knowing how to handle money.) A corporate heir who deals with normal people on a day to day basis in a normal people way (considering the inheritance is a big "if" - plenty of Victor's bastards can access the probes, on accident or otherwise - ) and tries to get by just like everyone else doesn't exactly play to the billionaire persona who needs a reality check in my opinion. Most NPCs see the PC that way because of the Steele name being so infamous, but that's really it.

The one who clearly feels a need to ride daddy's monetary coattails is the cousin. The "reality check" argument would have more merit if we were playing as Jack/Jill. No small-time smuggler, merc or tech specialist has that much of a rosy bubble life. The only thing that's, in my opinion, different about the PC is that they've been fortunate to have seen less of the ugly side of the galaxy (so far; it's not that they don't realize the dangers, not when they keep tripping over people who've had it way worse in that regard) and have a semi-realistic chance at making it rich - IF they make it through the probe hunt. And that is assuming all the probes are functional/accessible, Jack/Jill somehow runs out of money to wield like a sledgehammer for problems that can be solved with actually talking to people and nobody else getting in on it.

Also, especially Smuggler and Merc Steeles surely can't be as naive as, say, a full nerd techie. It's not like Steele keeps on living in some ivory tower and expects everything to fall into place, or expects to walk away from everything unscathed. Being aware of your status is different from flaunting it (and to my recollection, that only happens when it's efficient to do so). The notion that someone with the prospects of being ridiculously well-off at the end of their journey shouldn't be an automatic disqualifier for being perfectly reasonable people, @Stemwinder , nor should the entire premise of a reality check hinge on the PC dropping all common sense. There's being spoiled, and then there's being stupid. And unless you actively play as a braindead bimbo, given the choices Victor made for Steele, they should be neither.

 

[Stemwinder]

Depending on your personality, several options are barred off to you. Blowing up the black void base with Kara for one. And you don't start out rich, unless you call 500 credits and an old out of date ship rich and spoiled. You have the money from doing work, either by finding resources out in the wilds or hunting bounties and clearing out pirate bases. Most rushers are as wealthy as Steele is and live, as you say "treats the galaxy like their personal playpen".

Steele Jr. is quite pampered and protected despite any artificial notions of being a werkin' class joe. If outright owning half of the starting space station didn't tip you off then their 'job' (to play around on a sex tourism scavenger hunt their daddy set up for them and receive exorbitant allowance payoffs at each step) should have. The whole trip is being funded, from their ship to their spending money, straight from daddy's deep pockets.

If you're talking to the other characters and think for a moment that any of them are as well off or as protected from the actual dangers of the Rush as Steele is then reality check content really was necessary.

 

[Stemwinder]

Hard Steeles aside, Victor's plan for his kid was to go through similar hardships than he did to prove their worth and give them the tools necessary to run the company in Victor's image - charm, martial prowess, knowledge and a knack for handling all sorts of different people (and arguably, knowing how to handle money.) A corporate heir who deals with normal people on a day to day basis in a normal people way (considering the inheritance is a big "if" - plenty of Victor's bastards can access the probes, on accident or otherwise - ) and tries to get by just like everyone else doesn't exactly play to the billionaire persona who needs a reality check in my opinion. Most NPCs see the PC that way because of the Steele name being so infamous, but that's really it.

The one who clearly feels a need to ride daddy's monetary coattails is the cousin. The "reality check" argument would have more merit if we were playing as Jack/Jill. No small-time smuggler, merc or tech specialist has that much of a rosy bubble life. The only thing that's, in my opinion, different about the PC is that they've been fortunate to have seen less of the ugly side of the galaxy (so far; it's not that they don't realize the dangers, not when they keep tripping over people who've had it way worse in that regard) and have a semi-realistic chance at making it rich - IF they make it through the probe hunt. And that is assuming all the probes are functional/accessible, Jack/Jill somehow runs out of money to wield like a sledgehammer for problems that can be solved with actually talking to people and nobody else getting in on it.

This is a common narrative tactic - where there are two extremely privileged characters and one flaunts it at every opportunity while the other seems empathetic and humble - that tends to fool people who don't see through it. It's a diversionary tactic to distract from the fact that -both- characters are spoiled brats who expect things to work out for them because they were born into a bubble of safety and privilege that fostered that attitude.

The Steele Jr. version is plain to see in the outlines of what those of you arguing that possibly being a mean old jerk is the worst Steele Jr. can possibly do are saying. Their bubble is one of general ignorance of poverty, challenge, and lack in general and a sense of invincibility/freedom from consequences of those things. While the journey is set up to -look- like they're making their own way they're actually being not-at-all subtly helped every step of the way. Victor made sure that there'd be no real problems with money on the probe hunt (money problems that other characters demonstrate, the sort where they're in debt for years to afford some mod or another that Steele Jr. could buy with one allowance payout) and this sense of easy money leads to lots of chances to throw that money around and flaunt their wealth. You might not think of it that way because they're not being a jerk about it but there are tons of scenarios in the game where Steele Jr. saves some character or another with the power of being a rich kid who doesn't realize just how much money they're actually offering to these characters.

It's that sort of spoiled and protected attitude that leads to scenarios that this topic describes where players are -shocked- and outraged that something bad could happen to their character, that there could even exist an outcome that couldn't be avoided by simply being Steele Jr., designer superbaby who's utterly convinced that things Just Work Out (because they've been babied despite what any backstories might suggest).

Like I said, this is a tourist getting mugged overseas and realizing for the first time that they're protected from most real dangers sort of realization.

 

[Sparks]

Steele Jr. is quite pampered and protected despite any artificial notions of being a werkin' class joe. If outright owning half of the starting space station didn't tip you off then their 'job' (to play around on a sex tourism scavenger hunt their daddy set up for them and receive exorbitant allowance payoffs at each step) should have. The whole trip is being funded, from their ship to their spending money, straight from daddy's deep pockets.

If you're talking to the other characters and think for a moment that any of them are as well off or as protected from the actual dangers of the Rush as Steele is then reality check content really was necessary.

Steele Jr. doesn't own half of Tavros. The probes have bounties from Steele Tech, anyone that finds them can turn them in, they aren't allowance. The ship was the last gift from your father, the starting money is from your own pockets. You seem to really dislike the PC. Maybe this isn't the game for you.

 

[Nonesuch]

If a character has around two thirds of people saying they really don't like what they do and the other third vociferously defending them, then it's usually the case they weren't well thought-through. Have a lot of time for So as a writer generally, but it's clear from the way he talks about Akane (and where his likes have landed in this thread) that he wrote her in a spiteful, meta, against-the-game kind of mindset, with predictable consequences.

The larger fault lies with TiTS itself and its wild tonal problems. The way Fen constructed it and wrote its foundational content, it was clearly supposed to be a silly, light space adventure with lots of colorful sex and no hard feelings. In this environment of pure wish fulfilment, a quite hateful character like Akane has no place whatsoever. But Fen allows just about anyone to write for these games, his editorial policy and directive abilities are slim to nonexistent, and he himself will put in a genocidal bug war without thinking it through!

Savin (and myself tbf) conceptualise TiTS to be a somewhat grittier and bleaker experience, following stuff like New Texas to its logical conclusion whilst Fen's over there waving his arms crying 'Noooo you're not supposed to think about it!' The rest of the writers are doing whatever, only intermittently creating what the main dev would like them to.

The outcome is that it's not possible to consider the PC's situation critically. Are we supposed to take the anime-ish premise at face value, that dear old dad meant us to become a more rounded space adventurer and the cousin's there to represent the dick we're not? Or do we look across at NPCs such as Reaha and think "Actually, I'm a ludicrously privileged sex tourist and this whole quest is transparently stupid"? You can try and argue that it's meant to be ambiguous but believe me, it's not, it's that no-one writing this shit is talking to anyone else.

I think things are a bit tighter than it used to be. Zheng Shi hangs together relatively well, and given that its hat is slavery it's managed to avoid major controversy pretty admirably. But NPCs like Akane are the product of an extremely loose editorial policy and a game with wildly varying tone. I'd like TiTS to be a game where she fits in without causing much of a stir, but ultimately the game is supposed to be about wish fulfillment, not a punishment sim, and it's only due to said wildly varying tone that she works at all.

 

[Sparks]

If a character has around two thirds of people saying they really don't like what they do and the other third vociferously defending them, then it's usually the case they weren't well thought-through. Have a lot of time for So as a writer generally, but it's clear from the way he talks about Akane (and where his likes have landed in this thread) that he wrote her in a spiteful, meta, against-the-game kind of mindset, with predictable consequences.

The larger fault lies with TiTS itself and its wild tonal problems. The way Fen constructed it and wrote its foundational content, it was clearly supposed to be a silly, light space adventure with lots of colorful sex and no hard feelings. In this environment of pure wish fulfilment, a quite hateful character like Akane has no place whatsoever. But Fen allows just about anyone to write for these games, his editorial policy and directive abilities are slim to nonexistent, and he himself will put in a genocidal bug war without thinking it through!

Savin (and myself tbf) conceptualise TiTS to be a somewhat grittier and bleaker experience, following stuff like New Texas to its logical conclusion whilst Fen's over there waving his arms crying 'Noooo you're not supposed to think about it!' The rest of the writers are doing whatever, only intermittently creating what the main dev would like them to.

The outcome is that it's not possible to consider the PC's situation critically. Are we supposed to take the anime-ish premise at face value, that dear old dad meant us to become a more rounded space adventurer and the cousin's there to represent the dick we're not? Or do we look across at NPCs such as Reaha and think "Actually, I'm a ludicrously privileged sex tourist and this whole quest is transparently stupid"? You can try and argue that it's meant to be ambiguous but believe me, it's not, it's that no-one writing this shit is talking to anyone else.

I think things are a bit tighter than it used to be. Zheng Shi hangs together relatively well, and given that its hat is slavery it's managed to avoid major controversy pretty admirably. But NPCs like Akane are the product of an extremely loose editorial policy and a game with wildly varying tone. I'd like TiTS to be a game where she fits in without causing much of a stir, but ultimately the game is supposed to be about wish fulfillment, not a punishment sim, and it's only due to said wildly varying tone that she works at all.

Very well said. I just want to add that my only problem with Zheng Shi is that we can't more...permanently deal with all the pirates, like we could with demons back in the CoC days. Maybe after we get the probe we can call the UGC in on the asteroid. We shall see what the future holds in that regard.

 

[QuietCoyote]

Literally the entire New Texas controversy, from the birth of the idea, to Treated Steph, all the way to the Moostapo thing, in a nutshell. I've come to like Fen well enough as I've gotten to know him. He really is a pretty nice, goofy guy at heart, but he does have a few flaws. This kind of thing being chief among them, imo.

I wish I could be as carefree and lackadaisical about "the little things" as Fen seems to be a lot of the time. Honestly I really do think it's been an asset for him overall, his ability to shrug things off and not get hung up on every tiny bump in the road is what has allowed TiTS and CoC1 to succeed where, to be completely honest, almost everything else has failed. Fen's been in the smut game business for literally the entire lifespans of multiple games, and has weathered everything that's been thrown at him, ranging from a deluge of personal insults and idiotic audience feedback to full-on spite and sabotage campaigns from the chan children.

However, all that being said, I don't think it would hurt him to rein us all in a little bit. I don't think any writer is going to accuse him of being some kind of "tyrant" if he rejects a submission based on a feeling that it goes against his vision of the game's tone/intent. And really, it's not even that, it's that Fen needs to become more comfortable doing that for people that have proven themselves competent. I feel like a purple name is a borderline guarantee that whatever you write is getting in without much scrutiny. I understand the Creator and Writer titles do kind of encourage that by highlighting those of us that have demonstrated ability and follow-through, but we can still make poor decisions.

this
literally this

 

[Stemwinder]

Steele Jr. doesn't own half of Tavros. The probes have bounties from Steele Tech, anyone that finds them can turn them in, they aren't allowance. The ship was the last gift from your father, the starting money is from your own pockets. You seem to really dislike the PC. Maybe this isn't the game for you.

This is an example of

waving his arms crying 'Noooo you're not supposed to think about it!'

this.

If you don't think about it too much (read: at all) then you can walk away with a sense that the PC really isn't some spoiled rich kid. But if you think about it critically, at all, if you even glance at what they're provided straight out of the gate or what the obvious intention of the quest is (for them to tool around the galaxy, having fun on the company's dime under the flimsy premise of ~earning it~ by cashing in the probes), if you take a look around at other characters and their situation it becomes immediately obvious that Steele Jr. is a ridiculously privileged individual who has no concept of what the average character in the setting deals with. When a character can be in slavery for years over like 5k credits, wiping your ass money for the PC, then it's not even hidden.

The tonal inconsistency of the game can even be described as Steele Jr's personal safety bubble. Everything inside it is their happy go lucky sex tourism adventure and everything outside of it is a bleak depressing hypercapitalist hellhole. Content like Akane's is intentionally piercing the bubble (where usually the only way to do that is to push its limits so far that the player ends up steering them outside of it and into a bad ending).

 

[Alecsandr]

I agree with @Nonesuch and @MistyBirb wholeheartedly, trying to find a tonal consistency even just inside individual planets is hard nevermind across the entire game, but to be honest that's more of a problem with how the game jumps from world to world instead of area to area like how CoC did. I would think that Fen coming out and telling writers 'hey, this planet is gonna have this tone, and should avoid *this* type of content' would help with keeping planets consistent. I agree with nonesuch the way tit's theme feels if you look at the content and the way the overall universe is in the game it's supposed to feel more like a gritty sci-fi rather than a silly space adventure, although a lot of content seems to be the latter instead of the former.

And to respond to Stem's criticisms of everyone's thinking, it's not that we are adverse to steele getting their ass kicked or put out of their comfort zone (even though each steele's head cannon and actual personality is subjective, which would mean in your mind steele is a sheltered rich kid), it's that we are adverse to it being caused by nonsensical ineptitude. Akane herself isn't too far out of line content wise it's mostly just the quest to get to her is written in a way that's completely inconsistent with how the game is meant to represent the player character

 

[Kesil]

it's not that we are adverse to steele getting their ass kicked or put out of their comfort zone (even though each steele's head cannon and actual personality is subjective, which would mean in your mind steele is a sheltered rich kid), it's that we are adverse to it being caused by nonsensical ineptitude.

I think this is the crux of the question alongside tonal differences. Lel at the head cannon, though.

 

[valk42]

We are a sex tourist in a sexy capitalist dystopia, and I love the wide range of perceptual dissonance available thru different levels of consideration. I enjoy almost everything TiTS has to offer, even and especially Akane despite personally being top-leaning with no interest in pain. Though I wouldn't object to a "please fuck off" bribe at the climax of Host ShukakuQuest for someone who can think faster than they can talk, ultimately I feel the mugging is very appropriate as a resolution to the story, and the only editing I think it could possibly use is a choice whether or not to shoot into the alley blind.

 

[Alecsandr]

@Kesil yeah head cannon's (both literal and figurative) can be kinda funny. On topic however we don't know Soandso's reasoning for why they wrote the way they did we, but we can objectively step back and say that the writing doesn't really make sense when compared to all of the content in the game

 

[Klaptrap]

Soandso has been jumping in and making cutesy little comments that add little to the discussion so I'm just going to assume the whole thing was build on spite. The kind of spite that comes with watching others have fun but realizing they're doing it the wrong way. This submission was the equivalent of slapping the penis out of our hands and going "Actually, you're supposed to take this furry transformation fetish game seriously".

Convince me I'm wrong.

 

[ScarletteKnight]

I don't really like Steele, because they're so completely different from my style. But I absolutely love all the other characters, and being able to be an adventurer is my dream.

 

[null_blank]

You guys are projecting too much into a single scene.

If you don't think about it too much (read: at all) then you can walk away with a sense that the PC really isn't some spoiled rich kid. But if you think about it critically, at all, if you even glance at what they're provided straight out of the gate or what the obvious intention of the quest is (for them to tool around the galaxy, having fun on the company's dime under the flimsy premise of ~earning it~ by cashing in the probes), if you take a look around at other characters and their situation it becomes immediately obvious that Steele Jr. is a ridiculously privileged individual who has no concept of what the average character in the setting deals with. When a character can be in slavery for years over like 5k credits, wiping your ass money for the PC, then it's not even hidden.

The tonal inconsistency of the game can even be described as Steele Jr's personal safety bubble. Everything inside it is their happy go lucky sex tourism adventure and everything outside of it is a bleak depressing hypercapitalist hellhole. Content like Akane's is intentionally piercing the bubble (where usually the only way to do that is to push its limits so far that the player ends up steering them outside of it and into a bad ending).

Last time I checked this was a race between the offspring of rich men not the son of a rich man and Reaha the sex slave or Paige "I have no eyes" former-pirate-turned-yoga-instructor or some other neo-peasant wage slave eking their way through life. Steele has no control over the circumstances of their birth and if they had anything in common with any of the above named people they certainly wouldn't be on Steele Quest (TM).

I don't see my Steele as having the same safety bubble you're talking about. Sure, someone else's Steele might think that way but mine is a thrill seeker. My Steele doesn't worry about most of the shit that common people worry about because she isn't common people. A common person might be too scared to follow the crumb-trail into the obvious ambush but my Steele wants to see how it turns out.

Akane doesn't pierce my Steele's bubble, she falls into my Steele's penchant for sex tourism.

Am I the only that sees Steele as a benign psychopath? Just me? Okay.

 

[Sparks]

You guys are projecting too much into a single scene.



Last time I checked this was a race between the offspring of rich men not the son of a rich man and Reaha the sex slave or Paige "I have no eyes" former-pirate-turned-yoga-instructor or some other neo-peasant wage slave eking their way through life. Steele has no control over the circumstances of their birth and if they had anything in common with any of the above named people they certainly wouldn't be on Steele Quest (TM).

I don't see my Steele as having the same safety bubble you're talking about. Sure, someone else's Steele might think that way but mine is a thrill seeker. My Steele doesn't worry about most of the shit that common people worry about because she isn't common people. A common person might be too scared to follow the crumb-trail into the obvious ambush but my Steele wants to see how it turns out.

Akane doesn't pierce my Steele's bubble, she falls into my Steele's penchant for sex tourism.

Am I the only that sees Steele as a benign psychopath? Just me? Okay.

I just want to hunt down pirates, not small timers like Kiro, I'd rather she choose a better line of work but she doesn't kill or enslave so whatevs. But I'd like to have the chance to squash the black void and clean out Zheng Shi at some point in the development of the game.

 

[Stemwinder]

Last time I checked this was a race between the offspring of rich men not the son of a rich man and Reaha the sex slave or Paige "I have no eyes" former-pirate-turned-yoga-instructor or some other neo-peasant wage slave eking their way through life. Steele has no control over the circumstances of their birth and if they had anything in common with any of the above named people they certainly wouldn't be on Steele Quest (TM).

I don't see my Steele as having the same safety bubble you're talking about.

The disconnect between these lines what I've been addressing, this failure to connect that occurs when people's headcanon and taking some aspects of the setup at face value cloud or prevent any sort of critical thought toward the situation as it's presented.

When you can recognize that Steele Jr.'s situation is so far removed from the harshness that clearly exists in the setting it -should- lead to the realization that being so removed is that 1% rich kid safety bubble (one that exists regardless of what Steele's in-game personality is or what flavor backstory you chose), a mechanism that allows for silly space adventures in a setting where, frankly, most people are living miserable lives. The premise itself is a nakedly extravagant way of setting up silly lighthearted space adventures, a contrivance that establishes that Steele can goof off solely because they're a sheltered rich kid whose daddy set up a sex tour for them to take (and that any challenges they might face will come with a slew of safety nets in the form of money for good equipment, a top of the line Codex and immuno-booster, designer baby genes and on and on).

Even with your headcanon thrill seeker PC it's a case of being sheltered from the worst consequences of that thrillseeking (i.e. "I can afford to follow these breadcrumbs because fuck it, I'll probably be fine"). A perfect example: the average schmuck could have their life turned upside down and/or ruined by getting knocked up/knocking someone up during a sex tour but Steele Jr. has a paid-for nursery. The thrill of maybe knocking someone up is there but you don't actually have to deal with it when it happens; like gambling but it's always just for fun. A lot of people are going to have trouble unraveling a frank assessment like that from what they've projected onto Steele Jr. as their personal avatar.

So one intention of Akane's content is to simply write a bad thing that could happen, even to someone who's seemingly invincible (and whose players -feel- invincible) like Steele Jr. That way of showing that you're small fry even with all your advantages can be called spite but having your boundaries violated is a big part of a lot of fetishes so it's not worthless content that only works if you look at it as a meta gutpunch. The point it's making may be a brief slap-that-dick-out-of-your-hand moment but as game content it's not setting out to spoil the sexcapade; it's content that could only happen -because- of the tonal disconnect, material that has its fun by drawing attention to it and engaging a darker Real Life Consequences form of sexcapading that Steele is usually protected from.

Or to speak directly to the complaint that it's so dissonant compared to most of the other writing: it's different because there's no way to 'win it' with Steele Jr.'s innate advantages. The whole idea was to write a scenario where someone who believes they can seriously solo the galaxy realizes that even winners lose if they rush headlong into a viper's den.

 

[null_blank]

Even with your headcanon thrill seeker PC it's a case of being sheltered from the worst consequences of that thrillseeking (i.e. "I can afford to follow these breadcrumbs because fuck it, I'll probably be fine").

I've run this character long enough to think about that as well and I think Honey Boo Boo can sum it up best for me:

Spoiler

...with that said I opine that the concept of Steele needs to be challenged beyond the default "Hur hur CEO CASH RULES EVERYTHING AROUND ME CREAM SON" and being turned into a Yakuza bosses's painslut isn't a bad place to start

 

[Evil]

It depends on how you view Steele being raised, or at least Victor's intention at how their child is raised and prepared for the Rush.

Consider this. Victor made Steele Tech with his own two hands over his long life. Steele Tech, while not the absolutely most famous company in the galaxy, has still done well enough that most people recognise the name or at the very least, respect it. Victor was also highly respected as an explorer and entrepreneur during the last Planet Rush. With life experience like that comes the realisation that what someone deserves is something they earn by their own hand. Victor Steele would not just hand something to someone with them proving they have earned it.

People who say that Captain Steele was pampered or lived in a bubble, consider this - Victor saw that they were raised with care, a proper education and more importantly, love. Don't think for one second that Victor would have sent his last child out into something as dangerous as the Planet Rush without making sure they were prepared. When you're making Captain Steele, you're asked what career path they have taken, as in they were already begun on that career when the news came in about Victor's death. Now maybe Mercenary Steele just did a couple of guard runs, or maybe Tech Steele did some drone testing combined with some security teching for one of the Steele Tech subsidiaries, or maybe Smuggler Steele had gotten their first illicit load past the UGC.

The point is, people need to dissuade themselves of the belief that Captain Steele is a new born booted into the big wide galaxy as soon as Victor popped his clogs. There's 19 years of training and preparation for the time when Victor gave his last child their inheritance - the chance to earn their place as CEO of Steele Tech.

 

[Primename]

My personal biggest problem with content like Akane is how it affects the game in the long-term narrative of the game. Let's say the someone comes to Trails, like, right when the end of the game is going to be put in, like, the very last patch before the final version of the game. So, they do the whole of each planetary main quest and pick up each best weapon for their class. They have each and every best perk and upgrade possible and imaginable by the end of the game. So, before the ending gets patched in, they decide to do the side quests and get everything they missed.

And, sometime along the way, they stumble upon the Akane Quest. So, how would the new-ish player feel that, even though they have every conceivable upgrade, armor, weapon, ship, extra and so forth, they still get bopped without being able to do anything about it?

It and content like it harms the game in the long run.

 

[Klaptrap]

A lot of the people who are okay with this content also seem to be the people who have a fetish for being turned into a yakuza boss' painslut. They confuse liking the content with the content being good gameplay/storytelling.

 

[null_blank]

A lot of the people who are okay with this content also seem to be the people who have a fetish for being turned into a yakuza boss' painslut. They confuse liking the content with the content being good gameplay/storytelling.

You guys are making this out to be much more than a bad story hook. Stop injecting your own inferiority complexes into the game.

Edit: added the cat

 

[SoAndSo]

So, how would the new-ish player feel that, even though they have every conceivable upgrade, armor, weapon, ship, extra and so forth, they still get bopped without being able to do anything about it?

 

[Alecsandr]

i think it's funny that this content didn't get the same yoink that willow did to be honest. especially seeing as many complaints thrown it's way.

 

[Primename]

i think it's funny that this content didn't get the same yoink that willow did to be honest. especially seeing as many complaints thrown it's way.

Wasn't Willow, like, actually missing content when she was introduced into the game or was it from a quality standpoint?

 

[Xeivous]

Honestly the only thing I think Akane would benefit from would be turning her kidnapping Steele into a standoff with basically the same ways out. Though the option to become her painslut might also need a little reworking to make it a bit more consensual. Not sure though as it has been a bit since I played her content.

 

[SoAndSo]

i think it's funny that this content didn't get the same yoink that willow did to be honest. especially seeing as many complaints thrown it's way.

Yeah absolutely hilarious pal

I've not needed to say anything on this thread despite it constantly being brought to my attention in DM's but consider for a moment that maybe I'm the one who began pointing out how much of a shitshow Willow was (compiling a rather vexing list of problems in the process), would you really start equating the two in the same way?

Let's break it down here:

Spoiler

Willow is poorly written, lacking in prosaic weight and quality, lacking in grammar, not very well conceptualised from the ground up, filled to the brim with unintentional memes (lest we forget fromage de grille), missing a multitude of necessary technical details (tooltips, appearance screen), organised in a nonsensical fashion both doc-wise and scene-by-scene wise, wooden dialogue, vague character backgrounds, no character arc, weird analogies that border on antisemitism, overriding the PC 'inner thought' into a rapey emotional manipulator, unsettling, short and underwritten sex scenes and to top it all off, has a character called Chad in it.

Whereas:

Spoiler

Flawed as my own assessment will be on this, if I got the thumbs up from both Fen and Savin while showing them this content over the course of several weeks with their qualms taken into account and then adjusted to the purview of what makes this content work/not work (mostly) and then, 7 months into it, the only real problem is that for some select (and rather persistent) users asserting that 'well I don't like the end result of this quest because x' then is that really the same?

A lot of good points have been made here, mostly from fellow writers who know the problem of trying to balance something unconventional (for this game anyway) with an expected 'game loop' that a lot of players are used to while also having to fit in tone that ranges from 'u drop pant and have the sex' to Star Wars-esque space station raids and the dystopian nightmare of rampant corporate greed on a galactic scale.

However

Ever since I posted my doc in the forums (a good year ago now), you specifically and quite a number of serial complainers have tried to hammer it in that this is something you don't like. What you've posted now is petty, unsettling and insulting.

I don't think there's anything left to get out of this thread.

 

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i think it's funny that this content didn't get the same yoink that willow did to be honest. especially seeing as many complaints thrown it's way.

There's a big difference between player complaints and devs warning you to make edits on your content.

Also Willow was shit, right on par with Pippa.

Like holy fucking christ on a cracker if you don't think there is a serious power gap between the Akane and Willow submissions, please do not suggest edits on anything, ever.