Niche characters

Nik_van_Rijn

Well-Known Member
Sep 10, 2015
2,415
506
Moscow, RF
The issue here is exclusivity with the character's content. Her unpopularity in certain circles is a consequence of this, but shouldn't necessarily be the focus. Other characters in the TiTsverse don't get this kind of angst because even though some of them might be annoying obnoxious asshats (get your tight purple ass away from my ship's console, Sera), you can still do stuff with them or screw around with them regardless. With Riya, there is (in most cases) nothing. Their personality could be set to "Walk around and shit blue skies and rainbows", but it wouldn't matter. Most players aren't going to go through a full make-over just so they can make-out with one particular person, especially when there's so many alternatives. At a macrocosmic level, coming out with highly exclusive character content in this way, on a regular basis, would eventually become an issue too. Players would have to run around blowing fortunes in gene mods just get with a single character. It's more likely they would just get annoyed and avoid them.

Pretty much just creating a post to simultaneously pick up the discussion of this topic and not derail Franks thread even more. Don't have much energy atm, so for now I'll leave it to the new challenger and the old guard - who, from what I got, value the exclusivity as a way to allow for a more focused and refined content - to debate it out anon-to-anon.
 

Klaptrap

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2015
436
203
People already focus almost exclusively on characters that appeal to them. For example, there are already subs for dom players and doms for sub players to enjoy while allowing you to ignore the ones that you don't like. What you're talking about is simply expanding on this concept, with npcs that straight up tell you "This is what I do and nothing else".

I don't see a problem with "highly exclusive" characters and I think that more of them can only be a boon to the game.
 
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Noob Salad

Captain Shitpost
Aug 26, 2015
4,372
1,560
Sera and Riya are popular though.
 

Noob Salad

Captain Shitpost
Aug 26, 2015
4,372
1,560
Riya is popular in a way.
 

Lkynmbr24

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Creator
Oct 30, 2016
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I'd say Sera is popular. Riya is moreso infamous. XD

I don't mean that in a bad way though!
 
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Ormael

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2015
6,631
1,787
Well been famous or infamous is still meaning that chara is popular just in a good or bad way. I eman everyone now who is Kelt even if he not so nice npc but still his bad fame made him recognizable. So maybe not who is popular but who of all npc is recognizable could be a question here...
 

Magic Ted

Forum God
Moderator
Aug 26, 2015
744
478
Don't take a small vocal minority of like, fifteen people very seriously.

Of course there's gonna be niche characters. Otherwise you aren't going to have lots of meaningful ones that fit a theme of some sort - writing broadly is always going to have a upper limit in quality over something that can be focused.
 

Azureink

Well-Known Member
Feb 12, 2017
138
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I don't like how that one cat-girl scout on Tarkus won't have sex with you if you have a parasitic cock.
 

Alecsandr

Well-Known Member
Dec 11, 2015
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I think that games like this thrive on niche characters, but riya just seems to be, i don't know, almost too niche. The blatant racism doesn't help, nor does her being a run of the mill futa character help redeem her in anyway. If the racism were less overt or at least justified better, like the gold myr and red myr racism, then i don't think she'd be such a harsh unappealing character. Say for instance she was raised in an orphanage/foster care and was berated and mistreated by aliens, then there would be a reason, and possibly a path to redeeming her character through confronting her past and acknowledging that her racism is a wall to keep her from getting hurt again. As it stands now her racism is like that of Cerberus from mass effect which boils down to 'humanity is the best and the rest should burn, so they never have a chance to be better than us'
 

Emerald

Well-Known Member
Jun 8, 2016
2,169
2,836
I don't like how that one cat-girl scout on Tarkus won't have sex with you if you have a parasitic cock.
Or have membranes, of a dick too small, or too big, or don't produce enough cum since she's into cuminflation... The last one a fetish many players have instead of a very selective few like Riya.

Nessa isn't exactly 'niche' per-say. There are MANY players here in the forums and no doubt many more outside of it that would LOVE to cum-inflate NPCs like her. I'd say she appeals to a fetish that enough people have to not be considered 'niche'. Yes she won't fuck you if you have parasites, but that doesn't make her niche as a whole, that just means she's a little picky, but not THAT picky.
 

Kesil

Well-Known Member
Aug 26, 2015
3,498
2,182
I consider newhalf, dickgirl and futa(nari) as synonyms for a female herm, not a shemale. But hey, if people cause an outrage and "officially" want to use newhalf for a female who sports male bits instead of female ones, fine with me.

Though I'm not sure what an oldhalf would be. And let's not get started on whether testicles should be set as internal or external.
 

balitz Method

Well-Known Member
Aug 13, 2016
427
267
I think that games like this thrive on niche characters, but riya just seems to be, i don't know, almost too niche. The blatant racism doesn't help, nor does her being a run of the mill futa character help redeem her in anyway. If the racism were less overt or at least justified better, like the gold myr and red myr racism, then i don't think she'd be such a harsh unappealing character. Say for instance she was raised in an orphanage/foster care and was berated and mistreated by aliens, then there would be a reason, and possibly a path to redeeming her character through confronting her past and acknowledging that her racism is a wall to keep her from getting hurt again. As it stands now her racism is like that of Cerberus from mass effect which boils down to 'humanity is the best and the rest should burn, so they never have a chance to be better than us'
Going out of your way to "explain" traits of a character that are viewed to be negatives is a v. amateurish habit that generally makes for hokey characters. Not only are you calling attention to the particular trait in a bad way (trying to explain it or justify it in some way will automatically make that their defining trait and limit how robust they can really be and those that already don't like it will often go out of their way to see it as an attempt to excuse or argue in favor of the behavior) but you're making the character less organic. You know what's responsible for most people's biases, prejudices, and worldviews?

General osmosis in the environment they were raised in. No dramatic events, no single thing to point to that they can possibly get over, no trauma - just a slurry of influences. When you're writing every character to have been shaped by specific events you're writing them to be far less believable. From a character arc perspective the only reason to do it this way in a game like this is to make the trait somehow erasable to appease a player's sense that they beat something distasteful. Taking this game as an example you'll notice the better writers don't allow the player to "save" or otherwise solve all the flaws and perceived shortcomings of their characters even when they do allow the player to have significant power over them. Part of this is because they know how hacky it tends to get when it can all be traced back to that day and how double hacky it feels to do it that way solely to allow the player's Mary Sue to swoop in with their perfect morality and deep bank account and resolve something a character has been dealing with for a significant amount of time.
 

balitz Method

Well-Known Member
Aug 13, 2016
427
267
I consider newhalf, dickgirl and futa(nari) as synonyms for a female herm, not a shemale. But hey, if people cause an outrage and "officially" want to use newhalf for a female who sports male bits instead of female ones, fine with me.
Newhalf has always meant shemale. The whole point of it was to distinguish from futanari (which always refers to a feminine hermaphrodite). Dickgirl's a more flexible, casual term that could mean either.
 

Kesil

Well-Known Member
Aug 26, 2015
3,498
2,182
That's what I meant with "if people cause an outrage and...". I took for granted that people already knew that smut words used to describe entire races which are born that way=! real trans people who are sadly subjected to slurs and the ilk.
 
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Doodlecat

Well-Known Member
Dec 13, 2016
104
22
Argentina
I'd wish there were 10 more characters per location like Riya. (He/she is more or less like Liriel.)
Simple characters give more meaning to more developed characters.
It also helps to get certain statuses you might desire faster, and they give the option for something quick if you don't want to travel half way the space, walk around a planet, have a talk of 16 options just to get front/back bred.

In Riya's particular case, I dunno why his "racism" can be offensive, considering a racoon with a horse dick can buttdrill you telling you're a slut that doesn't deserves a vagina, just a filthy hole :p

(aside note: what I like of Riya is that, like Kaede, I'm not sure if it's a dickgirl, or a boobsguy. neither seems to have clear definition -which I'm glad-)
 

NotYouNorI

Well-Known Member
Aug 26, 2015
2,270
806
(aside note: what I like of Riya is that, like Kaede, I'm not sure if it's a dickgirl, or a boobsguy. neither seems to have clear definition -which I'm glad-)
Imagine a guy, a masculine guy. Now imagine boobs on him and I don't mean "oh look he's so fat that he has moobs". I mean a pair of tits in shape and size that you'd see on a female and don't change anything else. That's a "boobguy" or "bustyboy" as they are known.

Now imagine a woman be it a super model, your favorite actress or the hottie next door now imagine she has a penis between her legs instead of or in addition to (depends on who you ask) a pussy and change nothing else. That's a "dickgirl".

With that said, both Riya and Kaede look feminine and are referred to as "she" in the game. Therefore you treat them as such.
 
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Emerald

Well-Known Member
Jun 8, 2016
2,169
2,836
With that said, both Riya and Kaede look feminine and are referred to as "she" in the game. Therefore you treat them as such.
Not to mention Kaede's a MtF trans as said in both the wiki and her stories on the main fen site. It'd be really rude otherwise to call her anything but her preferred pronouns. She's moreso dickgirl/shemale than boobsguy given she looks like a GIRL in physical appearance, not a guy.
And newalf means 'half-male' and 'half-female'. I uh.. dunno how one would react to being called 'half' of something, I can certainly say it's not 'respectful' in the slightest. I'll stick to dickgirl and shemale since it's more straightforward porn terms for chicks-with-dicks.

Anyways, let's get back on topic. Niche characters? Well, people already write what appeals to them in the game, including some possibly really niche stuff. Riya, and Busky for ex. are characters that target a rather very specific set of players and PC prefs, so there are indeed stuff you can't get just by running around as a big tittied femherm 99.9% of the time. They're what I call 'niche', because their sexual preferences are a lot more stricter to where they target a smaller part of the audience as a whole than most of it.
 

Doodlecat

Well-Known Member
Dec 13, 2016
104
22
Argentina
Imagine a guy, a masculine guy. Now imagine boobs on him and I don't mean "oh look he's so fat that he has moobs". I mean a pair of tits in shape and size that you'd see on a female and don't change anything else. That's a "boobguy" or "bustyboy" as they are known.

Now imagine a woman be it a super model, your favorite actress or the hottie next door now imagine she has a penis between her legs instead of or in addition to (depends on who you ask) a pussy and change nothing else. That's a "dickgirl".

With that said, both Riya and Kaede look feminine and are referred to as "she" in the game. Therefore you treat them as such.

Ah, gotcha. *thumbs up*
(I know nothing of these specific terms, so I was trying to say something along the lines of Ted 2: "man, there's no chicks with dicks, there's guys with boobs!")
Well, what I mean is that I'm not sure if they were guys that TFed everything except their man parts to more feminine, or girls that only TFed their girl parts. (come to think of, Kaede says something like "I wanted to feel like a woman, what's between my legs don't matter"...)
 

NotYouNorI

Well-Known Member
Aug 26, 2015
2,270
806
Well, what I mean is that I'm not sure if they were guys that TFed everything except their man parts to more feminine, or girls that only TFed their girl parts. (come to think of, Kaede says something like "I wanted to feel like a woman, what's between my legs don't matter"...)

It doesn't matter how they came to such a state. As long as they satisfy the criteria of being feminine and referring to themselves as females but have a dick, the are "dickgirls" and therefore a "she".
 

General Drayfox

Well-Known Member
Nov 7, 2016
220
234
31
I've always hated the term 'shemale', but I hate the term 'tranny' even more, so at least we don't have that.
I know it's incorrect, but I use futa and dickgirl interchangeably for woman with a penis and no pussy meow, and Herm for, well, Herms!