I will actually be pissed if Balitz does what he specifically called out wanting to do, though. I'm fine with someone adding more sex scenes to Ceria, as Fen has in the past, if they fit her characterization and don't contradict her existing scenes re: boundaries.
Adding talk scenes, on the other hand, implies a desire to influence the character's personality, and Balitz has already indicated he doesn't grok Ceria as she is.
Abandonware characters are in a different position by virtue of being abandoned, but expansions that significantly affect their character or content in a way outside the original author's intent are still kind of a dick move.
Those are fair points, but I though that I covered them by mentioning authors making the decision based on the 'nature of the suggested content'. Probably should have worded it better.
However, I don't think that Balitz mentioned any details about what those scenes should be like, just that it'd be nice to have them accompany styling procedures; or that he stated any opinions on Ceria as a character, as opposed to her functionality as a part of the salon. The closet he came was denying that Ceria by herself can be enough of a reason for the player to repeatedly return to Sheer Beauty. But that seems to be a consistent position he holds about the value of NPC interactions when measured against the gameplay reasons to visit them.
Talk scenes are a whole different beast, though. Talk scenes mean expanding on an NPC's character. I mean, the vast majority of talk scenes in the game involve stuff like personal backstory, and they're universally characterized. Having someone else come in and write socialization scenes for someone else's character just isn't going to work unless the original author is involved to the point where they might as well write it themselves. In my case, the single instance of a "kind of" talk scene I attempted to write for another author's character made me realize just how much I'd prefer that they write it instead.
Even from a completely amiable and well-meaning standpoint, writing someone else's character a very difficult thing to do.
I'm not saying that it's a likely thing to happen, just that, AFAIK, for other authors it's a possibility they are ready to consider on a case by case basis.
The talk scenes that lay out more of the character's backstory, are supposed to be extremely significant to their arc, or just further their characterization are obviously the least likely candidates to be approved without some major edits, if at all.
On the other hand some mostly utilitarian things like that newest Lieve scene, or the idle chatter that is there just to make PC feel more like a real person, or to simply be funny and amusing - that's far more likely to get approved.
As I've said before, my aversion to the idea is not because I think everyone else is "shit" or that I'm so narcissistic to think that my characters would be just too fucking good for someone else to "dirty" with their own work, even though that's probably how it comes off.
No one around here had any reason to ever seriously entertain this idea. You have, on multiple occasions, clearly stated what are the reasons behind the hang-ups you have regarding other people writing for your characters.
The truth is just that it's my character, and, because of that, I'm the only one that really knows what they're like. You know Aislinn's backstory, how laughably overboard I went with her. Do you really think anyone else would be able to write her with that kind of understanding? Because I factored it into pretty much every element of her, right down to the etymology of her name and the reason she gets off on Steele smacking her ass.
And yeah, that was probably way too much personal investment for me to put into a character for a porn game that I don't own or work on in an official capacity, but it's a lesson learned. And that's why I'm not writing any more in-depth characters after Ash, because that's the only way I can do it.
The difficulty that stems from the amount of details in a character's background and characterization, even the ones that aren't publicly available, can still be overcome if the end result is considered worthy by both parties.
So IMO, it certainly has more to do with the amount of personal investment a particular author has into a particular character.
That would require for you to
lose that side of yourself, which certainly isn't the case.
hdear:
