Riya Possibilities

Honey

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I know a lot of people have been quite angry to see her there, and while I dislike her (a LOT), there's opportunities to be had here.

I personally would very much like a storyline where you could publicly humiliate her - particularly for smugglers, who seem to be dancing on the borders of legality and would have less respect for the UGC in the first place. Perhaps a storyline in which you trick her into stating her racist views while being recorded, and publicly broadcast that recording on well known and viewed channels - it would most likely spark a lot of anger in all the non-human members of the UGC, particularly ambassadors, and in anyone working with the UGC or being pressured to, especially on planets where the native races were already wary of the UGC. This could have several aftereffects - maybe some planets refusing to work with or accept the athourity of the UGC, or other issues.

The 'surface' effects of course would likely be Riya being stripped of her badge and booted out, possibly having to resort to serving the very races she has claimed hatreds towards in sexual ways to make a living, or even using some of the methods she was damning to completely change her appearance to escape constant maltreatment by those she's insulted, or even to escape being targeted by some of the races' more violent members who might see fit to remove her entirely once she is no longer under UGC protection. Of course she could end up as a janitor or other low-ranked worker doing menial labor, but given the game's sexual nature, I'd think a character they've bothered to name would have a different fate than that.

That could lead to several branching storylines having to do with the effects of faith or loyalty to the UGC being shaken on an interplanetary scale, and the PC either helping restore it or perhaps even driving a wedge further between the UGC and the planets it's taken charge of, or is attempting to control.

Some lighter possibilities with smaller effects could be tricking her into going into unsupervised territory and taking her out there, either killing her or selling/trading her to one of the races who might have a better use for her mouth than spewing bigoted rhetoric - or possibly tricking her into taking the Treatment, either on her own or slipping it into her after getting a few drinks or what have you into her, and of course turning her into a brainless bimbo cow, or a zap from Dr. Badger with roughly the same effects, turning her into a mindless sex machine that won't be any use as a UGC officer, and most likely wouldn't have interest in being an officer anymore (other than the 'super cute outfit') and would instead wind up being a breeder or sex toy for whoever.

Simply put, I think there's a lot of ways for her to come to a very satisfying conclusion - it's the characters you hate that you have the most fun watching fall flat on their asses, after all. If you liked everyone, there wouldn't be any competition, would there?
 

Woider

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Aug 26, 2015
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This sounds a little too ambitious, and probably way out of line with that the author wants for her (though Fen could technically write whatever he pleases for her.) As I believe Couch has mentioned before, she would work better if there was a greater focus on the domination and degradation aspect of her, rather than the "untouchable troll" part.

Also, since I can see you're new, I recommend reading Ted's stickied thread in the ideas section.
 

Noob Salad

Captain Shitpost
Aug 26, 2015
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Community banter or not, can off-topic swerves in submission subforums.
What's going on in that avatar?!
 

Couch

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Aug 26, 2015
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Riya's author has said multiple times that there is a resolution path already planned, even if it's not implemented at this exact moment. How about we leave it at that and give Franks a chance to finish his own character instead of having other people take it to a ridiculous extreme?

I agree with Fen that the very first thing she needs is at least one or two more sex scenes before any sort of other expansion content. Especially since according to what Franks has stated about the expansion and his attitude towards criticism in general, I'm not convinced it will be intended to satisfy anyone who dislikes the character.
 

Magic Ted

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Aug 26, 2015
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I don't think she needs one, on the flip side. Why give her some "conclusion," some method for you, the player, to combat and win over? The focus of the game isn't making the galaxy a better place by beating up bad people this ain't no Persona Five or whatev, it's adventure and an alleged race. There's going to be something negative in the game from time to time, we don't need a huge rallying cry to have some in game method of "fixing" it. There's a space racist space cop out there. Well, dang.
 

Woider

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Yeah, she needs the sex part more than the personal stuff. She doesn't tickle my pickle, but I get the distinct feeling that the people who like her like her because she's a very dominant haver-of-a-penis. And the previous comparisons to Sera weren't terribly off, either, just that the focus on Sera was more the sexual aspect, while for Riya it's more on her... inability to really be challenged. The former seems more targeted towards people that like that particular content, whilst the latter seems to directed more at the people that don't like that content.
 

Couch

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Aug 26, 2015
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To be clear, and I believe I've laid this out more than once now, my issue with Riya is not that she's a bad person or that she's a racist. I think having a racist be one of the first characters you can meet in the hub area is not a great idea, but it's not intrinsically terrible.

My issue with her is also not the fact that there's no way to get back at her. I have stated this before: you can't get back at Sera, who is similarly an asshole to the PC, and nobody complains about her.

My issue with Riya is, and has been from the very first post that I made about her, the way she's actively portrayed as untouchable. This was not self-defense: the scenes establishing her invincibility were not added after complaints about her, unless they were complaints that I was not privy to. They were added before, specifically with the aim of making players think they can do something and then trolling them. This is what I object to, and if it wasn't there I would have had nothing to say about Riya from the beginning.
 
F

Franks

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While I agree that Franks handled the initial criticisms leveled at Riya poorly in her submission thread, I don't think we have any right to push him in a specific direction regarding how to expand his own project. Especially when people are gnashing their teeth like this and talking about all the different ways we can ruin the character and shit all over Franks as an author. If I was in Franks' position, I'd be stressed and pressured to work really fucking fast before somebody else threw together some bullshit way to deal with her that makes everyone tent their pants and then winds up getting implemented. Especially after Fen's response to Franks in Riya's now-locked submission thread.

Everyone keeps talking about all these things that need to change about Riya, or horrible things they want to do to her out of a truly arrogant sense of entitlement, but the real problem is that Franks didn't have Riya's resolution path done before submitting her. She's simply not complete.

If players had a tangible way to deal with her, no one would have any right to complain about anything. I'm sure all the barely-suppressed psychotics in our audience would still be dreaming about fucking murdering her, but there's no helping them. Even if it's not completely satisfying, it would be something. Badger's punishment is pretty unsatisfying, too, but it's enough. Or it should be, at least.

Because seriously, she's just a racist cop. Yeah, that's a really unpleasant and very politically-charged (to the point where I'm surprised Fen accepted her...) character template, but she doesn't do anything that warrants what people are wanting to do to her. She's not Badger. She's not even Kelt. She doesn't actually do anything to the PC except insult them and act unprofessional.

As for sex scenes... Sure, she could use some more. I'm not saying that's a bad idea, but I don't think pushing Franks to write them helps anything right now.



Well... there's a lot of really terrible implications surrounding Riya and her position on Tavros. She makes the UGC look even worse than it already did, as well as stands to potentially sour the new-player experience by being one of the very first NPC's the player can encounter. And considering she reacts negatively to literally every single starting race except one, the odds are pretty good that she'll piss off a lot of people.

Plus, Franks was talking about writing a way to get her off Tavros pretty much since the beginning. It's not like people are pressuring the concept onto him. Honestly, people are pressuring him to not write it and write other things instead, which, as I said above, doesn't seem like it will help anything.

But I'm doing a fuckload of speaking on the author's behalf with this... @Franks , do you have anything to add here?
Simply that I'm working on sex scenes before anything else as Fenoxo requested, and that Misty seems to have perfectly predicted that there would be childish attempts to take control of my character and implement a mindrape scenario I have no intention of adding on my own.

So, for probably the 30th time to date; I will add a way to remove Riya from Tavros. I am working more sex scenes before that, as Fenoxo requested.
 

Nonesuch

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Aug 27, 2015
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Unless my memory is failing me, building characters in chunks is exactly what we recommend doing.

Can't 'this' this enough.

Franks tried to create a much more expansive character to begin with in Jane and didn't manage it. Instead of just giving up altogether, he opted to make a much more streamlined character with the bare essentials in place, who could be added onto in a similarly modular fashion. Whilst a less provocative character would've been wise and it could've been done better, this is exactly the method we should be encouraging new writers to use. Particularly now the coding pipeline has become faster and bite-sized pieces of content can be implemented easily.
 
F

Franks

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Can't 'this' this enough.

Franks tried to create a much more expansive character to begin with in Jane and didn't manage it. Instead of just giving up altogether, he opted to make a much more streamlined character with the bare essentials in place, who could be added onto in a similarly modular fashion. Whilst a less provocative character would've been wise and it could've been done better, this is exactly the method we should be encouraging new writers to use. Particularly now the coding pipeline has become faster and bite-sized pieces of content can be implemented easily.

I'm going to say that in hindsight, Riya probably should have stayed in a gdoc that only me, Savin and other staff members knew about(Because I asked Savin and Adjatha to review it before I submitted the thread) until I added a way to remove her from Tavros/the Peacekeeper Corps, however long that took.

I have no plans as of now to bimbofy her. Bimbofication has never been a big interest of mine. I may add a Treated path eventually, though.
 
F

Franks

Guest
I would say that would have been a better way to go about it, too, but it's a lesson learned.

Something else that could have been done is making sure Fen knew/put a notice in the patch notes that you were planning on writing said resolution in the first place. Because it would have been very easy to staple that notice to the little blurb he mentioned Riya in. It might have turned a lot of the "Holy shit who is this racist bitch I want to fucking kill her!!" comments into "I can't wait to be able to really get back at her..."

But maybe not. I dunno. Either way, just keep plugging away at her. :)

Those comments were going to come no matter what I did. It just would have been mitigated if I'd made her more complete before submitting her.

And @Woider yes, most likely.
 
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Coalsack

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Aug 28, 2015
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When the option for arresting Badger came out, it was satisfying enough for me, until then, I simply ignored her.

The same thing applies here. Unlike those that want a bit more...extreme resolution for the mentioned woman, something simple, as her removal due a massive amount of denounces, or a public chastisement, to give some examples, should be more than enough for most of us that don't care too much about her.
 

MilitaryAaa

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Aug 30, 2015
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I put my initial thoughts on the public build comments section but thought I could add something to this when I saw it.

Riya was honestly overall meh in my opinion. I couldn't build myself up into a whirlwind of anger and wounded ego nor could I actually enjoy what she has to offer. When I first heard about her and the out cries that came along with it, all I could think was "oh boy this is gonna be interesting to read." And then I met her... all expectations were quickly dashed away.

I was mostly fine with her invincible
attitude because it's like that in games sometimes where the player can't do anything against x or y. I can understand why people would get mad about this because games are almost always there to provide escapism for the player and a sense of control that other wise is sometimes hard to come by in reality, so being told no can irk some. But for me eh, she is such a tiny tiny part of the overall game. It will have no effect on me what so ever.

Though I do find Riya's placement and almost paranoid outlook in Travos station to be odd, it's always said she's tense, searching the crowds, very weary, and ready to use force at a moment's notice. There's no way this place could be that bad that could warrant such an outlook. I mean has there ever been any mention of any danger on the station? So it really just makes her look paranoid. If placed in a more dangerous area I could understand that view of possible danger, but for now I'm in the opinion she needs to chill.

As for her racism I've seen it in other things like star wars, the empire was partly racist. They believed in human superiority and could actually back up the claim because they had an empire run almost solely by humans. So while her racism is no skin off my back, the lack of a reason why she thinks humans are better is something I hope gets addressed.

Now for the sex scene that was very disappointing, I was excited when she talked about what she thought the other races were good for. So when I decided to take her up on the offer I thought it was going to be a degrading humiliating experience... boy I was wrong. She called me mutt, being half asur, and that's it. I was hoping she'd pick out the non-human parts in her dialogue and make fun of them, she'd try to make the player bark or moo or whatever depending what the player was, make them actually believe for a second she might have a point, use stereotypes like suggest the two do it doggie style for the player to feel 'more comfortable' stuff like that. This is the part I want to be read the most, her attitude didn't feel like it was apart of the sex. Like there's racist Riya the officer and then there's dom Riya doesn't feel that different from other generic doms in the game.

Again I can only voice my thoughts on what's there, and when more content comes out I might change my opinion. But I can't get mad or happy at her right now.
 
F

Franks

Guest
The sex scenes are something I really do think I need to improve, as far as raceplay goes.
 

Nik_van_Rijn

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Sep 10, 2015
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First, I'll do my civil duty and post these two links, even though the latter kinda got mentioned:
https://forum.fenoxo.com/threads/what-the-idea-subforum-is-for.4983/
https://forum.fenoxo.com/threads/i-have-an-idea-stop-read-this-first.91/

Now, to state my oh so important personal opinion on Riya:
My headcanon revolving around her just taking a piss without actually holding any of those views allows me to just disregard her racism and treat her like any other abrasive dommy female in the game. It also allows me to completely look past any deeper lore implications by assuming that she picks on Steele Jr. specifically, with a perfect understanding of who they are.

I'm surprised that nobody has brought up Zephyr, who is a much closer example of what Riya currently is: a dommy, butch talking head of a lady that is rude to the player and that they can have subby sex with if they care put up with her shit - or actually love the whole experience.

My issue with Riya is, and has been from the very first post that I made about her, the way she's actively portrayed as untouchable. This was not self-defense: the scenes establishing her invincibility were not added after complaints about her, unless they were complaints that I was not privy to. They were added before, specifically with the aim of making players think they can do something and then trolling them. This is what I object to, and if it wasn't there I would have had nothing to say about Riya from the beginning.
I maight have just missed it happening, but why do you think people had no problem with Zephyr having a confrontation scene that goes exactly like one of Riya's doomed to fail retaliation scenarios? Only it makes even less sense, since instead of featuring an ex-SpecOps that you can still get if you are fast enough, it has your character back down from the threat of a simple sidearm. Throughout that whole scene I was thinking, "Bitch, please, my shield belt is powerful enough to stop freaking machine gun fire".

So if anything, only going through Riya's superiors comes across as a trap option; but if Frank's planned route for removing her will build up on that scene, then it will become a necessary unsuccessful first attempt before you can use the information you've got from it to solve the issue.
I don't like them either, but they exist. If there was a real means of dealing with her, though, they might serve to make said resolution more satisfying. Being able to eventually win against her despite the seeming impossibility of the task will make it more meaningful. Riya obviously thinks she's completely invincible, but Franks has been talking about adding a route where she's not since day one. Demonstrating to players just how guarded she is, and how difficult it will be to mess with her, does have some merit in terms of adding depth to the conflict she presents.

Right now at this exact moment, I think all of that makes Riya worse than she needs to be. But it stands to potentially make her a better character in the long run.
I dunno how many players will feel that way after they'll engage the finished version of Riya separately from any surrounding drama, which I hope will die down by that point. Still, it might be a considerable amount.

I mean, to some, as stated on multiple occasions by @balitz Method and here by Ted, even the forever untouchable minor antagonistic or assholish NPC can be something desirable, at the very least in terms of the supposed change of pace they provide. Even though TiTS ihas no shortage of characters like that, from Dr. Haswell and Kat , who both actively participate in horrible crimes, to Merchant Queen and Zepth, who mock and taunt the player.

So with the proper resolution in place, it'll be a win-win.
 
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Couch

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Aug 26, 2015
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I may have just missed it happening, but why do you think people had no problem with Zephyr having a confrontation scene that goes exactly like one of Riya's doomed to fail retaliation scenarios?

I cannot find the scene in question by going up to Zephyr and talking to her, so I assume it's somewhat deep into her content, which I wasn't even aware had depth. Zephyr also draws undue lionization in the minds of some of the audience by dint of being against the male-dominated order of New Texas, which is itself historically contentious. See the numerous threads we've had where people said they wanted to flip the Treatment to make it produce amazons and faux-cows as if that would fix the planet's issues. In short, her unusual position has caused many people to overlook her flaws.

Again, that's if they even found the scene, because I can't find it and I don't see anything about it on the wiki.

Regardless, Franks will have ample time and opportunity to finish Riya to his liking, and if the outcome proves satisfying to those that dislike the character then there won't be any problems in the long run. I remain skeptical that this will be the case, but he has every opportunity to prove me wrong.
 
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balitz Method

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Aug 13, 2016
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I don't think she needs one, on the flip side. Why give her some "conclusion," some method for you, the player, to combat and win over? The focus of the game isn't making the galaxy a better place by beating up bad people this ain't no Persona Five or whatev, it's adventure and an alleged race. There's going to be something negative in the game from time to time, we don't need a huge rallying cry to have some in game method of "fixing" it. There's a space racist space cop out there. Well, dang.
Exactly. It's perfectly fine to have some bad people out there and it's also perfectly fine for them to be immune from psycho revenge murderboners and hero fantasies of "fixing" every person whose behavior players don't agree with.

Honestly it'd make the game more immersive if there was more bad stuff in it just because the setting, according to the lore, isn't really supposed to be some inclusive utopian wonderland. It's a corporate dystopia. Things are supposed to be kind of shitty out there but players almost don't want to allow that with the pushback toward anything that might show it.
 

NotYouNorI

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Aug 26, 2015
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For fucks sake, people!
There are more people complaining about people wanting "justice" against officer Riya than there are actual demands for "justice!"
And there are even more statements from people that they are alright with her being rude and racist.

So where do you people see these droves of murderboners and white knights trying to fix everything?
 
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Kesil

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Aug 26, 2015
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Seeing how I can't have access to her smut contens with my current Steele, I'd just like to know who exactly are the friends in high places protecting Riya and her Ms. Cartoony Trolololol attitude. Perhaps having a quest that revolves about that could be too ambitious, but it'd be something interesting to see. With a writing that doesn't assume what Steele is saying or thinking all the time, please. I think there were problems about this back when the character was being created, so I am confident it'll be a matter of time and writing honing until Franks finetunes this issue!
 
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Franks

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Seeing how I can't have access to her smut contens with my current Steele, I'd just like to know who exactly are the friends in high places protecting Riya and her Ms. Cartoony Trolololol attitude. Perhaps having a quest that revolves about that could be too ambitious, but it'd be something interesting to see. With a writing that doesn't assume what Steele is saying or thinking all the time, please. I think there were problems about this back when the character was being created, so I am confident it'll be a matter of time and writing honing until Franks finetunes this issue!

Right now it's very vague. Safe to assume that someone whose life she saved years back got promoted, while Riya(Largely thanks to her welcoming attitude) stayed a Lieutenant.
 

Noob Salad

Captain Shitpost
Aug 26, 2015
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2vague4now

pls w8
 

Noob Salad

Captain Shitpost
Aug 26, 2015
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I've already written my Riya&Jill "Villain of the Day" Episode for TiTS.

gr8 b8 m8 i r8 it 8/88
Nigga I was talking to Kesil, also give me more points.