then also continuously having dark content
This, from the person who wanted to write an edgy Undertale Genocide Run-styled alternate path for the game?
If "I feel bad for balak" or "that's too much work" are going to become ever more commonplace it'd be nice to hire more staff, or reduce the scale of content ahead of time instead of adding more npcs or zones that become abandoned or "too much work" unless volunteers write.
Stuff gets written as the full-time staff has the time and interest, or as community writers contribute. One of the things the content submission policies (stated or unstated) have done is to try to ensure that what gets into the game from community writers has enough content that if for some reason they don't write anything further, the character still feels sufficiently complete. Take strawberry_tea's characters for example. It would have been awesome if they had more content (and someone could still pick them up if they wanted) but Clementine and Valencia have enough to them that they don't feel like dead ends as they were left. This doesn't always work out, but it seems to have done a generally good job cutting down on the one-trick characters.
Also, based on what's been said several of the zones that appear 'abandoned' had non-staff writers who were supposed to contribute more and then ghosted, or they have plans for more content and it just hasn't been a
priority. Until the game is done, we can't really say what is or isn't going to be left hanging content-wise. For example, we know Tychris is coming but the time hasn't arrived yet and Carmen's planned content is back-burnered but not abandoned.
The fact that community writers
can contribute is, I think, one of the big strengths of the game. Consider for example how much more of a sense we have for the Winter City due to Alypia writing all of those Ryn dates, And personally, I'd rather the devs write all the content they want to and fill in cracks later than either force themselves to write a zone to completion if they're not feeling it (or if there are behind the scenes reasons not to) or to hold back on things they
do want to work on in order to 'balance out' the zones.
Some characters are changed drastically like etheryn
Changed in what way, aside from her sliding Confidence and Libido scales which were always part of her concept?
left in a corner like shar
That was partially because Savin didn't think three companions was hubris enough at the start and started planning her as a fourth, before realizing that
really wasn't going to work. We know
there are plans for her but they're not at the top of the priority list.
