so I was wondering about a what-if scenario here, L&P and most developers (myself included) develop in a linear way but what if Sophia's interaction with one character only was developed fully first?
not an easy task but not impossible to do, remember Summertime Saga used to develop this way.
I don't mean main characters like Dylan, Ellie or Liam, I mean Sam, Aiden, Julie, Emma, side jobs etc.
So every update would be on side job students until as far as it can go, or finished
Then say everything with Julia.
Then everything with the old guy's side job
Then everything with Patricia
Then everything with Aiden
Ignore the order above, it's just an example but something like that. The AWAM story would need to be fully written out which I believe it is. Therefore, you start developing Sophia's interaction scenes with characters who have the least amount of interaction with her, then build up to Ellie, Dylan and then Liam.
This way people see a conclusion to some things, instead of waiting years and years. Although I still say, once it does finally happen it's going to snowball every update and should be great.
The only problem I can see is maybe spoiling some things in future with Ellie and Dylan, but as you have the story fully mapped out, you can prevent that and stop there with that character, then move on to the next character.
What if AWAM was developed as described above, would you prefer that? would it be better? would the complaints in here be less? would complaints be different?