No, we need to hold L&P's feet the fire on this one. Every time we (and I include myself in this) have made excuses for him, we have enabled him to put out an unsatisfactory update.
This update isn't "slow pace", it is as close to "no pace" as we can get. L&P took 100 days to move the story millimeters, not even inches. Anyone who follows this game knew the outline of this update, so I don't think any had unrealistic expectations. But that doesn't mean the story can't advance- that Sophia's characterization can't advance- more than a few millimeters.
Let's look at the sauna scene because I think everyone agrees that it is a huge wasted opportunity.
Putting aside for a second the lack of sexual content in this scene, let's just focus on the narrative progression. Since this is the first time we've interacted with DeShawn, it would be great to interact with him and see how he and Sophia relate; but instead we get boring exposition.
"And this is also what they did and got to know each other better.
Especially Sophia and DeShawn, who had a lot in common such as their enthusiasm for sports. They got along pretty well.
He told Sophia about his success in college with the basketball team, whereas Sophia revealed to him that she also played basketball in college and that she wasn't even that bad (Emphasis mine, but WTF???? Wasn't even that bad? What kind of back handed insult is this?)
But since women don't really earn much from it, she just studied sports and after her time as a lecturer, she decided to become a high school teacher.
In fact, Sophia found him very likable. And so they kept chatting about basketball and workouts, whereas Vicky, of course, also wasn't ignored."
What the hell is this writing? This is boring by every definition. This is a visual medium, the motto "show, don't tell" exists for a reason. Instead, we get 5 poorly written lines across 1 static image telling us about the conversation that we're supposed to be a part of. This is lazy in the worst possible way. This conversation should have been fluid, showing the three of them engaging in an interesting conversation and enjoying one another. Instead, we're told that they had a conversation, and that Sophia enjoyed it, but we don't actually get to see the conversation or experience it. This is an absolute master class in things you should not do when trying to tell a story. We get no sense of DeShawn as a character with this boring exposition. We don't even get any sense of Vicky as she is only referenced awkwardly in the last line "Whereas Vicky, of course, also wasn't ignored." Like, what the fuck is that?
Then, immediately following this exciting exchange, we get 16 consecutive frames of dialog that transition between the same two images. The images never change, the camera just transitions back and forth looking at DeShawn or Sophia. Here we get some actual conversation between the two of them...and it's boring. They're reciting facts to each other, but not really having an entertaining conversation. Sophia tells DeShawn about herself, sharing facts with him that we as the audience already know and don't need to hear again. Yes, she's a teacher. Yes, she's married. Yes, she has kids. Yes, her husband works in the fashion industry. Yes, she's only working part-time right now. We learn nothing about Sophia in this exchange. We could have learned more about Sophia in the previous exchange about sports, but L&P decided to skip over that so that he could show her repeating facts to us that we already know. All of this requires 16 clicks of the mouse to get through. 16 clicks between two images. It's boring, uninspired, and lazy.
And what happens when we get to the sexual content of this scene? From the beginning when you select "Stay and watch them a little bit" to the end when you select "Call attention to yourself", there are 5 frames of content, only 2 of which show any sexual content. The other three are the same image of Sophia at two different angles. We just spent 16 frames going over the same old boring details about Sophia that were established way back on Day 1, but when we get to the show L&P can't be bothered to create more than 2 new renders and only 5 total frames?
From top to bottom, this scene is a fucking disaster. We can like slow burns, but this can't even be considered a burn because there's no heat.
