Let me assure you that, as someone who spent over 20 years of his adult life programming, it is not "an easy way around it".
EVERY time Mason has interactions with other characters, not just the MC, at the very least, code would have to be created to exclude him from the scene. If renders are necessary (as they usually are), a second set of renders would be required to handle the dislike of Mason.
I'm sure there are more problems involved, it has been almost 20 more years since I last looked at code. HEY, maybe we could have an "exclude Mason patch" similar to the existing exclude Nicki patch! I hope everyone understands that this patch proposal is just a joke.
EDIT: added the missing word programming ... oops
Yeahhhh.. I mean look, I get why people may not want to interact with
any character. Some people are going to be salty because the next update is
so Ashe heavy, I'm sure. But, the 'friendship' paths for each character are basically the best way to minimize contact with them. Look at MC's friendship with Gabby -- she's basically just a girl you see every now and then, who was mildly irritated when she felt like you'd hidden things from her. If you keep Mason purely as a friend/ward, you can expect something similar. He'll just be this dude you're letting crash at your spare place, until he's back on his feet.
Even just writing around a character, unless absolutely necessary, brings with it certain issues. Just as a for-instance, here's a scenario that we'll see in a few updates.
MC's going to take Mason to get glasses. So, he'll visit the studio and find Mason in one of three basic states -- friendly and chilling, nervous and chilling, or amorous and eagerly anticipating MC's return. So, there's three dialogue and image sets, right off the bat.
Now, I could write an option for MC to simply delegate the responsibility to Nicki. But, then I have to write around Nicki's attitude towards MC. Friend, romantic interest, submissive, or angry due to the way the last interaction with her played out? Would she come home and say, "Hey, Mason told me he blew you?!" How does that affect her on her various routes? More options, more fallout.
And since Mason's eyeglass errand likely won't just be entirely glossed over, I have to plan for future paths that do or don't refer back to anything that happened during said errand. If you stop off at The Posh Pit or The Lawful Waffle and encounter Pepper or Viola while you're with Mason, that's multiple sets of renders/choices. And if I don't want to deprive players who don't like Mason of content, then I have to do another set, where MC is alone.
On and on it goes, and soon it's a decade later and FiN still isn't complete. :'D
That said? Things change, and I've already said some characters will move in or out of the story as necessary. Eventually, once FiN is finally done, I'd like to go back and tinker with even more story branches, adding more options, and more customization. But for now, friend-zoning Mason will cut down on his appearances quite a bit. But, as long as I'm serializing the story, keeping it mostly linear is the best way to keep things on track, and moving along.
Does anyone know when approximately the next update will be? Will it be this week or next week?
I rendered another 40 images to the game yesterday, and all I can say is it's getting there. I don't want to do what I usually do, and say, "Alright, it'll be out Friday!" and then Friday comes and I'm stuck in my chair for 16 hours trying to rush it to completion. But I won't lie, this chapter kinda whipped my ass. It's my fault, I could've simplified and streamlined things. There are like, 7-8 sex scenes with Ashe in this chapter. Lots of potential divergences. Lots of options. It all just kinda got away from me. But, I'm rendering the last few scenes I need, and it's almost ready for Beta.
