In Chapter 8, if you turned down Brittani in the loft, and were nice during the photo shoot, she's happier to see you, less nervous, etc. and she flirts a bit by showing off her work uniform.
Is it a lot? No. But, it's appreciably different than if you were more aggressive with her, and it hints that she'll be warmer to you. You know, like you may want in a romantic relationship. But, she's also not super cold to you if you did take her up on her offer. She just clearly feels a bit awkward about it.
I'm just going to skip over complaints about certain girls getting an outsized amount of time, because here's some other characters that have gotten the same complaint: Nicki, Ashe, Gabby, Viola, Pepper, Risa, Carolina, Madison, and actually literally every character in the game.
As for
lol at the shop content, that was a late, unplanned addition in order to give Brittani fans a little content, since we hadn't seen her in a little while, and I figured I could tee up her next appearance. It's not uncommon for me to be working through an update only to realize, "Hey, this character would fit in really well, here.." and then I end up writing and rendering an extra scene. It happened in Chapter 6 with Mason, Chapter 7 with Risa, Chapter 8 with Brittani, and Chapter 9 with Pepper. Then, the schedule slips. But, I don't add these scenes, without thinking they'll benefit the story as a whole.
And it seems like that 'story as a whole' idea is something people keep having trouble with. Things happen in the story.. Because the story needs those things to happen. Risa was, initially, just planned as a foil to Carolina. Fun and free-spirited, to Carolina's uptight and rigid. Then, I realized she could work as a viewpoint character into some of the shady things MC keeps brushing up against. So, she took on some more screentime, to move the plot forward in a more interesting way.
Other characters who were never planned for, but wound up being pretty important: Ashe, Carolina, Brittani, Pepper, Viola, Wren..
I mean, I'm not really sure what to say here.
It's a story. Characters show up when they have something to do, and they're not around when they don't. When they
don't have interesting things to do, someone else gets center stage for a bit. I just don't get it, honestly. Do people get mad when they're reading A Storm of Swords and they get to a character POV they dislike?
"UGH, FUCK! Fucking
Tarly. I'll just skip this one and go to the next Tyrion chapter -- such bullshit!"
I mean, do you want to go check in with Gabby? Okay.
- mc"Hey Gabby, how are you?"
- gb"Still mad at you. I'm waiting for a major plot development to occur, which will allow me to forgive you."
- mc"Oh, cool. I bet we'll do that when I see you in Chapter 10."
- gb"Bet."
Oh, here's Brittani.
- mc"Brittani, what's up?"
- bri"Uh, I just saw you today. I'm currently at work. I assume I'll see you tomorrow, or the next day? To audition for the part? But, it'd be helpful if you knew anyone with a Slavic accent to help me with the role."
- mc"Wow! Shockingly, I do! I'll just need to see her in Chapter 10, to tee that up."
- bri"Great, see you after that."
Now, for people who want to complain about the schedule, et al. -- go look at the date this thread launched. March 30th, a bit over two years ago.
Since then I've done: 8,687 images, eight full chapters, a Halloween update, and an April Fool's update. Oh, and I did The Student Loan during that time, which had another 189 images. All of which needed to be written, coded, and playtested, by someone who didn't know how to code or use Daz, before starting this. Add to that juggling my community, trying to navigate through the changing whims of payment processors, having a life, and working my real job, and I think I'm doing okay.
I'm not going to sit here and defend my work ethic, because quite frankly it speaks for itself. I don't like to compare myself to other devs, but there are teams of two or three devs, people who do this for an actual living, who don't put out as much work as I do by myself.
And despite this, I get to deal with people telling me, literally since Chapter One, that the plot branches have clearly spun out of control, and I'll never be able to manage it. Yet somehow I'm still here, putting out releases every four months, and moving the story forward. Two years in! There are TV shows that run for five, six, seven years or more. Fuck, Spider-Man's been published since the 60s.
It's serial storytelling. It takes time.
If you feel you can do better, I make all the Daz files for my characters available in the fanart thread. Have at it! I look forward to playing your much better game.
