VN Ren'Py Where It All Began [Ch. 3 Full] [Oceanlab]

[KhamulTG81]

I don't think 3-4 months per update he had quoted at some point will ever be realistic for either of these 2 games.

That's simply not the case. If funds are available, bottlenecks are going to be resolved and work schedule will be optimized. If Ocean is serious about beeing a developer, and I think he absolutely is, he will act accordingly. Quality makes the difference. Steam will make a difference... For now he will have to make sure to invest in whatever he needs to invest to optimize efficiency and time spend on different tasks. As far as I know, he tries to do so.

A lot of devs are unreliable and greedy, it's one of the many cancers in this industry. Some will abandon ship if they get what they want or straight up scam their supporters. But if you have your work ethics straight you can accomplish anything!

Ocean wants to develop a lot of games in a shared universe and, I would assume, within a reasonable timeframe, so he has to optimize wherever optimization is required. For the future, this includes hiring people to split workload, maybe using render farms, specialized software and so on.

Also, the importance of being trusted is a key factor for him. If he can't accomplish that, his dreams will burn to the ground.

 

[CranberryJuice26]

I've recently played WIAB for the first time. It clearly isn't of the same caliber as Summer's Gone before the rework, and even the writing is less catchy than SG. But I liked it nonetheless, Leia, Katie and Dana are great girlfriend material and I'd be very happy to see more of them.

The problem is that even SG, the game that is updated the most frequently and could be called the "main game" at this point, will never get finished at this rate. 2.5 chapters released in the 2.25 years since the release of the first chapter of SG. And no update to WIAB for more than a year (and chapter 7 a very long way off). Target: 30 chapters each. So we are currently set for the completion of SG in 2046. The pace of delivery is way too slow for its ambitious scope. 1 full chapter every 3 months would already take almost 7 more years to finish the game, which is extremely long (too long) for a videogame development, and currently we are on a quarter of that pace, so well below that. And I'm not even going to do any calculation for WIAB.

And how many quality upgrades from technology (like Daz) will there be in 7 years prompting the rework of the previous chapters? A serious amount. There is a reason videogame projects are 3-5 years long at the most: they get outdated while in development (among other concerns).

I would expect measures to be taken to make it a more realistic project but so far I have the impression the problem is not seriously acknowledged. Some things could be done though. Either to increase the delivery output, or to lower the targeted scope. Pack SG/WIAB in 20 chapters instead of 30 and the finish line gets a lot closer. Hire another artist immediately and you can practically double the pace. But I wouldn't hold my breath about that, I've seen other artists in the same situation have impossible expectations of other artists that they should be able to have the exact same style as they have, so they never hire anyone. Also I believe Ocean plans on waiting until the switch to Blender after the first season (aka episode 10), so that is still in 6.5 years at the current pace, as if this is not an urgent thing to do.

Even with the optimistic outcome of those two measures, SG (the more frequently updated game) would be finished for Christmas 2029 if we take into account the current speed of development. So they're not enough.
I do think Ocean should put WIAB on hold. We're going through a 6-chapter rework, and apparently we are only going to see the first chapter rework after more than a year of waiting. There is just too much to catch up on before we see new content, and while WIAB is a very enjoyable game (and I would especially miss Leia), I find SG is superior. And whatever you think, everybody loses if no game gets completed. So put it on hold and use the second machine to produce animations (or other renders in parallel) for SG, speeding up the development some more.
Then maybe the quality target could be lowered a little. Maybe we can decrease a bit the amount and/or length of the animations as they take a long time to produce. But most importantly, being a perfectionist is the death of any such project. And for crying out loud, stop the reworks of earlier chapters until you have completed the game else in a couple of years there will be more things that will need a rework, and it slows everything down to a halt.

So some things that could be done to give us more frequent updates and finish SG in a reasonable amount of time, then pick up WIAB with a much better update pace. Releasing frequent updates will also certainly mean a greater interest from the audience and a much larger number of paying supporters, which on top of being worth it for Ocean would allow him to upgrade his hardware further and potentially hiring more help. It is the only viable way forward I can see, but it needs acknowledgement, and actions. If we continue contently like this, those games will become a meme of never getting completed and will eventually die out well before their planned end. And that would be a shame because they have unrivaled potential.


PS: I've been holding back this post for weeks as I did not want to risk offending Ocean. He is a great artist and I respect his work. But I had to say what's on my mind out of concern for the future of his games, I believe we're headed steadily to the wall and it urgently needs a course correction.

Only thing we can do is wait. He's already made it clear he's not abandoning WIAB, in fact, he just got a 3090 for the PC last week, he has 2 PC's for a reason, so obviously he's not gonna leave either game. He has a dev log coming soon, so we'll have to see what he's planning.

 

[albul]

That's simply not the case. If funds are available, bottlenecks are going to be resolved and work schedule will be optimized. If Ocean is serious about beeing a developer, and I think he absolutely is, he will act accordingly. Quality makes the difference. Steam will make a difference... For now he will have to make sure to invest in whatever he needs to invest to optimize efficiency and time spend on different tasks. As far as I know, he tries to do so.

A lot of devs are unreliable and greedy, it's one of the many cancers in this industry. Some will abandon ship if they get what they want or straight up scam their supporters. But if you have your work ethics straight you can accomplish anything!

Ocean wants to develop a lot of games in a shared universe and, I would assume, within a reasonable timeframe, so he has to optimize wherever optimization is required. For the future, this includes hiring people to split workload, maybe using render farms, specialized software and so on.

Also, the importance of being trusted is a key factor for him. If he can't accomplish that, his dreams will burn to the ground.

I wasn't saying he was trying to scam or milk, or whatever, I was just managing (my) expectations. But I was also have been seeing all the justifications you mention multiple times in this thread. It's been what, 8 months, since the dedicated rigs came into effect for the two games, and it doesn't look like they helped much with the progress. Unless (or until?) he hires some people to help with the two projects, I don't think it will be feasible to have consistent progress with both of them. He's still one dude, and rendering is only a part of the process of building the game.

How exactly can he optimize his work schedule more, resolve bottlenecks and optimize efficiency? All this sounds like a bunch of statements from a board meeting that basically means nothing. Until we see they have any sort of tangible effects, that's just marketing speak.

Just to make it clear again, I'm not trying to bash the dev, I'm just managing my own expectations on what will come of these two games. If you think we'll get to more frequent updates soon, more power to you, but I wouldn't hold my breath for it.

 

[KhamulTG81]

I don't think 3-4 months per update he had quoted at some point will ever be realistic for either of these 2 games.

You shouldn't use the word "ever".

How exactly can he optimize his work schedule more, resolve bottlenecks and optimize efficiency? All this sounds like a bunch of statements from a board meeting that basically means nothing.

Resolving bottlenecks is one of the key aspects within a software development process. Within a large project, there will be bottlenecks... always... For example in VN developement, based on complexity of the scene, you need software knowledge, hardware efficacy among other things just to have a decent time efficiency. One dev needs one week and another dev maybe 2 months for a static amount of renders of the same quality. Same goes for scripting within Blender/Daz or Programming in general. Pick your poison.

Until we see they have any sort of tangible effects, that's just marketing speak.

Ocean himself is the first one who will notice tangible effects within the developement cicle of his games. And he stated multiple times that he is adapting to the circumstances of managing the developement of two games in alternation. I believe he is capable of doing so.
Anyone can judge him of course, but I also believe someone should only do this with a high level of insight into his circumstances surrounding and within the project limits.

And believe me, "marketing speak" sounds and writes a little different.

 

[Ayhsel]

Actually, when it comes to taxation, the received "donations" qualify as sales, so I presume that under German law his Patreons would be considered customers. In this case it would most likely be treated as a service provided by Ocean to his Patreons. Patreon actually helps creators with their tax filing because these "donations" do not qualify as donations, and not just in Germany.



That's not how laws work. Patreon is not in charge of those.


Other than that, I really think it is a good decision to overhaul the game, based on what I've seen.

It is irrelevant what they are considered as sales for taxation purposes. What is that he is selling by being a member of patreon? a game? images? post telling you how much he is working in the game? I am confident in many countries you pay taxes on your donations. Pretty sure a waitress in US must include tips as part of their income. The point is that when you subscribe to patreon you are not buying a game in the traditional sense, as steam.

So the point you are trying to make is moot. Patreon member must pay given what they earn, but they are not selling a good in the traditional sense. They are selling their time and effort or whatever you want it to be. Not updates or games themselves.

If anything, think about patreon as netflix. You pay a subscription for access to media: his posts. What the post include is the content, what would be the movies in netflix. How often those are updates of whether they are good or not are not in the contract itself, at least not with patreon. But unless they offer content, no reason to pay for the access.

 

[Euron13]

Well, he’s certainly not selling a game and the posts telling you how much he’s working on the game have been scant lately.

 

[Ayhsel]

That's what I was talking about when I talked about him providing a service. You're also a consumer when it comes to your internet provider, who also does not sell you a good in the traditional sense, but a service. On a monthly basis. With the possibility of subscribing to different "tiers". Which provide different services. Similar to a creator's Patreon.

Haha that is funny, I was just writing the same in my previous post. But I used netflix, as I think it is clearer as an example.

 

[Ayhsel]

Damn, you ninja-edited me. XD
Seems like we mostly agree then, no? He provides a service, and anyone who pays him for those services would be a consumer. Theoretically. Pretty sure there is no case-law on point.

Exactly. it is not specified what he should provide in that service, except access to the posts. But it is neither specified what it should be in the post or how often they should be released.

In fact, I am confident you could write a patreon with no rewards. No post or anything. An actual charity or tip char. You would pay taxes on those, but there is no specified product.

Why do we give waitress taxes? For their service. What did the service provide? Bringing food sure. Being nice? Sure. Politeness? A blowjob under the table? I wish. Point is without an actual point by point rules of transaction, patreon is nothing more than a charity, given some task you say that you do. No proof. If people magically trust you, you are golden.

 

[jamdan]

The only reason the games have separate patreon pages is because SG used to be developed by his friend, who I believe is still the thread owner. But Ocean didn't like the quality so he kicked his friend out and took over production himself.

As for the bottleneck and update frequency debate. I stand by what I said a few pages ago. I don't think it matters what equipment Ocean has. Or what he uses for renders ( Blender, Daz, Octane etc). If he gets better equipment, he'll just do more stuff. Cinematics. More animations. Rework more stuff and make the new stuff even more complex. He can't help himself.

That also means it doesn't matter how much money he makes from the games. He isn't going to hire someone else to help him in any meaningful way. Nobody can be up to his quality. So the only way more money will help him is he has enough to build a rendering computer army. Not 2 computers. Not 3 computers. He'll need multiple computers for each game to keep up with his never dying lust for the highest quality stuff possible. Either that, or use one of those online render farm services. Which is probably even more expensive at this scale.

Not to mention that if he did manage to build an army of PC's...these games are both supposed to be 30 chapters long. Not 30 days. Not a few weeks. 30 chapters. And each chapter will contain 2k + renders, hundreds of animations, cinematics and so on. Hell, it's pretty much like BaDIK except like twice as long. And he's trying to make 2 of them. I don't see how it's possible.

 

[Connoisseur]

well this game and summer gone has been a good case study example for devs, wanna be devs. know your limit, having ambition and standard on your art is perfectly normal and understandable, but if those things get in the way of ever finishing it maybe you should re-think those ambition and standard. especially if there are people supporting you on you progress (be it financially or through other mean) as you have a direct and indirect responsibility to those people.

As for those thinking of continuing supporting artist who rarely put up anything to prove he's working on what he said he's working, please stop, what you're doing is good and with good intention, however if you just continue supporting artist with these questionable behaviour it would just ended up making them complacent with how things are, they would continue doing this behaviour that imo unacceptable

 

[KhamulTG81]

The only reason the games have separate patreon pages is because SG used to be developed by his friend, who I believe is still the thread owner. But Ocean didn't like the quality so he kicked his friend out and took over production himself.

As for the bottleneck and update frequency debate. I stand by what I said a few pages ago. I don't think it matters what equipment Ocean has. Or what he uses for renders ( Blender, Daz, Octane etc). If he gets better equipment, he'll just do more stuff. Cinematics. More animations. Rework more stuff and make the new stuff even more complex. He can't help himself.

That also means it doesn't matter how much money he makes from the games. He isn't going to hire someone else to help him in any meaningful way. Nobody can be up to his quality. So the only way more money will help him is he has enough to build a rendering computer army. Not 2 computers. Not 3 computers. He'll need multiple computers for each game to keep up with his never dying lust for the highest quality stuff possible. Either that, or use one of those online render farm services. Which is probably even more expensive at this scale.

Not to mention that if he did manage to build an army of PC's...these games are both supposed to be 30 chapters long. Not 30 days. Not a few weeks. 30 chapters. And each chapter will contain 2k + renders, hundreds of animations, cinematics and so on. Hell, it's pretty much like BaDIK except like twice as long. And he's trying to make 2 of them. I don't see how it's possible.

You assume to much. The picture you're painting here is a recipe for disaster.

If you define a project, there is a necessity to set project parameters and this includes a standard of quality definition. The dev needs to understand which parameter is least flexible and which is most flexible. Changing these parameters after the initial process, most of the time, ends in development hell. Ocean knows this, I guarantee you that!
SG and Wiab share a universe. He wants to meet the set standards and qualities with both games because he is developing them at the same time. He made the decission to get these games where they need to be in order to have a smooth developement going forward. This decission is the reason why a lot of people on this forum are going berserk... But to have a decent impact with a steam release in both cases he has decided to do it this way.

Everything else you paint in your post is dark fantasy and rumour mongering.

 

[Ayhsel]

i know that it's up to dev to handle abandoned/onhold tags. some devs put onhold tag when they're reworking/rebooting their games, some not. to me that's the matter of honesty and trust. considering that wiab is going to get not cosmetic changes only, but also completely reworked story, imho that won't be the same game anymore. that totally deserves abandoned or onhold tag. if dev goes with abandoned, then he starts new thread when the rework is done. this was already addressed by Osider in this post:
https://f95zone.to/threads/where-it-all-began-v0-6-full-oceanlab.19856/post-6416458
to me it's not important if the dev is "active", but what's goin' on with the game.


as of solid proof of biased actions of f95's moderators, you can check this reply to my post, for the beginning.
https://f95zone.to/threads/where-it-all-began-v0-6-full-oceanlab.19856/post-6418848
i'll work on solid proof, and as soon as i find one i'll give you a note.

I am sorry i will treat you different to all those that in this or other thread keep repeating "abandoned/hold" and will simply tell you to go look at the rules (got tired of going every single time and find the definition for them)

They are not given on what you believe should make sense, but simply how they are currently defined in the forum. To start a discussion on whether those rules make sense as they are right now, you can go and create a different thread.

 

[Avaron1974]

Why does it matter that the developer is active (with another game)? If he haven’t done anything with this game in years, it is abandoned. Simple as that.

That's never been how the sites rules work.

As long as the dev is active it doesn't get tagged, it's the same with any game regardless of developer.

Speaking of this game, definitely should be marked as onhold. If I remember correctly, remake of this game was scheduled for september/october last year or something like that...

On hold is a dev requested tag not one the mods just apply.

as of solid proof of biased actions of f95's moderators, you can check this reply to my post, for the beginning.
https://f95zone.to/threads/where-it-all-began-v0-6-full-oceanlab.19856/post-6418848
i'll work on solid proof, and as soon as i find one i'll give you a note.

When I say solid proof I mean actual proof not someone saying it happened, that isn't proof.

Screenshots, PM's etc.. are proof.

Considering the person in question has been a member of the site for 4 years and doesn't know how the sites rules i'm less inclined to take what they at face value.

Just saying they had a review taken down for no reason while we don't know the contents of said review. Reviews still need to follow the rules and any mention of other games or abuse towards dev will get that review taken down.

Without proof of what was in the review and the reason it was taken down I only have the posters word it happened and while it could very well be true it doesn't qualify as proof.

 

[Ayhsel]

It's still work that delays new content, though. I don't think 3-4 months per update he had quoted at some point will ever be realistic for either of these 2 games.

I agree with you in that working on more than two games, regardless of how you do it, end up hurting development speed of each game separately, as there are things you cannot do when the other game is rendering, for example.

Another question, though, would be if working in both games at the same time speed up the overall development of both games, in the sense of whether you would have overall more content or not as the sum. Potentially there are synergies to be gained, as those rendering times or other things like not getting tired of the same characters and story or whatever.

Obviously, this can also be a very bad metric as ultimately you may care only on a single game.

Ultimately, it is what it is. Nothing we can do about it.

 

[Matt2012021]

my one hope from all this is that any Dev see this no one person should try to do 2 games at once period

 

[slightchance]

Another question, though, would be if working in both games at the same time speed up the overall development of both games, in the sense of whether you would have overall more content or not as the sum. Potentially there are synergies to be gained, as those rendering times or other things like not getting tired of the same characters and story or whatever.

Certainly not. Multitasking is a myth and the render time is not the bottleneck. Also there's no WIAB 3.5, evidently.

 

[jamdan]

You assume to much. The picture you're painting here is a recipe for disaster.

If you define a project, there is a necessity to set project parameters and this includes a standard of quality definition. The dev needs to understand which parameter is least flexible and which is most flexible. Changing these parameters after the initial process, most of the time, ends in development hell. Ocean knows this, I guarantee you that!
SG and Wiab share a universe. He wants to meet the set standards and qualities with both games because he is developing them at the same time. He made the decission to get these games where they need to be in order to have a smooth developement going forward. This decission is the reason why a lot of people on this forum are going berserk... But to have a decent impact with a steam release in both cases he has decided to do it this way.

Everything else you paint in your post is dark fantasy and rumour mongering.

This doesn't make sense to me.

There needs to be standards of quality. Nobody thinks otherwise. We're saying Ocean's quality standard is far too high for these games to be completed, especially considering how long they're supposed to be and the fact he is doing them at the same time. The goal may be to have a smooth development going forward, but again, we don't believe that is possible for multiple reasons.

He has changed his standard multiple times, this is why this game is being reworked. We are currently in development hell. He reworked Summers Gone too, after he fired his friend who was originally making it. His quality standards have nothing to do with being flexible or not. In fact, it's the opposite. He wants the highest quality he can get. He doesn't believe it's acceptable to make B+ quality when he can do A+. He has said this himself.

People aren't just making things up. We have ample reasons to believe the things we are saying. A lot of this stuff happened before you made an account on here. Updates were supposed to be quicker when he got his 3090 cards. Yet he maxed those out quite easily. Again, because he wants the highest quality he can muster. We don't see any reason that wouldn't happen again if he upgraded his hardware more.

We aren't having dark fantasies or rumor mongering. We're looking at what has already happened in the past and we see no reason it won't continue in the future. He reworks things when they don't meet his increasingly high standards. He maxes his hardware because of that. He wants to be perfectly optimized. He is his own worst enemy. Everyone else is just along for the ride.

 

[UncleFredo]

This doesn't make sense to me.
...
He is his own worst enemy. Everyone else is just along for the ride.

Exactly. You are watching, if imperfectly and from a distance, someone's creative process. Ocean is not making a game for you, nor for me, nor for his patrons. He's making a game largely for himself, and his patrons support him for their own reasons. They are not customers. He's building skills and learning as he goes. For him, the journey is the reason, not to reach a destination. That doesn't mean that he is not committed to the games. Clearly he is, but he's not concerned with our expectations of delivery dates, nor our willingness to have him compromise his perception of quality to meet those dates.

We are all along for the ride, only if we choose to be. You, I, and everyone else are free to get off anytime it suits us. Our participation is the only thing over which we have control.

 

[Euron13]

I see Berserk’s getting a new chapter released in a few weeks. Weird to think that I’m going to be getting an update on that, especially since the author died in April, before another instalment of this game.

 

[lipe2410]

The only thing I really have to criticize is how WIAB doesn't seem to get half of SG's attention. As soon as the complete 3.5 chapter has been released, it already has a dev log with the first information of the next update. Meanwhile, WIAB's last proper dev log was over four months ago and it's been almost 2 months since the first time he said that this next big dev log is "coming soon". Once, ocean said he was going to let actions talking. And it looks like his latest actions say that WIAB has a fucking low priority