Yeah, today feels like a pretty big watershed day for me. It isn't just that he's talking about a May release, it's the whole combination. It feels like every worse fear was confirmed today, and that every troll and negative commenter was proven right. Just last night I defended this game as not deserving the Abandoned tag. Today though, red flags are impossible to ignore.
Today feels like a pretty big watershed day, more like a tsunami day
If his announcement today doesn't get pushback, then his Patrons are dangerously close to falling into Gumdrop Games territory. If they aren't careful they're going to wake up and a year is going to pass without an update.
Patron numbers are 1,550 and they seem happy with the way things are going even after his latest post.
I really don't think this will get abandoned. From the initial response that sept0342 posted, his patrons don't seem fussed by the news and will continue to support him. And as long as that's the case, he'll just continue to do his thing, even if it means it takes 10 - 20 years to finish. As long as he continues to post teasers, even if so far they've just been "walking and talking", this wont get the Abandoned tag.
Lose his V card!Is he going to fuck Alyssa's cat?
I agree that he has needed an editor- but I'm afraid the problems are now much deeper than that. As viper6 said, L&P is only averaging around 5 renders a day at this point. Fastidious or not, that's still an incredibly low output that speaks towards limited efforts. I'm afraid that he's becoming paralyzed by the scope of the game, and he would rather tinker with images that are otherwise finished instead of starting a new one. I've never made a game, so I don't know anything about the creative process, but I feel like 5 renders/day is a low bar to set.
Emma and Marie both think he's a "cutie", so I was assuming one of those two. Emma is perhaps too timid, but during the Yoga event Marie was actively pursuing Dylan (even if you're not on the Dylan route), so I think she'll be the first option.
If he works 8-11h a day like he says he does, 5 renders a day is a terrible output.
Patrons are a unique bunch. They can be fickle as hell, but every once in a while they can coalesce into a unbreakable community. GumDrop Games LITERALLY did not release a new update for his game for something like three years, and his patron numbers held steady. L&P absolutely has a dedicated core that won't push back on him unless things become extreme. What happens if this update slips to June? I know he said "mid-May at the latest" today, but I think we are right to be suspicious of anything he says. So what happens if it slips to June? Does this end up being the only update this year? If L&P learns that he can put out one update a year and keep his core Patrons together, why wouldn't that become the norm? From my chair, three updates in a year suddenly feels very naive.
Yeah right.
Once again same promise: "Oh I wont have nothing to do the following months so it's going to be the bomb."
I don't think he's losing interest in the game either. Quite the opposite, I think he's experimenting and discovering new things to do in Daz and working out how to put it into the game (like lighting). Perhaps why he decided to add "Coach Sophia" to the game all of a sudden, even though it's unlikely to add much to the plot.
What was shocking today was the tone and content of his update, not so much the scheduled release. A "latest mid-May" release is on the long-end of what most of us were expecting, but you're right that it isn't in-and-of itself shocking. It was the combined factors that he included in his statement that floored me:
The surprise is that he thinks that's a great pace. That's the surprise. I (and everyone here) still hoped he could see how slow he's working.
Interesting. I see the same things you're seeing, but my interpretation is different. I see a guy who is still interested in the art but increasingly disinterested in the game itself. He clearly loves playing with DAZ and making beautiful renders, but that's a different passion than creating a game. If he's really spending 30 minutes tweaking the lighting of a render, then my read on the situation is that he simply isn't interested in advancing the game as much as he's interested in making art.
If he was so disinterested in making the game, I don't think it would result in the increase of renders we're seeing. He'd be spending more time on less renders. But he's spending more time on more renders. And more renders means more dialogue, internal and external, which shows an interest in the event and making sure the story gets across.
