Hi! On the bolder statement, I think you underestimate the nuance in it. I am convinced that AWAM will not be completed as a patreon project. Only massive changes in workflow and organisation by L&P could make that happen, things he up to date always did not want to do. So without change an abandoning of AWAM cannot be stopped, but there are some variables I can only estimate, since we´ll never get confirmation from L&P on these. Therefor I have to have some variance in the timespan, something you should admit and acknowledge, if you truly want to know. Your underhanded sting on boldness is unfitting and unneeded, but considering your history as one of L&P´s defenders I am not really surprised.
You are mixing up passion, calculation and game development events as they happened. I am a hobby writer myself, I know and feel the passion to create, her ebb, flow and tide. I have never doubted L&P´s general passion for his game! He would not even have started, if he did not feel it. If he would create it in private or open beta, he could finish it without problem over a long timespan. But he decided to go public and get money while still developing it and then it is not simply yours any longer! No matter what delusional tales patreon or other sites tell, the moment you go to them, you are under contract. A very loose contract, granted, else a lot of milkers would be in very hot water, but a spiritual contract nevertheless. And you should deliver at least halfway to industry norms. L&P is far away from that.
So far, so good. But here is where you are mixing up passion and calculation. L&P is no innocent in this. He went to patreon knowingly his project would not be totally his any longer. Today it is in rough waters, many supporters have given free and often good tipps how L&P can get the problems under control. He did not follow a single one of them! And I do not speak about the things with getting assistance. No stuff partly other developers told him how to fix story arcs, compressing it without loss of quality, how to keep side arcs under control, telling the same story with less pictures but equal enjoyment, getting a good storyflow over updates going on. L&P did nothing of this, as we can see.
The updates consistently have become smaller, but the intervalls longer. That is pure calculation of L&P, you cannot be this blind to not see it. When he announced going to 1/3 gameday updates to quicken the pace, I PREDICTED CORRECTLY that nothing like this will happen, it will be less substance for longer waits. And I have been proven right, because I have seen the change in him. He is still passionate about the game, but the easy money trumps his passion now!
For nearly two years now L&P has consistently done everything he could to slow down development. Disregarding tipps and help, he broke every promise he made when it comes to quicken development. Even you have to admit that AWAM has become a meme for ultra-slow development speed! The most damning evidence is his claim to work about 11 hours a day on AWAM, when simply math shows that he puts out just 3-5 pics per day with a good render PC.
For comparison, the Dev of a well-known and regarded game here on F95 does it parttime and has a PC which is worse at rendering than L&Ps. Still this part time developer has an output of 20 pics per day on average (of really good quality). But even without this comparison anybody with at least a bit of brains can see that L&P´s statement of working 11 hours daily on the game, but can only produce 3-5 pics in that time is disturbing!
His claim is either a blatant lie, since his output is in no way sufficient for the time allegdly used or he is completely incompetent, which would shut down AWAM sooner or later all by itself. But we also have some evidence that L&P is not incompetent, so this leaves only one explanation. L&P is purposely slowing down and stretching out the development of AWAM to gain easy money!
I could go on a bit longer and deeper analysis, but I do not have time for that today, so onward to your last question: What so I get out of my last posts? I was a fan of AWAM in the beginning, but I have seen the signs on the wall. L&P unfortunately has gone on to follow the way of sinkholes of humanity like gumdrop, developers overcome by their own greed for easily earned money! There is a very small hope I and others could get L&P to wake up, but that will most likely not happen. He has milked (as much as try to evade using this word) his fanbase now for a time and he will carry on doing it until he has a nice nest egg built up. Then AWAM will be history.
Well, on the bolder statement, you know a lot can happen in 5 years. If awam gets abandoned in that timeframe it will not serve as a proof to your theory. A good theory prediction should be narrow enough to not allow too many other explanations to that prediction. But you're right about the unneeded sting, and I'm sorry for that.
You've got some false statements/opinions written as facts in your post which are:
1."L&P is no innocent in this. He went to patreon knowingly his project would not be totally his any longer". That's your opinion. I'm pretty sure he believes the game is his and his only, and he would be absolutely right about it. If you become a Patron of his, you don't get a share as a holder of the game, you don't get a share of the income, you don't get anything except for what is promised by the creator for whatever level of patronage you're in (which he has the right to change at any given time). By definition, your patronage is intended to support the developer to continue his production of whatever it is he produces. Now, we can have different opinions whether this system is good or bad, but we can't argue about facts.
2. "And you should deliver at least halfway to industry norms. L&P is far away from that". Why half? why not 3/4? And what are exactly the industry norms? And how can you be so sure L&P is so far away from that? If you normalize some parameters like his quality of renders and his heavily researched writing in some of the updates, I'm pretty sure he's not so far away from "industry norms", whatever they are. You know what, maybe we can suggest a test, and someone here with enough free time can run it. Take all Daz3d based games here on f95 and calculate the average of their renders to days in production ratio (only fully rendered scenes, not some characters renders over a premade background, and for the animations - add their renders to the count). If we call it "industry norms", I'm pretty sure L&P isn't far away from it, and surely not halfway behind.
3. "many supporters have given free and often good tipps how L&P can get the problems under control". Tips are free, that's for sure, but good? You know we are all different people, we have different personalities, different capabilities, and different tastes. From my experience, I know there are people that just can't, for the life of them, change their workflow, and their teemwork capabilities are just zero. That apply mostly on gifted and perfectionist people. Is it the case with L&P? I don't know, but that's my theory. Just look at how angry he gets whenever someone criticize his art, story or working methods. Look how fast he transfomed from an amateur hobby creator to one of the best (imo) 3d artists here. Look at the dialogues of the art class, biology class, guitar lesson etc. They are all thoroughly researched. He sure is gifted and that makes him more prone to such behavior. Do I like his stubborn behavior - not really, did I like his last aggressive post - not at all, do I like these long periods between updates - I hate it, but I know (as an opinion, not a fact) it's a byproduct of his personality, but the VN is also a byproduct of his personality, so I'm okay with it. You won't change his personality, so if you like the game, you'll have to be patient with his flaws...
4. "The updates consistently have become smaller, but the intervalls longer". For the first part - on the contrary. Updates have become larger, and thats one of the issues some have with L&P's methods. For the second part, thats the outcome of a larger update - it takes more time.
5. "when simply math shows that he puts out just 3-5 pics per day with a good render PC.
For comparison, the Dev of a well-known and regarded game here on F95 does it parttime and has a PC which is worse at rendering than L&Ps. Still this part time developer has an output of 20 pics per day on average (of really good quality)"
994 renders / 167 days (30 December - 15 June) = 5.95. That's more like 6. Take 30 days of graphics cards issue and you'll get 7.2. That's roughly his usual output. That's slow, I won't lie, but with the quality, that's something I can live with. The only comparable game with this quality (imo) is Stopper's JOHN, and he is even slower than L&P in terms of renders/production days. Sure, there are games with great renders that deliver a better ratio, L@P isn't the fastest, but nor he is the slowest, and as I said before, when you normalize quality of renders and research for dialogues, he's not that far behind. About the game you were referring that has "a really good quality" - what game is it? I find it hard to believe that a dev can produce 20 really good quality renders in a part time job with a not so good rendering machine.
6. "so this leaves only one explanation. L&P is purposely slowing down and stretching out the development of AWAM to gain easy money!" I can easily think of some more explanations, so that's definitely not the only explanation. As I mentioned before, his last update's ratio of renders/days is roughly equal to his usual ratio (while his quality increases with each update), so it isn't even necessary to speculate, because he isn't slowing down. Last update took more time because of Graphics cards problems (which he proved with video and pictures) and because it was a big update. Your theory about slowing down for easy money is just absurd. I'm sure you can see the effort he puts in his updates, and if you can now agree that his ratio isn't getting worse (all while his quality even gets better) than you can't say anymore that he's slowing down on his work. You can, however say he's slowing down on updates - by making them biger and biger, but that doesn't support your theory of easy money, because if he isn't slowing down on his work - that money isn't easy anymore.
7. "L&P unfortunately has gone on to follow the way of sinkholes of humanity like gumdrop, developers overcome by their own greed for easily earned money!"
Your comparison of L&P to Gumdrop is absolutely absurd, and there really isn't a need for further explanation...
On your last paragraph you went on to explain what you're getting out of your last posts, but you didn't really explain it, so my question still stands without an answer.
