Some EP10 thoughts and predictions.
Episode timelapse & structure.
Well, EP10 should cover timelapse close to 1 month (3-4 weeks around). We ended on last days of October and Thanksgiving is usually at the last week of November. It's clear that it's impossible to implement w/o several time skips or a single, but a large one. I just wonder how DPC had planned it this time. What potential options are?
- Is it something like 1-2 weeks in college and classes, bc mini-games for them as well as new MC classes was confirmed before, and then a massive time skip right to the party?
- Or the whole episode, until the party begins, will have several time skips like 1-3 days. So we will have classes and other stuff as before, but it won't be on day-to-day basis anymore.
- Massive "flashback" for the all of events which happened before the party, including classes. But what's the sense? By making it in such way, time lapse gap will be even larger than we previously had in EP8-EP9, which we got as flashbacks for some scenes.
Party planning should be done in advance. We know that preparing for party require some time (it was about 2 weeks for Halloween), so I expect the party planning mini-game in the first half of episode.
According to where we ended up in EP9, Thanksgiving party should happen only at the late part of episode, so I personally bet on the first 2 options. I see them as the only reasonable and most realistic ones. #2 should become a common one for most of remaining episodes, because we need to reach the late spring to the end of the game and to cover first MCs college year. Flashbacks are good, but not in the case, when they are used in each episode. It was a decent solution for EP9, but it shouldn't repeat too often, or it will become boring very fast. It will look like jumping from one party to another and all or most potential content we really wait for, like relationships development, dates, some special time with MGs and SGs will all be at flashbacks, and it really sucks, imo.
Party place and weight in episode.
How much of episode space this party would occupy this time? I doubt that DPC will grab even a half, it's not a wise move and this party can't be as huge as Halloween was, anyway. My bet that it will happen at the second half of episode and will last until episode end as it was in EP9. And I expect it will take about 25% (1/4) of this EP. Anything more than that, knowing how content is separated now for each branch and the fact that a whole EP9 was made as a party & free-roam, makes me think in this way.
Release date.
According to what he said in last update status and his 2-week vacation planned, now my optimistic release date bet is mid-august. Almost 6 months past since last episode release and he estimate completion rate about 70% for now. If it's correct, then he need at least 2 more months. Pessimistic one is mid-september then, which will mark the same dev time it was for EP9.
He is already playtesting the first half of episode. It's a quite good news as for me. We know now that he have on hands not just a bunch of renders, animations and mini-games code, but game is mostly working already and he fills the gaps of missed renders, scenes, etc. And what about a big free-roam he worked on for the last weeks? I suppose it was the Thanksgiving party. If so, then he also already made & prepared an impressive part of second half of episode too. On the other hand, he told that "we're not close to release yet". It's doesn't sound well, but it's all about estimates.
Previews.
We got 15 previews already, If I remember right, previously 20 was the max number. So it's a ~75% rate for now. He usually release 1 preview in 2 weeks, but sometimes 2 previews in the same time lapse, so it's about 1 preview per 10 days average. So, 45-50 days then? If we rely on previews as on indicator of potential release date. On other hand he may release more than 20 for this episode, but publish them every week. Who knows?
I started to play this game on Aug, 22. So I wasn't be able to see the previews for episodes 1-8. Was DPC always careful with this and chose them, so that they didn't say much to the player or vice versa generated a bunch of different theories and discussions? I mean that the player shouldn't clearly read or understand what is happening and thereby spoil himself the sweetness of waiting in ignorance and further passing guessing what should happen at one time or another. "Proper" previews are always harmless and very ambiguous, as an example - a preview from EP9 with Jill in the hospital. Or they just tells nothing, like "something happening here", but you can only guess what it is.
But for EP10, this is not always the case, for example, a Quinn's preview with Rusty's car and Buddy's lair on background, if DPC wanted to hide the subtext and what would really happen with this couple of characters, he would choose a more harmless moment when they just talk together, but not against the background of a car in the city - as an example. What you guys think?
Some pros & cons.
Pros - seems he had done with all of the most complicated mini-games and similar stuff. He created a "base" for party-planner, and have only to tweak it for each particular party in future episodes. He prepared new mini-games for the new classes which MC will take, as well as upgraded the old ones, which MC will also study up to the end of the game. So it will not require any attention in the future and will not distract him from more important things. The same for the new brawler game, which will also interact with any potential future fights MC would have. He spent significant time (during EP9 and EP10 dev cycle), but he created a good "base" for future episodes as well, so he can concentrate now much more on plot, characters and relationship development, scenes, all potential permutations and outcomes for our previous choices to satisfy players, tell us the story he indended and planned to and underline the importance of most of previous choices leading to dozens of different endings.
Also, he got a juicy hardware upgrade, which almost doubled rendering power. Even if this will not speed up the process, it will increase amount of renders and animations (content) w/o the impact on dev time. But I believe he is wise and will use it in a balanced way to get both speed up of the process and add more renders and anims at the same time.
Cons - players which ALWAYS play with mini-games off or just not into it are mad and will be mad as usual. But this is a meaningless argument, which is why there is a choice to play with them or without them, which is why it is important to respect each other's choice, but not to attack each other because of this. He makes the game the way he sees it, and if he did not do well, there would not be so many pages with discussions on various forums, including this one, or at least most of the discussions would be filled with things far from the plot, theories, speculations, girls (or boys, lol) preferences and other things. As for me, disputes about mini-games necessity or uselessness are like disputes about which MG or SG is better. Everyone likes their own. Judging by the statistics, most people like these mini-games, not necessarily every of them, maybe only part, but the idea itself and so on. As for me - I like most of them as well as things like Swiper and Rooster, it creates unique game-in-game feeling as well as some kind of very special atmosphere of immersion. In my 30+ playthroughs I never tried to play with mini-games off and I doubt I will. Story, choices, girls, scenes, etc are great, but this little thing is like a ketchup in hot-dog.
Overall thoughts.
Summing up all of the above, as well as what the DPC said before or just implied - he wants to tell us a story, he does it as it seems right to him both from the point of view of the plot and from the point of view of the approach to development. He works alone, the game is one of the biggest in the genre and we are only halfway there (!), the number of bugs is minimal and also praiseworthy. He also noted that he would not compromise the quality of his product for the sake of speeding up the development time, this is the most important thing to remember.
If he will be able to handle such 7-8 months dev cycle from EP10 and up, then it would be reasonable and decent, imo. The renders number will inevitable grow in each future episode due to branching, while each branch playthrough time will remain +- the same. To get all juices from the game we will need a lot of saves that have to reflect each major plot twist and different outcomes.
Don't forget about how complicated and branched game become after EP8. It require DPC to make a lot of separate renders for same scenes to show different characters mood and emotions at minimum, or different clothes, poses, etc at maximum (Halloween party is a good example, but I hope it will be less complicated in the future, because main feature of this party was costumes). It's not the same as create a brand new scene and pose it from scratch, but it still takes time, need to be rendered, etc.
His productivity, expririence, etc growed significantly, as well as rendering rigs power, but on the other hand, the game has grown too and become much more laborious than it was in the first two seasons.
The only thing that bothers or even scares me is not that he will abandon his project - no, it's not what happens when you have the whole plot script and plans in your hands and mind, nor when you do what you really like and enjoy instead of some common boring office job or whatever similar. I don't even mention his income. No, it's completely different. We are mortal. Something can happen to any of us at any time and we can't always prevent it or control it somehow. The same feeling is experienced by fans of a Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones), waiting for the next book in the series from George R.R. Martin. And I must say that they wait not for months, calculating 1-2 months +-, but for years.
I'm glad that he decided to take this vacation. This dude fucking deserved it! I can't imagine myself for 7 years w/o any major vacation. While his pros is working for himself and like it much, the cons is like "I make so much money, but I fucking stucked in my 4 walls for years". We don't know a lot about his family and life, but I would say that even very supportive family and wife especially may "burn out" of such lifestyle. And then it may break him too.
I'm not licking his ass by any means, but damn it, his work is worthy of respect and most of us literally love this game. What a bummer it would be if something goes wrong, I don't even want to think about it. Especially for those who have been playing it since the release of the 1st episode, and not after the release of the 2nd season, like me. But even for me it would be a huge blow, because I want to know how the hell it's all going to end, see all the endings and everything else.
after the long wait, personally unrewarded, for the ninth chapter this in my opinion is almost a zero point. a lot has changed so everything is really possible.
DPC, on the subject of timing, always gives foggy and often political answers: on the one hand it says that it does not want to rush the timing so as not to damage the quality of the product (which is the phrase that any craftsman would tell you, even the painter who comes to paint your house, but that in practical terms means nothing), on the other hand it continues to proclaim himself enthusiastic about the speed of his new machines.
Assuming that a release in August would mean that 8 months have passed anyway, and therefore I find it hard to consider it a miracle, it is still possible. then if in mid-August DPC decides to spend 2-3 weeks making a fantastic animation of a leaky faucet, in those 2-3 weeks he would earn the same money he is earning now, so this too is possible, unfortunately.
the controversy about minigames makes very little sense, it's the only thing DPC shows enthusiasm for, and basically it's also one of the few aspects that it's true that engages him but not his rendering machines, so they "waste" relatively little time, and are almost always among the first things announced, it's other things where the production is likely to jam.
