Ottoeight

Forum Fanatic
Mar 13, 2021
4,852
8,516
As of today, DPC has almost 12,600 patrons. If that number starts dropping rapidly, no doubt he'll reconsider his approach. Thankfully, it seems pretty clear that his other patrons feel more or less as I do.


You're welcome.

He lost 1.000 patrons since december 2021. November 2021 doesn't count because it was ep. 8 release: since then, he's constantly and slowly losing patrons.
 

Ottoeight

Forum Fanatic
Mar 13, 2021
4,852
8,516
I'm also looking past that into ep 10. Will that actually be the last episode and if not, is the general trend from now on going to be 1 update per year or was this just an odd year due to multiple factors?
Bro, the plan is 4 seasons, 16 episodes. Draw your conclusions. Mine are that we will never know what was Lynette's family name / who posted Cathy's picture / who blackmailed Chad / what happened to Bella's marriage (you can bet your ass that we still won't know after the end of episode 9).
 
  • Like
Reactions: ppwlkr

Thekingofdope

Newbie
Apr 8, 2019
25
22
He's getting paid 6 figures, it's perfectly reasonable to expect more because of it. Yet the more patrons he gets, the longer the updates take. Generally quality AND speed increase with size of business, but only quality has with DPC
i dont know, if i payed 15 USD per update than yeah i would agree, but you and me are getting them from free here.
 

ename144

Engaged Member
Sep 20, 2018
3,208
13,378



This week I worked on and completed a big and tricky scene and some smaller scenes.
I have started working on the remaining lewd scenes of the episode now, posing both static renders and animations for them.
Art for 8 scenes remains, and three of those scenes need writing. I might need a couple more scenes after playtesting the episode if I feel something is missing.
I playtested Isabella's branch this week. It took me over 3 hours to complete it, without mini-games and without being able to test everything, as the final free roam event is still a bit of a mess regarding the code.
I felt that some parts of this branch needed a bit more content, while other parts of it were perfect and unique.
And this is an example of how I will work after finishing the art for the remaining scenes. I will playtest and then polish and add any additional content I feel is needed.
I have to do this for five branches and all possible combinations of choices and consequences therein. Each branch is of similar length, meaning a single playtest of all branches will require at least 15 hours of playtime. I always do this many times, over and over.
While there is plenty of joint content, there is also plenty of unique scenes for each branch; this makes quality control a big task.
But I'm very much looking forward to playing the episode. There are many scenes I haven't even seen in-game yet, even though the art has been finished for months - it's crazy, even more so than usual.
I'm up to 4524 renders, and now that I started animating again, I will know how many more animations I need within a few more weeks.
I don't have an accurate estimation of the release date; everything will depend on the remaining animation render times and how smooth the last stretch of development goes.

Have a nice weekend

Dr PinkCake
Huh. From the context it's entirely unclear if the 4524 renders he sites is posed or completed. The former suggests he rendered about 410 statics in a single week (a very high number), whereas the latter tells us nothing about how many were completed. I'm going to assume the latter since that's more conservative, he's switched to reporting posed totals recently, and it also lines up with the rate at which he's been adding statics to the queue. Unfortunately, that means there's really nothing new to add to the charts. Here's last week's charts again, though, for old time's sake:
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
Realistically, even if he did complete all 4524 statics, they're still not the part that matters. animations are, and the radio silence over them continues. It feels like we've been stuck in a holding pattern since that ultra-difficult animation finished rendering. That was supposedly slowing down the process, but with no additional data we can't tell how much. That really confounds any effort at prognostication. We're clearly not getting an October release if DPC is still "a few more weeks" away from knowing how much is left to do, but that's not exactly news. We're just going to have to settle in for the long haul and hope it ends sooner rather than later.
 

Lightaces

Well-Known Member
Aug 3, 2018
1,362
2,075
Art for 8 scenes remains, and three of those scenes need writing. I might need a couple more scenes after playtesting the episode if I feel something is missing.

I felt that some parts of this branch needed a bit more content,
while other parts of it were perfect and unique.
And this is an example of how I will work after finishing the art for the remaining scenes. I will playtest and then polish and add any additional content I feel is needed.
I have to do this for five branches and all possible combinations of choices and consequences therein.

I started animating again, I will know how many more animations I need within a few more weeks.


- Yeah, absolutely no reason for Panic, or more properly for disappointment. after all, after all this time, He still dont even know how many thing he need to add, to finish it.:cautious::whistle:
Not a writer, are you? You can plan all you want, but you never really know how things are gonna go until you've written it. The story only really starts to take shape when you start rewriting it. Before that, it's just a collection of....stuff. But for things to really be connected, you need more than just....stuff. Hell, most of the time you don't really even know it's done until after it is done. You usually have to start making it worse before you realize, "oh, nope, that was already done."
 

Lightaces

Well-Known Member
Aug 3, 2018
1,362
2,075
A common thing for fanatical perfectionists.
I would say instead, a completely normal part of any professional writer's process.

All the Kerouac nonsense about stream of consciousnesses writing is just bull shit. It's a good start to a project, and sure, On the Road worked pretty well, but most people who try to write that way, without rewriting, write trash. The whole point of rewriting is to make sure your audience is getting the experience you intend, and that is almost always enhanced by not being tied down by an early draft. You'll never know if you have said what you want to say until you have said it, and preferably heard back from others about their reactions.
 

dempun

Member
Dec 3, 2021
137
228
I would say instead, a completely normal part of any professional writer's process.

All the Kerouac nonsense about stream of consciousnesses writing is just bull shit. It's a good start to a project, and sure, On the Road worked pretty well, but most people who try to write that way, without rewriting, write trash. The whole point of rewriting is to make sure your audience is getting the experience you intend, and that is almost always enhanced by not being tied down by an early draft. You'll never know if you have said what you want to say until you have said it, and preferably heard back from others about their reactions.
That's a very good point. We've seen it here with several devs redoing chapters in their VN's after a time. It also helps to have an ending to your story in mind. We've seen many VN's that just seem to meander while forgetting to advance the story. (That is, for the VN's that actually HAVE a story.) I would wager those are the devs who do not have an ending in mind.
 

1200

Newbie
Sep 22, 2019
47
90
i dont know, if i payed 15 USD per update than yeah i would agree, but you and me are getting them from free here.
What about the ones who never update - ICSTOR etc, if we cant say updates take too long then we can't say that what ICSTOR is doing is wrong, when it blatantly is. I don't think DPC is anywhere near that level, but even if you aren't paying you can say he should be delivering more for what he earns, regardless of whether we get the product for free or not. It's about moral expectations as opposed to what I practically want, and it sets a very bad president for patreon funded projects as a whole.
 

Sheet420

Member
Sep 4, 2016
186
198
And we are all reminded, once again, that the Interlude was not worth the opportunity cost. Not even close.

3 months spent on that hurts to think about now. It did nothing for the plot that couldn't have been done in more efficient ways and it was not very interesting as a standalone either.
 

Lightaces

Well-Known Member
Aug 3, 2018
1,362
2,075
That's a very good point. We've seen it here with several devs redoing chapters in their VN's after a time. It also helps to have an ending to your story in mind. We've seen many VN's that just seem to meander while forgetting to advance the story. (That is, for the VN's that actually HAVE a story.) I would wager those are the devs who do not have an ending in mind.
Tolkien never understood the rewriting process, and as a result we have far fewer finished stories that we could have by the father of fantasy. Every time he got stuck, he had to start over from scratch. The initial writing, that's the joy, but the rewriting, that's the work, and that's where it becomes great.
 

Ilhares

Engaged Member
Aug 19, 2019
2,907
11,062
And we are all reminded, once again, that the Interlude was not worth the opportunity cost. Not even close.

3 months spent on that hurts to think about now. It did nothing for the plot that couldn't have been done in more efficient ways and it was not very interesting as a standalone either.
Considering he needed to get the underlying tech tested (for imports and all), and he was still going to have Zoey backstory, the only thing a lack of the Interlude would have resulted in would have been no update for anything whatsoever at all this entire time, because that same "boring" story content would have been worked into the rest of the stuff anyway.

Don't be angry about the interlude, this lengthy delay was always going to happen. Be angry that DPC obviously lied about pushing for smaller, faster episodes than what he'd done prior to the bloat of episode 8.
 

Thekingofdope

Newbie
Apr 8, 2019
25
22
What about the ones who never update - ICSTOR etc, if we cant say updates take too long then we can't say that what ICSTOR is doing is wrong, when it blatantly is. I don't think DPC is anywhere near that level, but even if you aren't paying you can say he should be delivering more for what he earns, regardless of whether we get the product for free or not. It's about moral expectations as opposed to what I practically want, and it sets a very bad president for patreon funded projects as a whole.
Well i think ICSTOR is ripping people off, i think DPC is taking his time, and making quality content. Could he be faster? probably, would i LOVE if he was? yeah man give me an update every 4 months and i would be very happy. And tbh, if he was smart he would lower the devolopment time somehow, maybe hire someone, or buy another pc to do some rendering i dont know ,or he should consider making smaller updates. But as alot of people have said, he made his business this way, and it made him rich, why would he change that?
 

Oliver Wendell Homely

Active Member
May 9, 2020
625
2,302


You're welcome.

He lost 1.000 patrons since december 2021. November 2021 doesn't count because it was ep. 8 release: since then, he's constantly and slowly losing patrons.
That's common and not any different, in real terms, from the ebbs and flows of Patreon supporters that always accompany new content releases.
 

allanl9020142

Well-Known Member
Aug 23, 2018
1,232
1,797
That's common and not any different, in real terms, from the ebbs and flows of Patreon supporters that always accompany new content releases.
I feel like maybe sales from Steam and the other platforms for ep 9 and on would be a better indicator. It just makes sense that they'd be more fairweather than patreon supporters. Actual consumers buying a product vs people essentially donating to a creator on a monthly basis.
 

Rome5555555

Active Member
May 4, 2017
865
494


You're welcome.

He lost 1.000 patrons since december 2021. November 2021 doesn't count because it was ep. 8 release: since then, he's constantly and slowly losing patrons.
I assure you it's not much more than 10%.. And you have to understand that 10% is gone and another 10% has come..
 

DrSoong

Member
Donor
Jan 8, 2022
492
932
Be angry that DPC obviously lied about pushing for smaller, faster episodes than what he'd done prior to the bloat of episode 8.
After the branching in Ep8 i had my doubt zhat Ep9 was getting smaller, now be has 5 different strands to tell, this will take time (every strand has to be that long that the players aren't disappointed).
 
4.80 star(s) 1,538 Votes