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Hello patrons and welcome to another set of patron polls!
Today we'll be discussing some development direction choices.
If you check our development schedule, we're perpetually one month behind. For example O:G 0.9 was due in March, but we've backed up into April. We're now past the 2.5k goal (allotting us x5 CGs a month), but even with two artists on board, we're struggling to hit the x5 CG mark in a timely manner because there's been a backlog for awhile.
It's not just CG either - we've recently undertaken several programming and graphics projects for our games. And I'm also quite bogged down with my own work routine. It's not fair for patrons to keep being charged while we're getting bogged down, however.
So, there's three solutions to this issue:
1) We stop charging patrons for one month; we lose one month of development, but this allows us some much-needed time to breathe and catch up to the backlog. Funding is not an issue, as we have everything paid for; we just don't have the time to do it all.
2) Spend one month of development on the graphical overhaul of Claire's Quest - all new map tiles, sprites, portraits, UI, and more. The original plan was to introduce everything piecemeal - which was necessary since staff like programmers don't work full-time for us. By doing this, we let CG artists catch up to their backlog without giving them more CG work to do, and instead spend the money intended for CG on our support staff, like our programmer and sprite artist, who can then finish the entire overhaul in one month rather than over the course of several months. CG artists will work on things like portraits during this time, instead of the cost, time, and labour-intensive CG sets.
3) Business as usual; we do nothing new to address the backlog. We'll do this if the majority of patrons are okay with our progress thus far.
This is a major decision to make, so I'd like to do whatever I end up doing with the majority consent of my patrons. Cast your votes and let me know!