CAPTAINS LOG, DAY 234567
A SPECIAL BROADCAST
So, rather than report on the news today (there isn't any, shocker) your's truly conducted a little interview with Gumdrops on the discord. Below is the Q&A extracted below, for your reading pleasure. Enjoy.
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 08:11
But, out of pure interest, @GumdropGames I know you don't have an actual account on F95, (And that's fine obviously) but I am curious whether you have a dummy account or two to browse the forum at all. Total curiosity is all.
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 08:17
Also there's enough conspiracy theories about Gumdrops at this point to make him a semi mythical figure on the forum, so I'm curious to get his side of things...maybe see if he can put one or two to rest.
GumdropGamesToday at 08:22
@lostraven [Open DM] I dedicate at least 7 hours a day using my many sock accounts debating people who pirate my content into liking me and my game, yes
That seems to me the most logical explanation
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 08:30
Ooooh take it easy tiger, and there's nothing wrong with admitting to browsing the forum. I never said you went there to argue with all the pirates. Plenty of devs go there to browse.
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 08:31
Some honest advice, have you ever considered hiring someone for PR purposes
GumdropGamesToday at 08:31
@lostraven [Open DM] Just mememing, nothing personal :] In all seriousness, the last time I went there was December I think. Not much interesting to see there
Milking, etc etc
Gets boring, even more so than the lack of updates
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 08:34
So, is May a real planned date for release, or is that just speculative nonsense.
GumdropGamesToday at 08:35
@lostraven [Open DM] I will publicly post a release date when I can secure one with the lads I'm contracting with, you'll know. Anything out right now is speculative, yes
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 08:37
Could you give a rough estimate how many hours of gameplay this update is? Or is it at least over 2 hours.
GumdropGamesToday at 08:40
@lostraven [Open DM] I can't say for certain -- it's a fuck ton of content both story and gameplay wise so it isn't really a metric compared to past updates. I would look at something like Summertime Saga as a great example -- a chunk of time is spent exploring/searching through hub areas, which is somewhat how sections of Part X (especially the dance) will end up being. Some will cruise through that fast, others will meander. I won't put a time table on it since it could vary, but it's definitely more than twice as long as Part IX
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 08:49
So, given the extremely long length of time for this update, how much faster with this team do you think you'll be able to produce updates? Are you confident you could promise one say, every 3 months? Or?
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 08:49
P.s does the name Joshua Tree ring any bells? (Total aside I know)
GumdropGamesToday at 08:51
raven I think it's too early to jump into my old habits of promising dates, but I will say it will be a balance between the leaner and largest updates I've released
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 08:53
The account 99% of the time thought to be Gumdrops, Im not convinced myself personally, the writing style is different, but I thought I'd ask gumdrops anyway.
GumdropGamesToday at 08:54
@lostraven [Open DM] I'm not sure if I made it clear with my jesting comment earlier, but I don't go on F95
I don't even have an account
December was the last time I checked while working on the Last Christmas memes
GumdropGamesToday at 08:54
But lmao
I don't see what value I would extract debating people about my game
Doesn't seem like there's any minds to be changed
There's only so many variations of "whar updaATE" and "milk man bad" one can utter
But one may continue to try
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lostraven [Open DM]Today at 09:09
What prompted you to out source by the way, I thought you wanted to complete this update first prior to hiring new staff?
GumdropGamesToday at 09:10
@lostraven [Open DM] I think I've written in previous dev updates that I would look to hire local additions prior to Act II so it would have a running start
GumdropGamesToday at 09:11
For the online contractors, I don't think I've ever said I would animate/compose everything myself
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 09:16
Do you find it daunting at all that so much has been build up on this update and how good it'll have to be for the time its taken, are you at all worried some people will feel a sunk fallacy cost and youll lose Patreons? (Personally I'd be terrified at having so much riding on an update like this, I'm nail biting when we give a 2-3 month release).
GumdropGamesToday at 09:16
:}
@lostraven [Open DM] Yes, you wrote this a few months ago
GumdropGamesToday at 09:16
My answer
@lostraven [Open DM] Nah lol
It's the best thing in the world
Part X
and all of f95 will become paying patrons, thank god
They promised me personally
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 09:17
Fair enough, I guess I'm just curious if your feelings have changed at all as the length of time has gone on
GumdropGamesToday at 09:18
Time will tell! We'll see on release date.
But I'm far less worried than whoever still lurks in my thread on that site.
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 09:18
And I'm considerable easier going than most of F95
Considerably*
GumdropGamesToday at 09:18
I appreciate that
:]
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 09:22
So how many staff is there total now you have working for you? Do you manage them yourself or have someone co-ordinating? I've always been cautious about having too few or too many chefs in the kitchen myself.
GumdropGamesToday at 09:23
I have one full time person in the office with me currently, one training and a third coming soon. And for something like 3D posing, I have to disagree since the bottleneck is man hours rather than capital dumped into an asset (GPUs)
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 09:28
How come you're training staff and not just hiring a already trained professional already? Not that there is anything wrong with it of course.
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 09:30
Is it like a volunteer thing youre running with him/her or a mini apprenticeship? Or?
GumdropGamesToday at 09:30
LOL
volunteering
Cmon my dude
I pay people for the work they provide, posing is a lot of work
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 09:31
Like, elaborate. Over here in the UK we have volunteer learning courses. It's unheard of for this niche market but I was just curious on how that works.
GumdropGamesToday at 09:31
I wouldn't settle for anything but a local, full time hire, which there really aren't a lot of familiar with Daz Studio in my area
These are smart lads I know personally and can step through every process, save time trading emails and waiting days
No, they aren't volunteers
They are full-time employees and directly part of the development team
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 09:37
Fair enough, you've invested in renting an actual block of office the last I heard, is it nice? I'm pretty sure you're the only dev I know actually investing in one.
GumdropGamesToday at 09:40
I'd be surprised if I'm the only one -- when upgrading GPUs/computer hardware, it gets so large/noisy to cool they almost always need some dedicated, quarantined room. I've had the office space I'm in currently since last March and will likely grab a larger space when Gumdrop Games is 6+ people
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 09:43
Whats the max amount of staff you would want?
Like ever.
GumdropGamesToday at 09:45
I haven't really considered it yet, but right now I plan on pushing as close to 10 as I can before year's end
There's so many aspects in development that are spread thin due to labor, so I see no problem using funds to directly address and better those parts of development
I guess the limit would be up to expense rather than management -- I'm likely not going to have 30+ people working for me.
Not yet :]
Need to get releases back on schedule for that
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 09:49
That sounds very ambitious, I'd recommend hiring a manager to help if you ever did reach those numbers of staff.
GumdropGamesToday at 09:51
Without a doubt
lostraven [Open DM]Today at 09:56
Well, that'll do for questions. Thanks for giving some clarity on things. From here on out all I have is some of the more outlandish claims Ive heard so I'm not going to waste time asking them, as I assume you'll categorically deny them for obvious reasons, but thanks for your time anyway
goodluck with the game, hope it does somehow manage to meet its high expectations.
GumdropGamesToday at 09:56
sure thing, we'll see what you think on opening
Captains note, some of you may be wondering why I didn't question Gumdrops on the more 'criminal accusations' such as money laundering. Well, frankly, I'm not going to commit to accusing someone of a legal crime without valid evidence. Also, what do you think would happen even if I did ask? Gumdrops throws his hands in the air and goes, 'Ya got me' and I dial up with a gleeful smile some Government body and tell them "Shut it down Lance." He'll just tell me to fuck off and ban me from his discord.
Hopefully you can extract whatever from this interview and draw your own conclusions,
Captains Log, signing off!
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