The merge is being worked on as the primary project because that is what the patrons voted on. The work being done is a complete overhaul of the foundation of the code so that file sizes will be greatly reduced (many people may recall the 15 GB size of full Week 1 merge file), and so that tools that have been planned and implemented unsuccessfully (such as the phone system and the calendar) will operate as desired going forward, and decisions made in the early stages of the game will actually be remembered in the later stages. After the Month 1 merge is complete, the next planned merge won't take place until after Month 6.
While all of this work has been going on, and even throughout the current delay, Blue has been working on the artwork and dialogue for the story beyond the Month 1 merge, and higher tier patrons have already seen teasers of what is to come for days 22 through 25 (at least). Additionally, while some of the work on the re-coding of the game has been delayed, there is still work actively being done on the game on a daily basis.
Everyone, from the dev team to the patrons to the pirates (noone moreso than Blue himself), is frustrated by the fact that Month 1 hasn't been able to be completed yet, but this is what the people financing the project asked for when we were presented with the option. We'd rather wait now for a game and a platform that will allow for a return to regular monthly updates than have future updates remain on the old broken platform and have it be a coin flip as to whether or not the current release will work or if your old save files will actually carry over.
I agree with
AnimeKing314, I understand what they did and why. I'm a developer myself and have refactored old software to transform them into a new architecture as well. But while doing that the software had to do releases with new features regularly. So there was no choice but to approach it in a way that would not delay these deliveries or impact existing features. For a few bigger chunks of the code base there was the chance to do it between major features, so instead of a 3 week cycle it was 6-9 weeks. But in those times there were still other tasks to be worked on. A good project management can support that.
The size of 16GB doesn't matter much, because that's not the size of the code, just the data. So that's why I'm curious what the technical difficulties were. There might be a good reason why it wasn't possible, but it's difficult that the chosen approach was the best one.
As others, I don't see why the Month 6 merge should even be a thing. Both merges in the past took much longer than expected. After the first there was a promise of new features and bug fixes, both did not happen, the opposite, a few features even broke.
All the features in the games are ones that others use as well without much trouble (phone, character cards, etc.). I don't want to say that all were bad decision, because as an outsider it's impossible to tell, but it's just hard to imagine what could cause this.
Traditionally a total rewrite is a bad decision in 99% of the cases.
Why did they not release new days based on the old system while refactoring stuff in the background? That might make the refactoring take longer, but at least people get new stuff while the background work is done. Much more satisfying for both sides.
I'm glad to hear that progress should pick up again now. But to be honest, I am wary and will not get my hopes up until we have the new release happens.
Note that I'm not implying the supporters were milked or it's a fraud. I have worked on hobby projects that spanned multiple years with colleagues and friends too, but it happened that at some point the traction was lost and the project died because updates slowed and everyone lost motivation. So this is something I fear can happen under these circumstances too, and I really want the project to finish.
