VN Ren'Py Abandoned Ecchi Sensei [Day 22-23 Final] [BlueCat]

[GuacamoleBen]

FWIW i would like to see a character who is controlled/blackmailed or otherwise brought into sexual contact with Ecchi against their immediate desires at least at first. Right now every girl he meets pretty much immediately falls in love with him. I love the game - just providing my .02 cents.

 

[Leotrim Funkelwerk]

Ya, also the whole merge should actually be smaller than week 1. The dev team has learned quite a bit since then.

Oh my god! That's what I wanted to hear, because my Laptop really tries it's best but it would die if I would force another 20 gb onto him xD

 

[fashtar]

I used to skip on replays, but as the releases got longer, the more stress it put on my fingers. That TAB info was handy. I'll keep that in mind.

Now that someone has brought up the topic though, if you had to cut the female cast down to a dozen, who would you choose?

1. Fuyu
2. Tomoe
3. Mao
4. Himiko
5. Kaede
6. Minako
7. Masae
8. Rikka
9. Mika
10. Marlies
11. Satomi
12. Nikki

 

[RandoCard3]

Nice choices. To answer my own question.
Mao
Kotori
Sloth
Shina
Neko
Rikka
Kaede
Fuyu
Aki
Masae
Satomi
Sakura

 

[JohnyShadow7]

Oh my god! That's what I wanted to hear, because my Laptop really tries it's best but it would die if I would force another 20 gb onto him xD

Yeah, that 16GB is kinda extreme. I personally recommend the "light compressed" version. (4-5GB)
That is if you want to start playing right now. At this point it might be worth waiting for the merge, since it might finally happen...

 

[JohnyShadow7]

I used to skip on replays, but as the releases got longer, the more stress it put on my fingers. That TAB info was handy. I'll keep that in mind.

Now that someone has brought up the topic though, if you had to cut the female cast down to a dozen, who would you choose?

3 daughters
3 of their friends. I think Fuyu, Mika, and that girl that stays over a bit with Saki. (You play with her a lot)
3 redheads-family. Kaede + sis + mom
1 kotori
1 niece (still have to meet her in-game)
1 neko (or someone else, this possible is fluid for me)

 

[Smarmint]

That is if you want to start playing right now. At this point it might be worth waiting for the merge, since it might finally happen...

Hmm, you mean this year? Right....

 

[Dirk220]

Wow, only a dozen...let me think..
1. Mao
2. Saki
3. Himiko
4. Fuyu
5. Tomoe
6. Masae
7. Riyu (edit: obviously Riu...)
8. Kotori
9. Rikka
10. Kaede
11. Satomi
12. Shina
13.......oh, got carried away.
This was tough....next time we should go for two dozen...
I didn't even get to the second best girls..

For Skummys question( good thing it was quoted):
I think I'll go with the Neko-Maids. We'll see them naked anyway, at least sooner or later.

 

[Skalli]

Well, I hope that the team member will get better and since the release of the merge was already close, even if there's only slow progress it should be done very soon, assuming what was told in the updates was true.
This is one of the projects where I would love to be part of the dev team, just to see the site of the problem and fix it. If a team member gets sick that's bad, but for a project there should be ways to still continue, especially if it's that long. I've read the comments on the reasons, but they should not happen.
Next merge, they should work on the merge in a separate branch while they continue to work on the new content and release it in the old system. Might lead to a bit more work overall, but it doesn't stop the work all together. The Week 1 merge took months longer than expected and with Month 1 it's now almost a year. Can't imagine what could happen with the Month 6 merge.
But I'd love to see what work was done for the merge. I can't explain why it took so long (even if the team member working on it wouldn't hae gotten sick). Even if the old code base was crappy, there's nothing that outstanding in the game that I can see cause that much work when refactoring everything.

 

[temmcgee]

Well, I hope that the team member will get better and since the release of the merge was already close, even if there's only slow progress it should be done very soon, assuming what was told in the updates was true.
This is one of the projects where I would love to be part of the dev team, just to see the site of the problem and fix it. If a team member gets sick that's bad, but for a project there should be ways to still continue, especially if it's that long. I've read the comments on the reasons, but they should not happen.
Next merge, they should work on the merge in a separate branch while they continue to work on the new content and release it in the old system. Might lead to a bit more work overall, but it doesn't stop the work all together. The Week 1 merge took months longer than expected and with Month 1 it's now almost a year. Can't imagine what could happen with the Month 6 merge.
But I'd love to see what work was done for the merge. I can't explain why it took so long (even if the team member working on it wouldn't hae gotten sick). Even if the old code base was crappy, there's nothing that outstanding in the game that I can see cause that much work when refactoring everything.

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.

 

[Kuro.Kami]

A nice feature would be a tweak of the chat conversations on the phone and adding a kind of mark or separator between the conversations. I find it quite hard to find where the current conversation starts as there is no differentiation to the previous ones.

 

[AnimeKing314]

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 know that it was decided on by patrons and that us pirates don't really get a say but this whole idea of merges is an objectively bad idea. It may not seem so bad given the two options you state but there's actually a third option (which is the one most devs use) and that is a fix-as-you-go model. Basically, start working to solve problems once they get reported instead of letting them pile up and release the game as a whole instead of in parts that later have to be merged together. By doing it this way you don't end up with a huge list of broken features and any delays get spread out over several updates so players don't actually notice the delays.

This can even be taken a step further and can follow the release model of most games/apps where you have a test version that only the dev team and testers see that contains the experimental features that may not work yet and then a release version that only contains features that have been tested and work. The fact that there have been quite significant delays during both merges and that a ton of features broke right after the last merge really highlights the need for the team to adjust their strategy going forward. Even supposing that letting patrons decide your entire development strategy is a good idea (it isn't but for the sake of argument) the idea should at least be revisited every once in a while to see if it's still what they want.

 

[Skummy Ecchi]

Hey so I've been tired, so been sleeping after work.

Yeah no merge isn't being held up anymore, I already told you guys that, the final parts are being worked on. However quickly that all comes to fruition I am being, intentionally vague about but yeah, we're actually moving now guys. Sit tight, the ride's a bit bumpy but hell you've been waiting this long, what's another [REDACTED]? Right?

Hang in there everyone! No question cause Rando's got this covered for now, come back later for one.

Stay Healthy, Stay Ecchi!

~Skummy Out

 

[giqui]

Arguments and more arguments, I think the excuse for this long delay is exhausted. I even understand, but there is a difference between understanding and accepting. At the beginning of all the discussion about the delay, I was understanding and accepting, but instinctively I am no longer doing it. It is because there comes a time when excuses are no longer convincing. The game is good, I like it, but ...

 

[Skalli]

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.

 

[Kulman]

I am wondering if all their team is just 100% working on the merger, or if they are already working on upcoming updates. Like rendering etc. Would seem kinda suspect that stitching together all those previous days takes all their manpower.

 

[AnimeKing314]

I am wondering if all their team is just 100% working on the merger, or if they are already working on upcoming updates. Like rendering etc. Would seem kinda suspect that stitching together all those previous days takes all their manpower.

Currently we know that Blue at least was working on the next update and I assume still is. I haven't noticed any posts regarding the rest of the team but I'd assume that they'll all prioritize the merge first and if someone is done their part on the merge or has to wait for someone else to finish their part then they'd go to work on the next update. So yes, we know there has been at least some work done on the next update but have no idea how much.

 

[heisenberg1234]

Does the DM patch work with the heavy compressed version week 1?

 

[ClawViper]

Does the DM patch work with the heavy compressed version week 1?

It seems to work, yes. I'm playing that combo right now and got no errors yet.

 

[mrgseven]

what is the final dm patch for week 3?,because the patch of day 15-21 does not appear.