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

[Construct]

The dev is just bad when it comes to communication. What‘s missing from the update post is the information on what is left to do. Yes, they are working on character Information and translation and refactored the code for various features. In my opinion he is way too proud on reducing the size of the update when it’s just a droplet in the ocean. Does that mean most of the merge is done? Is that just cleanup? That would have been useful information to stakeholders. „We have a lot left to do“ or „We managed to get a huge chunk of work out of the way.“ Would already been helpful. Maybe he should let his „project manager“ make those updates in the future.

Why is he suffering from the delay the most? Added stress because he can‘t deliver? He still gets the money from his subscribers so it can‘t be that he is out of cash.
Then he said he wanted to produce new content. From what I read here, during the downtime he already did rendering and story writing, so updates after the merge should come out faster, since he now should have a lot of backlog.

 

[Skummy Ecchi]

1."He told you blatantly they were translating information on the character cards and calendar. Telling you guys about how they managed to fix a lot of the issues that will keep things from being too bloated in the future." " I'd say that's a confirmation on the information I already gave you all a few months ago, albeit not at the pace he estimated when they began work on this area." "I told you all already, this was what we were waiting on before it could get finished, now there's the confirmation from the developer."

translating what? the first week has already been done for the character cards the only ones that haven't are week 2 and week 3 and the calendar has already fully translated into at least 3 different languages (also the only on the calendar aside from a few events is just birthdays) which means the translating job should not only take a small amount of time, not months (unless he plans on translating them into 17 different languages which he honestly might) and not only that but if you compare the end of the week 1 character cards to the end of week 3 they're almost exactly the same even the lewd ones, nothing changes mostly because nothing really happens to any of the characters that's worthy of writing in them now if he was saying that he was writing and rewriting new cards for each days and translating those into different languages then yes with about almost 60 different characters that might take some considerable time (not months but some time) but if all he is doing is a simple for what probably amounts to about a paragraph or 2 of work then it really shouldnt take him that long and if its just that he's waiting on then what's the point of delaying at the very least the alpha part of the merge i mean i've already spent the last 8 updates not understanding the character cards im honestly fine with waiting either one more or at least a beta update until i can.

2." I've been here that entire time, keeping track of every last message in this thread. I have seen you guys get pissy when there's nothing coming out of of Bluecat, I've seen you upset when its just him posting these status updates. I see you guys complain day in and day out no matter what you get told."

well We ( since you've decided to throw everybody in with everybody) dont get told anything we only get told small amounts of information which we get from you not bluecat i mean the patreons let alone us didn't even know one of the team members was sick until feburary-april now i can understand not telling people if they'd only been sick for a little bit but after a month has passed you need to or at least should make your patreons aware that development has stalled especially if you just released a status update telling them that your almost finished not hide the information because if you do it just comes across looking like your trying to avoid losing money.

3 "i have witnessed come out of the work he, and the team, have done over these past months."

thats great im glad YOU have been well informed on the goings on but guess what none of us have been, also i do have to say why are you so well informed? i understand you have a bit of a personal relationship to the team but your not apart of the team and your a patreon just like a lot of ppl who support him, yet you are still getting updates while the rest of us aren't i mean if i was still a patreon of bluecat and was paying $20- $30 a month to them and had almost no idea what was going while somebody else who was also patreon had a seemely extensive knowledge about the project i would honestly be very pissed and start to ask why? are you a $80 paying patreon is that why your informed? is that what it takes to know whats going? and if so why, why do i need to pay so much money to get basic status updates on a project im supporting especially if im paying what most ppl would call a fairly high amount for a porn game?

Can't answer all of that, but the reason I'm more informed is because, while I may not be one of the developers I am still working with Bluecat. This is not because I'm a patron, but because I'm trying to do Bluecat at least some level of service, therefore I get more information than what someone else might get due to me trying to mitigate the catastrophe of this merge. Yes I suck at this but if I was just super clinical and dry toned I'm fairly certain you guys would be pissed at me for that too.

The PR thing isn't for shits and giggles, I'm actively working with Bluecat beyond the level of simple patronage, the most the higher level patrons were getting was last year and was just renders for the upcoming days after the merge. they are not somehow privy to any special knowledge just because they pay more. Everyone is getting fed the same info, I just can manage to squeeze a bit more out than normal, but that's due to me wanting to try and give you all the most information at the best of my ability, despite my temper.

As for character cards and calendar shit, yes he literally went back and wrote all the data entries he had put off for those weeks, took him some level of weeks to do so. Translation is happening slower than normal due to still not being completely 100% on the health side, that is all I will say for privacy reasons. The entries were started I think midway through April, or the first week of April if I recall. The reason there isn't some kind of how much is left is because he probably really has no idea how much is actively left to sort through and finish.

Sorry for my tone, it is unprofessional of me, and I have been told that on both sides as much. However, this was a bit of a hot button for me as much as any of you. Whether you accept it or not I don't really care, but you do deserve at least that much out of me.

 

[ser55]

Can't answer all of that, but the reason I'm more informed is because, while I may not be one of the developers I am still working with Bluecat. This is not because I'm a patron, but because I'm trying to do Bluecat at least some level of service, therefore I get more information than what someone else might get due to me trying to mitigate the catastrophe of this merge. Yes I suck at this but if I was just super clinical and dry toned I'm fairly certain you guys would be pissed at me for that too.

The PR thing isn't for shits and giggles, I'm actively working with Bluecat beyond the level of simple patronage, the most the higher level patrons were getting was last year and was just renders for the upcoming days after the merge. they are not somehow privy to any special knowledge just because they pay more. Everyone is getting fed the same info, I just can manage to squeeze a bit more out than normal, but that's due to me wanting to try and give you all the most information at the best of my ability, despite my temper.

As for character cards and calendar shit, yes he literally went back and wrote all the data entries he had put off for those weeks, took him some level of weeks to do so. Translation is happening slower than normal due to still not being completely 100% on the health side, that is all I will say for privacy reasons. The entries were started I think midway through April, or the first week of April if I recall. The reason there isn't some kind of how much is left is because he probably really has no idea how much is actively left to sort through and finish.

Sorry for my tone, it is unprofessional of me, and I have been told that on both sides as much. However, this was a bit of a hot button for me as much as any of you. Whether you accept it or not I don't really care, but you do deserve at least that much out of me.

With these generally correct (and conciliatory) words, the discussion can end.In three months it will be possible to get together again and continue.If everything goes well and we are lucky, the topic for discussion will appear earlier.

 

[Muk_king]

From what I read here, during the downtime he already did rendering and story writing, so updates after the merge should come out faster, since he now should have a lot of backlog.

That's a good point. If there is an update every week/two weeks for a few months after the merge everyone will probably forgive and forget this embarrassing period.

 

[LooLoo Baloo]

Oh, so now that he posts an update, where he says "Still not done, sorry, but here's what we have left" you guys bitch that "There's nothing here!"

Where was that energy when you guys were all complaining that he should just keep posting updates even if he has nothing to show? Where was that energy to say "Well at least he posted something to keep us updated". Yeah this is why I get so fed up with you guys, you act like children that nothing is ever good enough for you.

That being said, in relation to earlier question post, the correct way to eat cereal is cereal first then milk. Anyone who says otherwise is either a troll or a fool.

How about we cleanse the palate with another one? Because we gotta flush out the bad vibes rocketing through this thread.

When it comes down to it, would you wish to dictate what those in your harem were dressing up in, what kind of accessories and makeup? Would you wish to dictate or let them adjust themselves according to what they would perceive you'd enjoy.

No outro today, bye.

That was not the 'updates' saying actual progress that people asked for. It was a paywall update to stop the game getting the abandoned tag, yet again. And you'll be repeating the same spun up lines about it being close in September, when the next paywall update arrives. And then December, and then March, and so on

Calling people children for seeing reality is not the best way to be doing this

And another thing:
It was said 3 months ago they were working on the character cards. You said that. So HOW does it take a team of 3 people 3 months to write character cards?

They've been CLOSE for half a year now. How much closer do they need to be?

 

[Skummy Ecchi]

That was not the 'updates' saying actual progress that people asked for. It was a paywall update to stop the game getting the abandoned tag, yet again. And you'll be repeating the same spun up lines about it being close in September, when the next paywall update arrives. And then December, and then March, and so on

Calling people children for seeing reality is not the best way to be doing this

And another thing:
It was said 3 months ago they were working on the character cards. You said that. So HOW does it take a team of 3 people 3 months to write character cards?

They've been CLOSE for half a year now. How much closer do they need to be?

Stop refusing to read into the context of what is said, like seriously you people just ignore so much on purpose I swear.

I said the translation for this is moving slower than it would otherwise be going, not that the writing was taking forever, but if you must know it would take at least more than a few weeks of constant work to get all the data properly coded in. Now do it all again but while translating it all and proofreading, and while moving slower than you normally would otherwise. Yeah I'd say that's a pretty reasonable timeframe that we're experiencing when you actually look at the truth, they're not exactly on a time crunch here, they're gonna do it and do it the right way. We can be patient and sit still, we're adults, we don't need it right now we can keep waiting for as long as it takes.

Stop conflating the issue, stop spinning up a conspiracy theory, stop trying to accuse the developer of being a scam artist.

Knock it off with this willful ignorance of the facts presented to you. The merge will be released when it is ready, none of you need it, it is not crucial to your life, be patient and wait it out. Patience can solve a lot of things.

 

[LooLoo Baloo]

Stop refusing to read into the context of what is said, like seriously you people just ignore so much on purpose I swear.

I said the translation for this is moving slower than it would otherwise be going, not that the writing was taking forever, but if you must know it would take at least more than a few weeks of constant work to get all the data properly coded in. Now do it all again but while translating it all and proofreading, and while moving slower than you normally would otherwise. Yeah I'd say that's a pretty reasonable timeframe that we're experiencing when you actually look at the truth, they're not exactly on a time crunch here, they're gonna do it and do it the right way. We can be patient and sit still, we're adults, we don't need it right now we can keep waiting for as long as it takes.

Stop conflating the issue, stop spinning up a conspiracy theory, stop trying to accuse the developer of being a scam artist.

Knock it off with this willful ignorance of the facts presented to you. The merge will be released when it is ready, none of you need it, it is not crucial to your life, be patient and wait it out. Patience can solve a lot of things.

If you think 3 months and over is a fine timeframe to make character cards when 3 people are working on it, then I don't see this being completed within another year. And a few weeks to work on the basic coding for one minor gameplay element? I guess 'Close' really translates to 'Fuckin ages away' in that case

The project manager has been ill for years. This isn't new. Stop pretending they suddenly got covid. They didn't. There were delays like this on the last merge. Not only that, but the last merge was a failure. Those are facts. The developer puts out paywall posts to save being tagged. That's another fact. They've been 'proof reading' since December. That's a fact for you. The main developer lacks the ability to lead his own project. There's another fact

Want another fact? They can't give a date, not even for months away, because it will not be completed

There are developers working by themselves that would have finished this within a month or two max

And no, the game is not important. But blatant liars irritate me. So do delusional self proclaimed pr cats

Anyways, I'm finished with this game. There are developers that don't hide away and lead people on. It is not worth the time anymore. It was a mistake supporting this. Idc anymore

 

[Bomatres]

man, now i have to wait for unknown amount of time again?
i know i'm just a freeloader but c'mon man,i have been coming back here few times a months already
at least give us the approx date so i can check at that date and update the situation if you can't complete it near that date

this is just a trick so that they can say the same "its almost finished" thing again next time they are near the 3 months limit
i'm getting tired of coming back here, guess i'll come back next year then

 

[Construct]

man, now i have to wait for unknown amount of time again?
i know i'm just a freeloader but c'mon man,i have been coming back here few times a months already
at least give us the approx date so i can check at that date and update the situation if you can't complete it near that date

this is just a trick so that they can say the same "its almost finished" thing again next time they are near the 3 months limit
i'm getting tired of coming back here, guess i'll come back next year then

Protip: Just wait for the thread to appear in latest updates. 1. You don‘t need to check back here everyday and 2. You probably find other good games to keep you busy while waiting.

 

[FanOfEcchiSensei]

Oh, so now that he posts an update, where he says "Still not done, sorry, but here's what we have left" you guys bitch that "There's nothing here!"

Where was that energy when you guys were all complaining that he should just keep posting updates even if he has nothing to show? Where was that energy to say "Well at least he posted something to keep us updated". Yeah this is why I get so fed up with you guys, you act like children that nothing is ever good enough for you.

What we ASK for, is somewhat consistent updates on how progress is going. Not BC thinking "Oh shit in 2 weeks we'll get the abandoned/on hold tag, let me write something up real quick so people who don't read the actual thread or look at "last updated" date will still gimme more money.
Because that's how it's coming off at this point.

Updates. Once a week, bi-weekly, once a month. JUST NOT ONLY TO PREVENT IT FROM GETTING ON HOLD/ABANDONED TAGGED BECAUSE IT'S STARTING TO LOOK PRETTY (pun not intended) SCUMMY.

 

[Skummy Ecchi]

I'mma step back again cause clearly you guys are living in your own bubble again, I'll be back with a new question to get us back off this weird conspiracy train.

 

[Skalli]

I belong with the disappointing crew.
My reasons are similar as stated above by sam1234567.
I don't see much new in the Update, it's so close to the last we got, it's not really giving any new. They worked on Calender and Character cards in December before if I remember correctly.
And ok, the work with the sickly team member is slow, but this doesn't excuse the translation issue much. At least not giving some more info about the progress. How hard is it?
How many characters are there? How often do their cards get updated?
60 characters + 10 updates on average? They should know the number since the cards are written. I assume they're written in German, so Latecomer has to translate them to English? Are the other languages based on that or the German Original?
Anyway, the thing is, they must know the number, let it be 600 entries * x languages. How hard is it to say "100% cards written, English, 90% done, Spanish 50%, Italian 40%..."? Same with the Calendar! If they don't know, then that means they have no control over the project at all. Of course one can only guesstimate the remaining time based on time spend and percentage, but it's at least an indicator. No need for promises, but if they update the numbers once per week, heck, once per month, then at least we get a feel for the progress.
Of course the translations still have to be put in the code, but that can be as simple as a function call...
UpdateCharacterCard("Tomoe", 15, 0, 0, "New card text"), where a part is the character, maybe the cum in different places and the new text. Then it's just copy and paste of the call, enter the translations and done. I know it's lots of works, there are plenty of other approaches, but hey, it's manageable, can be done by people with very limited programming skills. And easy to track the progress.
Now the biggest part left is testing of course. No shortcuts there, but again, we know how many changes, where they are, so a test plan can be made and tracked.
That would be much nicer as giving us the same updates as month before with a vague "we made some progress". Which, and that's the complaint, doesn't really tell anything.

It's time again to bring you up to date, and therefore, there is again a status update on the current events.

Frankly, this might not be intended, but when I read it, it sounded like "... before we get the abandoned tag." I know it's probably not the case, but it's oil in the fire for the people here.

The size reduction, adding text via code and reducing number of images were all mentioned in previous updates as pretty much done.
At some point releasing something and cutting back scope is an option. Bring calender an update later but finish the character cards, leave out some translations if necessary. Frankly, this all happened before in the week one merge, same promises, and many things didn't really work well. I hope they haven't lost control of the code completely.

And I still hope for the news of Alpha release soon.

 

[cavaemon]

i m gonna break this down into points real quick because i think this has gotten to the point where even you cant defend this skummy.

1." here's what we have left"

When did they say that, he said they're close to the finish line and then went on to say how he shrunk small amounts of code down to smaller sizes but he didnt say what the have left and if hes close to the finish line then what does that mean? does he have most of the coding done and their just cleaning up now? are the renders all done and their just polishing them? i mean if your close to almost finishing the product and putting out a playable copy you should be able to tell me what you have left or at the very least give a decent ballpark as to how long is gonna take till you have one but all he did was talk about improvements that not only could've done in the next update but also dont really matter, this is a 16-40gb update i really dont care if its 1gb smaller it aint gonna matter with the internet speed its still gonna take a long ass time to download and not only that but if in 7 months, hell even 1 month and thats all the improvements/ changes/ fixes to the game he talk about then what has he been doing then? 7 months you should be able to have 3 paragraph status update at the very least into what you've done not like 5 sentences

2."Where was that energy when you guys were all complaining that he should just keep posting updates even if he has nothing to show? Where was that energy to say "Well at least he posted something to keep us updated".

Because we wanted him to post at least once a month regular updates that explain what he's doing and how its going and giving us a status update into what's still needed to be done and also stuff like showing of renders of future updates (that he has apparently already done) of stuff with characters, settings clothe types even. even if he doesn't give us alot it still gives us some idea of whats going on. Not only that but we also have questions with the game going forward i mean the guys going to introduce a sandbox mechanic into a choice-based linear story type game (i dunno if thats the correct word type but hopefully you get my meaning) how is that going to work? is it going to change the pace and tone of the game dramatically? is it going to affect the story heavily and if so how are you going to shape it? there's also story based stuff we wanna kniow like what characters is he going to focus on in the next few updates? are there any favourites of his that he wants to do more with? are there any characters he doesn't like that we're gonna see less of? are there any big character or story arcs coming up? what is going to happen in the future with certain characters? ( not spoiler stuff obviously but general hints and stuff like that)

3."you act like children that nothing is ever good enough for you."

Because nothing is still nothing. if he produced even something we would be more patient and less accusatory but he didn't he still, just like the last one 3 months ago, produced nothing.

... ill add to these by also saying if you guys need to complain that is time wasted and could go to energy spent on other titles on here... fairly certain some devs could use the help and encouragement. also BC said he wont give false hope so take grains of salt accordingly. everything else is a choice and i choose to wait and play other games out of boredom.

 

[Mab's Thrall22]

... ill add to these by also saying if you guys need to complain that is time wasted and could go to energy spent on other titles on here... fairly certain some devs could use the help and encouragement. also BC said he wont give false hope so take grains of salt accordingly. everything else is a choice and i choose to wait and play other games out of boredom.

Agreed. I extended my timeframe to 1 year from the announcement of this merge to get it released, or at least provide a solid release date, before stopping my support. This extension was due to the unforeseen delays. Since no confirmed release date has been made, I have officially pulled my support from this project. Now, I can take the money from this project and use it on other ones. My drive and energy will go towards that new project and developer, whatever or whoever it may be. And who knows, if this one starts releasing content on a regular basis again, I may support it again. But for now, it is time to move on. I do hope that those who continue to wait and support actually get some payoff for their patience. Take care.

 

[PrimeGuy]

I very much get the sense that no one who has lost trust in the developers is going to be satisfied than anything less than a release, and that's fair. At the same time, no one who still has faith in them is going to lose it over the complaining and accusations. That's also fair. I'm just tired of the argument, as I've stated before. Can everyone who disagrees just agree to disagree at this point, please?

 

[Construct]

I think it‘s fair to call out bad practices that are clearly at work here. Project management and distribution of workload is questionable at best. Granted some rants here are unnecessary. It‘s confusing to see the scarce update posts interpreted so differently by both the complainers and defenders. Pulling some „insider knowledge“ really doesn‘t do anything, because the dev is bad at communicating both on the official and informal channels through forum users here.
Facts are, the game is delayed, it‘s still being worked on, but a due to unknown reasons a clear timeline isn‘t foreseeable.

Regarding the character cards,in my opinion, that‘s a feature that should be pushed back to the very end of development, as they are not as important as functional pathing throughout the story line and fixing general bugs with variables and such. Just slap a work in progress label on it and gradually update them. I don‘t know how important the calendar is, but to me that seems like another extra feature that could be temporarily pushed back.

 

[c4145317]

I think it‘s fair to call out bad practices that are clearly at work here. Project management and distribution of workload is questionable at best.

It's fair and should be encouraged, but at this point there's no point in bothering. The team have sequestered themselves away from the greater community within a walled garden along with a group of, I assume slowly dwindling, yesmen. Any criticism, constructive or not, has to be passed along to them from said yesmen. Who're unlikely to do so since they appear to see everyone that isn't a yesman as an other and dismiss what the other has to say since they do not agree with them. More likely than not all Blue and co hear about from this thread is probably something along the lines of "Those entitled pirates are complaining that the update is delayed still.".
I guess you could argue that criticism in this thread could be valuable for other devs and/or prospective devs, but I'm using my last ounce of optimism and hoping no one in either group is lurking and taking cues from this thread.

 

[sam1234567]

I very much get the sense that no one who has lost trust in the developers is going to be satisfied than anything less than a release, and that's fair. At the same time, no one who still has faith in them is going to lose it over the complaining and accusations. That's also fair. I'm just tired of the argument, as I've stated before. Can everyone who disagrees just agree to disagree at this point, please?

i agree to disagree to agree to disagree to that statement

 

[Dukez]

I agree with the stuff Sam & Nefura were saying on the previous page, and Skummy has accused me of gaslighting in the past while I wasn't or at the very least I'll not intentionally when trying to drive my point home.

Now though, maybe I should 'gaslight'? Pictures are worth a thousand words as they say.

Why doesn't BC show work his doing? I'm not talking show it to Skummy which is completely irrelevant so he can shill it for you, but on these patreon posts. The character cards translations? Show us pictures of them, how do they change throughout playing, has there been a visual redesign since these things were broken in some weeks of the game? What about the rest of the UI like the Phone that was broken forever basically, has it changed visually as well?

Also translation is a bad thing to hide behind, but if his going to hide behind it let me raise him this: Just get one translation done (e.g English) and release the game. You can add the others later since this is an ever evolving game after all. Sure it would be nice to have it at the same time but I would think the majority of his backers are capable of reading the more commonly used languages. Let's not ignore the fact that the majority of the game is already translated as well... unless they're completely redoing it at which point I would question the reasoning instead of just touching up translations on area's you are changing (which would be significantly less work).

At the end of the day, all BC has been doing is vaguely telling us his progress, he needs to put pictures to his words and show us some shit. Also if all the actual content is done and it's just translating then he should know how big the game size will be right? He could bestow upon us that knowledge if his feeling as generous as his backers are.

 

[RandoCard3]

I think it‘s fair to call out bad practices that are clearly at work here.

Absolutely, but not at every opportunity. They heard it the first time. They either hear it, or don't. We all know they're doing a bad job. Dwelling on it is just getting exhausting.

Regarding the character cards,in my opinion, that‘s a feature that should be pushed back to the very end of development, as they are not as important as functional pathing throughout the story line and fixing general bugs with variables and such. Just slap a work in progress label on it and gradually update them. I don‘t know how important the calendar is, but to me that seems like another extra feature that could be temporarily pushed back.

I actually really enjoy the character cards. A lack of character profiles is generally a point against a game, for me. I get why others don't care, but I like the quick reference tool, when I'm loading up a new game, or like this one, there's so many damn characters.

I agree with the stuff Sam & Nefura were saying on the previous page, and Skummy has accused me of gaslighting in the past while I wasn't or at the very least I'll not intentionally when trying to drive my point home.

Now though, maybe I should 'gaslight'? Pictures are worth a thousand words as they say.

I wouldn't recommend it. Not only would that make you the arsehole he suggests you are, but it would undermine any point you make later, cause gaslighters are inherently untrustworthy.