- Feb 8, 2018
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- Thread starter 7767
- Start date
- Sep 27, 2017
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Well, maybe they really had a break from doing nothing...a few more and we get finally something ^^
- Dec 23, 2021
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Unsurprising that you haven't been following the information on what's going on given that 90% of this thread is people complaining. The game has a number of features that have never worked such as the phone that's caused most people game breaking bugs. The method of tracking decisions is also super clunky and breaks saves in between versions, so your decisions in each weeks are currently meaningless for all subsequent weeks. The merge is meant to fix all of these current problems so they can not only work as intended in the current content, but set up a solid foundation for all future releases. Latecomer got sick in January (which I have to remind people was during the height of the covid pandemic, because some people think the sole dev getting sick during a pandemic isn't a good excuse) bringing work on the merge to a standstill for months. Even after getting better Latecomer hasn't been able to work full time. It still shouldn't have taken this long, but there's a lot more going on than just slapping together 3 weeks of content.
Don't need Skummy to answer this one. Content is coming out this year one way or another. Either the proper merge comes out soon or Bluecat has already switched to plan B and we're getting a scaled back merge just so new content can start being released. The latter doesn't bode well for the future of the game, but at least there will be releases again.
- Mar 8, 2019
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I for one would be quite content with a week 4 and a week 5 release non merged the story continuing without integrated galleries is just fine as long as the story continues. and merged its going to be too big to d/l anyway...
- Dec 23, 2021
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I have the same opinion personally, the merged game would be huge.
I'd rather have a functionality to carry over my save/decisions to the next week (I believe if they have the same save index(?) it would work) or maybe as a file like a patch?
- Mar 17, 2019
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The merge will probably actually be smaller than Week 1, as far as download size is concern. Week 1 was terribly optimised, in that regard.
- Mar 23, 2019
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Everyone is free to have their own opinions. But you seem so sure. Since we have not seen one single speck of proof other than highly misleading and useless status updates about things that nobody cares about every 2.5 months, i.e. never once has Bluecat said when we will see new content, how curious, how can you be so sure that the supposed merge is actually being worked on and that they have made any progress at all? Do you have some information that all the rest of us are lacking?
In your opinion, when do you think we will see actual new content?
They're taking the three in game weeks so far (so all existing content), making whatever bug fixes are necessary, then releasing it all as a single download instead of three separate downloads. In other words, it's a content merge.
As for the excuses, based on what I've read it sounds like Latecomer is straight up lying to the rest of the team about how complicated what he's doing is and even what he is actually doing which is why the excuses don't really make sense for how long the delay has been. Most of the time I'd blame delays on whoever the project belongs to (bluecat in this case) but given latecomer is both the head developer and project manager and seems to have no idea what he's talking about I'd put the blame on him. Yes, bluecat should've noticed before now and done something about it but I think his belief in his team actually is just incompetence as skummy keeps saying. Latecomer is the one who's actively lying and is the actual reason for the delay.
As for the excuses, based on what I've read it sounds like Latecomer is straight up lying to the rest of the team about how complicated what he's doing is and even what he is actually doing which is why the excuses don't really make sense for how long the delay has been. Most of the time I'd blame delays on whoever the project belongs to (bluecat in this case) but given latecomer is both the head developer and project manager and seems to have no idea what he's talking about I'd put the blame on him. Yes, bluecat should've noticed before now and done something about it but I think his belief in his team actually is just incompetence as skummy keeps saying. Latecomer is the one who's actively lying and is the actual reason for the delay.
- Mar 23, 2019
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You are absolutely right, but Bluecat is the one getting all the money each month, other than what he doles out to the other team member(s), so the buck stops with him. I think the incompetence excuse works for 4, 5, maybe even 6 months, but at some point he is still collecting many thousands of dollars a month that he could have used a long time ago, or even today, to hire someone that will actually do some work. It moves past incompetence to willful deceit to just look the other way while his developer does nothing for over a year. How many posts has he made in the "Recruitment & Services" forum here or elsewhere to try to find someone else to complete the merge?
- Sep 27, 2017
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Maybe he waits until he can buy a coder instead of just hire one ^^
- Apr 25, 2017
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This is exactly why i switched to Buy Me a Coffee and similar payment methods.
I started by supporting few games on Patreon at $20 and $10 level. When some devs started doing really well with pledges, I changed it to up to a dozen games at $5 to $10 level, mostly to upcoming devs. Supported this game as well.
After a while, just decided to pay per update whether by above mentioned method or by subscribing to Patreon for 1 month. There are lots of honest and productive devs here but I feel that this form of compensation is the most appropriate for me.
I also understand distinction between quick updates and ones that show 6+ months of work so I donate accordingly.
As Somebody365 mentioned, Ren'Py is not that complicated and half-decent (competent?) programmer should have handled this merge in a meter of months. If you don't count Halloween Special, which was basically a filler, there was no update like in 18 months.
Yes, this game is good. So is Waify Academy which is also marred by dodgy promises. If you like similar style games, for people who haven't played it already, I recommend Eternum by Caribdis.
Just my 2 cents. Think that this method of compensation would keep devs more honest.
I started by supporting few games on Patreon at $20 and $10 level. When some devs started doing really well with pledges, I changed it to up to a dozen games at $5 to $10 level, mostly to upcoming devs. Supported this game as well.
After a while, just decided to pay per update whether by above mentioned method or by subscribing to Patreon for 1 month. There are lots of honest and productive devs here but I feel that this form of compensation is the most appropriate for me.
I also understand distinction between quick updates and ones that show 6+ months of work so I donate accordingly.
As Somebody365 mentioned, Ren'Py is not that complicated and half-decent (competent?) programmer should have handled this merge in a meter of months. If you don't count Halloween Special, which was basically a filler, there was no update like in 18 months.
Yes, this game is good. So is Waify Academy which is also marred by dodgy promises. If you like similar style games, for people who haven't played it already, I recommend Eternum by Caribdis.
Just my 2 cents. Think that this method of compensation would keep devs more honest.
Had you just finished reading my post I mentioned that Bluecat may have already moved on to plan B. Indicating I don't know for sure any work is being done on the proper merge. I'm working on the same progress reports as everyone else here, I've just been paying attention to them in spite of the difficulty. As for new content I'd guess March or April. If the proper merge is basically done, as it should be, then it should be tested soon and publicly released before the end of the month. This would mean either a late February or early March release for the first days of week 4. If they switched to plan B then the scaled back merge probably won't be released until February meaning a late March or early April release for the beginning of week 4. Since the scaled back merge would presumably drop all the extra features causing problems it really would be little more than slapping the existing content together and shouldn't take long to do. If there's nothing out by the end of April I'm hitting the ignore button at the top of the thread and washing my hands of this game.
AnimeKing already answered most of your questions. As for this, some people don't recover in 3 days and quite a few have long term consequences from covid. It doesn't take much for respiratory infections to have permanent effects on people's health and ability to work. It's also not been a year of nothing happening. It was 3-4 months of nothing followed by 9 months of slow progress. Just because the update hasn't been released doesn't mean nothing has been done. I don't like how slow it's been either, and I wish Bluecat had hired another programmer when Latecomer got sick, but I'm also not going to behave like you smarmy shitstains out of impatience. Even triple A titles see delays that last several months, and that's with a whole team of programmers getting paid to do the work. Try to remember you're dealing with a passion project where all the workers have real jobs they do on top of making a game most people play for free.
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If I remember right, they confirmed that it wasn't covid that he had but rather he has long standing health issues that took a turn for the worse at that time. Which also begs the question (and many people were asking this when we found out about this) why not have a backup for that scenario? Bluecat was aware it was an eventualality and still had that person be the person the entire merge hinged on. Personally, I can still count that as amateurism and incompetence on bluecat's part but now that that same person is lying to the team to secure their posiition they should honestly be let go immediately (or at least as soon as the merge finishes if it truly is close which I hope it is).
Myself and any other person with programming experience who have looked at the code have said that it souldn't take nearly this long even in the worst cases of incompetence. It's time the bluecat team finds themselves a different project manager/lead programmer (ideally separating those two roles).
- Dec 19, 2020
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It's simple stuff really, like why isn't there updates saying how much *content* has been put into the merged product so far? E.g Week 1 & 2 in, and they're working on Week 3. What about the phone? Does it work properly now? Were there any UI changes? etc...
I feel like there's a bunch of questions they could answer and given picture showcases, or stats (current game size for example) and so on.
I think I might poke around in renpy for some fun..
I feel like there's a bunch of questions they could answer and given picture showcases, or stats (current game size for example) and so on.
I think I might poke around in renpy for some fun..
- Sep 28, 2017
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I no longer trust any developer that does not have weekly updates. Just tell us what was done, it will probably take you like 10 minutes to write per week and also at least gives you a nice summary to better manage your time.
- Dec 19, 2020
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Yeah I don't get it.. lol. I mean it's quite easy to rip the game and chuck it in a new project in renpy to merge it all together. The only bulk of things I imagine need changing judging on this short look into would be, I'll put it in a list:
1. Pull character definitions out of each days and set them in the first file/settings so it's done globally. Unless renpy doesn't let you cross file defintions for this (???) it's also not hard to just put them in the top of each file.
2. Compress images and videos since this is the bulk of the sizing.
3. Fix Phone System?
4. Fix Calendar System?
5. Fix Char info System?
6. Fix Saving System - Likely requires going through all the days.
Basically... no needs to do any translations since it's already done unless they are also changing the script in which case it depends on the level of changes which is probably extremely little. I doubt there's any changes to the script.
The bulk of the work would be fixing their already broken systems so based on this, I fail to see why they couldn't easily backport Week 1-2 into the Week 3 build since it would be the most working foundation for the phone etc. The actual getting content into the same build is trivial at best. Compressing mass pictures/video can be done via programs these does you just queue them all up, I can imagine quality checking each one would be tedious and a little time consuming but not as much as the systems.
My only conclusion is the custom systems must be fucked, may as well redo them from scratch but it still shouldn't take over a year. I'd be curious to know how long it took to get added in the previous days between updates as to give a hint how long the initial making of those systems took.
1. Pull character definitions out of each days and set them in the first file/settings so it's done globally. Unless renpy doesn't let you cross file defintions for this (???) it's also not hard to just put them in the top of each file.
2. Compress images and videos since this is the bulk of the sizing.
3. Fix Phone System?
4. Fix Calendar System?
5. Fix Char info System?
6. Fix Saving System - Likely requires going through all the days.
Basically... no needs to do any translations since it's already done unless they are also changing the script in which case it depends on the level of changes which is probably extremely little. I doubt there's any changes to the script.
The bulk of the work would be fixing their already broken systems so based on this, I fail to see why they couldn't easily backport Week 1-2 into the Week 3 build since it would be the most working foundation for the phone etc. The actual getting content into the same build is trivial at best. Compressing mass pictures/video can be done via programs these does you just queue them all up, I can imagine quality checking each one would be tedious and a little time consuming but not as much as the systems.
My only conclusion is the custom systems must be fucked, may as well redo them from scratch but it still shouldn't take over a year. I'd be curious to know how long it took to get added in the previous days between updates as to give a hint how long the initial making of those systems took.
Maybe some people don't know and/or have already forgotten;
Except for Bluecat, everyone on the team works part time on the project as they all have other Jobs. And secondly, Bluecat has shared content (images) for days 22-23 and 24-26, to his T8 patrons. So the "nothing has been done" statement is factually untrue. The game, in my personal opinion is not abandoned.
Where I stand 100% with the doubters is the lack of communication from Bluecat. A problematic development is nothing new in a project. Be it for beginners or veterans. B U T with good communication and specific information about - what has been done, setbacks, unforeseen issues that came up, features added/removed you can keep a lot of good will from donors of the project. The trolls will always find something to complain about, that's natural and can't be avoided but the majority will be on the teams side and understanding. Maybe even offer support in some ways.
Concluding, for now Bluecat should (again only my personal opinion) delete some of the patreon tiers and change the perks on the rest of them. The promises simply cannot be kept at this time. Post detailed information on a regular basis for his high tier patrons, especially about the status for their sponsored characters. For his lower tiered patrons, less detailed, but still informative posts about the current state of the game should also be posted in an at least semi regular fashion.
Edit: Correction - Images were released to +T7 Members according to Patreon post from 14.Feb.2021
Except for Bluecat, everyone on the team works part time on the project as they all have other Jobs. And secondly, Bluecat has shared content (images) for days 22-23 and 24-26, to his T8 patrons. So the "nothing has been done" statement is factually untrue. The game, in my personal opinion is not abandoned.
Where I stand 100% with the doubters is the lack of communication from Bluecat. A problematic development is nothing new in a project. Be it for beginners or veterans. B U T with good communication and specific information about - what has been done, setbacks, unforeseen issues that came up, features added/removed you can keep a lot of good will from donors of the project. The trolls will always find something to complain about, that's natural and can't be avoided but the majority will be on the teams side and understanding. Maybe even offer support in some ways.
Concluding, for now Bluecat should (again only my personal opinion) delete some of the patreon tiers and change the perks on the rest of them. The promises simply cannot be kept at this time. Post detailed information on a regular basis for his high tier patrons, especially about the status for their sponsored characters. For his lower tiered patrons, less detailed, but still informative posts about the current state of the game should also be posted in an at least semi regular fashion.
Edit: Correction - Images were released to +T7 Members according to Patreon post from 14.Feb.2021
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The above comment makes me laugh: Communication from bluecat
Good topic
Let's see how bluecat has done so far;
He makes you pay to see his once every 3 month posts. Posts that tell you nothing. Posts that are perfectly timed to prevent the game being tagged differently on here (It's just a coincidence I'm sure). Apart from that, he spams cat pictures in his discord
And just to make it even sweeter, he has a devoted PR boy that comes here to call everyone pirates and says anyone that complains about his master is a troll
'Reminder, the merge will be out by the end of this year, they've already scrapped Character Info for now to make that happen' I wonder who said this?
He also said in a post, Jay82, that he had done the coding and writing for the next few days. That the next few updates are ready to be thrown out as soon as the merge is finished. The coding isn't done for the merge, which needs to be completed before anything else can be. So it would be impossible for that to be true
Meaning he lies to you and makes you pay to read his lies
All things considered, I'd give bluecat a 10/10 for communication so far
Good topic
Let's see how bluecat has done so far;
He makes you pay to see his once every 3 month posts. Posts that tell you nothing. Posts that are perfectly timed to prevent the game being tagged differently on here (It's just a coincidence I'm sure). Apart from that, he spams cat pictures in his discord
And just to make it even sweeter, he has a devoted PR boy that comes here to call everyone pirates and says anyone that complains about his master is a troll
'Reminder, the merge will be out by the end of this year, they've already scrapped Character Info for now to make that happen' I wonder who said this?
He also said in a post, Jay82, that he had done the coding and writing for the next few days. That the next few updates are ready to be thrown out as soon as the merge is finished. The coding isn't done for the merge, which needs to be completed before anything else can be. So it would be impossible for that to be true
Meaning he lies to you and makes you pay to read his lies
All things considered, I'd give bluecat a 10/10 for communication so far