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

[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.

 

[Dukez]

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.

I agree, I'm just annoyed this game still has nothing to show for how long it's been delayed. Release an as-is build and let people bug test it now if they want, it'll likely save some sort of time later on that front and shows that progress has been made and everyone can see to exactly what extent.

 

[RandoCard3]

I agree, I'm just annoyed this game still has nothing to show for how long it's been delayed. Release an as-is build and let people bug test it now if they want, it'll likely save some sort of time later on that front and shows that progress has been made and everyone can see to exactly what extent.

With such a small, they need to either deal with bugs and regular development at the same time, or wait until they've done what they wanted, then have to wade through redundant bug reports. Better to do bug test during a specific bug testing period. It keeps things simple.

I want to play the game too, and it is frustrating having to wait, but there really isn't anything to do but wait, and hope that they've learned from this mess. Pushing it out early will just result in more people getting angry. And honestly, I remember how much of a mess things were after the Week 1 merge, so I'd rather they do it properly this time.

 

[Content_Consumer]

I came to see if this was abandoned after noticing the folder for it on my SSD hadn't been updated in forever but I see it isn't tagged as such so I start reading to see whats going on and there is a bunch of back-and-forth about how slow the work is and so on and I'm like ok ok, sure.

But then I look closer and it seems like everyone is just talking about merging the weeks together still, is this the case? is there actually no NEW content being talked about here? just the merge of existing content that has taken 8-9 months?
After such time and given the graphics are basic AF, not even having to wait for DAZ renders or whatever I would have thought month 2 would be nearly complete, not still trying to merge month 1.

lul if this is really how it is then thats hilariously sad, at least the one guy making Reluctant archon has been pushing out short stories and actual DAZ renders rather than HS screen grabs or whatever shit this is.

I guess if you can get away with making no content for $5k/month then why not right?

 

[Muk_king]

I came to see if this was abandoned after noticing the folder for it on my SSD hadn't been updated in forever but I see it isn't tagged as such so I start reading to see whats going on and there is a bunch of back-and-forth about how slow the work is and so on and I'm like ok ok, sure.

But then I look closer and it seems like everyone is just talking about merging the weeks together still, is this the case? is there actually no NEW content being talked about here? just the merge of existing content that has taken 8-9 months?
After such time and given the graphics are basic AF, not even having to wait for DAZ renders or whatever I would have thought month 2 would be nearly complete, not still trying to merge month 1.

lul if this is really how it is then thats hilariously sad, at least the one guy making Reluctant archon has been pushing out short stories and actual DAZ renders rather than HS screen grabs or whatever shit this is.

I guess if you can get away with making no content for $5k/month then why not right?

Long (annoying) story short: load bearing programmer got sick and all essential work stopped. Programmer is better(?) now, but dev team is super evasive on actual progress reports.

Drama has ensued in the forums since.

 

[Raven Tomoe]

hopefully we get an scene similar to this when MC visits Tomoes family home if MC told Tomoe that he will sleep with other members of her family instead of only being faithful to her

 

[TadStrange]

Gah damn, I poked my head back in here to see if there's any news of updates and I just see walls of disappointment. I'm no patron but, I give Bluecat and the team benefit of the doubt. Their updates were usually pretty much hitting right when you start to remember or think about the game and considering one of their folks got sick it ain't surprising progress slowed as they got better. At best for all, we know they could have taken on a bigger workload than expected and that's what could be triggering further delay aside from the team member.

 

[Rating69]

Does anyone have the status report posted on the 29th June for this please?

 

[c4145317]

Does anyone have the status report posted on the 29th June for this please?

Ecchi Sensei - Month 1 - Status Report No. 22



Hi Guys!



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

First of all, I don't intend to give anyone false hopes - I still cannot, in good conscience, announce a date for the release of Month 1 - BUT... We are closing in to the finish line, and the entire Ecchi Sensei team is optimistic that it could be ready soon.
At the moment, we are working on the subtleties of a number of features, such as the impeccable functionality of the character information page and its translations in all the languages we offer for the game.

The same applies, of course, to the calendar, which has also been optimized a bit on top.

Bottom line, every existing feature has also been significantly reduced in terms of "weight." That means instead of 20 MB for the calendar, we now only need 5 MB, even though further functions and languages have been added.

Of course, the image quality doesn't suffer in any way because of it - we have simply replaced most of the unnecessary graphics with code.

For those of you who have no idea what am I talking about:

Instead of creating the same graphic four times in four different languages, only one graphic is used, and the different languages are added by coding.

These thinning measures affect all existing features and also core elements of Ren'Py itself - such as the main menu. As a result, we have so far been able to save over 1 GB of "unnecessary" graphics, which will simply be omitted in the future and thus not only reduce Month 1 in overall size, but of course, this procedure will also apply to all subsequent updates of Ecchi Sensei.


I know that some people have already lost patience, and I will once again officially apologize for the extremely long waiting time when Month 1 is released - although it is probably me who suffers most from the delay.

I finally want to produce new content again and let you all be part of what the future holds in Ecchi Sensei.

There is a lot you can look forward to. The previous experiences in the game were only a small foretaste of what's to come.
But I'll tell you more about that another time.

With this in mind, I would like to thank everyone who continues to believe in Ecchi Sensei. Your encouraging words that have reached us in the last few weeks gave us strength, and we will do our best to deliver a good final product in the form of Month 1 as soon as possible.


So long,

Blue

 

[leeyaoyao]

have update?

 

[Smarmint]

Well, I come back every few weeks or so to see what is happening with Ecchi Sensei, and sure enough the once every 2.5 month status update is out.

Skummy, honestly, I would just stop defending Bluecat for now. I know you mean well, but it doesn't help you, it doesn't help him, and really, I don't think it is convincing anyone, sorry to say.

Those that have faith, for their own reasons, will always believe the best of Bluecat and what he is doing, and assume he is hard at work all this time, and that he is just bad at communication.

The rest of us, just want a date, whether this month, next month, 3 months, something. We have all been asking for a specific month target for the last 8 months. Still nothing. So far all we have gotten is vague non-targets.

I agree that this status update was more detailed than most, but the details are more troubling than the vague statements. Can it really take months of hard work to translate character cards? I mean, what is it, one paragraph per character? I think at this point, we would all be happy with Google translate, and just move on. And reusing the images in the menu for the different translations? That is what Bluecat wants to lay out there as his team's big accomplishment? It is better to just say, "honestly, we haven't done much, and you all have no reason to trust us after all that has happened, but we are committed to work hard on ES from now on, and you can all expect the merge to be released in August (or whenever)". That would be more honest, and actually useful information for all his paid supporters. Or, Bluecat could just show his Patreons some of the new content he has been working on all this time, according to you. That would mostly satisfy most of us. Compare that to Braindrop, who has a similar delay for his game, but has consistently explained what is going on and regularly releases teaser renders to keep the fans happy during the long delay.

A clear statement about what work is left to do, a rough estimate of the time needed for the major tasks, and a target month for the merge release (which still has no new content), would be much welcome. Any other dev will do this for his fans, especially after such a long delay. But we have all been asking for this for the entire time.