Discord update (25/1/22)
patron member
Hiya folks!
It's been a little while since a truly game-related update from me personally.
Despite the technical difficulties, delays and performance issues, we've had a surprisingly decent launch, all things considered. Your enthusiasm has not gone unnoticed and we're very glad to have been able to experience it. Regardless, we've also seen our shortcomings, and we are full and well aware we still have a ways to go. Still, for how far we've already come, I can safely say we're very proud of what is already there, and we're excited to show you what's to come.
First of all, I'd like to let you all know that we've seen and heard as many concerns as we could, human limits withheld. For several weeks, we've had moments where we've interacted with you folks about these concerns and in some cases recieved some very valuable constructive criticism. I personally have had some amazing discussions with people who brought very valid points and I'd like to thank you all for the passion, dedication and patience you've had with us so far.
We've also acknowledged that, beside the calm and positive comments from the majority of you, we've also had a decent wave of people who left utterly disappointed and in some cases even feeling betrayed. I'd like to apologize for this. We understand that we can't please everyone, but we're eagerly trying to. Diversifying the cast of characters is one way to do it, but we understand that the mechanics also matter a lot.
We do not have any additional info at this point in time how this will be treated, because we believe that we currently have way more important matters to deal with first; namely the performance of the game, which has been absolutely horrendous for mid-tier PCs, VR-functionality and future-proofing.
The first is also the biggest problem in terms of time, but it also helps us to handle the latter. Although this won't have any direct effect on the game as it is right now - it can still be played and it will still be updated with costumes, scenes and hopefully characters - we're delaying phase 2 to rework the back-end.
This rework should ensure us that the game gets properly optimized and will also allow us to ensure that the servers will be able to keep up with the amount of players we expect to be having online at once. Sadly, due to the magnitude of this rework, the delay might be around 2-3 months. We're hoping to keep it much shorter, and we're working with some experts on this field to tackle this issue once and for all, but we all know hurdles, you can only prepare for so many.
The good part about this, which is the second element, is the VR support. We've gotten a lot of disappointed comments about the fact that VR support was 'removed'. And while we obviously understand the idea that people believe it was removed as an element entirely - frankly, you can't play with VR right now - we're actually pulled it back because the VR functionality that it had no longer fits our image.
Instead, VR is being worked on still to focus more on the interactivity between the in-game characters and your VR controllers. And for all of you VR fans, we're glad to announce that VR functionality has never left the drawing boards and can confirm it will be coming in phase 2! This means that if the rebuilding went well and everything looks stable, VR will be introduced very soon.
I'm also happy to announce that we've started restructuring the way we deal with information internally, and some of the staff have also started slowly integrating with the dev team on a communication level. We're hoping this allows us to communicate with you much more closely and start offering more clarity on where we're standing.
As of right now, we do not have a roadmap for you just yet, as we're still working on the internals, but as time passes we hope to be able to offer you one as soon as we can. We realise that with the many bumps along the road, we've kind of neglected to inform you of our plans, as they continuously changed and we believed it'd be better to inform you of certainties rather than incertainties, but we realise that you're all along for the (bumpy) ride, and deserve that information as well.
Finally, I realise this huge wall of text doesn't cover up for the mistakes we've made, and I once again apologise for the inconveniences and distrust we might've sowed. However, despite words not meaning as much as deeds, I believe this had to be said.
As I quote one of my posts from the Steam discussions: "Actions say more than words, so I hope we are able to prove you that we're working hard in due time."
Thank you all for being a part of this bumpy ride. I hope we're able to show you we're trying to learn from our mistakes and are doing our best to better ourselves every step of the way.
