The issue I have with this is that the pace of updates for the linear stuff is really slow, and it makes me think that the big game selling point, the RPG with branching paths in Bangkok, just isnt ever gonna happen.
There has got to be a way to get some of the grunt work type stuff to be shuffled off to volunteers.
Didn't they change the engine to do exactly that two or three years ago? Wasn't the whole point of scrapping the old game in favour of the new one, so that it would be easier for "guest" writers to contribute scenes? Didn't they even try out a few different writers? I could be wrong on this, but I didn't really notice any change in writing. Ever.
I believe that this would be the only way to create a game with a big, semi-open world that lets you do plenty of stuff. But for that you'd have to have a vision of what the game was supposed to be in the first place. How can other people contribute, when the head honcho has no idea where it's going? This is the reason why so many people believe that he has no vision to begin with. The current update is proof and to be clear, I have not played it yet, but not only was he late for one "small" update, he is so far behind schedule to the point where the current update should have included three or four episodes. Not just one. At least three. And he wrote it literally in the last couple of days, because he spent three months doing whatever he did. He outright admitted that he was doing crunch time and considering that we're talking about a few pages of dialogue and code, it makes you wonder what he has been doing over the last few months.
This is why other people contributing wouldn't work. You would need a clear cut framework, some lines to follow or deviate from in order to give more depth without interfering in future stories. Since he is making it up as he goes, how could you work around it?
What really puzzles me is the fact that it took him years to get anything done and all of a sudden he is rushing the entire Bangkok plot. There is not corruption, no fall from grace, no slight downward slope. The Heroine arrives in Thailand and turns into a whore over night. And he did change the original undercover whore-premise in favour of the barmaid approach, because it would be more believable. And here we are, a few days into the Thailand arc and the Heroine doesn't care if she get's raped, creampied and turned into a prostitute.
What's with the rush? And I can't believe I am saying this, but he is rushing the story while at the same time he is stalling development.