HTML Abandoned Female Agent [v1.20.1p] [Crushstation]

[Prawnstar69]

He clearly knows that people are not happy about the lack of updates.

In his mind, he can only release a masterpiece. Sadly, he can't live up to Michelangelo. And Michelangelo did not beta test his paintings, so he won't beta test his updates publicly either.

Many of his Patrons are basically gambling addicts, hoping that the update will drop. They are willing to continue their support, even if odds of that happening are horrible.

If I want to be reductive, the problem is purely financial.

He was much more productive in the early years (though nobody would ever call his speed fast). Only when he had what many would deem a decent monthly payday did the updates completely fall off a cliff.

As evidence he's ok with imperfection, he's fine with placeholder text and pictures. So really the BS of "I have to keep editing, that's why people love it" is just an excuse because he's milking it at this point.

Once upon a time, I had delusions he was sincerely trying to deliver a game. Now I'm just glad AI exists and soon anyone can customise their own adventure and artwork.

 

[Majus]

If I want to be reductive, the problem is purely financial.

He was much more productive in the early years (though nobody would ever call his speed fast). Only when he had what many would deem a decent monthly payday did the updates completely fall off a cliff.

As evidence he's ok with imperfection, he's fine with placeholder text and pictures. So really the BS of "I have to keep editing, that's why people love it" is just an excuse because he's milking it at this point.

Once upon a time, I had delusions he was sincerely trying to deliver a game. Now I'm just glad AI exists and soon anyone can customise their own adventure and artwork.

All devs are more motivated in the early stages. People who start projects are, by "natural selection", motivated. Because if someone was not motivated they most likely would not start a project... Anyway. Motivation can evaporate over time for 1001 different reason.

How do we know that developer receiving sizeable sum of donations is the cause for no updates? What if it's just a correlation? How are we so sure that the lack of updates shouldn't be blamed on him getting depressed over his pet hamster passing away or him getting testicular cancer?

Development stopped for some unknown reason. And developer admitted that, if not for the people's support, the project would've been canned, long time ago. So donations is the reason why this is so dragged out, but not necessarily the reason why he's not releasing new content. That distinction is very important.

Placeholder isn't exactly the same thing as releasing your own flawed content. And I doubt that people would be happy with a placeholder for main content.

Spoiler: Placeholder content

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[asdfasdf12341234ACSACA]

All devs are more motivated in the early stages. People who start projects are, by "natural selection", motivated. Because if someone was not motivated they most likely would not start a project... Anyway. Motivation can evaporate over time for 1001 different reason.

How do we know that developer receiving sizeable sum of donations is the cause for no updates? What if it's just a correlation? How are we so sure that the lack of updates shouldn't be blamed on him getting depressed over his pet hamster passing away or him getting testicular cancer?

Development stopped for some unknown reason. And developer admitted that, if not for the people's support, the project would've been canned, long time ago. So donations is the reason why this is so dragged out, but not necessarily the reason why he's not releasing new content. That distinction is very important.

Placeholder isn't exactly the same thing as releasing your own flawed content. And I doubt that people would be happy with a placeholder for main content.

Spoiler: Placeholder content

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I'm pretty sure the kind of perfectionism that is (allegedly) holding him back isn't the placeholder example you gave. It's closer to "I have used the word boots three times in the last 5 paragraphs, should I use a word like footwear now even though it's technically not the same?"

 

[Prawnstar69]

All devs are more motivated in the early stages. People who start projects are, by "natural selection", motivated. Because if someone was not motivated they most likely would not start a project... Anyway. Motivation can evaporate over time for 1001 different reason.

How do we know that developer receiving sizeable sum of donations is the cause for no updates? What if it's just a correlation? How are we so sure that the lack of updates shouldn't be blamed on him getting depressed over his pet hamster passing away or him getting testicular cancer?

Development stopped for some unknown reason. And developer admitted that, if not for the people's support, the project would've been canned, long time ago. So donations is the reason why this is so dragged out, but not necessarily the reason why he's not releasing new content. That distinction is very important.

Placeholder isn't exactly the same thing as releasing your own flawed content. And I doubt that people would be happy with a placeholder for main content.

Spoiler: Placeholder content

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Now you're just being argumentative, because if you've ever visited his Patreon, you'll see he talks about the serious health condition of being "frazzled" all the time in his "transparency reports". If his pet hamster ate his testicular cancer, trust me, we'd never hear the end of it.

Anyway nice strawman, but I never mentioned his motivation level, only the fact he's more productive when he's hungry. Money doesn't suit him, but he doesn't seem to have the decency (if he truly cares for the art and his Patreons happiness) to:
1) pause billing until he overcomes whatever it is
2) commit to (and achieve) regular release schedule
3) give trackable metrics (but at 2 year mark, that ship has sailed)

Where we are agreed absolutely, is that nobody wants placeholder content, especially more than 2 years in the writing. Many people here and elsewhere have told him to focus on content. Instead, he wanted to redo the Liepath. So go ahead Crush, if you're reading, take the holiday... just stop billing people for the art that nobody has seen, until such time there's proof of life.

 

[Majus]

I'm pretty sure the kind of perfectionism that is (allegedly) holding him back isn't the placeholder example you gave. It's closer to "I have used the word boots three times in the last 5 paragraphs, should I use a word like footwear now even though it's technically not the same?"

My argument was that the dev's struggle is with what you're describing (his own written content). So we agree here. And that this dev's struggle has nothing to do with the use of placeholders. Wich was my point.

Now you're just being argumentative, because if you've ever visited his Patreon, you'll see he talks about the serious health condition of being "frazzled" all the time in his "transparency reports". If his pet hamster ate his testicular cancer, trust me, we'd never hear the end of it.

Anyway nice strawman, but I never mentioned his motivation level, only the fact he's more productive when he's hungry. Money doesn't suit him, but he doesn't seem to have the decency (if he truly cares for the art and his Patreons happiness) to:
1) pause billing until he overcomes whatever it is
2) commit to (and achieve) regular release schedule
3) give trackable metrics (but at 2 year mark, that ship has sailed)

Where we are agreed absolutely, is that nobody wants placeholder content, especially more than 2 years in the writing. Many people here and elsewhere have told him to focus on content. Instead, he wanted to redo the Liepath. So go ahead Crush, if you're reading, take the holiday... just stop billing people for the art that nobody has seen, until such time there's proof of life.

Yes, I'm arguing here just for the sake of it. True. Anyway... It doesn't really matter if it's his hamster or health problems or a simple disinterest with the project.

"the fact he's more productive when he's hungry. " tsk tsk tsk. How do you know that for a fact? Are you his shrink? How are you so sure that it's not motivation or something else entirely, for a fact?

He could close his partreon page, same as all casinos and catholic churches could be closed/banned, but I'm not sure if that's up for us to decide.
I'm not sure if he needs to commit to anything here. The game is free to play. It's not like he sold pre-orders and has to deliver a finished product by some deadline or schedule. And what people tell him to do, doesn't matter that much. He can work on whatever aspect he wants, since it's his project, not yours. Are people just envious of him or something?

 

[Senor Smut]

Creativity is like water: the harder you hit it, the harder it is. Crush has been at this for seven years and he's not just burned out, he's fried to a crisp. He has the kind of burnout where you stare at your work for hours and produce nothing. Anything he does produce is either lousy or, if it's good, he can't tell and thinks it's lousy anyway. When you're in that state, productivity is impossible. He's done, but he can't admit it -- not because of the money, but because of his pride. Dude's gonna snap.

 

[okokok]

Liepath

Creativity is like water: the harder you hit it, the harder it is. Crush has been at this for seven years and he's not just burned out, he's fried to a crisp. He has the kind of burnout where you stare at your work for hours and produce nothing. Anything he does produce is either lousy or, if it's good, he can't tell and thinks it's lousy anyway. When you're in that state, productivity is impossible. He's done, but he can't admit it -- not because of the money, but because of his pride. Dude's gonna snap.

And after seven years of stringing people along absolutely no-one is going to have any sympathy for him

 

[Spawk]

He clearly knows that people are not happy about the lack of updates.

In his mind, he can only release a masterpiece.

in his mind he wants to do nothing and get paid for it since he gets paid anyway, so what's the point of doing anything?

 

[Majus]

in his mind he wants to do nothing and get paid for it since he gets paid anyway, so what's the point of doing anything?

My post was based on what the dev said himself. I think you're projecting your own reasoning about this, rather than being able to read his mind...

So, you're basically upset that he didn't improve his ftp game for you and that makes him a greedy evil man? Or is your pain point here that some people liked his game and donated to him and we can't have such things. lol

It's true that there is no point to do anything. Again, he didin't sell any pre-orders, he doesn't owe anyone anything. He could delete his game and all of his pages and that would be it. I bet people would love that, since I get this feeling this is about resentment and jealousy more than anything.

 

[Senor Smut]

My post was based on what the dev said himself. I think you're projecting your own reasoning about this, rather than being able to read his mind...

So, you're basically upset that he didn't improve his ftp game for you and that makes him a greedy evil man? Or is your pain point here that some people liked his game and donated to him and we can't have such things. lol

It's true that there is no point to do anything. Again, he didin't sell any pre-orders, he doesn't owe anyone anything. He could delete his game and all of his pages and that would be it. I bet people would love that, since I get this feeling this is about resentment and jealousy more than anything.

I think I can speak to the motivations of the people saying Crush is a scammer, since I was a vocal proponent of that view until I talked to him at length. For me it was about resentment and then outrage that someone would be taking people's money for years without producing much of anything, and what he has produced over the past several years has been of decidedly poor quality and/or completely irrelevant to the story. Remember, this project has been going since 2018(!!!) and he had produced literally nothing for almost two whole years. From the outside, it sure looked like Crush was scamming.

Now that I've talked to him though, it's obvious that it's burnout. I wasn't following the project at the beginning, but as I understand it, he hit an burnout wall fairly early project and stepped back completely; it would have been better for him had he never come back to it, but he convinced himself he could finish it and took it up again. I strongly doubt he will ever finish even the whole lifepath, much less anything else.

 

[boobthief]

I think I can speak to the motivations of the people saying Crush is a scammer, since I was a vocal proponent of that view until I talked to him at length. For me it was about resentment and then outrage that someone would be taking people's money for years without producing much of anything, and what he has produced over the past several years has been of decidedly poor quality and/or completely irrelevant to the story. Remember, this project has been going since 2018(!!!) and he had produced literally nothing for almost two whole years. From the outside, it sure looked like Crush was scamming.

Now that I've talked to him though, it's obvious that it's burnout. I wasn't following the project at the beginning, but as I understand it, he hit an burnout wall fairly early project and stepped back completely; it would have been better for him had he never come back to it, but he convinced himself he could finish it and took it up again. I strongly doubt he will ever finish even the whole lifepath, much less anything else.

It's a positive feedback cycle of a perfectionist and just enough paying supporters telling them to take their time, maybe take a break, you're making such a great game (with their unintended message understood that they expect perfection).

Over the years, releases cycles took longer and longer to attempt nebulous satisfaction. Expectation and hype built by promotion and praise ultimately made releases more and more terrifying until today when a release is a year or more late.

I don't like to blame the fans supporting any game, but the people telling the developer not to release are fucking idiots. Unintended consequences.

I don't like to blame game developers either (it's 10x harder than most people think), but, in this case, they received plenty of good advice to release early, release often, release something on schedule, but they never learned, so they too, are a fucking idiot.

They still have paying supporters / a proven ability to produce content that people want to pay for. They could turn this shitshow around today and start releasing on a schedule with named dates. Will they? That's a decision for them.

 

[Vibesy]

The weirdest thing about it is that in a past life he was a project manager. By all rights he should have been great at organization and self-management. As it turned out, though, he was incapable or unwilling (probably a bit of both) to apply those skills to his own project, which has led us to the fiasco we see before us. For years people have been telling him that he needs to allow others take over certain aspects of the game, but he's neurotic about having all the control. I am certain he got into all this because he was a fan of H-games and wanted to make something people could enjoy -- it all just got away from him.

And if you think about it, if he brought Female Agent into port successfully, he could immediately start another Patreon for a new project and people would trip all over themselves to sign up. Instead his subscriber base is slowly dwindling and he's stuck in a miserable rut. I really get the sense the man feels no joy in his life right now.

Talking about bringing Female Agent into port successfully is like saying if only the captain of the Titanic steered around the iceberg he could load the boat with new passengers and profitably chug back to England. Crush maps out the icebergs, then rams into them full speed and spends years rearranging the deckchairs while the engine room floods and the passengers drift away on lifeboats. Like a lot of patreon financed games, getting to a destination is not really the goal anymore, if it ever was.

I think I can speak to the motivations of the people saying Crush is a scammer, since I was a vocal proponent of that view until I talked to him at length. For me it was about resentment and then outrage that someone would be taking people's money for years without producing much of anything, and what he has produced over the past several years has been of decidedly poor quality and/or completely irrelevant to the story. Remember, this project has been going since 2018(!!!) and he had produced literally nothing for almost two whole years. From the outside, it sure looked like Crush was scamming.

Now that I've talked to him though, it's obvious that it's burnout. I wasn't following the project at the beginning, but as I understand it, he hit an burnout wall fairly early project and stepped back completely; it would have been better for him had he never come back to it, but he convinced himself he could finish it and took it up again. I strongly doubt he will ever finish even the whole lifepath, much less anything else.

I guess he forgot to include this on MOAB, but here's the solution to all of Crush's "burnout" problems (weird how in 10 years he never located the patreon pause button):

 

[Majus]

Talking about bringing Female Agent into port successfully is like saying if only the captain of the Titanic steered around the iceberg he could load the boat with new passengers and profitably chug back to England. Crush maps out the icebergs, then rams into them full speed and spends years rearranging the deckchairs while the engine room floods and the passengers drift away on lifeboats. Like a lot of patreon financed games, getting to a destination is not really the goal anymore, if it ever was.




I guess he forgot to include this on MOAB, but here's the solution to all of Crush's "burnout" problems (weird how in 10 years he never located the patreon pause button):

View attachment 5293149

Your suggestion is somewhat problematic. He'd have to open an account on some new platform, such as

You must be registered to see the links

. Or is him being able to receive tips for his "past work" a no-no?

I think Ko-fi would be a good model for him to go towards. He can still collect donations for the work he's done. And he'd avoid all the Karens that are "employing"/"commissioning" him on Patreon and complaining here.

Edit: Following poster gets it 100%.

 

[demidemon]

Your suggestion is somewhat problematic. He'd have to open an account on some new platform, such as

You must be registered to see the links

. Or is him being able to receive tips for his "past work" a no-no?

I think Ko-fi would be a good model for him to go towards. He can still collect donations for the work he's done. And he'd avoid all the Karens that are "employing"/"commissioning" him on Patreon and complaining here.

well its just a pause, a lot of dev pause the bill for different reasons, just enable it again when the update is ready. There are devs who only have patreon and still pause bill when an update is delayed. I'm just saying its 100% doable.

but then crush didn't force ppl to pay, nor do I think anyone supporting believes that an updating will be releasing soon.

i feel more like the supporters are responsible for the situation. if they don't like the update frequency or if they think the development is on the "wrong" path, they should have stopped long ago. I don't mean crush have to listen to anyone. it's the dev's project not others'. the dev can def still try to get a perfect update done when all the supporters are gone.

the real problem is people who are supporting and whining about the delay or lack of update. The logic should have been that if they liked the update frequency, support or support at a higher tier. if the don't like the delay, then stop supporting until the pace is back to normal. But the supporters seem to go the other way round and yet still complain about why this is happening.

in japan, korea and china, there are novel platforms where writers deliver one to three chapters a day and get paid from subscriptoin/purchase per chapter. Some writers allow people to give donation in exchange for more chapters released. I'm not saying the quality of those novel are good or bad, but the logic there makes much more sense to me. You pay for more content instead of paying to get longer delay.

 

[Spawk]

My post was based on what the dev said himself.

My post is based on his actions. Words < actions. Well, in his case, inaction.

 

[chino222]

 

[Majus]

My post is based on his actions. Words < actions. Well, in his case, inaction.

I think your post is a good example of

You must be registered to see the links

I don't want to get into any more cowboy fights, man.

----

You must be registered to see the links

We got a new Patreon post, for what it's worth. Most people put "scary" tasks at the top of the list and the latter tasks are usually afterthoughts. Interesting how none of the tasks at the top are done. But I'm probably reading too much into this.

 

[Spawk]

We got a new Patreon post

Today is a real holiday for the cult. Is there anything besides the post? A game? No? Then the cult really is having a real treat.
P.S. I'm surprised that someone is so actively dropping links to wikipedia thinking it serves as an argument

 

[Majus]

Today is a real holiday for the cult. Is there anything besides the post? A game? No? Then the cult really is having a real treat.
P.S. I'm surprised that someone is so actively dropping links to wikipedia thinking it serves as an argument

That wiki link was not meant to be read as an argument. It didn't argue for anything, but was supposed to give you some framing. And I don't want to argue with you, since you're clearly immune to arguments. You win, buddy. Most of these posts are off-topic either way. Have a happy holiday.

 

[IjjKpoe]

Today is a real holiday for the cult. Is there anything besides the post? A game? No? Then the cult really is having a real treat.
P.S. I'm surprised that someone is so actively dropping links to wikipedia thinking it serves as an argument

If you scroll down the wikipedia article you will see some links and first hand bibliography. That's the real value of wikipedia, that's what can you use over any agument. The article per se it's a simplification of those refered links, something easy for everyone to understand the point of the argument.

2025 and doing a crusade on wikipedia? lmao we have had enough time in this bast kingdom named Internete to learn how to use it's tools.

Surprised i am dude.