I really appreciate both of your responses as you've reminded me just how important it is that they receive the support they get to stay fully dedicated to such an innovation-heavy project. Putting myself in Odes's perspective, I can speculate why he makes the price so high; inflation has had a world-affect this past year, so there's probably even a personal financial sob-story that he's sparred us of due to his dedication & humble competence, but still needs that $2k-$3k split for vehicle/house bills + food/nutrition + etc.
With that said, I still feel like a dog with a small piece of meat being dangled 12 feet above me instead of 6. I still can't help but feel like we should be getting more in return. Yes they're already doing everything they can as a team of 2-3 people who do need that $6k/month, but I believe there are those who genuinely want to support Odes (me before the pandemic), and there are those who've gotten desperate waiting so long and just want to cling on to something that is already there while still giving Odes & Dogson some support (me resorting to this website). Both kind of people need to be tended to, no? My suggestion was they edit their tier awards to justify their tiny release updates as $7 or $8, while giving those who want to pay the $12 the reward of voting for the next animal head, and maybe even have their names engraved on the startup loading screen as a thank you.
$12 is just a wee bit too much to me, especially when they clarified that they can't properly progress until Q3 2023 because of that Unity bug. I will admit that I'm stubborn; If I'm paying you, I want something more than "Thanks, we're working on it," whether you're a one-man dev or as big as Disney. I want to support and give Odes my love as much as I want something justifiable in return so I know my money is being spent heartfully. It doesn't help that the game disables access to newer character posts, forcing me to pay another $12 to properly engage with their release. At that point, it no longer feels like I'm doing it solely to support "their grander vision."
The trade-off in it's current state just feels... unfair. To me at least. I can't speak for anyone else. and I just needed to get it off my chest. The $3 tier option looks pretty great. (Who knows, i'm probably just too sexually frustrated for my own good and a $12 charge is actually totally justifiable since "the game is super ambitious and time-consuming, therefore $12 for the single animal head you may not even plan on using in our unfinished game actually makes perfect sense.")
Hey, no one is judging you, this is a piracy site after all. It's perfectly understandable why you wouldn't wanna pay for FurryVNE in its current state (unless you're really into character creation I guess). But at the same time, it's also very understandable, then, why hardly anyone is developing anything like it, or why it's taking the time it is (given their limited resources).
There are many people extremely excited about something like FurryVNE being made, and yet simultaneously refrain from giving the devs any support, or perhaps finance some other projects instead, even if those other ones are just offering pre-animated content. How can anyone hope for a project such as FurryVNE to come to fruition given these circumstances? Are people not aware that unless a project receives funding, it's going to be hard for it to survive?
Every bank-note is a vote. Spend it to show what you would like to see manifested in the world. Currently, most of those notes are going towards projects featuring pre-animated content, so that's why we're seeing them in such abundance.
People are excited about the idea of creating their own virtual characters, making physical animations with them, with soft body physics and other dynamic systems, and sharing those creations with others online, but they don't want to actually support the development of said systems. Well, here's the thing - unless you support it, you can't have it. If you aren't ready to support those endeavors, you have no right to lament the fact that seemingly no furry products with such dynamic content exist or aren't being developed fast enough.
Sorry if I came off a bit harsh there, but there's a real risk FurryVNE might fail due to lack of resources and funding and that would be a real shame given all the effort that has gone into it. This is literally the ONLY project I have any interest in atm. Seeing such a project receive less love than some pre-animated models thrown into a scene is a disgrace, but also makes it very clear why the product we're all hoping for may never see the light of day.