Raptus Puellae
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at least my grandkids will be able to play chapter 12 when after their 18th birthday party.Yeah that is typical Notty, but better to let her run a bit when she needs to.
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DA22
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But they will have something spectacular to play.
popabear
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Yeah I mean, when the difference between 98 and 99.9 % production value is half a year or so then maybe the wait isn't worth it? I mean the new stuff is really really top notch, but I liked the old stuff too. I'm mainly here for Nottys writing anyway, crisp renders are only the chocolate topping on my sexy sundae. I can do without, if that means I get to enjoy it today rather than 2021.
If ceiling Notty is reading this then I'm sorry to be a complainer, but my balls have now turned deep purple and retreated back into my body.
- May 28, 2017
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Nah, the production value difference in half a year is more like 98 and 500%.
It's only thanks to the remaster that we will get to enjoy much, much more of Notty's writing. It's not just visuals. It is worth the wait.
She's working hard to get it finished, however it can't be rushed and knowingly released flawed. Quality first.
I don't have a crystal ball(s), but my guts tell me it won't take much longer.
popabear
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Yea I was in that camp for the longest time, but I'm starting to think it puts too much pressure on Notty to produce finished highly polished chapters instead of just focusing on story progression. The longer the wait the higher the expectations. I'm not convinced that's a great environment for Notty. We've seen entire months of absolutely nothing, for no good reason. Chasing perfection like Notty does seems to come with a heavy toll.
I can't say I disagree, but that's just how she is. She has a thirst for perfection even in scenes that no player will ever encounter. We're telling her to let out a bit of steam, but once she has something in mind, it's almost impossible to turn her away from it. Some of us (the testers) have access to a bit more of inside info, so I can guarantee y'all that she does nothing but work, work and work evermore on the release, but she's cursed with the mind of a perfectionist. All we can do is hope that she'll see the light and be at least half as satisfied with the chapter as we'll be happy to play it.
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No, it's not great. Pressure coming from impatient people isn't great. You know what would be a great environment for her? One where she doesn't have to concern herself that months are coming to an end. Where she doesn't have to make highly polished chapters but just one highly polished complete game. But that environment isn't possible. Not yet at least. It might be with the next game.
When you're creating something there is only one person you absolutely have to make happy with it. Yourself. Otherwise you won't enjoy it.
I haven't. Not a single month. Notty shares a huge amount of details about the development. I guess you don't follow it as closely like those of us who visit her forum daily, which I can't blame you for, but factually your statement is false. There was always something and there were always good reasons. It didn't stop.
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- May 28, 2017
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As testers, we're also telling her when we feel something is flawed. Let's not absolve ourselves of that responsibility. It's not only her perfectionism.
So if anyone can't wait anymore and need to point fingers, you can point one at me. I don't have your immediate interests at heart. I wouldn't tell Notty something is fine when I feel it's not just so that you can play earlier. I'd argue I have your overall best interests at heart but you need to wait a bit for those.
It may look like a curse, but it's a blessing actually. The best games are made by perfectionists.
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Hey, I said finger! Not whatever that thing is!
DA22
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Besides it is not like Huity is any better as you.Hey, I said finger! Not whatever that thing is!
But yeah there is no doubt about it her perfectionism and her liking to take responsibility are some of her biggest strengths and weaknesses that drive her. Without them she would not be Notty though and not the person who is making this game. You have to take the good with the bad or you have nothing.
popabear
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Hey man that's uncalled for. I'm an avid lurker and I know whats going on over there. Also that's just wrong. She recently refunded a month's worth of patreon donations because she couldn't deliver (not her fault I know, but still, don't say I'm wrong when I'm not). Also remember that time she went completely AWOL? I thought it was all over.
Regarding the rest of your post: You may not believe this but when dealing with a perfectionist at work, if u give them unlimited time then I guarantee it, whatever they are doing will take forever. I'm not saying Notty is like this, I don't know her, but maybe just maybe you are treating this whole situation wrong by glorifying perfection and egging it on.
I've seen many a good project stall and fizzle out because it just takes too damn long to deliver anything. People get annoyed, lose interest, forget et c. I'm just saying I'm starting to see the warning signs and I sincerely hope this project doesn't end up there.
I was going to say that, personally, I think it's pretty incredible that our one-woman dev machine is putting more work into this remaster than some entire professional game studios do but that's probably a discussion for another time*cough*
C'mon Huitie, be honest. The real reason you told Notty to make the animations prettier was so you could have more time with the chapter tester-only, to make sure you saw all the content before us regular fansOn behalf of Notty, I thank you for your patience
Some malevolent assholes (alright, this was me) had told her that the animations for chapter 2 weren't up to par and she spent a lot of time reworking them while still improving bits here and there
Couldn't agree more. In fact, one of the most common things to see lamented by players and developers both is what could have been accomplished if they had just a little more time, or could take the time to implement a mechanic properly instead of having to rush for release. It'll take as long as it takes; I'm happy to accept that.
- Jul 1, 2017
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I bet it was so he could release his own update before hersC'mon Huitie, be honest. The real reason you told Notty to make the animations prettier was so you could have more time with the chapter tester-only, to make sure you saw all the content before us regular fans
While that does sound like something I would do, the truth is how Akamari said, I respect Notty too much to just let it pass when I see something wrong. I mean, what good are testers that would just act as yes men and only praise her for all the things she does great? By accepting to being a tester for the remaster, we've also accepted the fact that sometimes, we have to tell her that this or that aspect of the chapter is flawed, even if it means postponing the release.C'mon Huitie, be honest. The real reason you told Notty to make the animations prettier was so you could have more time with the chapter tester-only, to make sure you saw all the content before us regular fans
Also, being able to see the content before
Crap, I've been found out!I bet it was so he could release his own update before hers
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Sorry, but you are wrong. She refunded March because she felt like she didn't make any progress and it would be unfair to take the money for it. It's not a month of "absolutely nothing, for no good reason" though. First weeks had to be spent re-rendering of like 900 renders worth of animations because of the shader error. Then her motherboard blew up. Then the delivery was taking a long time delivering replacement and extra cooling fans. Awful string of bad luck, but that's life sometimes. She still did work on the game during that month and showed new things.
Also, when she went silent four months ago it didn't take the whole month. There was plenty of activity on her part during both November and December in the end culminating in the release of One. So again, wrong.
Maybe I should have said perfectionists that do get the work done? If they give up then they are not perfectionists. In some way it's her perfectionism and ambition that keeps her going. It's ironic perhaps, but it's the fact the she tends to choose more difficult roads, that she doesn't stay in a comfort zone, that she strives to improve and do the best she can, that and more makes me trust that she won't give up and the game will reach the great potential it has and keeps growing.
Apologies for triple-posting but whatever, it's late and I couldn't cram any more quotes into one post without offending my aesthetic sensibilities. My fault for not replying to the thread more than once a week, really.
That's just the technical stuff. Then you have to test that it actually plays well, because all of the extra content and mechanics you've added have just increased the different decision paths you have to take into account by a huge degree; you have to make sure that the player isn't hopelessly confused or arbitrarily railroaded, that everything makes sense (or at least as much sense as it should at the time!), that the pacing or tone isn't inconsistent because the new content was written at a different time and has to be integrated into what's already there. In fact, Notty received feedback on a similar point from an early tester - the amount of options you had once the game opened up was a bit overwhelming, because you went from the opening chapter with relatively straightforward branching to having something like two dozen different options you could pick.
Testing is important, because you could have one bug on one very specific path that doesn't get picked up, but it's going to negatively affect the game - somebody's going to pick that path, whether it's because they're trying to see everything or that's just what they picked naturally. Not to say that I or anyone else should expect a totally bug-free game, of course people have to understand, but equally it's important to make sure as much as possible is fixed before release since even a relatively small issue can affect someone's experience with the game to a significant degree.
Personally, I have a tremendous respect for Notty (and our glorious testers, may they live forever) for taking such a strong approach to testing the game. It seems the prevailing attitude among a lot of developers these days is that bugs are inevitable, so they just push the updates out as quickly as seems reasonable and assume that bugs will be identified by the community and fixed after the fact. I can understand why a lot of developers, particularly smaller ones and newer ones, take that approach but it's not good for development.
Finally, this isn't a game that Notty is iterating on by adding a few h-scenes a month. I can understand your concern when you see so many promising games and developers fall into the hole of never releasing because of persistent problems or lack of focus or being improperly focused or whatever. But this is a game that's being rebuilt from the ground up; if it's going to be included it has to be done now. Notty isn't going to release a bare-bones or half-filled version of Chapter 2 and then come back and fill in the missing scenes later, I know it's taking a lot of time, but that's because it's a lot of work.
Wow, this post really got away from me. I don't want it to sound like I'm making a personal criticism of you or anything; I'm just, as always, trying to add some perspective. It's just like my opinion, man. Hopefully it made at least some sort of sense.
tl;dr yes it's taking a long time but I think it's a reasonable amount of time given the work that's actually being done. Your opinion may be different(and therefore incorrect)
I can understand your concern, but I don't think it's necessarily accurate. Like the other posters have said, the "production value" is everything from significant graphical upgrades to expanded gameplay, and entirely new or completely rebuilt mechanics to support that, ultimately a whole lot of added complexity. Even if it were just a scene-for-scene and render-for-render graphical update it would be a significant undertaking; the production itself, then making sure everything was implemented correctly, making sure the timing is still correct and adjusting anything that needs it, making sure flags still trigger properly. The fact that we're getting so much extra content on top of that just adds so much more work. And that's just in the implementation - now you have to test everything, make sure bugs are squashed, flags are triggering correctly (more work than it sounds), that everything plays right and that everything is up to par quality-wise.
That's just the technical stuff. Then you have to test that it actually plays well, because all of the extra content and mechanics you've added have just increased the different decision paths you have to take into account by a huge degree; you have to make sure that the player isn't hopelessly confused or arbitrarily railroaded, that everything makes sense (or at least as much sense as it should at the time!
), that the pacing or tone isn't inconsistent because the new content was written at a different time and has to be integrated into what's already there. In fact, Notty received feedback on a similar point from an early tester - the amount of options you had once the game opened up was a bit overwhelming, because you went from the opening chapter with relatively straightforward branching to having something like two dozen different options you could pick.Testing is important, because you could have one bug on one very specific path that doesn't get picked up, but it's going to negatively affect the game - somebody's going to pick that path, whether it's because they're trying to see everything or that's just what they picked naturally. Not to say that I or anyone else should expect a totally bug-free game, of course people have to understand, but equally it's important to make sure as much as possible is fixed before release since even a relatively small issue can affect someone's experience with the game to a significant degree.
Personally, I have a tremendous respect for Notty (and our glorious testers, may they live forever) for taking such a strong approach to testing the game. It seems the prevailing attitude among a lot of developers these days is that bugs are inevitable, so they just push the updates out as quickly as seems reasonable and assume that bugs will be identified by the community and fixed after the fact. I can understand why a lot of developers, particularly smaller ones and newer ones, take that approach but it's not good for development.
Finally, this isn't a game that Notty is iterating on by adding a few h-scenes a month. I can understand your concern when you see so many promising games and developers fall into the hole of never releasing because of persistent problems or lack of focus or being improperly focused or whatever. But this is a game that's being rebuilt from the ground up; if it's going to be included it has to be done now. Notty isn't going to release a bare-bones or half-filled version of Chapter 2 and then come back and fill in the missing scenes later, I know it's taking a lot of time, but that's because it's a lot of work.
Wow, this post really got away from me. I don't want it to sound like I'm making a personal criticism of you or anything; I'm just, as always, trying to add some perspective. It's just like my opinion, man. Hopefully it made at least some sort of sense.
tl;dr yes it's taking a long time but I think it's a reasonable amount of time given the work that's actually being done. Your opinion may be different