Really worried now that this project is seemingly grinding to a halt.
I know some on here have accused Stoper of milking but I for one don't agree with that opinion.
Personally, I think he's just got "Project Fatigue".
This VN started 4 years ago, and what was then an exciting and challenging idea has now become a burden to him. It's grown so much that it is virtually impossible for one man to do everything. In my opinion he's become bogged down with the daily drudgery of having to work at it and this has led to him becoming jaded as his early enthusiasm has faded, as it naturally would.
If this is the case, then I know how he feels. I write erotic stories and have since 2014. Early on I was churning out several a year but now I struggle to produce one. I have around 40 stories at varying degrees of completion but find I now lack the motivation to write. I also get fed up of trying to move along a single story, so working on the principle that a change is as good as a rest, I tend to flit from one to another, trying to get back some spark of enthusiasm to at least finish one of them. Unfortunately Stoper doesn't even have that distraction.
Or maybe he does!
I remember quite a while ago, I believe it was after V0.35, when he announced he was going to take a break and do the illustrations for Paola, a story by Dante (?). The outcry concerning this was long and hard and he quickly changed his mind and said he would continue to work on JOHN.
With the lengthening time between updates, It does make me wonder if he is still doing work for others on the side?
I guess we'll never know.
So I will, like you all, look forward to seeing the latest version drop sometime in the future. And then pray that he will continue on to the end.
(I just hope I live that long to see it!)
I recommend you to read through all the development blogs from the current cycle. There's not the slightest hint of stoper being fatigued or burned out. Quite the opposite actually.
It pretty much started off with him talking about progressing quickly, having already finished this and that. Then came dev blogs about him working on a beach scene, custom scenery and whatnot, while still sounding very positive and optimistic regarding the progress. I believe that same month he was telling his supporters that he would try aim for a July release (could be wrong on that one). Then came his "Dead or Alive release in August" statement and how he's working on this infamous "one last scene/event", a wording he's used many times before in previous releases. He's also mentioned how he's having alot of fun creating this scene. At the end of August came the Rocket Launch dev blog, casually telling people that he won't make it (as always), and encouraging people to support someone who might be able to make their set deadlines. That's obviously just him playing the victim card, knowing that it makes him look like the good guy as I've mentioned in a previous post.
The latest development blog is basically him acting like everything is in order and all the previous statements, deadlines and disappointments don't exist. This blog, as someone else had already mentioned, feels (or reads) like he's spitting in his supporters faces.
Towards the end of August he's apparently had about a week of animation work left, aswell as god knows how many renders for this "last scene" he's supposedly been working on for what, close to 2 months? In his latest dev blog on the other hand he's talking about how this last scene is now becoming quite big, and he hasn't even begun working on animations yet. So what, this scene is just now becoming big after ~2 months working on it? How does that make any sense?
Anyone remember stoper's statement in August when he was apparently progressing through this "last scene", thinking about adding an extra route for this scene which he wasn't sure if he'd include it, since most people probably wouldn't be interested in it? What happened in the past 4 weeks? Or in the past 8 weeks? And what's the next dev blog gonna be like? "Release in October. I'm just working on this one last scene. I'm sure y'all will like it! Wooohooo!".
The amount of times stoper's working on "this one last scene" is truly magical.
