Joyvankek
Ohh fair, fair. Yeah, LOK will be going more KOTOR in content and there is definitely still going to be an
immensely healthy heaping on NSFW content. They are definitely going to go for exactly what you said. Good story, mechanics, romance and/or just hardcore fucking. It'll be good stuff! I feel there are a few projects like this coming out. Check out PFF too, we're trying the same thing. But yeah sorry I just misunderstood.
And I get what you mean, there's a lot of games that have taken advantage of us and have burned us. I feel I got burned from Star Citizen and MechWarrior Online. But in general, I've recieved good products, BattleTech, ShadowRun, ShadowRun again... Shadowrun a third time haha, and the battletech table top etc. The major thing is that the majority of people have one shot at crowdfunded projects and if you want to make a studio that creates more, you need to have the backing. The Makers of MWO, for instance, tries a game called Transverse (no, it wasn't trans porn) but since MWO flopped so fucking hard they literally failed their funding two times on two different platforms haha. In general, I find it safe to crowdfund as long as you go in objectively. Which is why I get it's hard for some people to continue supporting the LOK Team, since you can't see anything concrete right now. I'll say with a good measure of confidence they're going to deliver something great.
Oh wow! Thanks so much for the support mate! Everybit means a ton, and I really love writing for Hiho haha. She has a lot more coming too. It's a little off topic but yeah there's a ton that I plan with her. Hiho and Scylla are going to be the two companions you can influence the most through the game, and they are sort of starting at opposite ends of the spectrum. Hiho being naive and idealistic, Scylla being hardened and with a dower look on life. You'll be able to be either a positive influence, or a
fatally negative one on either one throughout the story.
I'm going with the good ol' "Expect the worst, hope for the best" kind of logic. I guess I'm somewhat cynical as of late, but thankfully still able to put away my pitchfork and have some patience.
As they say in my favorite universe "Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment".
That's great though, and the LOK Team does appreciate your interest! That you are passionate about the project means they were really on the right track before. They're taking that momentum and trying to make something bigger and better yet. And to quite my favourite universe. No Guts, No Galaxy.
John.Terminus
I've stated this before, but I think there is just a couple of core issues currently with the project that can not be resolved until a working demo is here and the development process has started again with regular updates and such.
Exactly right my dude! Unfortunately, all we can ask for the fans and critics alike is to keep it civil here so that we can have an open dialogue. So I can bring you the devs ideas and plans going forward, and that I can take the constructive and critical ideas and relay them back to the LOK Team. You all are a huge wellspring of information on what worked in the past and what may not work in the future.
The programming is going pretty fast now, but yeah the progress on the project before was really slowing down with how taxed the codebase was getting. Once they deliver the first demo I'll see if they can maybe get a volunteer to make sure there is at least news and updates. LOK has been doing pretty good with that so far, but the lack of a demo makes that seem sort of hollow to some. Thank you for the understanding of the issues the team has felt... I don't know how I would take it if someone in TDD went down that dark path, you get to be close friends when working on projects like this. Well... some teams. Some teams end up hating each other heh. But I think LOK's Team has reliability, but the lack of hands-on time for patrons and others alike is the major issue right now.
And I definitely get feeling a bit dejected at the project being restarted. I really did love the CG art direction they were taking Krystal, that stuff was... pretty gosh damn hot. But they're still listening to feedback and wants/wishes of the community, even in relation to the model. But they just cannot be remodelling or touching the sprites up right now, as you said before, the demo needs to get in people's hands. They are trying to be transparent here, but unfortunately, they are in the patron news updates. I'll poke them about possibly releasing monthly public updates on a set date. Would that be aight for you?
The third pillar of the problem is probably - connected to the first two - peoples reaction to the new design, as well as the new plans for gameplay and mechanics. A grand endeavour that promises a lot of features and content. Its no wonder people are worried then in that regard, how regular and susbstantial the updates will be in the future - especially when it comes to h-game content. We all know resources aren't infinite. So it is of course not too far off to assume (even if that assumption is ultimately WRONG!) that the more you do to include new mechanics, mini-games and AA/AAA RPG elements into a project such as this, the less resources (time and money) you have to develop the erotic parts of the game. Which of course is the main reason some people are interested in the project (even if a good deal of us defintiely love and have a passion for games in general).
This is a place I was vocal about on Patreon comments as well. I had a lot of issues about the angle of the nose and the muzzle, the lack of butt, and small-ish boobies and generally, she was too thin. The LOK team did really react to that, they asked people for direct input. I was one of the people criticizing the new Krystal design and I am pretty damn happy with where she is now. You'll be able to dye her a darker colour and the body is FANTASTIC now, it's a 100% improvement in every way now. But I personally still struggle with the head at SOME angles. I think head-on when the nose angles up, makes the face really pointed.
Still, it's a huge improvement because the original model just had a profile. If you look at the original model and the current, the head by the profile is still damn great. Just a little different. We might see them re-touch the head in the future and even give a "classic" appearance was one of the things the devs were spitballing in discord when I spoke with them.- But that would be WELL after they get a vertical slice-like experience prepared.
But on grand endeavour... they're recreating a KOTOR like experience and even though that is expansive and pretty amazing... mechanically it's pretty simple! They've hired an industry professional programmer, something along these lines is going to be a cakewalk haha. Think of it along the lines of ShadowRun in terms of a AA experience. That team was able to make something pretty simple but very solid. They even spent a shit ton of time making map editors etc, and the LOK team is going for a much more efficient point A to Z development cycle. I'll suggest they define their scope in a public article and present it to you guys when that gets finished. Might be a bit, they are hard at work atm.
Which is where we arrive at present day now. A state where the effects of these problems still persist, not really mitigated by the fact that while your writing team and art team seem to be making good progess (see the Trello), the work that requires arguably the most time of all of development - the animation - seems to be far behind (for reasons that were explained by Atoll to be fair), which is of course after such a rocky development not really inspiring people to expect reliability and build trust.
For sure, the animation will be the biggest thing. Rigging takes a bit of time, so when they get more universal rigs that they can simply scale they can apply that to sprites easier in the future and as ATroll already said, there are some issues that hung them up for a bit. But these hang-ups will happen even on "trustworthy" teams. CDPR, Harebrained Schemes, Platinum, all have had a set back that holds development back for awhile. It's just the nature of the business, unfortunately. One of the AA Indie CRPG's I ghostwrote on actually brought me on board because their lead writer was extremely ill for a while... development stopped for almost 2 months and they were thinking they were going to miss their kickstarter release date because of it. They brought me on to ghostwrite until their lead could come back. That kind of thing happens... they have multiple very successful projects released too!
But yeah no one can expect to force you to care about the project, and it's unfortunate you've fallen out of that trust with LOK Team and Rebirth. None of the team wants to see people disappointed in something they were excited for... and that's a hard pill to swallow. Hopefully, in the future the team will be able to regain your interest and get you excited for a more full and complete project that carries on the spirit of what we were all so excited about before the restart!
Ya'gotta tend to your garden first. Priorities are important in life haha. Hope to see you back when the team delivers the demo and I am looking forward to touching base with you on behalf of the team then! Or maybe we can start rotating actual devs in here when the crunch-time ends. Take care Mr. Terminus.
