Lets say there are a lot of factors:Ok, my bad, i'll try to rephrase. It seems they ignored the issue for quite a while. On the other hand hiring additional people is a confirmation for what I wrote before: the two need too much time getting the work done they're hired for.
Or maybe it's just as Abel said. They are too occupied with little details instead of making progress. Right now it feels like the devs will take another two or three years till they reached the point of v8, cause there's simply no progress to see. A picture here and there means nothing, Kuja is able to churn out art like a printer and that's the "proof of progress" the people see.
No they're not doing that it would be silly lol. Just, the additional angles allow them to make sex scenes with different angles. Some scenes can se diagonal view, some front view, etc...I hope y'all aren't trying to make one animation play in 8 different angles for sex. That would be awfully silly.
So I know you are just standing in for the devs and that's super nice of you, but what you're saying here doesn't make a lot of sense.Lets say there are a lot of factors:
- the 1st rig was insanely complicated and detailed, because the 1st animator they hired had more experience in rigging than in animation, so he didn't realize it would be such a nightmare to animate. Then Pikant was hired and they remade it way simpler, but some time was lost on that for sure. The rigging process is going at a good speed now.
- the current rig is I think a good one to work with (it allows customization, more detailed animations, etc... without being overly complicated) but it's true they have set high standards for the fluidity and natural look of animations, and the progress suffers from that. The 2 new animators are helping with that, but it's true that if the rate doesn't pick up significantly, some concessions will have to be done.
- the animators are not full time, faaaar from it. They work on LOK:R as much as money allows to pay them, but they have other projects too. This is why all the arguments about scam and money are laughable: they earn less than before the rework, and divise the money between 3 times more people...
- the animation team was hit by Covid in the last months. Don't know exactly what happened, but I have the impression it was pretty bad. There was a very noticeable slowdown in animations progress for a few months. When they were making the movements animations, they were finishing several per days. Then there was a pretty big stop, I believe it's because of that, but no certitude.
Well this is at least good.No they're not doing that it would be silly lol. Just, the additional angles allow them to make sex scenes with different angles. Some scenes can se diagonal view, some front view, etc...
One of the first things "big studios" do is figure out a scale for their models and target polygon counts and skeletal complexity.What I was saying, basically.
But I guess they'd counterattack your argument by saying big and "serious" development studios have dozens of animators working on the same rigs... which would tell how full of themselves they are if they see themselves at that level of efficiency and experience.
You're welcome. I'm glad you enjoy my input.All of this talk about 8-angled skeleton issues has one more time convinced me that going with 3d in my game was a correct choice. Yes, making a high detailed model with a complex rig might take a couple of months, but making an animation after that and its implementation is a matter of hours, not days.
All that talk about art<implementation timewise is absolute true, which me and co-worker are experiencing right now. I'm an artist and I dont interfere with my programmer buddy, but I have to make sure that stuff that he executes is up to some standard. And it's taking it's time for quite a while now. I've done all of the assets and characters about half a year ago and we've been implementing them with various options and variants up until now. It took us 6 months just to set up a solid base for movement mechanics, dialogues, journal and quests, GUI, fluid animation transitions, rendering technique e.t.c. and only now we are getting back to the point where we can start thinking about adding actual content like dialogues themselves, quests, sex animations, e.t.c.
Yeah, having lots of art is cool, but it needs a solid execution within the engine, that also takes its time. Especially if programmer's experience and knowledge is limited to some point (you can't be a know-all anyway).
I have to say, arimouse, it's always interesting to read your thoughts that you decide to come up with here from time-to-time. Thank you. They make my brain work whenever I read them and I like that.
They essentially thought that they could do better and instead of finishing up the game they were making they decided to go the duke nukem forever route and scrap what had a lot of time and effort put into it. And this doesn't have much in the way of a gameplay loop yet.I'm one word? Ego.
In two? Ego and overconfidence.
So I'm gonna call this one.The more this project continues, the more I'm seeing I'm gonna get to keep my money .
In terms of what I see, this back and forth from Abelius and the current project's team, all I can see is shit throwing. Even if they establish what they're saying about Abelius to be true, in the end, if he can put out a product faster with a solid core, they really can't touch that.
There is a saying, "they pay you depending on how hard you are to replace." If Abelius was getting 60% of the game's revenue, he was most definitely the one you don't replace. In terms of ego, I'd actually say the other two guys of the original team are the ones overstepping.
They're the ones who harmed their own product. They're the ones that are now hiring 4 or 5 people to *try* and match the output of Abelius. It's their own egos that doomed them, and no one is stepping up to force a direction. No Director, No producer, no shareholders. It's all going to end up in the dustbin if someone doesn't commandeer their ship and steer it away from the shore.
I mean... a FOOD system? 8/5 direction sprites? What the hell is that? What made the original good? Not that. It doesn't even make sense since their original "remake" product was, in general, better. 2D sidescroller with smut from one side as in... basically a spiritual successor to the original with improved sprites.
There's a particular niche of people who enjoy food and water injected into their porn; as an avid player of Skyrim and lurker on LL, I can tell you that those people are a moderate minority at best. Nothing wrong with it, of course, I've touched my toe into it too, but many people don't have the patience to deal with it.
What does the word "streamlining" mean in this team? What is the core experience of the game they're trying to make, and is this food system integral to it? Do they NEED those extra sides for their porn, or is that just a nice thing they want to add? Why 3d? What ideas are shut down after they figure out it'd be impossible to do? These things are natural questions because, as of now, I can't vouch for the devs as being responsible with their decisions; who could other than the devs themselves?
I bet the next things they're gonna add are bathing and going to the bathroom. That would be a top priority if you got food and water in the game.
What about *SEASONS* That'd be cool to do and isn't work-intensive, changing the background for snow and fallen leaves.
Annual bird cycles anyone? I can't wait to spend a few minutes on a bird-watching mini-game.
ETC... as it all tumbles together in a big scary phrase. "FEATURE-CREEP"
I want to enjoy your joke but it took them 2 years to make a mostly non-interactive demo where the first quest was not even complete past the person you get the quest from, and the exciting gameplay was admiring an 8 directional movement system.Here is the game roadmap in the next 4 years
LOK RE
Customization Pack - Star Fox Skins, Clothes, Hairs and Nails
LOK RE - Eat, Drink, Pee and Shit DLC
Customization Pack - Ghostbusters Afterlife Ecto 1 Edition
Customization Pack - Ghostbusters Afterlife Proton Pack Edition
LOK RE - LEGO Pack
LOK RE - Summer Pack Accesories
LOK RE - Bath and Sleep DLC
LOK RE - Build your Home DLC
LOK RE - Xmas Pack Accesories
Where first people complained that the pot guy was too much grinding for a scene, so now you guys make a whole game full of grinding to get some scenes? Will these scenes be worth the grind ? Making Krystal cooking, eating etc. makes (according to my opinion) the game too enormous and taking too long before anyway people will get the scenes they play the game for (which is sex scenes ) . I am not a fan of these combat type of games as I find them very grinding (especially if made increasingly more difficult) .So I'm gonna call this one.
First, the bad: People shouldn't be valued at hard they are to replace, but how much value they add to a company.
They are "the same" almost, but the twist is different. For example a great employee would document everything and their job would be totally transparent, replacing them would just be a matter of getting somebody else to learn all this stuff and be effective at it.
And that is kind of the big twist, it's all there... but you do it so well that even thinking about replacing you would be a dumb maneuver to consider.
Don't build yourself into a Fortress of mystery, make everything 110% transparent and show everybody the value.
Same thing.. different twist.
Next... the concept of survival mechanics you discuss.
I hate to say it, but building a survival game is about meters and timers... and there are a billion tutorials out there on how to build whatever kind of survival game you want.
Adding food and water and XYZ survival mechanics tend to be low hanging fruit for developers. It's easy and it can look cool if done right.
But even when done right it can be annoying still. Like for example something from a basic depleting number, to a complex health system like Scum. Unless your game is tailored around those specific types of mechanics... not sure how well it will work for you.
The alternative to that busy-work though is you need to coke up with your own unique solutions for your games. :O
This is kind of where the rubber meets the road and you flex both your game designer muscle as well as your coding muscle.
Art is great... but it doesn't build your gameplay, or a game!
So...I hope they well do good. As far as I know, here are the systems planned:
*Survival system (food cooking, crafting equipment, blah blah blah)
* Combat like KotOR (this is apparently the primary reason for the 8-directional movement system)
* Adventure style non-combat (walk, talk, interact, pick up stuff)
* Branching conversations that will impact other future conversations/storylines
* Triggerable, animated sex scenes (conversations, maybe lost combat, etc etc)
* A day night cycle
* A weather system
* NPC schedules
* Inventory system
* Paperdoll models based off selected inventory items
* Character progression, leveling mechanics all tied into various systems above
As of the last demo... you can have a limited conversation that appears to have no branching and you can pick up an object from the ground or a container object, and navigate some scenes Adventure-style.
They appear to be building these things out in a super non-agile fashion... so you'll probably see some fully or near fully completed components come out that don't have any connections to other systems yet, and they'll finish out the next piece and hope to update the old code with the new functions and connections.
There are a number of things they could excise to cut down on the amount of necessary work, and make a game more appealing to people, but I think the new direction of the developers currently would be against this.
The original vision: A sex game where you did chores to achieve the next sex scene as Krystal from Star Fox in loose side-adventure, getting progression via sexy scene rewards and more kinky options.
The current vision: Make an actual video game where sex is not the main focus and not really used as a reward, instead you progress through a dynamic story as not-Krystal from not-Star Fox.
This fundamental change of direction is where I feel the team should start a new Kickstarter. The original goals people bought into and are expecting aren't really a major focus. Sure they are making snake cock gargling... but it's not the big selling point anymore.
I feel like if they just made this new direction more visible, dropped any relation to the 0.8 expectations, most of the issues people have would be no longer relevant. The only major question is would they get the same amount of support for the new direction that they did for the original? I don't know!
I hope I will be able to see them succeed because honestly I like to see success more than failure, anywhere and everywhere.
So I'm still rooting for them and hope they can pull it off. I enjoyed KotOR and wouldn't mind a furry version of it; even without any sex scenes at all. (Honestly though the spine based sex animations have never been super great or anything, so don't try to spent millions of hours making that floppy snake dick spew cum in just that perfect way lol)
have fun
I think you will be able to see some creative maneuvering between the devs wanting to appease all the people who want 0.8 to be finished, and their new vision.Where first people complained that the pot guy was too much grinding for a scene, so now you guys make a whole game full of grinding to get some scenes? Will these scenes be worth the grind ? Making Krystal cooking, eating etc. makes (according to my opinion) the game too enormous and taking too long before anyway people will get the scenes they play the game for (which is sex scenes ) . I am not a fan of these combat type of games as I find them very grinding (especially if made increasingly more difficult) .
Sorry but with mentioning with sex scenes as just a side note, I am thinking you are missing the point why a lot of people actually want to play the game .
It is already invented. It can be called, for example, Sims 4 + WickedWhims, or Skyrim + SexLab.where the sex is not necessarily the main focus
Lmao so trueAt the end of the day, their supporters are just paying to be in a chat server talking about lifelong dreams for years.