I think it's safe to say that, at this moment, they're just lurking and restraining themselves from doing so.
My bet is that Vlad, sick of his pretty words and promises not being taken seriously (I wonder why), went to that "The Council" channel reserved for the elites, and declared this forum a no-go zone for all proper and faithful supporters.
It's easy to be paternalistic and "above toxic destructive gratuitous critique sources", when you still have a horde of people giving you money based on their self-imposed hopes at finally getting a Krystal game, I guess...
Aw.
Didn't know about the secret place, but I'm sure it's logical.
Though the main channel has just mostly become a meme ground and mostly slow community channel, which is probably the natural progression. Very little discussion about the game I could see, and nowhere really I could talk about any kind of direction thoughts or art thoughts with the people doing it.
Which is fine, I didn't expect people to provide customer service just because they're working on a video game.
I did get to talk with Vlad and he was kind and nice and went out of his way to discuss story elements and such, which is his area, and that was fun.
Overall the people all seem nice. I have only interacted with one of them in discord though. I wish no hostility or ill thoughts on any of them and I hope they can pull the project together.
It would certainly be cool if there was a way to discuss some of these topics that are here directly with them, but I don't feel like that Avenue really exists. Maybe it's in the super secret club for the elite... I don't know.
Ultimately it's a matter of artist choice and design decisions, none of which I feel are open to debate. You either like the style... or you don't. You either are ok that it is taking them a huge amount of time to make little progress... or you're not good with it.
Since I'm not spending money on the project yet, I'm not expecting to be one of the cool kids in the big leagues.
Just because I'm highly experienced in software development and can provide good advice... on a forum or discord it doesn't make me stand out any more than if I had zero experience, it's all equal footing. Sometimes you get noticed and sometimes not. It's fine.
I've found that learning management techniques is not something that comes easily to everybody. Sometimes you are open to learn, sometimes you feel you are already doing everything you can do to the best of your ability and everybody else can never understand what you have to deal with.
Same with artwork... I draw what I like, you draw what you like, and sometimes that is nice to both of us and sometimes not.
I wish my voice could be heard... but I also know that it probably won't be and that's fine. I'm sure even if I paid all the money in patreon, I would likely still be in the same place. I doubt even in the super secret club there are non-developers making game-changing decisions for the team. It's probably just different memes.
good luck.
