RPGM Abandoned Malise And The Machine [v0.0511] [Eromancer]

[malodorous]

I have been milked for 15$, I don't know why they have to take so much time,maybe half or one whole year to release a new chapter,what the hell

What did the update say?

 

[apathy]

When they switched over to monthly subscriptions, they also decided to re-do all the art assets from scratch in a different (non-Daz3D) program. From what I've seen their new stuff is miles above anything anyone else is producing as far as 3d assets goes (the vast majority of which just use off the shelf assets), but it's shitty timing with the change of payment and how long the upgrade has taken.

They should have done a more gradual upgrade, where they cycle out old assets as the new stuff is made, to keep the releases constant. I've dropped down tiers due to their lack of release and I've noticed a huge difference in the progress updates, they really keep the lower tiered patrons in the dark as to their progress.

I'm giving them another month and then dropping my pledge. I'll reconsider it down the line if they start making releases again.

 

[mayaktheunholy]

Do you have a link for this?

We were talking about it on page 6 (of this thread), but here is the ulmf thread, he started posting on the page before but here's where he starts to show his true colors:

You must be registered to see the links

 

[mayaktheunholy]

Sorry for double post, but:

When they switched over to monthly subscriptions, they also decided to re-do all the art assets from scratch in a different (non-Daz3D) program. From what I've seen their new stuff is miles above anything anyone else is producing as far as 3d assets goes (the vast majority of which just use off the shelf assets), but it's shitty timing with the change of payment and how long the upgrade has taken.

Wasn't going to say anything because I haven't seen what they are showing patrons, but from what I've seen and heard this doesn't justify the time they've taken. From what I've seen they are simply exporting the exact same models into another program and rendering them in a different engine. As someone with some 3D experience I can tell you that while time-consuming it is nowhere near a year's worth of time-consuming. The models they've shown the public are even in the same poses and appear to have the same textures (just a different lighting and rendering engine). And rigging would still be intact if they exported in the right format, so no need to re-rig anything. And if you want to be really paranoid, they could even be lying about changing their 3D software to Maya and have just rendered those in DAZ with different render settings (or a 3rd party render engine for DAZ). Honestly, the video they showed the public a while back could have been thrown together in a week by someone experienced. Not saying they are up to anything nefarious, just saying what they have shown proves nothing in my opinion.

 

[Fataleclipse]

Whooooooooooooooooahhhhh kayyyyyy here we go....

TLDR at bottom









Ok, I've steadfastly avoided this thread for a while now, but I think it's time I chimed in on this.

I was a VERY VERY early supporter of this game, I don't know the numbers of course, but this game first launched on a now defunct website called Offbeatr (think kickstarter for adult games / projects). I was in early and Eromancer eventually moved over to patreon (smart move). For a while as he was building steam with the first few tech demos, showing beautiful static renders, he was telling everyone that it was a flat $10 per game version and that anyone who purchased two versions would receive the final game if they purchased at least two beta builds. His plan was to sell the final copy for $20, and so anyone who bought 2 or more of the beta builds would get the game for free when it was released. One of the reasons he said that he wanted to do it this way instead of a monthly fee was because he wanted to complete the game and get it out, and this would (in his mind) encourage him to keep putting out new beta builds.

I, believing in the project, and his statements at the time that he had no desire to milk the project paid for several of the early builds. I should be clear this was because I wanted to support the project and the direction that I believed he was going in.

I was in contact with eromancer quite frequently during the early days of the development cycle, and when the project started gaining some heat, he and I actually talked about how to continue to grow it and he and I spoke about coming onto the 'team' he was forming as the media manager. IE someone who would be in charge of driving traffic to the patreon. However I backed out after some very concerning responses from him and very long delays to very simple questions. It was around this time that I started to see a shift in his priorities from putting out a high quality game to a sort of "hey how much money can i make off this?" type of attitude.

I continued to support the project when he shifted the business model from $10 per release over to a flat monthly fee for FAR longer then I care to admit. However since I didn't throw all my money at him every month, I was dropped down into one of the 'pleb' teirs of support. I can tell you that instantly there became this division in people who supported, and that division was entirely how much money you were giving him. To the point where you couldn't / can't even message him any more unless you pay a lot of money.

I watched quietly, silently, because I had to, as the progress reports slowed down, down, down, and content dried up more and more to a bare trickle. Oh there were a lot of promises of what was coming, what was planned, but often what was shown was simply re-renders or new rendered graphics of previous backdrops / settings. Things that made no functional difference to progressing the game, but were things that could be released to the patreons as a 'see we're hard at work' !

Eventually Eromancer announced on the patreon that all the money for that month was going to building a brand new computer, so he could render much faster. This really rankled, but I still stuck with it. Maybe it's worth it, I told myself, we'll finally get faster updates and more content?

Nope.

If anything, after than that, the progress slowed even further. Twice or thrice a month text updates and maybe once a month single images released to patreons, just enough to keep the whistle wet. Finally, I upgraded my patreon pledge for a month and had to ask him. Hey man it's been (double digit) months since I started supporting you, and I've read everything you ever post, but I just have to ask, it seems like there hasn't been progress in the better part of the year. Do you still have the motto that you want to put this out? Is there any time frame? Any schedule for development?

What I got was an OBVIOUS form response. Something that was so clearly pre-written and copy / pasted that I realized I'm not the only one asking this question. So I had to cancel my patreon support, with more money spent on this game then any triple A title put out by a major game studio.

This was.... what.... almost 2 years ago I think? Maybe a year and a half? I don't recall exactly. Since then how much development has been done?

As for why everything is locked for non patreons, that's simple. If you're interested in the game, you might become a patreon. If you become a patreon, you might forget to cancel your recurring donations.

Honestly, I think the game will never be finished as long as patreons are paying eromancer as much as some people earn at a full time job. Why would it? If people are honestly throwing that much money at him and believing the 2-3 times a month bullshit updates... I'd do the same thing. Drag it out till there's no need to do it any more. Keep revamping the same old stuff and putting out just enough to keep people believing that you're spending time working on it. Release a beautiful render once in a while. Then sit back and cash the checks.

When you compare the amount of time versus effort put in on this project and compare it to something like summertime saga, you realize that the only explanation is that Eromancer is dragging his feet and milking his patreons, and will continue to do so.

Sorry to drop the bad news like that, and I'm sure some people will disagree and rush to defend the game. But those are my experiences, and my thoughts.


TLDR: As an early supporter, and someone who was almost on his team, I believe that this game will never be complete and eromancer is milking patreons for money.

I was concerned about this very possibility. I have never been a Patreon supporter for Eromancer and always hated the idea of keeping nonsupporters completely in the dark. How long ago was the tumblr page for this last updated? At least with something like supporting a kickstarter, you make an one time donation that you may end up regretting in disappointment. Here, you continue to contribute indefinitely allowing that small contribution to build up into something ridiculous has the months or even years drag on. I still hope for this game to be completed and would buy a final copy from him for a fair and equitable price. But I too remain skeptical if this day will ever arrive.

 

[Halexx]

whelp... that's disheartening.

 

[mosiii]

Guys there is a february progress update. Can anyone post it here?

 

[Deleted member 53054]

Guys there is a february progress update. Can anyone post it here?

I think nobody here dare to suport him anymore

 

[a meme]

What the fuck? This must be one of the first Patreon porn games ever and it's STILL not finished? And they're STILL making $7K a month?

 

[playcifier]

What the fuck? This must be one of the first Patreon porn games ever and it's STILL not finished? And they're STILL making $7K a month?

They will keep on stalling as much as possible since people seem to be okay with it. I guess they already got the next couple of patches on their harddrive and as soon as the moneyflow collapses they will show their progress in order to get people back.
Every other possibility would either imply stupidity or absolutly titanic laziness and don't think it is either of them.

 

[Nguyen Viet Thai]

it can be they get advantage on people, or lazy, or extremely poor "marketing" skills.

For someone who expecting for a new version like me, prepare yourself for atleast half of a year more.

 

[popiadameva]

Any info about the Feb update?
Would love to see new content on this, especially with the new graphics

 

[RM]

Couldn't be fucked linking all the images, feb update here. It's an essay and a half.

Looking likely I drop my pledge soon. Even if they seem to be working hard they've got little to show.

Spoiler

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[HentaiHoarder]

I can't believe I'm playing devils advocate but a lot of the new artwork looks amazing...
... still frustrated to no end that they plan on taking more months to finish up the demo so many have been waiting for

 

[nad destroyer]

I can't believe I'm playing devils advocate but a lot of the new artwork looks amazing...
... still frustrated to no end that they plan on taking more months to finish up the demo so many have been waiting for

If they really wanted to make their detailed artwork better then they should have had the decency to disable monthly payments since they are not releasing playable content.

 

[popiadameva]

Thank you for your post RM.
It seems now more like an artistic project rather than a playable game

 

[Halexx]

They're trying to make a AAA porn game with like... 3 people.

 

[rhev]

They're trying to make a AAA porn game with like... 3 people.

No, they're trying to live off patreon payments from people who believe they're trying to make a AAA porn game.

 

[Nguyen Viet Thai]

Like i said, we don't know, it is hard to judge people from our own point of view, but a part of fan's frustation come from their bad interacting skill which i think is non-existence. One more is their development plan

 

[156_163_146_167]

Those images do look quite good. I'm interested in seeing what they look like in motion.

It does baffle me that updates like the one posted by RM (thank you for that) are locked behind their Patreon pay wall. Even if they want to keep the "spicy" stuff for their patrons, they could just pull those out and show those in patron-only updates. The rest of the update is mostly technical stuff, and actually telling of how much work they are putting into the game. Making those public would surely make for much better publicity than the bashing on them we have now.