Chiming in on the general idea so far that perhaps Stan doesn't need as complete an overhaul as Eva seems to think. His core personality, especially as he starts the game, where he is shy and quiet, observant of the girls' attitudes towards him, and goes out of his way to be a good flatmate (even if he is hella awakward), is unique within the game and a good starting place for a guy who will ending up being another "good" option for Lena. Tweaks after that, sure, but more of a slow burn to the eventual relationship between Stan and Lena feels right.
The piece of Eva's message that I'm admittedly a little bummed about is the question of how much of the game will be revisited and redrawn before it's published on Steam. At this point, getting a game onto Steam is a pretty streamlined process in itself; I had a friend put a game up last year and as long as you have your financials in order, it doesn't take a lot of time. But I worry that Eva will, as the saying goes, make the perfect the enemy of the good, and endlessly second-guess the redos she wants, so that suddenly there's a huge list of scenes which "must" be revisited, when the reality is that ORS is already a top-tier VN as is.
The other question I have is one of timing. A lot of momentum in the game's community was lost in the long gap between 0.8 and 0.9. If Eva's goal is getting ORS as a game and a business to the next level, as she states, keeping the momentum going from 0.9 to 0.10 is crucial, and I question whether taking a significant amount of time to rework content right now will accomplish what Eva wants, because if there's another five - or four, even three - month gap between 0.9 and 0.10, any momentum from the 0.9 release will be lost.
It's also in my opinion the wrong time of year to be adding a game to Steam: everyone and their brother are tying to add games now for the holiday season. ORS has a much better chance of getting noticed in February or March, when releases are lighter, and everyone has finished the games they bought for the holidays and are looking for more. But if nothing advances with the game for another three or four months, the momentum from 0.9 is gone.
The last point I'll make is that IF the game is still operating under Eva's goals as stated over a year ago (it's a big if; she hasn't said much along these lines since) and there are approx. 20 chapters to the story, with 0.10 as the halfway point, and there's to be a time skip after 0.10, then from a story perspective, the redos and add to Steam makes more sense after 0.10 is released, which ideally would be in January (only a two-month gap), with redos and adding onto Steam happening in March (again only a two-month gap). Best laid plans and all that - we all understand that sometimes neat little plans aren't going to come off the way we want. But frankly, from the information Eva has given us to this point, I think my proposed timeline makes a lot more sense if Eva wants to accomplish her near-term goals.
