That may be the case. My point was simply that I can understand a developer not wanting to respond to people on a thread when the majority of posts are complaints, accusations, and other negativity.
This is one of those keep people in the know and they will be less snarky. In general people would like to know what is going on and when they can expect to play this again. While it would be nice if people were nicer at times you got to learn to blow the froth off of the beer.
That's fair. But this is the thread for Polarity, not Radiant. Polarity is, from what I understand, a side project. Polarity was started before Radiant, and although Radiant is now the priority, I personally like Polarity more than Radiant, and I don't want Polarity to be abandoned. I do not believe that all the complaining and accusations that the developer is "milking supporters" helps anyone involved, whether you're the developer, a supporter, or a fan getting the game for free on this site.
Some of this stems from concerns fans had that long ago when Radiant was new and this is what was said:
I'm pleased to announce that in the next 2-3 days I'll be releasing a brand new game called Radiant. This game will run alongside Polarity and is rendered in DAZ3D. It is being developed by myself and my good friend (and now co-developer) Alorth. It won't affect development of Polarity.
There were a few fans that wouldn't have supported Radiant if Polarity would take a hit and Dammed assured them it wouldn't. Now development is slow for both and the last time Dammed left any message on this site was on Dec 2, 2020 for
Radiant and Oct 25, 2020 for
Polarity. So if some of them feel "abandoned" well it's been a few months of the sounds of silence.
(Yes, I went out of my way to use Trolls for this
)
A once a month check-in to the adoring fans would have lowered tensions quite a bit and since they get paid every month well a little pr would go a long way.
I agree. My point was that people care too much about what other people do with their money. If people who are supporting the developer are upset, they can choose to no longer support the game. They have no obligation to the developer, and vice versa.
People rattle the cage because they want a reaction. Just telling them to simmer down doesn't deescalate things it just makes mad people madder like a hatter.
While they have no obligation they do have a desire to see things happen. If they had truly lost all hope then this thread would be dead as they all would have moved on. You may see enraged ogres but these are mostly fans that were enthusiastic about this game and they would hate to see it die... Sometimes you have to look at the layers of the frustrated and weep for those poor unfortunate souls. Like peeling an onion.
I didn't get too into this because my post was already pretty long and it's off topic, but I'm fully aware that trying to take down pirate sites is a losing scenario for the copyright holders. That's why I said "try to take down this site". However, I've seen enough websites and services threatened with legal action that have shut down, and although they are replaced, they are often not as good as the original versions. F95zone is, in my opinion, the best site for these games.
Some like a phoenix will rise from the ashes. Others will try to imitate. One of the things that turn dull sites into respectable ones are the people, not the place.
First of all, I want to say that my first response quoted your post, but was directed more broadly towards the more negative posts in this thread and across this site. Your post was fine. I just used the quote from your post to talk about why I believe developers don't engage the community here as much as we all would like.
I'm an egomaniac but I don't take offense to many things even when people are trying to offend me. Most are people with their own problems and if you could only walk a
kilometer mile in their shoes well congrats as you successfully stole someone's shoes
It's sometimes hard to do but the internet is filled with eccentric people all saying what they want as there isn't much of a filter online however if you discard some of the negativity they might have a few valid points.
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I am in full agreement that this site helps developers far more than it hurts them. However, I don't think that criticism needs to be harsh in order to help developers improve their games. Constructive criticism is not saying "just work harder developer!!!" and "we all know this game is abandoned, the developer just hasn't said it yet!". In my opinion, that type of "criticism" does not help anyone, and it annoys me to see it happening in just about every thread on this site.
Yeah it would be nice if everyone was higher than a kite. But in reality people aren't all rainbows and sunshine.
While I see this on the older threads with slow update cycles however I've seen others where the dev tries hard to have transparency and are rewarded by loyal fans. People don't like bad news but they prefer it to no news. Keep the fans in the dark and that is the perfect breeding ground for conspiracy theories.
My post was not only about Polarity's developer, but about all developers. The negativity and toxicity in many game threads overwhelms the amount of positive, helpful posts or posts with constructive criticism. Also, I never claimed that all developers care about their supporters, or even that Polarity's developer cares about their supporters. But I chose to defend this developer because I enjoy Polarity and want it to continue. My favorite game on this site was abandoned due to "personal issues", and I believe that we, as fans of these games, can help developers by not being jerks to them when they don't live up to our personal expectations.
Gotta catch 'em all. As I've said before I don't think everyone is negative but if that is the only thing you look for well you'll likely overlook the positive. Take an underdog I promote,
Broken & Loved, which is a small time Spanish developer team looking to attract some fans and make their game shine. A few fans have gotten together to promote them, help polish up their English translation so more people can enjoy the game, and see about giving them feedback so they can hone their craft. I genuinely wish them success as they try to be open about what they do even if there is a language barrier. For every story about the dev that has gone months without even dropping by to say hello there are others that try hard to engage with the community and honestly the atmosphere around those games tends to be much less toxic.
Again you're throwing accusations at someone you don't know. It's easy for you to talk about the "ethics and integrity" of finishing the game before starting to work on other projects, but you don't know how this person works. Many developers get burned out working on the same project for too long, others get burned out because they work on too many projects. Do you enjoy the game and want it to continue, or not? You can argue about whether they should have started Radiant or not, but at this point, it would be financially irresponsible and a big "fuck you" to Radiant's supporters to put that on hold to focus on Polarity, so what's the point of getting upset about something that already happened?
It's surprising therapeutic... Really when people cry they tend to calm down and it also helps if they swear from time to time. This does have diminishing returns but as they say misery loves company.
If you want to see less bitching then give them something good to take their mind off things. If Dammed wanted to he could make a gif of Polarity girls playing with a puppy. Would only take a few minutes out of 1 day and that alone would attract a lot of people saying "aw, look at the cute puppy"... Hell something like that would probably make it's way to a fan signature which would help brighten the mood even further. It would also assure those that are worried if this is even still alive as Sir Dammed would be confirmed to be alive, they haven't forgotten their fans, and all is well with the world until next month when this spiral begins anew...
I hope you feel better as doesn't it feel good to get things off your chest
Don't worry, there is no charge for these therapy sessions. Hopefully some worthy news drops, or better yet a real update, then we can all play it, fill that little hole that the AAA gaming industry has taught us is good to nurture, not unhealthy in the least, and wait until that little high of bliss fades away before we look for the next dopamine fix.
