SaddamHussein

Member
Aug 4, 2018
109
168
I don't have to prove anything to you people. End of the day, I'm doing what I enjoy, for people who enjoy what I'm doing, and I'm getting paid for it. What more is there to want from life?

We're wrapping up the last elements of act 1. Is there a degree of scope creep present? Obviously. Was research done whether it would be better to cut certain storylines and wrap up act 1 faster or realize the original vision? Yes there was! Were you made aware of it? No, because no sane person involves pirates in their business decision making process.
Wait wait hold on so all 7 years of this game and you guys "wrapping up the last elements of act1" ??? now my brother in christ you have no right to talk shit to people who "complain" here they are right to complain in 9 years CDproject red make cyberpunk fixed the bugs and made a whole as dlc to their game and GTA 6 is coming.
 

Rein

Active Member
Game Developer
May 8, 2017
782
2,833
You people seriously have to stop comparing us to AAA developers.

You can shittalk us by comparing us to Aura-dev. That guy's fucking amazing, mad respect for him.

But you know, let's play a game. Imagine you get your hands on SoC right now, and you get full control over development. What's your next move? What storylines get axed, and which are finished, as you move the plot to act 2?
 

perles75

Active Member
May 16, 2020
893
1,358
Wait wait hold on so all 7 years of this game and you guys "wrapping up the last elements of act1" ??? now my brother in christ you have no right to talk shit to people who "complain" here they are right to complain in 9 years CDproject red make cyberpunk fixed the bugs and made a whole as dlc to their game and GTA 6 is coming.
yeah, because that's exactly the same budget and scope :rolleyes:
 

EvolutionKills

Well-Known Member
Jan 3, 2021
1,159
3,798
Wait wait hold on so all 7 years of this game and you guys "wrapping up the last elements of act1" ??? now my brother in christ you have no right to talk shit to people who "complain" here they are right to complain in 9 years CDproject red make cyberpunk fixed the bugs and made a whole as dlc to their game and GTA 6 is coming.
Have you checked the game recently? It's a 7 year old project with 7 years worth of content. Sure, the game isn't complete, but there is still a metric fuck ton of scenes in the game currently. The last version I downloaded (0.4.01) had 230 scenes in the gallery, not counting variations (high/mid/low corruption or love). That's an average of 32.8 scene per year. Plus, this is hands-down one of the most imaginative and well written VN's on this site. Easily up there with Now & Then, Pale Carnations, The Last Sovereign, and Crimson High.

I mean, compare this to Milfy City, which went dark for a few years before popping back up as 'finished'. Or how about The Adventurous Couple or TwoSides, both of which have been rebooted/restarted multiple times now. A House in the Rift? Still walking around that same house trapped in the same ether 4 years later (currently has 84 scenes in the gallery). Summertime Saga is also from 2016, and still not complete either (which has 149 scenes according to the wiki, but that includes duplicates with the 4-some scene). The Last Sovereign, the other high quality dark fantasy RPG? Still going strong since 2016 with regular updates, just like Seeds of Chaos.

This isn't a AAA game with a thousand person staff and a budget in the hundreds of millions, so cool your jets comparing it to CD Projekt RED or Rockstar. If you're gonna compare it to other games, at least use an apples to apples comparison, and not apples to pine cones.

The dev isn't just sitting on their ass doing nothing. There are regular updates with new quality content. Do I hope the game gets finished eventually? Of course. But I think that having solid output for 7 years is a mark in favor of the dev, not against them. Given how frequently games get abandoned, and even 'finished' games frequently sufferer from bad rushed endings? I'm content to see this play out at their pace; so long as they are keeping pace, which they demonstrably have been.
 

EvolutionKills

Well-Known Member
Jan 3, 2021
1,159
3,798
You people seriously have to stop comparing us to AAA developers.

You can shittalk us by comparing us to Aura-dev. That guy's fucking amazing, mad respect for him.

But you know, let's play a game. Imagine you get your hands on SoC right now, and you get full control over development. What's your next move? What storylines get axed, and which are finished, as you move the plot to act 2?

Just stay the course. I don't like the Patreon model, but more power to those who do and make this possible. I'd rather just purchase a game outright, so I bought my copy on Steam. If they can keep you afloat and making content, and you are still invested in the story after 7+ years? Keep going. Dark Fantasy is a pretty rarified space around here, and I'm always happy to see more of it; doubly so when the quality bar is this high. It'll be done when it's done.
 

Jynx_lucky_j

Member
May 1, 2021
390
947
But you know, let's play a game. Imagine you get your hands on SoC right now, and you get full control over development. What's your next move? What storylines get axed, and which are finished, as you move the plot to act 2?
I'm not one of the shit talkers, rather I'm usually one of the defenders, but I do like games... So here is what I would do if I suddenly became the absolute dictator of the Seed of Chaos development team:

First, I wouldn't axe anything that had already been announced/started. I'd sit down with the writing staff and make a list of the open story lines. I would have the writers submit an outline for each of their assigned story lines. Then we would discuss how many more scenes do we need to wrap up each story line. Then we would plot out how many updates we would expect it to take and this would become our schedule. Finally, I would ask the writers not to work on any more side content unless they were well ahead of schedule. (honestly I wouldn't be surprised if much of this is pretty much already being done.)

Then I would put a new roadmap out to the public, essentially laying out the schedule. Story X needs 3 more scenes, Story Y need 5 more scenes, etc. with the caveat that these numbers are estimates and that any given story may end up requiring an extra scene or two. I would also release an estimate of how long before each element is completed as well as an estimated final release date (with a decent buffer factored in because obviously nothing ever goes perfectly according to plan).

I suspect a large part of the frustration people have comes from the unknown. "It's done when it's done" is too vague for most people. One of the most common complaints is from people that believe that this game is is being developed in perpetuity to get those sweet fat stacks of Patreon bucks. Having a date, even if it eventually get delayed, helps set people's minds at ease. It tells them you are working towards an endpoint and there is a plan to get there.


But all games aside, I appreciate all the hard work you guys are putting into this game. And while I also would like to see it wrapped up, I want it done so in a quality manner. And I'm willing to wait. After all I have absolutely mammoth backlog of other stuff to play in the mean time. In a way all the negativity is a positive. Clearly people are invested in the game if one of the major complaints is that it isn't coming out fast enough. Keep up the good work! :love:
 

manscout

Well-Known Member
Jun 13, 2018
1,265
2,067
If something is getting nixed into act 2, I'd guess it would be all the gameplay stuff with map exploration and random events.

Mind you I like all of that stuff a lot, and I'd love a version of SoC that was more focused on route-planning and min-maxing that stuff. But current SoC is much more focused on delivering story elements that have little integration with that part of the game. Alexia stuff, castle staff side-characters stuff, and even the macro story events (orc camp, gobbos, rastedel) are mostly handled by systems completely apart from map exploration (alexia has the job system, castle staff are directly talked to, major story events have their own "hubs" with little to no map exploration involved with dealing with them).

Am I saying the game would be better without the map gameplay? Absolutely not, but the focus of the game's development has shifted to something much more story and character driven, so the first few years of the game that were invested on implementing the sandbox system just feel like they are kinda there, and probably not worth the effort of carrying it over to the sequels unless the devs have structured a much more agile way of developing around it while also utilizing it in a more engaging way that integrates the story elements where the actual bulk of the game's development is focused on.
 

disso

Newbie
Jan 2, 2018
57
88
I get the whole shift in the art direction but spend more time on finishing off storylines and arcs than redoing all the artwork.
 

Nym85

Active Member
Dec 15, 2018
513
605
Then I would put a new roadmap out to the public, essentially laying out the schedule. Story X needs 3 more scenes, Story Y need 5 more scenes, etc. with the caveat that these numbers are estimates and that any given story may end up requiring an extra scene or two. I would also release an estimate of how long before each element is completed as well as an estimated final release date (with a decent buffer factored in because obviously nothing ever goes perfectly according to plan).
This is the part I agree the most
a) we have not had a roadmap in a fair while
b) better planning of how many scenes are in each arc and of what the content (especially the sexual content, this is an erotic game) and the point of those scenes are.

I bought the game a couple of years ago on Steam and I was subbed this entire year because they were planning to do Andras X Rowan which is my favourite content in this game. And many were added. I found that a lot of fairly long and evolved scenes had no real sexual content. But more importantly I did not understand what the direction is. All the scenes before had a focus on humiliation (and a way to avoid it and actually gain favour with Andras). And the sex was very clearly dominant. In the new scenes, the sex is nowhere near as dominant. Some are public but are not presented as particularly humiliating (fine with it personally, not my kink). While yes, the focus is on Andras' growing respect or otherwise of Rowan, the sex just gets increasingly vanilla. We went from throatfucking and a brutal anal fuck in their first scene to a vanilla blowjob that Andras pretty much asks for (and you can very much deny him) following by anal in which Rowan seems to have most of the control. I expected that even though the respect would build (because it makes sense; Andras has always been presented as able to admire people who are capable unlike Jezera) I did expect the sex to become increasingly debauched and kinkier.

I just felt the arc could have been told in 2-3 scenes less and there could have been significantly more variety to the sex than blowjob/anal. There are two group situations (and both are with a woman) and a weird blowjob scene (that is someone's weird kink I suppose).
 

Bertruger

Newbie
Jun 10, 2018
47
70
Mostly yes.

Jezera, Cliohna and Tue-San are exclusively interested in being dominant.

X'zaratl, Arzyl, and Shaya have certain elements that may be to the liking of femdom fans.

Alexia has a high variety of scene, some of them lean femdom.

Liurial, Helayna, Heartsong tend to be femsubs.
Hello Rein. Question just out of curiosity. If there is a chance of seeing Jezera, Arzyl and Tue-San strictly in a submissive roles sometime in the future?
 

Rein

Active Member
Game Developer
May 8, 2017
782
2,833
Hello Rein. Question just out of curiosity. If there is a chance of seeing Jezera, Arzyl and Tue-San strictly in a submissive roles sometime in the future?
Forcing Jezera into submission would require literally deposing her as the ruler of Bloodmeen.

Arzyl's more... Flexible.

As for Tue-San... It would be a long shot.

Then again...
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wei270

Member
Jul 29, 2020
137
41
Rein please do realized people are people and not all of them knows how to communicate. However it is clear that the progress of this game as of late is slow.

what everyone complainer s or not is wondering at this point is that will the development process gets speeded up or will it stay relative the same from here on out.
 

kaspqz

Newbie
Jun 26, 2021
51
120
Forcing Jezera into submission would require literally deposing her as the ruler of Bloodmeen.

Arzyl's more... Flexible.

As for Tue-San... It would be a long shot.

Then again...
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Guys, thanks for your work. Keep doing what you are doing, mwah.
 
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Rein

Active Member
Game Developer
May 8, 2017
782
2,833
what everyone complainer s or not is wondering at this point is that will the development process gets speeded up or will it stay relative the same from here on out.
The same for the reminder of act 1.

Act 2 will see a lot of trimming of excess fat. Does Alexia really need 5 jobs? Were Wineries a necessary addition to the map? Did it have to be that large? Were spies a necessary mechanic? What about the Forge? Was it really necessary to have so many castle NPCs basicaly detached from the main plot? And so on, and so on.

For act 1, we're neck deep in sunk costs and removing certain elements would be more time consuming than simply seeing them properly implemented.
 

| Vee |

Well-Known Member
Jun 2, 2022
1,824
4,176
A question if anyone may:), If I choose "Leave the two..." choice what is the outcome of it? Also what is optimal choice between these options?
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4.00 star(s) 171 Votes