Indeed there isn't. If you look through this thread you will find that JJJ and Hopes have good rapport and obviously contact with each other outside this forum.
Now, does that mean that everything reported this way will come to fruition? Not automatically. However, there is indeed no reason to doubt that they talked about what JJJ said.
As I said, we don't know. I was just reacting to the topic of "can we believe JJJ that he speaks with Hopes", and on that I am pretty positive. What will come out of this game for real is a completely different question I cannot address.
Tbh, I really pay no attention whether the doubters believe me or not, heh
But (for those asking for proof) I do have a track record of being in touch with Hopes through discord DMs which I more often than not provide screenshots of (unless Hopes asks me to not say anything), so that pretty much speaks for itself.
The thing is the dev can tell JJJ whatever he wants in theory, how is anyone supposed to "fact check" anything at all. We only see the result which is a entirely fucked up development speed since the dev claimed to go full time and released on steam.
And even the statements JJJ more or less quoted here didnt seemed to committed to any kind of hard facts. Nobody knows anything at all about the current render count or comparable things of the current update status and the dev isnt stateing them unlike most other devs.
"He is working on it" could mean anything, maybe he produces 1 render/month, nobody knows.
I struggle to comprehend how anyone can defend this kind of buisness practice (and it is a buisness since the steam release), any early access game dev would be rightfully cursed already with such a lack of updates and communication at the same time.
I mean it is whatever, we can only hope that he finds the drive to get back to developing this avn at a somewhat reasonable speed at some point but blindly defending this practice and attacking everyone who states to be annoyed about it, is kinda dumb imo
Any news I give could vary from being definitive (if it's something which becomes official, in which Hopes gave me permission to share here) or not.
But honestly, it's more of Hopes and I being in touch and for me to reassure to folks that the game is not abandoned & Hopes is still working on it - especially at times devs just disappear and fans are wondering what is even going on.
And no, even I don't know how much he has done for that matter.
If anybody's expecting that from me, lol let me save those people time and say "Don't even bother reading my posts if that's the main reason."
Not to mention that I don't mean any offence to you or anyone whose main focus is the hard facts with the renders numbers, but I just find it unhealthy (for me at least lol) to focus so much on that at this point.
Hopes will come back and resume his proper schedule when he's ready.
Until then, I'll put my focus to other AVNs and other games.