I said 19 year programming experience, not making game experience and yes game I referred to is wrestlestarz, which I don't wish to promote in your thread. Also FYI that website may only be going 4 years but business being around since 2011 and I been self employed since 2006.
I recognise you put a lot of work into game, but I am just trying to help by given you a honest answer on why your patreon count dropped, which I still say is most likely due to patreon itself, rather than anything you did.
Also I already answered what was wrong with the update in my original post, it was to small and not enough content, which to be honest is a common theme in a lot of games that release monthly updates, which is why I advised releasing updates every 2 months, as I seen other games doing that and being very successful.
Summertime Saga was brought up, part of reason why that does so well is, there new updates always have a lot of new content, because they generally wait 2 months. My favourite game is school, love, friends and a lot of that is to do with the level of content in game and new content with each update, granted developer has been changing game over to new platform for most of 2018, but even then, he is delaying release to make sure he has a lot of new content.
Also it just makes sense, if content released in monthly updates is to small, then 2 months is most likely going be about right.
Your game has good content, the graphics are awesome in game, most likely best around but people want content in new updates, last update didn't have a lot of new content, I personally understand why due to the comments from yous in this thread. That reason is why am still watching this game thread, others don't see or understand what tidying code up and other stuff you said, so that could potentially be part of reason for your drop.
end of day, just trying to openly be honest with yous on a forum, not to ditch or to put down the work that yous have done, but to actually help because I do think this game has strong potential.
I would also add, and this is my own personal thing, but I also didn't like that there was no follow up to Bacon and MC not helping Heather against Scut and jeez, I forget her name. Basically Scut got his ass kicked and that was it, was disappointing, however that is just a personal dislike thing.
I really do not have anything more to add this, if you still take offence, then I understand why you would but what I say is true and I just posted with attention to help.
First of all, the game is not completed yet, we have the rights and reservations to change anything we need to change if we feel like it brings better quality and depth to the game. This means modifying the story, making improvements, adding characters etc.
Second, I don't look at the short-term trend on our game either, sometimes it dips, this time around it dipped from a lot of projects, not only ours, people can also change their support from time to time, that's fine, we've already seen that we have overwhelmingly positive responses and from our supporters, that we are going in the right direction. We have more engagement from fans and supporters than ever before.
Now, to go back to your feedback,
I have seen your comments about the game previously, and it doesn't make any realistic sense,
In one post not long ago, after the release of this version you say that the release was bad and we have too much text and too few choices, yes, i remember your post. I'm always here.
If you want more choices, which we also added in this release, the choices also needs to have impact. If it needs impact, that means separate animations maybe, definitely some separate renders. So it will be impossible for you to see all of them. When you say "poor update" it's because maybe your path is not so expanded.
We already said that this path had focus on Juliana and Maureen dynamics, if you break up with Maureen, what do you expect to happen? You will get less content in this release. We can't please everyone.
What if you were a dick to heather? Well, look at that, maybe you get a bit less content with her too some versions.
You have zero interest in Veronika? Suddenly, wow, a lot less content in some releases as well.
You don't give a fuck about Gaz? Well too bad if we spend a lot of time and effort to give a good Gaz release and you decide to just skip it.
If we make 250 renders, and we have 5 paths, do you think that one path will be 250 renders? No, we need to split it up so there is some differentiation , maybe that means the main path is 170 and the off path contains 80 different images, then you only see 170 if you play one route, and you don't have any idea whats going on. The more paths we have, the more impact it will have on the general content that everyone may see in one play through.
I understand some of the feedback that you are giving but at this point you are complaining about the game because of a matter of preference not because of the game itself, we are not trying to be a full on mainstream harem game where MC just goes around and fucks everything that moves, we're trying to convey a story, and also expand on choices people can make, and open up even more for going back in time later and changing some things.
Yet here you come, saying you want more choices, less text, more renders, for what? How are we supposed to do this? Are we supposed to tap our shoes and magically have twice as much time and willpower to make a release? Just ignore the fact that we have to earn a living for pensions, for home, food, family, living expenses, enjoyment in life?
If you looked back you would already notice that last release wasn't after 4 weeks, it was 6-7 weeks, previous updates has also been varying around 6 weeks give or take even up to 2 months. We're already pushing in as much as we can
I explained this earlier as well, if i need more time coding, that just means that mot will be able to add more content that release, this is what happened last release, that you at the same time complained it was too little. We actually added in even more things in there just because i wasn't done and he had time to add more.
You compare us to summertime saga where they are right now, well look at them, they heave a team, they work full time, and it's bullshit that they release a lot of content because they don't always. Their game has been in development for years now and their funding is on a totally different level, and I have followed it for over a year. The artist also very picky with the designs and does most work himself with that too.
More funding is not always the solution for everything either, throwing money on something doesnt solve the problem, you reach a point where it doesn't matter as much, its just about finding that critical sweet spot where you can split up the responsibilities in a much more manageable way and also be allowed to focus more on the project, those matters the most. Then of course if you earn a lot, you can spend tons of money on rendering machines or tooling to improve your workflow even more.
The expectations somehow are that a team of 1-2 people need to push out as much as a team of 5?
I remember how summertime saga was a year ago, there wasn't really that much to it , at all. His funding came out of timing and immense exposure. Even back then he had tons of funding, he was on the top right there with darksilver.
I have followed their game for a long time, and the amount of content has not increased in parallel with his support. On the contrary, i remember several projects where they started expanding the team and the quality actually dropped, cause the game would become more unstable.
Anyways, i'm spending my off time to respond to this, because its important to me,
None of us are perfect, we improve every release, but what we are doing now is already on a way higher level than what we should be with our funding. We compensate that with sacrificing a lot for a while, to hopefulyl turn it over so it will support itself long term. We are not there yet and we can't please everyone, we are not planning on pleasing everyone.
It's just a slap to the face reading things like this from people that don't really know actually how much work it is to do something truly special and unique.
I can totally enjoy a good game at less than 720p graphics and lots of stock assets and untweaked daz models, for me personally quality isn't everything, it's the overall experience, but this is not what Timestamps is, timestamps is quality as well, on a level that should be above what you have seen with most others.
/A
. And by the way great quote under your avatar. One of Monte Python's best skits. Great because you never saw it coming. Just people doing a skit and then "I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition" and bam! they would jump out! Comedy genius.
