The problem with you saying "Shinobu was removed for copyright reasons" is immediately made invalid by the fact that the characters that replaced her by default are all copywritten characters. And again, the new character framework is straight up inferior. The characters are worse to interact with in any way, are way less expressive and therefore look worse.
He didn't need to keep Shinobu specifically, but if he'd changed it to a generic character as a base (or even an OC) using the same expressionset and/or face, body/skeleton, and animations that were present in the old ones, that would have been a hundred times better than the garbage we did get.
I would 100% have taken stability and polish over the game being open source, since there's absolutely no guarantee people will do anything meaningful with the game from this point on. The dynamic physics don't really add anything to the game, either. It's just kinda added without a second thought. It would have been better to make an entirely separate game for whatever the hell he was trying to do with this build.
Not gonna lie, the "improved" character import feature is...Not a better option. The Card system was just fine. There were characters that you could import alongside fully customizable outfits that were simple to utilize. If you wanted more in terms of customization (IE, height, proportions, etc), it would have been better to add in-game options to save to certain characters. A more complex and less intuitive system for importation =/= a better system.
Lastly, on the topic of "scams"...I can't speak personally, since I never supported the game financially, but I can very much understand why a lot of backers on Patreon feel scammed and/or betrayed. The grand majority likely joined it for the specific game that was being developed, and everything the game had being scrapped in favor of the shit they left us with would be infuriating if i dumped any amount of money into helping the development of the old game.
tl;dr: Old man says complexity is better than simplicity, the Patreon did not offer exorbitant tiers or rewards that suggested it was anything other than tip jar, and says game isn't as bad as Fallout 76. Thanks for coming to my TEDxTalk.
Hey man, don't shoot the messenger. I'm just telling you what was stated through his blog. Why do you think it's now called Viva and not Shinobu Project?
Also, I beg to differ that him making an OC would have been better. It would have been worse by far, and unless you know nothing about how model/rigging work, you'd know. He's a Unity developer, not a model designer. So unless you want "MY FIRST OC! (DON'T STEAL)" as the base model, some capitulations have to be made.
Also, about what you were saying about being able to import custom characters, that is both correct and incorrect. You could "import" a character's LOOKS (Hair/clothes/face?), but not anything else. You are hard bound by the model in the game, unless you went through the process to unpack the game files, and replace the model itself. You can not just, "add options in game" because that isn't how working with models in Unity goes. Unless the base model is implicitly designed with shape keys to increase certain proportions. But even then you'd still have the same character body type.
Further, the current system is not implicitly less intuitive. The process for bringing in characters is about as simple as uploading a model for VRC. Which is, now a days, a heavily streamlined process that is only one Youtube video away. It is more involved, but not the most esoteric thing to do. Blender has the CATS plugin, which makes the hard model work just some simple button clicks. I don't disagree that on the surface it seems strange and unknowable, but it is much simpler than it looks.
And FURTHER, anyone else can do that work and redistribute the needed packages just as simply for you to just unpack and load in. But the only reason we don't have that yet is because it's too new. The card system was, "better" because it had been around for longer and was simpler, but had less to do.
The rebuttal you came back with essentially comes down to minimalism vs customization. Which while not unfair, would guarantee the game come to stagnation exceptionally fast, and drive no major interest after a point.
Lastly, on the topic of the Patreon, I have to doubt your points. The game is free. If people donated to his Patreon thinking otherwise, then to be perfectly frank, they probably aren't paying as much attention as they should be.
Mostly because all his tiers of his Patreon only offer dev posts and earlier access to beta releases. It is very much more a tip-jar than anything else. And the only levels he has offered has only ever been, $1/$2/$5 a month, which $5 is a bit, yes. But people spend more on coffee a WEEK than they would that Patreon. (Yes I understand you can offer more, but the math on his current still active patrons * max donation level would be more than his current total income for that. So let's assume it's a moot point.) If you
donate money to someone and expect it to do something good, you've already lost. Be stingy with your donations! I whole heartedly support that, I do not begrudge people being careful with who they donate to! But it is still important to go into doing that with the expectation that it may wind up getting you nothing! There are a shit ton of artists I support on Fantia that just post almost nothing. (And one that posts so much I don't know how to react) But I'm doing it because I enjoy their art and when they come back from several months of nothing at least I'll get some high quality art. (And because when you get to my level, certain tastes are hard to find, but
shhhh) Better them than me buying something else stupid.
At the end of it all, this is mostly an issue of
polish. The game is not an exceptionally buggy or broken mess. It is not Cyberpunk or (God save us) Fallout 76. The physics oddities can be resolved more than likely fairly simple with tweaks and ragdoll settings. It is not some underlying engine issue, but merely a matter of some settings being not nearly fine tuned enough. It is rough as is, but has the underlying framework to be better. So calling it a scam or getting super worked up seems overkill. I understand being disappointed or sad. I am too, to hear this. But the Otherside is important to keep in mind. (Cause it's a really great song, I mean, have you LISTENED to Californication?)
I'd love to tackle more of your points with more granularity, but this is getting too long as is, and at some point we all stop reading. (And I'm known to never stop my stupid fucking side-bar notes.)
