Ren'Py Abandoned What a Legend! [v0.6.02] [MagicNuts]

[j4yj4m]

But what if WaL dev hires more people for the necessary stuff?

With 2D games there's one issue (and that's basically the only, real issue) and that's the artist. You can hire another coder, animator, etc. without issues and your team will grow nicely, but once we are talking about the art, there seem to be only two real ways. Either you stay with the one guy or girl who draws fulltime (which is what WaL! and SS are doing) or you go really big and hire multiple artists whom you then coordinate (which is certainly something some devs, like DC for SS don't seem to want, because it essentially changes your whole project). But there's almost nothing really effective in between, unless you find the perfect artist to work for you. As soon as you have to instruct and correct too much, you may aswell have done the work yourself. After all the art isn't that complicated and in the worst case you hire somebody but your output will hardly grow - worse, you may even start to add inconsistencies in the style etc. which in my opinoin is the worst that can happen.

As far as I recall magicnuts actually did outsource some of the art, but it seems like it wasn't that much of success when it comes to an increase in output, which - again - is understandable.

He isn't with the team anymore?

He had to leave the team a long time ago.

@diras2010: To be fair, the coding wasn't/isn't really the issue with SS. As far as I'm aware none of DC's coders ever worked fulltime and he also said that he'd hire more coders if he felt there's a need. But what really takes the time is the art. It's indeed the same with every 2D game. The hire the quality, the more time it'll take.

 

[Deleted member 1340438]

With 2D games there's one issue (and that's basically the only, real issue) and that's the artist. You can hire another coder, animator, etc. without issues and your team will grow nicely, but once we are talking about the art, there seem to be only two real ways. Either you stay with the one guy or girl who draws fulltime (which is what WaL! and SS are doing) or you go really big and hire multiple artists whom you then coordinate (which is certainly something some devs, like DC for SS don't seem to want, because it essentially changes your whole project). But there's almost nothing really effective in between, unless you find the perfect artist to work for you. As soon as you have to instruct and correct too much, you may aswell have done the work yourself. After all the art isn't that complicated and in the worst case you hire somebody but your output will hardly grow - worse, you may even start to add inconsistencies in the style etc. which in my opinoin is the worst that can happen.

As far as I recall magicnuts actually did outsource some of the art, but it seems like it wasn't that much of success when it comes to an increase in output, which - again - is understandable.

He had to leave the team a long time ago.

@diras2010: To be fair, the coding wasn't/isn't really the issue with SS. As far as I'm aware none of DC's coders ever worked fulltime and he also said that he'd hire more coders if he felt there's a need. But what really takes the time is the art. It's indeed the same with every 2D game. The hire the quality, the more time it'll take.

Is it fine to ask why he had to leave the team?

 

[antonio1508]

hi guys mapple story continuation will be in the next update or 2 more ?

 

[j4yj4m]

Even though this is very much off topic over here...

Is it fine to ask why he had to leave the team?

He made a post on reddit about it back then:

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I guess people tend to underestimate the effort it takes to keep a team running for several years. Chestnut and pistacio are likely having an actual advantage by now having to deal with that to this extend.

 

[sexypeanut]

hi guys mapple story continuation will be in the next update or 2 more ?

IIRC, her update will come in the next one after 0.5 or the one after it (so, 0.6 or 0.7)

 

[jokuur]

i sended game to my hindu fren... he said he wanted to go back to bordello lel

 

[Jerent]

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Hi everybody.
Last week Chestnut and I had a lot of conversations about our design decisions for 0.5 and what we could have done differently. Since they may impact the future releases of the game, we want to share them with you.

Main Story updates
The last time we did the Main Story, we dedicated 2.5 updates to it (0.1, 0.2, and a bit of 0.3). Breaking the continuous story into chunks allowed us to have a shorter release timeline, but it reduced the sense of completion since the first part of Serena's quest (giving the message to Madeline and getting its reward) couldn't be achieved until 0.3.
After doing Myrtle's content for 0.4, we really liked how it had a satisfactory end and tried to create something similar for 0.5.
Now, although 0.5 finishes with a cliff-hanger that leads to the next part of the Main Story, I think we have managed to 'end' a chapter satisfactorily.
The cost, of course, has been that it's taking us longer to develop it than we had anticipated or planned, and this has led to several problems:

• the stress of constantly thinking that we're later than we had hoped
• the understandably higher expectation that people will have after an update takes several months to develop (if it's with me, I'd rather underpromise)
• the notion that some of our supporters may assume that taking this long will be the new norm for our future content releases as well

With the first two, we can't do much as we're already working as much as we can, and hopefully, the quality is good enough that you'll like it after the release. But we just want to let you all know and confirm that we don't plan for the future updates to take this long, and we'll release 0.5 as soon as it's ready.
We had planned to tell our side-stories using two quests (unless we see it doesn't work and we need three, of course), but we didn't have a similar plan for Main Stories. After working on 0.5, we're considering whether breaking up the future Main Story updates into two chunks will be a better design decision. It's something we're still thinking about, and we'll have to wait and see the response to 0.5, but we're conscious of alternative approaches.
Anyhow, do leave us a comment and let us know your thoughts about it.

Weekly report:
We have started a new way of editing/completing the content in that we begin from the beginning and finish everything until certain points in the story. One of those points was Simmone's content, and although it was almost done last week, on a second visit, there were many small, but I think important changes that we had to make to finish it, and that took much of our time last week (especially mine). We have begun work on the second chunk of edits and completion, and Chestnut has been working on the second sex scene (its presex). I won't need to rewrite anything new, but one of the scenes needs to be posed differently since we had created new facial expressions we didn't have earlier.

Next week's plan:
By the end of the next week, we want to have finished the second sex scene and have everything ready leading up to it. Then we'll start testing and fixing the third chunk of edits, including the third sex scene.

That's all we have.
Have a great weekend
Cheers

 

[Staimh]

• the stress of constantly thinking that we're later than we had hoped
• the understandably higher expectation that people will have after an update takes several months to develop (if it's with me, I'd rather underpromise)
• the notion that some of our supporters may assume that taking this long will be the new norm for our future content releases as well

Trying to remain objective
Your track record:

Consistent level of completed work (subjectively - a level I thoroughly enjoy)​

Consistent communication (like the post I am replying to)​

Ongoing development updates (see the OP Progress Tracker)​

All indicate you ought to have no reason to over pressure yourselves
That you appear to be over pressuring yourselves anyway would indicate a strong sense of commitment

You are always going to get individuals becoming impatient and fractious - I just hope in most cases this is driven by enthusiasm rather than selfishly motivated self entitlement

Thank you for all your good work so far

 

[Hildegardt]

• the stress of constantly thinking that we're later than we had hoped
• the understandably higher expectation that people will have after an update takes several months to develop (if it's with me, I'd rather underpromise)
• the notion that some of our supporters may assume that taking this long will be the new norm for our future content releases as well

If they had a budget and were planning to sell the game with a set price tag like $30, then these were indeed problems. But that's not the idea behind Patreon, right?

As far as I remember the idea was originally that the workload of animators was much higher than the workload of vloggers, while both are getting paid the same rate by Youtube. So Patreon is supposed to be used to show appreciation to hard working content creators in other ways than just watching ads.

A single update won't keep anyone busy for several months until the next update, so it doesn't make sense to see Patreon as like a subscription service, because there's just no way this could be satisfactory. At some point some people will have paid the equivalent of a few AAA games and there's no way they could expect to get even one AAA game in return.

I think people like to know that their money is keeping the lights on on something they like, but they shouldn't expect any compensation for the money they paid to just show appreciation.

 

[FlamesOfVengeance]

I'm glad to see that it's all coming together and that we'll hopefully have the new update soon. I also totally agree with people above me saying that the art is what's making updates take so long and I'm fine with that. One thing that I absolutely hate about some games is when they have several different art-styles because the creators hired a lot of different artists. It just completely ruins the consistency of the game and takes me out of the experience personally.

So I guess there's really not much that could be done to speed up the process other than hoping that Chestnut will finish the art rather quickly (tho if it's to the detriment of the quality of the art I'd rather wait a while longer).

 

[Tlaero]

A single update won't keep anyone busy for several months until the next update, so it doesn't make sense to see Patreon as like a subscription service, because there's just no way this could be satisfactory. At some point some people will have paid the equivalent of a few AAA games and there's no way they could expect to get even one AAA game in return.

I think people like to know that their money is keeping the lights on on something they like, but they shouldn't expect any compensation for the money they paid to just show appreciation.

This is absolutely true. Patreon is a reference to "Patron of the Arts." It's like the people who gave Renaissance painters a studio with free rent to allow them to paint, with no expectation of getting back the cost. They did it because they wanted to help increase the amount of art in the world. Or, it's like people who pay for a yearly membership at a museum even though they go infrequently enough that it would be cheaper to just buy a day pass. Patrons always give more than they get, and they make the world a better place. They're absolutely the unsung heroes of these games.

Tlaero

 

[hrimthyrs]

At some point some people will have paid the equivalent of a few AAA games and there's no way they could expect to get even one AAA game in return.

The flip side to the comparison to AAA games being that AAA games sell millions of copies with only a minority being pirated, while indie studios living off Patreon/Subscribestar donations typically only have dozens of subscribers subsidizing at least as many players who didn't pay in even one dime. In these conversations, particularly by the people claiming patrons are getting ripped off (and, if they're saying that, it's safe to assume they're in the set being subsidized by the very people they're implying are marks), a lot of noise gets made about SS, but DC's tens of thousands of patrons is by far the outlier and (I just checked) they still haven't quite crossed the $1M/yr revenue threshold, whereas the AAA companies typically announce billions in profit every year.

That doesn't even get into the fact that the AAA model requires its content creators to routinely put in inhuman work weeks in hostile work environments in order to meet management's completely unrealistic release date. It's routine for people to exit the game development industry after a few years due to burnout to go work in other industries with better pay, working conditions, and sane working hours. Hell, I was only in QC for a couple years in 2010—2011 (from everything I've seen, it's only gotten worse in the decade since) and I'd rather starve to death on the streets than ever work in that industry again.

If you're after a sequel every year with thousands of hand-designed NPCs, hundreds of square kilometers of hand-designed environments, hundreds of hours of hand-designed missions, and hundreds of hours of professional voice acting, you're in the wrong place, because no indie studio will ever have those kinds of resources, and no AAA studio will ever take adult games seriously because they have a smaller audience (i.e. they're less profitable) by their very nature.

 

[argos.black01]

Can't wait for the 5.0 release, Love the artwork. I somewhat like this game more than Summertime Saga. Hope to see more content from you, If i could, I would definely donate but sad to say I'm broke for now. I'm jobless, but maybe sometime in the future if i get a job, I'll become a patreon.

 

[Renetta]

Great art, music, animations, funny story and characters. good job devs

 

[jokuur]

• the stress of constantly thinking that we're later than we had hoped
• the understandably higher expectation that people will have after an update takes several months to develop (if it's with me, I'd rather underpromise)
• the notion that some of our supporters may assume that taking this long will be the new norm for our future content releases as well

• the stress of constantly thinking that we're later than we had hoped

• the understandably higher expectation that people will have after an update takes several months to develop (if it's with me, I'd rather underpromise)

• the notion that some of our supporters may assume that taking this long will be the new norm for our future content releases as well

 

[DD69-1]

the notion that some of our supporters may assume that taking this long will be the new norm for our future content releases as well

well the last update was 5 months back & it's not wrong people to assume that the content will be big, if it's not big then of course the 0.5 will backfire, so the dev is not wrong about this, if this goes till August then it's almost the time taken for ~2 updates and even then if it falls short then it's really sad, it would really show that they didn't plan this ahead & went ahead with it
edit; Dunno, in future how the updates will be handled it will be like this or .... only time will tell :/

 

[jokuur]

well the last update was 5 months back & it's not wrong people to assume that the content will be big, if it's not big then of course the 0.5 will backfire, so the dev is not wrong about this, if this goes till August then it's almost the time taken for ~2 updates and even then if it falls short then it's really sad, it would really show that they didn't plan this ahead & went ahead with it
edit; Dunno, in future how the updates will be handled it will be like this or .... only time will tell :/

also that people dont like investing into something not knowing profit or when it can get back to them, and its about all games not only indie, i understand why dev was afraid to set the hard date for update but having no date and like u said 5 months of work then surprise update and little content... people will just start paying when updates will be implemented instead and i cannot blame them, u want to show supporters they wrongly assume it will take this long with updates then proove it with ur action, i seen enough promises in my life to not be pumped up by any stories of golden mountains or flying dragons or similar amazing stuff blah blah blah cyberpunk was the last triple A game i purchased before reviews and i supported enough indie games to know better

 

[claus001]

Better late than rushed!

 

[SuccubusLover69]

There is no way any things gonna top myrtle.. myrtle best waifu

 

[magicnuts]

Also, will the characters have more animations apart from what is currently planned for them?

If by animations you mean the sex scenes, then yes, they might change when we're designing a character's content.

hi guys mapple story continuation will be in the next update or 2 more ?

Hi there. No, the next update will be about Rose, and the focus of 0.7 is yet to be decided.

well the last update was 5 months back & it's not wrong people to assume that the content will be big, if it's not big then of course the 0.5 will backfire, so the dev is not wrong about this, if this goes till August then it's almost the time taken for ~2 updates and even then if it falls short then it's really sad, it would really show that they didn't plan this ahead & went ahead with it
edit; Dunno, in future how the updates will be handled it will be like this or .... only time will tell :/

- Development time doesn't necessarily translate into play time. 0.4 had no new backgrounds, 0.5 will have 12. Now each one of them may give the player 10 seconds of 'content' to look around and enjoy the art, but they have taken a lot of time to design (even with the help of a sketch artist), color, do different times of the day, make buttons for, etc. Another example: last week, I spent two full days posing and animating a scene that has maybe 10 lines of text and will take a player maximum of 2 minutes to play through. It was not necessary to animate that scene, and if I was calculating the dev-time to play-time ratio, I would never do it. But I think I made the right choice because the final result looks awesome and those 2 minutes will be memorable. You could say the same about many other unnecessary aspects of our game that take time to develop but only make the content better (at least to us) rather than 'big'. Another example from Chestnut: the hen tea scene in 0.4 took her at least 10 days to design, and it added 3 minutes of play time.

- We did plan this update ahead of time, but there are different things you can plan for. We worked out in detail the storyline and how the player would feel, deciding when more humor was needed and when we had to add more action or sexual stuff. We could have planned it for releasing it as fast as possible, and that would have been at the expense of the story, in my opinion. Now you could say we should have taken a foggy middle ground, and I don't disagree even though it is much harder to do that in practice but to say that we're not planning things ahead is simply incorrect.

also that people dont like investing into something not knowing profit or when it can get back to them, and its about all games not only indie, i understand why dev was afraid to set the hard date for update but having no date and like u said 5 months of work then surprise update and little content... people will just start paying when updates will be implemented instead and i cannot blame them, u want to show supporters they wrongly assume it will take this long with updates then proove it with ur action, i seen enough promises in my life to not be pumped up by any stories of golden mountains or flying dragons or similar amazing stuff blah blah blah cyberpunk was the last triple A game i purchased before reviews and i supported enough indie games to know better

- In truth, you don't have to invest anything, neither time nor money. We're trying to make a game that entertains, not one that poses a gain-loss analysis problem.

-We set deadlines and completion dates and try to reach them; what we don't do is announcing them publicly.

- I'm sorry that you've been so ill-treated by developers. I don't think anyone spends months developing a game to torture anyone or make them hate your work even though shit happens, of course, and each player will have a different expectation. If I may give you a suggestion, I would say reduce your expectations and don't make assumptions, since the only sure way to play a game that is tailor-made for you is to make it yourself. I don't know if you'll like our next release, and not just for the amount of content (everyone is always talking about how 'big' the update will be and forgets other metrics), but in this post, you have already assumed that 0.5 will be bad, have hated us for cheating you like this, and have told me to prove you wrong. I don't think that's a fun mindset when talking about games, and to me, games are meant to be fun. But, anyway, it's really none of my business to tell you how to enjoy games, so feel free to ignore it, but to address your point, I suggest you wait for the update, and if you see what we consider 'fun' and worth spending dev-time on is drastically different from what you have in mind, go for another game, there are loads of great ones.