Ren'Py Abandoned What a Legend! [v0.6.04] [MagicNuts]

[irezawa]

For a pirate site, a lot of people here are bitching about money... Especially funny how many people are bringing morality into the argument

Not gonna talk about morality, for me that ship has sailed and sunk. But there's a good reason for people to complain about someone, anyone paying money for halted projects.

Main problem with sites like Patreon is that all they care about is that money flows in every month. Whether something happens between developers and patrons is completely between them. We've seen time and time again how after reaching a steady monthly income, devs feel less pressured to actually provide anything. Unfortunately sometimes they even stop working altogether. If people were a bit tighter with their money and stop payments whenever production stops, there would at least be some hope for progress. But as long as people pay big bucks no matter what the devs do, why do anything? I mean, once you've seen your money flow has peaked, why push yourself further if it's gonna stay there anyway? Hell, if I'd see that there's X amount of money hitting my bank account whether or not I'd actually do something for it, I'd be done. I'd be more likely to create another account and project and start building that up than sweat for something I'd be getting anyway (I already mentioned my morality).

I mean, come on: Do you really expect for something like Summertime Saga to be finished ever? At this point there's just one guy doodling live every now and then and there's still 28K followers paying at least $1 each every month. Some devs won't even bother that much. But if people would stop funding devs for nothing, you'd see one of two things: 1) progress, or 2) still nothing, but at least milkers wouldn't get any milk.

So yeah, there is some sense in crying about other people wasting their money. Whether it helps to cry about it on this particular forum is a whole other thing. But no matter where you are, saying "shut up and wait patiently" most certainly doesn't help. All it could possibly do is the exact opposite.

 

[j4yj4m]

But if people would stop funding devs for nothing, ...

For that to really happen you really need better alternatives first. Many patrons will be giving money to these games, because they are good games (as they are) in the first place and because there aren't many real 2D alternatives out there.

In reality most alternatives are either your standard VN/RPGM, feature "anime art", are just worse in terms of art quality or take just as long. Now that there's AI, the number of medicore AI-games will add to that, too - most people won't spend significant sums of money on these.

I often hear that other devs would be more deserving, which may even be true. But when it's about money, it's not about what you deserve, but if your product is actually great and popular or not. A good example is "My Pig Princess", which is probably the game on here which comes closest in terms of overall quality (I'd even say it's better). But it's a furry game, which automatically makes you lose 2/3 of your potential audience.

 

[Mordikay]

Weekly Report 208

View attachment 3621892

Hi everybody.

Happy Friday, and I hope you're all feeling well and are ready to enjoy your weekend. Here's a summary of our work last week:

Chestnut:

She has been busy with cutscenes doing artwork from different parts of Gomira's quests. Last week, I posted the double sprite she had created earlier (you can see it here) and I got two separate messages from people asking about femdom, so I want to clarify that Gomira likes to be sexually in charge, and being the strongest person around it's not wise to argue with her, so a bit of femdom is definitely there but it is mild, and is in line with everything else in the game.

Chestnut also recorded an art creation video showing Gomira applying something on her breasts which you can watch here.

Pistachio:

For the first few days of the week, I worked on debugging the issues I had found in the earlier months of developing 0.7. Since the beginning of May, though, my focus has shifted to improving the content.

My overall plan for May is as follows: I want to repose a sequence of cutscenes from Gomira's intro, edit three different parts from the end of Gomira's first quest (it's a long event with a lot of sections one of which is too long and needs to be shortened, another one features new art that I have to add to the game, and the last one doesn't quite work and needs to be redone), and improve the ending of the second quest.

I started with the last one since I posed it not long ago. When Chestnut playtested the game, she told me that the ending of Gomira's second quest felt less epic than she had hoped. It reminded her of a book by a famous author she had read where there was a lot of build-up but the whole thing got wrapped up too quickly and was underwhelming. She was right, of course. The issue was clear now that we played the first and second quests back to back since the first quest had an ending that was a lot more action-packed and memorable. So, that's where I am at. May's going to be a very busy month, but hopefully, we'll finish all the content improvement stuff this month, and focus on other bugs and issues next.

That's all for now.

Have a wonderful wonderful weekend.
Cheers

No wonder these people are fiction writers with the amount fiction they write weekly to keep milking people.

 

[\\_Tremolo_//]

Weekly Report 208

View attachment 3621892

Hi everybody.

Happy Friday, and I hope you're all feeling well and are ready to enjoy your weekend. Here's a summary of our work last week:

Chestnut:

She has been busy with cutscenes doing artwork from different parts of Gomira's quests. Last week, I posted the double sprite she had created earlier (you can see it here) and I got two separate messages from people asking about femdom, so I want to clarify that Gomira likes to be sexually in charge, and being the strongest person around it's not wise to argue with her, so a bit of femdom is definitely there but it is mild, and is in line with everything else in the game.

Chestnut also recorded an art creation video showing Gomira applying something on her breasts which you can watch here.

Pistachio:

For the first few days of the week, I worked on debugging the issues I had found in the earlier months of developing 0.7. Since the beginning of May, though, my focus has shifted to improving the content.

My overall plan for May is as follows: I want to repose a sequence of cutscenes from Gomira's intro, edit three different parts from the end of Gomira's first quest (it's a long event with a lot of sections one of which is too long and needs to be shortened, another one features new art that I have to add to the game, and the last one doesn't quite work and needs to be redone), and improve the ending of the second quest.

I started with the last one since I posed it not long ago. When Chestnut playtested the game, she told me that the ending of Gomira's second quest felt less epic than she had hoped. It reminded her of a book by a famous author she had read where there was a lot of build-up but the whole thing got wrapped up too quickly and was underwhelming. She was right, of course. The issue was clear now that we played the first and second quests back to back since the first quest had an ending that was a lot more action-packed and memorable. So, that's where I am at. May's going to be a very busy month, but hopefully, we'll finish all the content improvement stuff this month, and focus on other bugs and issues next.

That's all for now.

Have a wonderful wonderful weekend.
Cheers

 

[j4yj4m]

My pig princess is making more than twice as much money as magic nutz, with worse writing and gameplay.

At least in my opinion they really deserve every penny of that. What I was saying though is, that a significant number of people won't give money to that kind of game, which of course doesn't mean, that you can't earn a very decent amout of money from those who do.

 

[fusibile87]

My pig princess is making more than twice as much money as magic nutz, with worse writing and gameplay.

That's so cool to hear! They totally deserve that. I hope that Soulgasm creators will reach the same numbers.

 

[DickKingLoL]

How much time though? 6 months? 12 months? 2 years? Infinity? Even the most polished games of the highest quality don't need forever, there is a cap at which point it just becomes ridiculous.

true, but marking game as abandoned when its not is still misinformation and misleading, just because developer doesn't upload in time, he will... soon enough lol

 

[irezawa]

For that to really happen you really need better alternatives first.

I must admit, I really don't see your point here. For me the alternative for wasting money is to not waste money at all, not to find another way to waste money. You don't have to support anything if there's nothing worth supporting. It's not like there's an unstoppable stream of money flowing from your wallet and you must guide it somewhere; you can bloody well dam the damn thing.

I'm starting to feel that maybe you and many other people don't really understand how sites like Patreon work: You're not actually buying anything, you're simply supporting the developers to do whatever they see fit, hoping it would some day result into something. You're not paying for a product, you're paying for process and might not even get that much. Misunderstanding like this would certainly explain a lot.

I myself prefer

You must be registered to see the links

because in there you don't pay for someone to do something or nothing, you're paying for the download. It's a lot closer to buying something, even though the product might not be final. But the point is, you're not paying anything until the dev has actually done something. And if you really like what you see, you may even decide to throw in some extra bucks.

I don't mind paying for things beforehand, sometimes it's a necessary incentive to get things rolling. But it should be conditional. In Patreon it isn't. If you're getting nothing, at least stop paying for it.

 

[moskyx]

I must admit, I really don't see your point here. For me the alternative for wasting money is to not waste money at all, not to find another way to waste money. You don't have to support anything if there's nothing worth supporting. It's not like there's an unstoppable stream of money flowing from your wallet and you must guide it somewhere; you can bloody well dam the damn thing.

I'm starting to feel that maybe you and many other people don't really understand how sites like Patreon work: You're not actually buying anything, you're simply supporting the developers to do whatever they see fit, hoping it would some day result into something. You're not paying for a product, you're paying for process and might not even get that much. Misunderstanding like this would certainly explain a lot.

I myself prefer

You must be registered to see the links

because in there you don't pay for someone to do something or nothing, you're paying for the download. It's a lot closer to buying something, even though the product might not be final. But the point is, you're not paying anything until the dev has actually done something. And if you really like what you see, you may even decide to throw in some extra bucks.

I don't mind paying for things beforehand, sometimes it's a necessary incentive to get things rolling. But it should be conditional. In Patreon it isn't. If you're getting nothing, at least stop paying for it.

While you clearly understand how Patreon works, I'd say you just don't seem to share why someone would prefer to use this system instead of itch.io because your mindset is more focused on getting the actual product. Which is totally fine, just not how everybody feels. Because people who use Patreon are indeed getting something, even if the update is delayed: apart from WIP videos and spoiler pics (and progress reports), they are getting the satisfaction of supporting something or someone they like and trust -until they just don't.

Usually, people using Patreon knows this quite well and understand the implications, and this is especially true in a case like WaL, as the game is totally free and no one needs to pay a dime for it, so people paying on Patreon month after month are clearly supporting the process, not paying for a product. And those misunderstandings you mention usually come from people who are unable to grasp this whole 'patronage' concept. Those are the ones who jump to claim 'scam' as soon as a dev doesn't update their game as frequently as they'd wish, without realizing it can't be a scam if the ones actually paying are not feeling misled and feel perfectly OK with it. It's just something these critics won't support, but nothing else. Everyone feeling the process (and the waiting) is not worth their money anymore are free to stop supporting devs at any time. And it's their money and their choice, not anyone else's. Not getting that there are other people out there who have different views on how to spend their own money is the kind of 'misunderstandings that would certainly explain a lot' of these discussions.

BTW, they actually released something yesterday. A new 0.6.03 version that complies with the new Patreon's ToS.

============================================================
====================== CHANGELOG ============================
============================================================

***0.6.03:***
- In the prologue, the MC is aged by one year: he was not allowed to be in the brothel's main halls until after he was 18, and he left for the New Capital on his nineteenth birthday.
- For his nineteenth birthday, his moms were going to throw a surprise orgy for him involving the newer girls in the brothel (instead of themselves)
- The MC does not play with the sleeping Lana's breasts before trying to steal her bottle.
- Before having sex with Maple, a few lines have been added to establish that despite shrinking, his mind was not impacted by the influence of her pixie magic.

 

[Fantaldebert]

true, but marking game as abandoned when its not is still misinformation and misleading, just because developer doesn't upload in time, he will... soon enough lol

I somewhat agree that it's misinformation but not misleading.
On one side, it's important to show that something wrong is happening. (ie, no update for more tha 18 months or no sign of dev for 3 months) to warn people not reading every pages of back and forth debate. It's clear signal for potential new patreon or just people investing their time in a story that might never end.

For exemple, I like Rothfuss's the Kingslayer chronicle, it's very engaging and well writen but I'm warning all my friends that while the reading is great, third volume probably won't ever happen and the story will remain unfinished.

On the other hand, the term ABANDONED isn't very accurate. The devs are still posting. Maybe some other term could be used. I fear Scammy Behavior would be to negative. Prolonged Iatus would be deflecting. On Hold is another F95 tag with another meaning.
Note that this tag is purely internal to F95, there is no such thing on WaL discord or patreon.

In the end, there has to be a term and this one will do.

 

[Kisama33]

BTW, they actually released something yesterday. A new 0.6.03 version that complies with the new Patreon's ToS.

Great, the "I consent" update is here...
Wait doesn't that means we can finally get rid of the abandoned tag.

 

[Black Orchid]

what did the new version even change?

 

[Kisama33]

On one side, it's important to show that something wrong is happening. (ie, no update for more tha 18 months or no sign of dev for 3 months) to warn people not reading every pages of back and forth debate. It's clear signal for potential new patreon or just people investing their time in a story that might never end.

While I understand the importance of that, this information can be easily accessed by checking the original post and the information on it regarding the last update date but I do know that most people just ignore it and just go straight to what they want but the word used to describe this especific scenario where the game is still "ongoing" it's still not something I can really agree with.

 

[Kisama33]

what did the new version even change?

It's right there below the quote from my message.

 

[Black Orchid]

It's right there below the quote from my message.

what you said doesn't tell me much

 

[Kisama33]

what you said doesn't tell me much

Like I said the only thing I know about those changes is this:

"***0.6.03:***
- In the prologue, the MC is aged by one year: he was not allowed to be in the brothel's main halls until after he was 18, and he left for the New Capital on his nineteenth birthday.
- For his nineteenth birthday, his moms were going to throw a surprise orgy for him involving the newer girls in the brothel (instead of themselves)
- The MC does not play with the sleeping Lana's breasts before trying to steal her bottle.
- Before having sex with Maple, a few lines have been added to establish that despite shrinking, his mind was not impacted by the influence of her pixie magic."

That like I pointed out was below the message I quoted and that you could have checked by clicking in the name of the original member who made it to be redirected to it to see for yourself.

 

[moskyx]

Great, the "I consent" update is here...
Wait doesn't that means we can finally get rid of the abandoned tag.

I don't think so. No new content has been added, other than those dialogue changes. I don't think this should qualify as a new update per forum rules.

 

[Rosswel]

Like I said the only thing I know about those changes is this:

"***0.6.03:***
- In the prologue, the MC is aged by one year: he was not allowed to be in the brothel's main halls until after he was 18, and he left for the New Capital on his nineteenth birthday.
- For his nineteenth birthday, his moms were going to throw a surprise orgy for him involving the newer girls in the brothel (instead of themselves)
- The MC does not play with the sleeping Lana's breasts before trying to steal her bottle.
- Before having sex with Maple, a few lines have been added to establish that despite shrinking, his mind was not impacted by the influence of her pixie magic."

That like I pointed out was below the message I quoted and that you could have checked by clicking in the name of the original member who made it to be redirected to it to see for yourself.

Patreon new TOS is a pain in the ass, isn't it? Makes me wonder if the new TOS have any effect on the writing for the next update that makes it necessary to rewrite some part of it thus delaying the update

 

[Woodalicca]

A wise man once said " we have the leaders we deserve ".

In this case, " Pledgers got what they deserved "

Almost 2 years of waiting, tasks keeps on getting delayed, never ending polishing. Well, it's your cash in the end. Feel free to keep on throwing it out of the window.

You reap what you sow by not hitting the purse.

What a Kick in the Teeth !

 

[Cro]

funny how some of the best art people are paired with the absolute worst programmers