First I'm not mixing excuses. I know exactly what I'm referencing which is excuses around things like baby vs. health vs. flu vs. insert new excuse here. Now could some of those be legitimate? Sure but as I said previously at some point these things showcase a trend. It's especially noticeable when said trend happens to be during the longest dry spell of updates. And no I don't feel bad for understanding the criticism because they put themselves out there for it when they decided to make the game that's what anyone who creates a public work that garners expectations and creates deadlines should understand as it comes with the territory.
Please don't tell me to be chill as if you are trying to analyze my state of being through a text post. I am chill and I am patient but I'm also an analyst by nature and I know a trend when I see one. I also understand that criticism is a catalyst for growth and that much of the criticism I've seen is justified now one can argue the intensity of some of the criticism but that doesn't change the justification for it.
You don't have to agree but you should be able to understand. If you aren't able to understand then it really speaks to your own bias. Perhaps you should chill and be patient and let the process do what it does and that includes letting the critics do their thing. The game will be ok regardless I promise... and even if it wasn't then it simply means that it was too much for them to take on.
Let's summarize the situation. Devs explained why they couldn't spend as much time as they used to (and wished to) during the first months of this development cycle, which obviously has had an impact on the whole project, slowing it down. But as theMickey said, they mentioned it only a couple of times, when those things happened, to let their patrons know, as they should: now, with the info given (a newborn and a serious surgery), plus a little bit of logical thinking (a newborn needs attention, a serious surgery may cause further issues), plus the daily progress tracker showing the slow rate of development, plus the team's 3+ years record to back them, every one of those patrons are free to jump off the boat and stop spending their money on a free but incomplete product that is going to take years to be fully released, or to keep donating. And many of them have chosen to stop pledging, and no one can blame them.
After that, all you may have seen is me and a few others repeating that couple of news whenever someone asked/complained about this update taking too long, trying to make those forum users understand why things are progressing slowly, in case they didn't know (most simply don't care but oh well). Those, plus some poor planning also admitted by the dev, are the reasons why this is 'the longest dry spell of updates', not excuses that create a trend during it. It's semantics, but semantics matter because it shows where we stand when we start to analyze the situation: I see reasons, you see excuses. But it's OK, we all are different. The last 'excuse' we are repeating now is that the dev claimed last week that this update is, indeed, the largest so far -and I'm inclined to believe it because, so far, everything devs have said in the past regarding the amount of content has been proven true or even an understatement. Every update has been bigger than the previous one and needed more time to be released; this one is the biggest yet and they have had those abovementioned issues that can explain why it's taking this particularly long.
That's why, while I get people are free to feel they are being led on, or to think that magicnuts are exploiting their supporters' goodwill, I just can't accept it as a 'valid' take on this case, since all these people have to reach that conclusion is a personal bias against game devs due to some other devs behavior in the past. Everything magicnuts have (or have not) said and done up to this point should lead any rational person to trust in them and their word. Your 'justified' criticism is built on personal assumptions about their work ethics, or maybe personal experiences about how you'd deal with those real life situations, but nothing actually solid. Telling them that they are working 'slowly' means nothing when we don't have any valid standard to compare their work with -except this team's own performance in the past. It's uninformed and unfair criticism. And unfair criticism can only be a catalyst for burnout, not for growth.
