Seeing as i am usually just lurking around in here, this seems like a good time to actually throw in my 2 cents and make my own post.
It seems that most posts are rather one-sided in their perspective, so i will try to see things from both sides.
As far as i remember i first backed the Magic Nuts patreon around winter 2021/2022. Not too sure, but the first version i played was 0.5 (1st Main story update), released Sep. 2021. I initially backed at the Friend tier, which i upgraded to Close Friend after completing my first run. I subscribed till July when 0.6 (Rose update) was released and where i upgraded to Best Friend tier, in order to maximize voting power. I remained at Best Friend tier for a few months, then dropped back down to Close Friend, having no need of the voting power, but still wanting to back a great and rather unique AVN.
At this point in time we are at late 2022. This is when things really slowed down and after, hmmm, maybe 8 months or something like that, i stopped backing due to the lack of progress. Still kept tabs on the developement because i liked what i had played so far, but it became increasingly demotivating as time went on.
Here are the release dates and dev-time, just to make things convenient for whoever reads this behemoth of a post.
0.2 : June 28. 2020
0.3 : September 20. 2020 (apx. 3 months)
0.4 : February 13. 2021 (apx. 4,5 months)
0.5 : September 24. 2021 (apx. 7 months)
0.6 : July 30. 2022 (apx. 10 months)
0.7 : Reasonable guess is mid November. (2 years and 3-4 months)
OK, with that out of the way, the positives.
- WAL! was never ever going to be in the camp of AVN's with a good pace of developement. The high quality hand drawn 2D art with plenty of clothing and posing variations was always going to be in the way of fast developement. Even at full and nearly full effeciency WAL! was never gonna be able to keep up with the average DAZ/KK/HS developer.
- That said, before they started work on version 0.7, the update rate was reasonable. Sure, 0.6 with its 10 month developement is where things usually starts getting sketchy with AVN's. But i can tell you the content was great and there was a good amount of new locations that all needed new art assets.
- The excuses the Nuts have given are valid, to an extend. First and foremost, a second child. The first 6-12 months of any childs life is especially taxing for all parents. To keep things simple, lets just make the assumption that the Nuts productivity was reduced by 50% for 8 months. This is essentially their way of taking maternity/paternity leave as self-employed people.
On top of that, one of them had some kind of issue with a bone fracture that hadn't healed properly and needed some fairly extensive surgery. And after that, some time to recover, likely a few months. And since this surgery business happened around the same time as the childs first months, i wouldn't be surprised if they had at least 1 month with basically no work done.
Lets say these 2 factors averages out at 50% productivity for a full year. Even then, it will take some time to get back to 100%, a toddler is only slightly less of a burden than an infant.
- 0.7 might in fact turn out to have more and/or better quality content than 0.6. But honestly i doubt it.
The negatives.
Ok, so based on the above, you might get the impression that i consider the devtime of 2,3 years fully justified. I don't.
The number of tasks keeps increasing in tiny amounts with almost every progress update and this has been the case for at least half a year. This period of time could fittingly be called Polish-hell. Some of you are probably familiar with the Miyamoto quote: "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad". Most of us can easily name at least 1 AAA game that could have been far better with just a few more months spent in developement. The rushing of AAA titles became common in the '10s and for this reason it is a lesson that many in the game industry could benefit from. Few studious have.
As for the AVN sphere, i have slowly gotten the impression that this quote is being taken too far, to the point that its getting destructive and not constructive. I think there is a large number of AVN's who finds themselves stuck in a bubble of yes-men, insulating them from trolls but also valid critics. Some of these AVN developers are straight up bad at planning things from the beginning. Some get lazy and complecent at a lack of scrutiny. Then there's the greedy ones, the real milkers who realize they can legally scam people out of their money and embraces the art of delaying and stretching developement for profit.
I think the Nuts belong in a forth more benevolent group. Broadly speaking i consider them "unrestrained perfectionists". If you read through a number of their Patreon posts you quickly realize that they care a lot about fixing even minor percieved flaws in already completed content. And this is likely why we have had this polish-hell since March. They keep finding things that juuuuuust has to be fixed, even if the fixes barely increases the overall quality. This is likely what will make or break WAL! in the long run. They have to rein in their perfectionism before it eats them up from inside.
Going forward.
Well, i will resubsribe in order to get voting for when the focus of 0.9 is to be decided.
I will play 0.7. Actually, i will play the entire thing from beginning to end, when i get around to it.
I will judge if the devtime minus the valid excuses is fair, in relation to released content.
I will unsub most of the time until 0.8 is released. If devtime goes back down to 7-10 months, they will regain my trust and i will sub most of the time.
