LOL. I can be realistic... I dont care if BD have testers or not. I dont care if he provide the hard or soft release date for the coming up update. It funny when BD release the Dev update reports and how others comment it. I just usually say "be patience and the update will be out whenever it ready". No needs for hard or soft date when it going to be release or not.
Have a great day and be safe... Also have a good and safe holidays...
Where I come from there's a saying that's difficult to translate, but in English it reads like this: Once you've ruined your reputation, you can live a carefree life. As I said, it sounds better in my native language and even rhymes a bit. But what I'm getting at is this:
BD has had a rather poor track record over the last few years in terms of quality and quantity of updates. I've given enough examples of this in the past: Blockface MC, the way he "censored" Harper's feminine attributes in her Ditlo update as examples could have - I assume it's possible in DAZ3D - simply worked with angles, arms and objects in such a way that the things that shouldn't be shown, such as MC's face are hidden as a result. I don't know why BD didn't do that, I don't know anything about DAZ, but I think someone with experience with the program will be able to tell you if that's possible. Assuming it is possible, here are possibilities why he didn't do it:
1. he just didn't come up with the idea.
2. censoring Harper's naked body and MC's face was the path of least effort.
While 1 is weak, but might fall under "not seeing the forest for the trees" 2 is just weak. And honestly, any small child tthat can hold a pencil can scribble over a picture to cover things up.
Then we come to the matter of the inflationary mass of LIs. I think, at best, it's the sheer mass of LIs that holds the plot back. Since the charity bowling event, the plot has been pretty much bobbing around. At worst, BD himself has no idea where he wants to go with the plot and just throws new LIs into every update along the lines of "as long as people have new wank material nobody will care about the plot". I'm neither an author, developer nor a Dungeon Master with the experience of Matt Mercer, but even I realize that an LI cast that would probably be enough for 3-4 Harem-VN is too much and that the quality of the plot has dropped massively.
Then we have the whole situation with his PR manager MacKenzie. I have also given enough reasons in the past why the whole situation - from a neutral point of view - is dubious at best. And I'm still relatively certain this person was an AI, if developers of bad video games (Gollum) can throw out AI responses as an excuse, why shouldn't BD move with the times?
Last but not least, his update posts. I'll just take his last update posted here on Monday for this:
Paragraph 1: Very rough update timing.
Paragraph 2: Time period for his holiday break.
Paragraph 3: About the season 1 revision, basically "I want to say something, but I don't know how much". This paragraph is over 60 words to say nothing at the end of the day.
Paragraph 4: Continuation of paragraph 3, again lots of words to say that new features and changes are coming.
Paragraph 5: Information about the features and changes should come after the update. Instead of wasting 3 paragraphs on this, he could have just written "I'm working on changes and features. Examples will probably come with the new update."
Paragraph 6: Bottom line: I'm busy and apart from Update 13, there's not much coming at the moment.
Paragraph 7: Ask questions if something is unclear.
In general, this whole update feels like a school essay that had a minimum amount of words as a requirement, since a lot of the things that are said are just "blah blah blah" to make the update post seem bigger than it actually is.
Last but not least: Why is BD getting so much heat? Like I said, what he's delivered the last few years, when he has delivered, has been weak. I'm not one to complain when a dev misses his stated deadline, in fact I'm quite generous with at least one dev as he's always missed his self-imposed deadline the last few updates. So why am I giving this dev this chance and not BD? Because this unnamed dev also delivers the update after a few days without pushing it back months and delivering novels with reasons why his internet provider only allows him to upload the updates when Mars, Venus and the sun are in the right constellation. In short: Trust has to be earned and BD would probably have to deliver updates consistently and punctually for at least the next 1-2 years that are convincing in terms of quality without having to complain that he can't upload anything because his teething child has chewed through his HDMI cable and he can't get a new one because a gas truck has run over his car.
