- Apr 4, 2019
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- Thread starter CobraSGT
- Start date
- Aug 23, 2020
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I agree that he has needed an editor- but I'm afraid the problems are now much deeper than that. As viper6 said, L&P is only averaging around 5 renders a day at this point. Fastidious or not, that's still an incredibly low output that speaks towards limited efforts. I'm afraid that he's becoming paralyzed by the scope of the game, and he would rather tinker with images that are otherwise finished instead of starting a new one. I've never made a game, so I don't know anything about the creative process, but I feel like 5 renders/day is a low bar to set.
The point is, an editor could help but I'm afraid that we're beyond that at this point. The amount of work he's doing is simultaneously overkill and underkill. He's lost, I don't know any other way to put it.
- Jul 20, 2019
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Emma and Marie both think he's a "cutie", so I was assuming one of those two. Emma is perhaps too timid, but during the Yoga event Marie was actively pursuing Dylan (even if you're not on the Dylan route), so I think she'll be the first option.
That, and Dylan is allergic to cats.
If he works 8-11h a day like he says he does, 5 renders a day is a terrible output.
Either he's working those hours but works really slowly or he's lying and my gut tells me it's the first. He probably just gets too attached to the scenes trying to perfect them.
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- Aug 23, 2020
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Patrons are a unique bunch. They can be fickle as hell, but every once in a while they can coalesce into a unbreakable community. GumDrop Games LITERALLY did not release a new update for his game for something like three years, and his patron numbers held steady. L&P absolutely has a dedicated core that won't push back on him unless things become extreme. What happens if this update slips to June? I know he said "mid-May at the latest" today, but I think we are right to be suspicious of anything he says. So what happens if it slips to June? Does this end up being the only update this year? If L&P learns that he can put out one update a year and keep his core Patrons together, why wouldn't that become the norm? From my chair, three updates in a year suddenly feels very naive.
If we're talking about a single update for 2021, the fear I have is that L&P is simply losing interest. There's a lot of reasons why he may be losing interest, but putting out even TWO updates in a year raises questions about someone's motivation. If we get down to just a single update in a year, I don't know how we don't start hitting the panic button that the game's development is grinding to a halt.
But, even if that does happen, it'll take years without a new release for this game to officially catch the Abandoned tag.
- May 29, 2017
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Why people are shocked by his statement ? He basicaly confirmed what we could allready see anyway. That this update will at least take untill end of April/begining of May.
We all saw how slow it got to this 60% so - what is the surprise now ?
L&P is anoying more and more people pushing the boundries of what they can accept, but he simply does what he does.
At the very least he is constantly working. There are ton of devs that go missing for 2 months and nothing gets done in that time. (well arguebly his Graphic Card drama was a version of that - but at least he stays informative)
In the end I am ok with his statement. He simply works at his usual pace, and unfortunatly ends up making the events bigger and bigger.
The question is - were those events really that important to the story ? If they were - I give him that.
Anyway I am giving him 1 $ a month, and I am ok with that much. I probably be angry if I gave him more.
As long as I see him working, and beeing dedicated to the project he has my support, but I really hope he gets his priorities right, and focuses on the important things.
In the end we will be able to tell if he was honest, by the time update is delivered.
Move along. Move Along.
We all saw how slow it got to this 60% so - what is the surprise now ?
L&P is anoying more and more people pushing the boundries of what they can accept, but he simply does what he does.
At the very least he is constantly working. There are ton of devs that go missing for 2 months and nothing gets done in that time. (well arguebly his Graphic Card drama was a version of that - but at least he stays informative)
In the end I am ok with his statement. He simply works at his usual pace, and unfortunatly ends up making the events bigger and bigger.
The question is - were those events really that important to the story ? If they were - I give him that.
Anyway I am giving him 1 $ a month, and I am ok with that much. I probably be angry if I gave him more.
As long as I see him working, and beeing dedicated to the project he has my support, but I really hope he gets his priorities right, and focuses on the important things.
In the end we will be able to tell if he was honest, by the time update is delivered.
Move along. Move Along.
Post from Dec 8
Not only the amount of renders is going up by 30% he can't commit to a date at all.
"I'll start by Jan 6" - Starts on Jan 11
There's always something happening, always delays, always more and more renders that aren't needed. And it's getting worse.
From March 1:
11 working hours per day Mon-Sun
Better Hardware
Output: 4.7 renders/day (which wouldnt be bad if it included dialogue + programming + translation but it doesn't, it's strictly rendering)
Unless he made like 5 environments in the past 20 days, this is just bad.
There's no other word to describe it.
Not only the amount of renders is going up by 30% he can't commit to a date at all.
"I'll start by Jan 6" - Starts on Jan 11
Yeah right.
There's always something happening, always delays, always more and more renders that aren't needed. And it's getting worse.
From March 1:
Once again same promise: "Oh I wont have nothing to do the following months so it's going to be the bomb."
11 working hours per day Mon-Sun
Better Hardware
Output: 4.7 renders/day (which wouldnt be bad if it included dialogue + programming + translation but it doesn't, it's strictly rendering)
Unless he made like 5 environments in the past 20 days, this is just bad.
There's no other word to describe it.
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- Jul 20, 2019
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I don't think he's losing interest in the game either. Quite the opposite, I think he's experimenting and discovering new things to do in Daz and working out how to put it into the game (like lighting). Perhaps why he decided to add "Coach Sophia" to the game all of a sudden, even though it's unlikely to add much to the plot.
- Aug 23, 2020
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What was shocking today was the tone and content of his update, not so much the scheduled release. A "latest mid-May" release is on the long-end of what most of us were expecting, but you're right that it isn't in-and-of itself shocking. It was the combined factors that he included in his statement that floored me:
- 600+ renders when all is said and done- This is absolutely absurd for a "short" update and completely defeats the purpose of going to the 1/3 of a day updates.
- 30 minutes tweaking lighting- This is an outrageously poor use of his time and resources.
- New clothes are hard to work with- I mean...seriously? Clothes? I know we have a wedding dress in this update, but he's lost the plot if making sure the folds of t-shirts get adequate attention.
The surprise is that he thinks that's a great pace. That's the surprise. I (and everyone here) still hoped he could see how slow he's working.
I would be much more at ease if he came out and said "So far I've done X, could've been quicker and I've identified certain things I can do from now on to push the updates quicker by sacrificing Y,W,Z"
His status updates are basically a template now, here's how it goes:
"Hello everyone
so far I've done X renders in this version 0.ABC, Y more renders than the previous version!!!
Next few months I won't have much to do so I can focus on the game completely for <insert enourmous amount of hours> per day, everyday of the week, which will hopefully make the updates faster.
A teaser for event <insert name of event> will be posted by the end of the week. It's going to be HOT!
Thank you for your support"
Would just like to add that apparently his surgery was this month so that pulls his rendering to 6 renders a day.
- Aug 23, 2020
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Interesting. I see the same things you're seeing, but my interpretation is different. I see a guy who is still interested in the art but increasingly disinterested in the game itself. He clearly loves playing with DAZ and making beautiful renders, but that's a different passion than creating a game. If he's really spending 30 minutes tweaking the lighting of a render, then my read on the situation is that he simply isn't interested in advancing the game as much as he's interested in making art.
- Jul 20, 2019
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If he was so disinterested in making the game, I don't think it would result in the increase of renders we're seeing. He'd be spending more time on less renders. But he's spending more time on more renders. And more renders means more dialogue, internal and external, which shows an interest in the event and making sure the story gets across.
- Oct 22, 2017
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OMG guys, calm the fuck down! 30 minutes per render adjustment is of course the exception and concerned rather only the wedding dress scene, especially because of the huge mirror in the room which makes it additionally very difficult together with a new technique I'm using. Interior scenes are of course much more complicated and time consuming to create than exterior!
And it's really funny how again people are whining about too many "unnecessary" renders without even having seen the update!
I already reduced massively the amount of so called "unnecessary" renders compared to the beginning! But the problem is what are "unnecessary" renders? For the most people here is any render unnecessary which doesn't include some sexual act or nudity! But this is not a porn video but a visual novel with a slowly story build up! And there's a certain amount of renders I need to tell a scene to make it plausible and immersive! Period! Plus I want them to look in a certain way! And if we spread the around 458 renders over the events created yet, then every event has actually a pretty reasonable amount of renders!
1st side job: 123
2nd side job: 224
Emma/Dylan part 1: 23 (+around 12 later for part 2)
Wedding dress: 88
I really would like to make a live stream for a few hours to show you how fucking much work it is to create these scenes together with the story and how much is needed for that! Especially if you want the renders to look like lately! But I also don't like to give a free tutorial of techniques and tricks I acquired myself in a couple of years!
I'd really like to see your reaction if I would lower the quality like it was at the beginning only to release faster updates. And make every scene which doesn't include sexual acts like the sauna scene with Vicky! If you would like that. But this is my game and I'm not up to destroy it this way!!!
And it's really easy to shout out "why doesn't he get some help" without knowing shit about how this development process even looks like! On the one hand you like the beautiful renders and also the event build up which needs a lot of planning. On the other hand you want me to stop spending so much time on that. But the one thing is connected with the other! All the help suggestions I heard yet wouldn't help at all! All the script writers I talked to yet, didn't satisfy me. I was looking for someone who could fill some story details so that I won't spend so much time on that but I also didn't find anyone here. I already said the only chance to speed up the development process noticeably would be to find someone with exactly the same style and taste and giving this total stranger hundreds of GB of my content and the responsibility to create some scenes on his very own! But instead he could also just redistribute these private files!
And it's really funny how again people are whining about too many "unnecessary" renders without even having seen the update!
I already reduced massively the amount of so called "unnecessary" renders compared to the beginning! But the problem is what are "unnecessary" renders? For the most people here is any render unnecessary which doesn't include some sexual act or nudity! But this is not a porn video but a visual novel with a slowly story build up! And there's a certain amount of renders I need to tell a scene to make it plausible and immersive! Period! Plus I want them to look in a certain way! And if we spread the around 458 renders over the events created yet, then every event has actually a pretty reasonable amount of renders!
1st side job: 123
2nd side job: 224
Emma/Dylan part 1: 23 (+around 12 later for part 2)
Wedding dress: 88
I really would like to make a live stream for a few hours to show you how fucking much work it is to create these scenes together with the story and how much is needed for that! Especially if you want the renders to look like lately! But I also don't like to give a free tutorial of techniques and tricks I acquired myself in a couple of years!
I'd really like to see your reaction if I would lower the quality like it was at the beginning only to release faster updates. And make every scene which doesn't include sexual acts like the sauna scene with Vicky! If you would like that. But this is my game and I'm not up to destroy it this way!!!
And it's really easy to shout out "why doesn't he get some help" without knowing shit about how this development process even looks like! On the one hand you like the beautiful renders and also the event build up which needs a lot of planning. On the other hand you want me to stop spending so much time on that. But the one thing is connected with the other! All the help suggestions I heard yet wouldn't help at all! All the script writers I talked to yet, didn't satisfy me. I was looking for someone who could fill some story details so that I won't spend so much time on that but I also didn't find anyone here. I already said the only chance to speed up the development process noticeably would be to find someone with exactly the same style and taste and giving this total stranger hundreds of GB of my content and the responsibility to create some scenes on his very own! But instead he could also just redistribute these private files!
This makes sense.
And my gut tells me that, when (and if) we get to the sex scenes on all branches, he'll have less fun creating those than he has creating these big scenes.
- Apr 21, 2020
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I am more satisfied with L&P's answer. But to some extent I feel sorry for him. Obviously, he is under pressure because of the timing of the updates.
I'm not the creator of AWAM, but I'm just scared to read how some people write so confidently here, how they would reduce the tex, a certain number of renderers!
You gentlemen and the creator of AWAM have different goals! Do your project according to your own principles, do not impose your own approaches on L&P, because it will no longer be AWAM, but something else if it starts doing as you say!
I will express some considerations that, in my opinion, can be acceptable both for L&P and for the vast majority of users of the game.
1. You can lower the image quality a little, returning to the previous one, which suited almost everyone, except for the L&P itself.
At the same time, keeping plans to improve the quality of renders, after the completion of the project.
(In my opinion, this is the easiest and most painless way to somewhat speed up the work and release time of updates.)
2.(This is a more difficult task, I can judge from my own experience! But it's overdue!)
L&P needs to bring in an assistant.
To do this, L&P must determine for itself what functions it can transfer to the assistant and how exactly to control the result of the work, so that in general there is an effect and the work goes faste.
I know that the second point is very difficult, there are many inadequate people who consider themselves great specialists. They will simply torment L&P with their appeals and will only take up precious time. But despite all the difficulties, I think it is necessary to start looking for an assistant.
I support L&P's perfectionism and attention to quality and detail at all 1000%, but there is a need to release updates once every 90 days, no more.
- May 24, 2020
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L&P, easy-easy, my man! You don't need to explain yourself. Haters gonna hate anyway. Focus on your work, your Patreon numbers indicates that your real supporters are more than fine with production plan. All folks want is an update every month, preferably a full day, not a 1/3 of it. Ain't gonna happen.
Take your time. Concentrate on your game, not on a bunch of cry babies.
- Aug 23, 2020
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We'll see how the next update goes. If those 600+ renders are put to good use and really advance the story, I'll be in agreement with you. And there's nothing wrong with him being an artist that wants to make great images (and I think all of us agree that the preview images look great), I just tend to think that his focus is more on the images than it is on the progression of the narrative. Maybe it's a chicken or egg situation, do the images exist to serve the narrative, or does the narrative exist to serve the images?
First of all, thank you for showing up Lust&Passion .
I don't think there's a single person here that doesn't admire the quality of your renders and the story you're trying to build.
In 1 update, it wont make much of a difference, but in a 10-12 year development, those renders are going to make a lot of a difference.
Keep in mind that we, the readers/players, on non sexy scenes, will be mainly read the text and barely notice those details.
We understand that you want the story to be and look beautiful but in a 10 year development, those details can be patched it at the end if you want it to be absolutely perfect. Truth is, 90% of the players won't notice it as they play.
Does it look great? Yes.
Should you switch to speed/quantity over quality? No.
Should you maybe tone down on those kind of renders so you can develop faster ( and again, if it saves you 3 days on each update that's a lot of days over 10 years)? Maybe you should think about it.
I think everyone here likes the build up and is ok with the in-game pacing. There's other games if people want to play an immediate fuckfest which loses interest right away.
Anyways, If that content is already made it means you made it in 2 months (from january 11 minus your surgery time and recovery and the GPU repairs). In my book that would be enough for an update, 4 events in 2 months, quite satisfactory.
NLT Media works with 1 event each 15 days plus a few collectibles, no one complains.
I think you should stay as the only renderer of the game. Without knowing your actual process (do you write the story before you start rendering or after?) it's not going to be easy to help you BUT there's several things that you could have help before each update.
For instance, since you use several new environments and plenty of characters, environment and clothing is something that consumes time and that someone else should be picking/doing for you. So right now as you finish your 0.130 version, you should have someone already working/rendering the environments for the next update and sending you clothing/items/props proposals for the next version according to your indications. Just screenshots to which you say yes or no.
Just those 2 little things would save you some days per each version cycle which then translate to months in the full development of the VN. Once next update comes, all you need to do is tweak the environment to your liking and apply the clothing/items/props. And liike these 2 things, there's more, but without knowing your whole process from start to finish, we would just be spitballing for no reason.
I think everyone here wants to see you succeed and I actually think it's good seeing you here defending your side, it shows that you're still interested in what you're doing.
Best of luck
I don't think there's a single person here that doesn't admire the quality of your renders and the story you're trying to build.
Having played THE FULL GAME without skipping a couple of days ago unecessary renders (for me) are renders where only a small detail like an eyebrow or a 10cm camera change happens.
In 1 update, it wont make much of a difference, but in a 10-12 year development, those renders are going to make a lot of a difference.
Keep in mind that we, the readers/players, on non sexy scenes, will be mainly read the text and barely notice those details.
We understand that you want the story to be and look beautiful but in a 10 year development, those details can be patched it at the end if you want it to be absolutely perfect. Truth is, 90% of the players won't notice it as they play.
Does it look great? Yes.
Should you switch to speed/quantity over quality? No.
Should you maybe tone down on those kind of renders so you can develop faster ( and again, if it saves you 3 days on each update that's a lot of days over 10 years)? Maybe you should think about it.
I think everyone here likes the build up and is ok with the in-game pacing. There's other games if people want to play an immediate fuckfest which loses interest right away.
Without seeing the scenes it's impossible to know if it 224 for an event was necessary so I'll reserve my thoughts for after the update but I'm going to trust your judgment on it or if an environment (with the kind of detail you put into it) used for 88 renders in a game that, if finished will have more than 50000, was time well spent. Again, you're the developer, it's your call.
Anyways, If that content is already made it means you made it in 2 months (from january 11 minus your surgery time and recovery and the GPU repairs). In my book that would be enough for an update, 4 events in 2 months, quite satisfactory.
NLT Media works with 1 event each 15 days plus a few collectibles, no one complains.
I'd pay quite well for a stream like this. Your renders are top notch and have been getting even better. Getting a shortcut for knowledge like that isn't free.
No one here wants that, most people are saying that there should be a middle ground between quality, nr of renders and speed of development that wont visibily lower the overall quality of your work/VN.
Without an NDA and proper vetting I highly recommend against sending your private files/morphs etc to anyone.
I think you should stay as the only renderer of the game. Without knowing your actual process (do you write the story before you start rendering or after?) it's not going to be easy to help you BUT there's several things that you could have help before each update.
For instance, since you use several new environments and plenty of characters, environment and clothing is something that consumes time and that someone else should be picking/doing for you. So right now as you finish your 0.130 version, you should have someone already working/rendering the environments for the next update and sending you clothing/items/props proposals for the next version according to your indications. Just screenshots to which you say yes or no.
Just those 2 little things would save you some days per each version cycle which then translate to months in the full development of the VN. Once next update comes, all you need to do is tweak the environment to your liking and apply the clothing/items/props. And liike these 2 things, there's more, but without knowing your whole process from start to finish, we would just be spitballing for no reason.
I think everyone here wants to see you succeed and I actually think it's good seeing you here defending your side, it shows that you're still interested in what you're doing.
Best of luck