I see your point, but I'd argue otherwise: having an option that should only be visible to older readers, and only those who might want to see the old sprites for nostalgia reasons, take precious space in options and confuse new readers, would be an unnecessary complication.
I know there are people who prefer older sprites, that's why they're available in the game, but they're really a hidden bonus content, not a regular option.
"Precious space in the options menu"? You mean the one you can expand literally endlessly? "Confuse new players"? There's absolutely nothing confusing about having two options for sprites, the concept of options is very-very clear. And people usually prefer to have them easily available, not hidden behind passwords.
Sigh... Keo, we've been through this.
I know you're just a writer, and a good one, and it's clear that the whole community management thing is hard for you. But resorting to making up excuses like you did before is going to have the exact same result as before. It's just going to give people false hope that they can reason with you. Again. And when they will inevitably fail, their resentment for you will grow. Again. And people will start getting obnoxious about this. AGAIN. And it will be your own fault. AGAIN.
You've taken a stance on this, it's obvious - you are a very resolute person. And I'm not asking you to give up your position - I know better now. But please, please, be direct about it, make it obvious - don't sugarcoat it, don't avoid it, don't pretend there's a good reason for this. Just be honest and say: "I don't want to make it a visible option". It won't make anyone happy, but it will sure as hell keep people from growing unhappier over time.
p.s. Either get better at this or find a community manager that can do this for you, because you're running out of legs to shoot. You can jerk people around between "oh wow, Keo listened!" and "Oh fuck, Keo is lying again" only so many times before they give up on you completely.
p.p.s. You want to see a creator being a great community manager? Look at your fellow FVN creator Xevvy - he too often has to say "no" to people, but he is always direct, always honest, and no one is ever unhappy with him for more than it takes him to respond. I don't even care for his VN, but my god, what an amazing person. I keep recommending people his VN just because I want to see him succeed. This could be you... If you could just be open with us. You have no idea how hard this is for us and how much we want to love you.
That was a no and my reason why the option works as it does, I hope that makes it clearer as to why it's implemented this way. There are no two equally important sets of sprites - there's one main set of sprites, and there's bonus content. Preferences panel is endlessly expandable, but UI design guidelines still apply and I'm looking to make the UI cleaner over time instead of more convoluted. This is me being 100% honest and transparent here.
I'm happy that you found the option useful. I'm not doing community management as I barely have time to reply everywhere I might be needed; I wish I could be doing things differently in that regards, but with a project this big I can't be the public person people might wish I were.
