Post by ArakiSatoshi in Most of the shit in 0.9.0b straight up does not work.

"Voices Of The Void" Pre-Alpha » Community

Viewing post in Most of the shit in 0.9.0b straight up does not work.

ArakiSatoshi4 days ago (9 edits) (+5)(-6)

Let me be that person on the OP's side of the barricades and say what some of us want to say but filter themselves out because they don't want to sound too rude/cynical/entitled and receive a ton of downvotes.

I'm frustrated that I've been waiting for 0.9.0 to finally release, starved for content, and, after receiving a promise of a Halloween release to enjoy the creepy vibes in a project I love, I still have to stop myself each time my mouse pointer hovers over the download button, still waiting for the stable version to be released. The only option to experience the game is by playing the old 0.8.2c build, a build I already know from inside out, tauntingly sitting next to 0.9.0 with a promise of fresh content to experience, and letting my interest and hope in the whole game continue dropping further down every week I check VotV's page.

I'm frustrated that the developer earns whopping $300.000 a year, minimum, excluding the merch and other revenue sources, and all he managed to muster for $175.000 (it's been 7 months since 0.8.2c) while developing an indie game is some new assets, events, graphical tweaks, 2 times the amount of bugs, and introduced the performance drop even further to the point the lighting system makes no sense to enjoy due to the framerate hit. Depending on the place he's living in, a whole studio can be opened on this budget, not 2 and a half people involved in the project, memeing on X about a new tower, an unprofessionally messy Unreal Engine blueprint, or whatever. Yes, I'm calling out the developer for something that is a major issue in Patreon-supported games, yet somehow is straight-up forbidden to discuss in every community, except probably Yandere Dev's. The development of this game is powered purely by the community that received a promise of an awesome experience, and as a member of this community, you should call him out too, because these resources are coming to him from your wallet. If that sum isn't respected, maybe he should just accept a publisher's offer and be pressured to continue developing the game using corporate money with a dedicated accountant micromanaging every penny of his spendings on a much less relaxed schedule if he can't properly allocate the donations.

I'm frustrated that the developer is highly selective in his choices of how to interact with the community. They're never responding to the bug reports on itch.io, making that thread look long forgotten, preferring the comfort of his Discord server where things seemingly already escalated up to the point of a personality cult. I, as a member of itch.io's community, wanted to be a part of the game's development, presenting my input for everyone's benefit, but my shouts to revert the controls or introduce the old layout as an option for those who can't digest the new controls are directed into nothing, as if this part of the community doesn't even exist.

I'm frustrated that there's no transparency, and, coming from the point above, a lackluster community management. We have a couple (?) of changelogs. We maybe receive one meme per month on X. And that's about it. When a release window is given, it's certainly to be taken with a cup of salt after the 0.9.0's fiasco. I have to hunt for information on their Discord server, trying to make sense who's who, trying to build an internal chain of thought to an answer if it's even worth waiting a couple of more days/weeks/months until the stable release, or the stable release isn't coming and I should just stop waiting and enjoy the current build... Only to hear yet another "shut up bro can't you see it's a shadowy test" from another member practicing toxic positivity every time I'd go to report some issue or criticize the testing build which is logically expected to receive such feedback. We don't know if the stable 0.9.0 is even in the works or if the developer has completely switched to 0.9.1 now, which may or may not also come out as an unstable release and repeat the cycle.

Please take a fresh look at this project, because at this rate, we're not going to get that amazing game we genuinely wish VotV to be.

cakeash4 days ago(+4)(-1)

Spot on. New assets replacing already good assets, more trash to clean, and broken gameplay features are not what I support a SETI simulation game for. so much for feedback/testing/bug-reporting. Meanwhile the dev seems to DM and nag a specific streamer every time he plays the game and shitpost all day.

Jooj014 days ago(+2)(-2)

Now this is more like it... This is a reasonable argument.

FoxSnouts2 days ago(+4)(-3)

Seven people are involved which results in that revenue being barely equivalent to a part time job. One of those people is an actual 3d artist while three of them are coders (including Nose himself). Not to mention that 0.9 has a lot of work done outside of just content, namely concerning items. You as a consumer do not know what's happening development-side or what exactly has changed coding-wise. Bug fixes themselves can often be catastrophic and require entire reworks to various aspects of the game, but are rarely valued because of the perception that they don't add "content."

Your post reads as entitlement. You want changes made that you think matter most and are just complete reverts to 0.8.2. You then proceed to whine about the money a solo team gets when you aren't directly responded to out of thousands of random players, which is even sillier when you consider that Nose has dedicated testers on the team.

The release window for 0.9 never said the Halloween release would be THE stable release. It was always going to be a shadow test if it was going to release at all, which the team worked tirelessly to make happen in the first place. And Nose doesn't talk about solid release dates for versions because things take time and people like you would throw tantrums if they had to delay them. Why deal with that hassle before a major release, like the Steam version or 1.0?

You can just come back to the game some other time. You have a whole life to care about, surely VotV isn't more integral to your life than other people or hobbies.

FoxSnouts2 days ago(+1)(-3)

You can just come back to the game some other time. You have a whole life to care about, surely VotV isn't more integral to your life than other people or hobbies.