itch.io

I still disagree. Here is my response:

1. "The dev is behind schedule" This project works on a "when it's done" basis

My Counter point: The pre-established pattern I can see above begs to differ! I see that the most recent update occurred 6 months after the one before that. He can say ‘when its ready’ all he like and I can say ‘Not good enough’ just as much. My purpose here is too push him! Make him understand he can do better, BE BETTER! Because everyone can always be BETTER!! If he gets it doen in 6 months, Ill push him to do it in 5. If he gets it done in 5, Ill push him to do it in 4!!!

Why are you so content with his performance when he did better in the last release?

2. "We should financially incentivize the dev to establish a schedule" Noone likes to wait, but all updates so far have ben excellent and plentiful. Why change a working system? The dev is putting out awesome stuff right now, punishing him now would be really inconsiderate.

My Counter point: Clearly the current system is not working as well as it could consider there is clearly a delay and no communication to explain why. Punishing him is not inconsiderate at all. Its actually entirely appropriate considering he is failing to perform to my expectations.

3. "The dev is working slowly if you do the math" I completely disagree. If you just take playtime divided by devtime, there are surely faster devs out there. But I'd argue that these playtime hours have a lot of awesome in them. Just comparing the numbers and not the quality isn't fair.

My Counter point: Actually its completely fair when you factor in individual tastes. I love the story too but in the end its just a story. There is no real game play element to it, only relationship points used to determine if the player sees a lewd scene or not. There's very little actual choice in the story. It's not all that complicated of a story either, in fact parts of it are copied from other stories such as ‘Ready Player One’.

Now if I compare it to Baldur’s Gate 3, Starfield or Rogue Trader… Which are all real games rather than just Visual Novels… See what I'm getting at?

So its not ‘awesome’. Just good… and now I question even that given the slow rate of production.

4. "Patreon is really expensive if you sum up the total spending on the project!" Correct. 5$ per month reaches AAA prices in one year. If you want to optimize your finances, Patreon is not for you. If you just want to pay a one time amount, you can do that! Get Patreon for a month, any amount, and cancel in time. The dev guaranteed that Eternum will be free forever.

My Counter point: I have in fact given Caribdis a small, one time, contribution. Through Itch, because I refuse to use Patreon. Now I wish I hadn't even done that.

5. "Why are there no dev updates here?" Dev updates are on Patreon, Subscribestar and Discord. Dev updates on Itch would annoy those who just want release notifications.

The dev could put the progress banner on his project page. By not doing it, he encourages people to get deeper into the community and I don't blame him. Just click on the Subscribestar banner an there it is.

My Counter point: No, I refuse to use Subscribestar, I refuse to use Patreon. I refuse to join his Discord.  I want to be updated on Itch. All it would take is a simple message, once a month, to report progress. Also all I want is a Release Notification too… on a timely, predictable rate. When that doesn’t happen I expect a report on why and how long it is estimated to take.

6.  "The dev doesn't care about his fans, otherwise he'd communicate more!" Actually, he is quite active in the comments. And he's active on the aforementioned platforms as well.

My Counter point: I do not and/or will not use any of the aforementioned platforms. He has not responded to any of my posts in the last few hours. Actually I just checked and it has been about 24 hours with no comment from Caribdis.

He has just over a week until the six month anniversary of his last release, which is usually preceded by a 1 month pre-release message. All of this leads me to believe he is at least 1 month behind the pre-established pattern. This demonstrates he doesn’t give a damn about me and since I have been a fan up to this point I believe I am justified in my statement.