Wednesday, October 15, 2014

To Clarify

I feel as though I need to clarify a little bit and reiterate a few things said in the last post, to save misinterpretations.

  1. Firstly, the current status of the project is still a hiatus.
  2. I, Khrom, am not the sole owner or developer of ZVN, it is still "owned" by Ling and XV88 as well, the other two original developers, therefore I am not the sole authority of anything concerning the project, even if I own this blog.
  3. All things stated in the last post are that of my opinion and do not represent that of Lings' or XV88s opinions or thoughts.
  4. In other words, the "will we return?" is purely speculation and thoughts from my part.
 It is, hopefully, likely that Ling will either edit or create a post regarding the current situation and include his insight and opinion.


Thanks for your patience and thanks for reading. It really, really does mean a lot of not only me, but Ling as well.

18 comments:

  1. I hope you guys do continue. This would be and is a great game in the making. I've been checking in almost every month for I would have to say about at least a year. And after so much anticipation to hear it might never finish even without a demo is very disappointing and a travesty. I sincerely hope you three continue to make the game or at least you finish it, because I think you could with time and I would be waiting for it. Thank you for keeping us updated, and take care :)

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    1. Thanks for the comment. I'm happy to hear you still check up on us even after all this time.
      I can't make any promises, but like Khrom said we aren't quite dead quite yet and if our current talks work out there could just be a few sparks of life returning.

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  2. As you can deduce from the delay of this message, I also check this site approximately monthly. I have not lost all hope yet and I sincerely wish you all the luck to continue this superb project.

    (Also, please excuse any grammatical error, if any... English is not my native language.)
    Be well ^^

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  3. I will wait and see. Hopefully this does come back, it's a really interesting idea.

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  4. What is the team currently lacking and what was it originally being coded in?

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  5. Thank you for the comments. I'm very happy people are still interested in this despite everything. I'll use this opportunity to r̶a̶m̶b̶l̶e̶ update where we're at and to reiterate the issues that led us to this point.

    Our team originally consisted of three people, two artists and a programmer. Many people had come and gone over the course of a year before the original three started to lose touch with each other. At that point almost no progress was being made.

    The first issue is programming. We used the Renpy engine (in python), which makes simple straightforward VNs a very easy task, however what we were creating is a fair deal more complex. Nevertheless, It should still be very simple for any moderately skilled programmer. The other side of this issue is our original programmer is rather fickle and tends to leave things hanging, despite promises to the contrary. He's a great guy, who's more than capable of getting the job done, but as far as I can tell progress on that end has been virtually nil despite him recently showing a renewed interest in working.

    The second issue is this project takes considerable time and effort and was meant to be created as a team, but we've had horrible luck with managing that. Our original intent was to create a build within our capabilities to entice people who could cover other areas, but a mix of a lack of ability, determination and/or motivation was always a problem. I began as a colorist and was never supposed to take on as much as I did just to keep things progressing. I was eventually regarded as the leader as a result despite my inexperience.

    And third, making connections and finding recruits was a challenge in and of itself. Without any money as an incentive, especially for something this big, it's difficult to coerce the people you might have your eye on, even if they like the idea. The other issue was the nature of this project in that it contains loli and other material many places won't allow, along with the whole copyright schmeel, which limited our available actions. With the success of patreon within the last year as a means of aiding projects like this, that could change, but we'd still need to get a demo out there so people could see what they're really investing in.

    Though I've started my own personal project (one I was hoping I would work on after getting experience from the ZVN) I am still around and still very willing to see this through. That hasn't changed.

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  6. Happy to see you're still alive and thinking about this project after all this time! I know you mentioned a demo for patreon or recruiting purposes, I'd love to see one put together out of whatever the last assets were before things went on hiatus, or any new stuff whoever's left put together since then (or would have time to finish without too much effort.) Hope 2015 see's a fresh new chapter for ZVN!

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    1. In other news, been watching Zeldathon on Twitch and it made me think to check up on this, also checked up on Zelda Hentai Quest and it seems /fdude has started working on that at least somewhat more seriously again. Exciting times for Zelda fans and lovers of Rule 34!

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    2. Good to hear from you again Dark. How've you been? Your optimistic outlook hasn't waned, which is nice. As the yin to my yang, let me dampen things up a bit!
      Unfortunately, thinking about it seems to be all we're doing at this point after the recent fluctuation in interest. While we have a fair deal of assets, the problem with putting something together falls back on the programming. It's something I cannot seem to wrap my head around once it reaches a certain (very low) level of complexity. I'm even quite worried about how my own project is going to fare in that regard. Unless we light a fire under XV or kidnap another passionate programmer who'll see at least some things through, we'll remain bogged.

      I have my misgivings about /f/dude, but I still wish his project all the best and hope it comes to fruition. Who knows what 2015 has in store for all of us.

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    3. I have high hopes for 2015. Let's just hope everything pans out. Happy new years.

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    5. Ups and downs, keeping busy though. Haha, I'd never thought of it that way, ironic that Dark Link would be the light side of this positive/negative balance. ^_^

      Well, thinking about things is a start, though it takes a lot more than that of course. It seems there are some new backgrounds at the very least! I never did get a chance to try helping out in the programming department instead of writing, but from what little I did look at the renpy code, it seems like something I could probably figure out. I don't know if I'd have time to be your programmer long term, but there's a decent chance I'd be able to get a demo made from whatever is done so far, or at least make some progress towards one. I'm also curious what this personal project of yours is, if you feel like sharing what it's about?

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    6. That's true. So long as someone's still thinking about it, it has a chance at least.
      Yeah, Khrom was in the painting mood and did them last night. There would be a lot of backgrounds to go through, but I definitely prefer his work over screenshots.
      Any help in that area would be fantastic, so if you're up for it thanks a ton. Shoot me an email and we'll go from there.

      I'm working on a life simulator vn/game where you live with your three sisters and mom. Yeah, you can see where that's going. I'm trying to figure out how to manage it in real time (with day/night, weather cycles, and characters moving around the house) and am planning on loading it up with a variety of variable based events, ranging from pure love vanilla to blackmail and the rest of my twisted fetishes. I'm aiming for it to feel as organic as possible and to have it be something a player can come back to in order to experience things in a different way each time.
      Since I'm learning how to manage a lot of stuff on my own (design, programming, music, etc.), my progress is lacking. I did just buy Clip Studio Paint though, so I'm hoping that speeds up the art side of things since it has a load of features SAI doesn't.

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  8. I've been starting to get into Ren'py. If a few months pass and you guys still need a programmer I'd be up for helping out. Though obviously my skills would be lacking but I'd be willing to contribute for free.

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    1. Thanks for the offer. Even if we have a reversal of fortunes within the next couple months, I'm sure we could use your help if you're still up for it at that time. Feel free to shoot me an email whenever.

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  9. Just checking back in on this since it's been a little over a month since the last post here... I saw something on the LoZ:HQ page that saddened me, apparently Blogger is changing it's policy soon and blogs like this will have to find a new home if it were ever going to be started up again:

    "In the coming weeks, we'll no longer allow blogs that contain sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video. After this policy goes into effect, Google will restrict access to any blog identified as being in violation of our revised policy. No content will be deleted, but only blog authors and those with whom they have expressly shared the blog will be able to see the content we've made private."

    Any news on this or the new life simulator game you were working on? I've stayed busier than I thought during the start of this year and never ended up really having time to email about helping put together a demo, but in light of the upcoming blogger change, I'll shoot you a message and see if I can maybe help put something together before this blog has to be moved elsewhere.

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    1. Yeah, Google being lord of the prudes kind of puts a damper on things. Though to be perfectly honest, I have no issue with the blog being shut down at this point considering I feel like I'm stringing along the great people who have cared enough to stick around, and you guys don't deserve that. I don't think we were ever quite prepared to create a blog to begin with given our missteps with the project itself. We should have had the demo and made significant progress first, instead of the other way around. If we do move or create a new blog, it would only be after a substantial amount of progress has been made and the project is healthy again.

      ZVN wise I've received another offer for someone to be the programmer, so I'm hoping they work out, while my new game is making slow, but steady progress. Unless I am in desperate need of programming assistance, it's a solo project, so there's a lot not only to work on, but to figure out as well.

      I'll check out your email.

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