Dev Blog #83 – Let’s Talk Update 7.0

Greetings everyone!

So, how about that poll? Guess we should talk about it, huh?

Let Me Be Super Cereal

Before talking about the winning vote, I thought it would be fun to talk about the voting process itself for a minute!

There’s a certain subset of people, for brevity’s sake let’s call them oh I don’t know the F95 community, who like to theorize that the polls posted here are somehow fixed, or rigged, to force a certain outcome. Well, I’m here to tell you all once and for all that… Yeah, they totally are. I mean… Kinda. Engage Hyper Transparency Mode!

There are different types of community polls. Some are completely community driven, such as the step-by-step creation of the cousin character from last year for Chapter 4, some are there to determine the route to a destination such as the John Dose poll, and some are to determine the destination itself, such as the Update 7.0 poll. I’ll also take this time to mention that I vote in all my own polls, full disclosure, counting my own vote as a single vote regardless of the tier, and I’m always happy to share numbers if it ever came down to that.

Now, for the character construction poll, that was 100% you guys, I stayed out of that one completely! When it comes to content polls, however, there are a few tactics at play. Sometimes, on the rarest of occasions, they’ll even make a difference! Let’s take John for example. From the outset, the rules and parameters were clearly defined. You had three choices, and I told you all about them. Now, maybe I hyped up John’s mental transformation route a little more than I did the Chanel or Dom John route. Maybe I was a little more interested in writing that content than the others, and maybe I wanted you to be a little more excited for that content line than the other two.

Maybe you all voted for Dom John anyway…

Then we have polls like the Update 7.0 one. Again, in the interest of transparency, I’m being a little underhanded with this one as well. Yes, the options and parameters are clearly outlined from the get-go, but again I’m looking to steer the vote in a certain direction. Yeah, yeah, sure, Diana and Tasha are great and I know you love the store clerks but look at this… Ava and Dakota content! Pretty cool, right? Yeah! Wait… What’s that, in the distance? Awwww hell yeah! It’s CHAPTER 4!!! It’s the “We have one more thing to show you!” from back when E3 was fun to watch. The intent of this poll was, quite bluntly, to get everyone to vote for Chapter 4, and so it got the lion’s share of the hype. I mean, come on, it’s finally progression on the main story!

So y’all voted for Ava and Dakota…

The purpose of this little blurb is twofold. First, I want everyone to rest assured knowing that their votes in these polls really matter, and aside from some subtle and apparently totally ineffective social engineering, are not rigged in any way. Second, I really want everyone to know that when 20XX rolls around and we still don’t have Chapter 4, you have only yourselves to blame!

And The Winner Is

Ava and Dakota.

It wasn’t even close, like, they won by a four-digit margin over Chapter 4. The only tier that Chapter 4 won on was the Lab Technician tier, and even if their votes were worth 100x normal, it wouldn’t have mattered. In fact, Tasha even managed to eek out Chapter 4 for 2nd place, and Diana and the store clerks were just about tied in last. Honestly, I found this entire outcome to be on the surprising side, but, hey! That’s half the fun, right?

In any case, after the John Update Cycle wraps up early next year, we’ll be moving straight into developing (though you might say redeveloping) Ava and Dakota’s content. This update cycle will bring with it a ton of foundation improvements to the MC’s household as well as expanded interactions and completely new content with Ava and Dakota. Additionally, to be clear, the update will focus solely on them and not on other NPC’s potential interactions with them.

I’ll have a lot more to share as the year wraps up, both in regards to Update 7.0’s new content, as well as the Wardrobe System redesign!

No Smut Left Behind

One thing I just want to reiterate as I know some people get a little anxious about it, is that the outcome of these polls is not sacrificing one line of content to make way for another. Tasha and Diana are still getting content updates, the store clerks and mall are getting expansions, and, one day, Chapter 4 is coming. The purpose of these polls is to keep the community engaged, and ensure the content people want most is what’s being expedited.

Now, on a personal note, I haven’t been keeping it a secret that my personal life is a bit of a tornado right now as a result of an impending cross-country move. The good news is that it’ll be over soon, and the bad news is that it’s not over yet! This time next week I’ll be on Day 3 of 4 of the trip, probably driving through Birmingham, if not Atlanta, cats crying in the backseat and laptop on my knees. As such, it’s likely that there will not be a post next week. That said, I’m still expecting to get some quality writing in during the trip when it’s not my turn behind the wheel. I’ve presented a tentative time table twice now, but tumultuous transitions tend to tremendously tamper transcribed tactics… So things are subject to change, at least until November 22nd when this whole thing will be mostly behind me and I can finally relax and focus on what matters most… Interactive Text-Based Porn Games!

Thank you all for your continuous feedback and support, and bearing with me through all this nonsense!