LEWD, an erotic text adventure in spaaaace (Semi-public access now up)

Asmo

Active Member
Jan 20, 2016
26
0
40
I have been brutally assaulted as soon as I stepped in. They put my teeth to the curb and jumped on the back of my head, they shot me in the knee-caps, broke my jaw and ripped out my tongue, cut off my pinkie and thumb and then ripped out my nails, they cut off my eyelids, they then took an iron rod and proceeded to beat me with it for several hours, as if that wasn't enough, they then broke both of my legs and cut off one of my ears and set me on fire later after that. But I survived. 

coldhardtruth.jpg
 

Sadtaco

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2015
116
4
Nope, that's just how Patreon is, sadly. You can play on the test server, though it's often times down or buggy at this time.
Patreon keeps telling me they're working on it, blah blah blah, but nothing happens.


And god, that Enterprise song was good.  That show got a lot of ship but I actually overall liked it.
 

Asmo

Active Member
Jan 20, 2016
26
0
40
Nope, that's just how Patreon is, sadly. You can play on the test server, though it's often times down or buggy at this time.
Patreon keeps telling me they're working on it, blah blah blah, but nothing happens.


And god, that Enterprise song was good.  That show got a lot of ship but I actually overall liked it.

No key = tough shit | Also the forums are kind of quiet for such a large audience, think about it, every patron gets 15 keys each, that's currently 217 patron x 15 = 3255 keys just floating around, so lets assume half of them have been give out. Seriously where is everyone? 
 
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Sadtaco

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2015
116
4
They aren't obligated to go out of their way to give theirs out. Most just supported for themselves or to help the game.
 

Asmo

Active Member
Jan 20, 2016
26
0
40
They aren't obligated to go out of their way to give theirs out. Most just supported for themselves or to help the game.

Hold on, does that mean that you have use a key every time you want to play the game, even if you are a backer? So it's not like, one key = permanent access ? 
 

JickOShadows

Member
May 13, 2016
22
0
I salute you. I'm happy I'm not the only one who liked Enterprise.


Asmo: I believe they are permanent access. However, just because people have keys doesn't mean they will give them away. Some might very well give them to friends, some might not even kow they have extras, and some just don't feel like sharing with "freeloading" strangers. Not that I'm kicking freeloaders here. I tried to be one too xD


Of course, I might be wrong.
 

LordBitter

Member
Mar 2, 2016
7
0
Hold on, does that mean that you have use a key every time you want to play the game, even if you are a backer? So it's not like, one key = permanent access ? 

There'd probably be a shitstorm if that happened so i doubt it.
 

Sadtaco

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2015
116
4
... It's explained how it works on the Patreon page.


I don't get why people jump to super weird horrible conclusions instead of just reading.
 

Scarebear

Well-Known Member
Oct 16, 2015
155
2
... It's explained how it works on the Patreon page.


I don't get why people jump to super weird horrible conclusions instead of just reading.

But it's not really? It just says you get " you'll receive 1 key for each $1"


If you've played as a non-patron then you already know that each key has limited uses. It's not really unreasonable to assume that it might be the same for patrons with the only difference being that they get multiple keys. Actually the first image you use on the page confirms that each key has limited uses, presumably for patrons too.


I don't get why you come back with such hostile replies instead of just explaining how things work.
 
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Sadtaco

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2015
116
4
...


I'm "hostile" because it seems like one of those cases of people making up shit to stir the pot when 99% of people who read it aren't going to come up with such nonsense. Only people trying to make up problems that don't exist and mislead people would. :|


Even you seem to be misunderstanding what that person is saying while you properly understand how it works as most everyone else understands it properly.  What they said confused me at first too.  They're saying that they think you have limited times you can play the game, and it costs $1 each time you play it.  But your post seems to rightfully understand that while yes, each key can have multiple uses, a use is consumed to grant access to an account. A use isn't consumed each play, and there's absolutely no implication or hint that that's the case anywhere. It's an intuitive system that's roughly the same as what everything uses...
 
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JickOShadows

Member
May 13, 2016
22
0
I have to admit, I didn't actually even read anything from the patreon (I don't have any money or I would have), so I wasn't exactly sure, myself, but I guess I kinda assumed it worked the way you describe.
 

Sadtaco

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2015
116
4
Alpha 2 Release Candidate 2



  • Completely recoded movement and pathfinding.

    A lot of people were requesting diagonally movement, and that’s now in.
  • When using movement keys, the movement keys now don’t trigger until a second key is pressed (ie d held then w pressed), or until after the single key is lifted, instead of key down, to accomodate diagonal movement.
  • Less data is used for the new movement. The interpolation is much smoother and should be problem-free. A bunch of silly issues where fixed that often came up when, say, clicking to move while already moving.
  • todo: smart interpretation and queuing when using hotkey movement. It’s not very smooth right now compared to click-to-move.

[*]Made experimental changes to the connection model. Hopefully less disconnects. Please report any connectivity quirks and provide any data that you can.

[*]Added additional logging to try to find some errors. It seems like some client threads on the server may be halting for some reason, which could be responsible for the problem of some people being unable to access any content in The Matriarchy. I haven’t been able to replicate this on my end, please report any way you can find to reproduce the problem.

[*]The intro is now roughly 30% faster.

[*]Lots more content fixes.

[*]Disabled most debug logging on the main server, which’ll also speed things up.

[*]Some more efficiency improvements to the server. There’s still more to be found, for sure. (Seems like all the chargen things are really snappy, but sometimes selecting dialog options is a bit slow? Caching and pre-caching later down the line should also help ensure that’s made to be instantly responsive)

[*]Really fixed an issue that was causing scenes to sometimes not show. -_-
[*]Fixed an issue with the parser when it was trying to display non-string values.

[*]Fixed an issue where login errors would sometimes not show.

[*]Fixed it not properly labeling supporters as supporters on the main server on the client.


I think this is it and ready to be released except for content needing to be polished up and selected to be on the main server. Well, unless that issue in The Matriarchy is widespread. I need to figure that out.


I'll drop a key here tomorrow. I'm really tired right now.
 

Sadtaco

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2015
116
4
Here's a 25 use key for anyone that wants to see if they can find some issues: TITT-ERS0-HELP-TEST


I'm not going to rush to get the Alpha 2 update out. I want it to have more content, but lots still needs polishing up.  I don't want to have to like.. cut it to only be a third the content that's on the test server. :/
I'm also pretty exhausted, so I'm not sure when we can get this finalized.
 

fireball719

Member
May 17, 2016
5
0
I know I am incredibly late and broke, but would a super kind soul wish to lend me a key for life so I could test this game?
 

ThatOneJester

Well-Known Member
Nov 14, 2015
386
23
32
Do you have your Patreon set to every month pay, or on the spot paying?
 

Sadtaco

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2015
116
4
Patreon doesn't accommodate up-front payments at all. Only scheduled ones.


I made a survey to gather some feedback on the UI.  If you've played recently  enough to give good feedback on it, let me know what you think!
http://goo.gl/forms/GmEf4h3XNAKcLBkD3
 
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Crowley

Member
Mar 6, 2016
6
0
28
I assume that there is no way to back you with something like PayPal?


I am living in Austria where I never really needed a Credit Card since you could pay everything with a Debit Card, which also has less fees to pay than credit cards.


I would still love to support you/your project in some way, yet I don't want to get a credit card solely for that reason, so if there would be some way for you to accept PayPal, I would be happy to pay ^_^


Have a nice day ~Crowley
 

Sadtaco

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2015
116
4
@stuntcockWait, really? I didn't see this.  I set to that now.  People won't have to wait more than a few hours for a key after I set that. That should alleviate a lot of confusion people had about getting a key and how Patreon works, too.  (Still a stupid there is no prorating system, though. So if someone pledges $5 on the 25th they get charged again a few days later...?  It should charge them $5.16 or $6 or something for the rest of the 5 days in the month + the following month. So just more issues with Patreon to annoying people..  But oh well people can change their pledge I guess and my system will credit them properly)


@Crowley, there is Dwolla and Bitpay but finishing integration on those has not been a priority at the moment.  You'd have to message me on IRC about it since I have to convert game credit to Patreon credit manually right now. You could always just wait and stuff too and support it later when it's more widely available.
 

Crowley

Member
Mar 6, 2016
6
0
28
there is Dwolla and Bitpay but finishing integration on those has not been a priority at the moment.  You'd have to message me on IRC about it since I have to convert game credit to Patreon credit manually right now. You could always just wait and stuff too and support it later when it's more widely available.

I of course don't want to impose any more work onto you - however I would still be willing to pay (monthly if possible since I am far from rich)


I am blissfully unaware of 'IRC' and would therefore need even more instructions ^^ otherwise I'll just wait until you implement Dwolla or Bitpay, and maybe I will even get a Credit Card eventually ^^
 

Sadtaco

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2015
116
4
Can't do monthly for Dwolla and Bitpay. They're going to be one time only things.
 

Sadtaco

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2015
116
4
Sooo Patreon banned my bot.


See, normally services like Patreon have what’s called an application programing interface(API). It’s protocols for interacting with the outer layer of some other software. A service like Patreon would usually have an API that gives you some secret keys, similar to a password, that lets you communicate with its servers to get information you should be privy to and to perform functions you could do as a user, but via your own software communicating through those protocols.


Yeah well, Patreon doesn’t have that. 6 months ago, after I first made my bot, they did introduce a basic one, but it doesn’t do nearly as much as my bot does(…did), so it  isn’t usable for me and LEWD.
I can’t, for example:
1. See past confirmed payments, only the current pledges. This means if someone paid me money, but aren’t currently pledging, then later link their account, well I just can’t see them in Patreons API at all and see that they have a confirmed payment. Woops?
2. There’s no payment total, only what their current pledge is (whether it went through or not). This means I can’t credit people for all they’ve contributed with the Patreon API like my bot has been doing with the credit total on people’s account.There’s some other things, but those are the show-stopping issues that make it unusable as far as doing what my bot did to give people access to the game and to credit them appropriately.
Because my bot couldn’t get any information on my patrons, she just set the pledges to 0… I went ahead and set these all to “5” for now so all that had a $5 pledge or more go through previously can still play on the test server, at least.I’m not sure how long this went on. I was just notified of pledge amounts not showing up right on patron’s accounts a day and a half ago. So it does seem that the ones that paid last month might not be affected, but obviously this sucks for the new ones.


I’m not sure on an ETA on when/how this will be resolved. I messaged Patreon’s support, and the easy and quick resolution would be for them to whitelist my bot.
If they don’t and I have to wait for them to improve their API… I have no clue how  long that’ll take since it took 2 years for them to introduce the very basic API they  have now. But who knows.
If neither of those happen… I might end up having to finish up getting my own payment services finished sooner rather than later.  This is a pain because I wanted to, you know, focus on actually making the game right now. I also probably wanted to stick with Patreon even after I added other ways to contribute because I think it’s convenient for a lot of people to use and they might not want to pay directly to my site, you know?
 
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Sadtaco

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2015
116
4
Bot back up; you can link accounts and get credit again


Well, for now at least.
I'm not sure what changed. Maybe it's because I had her turned off for a day.
In the past she was relogging into Patreon and updating information every 6 hours since I was getting a lot of messages of people asking where their key was that couldn't wait a day.


So I don't know.. maybe if I cut her back to scraping every 24 hours, I won't have the problem.
Or maybe Patreon whitelisted her but hasn't notified me of that yet. That is what I requested of her, and the customer service person notified me that they'd have to ask around and try to get back to me on it.


Either way, my bot is working at this moment so people can link their LEWD and Patreon account again and get their contributions credited properly once more.
 

Sadtaco

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2015
116
4
Alpha2 release




Well damn, this took longer than I hoped. There were a number of new issues coming up in the release candidates, and since I couldn’t make the May release I wanted I decided to hold it back to at least get some more content put in it.


Everyone with a LEWD account created before March 1st, but after the last batch of free keys that were given out with the Alpha1 release, (9,560 people) has been given a 2 use key for main server access, including those who already have a key from being a Patron. So you can use it for main server access to play this release and also give the other use to a friend or whoever.
I will give out a key with a bunch of uses like I did with the Alpha1 release in a few days. Can’t give out too much as I need to stagger the server load, and want to see if there are any new bugs reported by some of those thousands that were given a key first.
You can also get your own key, as well as access to the test server, and support the game by pledging to our Patreon!


Please note: The game still requires a browser/computer that supports WebGL in order to travel to other planets/stations. I’m planning to add a more low-fi solar system display in the next update that will work on potato devices.
There also may be issues for those with spotty connections. That one is going to take a few months to fix, but yeah I’m aware of it, and sorry to those that have such issues for the time being.


There are hundreds of changes and additions since Alpha1, so I can’t list them all, but to summarize briefly:

  • The mini android and goo container which you can find just from walking around now have some content.  Like most everything, there is still yet a lot to be added. I’m especially happy where the goo one is going, though. There’s tons of things that weren’t possible before with how that one works, though still a long ways to go with it.
  • New “relief station” in the Outpost, with art.
  • Traveling long distances has been changed to use a public shuttle, with some narrative, instead of just poofing to different places.
  • When you don’t meet the requirements for a dialog option that’s disabled for you, there is now generally a hint on hover/select as to what you are lacking.
  • Many scenes which were large blocks of text all at once have been broken up.
  • Lots of editing work, placeholders filled in, new options all around, including…
  • A lot of the current content has been expanded, namely in the Wilderness Research area, including a number of NPCs having some conversations about what you’re currently doing.  The Station and Outpost also have more content, but there is still a ways to go with them.
  • Most content that’s too unfinished or pending a rework (Harpy, for example), is only on the test server for now, but there is still far more content than was previously in the Alpha1 release.
  • Recoded movement entirely. You can now move diagonally and many issues with movement and interpolation were fixed by this.
  • You can now create characters with non-unique names. Sorry to those that were getting an error trying to make “Slut” before~ Your account name must still be unique.
  • Lots of little improvements and additions to the site.
  • Improvements to the tools, such as being able to add/edit maps more easily.
  • Character saves on the main server have been wiped. The save format has changed, hopefully to facilitate not needing to wipe them again, though I’m not 100% certain yet.
  • Updated the writing team tryout application so that it’s easier to keep concurrent with the updates to our internal, private dev tools. That means the tryout application is back up, yes, and I’ve updated the jobs page related to it. There were some bugs with the previous application that have since been fixed on the internal dev tools and this brings it up to parity so those bugs are fixed on the tryout application as well.

The next update will come MUCH sooner than this last one has taken, though I don’t have a lot of game client enhancements and features planned for that next update before the lower end solar system display. It will largely just be new content and gameplay improvements. Larger changes like caching, precaching, a new UI/UX, and role playing features will be coming later and likely not with the Alpha3 release.
I’ll probably seem rather quiet from me over the next month as I need to work on the server that handles my httpd and a few other things, and have a lot of real life stuff to tend to, and some time to relax. But writers will still be working on content on the test server. As always, you can get an idea of what’s added/changed on the test server from the Dev Tracker.
This release simply took a while for many reasons, such ironing out all the issues that came from porting the prototype to the new engine and making a better foundation for the game to follow. Now that things are largely stable, things should progress much more smoothly.