Promise
Okay this is a good word for today's post. As many gamers have come to know, promises made by big game companies can be a hit or miss. I can think of two video games right now that fell short on their promises: No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk 2077. For No Man's Sky, that game was epic in falling short of everything they had shown the audience. We were shown true multiplayer, cool fleet battles, various wildlife ai, and the various planetary physics in showcases that led up to the release date. Once that day came, all we had was a really minimal deliverable. What we got was nowhere near the expectation. For me, personally, I was really interested in the procedurally generated planets but my experience was mid at best. Yeah, they were cool but it became very repetitive very quickly and I noticed how assets were reused in some of the most uncreative ways possible. I never played Cyberpunk 2077 but a lot of my friends were upset about the initial release of it. Every week, more complaints about what they were expecting versus what they were sold. Thankfully, both No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk 2077 earned their brownie points back through years of fixing their games.
As for TTRPGs, I haven't personally had any interaction with any that fell short on broken promises. I'm not saying there haven't been any, because I'm pretty sure there have been a decent amount. Let me explain. A lot of TTRPGs in the past decade have been crowdfunded. One of my many reasons why I will never put REDACTED up on a crowdfunding site such as Kickstarter is because of the reputation games have there. I've seen so many video games and RPGs and TTRPGs gain a lot of support and traction, just to see it all come crashing down on the supporters. I like mech kind of things and two of the ones that caught my interest were Mekton Zero and Robotech RPG Tactics. Thankfully, I was broke at those times and couldn't support them but I did follow their progress. Needless to say, promises were broken and it hurt the supporters. I don't want to be like that.
Which is where I'm at now. This is going to make me sound like an absolute lunatic but here I go. This game of mine is a passion. It's been with me since 2010 and I'm now working on making it a reality. I'm not going to stop working on it, even when times get tough. Right now, I've got milestones and goals to reach. Real life is a thing and I am only one person. I've got my fantastic playtesters, running my expeditions and giving me solid feedback. I've also got support sites like Patreon and Ko-fi, which I know usually get side-eyed as money grabbing platforms. That isn't how I use them. On Patreon, anyone who pledges is actually part of making something for my world. It isn't an empty promise, because I give back in the form of the game itself. This is either a creature they designed/inspired or an NPC. Ko-fi is more about giving supporters a usable creature for their own games. There isn't a lot of math involved yet, since I'm still working that part out, but they get a lot of info on the creature, like attacks and stuff, so I guess it's more like a template right now. And there's a milestone on Ko-fi too, for anyone who's just nice enough to donate and support without needing anything back. Every week is a new creature for my world. This week has been falling a bit short because I'm redesigning my deliverables and I might have to bite the bullet and post the older formats. This game is being tested as a TTRPG first, working out all the issues and the kinks. Eventually, it will be a video game. If I haven't quit on this since 2010, I'm not going to quit now. I want to share my world with others. This is my promise.
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