Hilarious! I do wish they would just be honest for once and apologise about what an overt failure this has ultimately turned out to be. But apparently there's something to be gained by playing make believe. The last bit of official info we got that wasn't posted on a Discord that a sizeable amount of the community never visits was basically a "fund this thing for Identity's sake", and that nobody was working on it full time any more. Game over.

Nobody is buying this. The Kickstarter failed, Paratus should be focusing all of his efforts on the massively overdue Identity beta. We are NOT going to support some Rocket League clone to indirectly support Identity, how stupid do you think we are?

It's intentionally obtuse at best, extremely scummy at worst. The fact that John is the head of Phony Games is obviously a crucial bit of info that should've been mentioned in the newsletter, and the fact that they didn't is telling. The issue arises from time spent. The indication that Asylum is merely the publisher for the game implies that development for Identity has not been affected by Furballs. Unless John spent literally 0 hours on Furballs, this just isn't true. Basically, it's an attempt to coo meaningless reassurances while also asking for more cash. What a disaster. After months of no communication, we get a new Kickstarter and a death knell.

So we've got confirmation that nobody is working on this full time, and they're depending on more sales and people buying the garbage they have in the store. Otherwise they're functionally out of money and have mostly moved on to other things. Great! I think the most galling part, though, has to be this: "One of our primary reasons for releasing modules during development was to account for crowdfunding requirements. Having met those demands with the release of Town Square, we no longer have such an obligation and can explore new options." Are they trying to be funny? They have not come CLOSE to fulfilling their obligations for the Kickstarter. In fact, they've actually failed to deliver on the Kickstarter not only in duration (it's been over twice as long to get a full beta and we're not even close), but also through the release of the modules themselves, something they promised they wouldn't do. I have to say I don't appreciate the dismissive tone of the newsletter at all, it's like Paratus seriously cannot grasp how far gone this is. Trickling out features with NOBODY working on it full time and with no roadmap to change that is a surefire way for this to bleed out and die. But maybe that's already inevitable, given the status update. Edit: Gotta say, there's something off about this Furballs thing appearing out of the ether, with John being the only name attached to this "Phony Games". 😒

Curious how people are feeling about things after 6+ months of no contact from the developers, which is dire to say the least.

The Kickstarter and the kitted-out office were supposed to lead into getting larger investors in board. In all honesty, even if they weren't opposed to the idea, I don't see any publishers scrambling to pick it up anyway. The concept could've attracted that sort of funding, but its track record and (lack of) popularity at this point would be pretty off-putting.

Wishful thinking, perhaps? Hahaha.

The game is dead, surprising nobody with the slightest bit of foresight. Brushing up a dismal little module with nothing to do in it isn't enough after years of promises, and it seems most people have caught on. The concept will become a real game someday in the right hands, but you're dreaming if you think it's going to rise from this.

It seems you have a vague interest in philosophy and the like which is great, you've just gotta work on communicating such ideas. If you can't communicate it meaningfully, perhaps don't use it in an argument with somebody. This falls under "if people agreed with me/saw what I saw, the world would be better". It's either ignorant (generalizations being thrown around) or arrogant (you actually think you're the arbiter).

Either you're going out of your way to obfuscate what you're trying to say, or you're doing it accidentally lol. You're essentially saying "if people would look into themselves, they would agree with me" which is a little arrogant to say the least. But wow these forums are sleepy considering the proximity to the release. Where are the rest of the ardent defenders, the ones who excused every misstep? Seems to be getting quieter on that side especially.

Seems like we're describing different people in that case, as I would agree that kind of behavior is unhelpful. That kind of thing isn't synonymous with people who are skeptical about the game, in the same way supporting the game isn't synonymous with ignorance. Also, people who don't think the game is going to happen =/= people calling the game a scam. Personally, the majority of skeptical community members I've spoken to (and myself) consider it more or less a mishandled project, not something actively malicious.

I'm not sure you know what shoving your head in the sand means. It means to ignore an obvious issue, in this case it's the launch that's resulted in negativity. If you're worried about productivity, perhaps you shouldn't be perusing forums like this or trying to disregard people's concerns. Because, like I said, it isn't going to stop any time soon, as we're very much in the midst of a bad launch.

Sorry, but people aren't going to shove their heads in the sand, and it's crucial for potential future investors to understand just how much of a bad state the game and its development is in. Nice Donnie Darko quote, though lol.

Where there's smoke, there's fire. Motown leaving in particular is a seriously bleak symbol at this point that is impossible to ignore. What a disappointment.

Just so you know, a mod popped into the Discord and told us it probably won't be up tonight. EDIT: Here's a Tweet: "Update seems to be breaking every time it’s packaged, doesn’t look like it will be tonight guys, I’m so very sorry for this"

You don't suppose Kickstarter has those guidelines for a very good reason, and that the fact that this project has crossed that line with nothing meaningful in the hands of backers is a bit worrying? That perhaps they're not in the right to want an indefinite, ever-increasing deadline by passing on knowingly wrong information to their followers? The Kickstarter is a pretty serious blindspot of this whole thing honestly, because it was designed specifically to a) get proper funding from investors and not random backers (not done), and b) to get a fully operational beta out by Q1 2017 (definitely not done). It's a bit disquieting to see people very quickly shrug off what is essentially a failed KS. And if one passes the 2 year deadline, suddenly they have nobody to be accountable to or even the vaguest sense when people can expect to see something of the final game. So while you're right it's not their 'fault' they couldn't increase the time limit, it also wasn't their right to put off releasing something forever in the first place.

That's to imply they haven't been focusing exclusively on it since March! I hope it doesn't need to be said at this point that this is a little worrying. They weren't doing the streams and stuff just because they have some free time with nothing to do, it's a necessary ongoing communication with people funding their project. We definitely don't want to suggest regressive changes like this are fine.

Welp, the dev streams are no more; all of the channels of communication between development and the community are slowly closing, which is compounded by the (interestingly timed) departure of their community manager. To say that all of this bodes well and is a sign of good progress is staggeringly naive at this point.

The development definitely needs some serious transparency. Not more talk about transparency, or dismissive (and ultimately meaningless) "things are moving along well now" posts, but a serious indication how things are going. And chances are it's not going well. As soon as they admitted to no longer adding tasks, the tracker has been rendered as meaningless as the 89% progress bar. No surprise to people with a thread of skepticism, but worrying all the same. It's more disturbing seeing people say "adding more tasks would annoy people, so it makes sense they wouldn't add them" -- what kind of childish thinking is that? We're almost six months past the two release dates, and it could well be another six months away. Efforts are put into more ways to make money, like selling concept pugs and divvying up the apartments to lock them behind paywalls, while the module stagnates for another half a year. Priorities are off. If they need more money, we should know about it; if they don't, they're being greedy. More transparency is needed. Somehow I doubt Identity Insider or whatever it's called is going to be the thing that offers it. But each time a week drifts by unceremoniously, I get more and more concerned about this project...

Hmm, I'm not sure if you get what I'm saying. A "little head start" is plainly P2W. Even if it's minor it's still P2W. I'm not concerned about myself but the spend-happy teens who too often go on to define online games like this. They're not spending their money, so they don't care. Cosmetics are fine. Stuff like this is a can of worms.

Alright, difficult to say whether or not this is truly addressed without seeing (and cars are a long way away), but I suppose if getting said sports car is reasonably trivial then it hardly matters. If it isn't simple to get the non-pledge version, then it is P2W because a challenge has been bypassed. If it even takes an hour of "work" to get it but you can just pay to get it right away instead, that's like free to play mentality hahaha. And I struggle to imagine anybody wants that for this game.

Anything that bypasses gameplay in that way is P2W like a Shark Card. It's still paying money to get around a challenge, regardless of how trivial that challenge may (or may not) be. It's all well and good to justify just about anything in lieu of seeking funding, but if there's a poor balance between real-money-paywall-content and what is available in the game, it's actually going to affect the experience. And yes, that includes simply buying stuff with real money that you can achieve in game, because then the parent's-CC-wielding teenager from GTA Online reigns supreme.

A few things have corroded the tracker into total meaninglessness. The"last updated" is updated by a few lines of code (look in the .js), and they've admitted they're not adding new things like "show-stopping" bugs. If an infinite amount of tasks, eternally evergrowing, can be lumped under the single UI task, then we have another 89%; a "no, really, it's almost done" when it probably isn't.

Kind of like how you can buy better cars with real money then? 😐 I'm honestly a bit lost by all of this DLC costing real money, especially regarding vehicles. I hope there's plenty of content available outside of their digital store, otherwise it's like the worst of a free to play game in a pay to play!

The slow down to a stop is sadly no surprise at this point. The release dates turned out to be completely off the mark, the minor delay has passed two months, and "it's done when the tracker's complete" is the new "soon". Hope it gets out of this rut soon.