Update to the Scene Request System!

Hello, my favorite patrons!

I hope everyone is doing well! I'm here to announce a slight change to the way patron scene requests will be handled going forward! This won't be a major change by any extent and is mostly an update in terminology and structure to give me a bit more flexibility to work on original content again between patron scenes. This only affects the Gurgling, Fully Digested, and Great Googly Moogly tiers and shouldn't affect the actual flow of content.

Why am I making any changes to the current process?

For a couple of reasons. One, I'm getting burned out. Not from doing the patron scenes or writing itself, because I absolutely love doing them! They're so much fun and I've learned so much about writing and I've gotten to try so many new things from them! But I haven't taken an actual break of more than a few days in I don't actually know how long. Many months. And the last time I was able to work an original scene was Yule, and before that Halloween. And quite a few months before that. Not being able to work on original content has caused me to have to restrain the creative part of my mind that comes up with new, fun ideas, and say "No, our writing energy needs to go to the important thing!" which has caused it to eventually shut down the part of the brain that makes the writing go brrrr, making me go through long stints of solid block followed by huge bursts, and then nothing again. Two, both the burnout and the inability for me to work on original scenes in general is preventing me from filling in certain gaps in the game that it needs to have added before it can be moved on to the next version, including the next major area. Three, the current structure is simply unsustainable and easily broken with the addition of a single new patron at the right time throwing it into utter chaos, leaving me stressed and in a panic and in a constant game of catch up. I need a system that can more flexibly accept new patrons.

What is the actual change?

Right now, patrons have "months", when they sign up for one of the 3 scene commissioning tiers and then every other month they get a scene which is expected to be delivered that month. What is going to change is that instead, patrons of those 3 tiers will get a "Token". The Token will essentially function the same, having the same functions as the tiers do currently, and they will instead redeem it to be added to the schedule. They will still receive them at the same rate, once upon signing up for the tier and then every other month they are subscribed, but it will add less pressure for the scenes to be delivered within that individual month and if a patron doesn't immediately have an idea for a scene they don't have to feel like they need to immediately redeem it or possibly lose their opportunity. This enables me to set a schedule with time in it for me and my own original scenes. Instead of, for example, trying to pack in Krow, Mukiro, and Winter all into one month because that's the month they all signed up, and feeling I have to get them all done in 6 weeks in a row, it gives me the ability to say I'm going to do Krow > Me > Mukiro > Winter > Me > The next patron to redeem. And if I get to my own week and find I don't have something I actually want to write I can take that time to rest, work on the game, or just move on to the next patron. I will likely schedule 4-5 scenes at a time and any beyond that will be placed in the Lunchbox Queue in the order they're received and will be slotted into the schedule as I go. This does mean that there could be a couple more weeks between patrons getting their scenes which is the one downside of the new system, but it takes off a lot of the pressure and it means my work is going to be higher quality and that ultimately I don't burn out. Also, I want to test out the ability for patrons to combine their tokens!

What isn't changing?

This has no effect on the Tasting or Swallowed tiers since they don't request scenes anyway. This will not affect the pricing structure. It will not affect my effort to still try to get scenes to patrons in an efficient manner. Patron scenes will still be in order of first-come-first-served with some deference given to very long-standing subscribers. It will not give me permission to just stack Me > Me > Me > Krow > Me > Me > etc. schedules. Patrons will still only be allowed to redeem one scene per month. Though the schedule and Lunchbox are both public if anyone wishes to do an anonymous request they will still be able to do so.

Combining tokens:

Length- My current scenes have exploded in length, partially due to the burnout causing me to go through long periods of block followed by awkward and intense bursts of being able to write before returning to being blocked. For the sake of both my quality and sanity, I'm going to try to restrain the length of my scenes a bit. My goal is from the 10-13+ page scenes I've been doing down to where they used to be, around 6-7 pages. (However, if a scene just ends up coming out longer it just ends up being longer, I'm not going to stop myself if I'm enjoying writing something.) By combining two tokens though one could redeem a longer scene if they have an idea they want to be longer like 12-15 pages.

Tier- Alternatively, I am going to test out as a trial the ability for people to combine their tokens. So Gurgling Tier Patrons will earn Silver tokens, Fully Digested earn Gold tokens, and Great Googly Moogly patrons earn Diamond tokens. Among the other benefits of the tier the Silver token allows you to request a scene with an existing patron in the game. A Gold allows you to request a usually more in-depth scene with your own original character as either predator or prey. A Diamond token is pretty carte-blanche to request addons to existing scenes, longer scenes with more complex coding, or request an up to 11 page story outside of the game (I'm willing to work out a lot for a Diamond token). To start, again as a trial, I will allow people to combine 2 Silver tokens into a Gold token and 2 Gold tokens into a Diamond token.

All in all this will be a very small change with very little impact to the actual timeframe or delivery of patron scene, just taking off a little of the pressure and constraint as well as creating more visibility for everyone to see the schedule in advance, it will also give a little bit more flexibility for people of lower request tiers to choose to stock up for a higher request tier or a bigger request if they so choose! This will be going into effect after my next update release.

If anyone has any questions or suggestions please let me know either in the comments or by DM, I'm happy to see what people think!