Regarding the Feral Trait

I plan on doing a large "game design" post tomorrow detailing a lot of the changes that I have planned for the game systems and clue you guys in a bit more on what the game will look like moving forward.

For now, though, I realize that there's been a lot of controversy over some of the changes we've been making to the monster designs and where we're coming from with our decisions, and since I was discussing it with a fan in an e-mail I thought I would repost/expand upon that here.

For those of you who aren't familiar: the current plans are to have an optional Feral trait in the game that will allow you to have more monstrous/bestial monsters. A dickwolf with the trait would be wolf-like, a stallion would be horse-like, etc, as opposed to the more anthro baseline versions of the monsters we're putting in the game.

We're falling back on having the Feral variations on the monsters be associated with a trait for a few reasons, first of all being that a lot of players are completely driven away by what a lot see as more "out there" content. That doesn't mean we're abandoning more monstrous monsters at all, or that we don't want this kind of content in the game, but rather that we want it to be optional, hence making it a trait. The monsters we've been putting in place are essentially the "vanilla" versions. Think of it like if we had it so that you had to watch male/male or female/female sex animations even if you weren't into that sort of stuff; we want the baseline to be fairly human looking monsters that will appeal to most people and players who want the more monstrous/bestial content will absolutely still be able to get it.

So yes, the trend with the monster design for the vanilla, non-traited monsters is more towards anthro/human-like. This does not mean, however, that we intend to give any less love to the Feral variations. Feral monsters will have just as much attention (and require just as much work on our part), as the vanilla monsters. I mean, the fact that I made the original placeholder art as those style of monsters should show that I clearly want to deliver that kind of content. We've simply been focusing on making the vanilla monsters first because they're, well, vanilla. They're the baseline, the least weird variations of their respective monster types.

A lot of people are upset because we've had to remove a lot of the monstrous content as we go about making these changes, but the Feral trait, and the creatures and animations associated with it will absolutely be implemented in the game before it makes beta. There will be wolf-like dickwolfs, horse-like stallions, and more monstrous demons. The only reason we have to remove content in the interim is because this is an alpha and an ongoing work in progress, it's not even a beta release, and much of the existing content was always going to have to be replaced. Most games wouldn't even be visible to the public at this stage of development, but because we've had a very public development and rely very much on generous donors we do these public releases so that you guys can see and share in our progress.

This game is extremely far from finished, and there is still a massive amount of it that will need to be changed or cut or altered before we make it to beta, much less release. Of course, we are dedicated to paying the utmost attention to fan feedback and what you guys want to see. But you have to realize that we aren't at a place in development where we can deliver anything approaching a finished product or guarantee stability or content update to update, and it is entirely possible that you will see content that we have to cut out from the game for a month so that we can fix it up and put it back into the game another month. The game is very much still an alpha, and update-to-update our concerns are more with actually getting the game in a more complete state than delivering what fans want for this particular update. We'll be able to focus on delivering content and game play each update once we reach beta, but that's still many months out from now.

Finally, concerning players who want more petite and skinny monster types: these will absolutely be coming. The harpy and all of the neoteny variations will be designed to cater to those tastes.

Overall, I just humbly request your patience. On my part, I plan to do a lot more updating/keeping you guys more in the loop with more frequent blog posts explaining what I'm working on. I realize this is a big thing that a lot of fans are clamoring for, and honestly it can help me gather feedback and explain decisions we're making, as well as giving you guys a bit more insight into our work process.

Anyway, feel free to leave questions for me in the comments.

EDIT: Whoops, got a little sidetracked with setting up new animation poses, will try to have that game design post up on Thursday (tomorrow)