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December 30 Update (Patreon)

Published:
2017-12-30 23:33:20
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Posting a day early so it's not on New Year's Eve. I'm going to separate out some of the thoughts I might otherwise write up in my "2017 in review" post. Fair warning, these will be more on the negative end. Don't want to be self-indulgent, but I hope by bringing up these things now, the post for the new year can be positive and forward-looking.

I always try to be honest with these posts, so I have to say that I haven't really made significant progress on 0.32.0 yet. I do have some pieces done and hope to make it a good release, but I'm not sure how the timing will work.

By objective metrics, 2017 was a really good year for me. I created content I feel happy about and built a stronger foundation for my work in the future. By subjective metrics, this year was very rough.

This year contained some of the most burned out moments I've ever experienced. Not burned out on TLS, or on creating in general - these things still give me life. But there are so many other factors and conditions that just wear me down, and their effect is cumulative. This year marked a significant rise in negative conditions, some of which I can try to adapt to or avoid and others that I'm afraid are simply part of the job.

Because of this cumulative effect, I haven't performed to the standards I set for myself this year. I've done some good work, but there have been so many productive hours lost that shouldn't have been. Believe me, I'm unhappier about this than anyone else, and I've given serious thought as to solutions. But as disciplined as I try to be, there's an element to creative energy that I haven't found a way to control.

People will say that I should take a vacation and consider my mental health, and those are very reasonable comments. Yet this is harder than it sounds. The easiest thing to take a break from is the one I most don't want to give up: actually creating content. Everything else is harder to ignore (though admittedly, some of this is my personality).

Again, I worry this will come across as self-indulgent or fishing for sympathy. But I wanted to bring this up now, soon after I put out an update, instead of raising it later and risking it seeming like an ad hoc excuse. I hope 2018 will be a very productive year, but I want to be clear about the challenges.

Well, that's all for now. In a week I'll be posting reflections on 2017, more positive not in a false way but because I have a ton of positive things to say too. I'll be outlining what you can expect for TLS and other projects in the coming year.

I wish everyone a happy new year! See you in 2018!

Comments

Bladestorm

It's understandable that you don't want to give up creating content so in a way in not to get burned out or just relax for a bit maybe make some slow creative making such as writing stories but taking it slow or coming up future content for your projects by brainstorming with a close colleague or friend just to keep creating what you love but also taking it easy for a bit. Anyway just want to say that for ideas but I hope you have a happy New Year.

Antonio

Happy New Year Sierra Lee. If you feel tired of doing things you don't like, just do the things you like for sometime. I am using the RPG Maker, and while my challenge with it isn't even remotely near to yours, I do know how certain parts of game creation can be tough and tiring.

ECD

Happy new year. I've sincerely enjoyed the work you've done this year.

Dubsington

Sierra, I follow a lot of creators and you're probably the best of the lot in terms of delivering value for the pledge, and that's considering all factors-- timeliness, quality of work, transparency, responsiveness, etc. You've earned a lot of goodwill points with me, and I think the preponderance of your fans would agree. If you need to restructure your delivery schedule, then do it; fewer TLS updates per year would be a bummer, but Sierra burning out and shutting down would absolutely suck, suck, suck. What I am saying is you can reduce your output some and nobody will be lighting torches and grabbing the pitchforks. The job is here to make you happy (either directly or by financial compensation), you're not here to do the job.

Darthjake

Maybe take some mini - power breaks? A day or 2 here or there, go visit your local zoo / museum, take a walk in the park or challenge yourself to read a "not your usual type of novel?" I dunno, but I've like all the products you've put out so far except for Crimson Gray, (caveat): I have not played Crimson so I can't "like or not like it" lol. Anyway do what you need to do, and do it a a pace that's good for you.

Desertopa

I'm sorry to hear you've been feeling burned out or frustrated, but as far as losing productive hours or not meeting the standards you set for yourself, I hope you're not suffering from holding yourself to unrealistic standards. In terms of volume of high quality output, I think that you're really setting the standard of the field. If you feel you're not being productive enough, you might be holding yourself to expectations that nobody else could meet at all. I really hope you don't end up being the only person who feels that you're not doing enough.

Nome

Thanks for all the hard work and dedication you put into your work, Sierra, it is very much appreciated. I hope next year can be just as good as this one.

sierralee

If anything, I'd like to increase my output. This is honestly what I want to do with the rest of my life, and when things are going well I can put in extremely long days and feel even more energetic at the end of them. It's just that the reality of the job adds a lot of baggage to the pure creation at the core, and I need to do a better job with that baggage. I'm glad people here are so generally supportive, though that's far from universally true. But one truism I've reflected on this year is that it's not possible or even desirable to make everyone happy, so in 2018 I'll be trying to do better at focusing on what I think matters most overall. Which will definitely include a bunch more content!

sierralee

Thank you for the vote of confidence, of course, and I'm glad people like what I produce. I don't feel my standards are unrealistic, though. I'm not measuring in terms of broad goals so much as individual days/hours - there are some where I don't accomplish much of anything for poor reasons. Not days where I took some time off to play a game or something: those are a normal part of the process. There are things that I think/hope I can avoid with conscious changes to my life. We'll see, anyway.

Argenten

You are an amazing creator and artist, thanks for all the hard work and pushing through the RL stuff that is getting you down. There is nothing wrong with needing to vent or express things getting difficult.

Ravellon

You have to keep in mind, you can't keep up top performance for very long. But if you slump too far in the other direction you'll find it very hard to get back into gear. I find it useful to set three levels of expected result: The bottom line, which should never be crossed even if I have to skip on sleep at one point - that one is pretty low admittedly. The safe spot that is what I expect to get from steady work ~5 hours a day without actually exerting myself but not wasting time either (allowing ~3 hours of wasted time because shit happens) - if I don't fall below that level that means I should feel good about myself for the work well done. And then the result that I want to ideally get at the end of a given timeframe. If I reach that point that's the reason to feel like a complete boss for days afterwards, right until new goal is set. I deliberately do not allow myself to raise the first two points until I consistently end up above second point for 6 months. Because to raise your expectations on false grounds will cause you to underperform later (according to new expectations) which will make you feel bad which will give another hit to your performance. The best is an enemy of good. If you feel that you underperformed don't try to fix it by overperforming, if you fail you will feel much worse than now and that is detrimental to your productivity. Try to return to the level where you felt you performed adequately and maintain that. After you keep that up for a while, try to push yourself once more. The reason I became your parton (and yours only) is because of your steady progress and overall stability. Not because of content itself or it's amount per month, that just made me look into the game in the first place. So stability is the most important part of this endeavour.

Ravellon

Never judge your performance on daily basis. At least weekly or, better yet monthly basis is needed. There are bad days and there are good days, that's normal and you can't do anything about it. There always will be wasted time and unproductive hours. But when you look at the result of month's work you get monthly average. That's what you need to measure yourself by, average over a timeframe. If you slump below the level you deem acceptable you just buckle down and work harder during next week and get the desired average at the end of the month. Basically, you should never feel guilty for not being productive, it should just mean you need to work a bit harder for some time afterwards to compensate. Not because you failed to be productive but because those ebbs and flows of productivity are normal.

Frosty1979

Maybe you could hire some help to do some of the more draining work, like the coding stuff? I mean if you really plan to increase your output, forming something like your own little game studio could be the next step.

be

This doesn't come across as sympathy fishing to me, this is more in line with transparency in what is going on atm which is very welcome when it comes to patron creators.

sierralee

This is a possibility I take very seriously. Unfortunately, in some ways I'm the biggest obstacle to this, because many tasks are either 1) things I really want to do myself or 2) things that are hard to delegate. Having said that, in 2017 I experimented with hiring out mapping, and I intend to do more in 2018. Hiring out coding is also something I consider, though given the engines I use, that's actually not that large a percentage of my working time.

sierralee

I'm glad. I've always tried to be transparent in my work.

Chaon

I agree with Frosty. You need another helping hand if you do a game this big. Of course it would delay the progress, but it also decrease your workload. You don't have to let them do anything you deem important, just handling minor stuff like proofreading and the like should be a fine first step.

Lamsey

Happy New Year when it comes, Sierra. Your regular updates to TLS and your other projects have been a beacon of light in an otherwise murky year. It only takes a look around Patreon to see that you've coped with adversity admirably compared to many of your peers, and I hope you feel proud of what you've achieved, even if you didn't hit all of your personal goals. Here's hoping things will be brighter for you in 2018. You deserve it! Also, props to all you other patrons who have helped Sierra out this year with graphics, scripts, bug reports and so on. There are times I wish I were able to do more to help out, and I'm grateful to those who do put in the hours.

Andrey Kulikov

"Believe me, I'm unhappier about this than anyone else, and I've given serious thought as to solutions". I hope you will find solutions for these problems. I trust you enough to say one thing: If you think that there is a problem and you need to find a solution then I can believe in your words. But, like you said, you are unhappier about this than anyone else. I don't want to make you more unhappy so I really wish you to find solutions! As fan of your work and admirer of your determination, I'll support your journey with money and words. And I hope that your patrons will stay as supportive as they are. And... while I respect your views about your standarts I hope that you don't steal happiness from yourself with feeling of guilt or something like that. You are giving happiness to so many people here. And you have grown so much as a creator. As a human, you make mistakes. But I hope you have strength to forgive yourself and move forward. P.S. I know that you know it but I'll say it anyway. I'm sure that your patrons don't pledge to "perfect creator Sierra Lee". We pledge to "human Sierra Lee". Happy New Year and thank you for everything!

Grif end

Happy new year !

sierralee

Same to you and everyone else reading!

Fulminato

Happy new year. and start the year with a very tiny detail. inside the immigration office in tarran'kan slum the orc over the 'door' of the upper right office (he says "Not sure if want apply.") will be remove if tak'kan score is >= 10, but the requisite for entry that building is tak'kan score >= 10, so no one can see that orc.

Primal Crisis

Will the Amulet of alchemy be getting buffed or is it meant to be only used outside of combat?

Decanter

It's usable in combat. Just only works for the person it's equipped to. Outside of combat, the game saves you the trouble of shuffling it around.

sierralee

That's indeed how it works - thanks, Decanter. Primal Crisis, if you mean that you feel the effect is too weak, my concern with buffing it is that the out-of-battle effect would be rather dramatic.

Primal Crisis

I basically keep status blocking gear to avoid having my plans interrupted, so I got the impression it would more useful outside of combat since it can be shuffled around to get more use from recovery items. Also I mostly use heal spells instead of potions unless its blue to have Sx since I never know when I will want/need a new piece of gear. I don't know what is being planned but would it really become too powerful if the recovery effect work for items and abilities?

FinetalPies

I've gone through the entire game without ever using a potion. I am literally the corpse at the very beginning of the game that you made fun of. I'm saving them until I might really need them

sierralee

Haha, I'm that corpse too, honestly. That message was as much to myself as anyone.