Roadmap to 0.1.1

With April only a week away, I wanted to give an update as to where we're at and how things are going to proceed all the way up to May 1st when the next build of Four-Letter Word will be released to patrons. First off, since Patreon does not allow you to adjust the prices of reward tiers while there are currently patrons subscribed to it, I will be deleting those tiers shortly after this post goes live and replacing them with the new reward tiers that you'll have to sign up for again. The billing cycle will remain on a per creation basis for now so you shouldn't be charged anything when pledging your support just yet. It'll be very helpful to me if you sign up for the tier you plan to remain pledged at so I can get a feel for how things are going to look in the future and also for you so that you can still view any patron-only posts. When re-pledging, please be sure to read each of the reward tiers carefully before making your selection as they will have changed quite drastically from what they were previously.

I will be closing the patron-only polls in the next couple of days. Unless there is a massive influx of votes to the contrary within that time period, it looks like the content update schedule we'll be moving ahead with will be the monthly option. Assuming there are no changes to that, what will happen is on April 2nd, this Patreon will switch to a monthly billing cycle but WILL NOT charge upfront yet. Since the new build will not be arriving until May 1st, for the month of April there will be no patron rewards distributed and thus no charges being applied. You will be billed on the 1st of May this way and receive your benefits accordingly at that time. When the new build is released, this Patreon will switch to have a charge upfront to prevent people from making fraudulent pledges to scrape content and remove their pledges without contributing at all, like what happened quite frequently in the past. In short, this is all done to ensure that no one will be charged anything until May 1st regardless of when you decide to pledge, and then every new patron from then on will be charged upon pledging and the 1st of every month thereafter.

Work on 0.1.1 will begin on April 1st and the May 1st build will include whatever work was completed by then. As laid out in the patron-only poll, this option means that FLW will have a monthly update schedule but there will be no invisible quota of content that I'll be trying to meet for each build. I will be spending roughly an even amount of time on the visual novel each month but it won't always translate into the same amount of content, especially where development of new features or asset overhaul is concerned. The majority of my current patrons have been very understanding of my past and current circumstances in choosing this option and my hope is that any future patrons will, too. Moving forward, I do believe this is the best option for both the stability of the project and my own health.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I'm very excited to get back into the swing of things and share the next build with all of you when the time comes!