Update #35 - Future Patreon Restructuring, Discord, and Pathologic 2 (Patreon)

Afternoon everyone!

I'll get the bigger news out of the way first. The Discord server is shutting down, and the Patreon will be paused come July. The two are not related, but are convenient.

So let's get into the details!

To give the short version of why, it's basically too much for me to manage properly now. The launch of the Discord server was initially a much smaller userbase. While I couldn't be around constantly (and didn't want to in an attempt to avoid a personality cult) I could still check in fairly frequently to deal with things like proper moderation, generally attending stuff, scanning the review suggestions channel, and general Discord management . . . stuff. As the channel has nearly tripled in size since then, the result is a lot more people using it and messaging me through Discord, and also every other form of social media out there. I'm still over a month behind on mail after nearly catching up in early May and getting buried again. I still have lots of unanswered Twitter DMs and, even more unsettling, YouTube messages. While I still want to remain open for contact from virtually everyone, Discord is by far the messiest since it's also the same account I use for talking to friends and collab projects, and I can (understandably) expect to get bombarded with messages every time I'm online. This isn't something that's ever really bothered me, it's just the sheer volume combined with everything else I'm trying to answer or respond to meaningfully, and it feels a lot shittier for me when there's now a big server with my name slapped on it that I keep neglecting.  To quote Drowning Pool, "something's gotta give". 

So on June 13th, after E3 is said and done, it'll be shutting down. This will give people time to officially add friends, form other subgroups, and stuff like that in the meanwhile. People have already been doing that over the past year, which is fantastic and really what I was hoping for in the first place. After that it's dead, and I won't be officially endorsing any kind of successor group for the time being. While some might suggest doing a PATREON EXCLUSIVE Discord server, it really boils down to the exact same issue of time management. Plus, I still don't like the idea of having a chatroom or community behind a paywall. I could also think about other things to replace it in the next month or two. 

So now comes the question of what to do with the Patreon tiers.

I've decided on the simplest solution. The five dollar tier and up will now be eligible to enter the pool to ask credit questions for the videos. This will also allow me to make a standalone post to collect those rather than attaching them to the regular updates. While this will be locking the two dollar tier out of asking those in a video, I'm still fully available to contact for questions/suggestions/etc at mandaloremovies@gmail.com, so this just means your question and answer will be displayed publicly. No one is actually getting locked out of asking me stuff, just getting locked out of it being a spectacle. So the five dollar tier IS losing a golden name color on a Discord server. 

This is also a convenient time to do this because I'm going to be very busy with irl stuff in July and my off time will be devoted to getting Elite Dangerous done and I don't want to be distracted with any smaller projects. For that reason, the Patreon will be on pause then. This will also give people a solid month to adjust or cancel their tiers as they see fit with these changes, so realistically this won't be going fully into effect until August.

In the meantime, I'm still recording for Pathologic 2 but I'm close to the end of that stage. I can tell already the video will be less of a story breakdown compared to the first since there's only one perspective of the three characters so far, but I'm still expecting a longer video. I'll make a post later to  give an update of where I'm at with that.

Once again, thanks for all your support!