Mind Drop #49 (09/07/2022) (Patreon)

Hello everyone! Mackenzie here!

I hope you've all had a pleasant few weeks. I'm back again today to give you an update on what to expect this month.

Braindrop and I spent a large portion of August preparing and planning to release a steady and consistent amount of content for the foreseeable future.
While the exact details of our plan will not be shared publicly, we do want to share that we expect to have our first release before the next Mind Drop. (So sometime before September 21st)

Furthermore, we'd also like to share that the first bit of side content that will be brought up to date is the Birthday Renders. Things were left off with the month of June and we plan to catch up by releasing 2 months at a time. So this first batch of Birthday Renders will be for the girls with birthdays in June and July. (Margaret, Harper, Natalie, Rachael, Penelope, Valerie, Millie, and Stacy)
We expect to release these renders shortly after the next update.

With the major news out of the way, let's talk some more.
I was asked quite a few things, so let me answer some of them.

Q: What size of updates can we expect? What size will this first update be?

This first update will be around 300 renders long.
Future updates will vary in scale, some will be much larger but Braindrop and I have agreed that we do not want any update to be smaller than 200 renders.
The goal is to finish a scene in every release and to not interrupt one by stopping in the middle of it.

Q: 300? After all this time? That's all?

For the moment, yes.
There's obviously more that has been made already but after much discussion we've decided that to achieve our goal of consistent and steady releases we need to start with achievable goals and work our way up.
We both understand that this isn't the ideal way of doing things and it isn't our end goal but we do prefer having steady releases even if they are smaller compared to the results of this last year.

We have to start somewhere and luckily we can only really go up from here.


Q: So when would the update after this one be?

Not long after.
Our preferred result would be to have both of these upcoming ones out in September and that's what we're aiming for but we're not ready to lock that in.

Q: What about client polls? Any news on other side content?

Client polls will be resuming on September 19th. We do not currently plan on having weekly polls for them. More so every 2-3 weeks, but all polls will be held on Mondays.

Braindrop is really against putting out too many posts a week so we don't want to be spammy with side content and we intend to release things together when we can.
There's some silly renders as well as additional teasers that are ready to go that we intend to post sometime soon.

As far as things like DITLO and newer things we have planned, we're not ready to discuss further yet.

Q: How has Braindrop been?

He's been well. He's still trying to find the balance between family life and his work life but I think he's happy with how things have been going.
He has been staying away from all of the socials and just the internet in general.
He says his mental health has improved tremendously and that he feels "In tune" with the game again.
And he's excited for the things to come.

Q: How can we be sure that things are different this time?

Simply put, you can't and we're not asking you to be.

It's spooky, we're being vague with our plans and all of our good will was spent a long time ago.
If you feel shaky about things then we urge you to pause your pledge until things have improved.
We're doing everything we can to make things right but it's all been planning and talking about those plans... results haven't happened yet so only time can tell.

We obviously feel good about where things are headed but we're not going to pretend like this past year didn't happen. We have to earn that trust back and we do not expect it to be given to us for nothing.

Q: Mackenzie, in your opinion: What was the cause of the past year and why is it different now?

(I'll be leaving all of the happenings of his personal life out of this answer. Though they obviously play a huge role in this past year, it isn't my place to speak on it.)

I've learned a lot about Braindrop. He's a wonderful person that cares very much about the people around him and is as loyal as they come.
But, he's a dreamer.
He has a million ideas in his mind that he can organize on his own and plan out fully and he's the kind of person that can throw his head at a problem for hours and hours until he finds a solution.

He can recall the most miniscule details from WVM almost instantaneously. Whether it be from the original or the rework.
He has storyboarded out all of WVM but only the large events. He has plans for everything in between but it's all in his head.
And I'll admit he is great at remembering them... but it's obviously not ideal.

Braindrop has had a lot happen in his personal life these past few years. A lot of it has effected him mentally and on top of being prescribed with ADHD and new medications he has had a rough time organizing all of those thoughts.
He's taken steps to alleviate those issues like writing down everything and story boarding the smaller things but that isn't his strong suit.
Since he was having a hard time sorting through everything he no longer felt like he could come up with good ideas or even how to make a scene that fit appropriately. He no longer felt in tune with the game he loved to make and it was very difficult for him.

He's told me it's the main reason he abruptly switched to the new timeline, since he was having a hard time working between the two and keeping them separated.

On top of that, there's decisions that have to be made on where to take the story next and he did not feel he was in the right head space to make those big decisions.
There's also the emotional attachment he has to certain scenes that he had input on from people that have since passed.

Essentially, Braindrop is human. He has shortcomings that sadly were exposed in a  very rough way to him and WVM means so much to him that he just didn't know what steps to take or how to move forward until he handled his mental health issues.
It's never fun to battle your own mind.

I think things are different because he realized he doesn't have to do this alone. He originally only reached out to me to help with socials but after discussing further my role expanded into helping him organize all of the things he's been struggling with.
It's still a work in progress and we're not here to say everything is fixed and everything will be perfect here on out.
We're trying though, and we're not going to stop trying.
Braindrop has said he's finding it much easier to work on things now so, we're feeling good about where things are headed.

Closing out

Apologies for this coming out so late in the day! We were discussing about what all to include and it took longer than we thought it might.

We originally planned to showcase some of what went into making the crowd in the upcoming basketball game but we wanted this small Q&A to come out now. The showcase will be in the next mind drop!

Also thank you guys very much for the warm welcome to the team! I'm very happy to be here and be a part of this game.

That's all we have to share for now, but we'll talk again very soon!

Have a good one everybody!
Bye!