Some clarity needed here:
We shifted priorities once recently. Not quite regularly 
But I understand the impression.
I’m not sure if you caught radio last week, but we discussed this a bit. The short version is that the email/gdpr stuff required reworking the underlying account code enough that further improvements have become more viable than they were pre-alpha.
As a result, we’re now in a place where larger gains are to be had by working on the original code again, which means the alpha will likely be put on hold, with parts of it being back-ported into the current game.
Our monthly blog post will come soon which will cover this in a bit more detail.
Things change. If we were to have done this, we wouldn’t have moved to send out the emails, and wouldn’t be legally compliant.
That change itself was dictated by unforeseeable circumstances, including IC’s lack of funding and personal finance issues on my end. To be blunt: I’m working my day job far less so I can spend more time on IC, but I’m feeling the financial pinch as a result, which affects IC’s priorities. Hence the recent shift to player re-acquisition (which included the email/gdpr stuff as the main deliverable).
Funding is a large factor, and atm we’re severely underperforming for the year (wink, nudge).
A long term plan is useful, but “stick to it and finish it” is oversimplifying the process. Sometimes we have to change directions, as happened recently. This is especially true given budgetary challenges.
Most of the ideas that have blown up recently are specifically related to further account revamp. I’m still knee-deep in that part of the code, so I’m getting ideas out as they come to me so they aren’t forgotten. I used to keep them on a private to-do list, but I see no reason that the community shouldn’t have insight into opportunities I find as I rework things.
This list does exactly that. This won’t determine exact priorities, but it is a significant part of how I determine “what’s next?”
I do have a general year plan, but given that my hours for IC are never guaranteed, it’s hard to project how much we can expect to get done.
Until I can secure consistent hours for the game, a long term plan is little more than a wishlist. We’re about 8% the way to enough funding where I could guarantee enough weekly hours for a 6-month plan to make sense. Until then, fast and loose is the reality.
This is why donations matter so much. It bears repeating what I have on the Patreon page:
Very literally, your payment translates into additional work that I can put into the game’s future.
This is indeed very literal.
We don’t have the financial backing for it to work this way. Until we do, our priorities are subject to change in accordance with our financial needs. That is to say, unpredictably.
To make this idea as stated a reality, more donations are needed. I can’t commit myself personally to a work plan if IC isn’t bringing in enough funding to sustain itself. Right now, it isn’t.
So to anybody who likes this idea, here’s your chance to make it happen.
