'd be great.

Feared hes not able to work on it anymore (well... as in dead)

Eskarn's message is enough for me to hold out hope. but I wonder....

would it be possible (if you are willing @Eskarn) to see if you can be the "go between" for the project? Maybe create a different forum topic, "V4.0 Updates"? Let us know at the very least that progress is being made on things. If you can give more details on progress, how far from the total goal and such (no deadlines, release dates, expectations, or any other kind of committal messages) that would be great for obvious reasons, but even without that it would help.

At the very least you can ask (but only if you are ok with it, it would kind of put you in a bit of an elevated role here on the forums and cast a spotlight on you and your messages. some like that concept, some dont). I would offer to do so, but I am a newer member and you seem to have some kind of rapport with him. You have a much better chance.

I will say that as of last month they are all good and still working on it, i cant go into specifics because i said i would keep the messages private.

I know that version 4 or whatever the number ends up being is not a small project its rebuilding all the systems that needed attention
and when you improve some systems you break all the other ones that interact with them so they need fixing/improving.
same thing happens to the game im making, i improved one system then broke 5 that interacted with it and then when fixing each of them i broke all the ones that interacted with them.
My project was very VERY simple in comparison but still took a good 3-6 months to fix everything.

i know that they have done a lot of work on the base engine like the pretty lighting they released screenshots of and I'm wishing they did a 3.6 so i could play with the pretty lighting already.
SERIOUSLY I WANNA PLAY WITH THE PRETTY LIGHTING

There's also a lot of improvements to the performance and how the engine handles things.

With all that being said i have no idea on how far along they are because i don't know the scope of the project.
I don't know what the end product will feature.
i have no idea what things are finished or being currently worked on except for the few things XPA tells me every now and then.

I'm still confident enough that i'm working on 2 mods.
First one is the full redesign of Doc story because i'm not happy with how it turned out and i rushed it.

Second is a massive project that will be announced when its finished... so i don't rush it.
but
Largest house scene i have done
Saiko only (Lets me focus on making her story really good)
Multiple starting scenarios
A whole bunch of intractable items including a light switch for every room
Showers
Sneaking, Hiding, story and environment manipulation
All new animations
Implementing the Real Time Reaction System that will be made for Doc Story(keep an eye on Doc Story for more information on that)

Very cool. thanks for the info

Glad that one story is for saiko and not Moinca. Saiko is my favorite (Sorry Monica!)
I am excited for both. I played the Doc story for 3.5 (I came after all the fixes so I didnt see the bugs), but it was really good.

Also... LOL at the "Pretty Lighting" Comment

then I guess you're his spokesperson, Eskarn. a monthly update that he's still communicating and working will be sufficient, I think. or have him set up a youtube or twitch channel broadcasting his 'office hours'.

I think it's amazing that you Eskar still keeps your hopes up.
It's truly unbelivable how a game devoloper decides to pause his own game to rebuild everything. Alot of people were hyped and after 8 months he posted information about the new version and people praised it, even if some were upset that it took so long to get some information.
However, the last text in xpadmins post were "I will however update on the state of the development more frequently."
And now it has almost been 4 years since he wrote anything about the next version.
And there has been nothing added to 3.5.
You say that you have talked to him about it, but im sure that you haven't seen any proof of progess either.
Im even suprised that this site is still up and running, but i guess that money is fun.

Version 3.5 is a finished game, the stories complete and there are no major bugs.

After they finished 3.5 they took that knowledge about what they did right and wrong and set off to make their engine better.
Now this means tearing it apart because you cant improve one system without breaking everything that even looks at it.

Let's take my game for example, i have grid based world and i was STUPID and made the entire map one entity.
This means that if i needed to change a single tile it would have to iterate through thousands of grids to find the correct one to move.
Guess what.... It crashed a lot, i decided to fix that issue by make it a chunk based system.
It worked really well and performance was better but the entire game did not work.
Room generation did not work.
Object placement did not work.
Most of the UI's that referenced anything to do with the level did not work.
My main Lair Handler that keeps values for everything did not work.

Took awhile to fix everything and it was worth it but this is a simple blueprint inside of UE4.
Can you imagine how much would break inside a game engine if you were to improve a single system, and from what i gather they are improving everything.

This is going to take time and a lot of it and XPA does not like to get anyone's hopes up or post on unfinished systems so waiting is gonna be a thing.
If they did just grab the money and run... ah well 3.5 is a standalone game so you got what you paid for, i believe thats how a business works.
It would be like demanding Bethesda give you Fallout 4 because you bought Fallout 3 since its on the same engine. (unless you're one of the kickstarter backers that did the we get all package)

Except that Bethesda didn't even give us a fully functional game and required the help of modders to fix their game, well, all of their games actually..

Eskarn, i think you've misunderstood what he was getting at. I think what he means is that there has been no update by the dev himself at all, not game-wise but news-wise. It doesnt take that long to write hey i'm still alive and am working on it, or here is what i've done so far, okthxbai. It'd literally take him a minute, 10 mins if he details what he has been doing until now, but there has been nothing from him for a long long time now. Everyone knows that recoding takes a while, but writing a news post every once in a while is effortless, and people would at least know that the project is still on track.

So it's been a very, very long time since I made a post. I figured I'd throw in my two cents here.

When it comes to looking for updates, I pop by once a week or every couple of weeks and see if there's been anything posted about a new release. This is the way I've been handling the lack of news. Now, that being said;

While I do understand that programming is very involving, takes a lot of time and then doubles-down when you need to seek out all the little bugs, not posting at all is not a good way to operate. It leaves a lot of doubt in the majority of the minds of your potential customers. This could eventually affect sales in the future. Even if there's no news to give, simply stating that you're still working on things can go a long way. People need a flow of information, even if it's slow, to keep faith in a product they're waiting for.

The creator of Lilith's Throne is a good example here as even though their updates are very far apart, and there are many delays, there is still information explaining what's going on. Posting any kind of update is still an update, even if there had been little to no progress. Information is being shared, thus the majority of the followers become satisfied. There are few things more frustrating than a lack of information.

The issue I see being brought up is not so much that people are expecting 4.0 to be released right away or that the wait is long, it's just the communication is incredibly poor. While someone might claim they heard from the admin about how things are going, that's hearsay until the person in question actually states something themselves. No offence is meant by this, it's simply fact.

If the admin popped into this thread and simply stated something along the lines of "the project is still ongoing and still needs a lot of work. We've <insert small note of progress or discovery of bugs>." that would be all we'd need. Even if an update of progress is posted once a month, I'm fairly certain that nearly everyone would be satisfied with that.

I enjoy the product I have. I look forward to 4.0 being made, if it ever does get released. I'll continue checking back for updates. But as much as I enjoy what I have, and no matter the patience and understanding I have, the developer really needs to get their act together on posting ANY kind of information, even if they don't want to post on something unfinished. It's far, far worse to keep going as they are.

That's my opinion anyway. And now, back to lurking.