Important update about the patreon plus next update roadmap

I thought about waiting till the next fortnightly for this, but I want to give people as much heads up as possible, just in case this affects people's decisions to support me, and for how much.   

After a discussion on the discord and looking at some other more successful patreons I've decided to make a change to the $1 tier. Most patreons that do well, I've noticed, don't even have a  $1 tier, and a couple people have indicated to me that I'm undercharging for the benefits of that tier.  

It made sense back in the day when I had no expectations whatsoever.  I only started the Patreon because a couple people asked for it, and had no idea of just what I could offer that people would want.  Now though, when this is one of my primary sources of income, and might well be able to support full-time work this decision makes less sense now than when it started. 

So now $1 will be for poll voting only, and as always, my thanks for whatever support you are willing to give me. For first notification, I will be introducing two $3 tiers: First Notification tier and the First Notification and HMV interest tier. While HMVs will  always be a side project at most, some people  have asked for it as an option, and I feel it will be a good way to gauge interest in terms of spending time video editing in addition to working on the games. 

This is the only tier I will ever have related to the HMVs, as I have no ownership of any of the sources used, so I feel that offering other options at higher tiers like commissions would be on dodgy grounds (no slight intended on HMV makers with their own patreons who do this, this is just how I feel about it myself). That said, if you're on this tier (or on any higher tier) you will get exclusive access to any early drafts of HMVs that I do as I think that's a fair thing to offer, and really it's a good thing for me too as it encourages me to polish them more than I might have before (still wish I could have the time to go back and fix a bunch of stuff in Would you Collar me).

I hope this change is understandable, but I fully understand if that does mean you want to drop your pledge and I thank you once more for whatever support you've made before. 

Next update roadmap

Given I was able to do a bunch of writing while I was away I've decided to hold off on the slave training and encampment reputation updates and squeeze in another quicker update which I'm aiming to get done by the end of the month. 

This will consist of two major parts in an overhaul of the level up system and the beginning of adding the long awaited events.

The way that the level up will now work is that on gaining Competent, Veteran, and Supreme slavers will have access to one of two randomly generated new traits or an aspect they are eligible to take to a maximum of three aspects total. You can skip the level up if you don't like the options and then you will get a choice too at Expert. Unique slavers will not get access to these aspects, and you will be able to take level up aspects based on rank ups but not the traits. 

There are a whopping 70+ level up aspects written up already giving you far more decision making and control of how you want to customize your slavers based on what they are eligible to take. This is tied into what they've done like assignments that they've completed and their traits. There are a whole bunch of effects from more protection from wounding/removal, better chances of success, gaining more assignments, and other more out there effects. 

This makes rare traits a lot more attractive than they were before as they are required to unlock some of the better aspects. This also has allowed me to give some of the lesser used traits for assignments a lot more love. As an extra effect this makes Inexperienced slavers more powerful as they get access to one of the new aspects faster and so I've made them a bit more vulnerable than they used to be to encourage taking better care of them until they've got some experience under their belts.

For those that enjoyed Whorelock's Revenge a couple of perks from that game are going to be making a return as level up aspects. 

As for events the first ones to be implemented will initially pop up on a roughly weekly basis based on in game days, which will have a variety of effects either improving certain assignment rewards, encouraging use of different areas, or even maybe having a chance of a slaver returning after being thought lost forever...

Hope that all sounds promising and thanks so much for all your support!