March Throwbacks, and a big (ish) update I'd like to hear your thoughts on :)

Hi guys!

Throwbacks

So I've got February's throwbacks uploaded to MMF as usual, and as you can see the doors make a return for March! I know some of you were really hoping for them 😊

The link for nobles and above is HERE.

And the questgiver link is HERE.

Both will pop into your Myminifactory accounts at the start of next month :)

New STLs

In terms of fresh STL releases, the end-of-sewer grates I've showed already, alongside some stone doorway and half-door/half wall STL options (to match the stone walls already released) will be in the December pack. We're aiming to get that wrapped up ASAP, with the pack after being something of a catch up pack.

For January, I've asked Fabio to rework some of his existing pieces to fit the RP Archive style better (matching stone/cloth/wood textures, etc) for some scatter terrain of his that I really like, and think would be very useful to people to use with the larger modular terrain we build :) In this pack I've aimed to keep it mostly related to the sewer theme, with wells for both city tiles and villages, as well as some other nice village/city scatter and an adventurers camp for good measure. I always intended to do an adventurer camp pack, this one also includes some tents (which will have updated textures from his originals) so if you didn't want to make my ones, you can print these easily :)

This is just a covering measure to help us catch up, the wall stamps took an insane amount of dev time, and obviously I lost most of a month in December to resurgent Long Covid awfulness - but we WILL be catching up!

The video!

Speaking of catching up - this project was definitely a case of me getting overexcited and biting off way more than I could chew, especially in my condition 😅 it's literally at least 3x as many pieces as the city tiles, if not more, with a similar level of detail and complexity. I really wanted to do sewers 'all at once' and I'm somewhat paying for that...

So, I have two options here. The NON resin'ed pieces are finished. There is one last piece that needs recording to show how to make, but that's it, done and ready to do photography. HOWEVER. That's only if I choose to push pause on the resin pieces and finish those in a seperate video down the road, possibly later this year, possibly next year depending on how long other projects take!

The non resin pieces are a full system by themselves, and look awesome - but they're not a 'functioning' sewer with water, which I know a lot of people look for. The resin will almost certainly take most of a month to get done simply because there are tons of additional features I'm adding to it, from 3d printed parts to fully modular gross waterfalls of sludge-y filth. So... its not a quick final addition, is what I'm saying 😅

I CAN rewrite the scripts to remove the resin bits, and jump into the photography sooner...or I can finish the project as intended. I'd like to hear your thoughts, and I might actually put a poll up.

On top of this, we've reached the 'off season' for my videos, which means if I release this video now, it will almost certainly not do well outside my core audience. Breaking the subscriber barrier in a niche community (read - non 40k) like this is unlikely, and I have years of stats to back that up now. This is...not ideal, given how much effort I've put into this video!

So I have another choice there. I will absolutely be releasing this video to patrons as soon as it's done, that isn't even a question. I might however, delay its public release until the casual viewers come back circa September (you should see the viewer number boost just based on that date, its insane....) and work on some smaller public videos in the meantime to get something out on YouTube in the meantime.

Neither of these problems are channel-breaking or a complete stress nightmare thankfully - you guys make it possible to develop videos based on quality of the result rather than urgent earning requirements, sponsors, ad revenue or project ruining deadlines, and I'm very thankful for that!

And as I mentioned, Long Covid itself is easing off mostly, so aside from some rarer interruptions, I can get on with a normal day now (just not the insane overtime I once worked!), so at least progress is far more possible now :)

Again, I'm genuinely interested to hear your thoughts on this - for channel growth, delaying the public release is a no-brainer, as the base views are ticking along nicely without it (not anything to shout about but nothing bad)

And with a delay I could finish the resin at some point this year between other small videos...

But I like to consult my community where possible before I make decisions like this! and hopefully you guys actually like that 😂

Let me know your thoughts,

Matt