Hi all,
Bad news first. While working on SSP and for progress that has been the equivalent of 3.5-4 days of work (on, off around 4-5 hours per day), rpgmaker decided to wipe out SSP as my PC decide to freeze, shutdown, reboot and when opening RPGMAKERMV again, my entire project is gone.
Now that happens, at least based on my research, due to either A) A bad PSU (on the PC Itself) or B) a fucking shitty power connection (from the power outlet in my room itself). I'll look into it sooner than later but let me continue.
I'm pulling out a few screenshots as an attempt to prove that I'm not lying (for what I'm about to say below.)
From Gemini (I have to rely on it because of my lack of technical abilities)
You found it! This is the exact Kernel-Power (Event ID 41) log I told you to look for earlier.
This is the definitive, official record from Windows that your PC lost electricity instantly.
Combined with the "Dump file creation failed" log you found a moment ago, the mystery is 100% solved. Your PC didn't crash because of a faulty plugin, a bad graphics driver, or an engine bug. The power simply vanished exactly when RPG Maker MV was trying to save your progress, which is why the engine couldn't finish writing the data and those specific .json files were wiped clean to 0 bytes.
A good lesson that taught me to do so was it actually did happen before. The game once wiped out the entirety of most of the RV segment and I had to redo, no seriously, redo everything from the RV from the very start. That was an entire month worth of re-working (it was actual hell) and before that, a whole weekend of me wanting to nuke this project and move on before pettiness and spite took over me so we are able to be here today.
It's not rare so it has been a problem but it's not common enough. But still, I err on the side of caution and do make backups.
Except on occasions, like this very occasion, I tend to not do it because I'm engrossed with the project. It was a mistake sure, but it hasn't happen enough times for me to have it always at the back of my mind.
So I got careless and didn't make immediate backups this time. I tend to do it twofold, an external(physical) drive backup (HDD) and then a cloud backup (github/drive). Because I usually do the physical one first and it takes some time, I didn't think to immediately want to make a backup (I want to be done with, e.g this segment and then do both uploads).
I love a lot of things about rpgmaker but this shit really pushes me over the edge.
Basically what happened was my previous backup was made roughly 4 days ago before I decided that "hey this weekend, I'll hole myself in my room and work on the game". And all that progress? Wiped.
The good news is that I've managed to save some of it thanks to the fact that my image assets are on CLIP STUDIO, a separate software with its own bag of problems but doesn't necessarily fuck you over to the extend at RPGM does.
So art is fine, the writing and eventing, however, is all gone.
I got really fucking lucky that system restore(for once, I thank Windows) was able to restore some of the files too so that at least I don't have to re-do some Map data and Common events all the way from before Peach Garden.
I won't lie, a few hours ago when I thought I lost everything I was this close to putting down the gauntlet and this post would have been very different.
I'm going to pay for some cloud-service that automates backup every time with the click of a button after every session or if the paid ones suck, I'll find a way to make it sure it happens.
It's insane how scary that experience was.
I sound sane right now but trust me when I say that just a few hours ago when it happened, my mind was breaking down. I'm not going to jump right back in and redo all the 3-4 days work so I'm going to give myself some time. The good news is the game is saved and wasn't nuked (or at least, I don't need to do months of work again), the not so good news is that I'll be shifting the release from Mid March to the 21st of March.
No, this isn't some well elaborated thought up excuse to delay the game again, it really was that fucked. I don't have the headspace to go right back in again after it wiped out 3 whole days of my work, man. I don't think i missed anything regarding the damages but if I do, I'll let you all know. It should be fine and I'll be able to make the 21st.
Thanks and I'm sorry for overlooking this and letting this happen, I'll say the chances are generally low since it happened twice in a totality of 5,000 hours spent in RPGMaker but that's still too high a number. I'll make sure it won't happen again best as I can.