So, I don't normally address this stuff - because in all honesty, nothing anyone says short of "OMG HERE IS THE UPDATE!!!" is going to make anyone that is currently up in arms about how long the update has taken happy - but since some folks have taken care to cast some specific questions, I will make an exception this time.
We show content pretty much every month? There have been the occasional "recaps", but I would say at least 9/10 SOTG posts have at least one if not multiple content spoilers. Some are overt, some are more subtle or even hidden.
"Satisfy the hype" - everyone's going to have their own expectations around what this update contains and how excited they are about any or all aspects of that. All we can do is be as open as we can - we will never spoil everything. What you make of that when it is out, we will see. Not sure what else anyone can do to "satisfy the hype".
As for reading responses, I know at least I read a lot of them everywhere. Lack of response =/= lack of reading. As I said above, there is no response that I could give anyone that would do anything materially to impact that outside of a release date.
"Adding more transparency" - what, precisely, do you feel that you are missing? What bits of information do you feel would materially and sufficiently address your concern? Serious question. Beyond that, as we have said, the team is working away on what remains to get done. That takes however long it takes, unfortunately.
I post it to both locations each month... and read the comments. Again, unless I/we have something material to say, what good would it do to "debate" the situation? It won't make the update come any faster. It won't really satisfy anyone's anger (for those that are angry). I would say we are WELL aware of the discontent around the timing of the update, so I don't think we are unaware of any negativity. The longer any update takes, the more it costs us as well, as it goes in game dev where time is money.
I'll address the last point here, since it wasn't already addressed. Things like merch are wholly and completely disconnected from the development of the game. Precisely zero dev team time is taken up by merchandise. Not in the design, not in the production, not in the delivery or logistics. We work with external partners that do all of that for us - our sole role in that process is approvals and then sharing whatever comes out with the community. Mostly, that is my time that is taken up, not anyone else's. Whether merchandise exists or not has literally no impact on the timing or content of any update. If you don't like the merch stuff, then just ignore it and move on by.
I sort of get the logical point being made - "if you guys have time for merch, you should have time to get the update out" - but that is really a red herring. If we stopped all merch immediately tomorrow, the update will come out at precisely the same time as it would have anyway. The same would have been true if we had stopped a year ago. It's a red herring, ultimately, as such.
Perhaps the one exception is the Graphic Novel, where I do spend some of my time producing the story outlines and then reviewing the scripts and art in detail. Then again, I don't do any art or code... so again, no impact on the development of the game.
Our focus remains to try and make as much cool stuff as we can for everyone. We remain a small indie team (smaller than before due to some unfortunate events in the past) and that's probably what we will always be. We have no desire to be a 300 person studio.
I won't dive into the whole "14 years of free content updates" dynamic nor the "why can't you guys make the 19th(?) free content update as fast as the 17th(?). Whilst this may be true, it doesn't really capture the symbiotic dynamic that has been Terraria all of this time and as such shouldn't be used as some get out of jail free card. Rest assured that the simple fact is that we want this done soon, but also done right. We are doing all that we can each and every day to make that a reality. No one looks forward more to the day where we can say "here is the release date" than me, trust me.
Again, happy to answer anything that I can - but I don't think it is going to materially impact your happiness until that date arrives.
