What to do about development

I agree. As much as this game is fueled by passion, passion does not make the train go the whole way. The certainly isn't about monetization, but something like this needs some support for it goals, and I think cash is just about the only thing that can do that. Like if I was here for just the game, I would have left a long time ago. I do feel it would be great to do something to speed development and make Thrive a real thing, not just a prototype of one small piece. although I can't quite monetarily support until summer(when I can get a part-time job), I will be here on the forum supporting Thrive and it's development.

You can't post in the dev forums, only devs can

community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/ here it is QuantumCrab of '18

alright, that doesn't work, but it's somewhere in the shoutbox.

TWOOOOOOOOOOOO COMMUNITY FORUMS??
Still, I will only switch over the next time bots strike.

What if they used patreon? They could either:
1. They say it's only a tip jar and people donate once or repeatedly just the amount they can
2. They keep the newest version of the game available only to donators (say 0.05), the past iteration being available to all publics (say 0.04), this however may go against the wishes of a lot of developers and fans, and the github would have to be restricted unless you are a developer. However, a lot of works survive this way (specially indies) so it's also a possibility.
3. (Someone else may have more knowledge about this)

Mingey's got a point, having to pretty much pay money for the latest version at this stage is a bad idea. As of yet, Thrive is barely a game. I'm not trying to be rude, but that's the way it is.

My suggestion is maybe you have to give a small donation to get pre releases of the next versions, being able to give your feedback on little bugs riddled throughout. Also doesn't this game have a launcher? couldn't you put ads on the launcher? There may already be some, I don't actually know...

I believe that a donation method would be able to do wonders. The way that I think would be best is as follows:
What is the "problem" at hand? (Are we having a coding issue? if so use the money towards the coder. If we don't have enough art or animation then the money goes towards that department)
This could cause some issues where someone wants to get paid so they just sit back and wait for the donation money is needed for their specific department.
A good way of dividing the money (since it's in a department and not the group as a whole) is by having the department decide who performed the most work. (Example: Say a coder solved a bug issue that was causing most of the department to scratch their heads at to fix, that coder could receive a larger portion of the donation jar)

Another option would be creating a couple of donation accounts that is geared to each team. (Example: Set up a donation for Programming, one for Art, one for Animation, another for Sound Design ect. ect. this would allow people to put their money to what they want and can allow for more "incentive")

I think instead of splitting the donation money across the volunteers, we should rather have some dedicated developers. So we only pay maybe 2 people so they can work full time on the game. I feel like even just having 2-3 dedicated developers will increase development speed and interest by a milestone.

If we pay people who add or fix large features then this project will soon degrade into a money grabber, with people developing half-assed features just so they can get a quick buck.

I would love to help, but even though I sent a application and was denied I still want to help. Surely there is something I can do right? Like I have a idea of how to let the player make 3d models without learning 3d modeling software and works with the current structure building like the cell. I already sent a gmail about it and I'm willing to go into more detail about if someone is interested. I could also make a image of it and how it would work visually.