VN Ren'Py Harem Hotel [v0.17.2] [Runey]

[hentaifelf]

okay, I redownloaded from mega and still keep getting this problem. I'll just wait out this time so someone can help me eventually lmao.

 

[DrFree]

Hi, I just want to throw my hat into the Vanessa ring myself. I'm not going to speak for Nala, but I think she fits in here too, just slightly different since she's more "scholarly" rather than "activist" from what I can gather.

I'm not R, and I don't speak for him, but from a worldbuilding perspective, someone like Vanessa is natural and is to be expected in a game or a narrative that focuses on slavery and forms of systemic oppression. Yes, the voices of the oppressed are important, and the various elves serve their places well. But, a study of history shows that external voices from the "privileged" group are necessary to enact change. Without leaving America, or going straight to macro things like Lincoln, Republican lawmakers in the 1850s, or other general abolitionist movements, we have the Underground Railroad, whose success was reliant on white abolitionists willing to sacrifice their own freedom to aid escaped men, women, and children flee to better lives in Canada or the Northern states. There additionally is the story of John Brown, a white man who led armed insurrections in Kansas and Virginia with the goal of liberating slaves. These "privileged" individuals are important to the narrative of change and the fight for equality, and their viewpoints and actions should serve to further nuance the reality presented in a work and better reflect the realistic flow of history. Without them and their equivalents, history becomes lopsided and less nuanced, with the reverse being true as well. A living world with these issues would have these external members fighting alongside those oppressed. It's not politics nor is it superfluous, it's realism. Vanessa's role in this story is that of a smaller activist type figure trying to get her message across, unsuccessfully it looks like. That type of story within the larger universe, while not necessarily necessary in itself, is a way to portray the struggle on a smaller scale, opposed to the expansion of rights under Cornwall, the actions of the church, or whatever Kali's Dad is doing which is more macro and in line with say the growing economic concerns of slavery in the North as a leading cause of abolitionist thought, or the rise of Republican Party, or new religious lenses born out of a new Great Awakening, which is more high-level political and/or cultural changes.

I'm not going to talk about her politics and the "MAGA and Antifa" stuff, because that's trivial and separate from what I was actually talking about, in my opinion.

Anyways, see you next needless controversy.

I get this. And I am not against Vanessa as a character. When she was introduced I at most rolled my eyes, and since Kali actively and openly shot back when she was antagonized just for being a Ternero, I was ok with it.
Notice I didn't complain about Vanessa then, but I do so now. Therefore, the logical conclusion is that my problem isn't the character herself, but this specific event.

Hence I suggested how "not making it one-sided" would've improved the scene. Runey stated multiple times he intended for that as well, that he tried to make her look dumb for making assumptions, however its clear for how little resistance any character shows that he didn't make it.

 

[Yama252]

Yo, how do I get the new repeatable event with Lucia?

 

[Parcel]

I'm sort of baffled by the response to Vanessa.

MC is a literal slave owner. Sure, he has good reasons, at least if you're playing the love route with the sanctuary elves. But Vanessa doesn't know that, and an abolitionist being initially hostile to someone who owns slaves should be a given. I expect very few slave owners in the Harem Hotel setting would prove themselves better than Vanessa's initial assumptions; it just so happens that MC is one of them.

I can also say from personal experience that when you're getting insulted by people saying things that are objectively untrue, perhaps the most effective tactic is to not let it bother you (if you can manage that), and let them demonstrate and eventually realize their own foolishness. MC getting angry would have served to justify Vanessa's view of him, in her eyes. MC can't defend himself factually against most of the accusations she's leveling against him, because some of it is secret, and other elements rely on knowledge that MC has but Vanessa wouldn't believe. I'm sure most slave owners would claim they're not abusing their slaves, and some might even claim that their slaves like/love them, but how many is it true for? Probably almost none.

Vanessa is definitely aggressive initially, and makes a lot of assumptions, so I don't fault anyone for disliking her. But I feel like people who get mad that there's an angry "SJW" abolitionist in the game have been deluding themselves about what sort of game Harem Hotel is. Harem Hotel has always been political, and it's always had flawed characters.

As for anyone who thinks Vanessa is too close to real world politics... unless you're an 18th century slave owner, I don't see how that's the case. The tactics Vanessa employs are tactics that have been employed by a lot of people fighting for civil rights throughout history. They're not exclusive to any modern movement.

 

[TheDevian]

I'm sort of baffled by the response to Vanessa.

MC is a literal slave owner. Sure, he has good reasons, at least if you're playing the love route with the sanctuary elves. But Vanessa doesn't know that, and an abolitionist being initially hostile to someone who owns slaves should be a given. I expect very few slave owners in the Harem Hotel setting would prove themselves better than Vanessa's initial assumptions; it just so happens that MC is one of them.

I can also say from personal experience that when you're getting insulted by people saying things that are objectively untrue, perhaps the most effective tactic is to not let it bother you (if you can manage that), and let them demonstrate and eventually realize their own foolishness. MC getting angry would have served to justify Vanessa's view of him, in her eyes. MC can't defend himself factually against most of the accusations she's leveling against him, because some of it is secret, and other elements rely on knowledge that MC has but Vanessa wouldn't believe. I'm sure most slave owners would claim they're not abusing their slaves, and some might even claim that their slaves like/love them, but how many is it true for? Probably almost none.

Vanessa is definitely aggressive initially, and makes a lot of assumptions, so I don't fault anyone for disliking her. But I feel like people who get mad that there's an angry "SJW" abolitionist in the game have been deluding themselves about what sort of game Harem Hotel is. Harem Hotel has always been political, and it's always had flawed characters.

As for anyone who thinks Vanessa is too close to real world politics... unless you're an 18th century slave owner, I don't see how that's the case. The tactics Vanessa employs are tactics that have been employed by a lot of people fighting for civil rights throughout history. They're not exclusive to any modern movement.

Yeah, in the back of my mind while they are saying, well, you inherited yours, so it can't be helped, I a thinking, well, I DID also buy 4 others 5 now... I mean, I did it for good reasons, but still, I did buy every one I could... XD Hell, in Nia's new story, I would have happily bought every one of them just to get them out of there, and I won't apologize for that! In this world, that seems like the best way to help the for now.

 

[DrFree]

I'm sort of baffled by the response to Vanessa.

MC is a literal slave owner. Sure, he has good reasons, at least if you're playing the love route with the sanctuary elves. But Vanessa doesn't know that, and an abolitionist being initially hostile to someone who owns slaves should be a given. I expect very few slave owners in the Harem Hotel setting would prove themselves better than Vanessa's initial assumptions; it just so happens that MC is one of them.

I can also say from personal experience that when you're getting insulted by people saying things that are objectively untrue, perhaps the most effective tactic is to not let it bother you (if you can manage that), and let them demonstrate and eventually realize their own foolishness. MC getting angry would have served to justify Vanessa's view of him, in her eyes. MC can't defend himself factually against most of the accusations she's leveling against him, because some of it is secret, and other elements rely on knowledge that MC has but Vanessa wouldn't believe. I'm sure most slave owners would claim they're not abusing their slaves, and some might even claim that their slaves like/love them, but how many is it true for? Probably almost none.

Vanessa is definitely aggressive initially, and makes a lot of assumptions, so I don't fault anyone for disliking her. But I feel like people who get mad that there's an angry "SJW" abolitionist in the game have been deluding themselves about what sort of game Harem Hotel is. Harem Hotel has always been political, and it's always had flawed characters.

As for anyone who thinks Vanessa is too close to real world politics... unless you're an 18th century slave owner, I don't see how that's the case. The tactics Vanessa employs are tactics that have been employed by a lot of people fighting for civil rights throughout history. They're not exclusive to any modern movement.

I just explained in detail the problem right above your post, and its beyond "I dislike her character"
And no, it hasn't always been political. The first few updates were far more simple. If anything, if anyone plays the game from the beginning now, they will notice the increasing change in tone through the events, which I always jokingly thought of Runey's increasing evolution as a writer. From writing simple scenarios to sleep with cute girls, to develop their personalities, pasts, flaws and needs, to develop the world with increasingly complex lore.

Btw, I gave a perfectly reasonable comeback, which didn't involve talking about stuff taht we found about from Nia or Sylvia. Just saying "I knew all of this, because I actually talk to Linm on a daily basis to know her" is enough. Now, if she bitches out and call sus liars it would've made the scene less one-sided, but that would make her look worse, and we can't have that, can we?

 

[Bludgeonfist111]

Finally got the game freshly downloaded and installed. I deleted the 10.2 I had, installed 11.1 with lains mod.
But why is it showing the saves from the prior version if it's a fresh install?

 

[c3p0]

Cause games often save them also in the Appdata part of Windows (or similar on Mac, Linux, Android if avaiable). Make it more simple for daily use. Download and install new version, delete old version and load your latest save and continue.

 

[Parcel]

And no, it hasn't always been political. The first few updates were far more simple. If anything, if anyone plays the game from the beginning now, they will notice the increasing change in tone through the events, which I always jokingly thought of Runey's increasing evolution as a writer.

Any media other than perhaps the most abstract is at least somewhat political. In Harem Hotel's case, from the beginning it has featured themes of slavery, and abuse of slaves. I'll grant that those themes have become more pronounced and developed over the course of the game so far, but they were there from the start.

Very early on, Lin compares grandpa to other worse masters she's had, and tells MC she's lucky she wasn't raped by one of her other masters. She talks about the genocide of her people and culture.

That's already pretty intensely political.

I just explained in detail the problem right above your post, and its beyond "I dislike her character"

Btw, I gave a perfectly reasonable comeback, which didn't involve talking about stuff taht we found about from Nia or Sylvia. Just saying "I knew all of this, because I actually talk to Linm on a daily basis to know her" is enough.

Here's the entire part of the conversation that involves elven biology:

nala "His reports, while not completely accurate, were still ahead of his time. He studied elves in great depth!"
nala "Elves have an accelerated growth spurt at the early stages of life, slowing dramatically at roughly fifty cycles around the sun... and strangely, while all elves appear to outlive humans by at least 6 life times, each subspecies has a different biological clock entirely, with the 'common elf' to appear to live the longest."
nala "Now we know that common elves and desert elves live about the same length, both very long. While dark elves live shorter lives, and drow even shorter still."
kali "How is this history? This sounds more like biology..."
vanessa "It's in the book!"
kali "And...?"
vanessa "It's the oldest biological study on elves! Just listen..."
nala "You want history? Here's history..."

So, a grand total of eight lines, including some back-and-forth and some lines to transition into the lore dump, and then to another part of the lore dump. All told, by word count it makes up about 5% of the infodump.

Moreover, despite you saying that you already knew everything Nala was telling you, there's new information there. Desert elf lifespan is completely new information. The fact that elves have an accelerated growth spurt early on is new information, and in fact wasn't something that was even part of the planned lore for Harem Hotel until pretty recently.

Plus, Kali does push back on this part of the infodump, even if she doesn't do it in precisely the way you would prefer. If those eight lines are mainly what's bothering you, I don't feel like your dislike for the event is really warranted.

Now, if she bitches out and call sus liars it would've made the scene less one-sided, but that would make her look worse, and we can't have that, can we?

I'm still not sure why you're apparently still holding to the belief that Runey is presenting Vanessa as some perfect exemplar for good behavior. At the start of the event she literally yells at Kali in the middle of the lecture hall before getting quieted by Kim and then shut up by Kali. She makes repeated incorrect assumptions. She interjects tangential stuff into the conversation at bad times (the stuff about landlords). She lectures Kali about her relationship to MC without knowing almost anything about it. She thinks she's being profound when she's just being trite (talking about how "we're trading elves whether we like it or not" because the currency is called the Syl).

Insinuating that Runey "can't have" the scene be less one-sided demonstrates a misreading of the scene, in my opinion. Vanessa already makes herself look at least somewhat bad, multiple times throughout the scene. Contrast that to Nala, who holds the same underlying beliefs, but presents them more calmly, and is more informed. Vanessa's assumptions and belligerence are already shown to be a character flaw. MC doesn't need to actually argue back for the scene to be multi-sided, because other characters, the scene itself, and information the players have already serve to counter a number of Vanessa's points.

 

[Bludgeonfist111]

It's not letting me load any saves. I think i have that error others were having. The gray screen that gives the option to "rollback" pops up.

 

[Bludgeonfist111]

Just my luck, finally get the game and now all this starts up

 

[DrFree]

Any media other than perhaps the most abstract is at least somewhat political. In Harem Hotel's case, from the beginning it has featured themes of slavery, and abuse of slaves. I'll grant that those themes have become more pronounced and developed over the course of the game so far, but they were there from the start.

Lets not go full "Everything is political" please. Just because a story's setting has x, doesn't mean everything around it is about x.
Right now about half of the plotlines revolve around slavery, but at its beginning stages, only Lin was related to the subject. Otherwise it was only a background issue.
Kali's story was all about her distant relationship with her family, and its only recently that the focus was set on the slavery issue.
So no, just because there was slavery in the beginnings doesn't mean that it was a political story. The politics came on much later, when Runey started to expand the lore, with Cornwall and Sylvia's story.

I already addressed the whole issue with the dialogue in that time period with Runey. My point stands.
Kim's existence is forgettable at best, and it won't even stop her at all: Vanessa fucking blackmails Kali into being lectured, otherwise she will ruin her chances of a social life in this college, and NOBODY tells her anything about this being wrong. Not Kim nor Nala (therefore approving of her behavior).
How the fuck did MC not intervene when his girlfriend is being threatened? Oh right, he is a "good guy" that will get blackmailed into being lectured.
I forgot the standards for "good guys" according to the author. Just sit down and get "eDuCaTeD"

She interjects tangential stuff into the conversation at bad times (the stuff about landlords). She lectures Kali about her relationship to MC without knowing almost anything about it. She thinks she's being profound when she's just being trite (talking about how "we're trading elves whether we like it or not" because the currency is called the Syl).

And she doesn't get called out for any of this. Its just tiresome to keep repeating this. I will address it yet again below.

Insinuating that Runey "can't have" the scene be less one-sided demonstrates a misreading of the scene, in my opinion. Vanessa already makes herself look at least somewhat bad, multiple times throughout the scene. Contrast that to Nala, who holds the same underlying beliefs, but presents them more calmly, and is more informed.

Then that lies on how the characters (or how they were written) don't react to the scene (her behavior) at all.
"She makes herself look bad" works only on a meta level. If nobody calls her out in the scene, it just looks like every character approves of her behavior, and therefore it just looks like the author wanted this character's behavior to be approved of.

This is my problem, not the character herself, but how the scene she is in was written.

Again, I didn't complain about her in the previous update.
Edit: Hey Runey, weren't you done with me? I guess you are still totally not salty over criticism. Take a chill pill, bro.

 

[N7MS]

How do you trigger Kali's Level 29 event?

 

[IllussionMine]

is there any way to repeat Violet scenes?

 

[BillyTran]

anyone have newest walkthrough for 0.11 ver?? i trying to unlock all story but i got stuck

 

[kolol]

my game is stuck on kalis level 3 event how do i raise her friendship?

 

[Maviarab]

anyone have newest walkthrough for 0.11 ver?? i trying to unlock all story but i got stuck

Walkthrough mod already updated yesterday. Not aware there has ever been a pdf version.

 

[kage1822]

does Ashley ever mellow out? granted I'm still early in the game, but she's been becoming way to yandere for my tastes...lol she went from my favorite girl to my least favorite after she went psycho on Maria pulling a knife on her, and she's supposed to be her best friend or something like that

 

[c3p0]

does Ashley ever mellow out? granted I'm still early in the game, but she's been becoming way to yandere for my tastes...lol she went from my favorite girl to my least favorite after she went psycho on Maria pulling a knife on her, and she's supposed to be her best friend or something like that

Keep playing.
She has a backstory that will explain some of it.

 

[voyeurkind]

does Ashley ever mellow out? granted I'm still early in the game, but she's been becoming way to yandere for my tastes...lol she went from my favorite girl to my least favorite after she went psycho on Maria pulling a knife on her, and she's supposed to be her best friend or something like that

Yes