The slavery of an entire species is very much known in the outside world, and the MC coming from a culture without it just makes his indifference to it that much worse. He moves to the continet, and one of the first things that happens to him is that he's told, "here, this elf is your property", and his reaction is just, "oh, okay then." He clearly doesn't think that owning a person is a bad thing.
Oh yeah, the elf-droids are abhorrent. I especially like how none of the characters seem to have noticed that their existence has reduced elves even further, from "slave race" to "fuel source". If the entire nations economy becomes dependent on droids that require elf blood to funtion, then elves won't be free, they'll be harvested.
You're totally right here! The fact that the whole world is going along with this for multiple reasons, and the fact MC doesn't care too much about it when he joins is telling about the state of the world. And he's one of the decent ones too. Eventually once he gets to know an elf, his views on them begin to change a bit, he sees them more as equals, he starts falling in love with one, and eventually realizes, alongside you probably, that this place kinda sucks.
And you're right about no one noticing the horrible after effects that would come with elfbots are introduced on a wide scale. This is a character flaw I wrote into Kali specifically. In fact, the only reason Mr. Trenero is doing this off of Syl'anar is because the recent Elvish Rights Act prohibits it on Syl'anar. This could be reproduced with half elves on Syl'anar though.
In any case, fuel source is definitely a step down, and a lot of people don't really see it that way. A large part of why Vanessa was introduced is so she could show Kali (and maybe the player) why these things are so bad, and maybe how Kali can turn something bad like this, into something good. Vanessa is very aware of this world, especially Kali's Dad, which has definitely caused issues in the past. But Vanessa doesn't yet know of elfbots, and would definitely have a thing or two to say to Kali when she finds out.
I mean, I am the sort of guy in real life who thinks that all activists, no matter their cause, are evil and should be banned simply because they are annoying meddlers that can't just shut up and leave the rest of us sensible people be. And even I would stand up to this.
Sometimes things can only be achieved with your voice and vote, yelling is certainly a step up from killing each other over these things, so I'll take annoying people trying to get a point I agree with across than be content with slavery, or whatever else issue.
I'm aware that's been stated, but it's a contradiction with previously stated information. We've been told that dark elves live about seven times longer than humans (half as long as common elves) and half-elves live half as long as their elvish parent. As a result, half-dark elves should live over three time longer than humans, but with Maria we're just told "nope, previous information was wrong". Runey is free to change whatever facets of his story he wants, but those still remain mutually exclusive pieces of information.
If I have ever mentioned that half dark elves live the same as half elves, that should be treated as a bug and fixed. But I think you may be assuming half dark elves were included when something like "Half elves live half as long as elves" was mentioned in the story?
Either way there is definitively a segment of the game where it does feel exactly as demondelic.psy says. It just feels laid back and fun and wholesome and than it slowly transforms into what it is now. And I can totally understand why someone might want more of that. That sort of thing is good and fun and wholesome and it makes you happy. It is overall a good thing. Just as the way the game is going now is also overall a good thing just in a very different way.
And just to be clear, wholesome and fun stuff isn't going away. Autumn will be getting some of the best exhibitionism training scenes, I'm very proud of how they're coming out, and Lin will be getting a romantic date in v0.13, romance is actually something I haven't put too much thought into before, but this is one of the times I tried making something actually romantic. But you'll have to tell me how I did on that one.
I think it's easy to misinterpret where the story is going in a developing game. A year or two ago, when Ashley's depressing story was hitting a high, people were assuming I was going to turn this game into a sad story, people told me it would be a bad idea to kill off characters, that sort of thing. Now the same thing is happening with elvish revolution. This will certainly be a big part of the story, but it is not the only part. The way I see the overarching story is that this "world" is oppressive to all kinds (except with racism, homophobia, and transphobia removed, because it's too political at this moment IRL, but it would definitely be there if I didn't want to tone it down a few notches.)
I would say a better descriptor of where this game's overarching story is going is "Bad to good". Or "Unwelcoming to accepting". The essence of MC's motivations remains in that he wants to make all his girlfriends feel happy and safe, and as much as he would like to keep them safe in his hotel, the world will always be there knocking on his door to fuck something up, which he recently realized. So MC plays the role of a protector here.
Without going into spoilers, a lot of what happens with Maria in v0.13 is date-like. Trying to make her feel better, get her footing again, caring for her. The same sort of themes other characters previously had with other issues. The focus of Harem Hotel is the characters and their stories, and how the world affects them, not the other way around.
But in the end, I don't think the overarching story of this game is changing as much as people are assuming it will. Big things will definitely happen, and the focus will shift from time to time, but I believe the essence will always remain.
Now, in hindsight we can see clues that this is not really the case. But this is with hindsight and replaying. First time in, I could see how someone could make that inference.
Than again, for my part I had my hopes set on it going the way it did pretty much from the moment Lin was introduced. Something about that cute girl being enslaved just felt all kinds of wrong to me. So who am I to say?
Either way, I think we can all agree that it speaks to the quality of this game that we can have conversations like this about it. I mean, let's be real here. When is the last time you've heard this sort of discussion being had about most books, let alone games?
It was my goal to attach the player to these characters in order for the player to have motivation about caring how they're treated, feel sorry for them, and wanting to see them have a happy ending. So that these moments feel real and euphoric when they're resolved, and you feel like you got a punch in the gut when something bad happens. Is this cruel of me? Sort of.
But it seems to have worked. I have less confidence that people would care about most of what happened in the recent updates if the previous stuff didn't happen before and you didn't became connected with these characters.
Of course, It's going to get very boring to keep going on dinner dates with Lin every week, so things need to be spiced up
