Don't normally join forums, but have to say, this is probably my favorite game in the genre right now. Been waiting a while for the chance to rescue Ms. Ren and help Juliet out. They've both been treated really miserably outside of the PCs sphere of influence. Also, having now met the Vanessa character, absolutely anything I can do to make her life more miserable is the path I'm going down. She makes early days Felicity look positively charming and non-judgmental.
To each their own, but I think a lot of people don't see the situation from Vanessa's side during the first interactions. Kali is the daughter of the richest man in the world, who also happens to own the most slaves out of anyone on the planet. Kali's boyfriend is also a slaver. If you met these types of people in real life, you would probably think they're horrible people until you got to know them. Vanessa is also an abolitionist, so she has a bigger bone to pick with slavers.
F&E on the other hand didn't like you guys because you were poor.
Question about the elf abduction scene. When I tried to refuse to help (I can't suspend disbelief enough to believe that I'd instantly decide to spend more than my business is worth to try to help out people who almost murdered me in an attempt to extort me, no matter how pretty they might be. Baseball bat to the head is not a subduing attack, that's lethal. I was also a little surprised that Lin performs the rescue rather than Doll with her rifle and security camera sight.) basically the script just ignored the choice, there wasn't any additional attempt to apologize or try to convince, and it just assumed that I'd said yes instead. Why make it a choice?
Don't take it so seriously. This game isn't 100% realistic. You got a bonk to the head and recovered.
I got further into Sylvia's arc now and there's a pretty hard continuity error. In Lin's arc Sylvia can't explain the "magic" the queen wields, or why it avoids fire. She doesn't know what is touching her when the fairies do the vibrating wing heat thing. But when you take Sylvia out for the date (which you can't do until after the island), she is talking about the fairy-queen hierarchy, the fairies long being used as spies, how invisibility works, and how all the soldiers train with fairies in combat. She was even the one in control of mining the magic crystals.
She would not only have known what the Queen's magic was, she probably would have known more about it than the Queen, via her family records/lore.
Yes, found it extremely weird that she had no idea what the queen magic was and next one she is talking about high elves having fairies and being able to turn invisible
"Magic" does not exist like you think it does. The only "Magic" in the game that you've seen is fairies going invisible. There are no fireballs.
And as Sylvia explains in that exact scene, fairies are never used in the way the Queen uses them. The high elf queen is able to conjure tornadoes, so says Sylvia anyway. But Ashley obviously can't.
So Sylvia believed at one point that the high elf queen could use genuine magic. Which just turned out to be fairies.
She explains that their common tactic on the battlefield is to have the invisible fairies make the elven warrior temporarily invisible while fighting alongside them. There's no way she hasn't seen floating knives and other such before, she wouldn't have mistaken that for telekinesis, especially after observing the fire avoidance.
It isn't that hard to write around, though. All you do is get rid of the "elf queen's mysterious magic" reference from Lin's arc, which didn't affect the story in any way, and replace it with, "the queen commands many magical servants". You can leave in the heat avoidance, Lin still grabs the torch to try and save Sylvia, the MC and characters are still talking openly around the elf captive so regardless of the invisible servants they aren't smart enough not to spill the beans while being observed, etc etc. Nothing really changes from there.
The elf queen's mysterious magic is one of the biggest parts of the background story. Her intimidation tactics and the mystery surrounding her gives her an extreme advantage. She's been able to hide her whole species from humans, while also spying on them and keeping her people loyal and almost worshiping her as a God.
I won't go into spoilers, so there are some things you will have to take my word on without explanation for the moment. But high elves "know" she can use "real magic" because they've seen it. She can conjure tornadoes for example. Fairies don't as easily explain away a tornado as "real magic" does, so she is feared.
To Sylvia, the knives could have been "real magic" or simply fairies, but she is too afraid to take that gamble, especially after seeing first hand what she can do. And I believe this is explained in game.
I did just finish Lin's arc. Gotta admit, it's peeling so far away from the thematic hub of the Hotel gameplay that it does start to drag pretty hard. The core gameplay elements are more or less resolved at this point in the game and no new ones have been introduced, so it no longer feels like you are playing a game so much as you are just being dragged along through a story about politics. (Vanessa got a little less infuriating after she found the house, but I still can't stand her. She needs to experience some real life tragedy to fix that sheltered, entitled, judgmental keyboard activist vibe. Tala and Kim don't get many lines, but they're at least socialized humans.)
When you say "Core gameplay elements", what do you mean? You can still have sex with characters in their rooms, and story pops up by clicking "* Talk *" on their door.
I assume you mean the first few arcs of the story for each character have been resolved? Yes, this is how story development typically works. New ones are introduced all the time though, some are smaller than others. Lin has always been a slave for example, that's a big one that's still going. But she did have an issue with her self image at one point which was resolved. Android is also currently going through a depression, and you probably already know what happened to Maria by now, so, I don't understand this at all to be honest.
And please try not to judge a book by its cover so much. Vanessa isn't sheltered nor entitled. Almost exactly the opposite in fact. She's met a very diverse amount of people, talked to elves and understood their problems, and even makes monetary sacrifices. She's privileged, and uses that privilege to help the unprivileged. She works part time at a daycare for elves which may as well be a non-profit.
Her privilege comes from her intergenerational wealth. Her parents were which, so she had a better start in life. But she's using that for good.
It might be worth cementing in the existing relationships in the harem by using the game mechanic to "max/marry" them so they are core characters with all options unlocked, and then introducing some new game mechanics for new characters as you expand into what appears to be a "today we take over the world" storyline with what appears to be multiple routes to power through Doll taking control of all androids and becoming your personal sexual skynet, Kali taking her father's company and the harem becoming something like a board of directors able to change world events through financial/political capital, Felicity/Emma getting you access to their father's cloning technology so you can start replacing key people or maybe offering a solution to the apparent lack of male elves in existence (especially if the clone can't be artificially aged to maturity), your connection through Cornwall to the inner workings of the HHI, overthrowing (and enslaving for a nice twist) the elf Queen and replacing her with a harem member, founding an underground railroad of sorts with the Sanctuary girls and the Desert elves... there are a lot of ways to go, and you could come up with a bunch of cool gameplay elements to play with that new theme. Might be better for that to be a second game, though, it's a lot. lol
I'm probably just rehashing conversations that have already been had, anyway.
Marriage will come at the end of the story, not arbritarily in the middle of ongoing arcs. It certaintly won't be a cheat mechanic that unlocks everything.
There won't be multiple story routes, nor will there be many mini games. This is primarily an adult visual novel.
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If there's anything else you're confused about, feel free to ask on the discord. Easier to respond to questions.