There should have been an option to tell her it was a bad idea, because she was obviously a half-elf. Hell, up until her insistence to go to get a blood test, I assumed she knew she was a half-elf.
Since I'd picked up on the clues up to that point, I figured that was the intent; that the player (and the MC) would suspect that she was a half-elf. As a result, when she discussed going to get a blood test, I expected a "Are you kidding, Maria?" option. But apparently, the MC is a moron, who is unable to pick up on clues.
But you only found out that half dark elves age at roughly the same rate as humans after it was revealed she was a half elf. She's also very smart and doesn't have elf ears. Most logic prior to the reveal suggests she's just a normal human except for some threads included. To say it's obvious to the point it should have been included is disingenuous.
The attached screenshot is from September 2019, though I think I'd noticed maybe six months before that. Given that I knew her heritage for nearly two years, to then have an event where I had no choice but to say "sure, let's go get your blood tested, even though I know that's a terrible idea", was a little aggravating.
You didn't know her heritage though, it was only hinted at. As you say yourself, it was "pretty likely" due to what you pieced together. You had no idea it was a fact until I made it one.
In otherwords, many generations, as also pointed out by the fact that Ashley is less than half elf. In other posts Runey also states that elf colored eyes are not uncommon amongst the citizens,.
That means that eye color means nothing, and is not a way to spot elves, only someone, who at some point in their ancestory has had an elf ancestor.
I am well aware of that. It's also utterly irrelevant, since that's not how I knew she was a half-elf.
You'll note that in that screenshot I didn't say I thought Ashley or Ellen were half-elves, just Maria; the clues had nothing to do with eye colour.
There are some other clues, but they're very hard to find. One of them is hidden away in her pinups for one of her outfits. Someone has commented "Are those scars on her ears?"
There are other clues like this, but they're very few and far between. Anyone who was able to piece these together should pat themselves on the back. I don't understand why it would make anyone upset. It really confuses me.
If it was obvious that Maria was a half elf before the reveal, or really suggested at all within the story, then of course it would have been a bad idea to go. But MC isn't even from this continent, all this elf genetic stuff is new to him. But even for someone who has known Maria for a very long time, like Ashley or Hana, there was no way to ever know she was a half elf. Especially not for MC to know. You would have to piece some really abstract hints together.
There are some other clues, but they're very hard to find. One of them is hidden away in her pinups for one of her outfits. Someone has commented "Are those scars on her ears?"
There are other clues like this, but they're very few and far between. Anyone who was able to piece these together should pat themselves on the back. I don't understand why it would make anyone upset. It really confuses me.
I stand corrected on that, then.
I just can't figure out why people are arguing with you about whats in the game, and how it was done.
You are the games creator. Only you know what is coming, and why things had to be done in a certain way to get there.
I admit, I was also angry about what happened to Maria, but I figured it would be fixed at some point in the future, and kept playing.
She wouldn't.
You don't seem to have understood what I said. I said that I thought she knew she was a half-elf UP UNTIL she suggested getting her blood tested (i.e. the last two years in real life, and every event prior to that one). I only stopped thinking she knew she was a half-elf when she said she wanted to get a blood test, because no-one who suspected/knew their heritage would suggest something so dangerous.
Most logic prior to the reveal suggests she's just a normal human except for some threads included. To say it's obvious to the point it should have been included is disingenuous.
I don't agree that it's disingenous. I thought the clues (those "threads included" that you mentioned) were sufficently obvious that you expected people to have worked it out. Clearly, that was not your intent. Mea Culpa.
I'd also point out I said " Having said that, I know why there couldn't be an option to say "no, Maria honey, that's a terrible idea, because you're clearly a half-elf", because for some people that option would have come out of left-field."
You didn't know her heritage though, it was only hinted at. As you say yourself, it was "pretty likely" due to what you pieced together. You had no idea it was a fact until I made it one.
I said "almost certainly", and that was only because I thought you might change your mind, given that your story is in-flux, and you might have decided to drop the plot thread. I knew it to a sufficent degree of certainty to be confident that I was correct. Which I was.
I stand corrected on that, then.
I just can't figure out why people are arguing with you about whats in the game, and how it was done.
You are the games creator. Only you know what is coming, and why things had to be done in a certain way to get there.
I admit, I was also angry about what happened to Maria, but I figured it would be fixed at some point in the future, and kept playing.
Corvus has a much more valid point I think, he saw something coming in the story before it happened and wasn't able to sound the alarms. If everyone knew what he did as he did, then it wouldn't have been as good of a twist.
She wouldn't.
YYou don't seem to have understood what I said. I said that i thought she knew she was a half-elf UP UNTIL she suggested getting her blood tested (i.e. the last two years in real life, and every event prior to that one). I only stopped thinking she knew she was a half-elf when she said she wanted to get a blood test, because no-one who suspected/knew their heritage would suggest something so dangerous.
I don't agree that it's disingenous. I thought the clues (those "threads included" that you mentioned) were sufficently obvious that you expected people to have worked it out. Clearly, that was not your intent. Mea Culpa.
I'd also point out I said " Having said that, I know why there couldn't be an option to say "no, Maria honey, that's a terrible idea, because you're clearly a half-elf", because for some people that option would have come out of left-field."
You're on this website 24/7 and are on discord talking to devs all the time, of course you're in the minority haha. Most people don't even comment. You know more about Harem Hotel than a lot of people. You're even in my server's secret spoiler channels.
You're on this website 24/7 and are on discord talking to devs all the time, of course you're in the minority haha. Most people don't even comment. You know more about Harem Hotel than a lot of people.
That is part of it, but I also have a knack for that kind of thing. I am almost never surprised by things like that in stories. Things that seem obvious to me, tend to go over most people's heads, should see some of the talks in some other threads, like the spy in Headmaster. People were saying I was reading way too much into it, and low and behold, a few updates later... XD
I'm not saying there should be an option to stop her. I'm saying there should have been an option to TRY and talk her out of it, even though it'd be doomed to failure to keep the story on track.
If the player knows that her going is a terrible idea, it feels horribly passive to just sit there and just go along with her plan without even ATTEMPTING to change her mind. I understand why those options can't be as blunt as "you're a half-elf, let's not give your blood to the government", but I'd still have liked to feel like the MC (my avatar in this world) had tried to do what I (the player) know is best, even though the MC's reasons would have had to be different than my own.
Would I LIKE an option where you discuss her being a half-elf, and that's why she shouldn't go? Yes, I would, but I know why it's not there; I thought the clues were pretty obvious, but this discussion has proven that they were not. Hence, such an option would have confused a lot of people. I legitimately didn't realise how few people put it together.
Go me.
I really thought you intended everyone to put two and two together; Hell, I even thought Maria was subtly dropping hints a few times, and only realised that wasn't the case when she happily walked into the lion's den.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not upset. I'm expressing a difference of opinion, one that was caused because I thought the majority of people would have worked it out, and therefore the MC should have had that option, too. You even agreed with me that if it was obvious then of course it would be a bad idea to go. The problem is, it was apparently a lot more obscure than I thought. You correctly anticipated that few people would even notice the clues, much less put them together; I thought there would be more than just Devian and myself.
Again though, for those few people who DID work it out, an option to express misgivings might be a good idea.
"Hey, Maria, I really don't think this is a good idea. Maybe we should listen to Hana?" and a little conversational back and forth between the MC and Maria where the MC ultimately realises she's going to go, with or without him, and the MC goes to the hospital with her in an effort to at least try and watch out for her, even knowing it's a terrible idea. Really, just some in-gme acknowledgment that it is a bad idea, even if you can't spell out WHY it's a bad idea.
I'm not saying there should be an option to stop her. I'm saying there should have been an option to TRY and talk her out of it, even though it'd be doomed to failure to keep the story on track.
If the player knows that her going is a terrible idea, it feels horribly passive to just sit there and just go along with her plan without even ATTEMPTING to change her mind. I undersatnd why those options can't be as blunt as "you're a half-elf, let's not give your blood to the government", but I'd still have liked to feel like the MC (my avatar in this world) had tried to do what I (the player) know is best, even though the MC's reasons would have had to be different than my own.
Would I LIKE an option where you discuss her being a half-elf, and that's why she shouldn't go? Yes, I would, but I know why it's not there; I thought the clues were pretty obvious, but this discussion has proven that they were not. Hence, such an option would have confused a lot of people. I legitimately didn't realise how few people put it together.
Go me.
I really thought you intended everyone to put two and two together; Hell, I even thought Maria was subtly dropping hints a few times, and only realised that wasn't the case when she happily walked into the lion's den.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not upset. I'm expressing a difference of opinion, one that was caused because I thought the majority of people would have worked it out, and therefore the MC should have had that option, too. You even agreed with me that if it was obvious then of course it would be a bad idea to go. The problem is, it was apparently a lot more obscure than I thought. You correctly anticipated that few people would even notice the clues, much less put them together; I thought there would be more than just Devian and myself.
Again though, for those few people who DID work it out, an option to express misgivings might be a good idea.
"Hey, Maria, I really don't think this is a good idea. Maybe we should listen to Hana?" and a little conversational back and forth between the MC and Maria where the MC ultimately realises she's going to go, with or without him, and the MC goes to the hospital with her in an effort to at least try and watch out for her, even knowing it's a terrible idea. Really, just some in-gme acknowledgment that it is a bad idea, even if you can't spell out WHY it's a bad idea.
Outsiders looking in who have "unlimited time" compared to "game reality" can often gain perspective that should they be in that same would never have reached.
A more common term/phrase for such is "backseat driver."
I thought there would be more than just Devian and myself.
Again though, for those few people who DID work it out, an option to express misgivings might be a good idea.
There are possibly more. You are discounting that many are willing to enjoy what is put before them and remain quiet and see if they were right.
Those of us that actively participate on forums are a vocal minority. In no way are we in any shape a majority.
Me... I figured it was bad and that she'd get "bad" results. Why? How else do you create drama in a VN so obviously? I'm an engineer so I often have to work against Murphy's Law. So certain situations, like this one, trigger my "Murphy Sense," to para-steal from Spiderman.
Don't get me wrong, I would have enjoyed being wrong and seeing her happy.
There are possibly more. You are discounting that many are willing to enjoy what is put before them and remain quiet and see if they were right.
Those of us that actively participate on forums are a vocal minority. In no way are we in any shape a majority.
Me... I figured it was bad and that she'd get "bad" results. Why? How else do you create drama in a VN so obviously? I'm an engineer so I often have to work against Murphy's Law. So certain situations, like this one, trigger my "Murphy Sense," to para-steal from Spiderman.
Don't get me wrong, I would have enjoyed being wrong and seeing her happy.
I like your objective point of view! But Murphy's law isn't always true for Harem Hotel. Good things will happen, and I think that having a story where bad things are a clear possibility to happen allows for the good things to feel great when they do. It's my goal to make the wins feel as good as the losses felt bad.
Sort of like how one of the main characters had their heads chopped off very early in Game of Thrones. This opened your mind up to the idea that "No one is safe". When someone gets a win, it feels more like they earned it, more like they could have actually died. But the writer knew what was going to happen.
I don't literally think there's just two of us. It was a hyperbolic expression meant to highlight that fewer people noticed than I'd expected.
Runey says that most people never put the clues together (as was his intent), and that he thinks the clues are "very hard to find". I've no reason to disbelieve him. I've also no reason to suspect that his sample size skews wildly to the "didn't work it out" crowd; it's more likely that when he says most people didn't work out she was a half-elf ahead of time, that he's right, and that I was wrong to assume they would.
But maybe you're right. Maybe the majority of people DID work it out; in that case, there probably SHOULD be a "don't go, you're clearly a half-elf" option.
I honestly figured it was the majority of people.
Hence, to be told "let's go get my blood tested, I'm sure nothing horrible can come of that" and not have an option to say "no, Maria honey, that's a terrible idea." was aggravating. I'd have liked to try and talk her out of it, even though the event would still require her to go to the hospital, because there are no branching paths to this VN. But at least I'd have felt less passive about letting her walk to the slaughter.
Having said that, I know why there couldn't be an option to say "no, Maria honey, that's a terrible idea, because you're clearly a half-elf", because for some people that option would have come out of left-field.
Actually, her eyes weren't how I knew she was a half-elf at all; elven eye colours are too common to even be tertiary evidence.
And yet, I did know, for literally years before "the reveal". If I could pick up on the other clues and work it out, I figured so could the MC.
Probably not. I would imagine that the genetic testing would be very specific, as I would imagine that quite a sizeable portion of the population might have elf DNA. So they probably look for certain genetic markers in a similar manner to those ancestry/ethnicity dna testers. It might even be something like specific elf markers in the blood.
Lets just say that in our world, someone does a DNA test and finds they've, I don't know, 12% Greek DNA. That means that you are going back 3 generations of genetic material and looking at 8 great grandparents.
In the Harem Hotel universe, there's probably a cut-off point, like if someone has 3% Elf DNA, they're not going to enslave them because 5 generations back, one of their ancestors was an elf (thats 1 person out of 32). And I would imagine that cut-off point is either parents or grandparents.
I do believe that it has been stated that most people in Syl'anar have some level of Elven DNA and that it is really just certain degrees of it that can lead to enslavement. Maria's appearance is not quite different enough to be a good indicator, so that test would be the only sure way of knowing where she is on the Elf DNA spectrum. She just so happened to fall within the enslavement eligible portion of the spectrum. This is also why other girls at the hotel haven't been enslaved, Ashley in particular comes to mind since she falls outside the range Maria is in yet actually has the closer appearance to an enslavement eligible elf given her fully Dark Elf eyes.
The only clue about elf heritage is her eyes, and Runey, the games creator, explained that the feature of the eyes can stick around a long time.
In otherwords, many generations, as also pointed out by the fact that Ashley is less than half elf. In other posts Runey also states that elf colored eyes are not uncommon amongst the citizens,.
That means that eye color means nothing, and is not a way to spot elves, only someone, who at some point in their ancestory has had an elf ancestor.
Arguing with the creator of the world that the game takes place in, because you don't like the way they chose to do something, makes very little sense, since the dev has already given their reasons for doing it that way.
Exactly, Ashley has full Dark Elf eyes and she falls outside the enslavement range, but Maria's eyes are not so close and she is in that range. Ashley is the more likely of the two to catch suspicion based on appearance alone and yet she's safe, so the eyes alone cannot be used as an indicator, there has to be more.
There are some other clues, but they're very hard to find. One of them is hidden away in her pinups for one of her outfits. Someone has commented "Are those scars on her ears?"
There are other clues like this, but they're very few and far between. Anyone who was able to piece these together should pat themselves on the back. I don't understand why it would make anyone upset. It really confuses me.
If it was obvious that Maria was a half elf before the reveal, or really suggested at all within the story, then of course it would have been a bad idea to go. But MC isn't even from this continent, all this elf genetic stuff is new to him. But even for someone who has known Maria for a very long time, like Ashley or Hana, there was no way to ever know she was a half elf. Especially not for MC to know. You would have to piece some really abstract hints together.
But the scars aren't that big a threat, certainly not big enough to warrant not going through the test as planned. Hell, I have plenty of scars and, even being the person who has them, sometimes I have to feel around to know where they are. Scars aren't always so visible that they stand out and even then, hers are in a very easily hidden place. That's probably how she's survived as long as she has without being discovered if I had to guess, even if she was unaware of the threat of them being discovered. There's also plenty of ways to explain the scars away from identifying her as an Elf.
I stand corrected on that, then.
I just can't figure out why people are arguing with you about whats in the game, and how it was done.
You are the games creator. Only you know what is coming, and why things had to be done in a certain way to get there.
I admit, I was also angry about what happened to Maria, but I figured it would be fixed at some point in the future, and kept playing.
Indeed, I am still hoping for some terrible fate to befall the bitch nurse at the hospital and Cornwall as karma. I also figure it will be resolved at some point and I await that day with bated breath.
If I had to guess why people are arguing, maybe it's how they are handling the emotional response. sort of like how I handled it with the whole string about wanting to get back at them with something equivalent to the effect they could have had on Maria. Everyone handles strong emotional responses differently to at least some degree, sometimes in a vastly different way than they normally would, like with my response.
That is part of it, but I also have a knack for that kind of thing. I am almost never surprised by things like that in stories. Things that seem obvious to me, tend to go over most people's heads, should see some of the talks in some other threads, like the spy in Headmaster. People were saying I was reading way too much into it, and low and behold, a few updates later... XD
In other words, you're extremely observant. That's actually a pretty good trait to have. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for myself on this one, which is likely a major factor in why I reacted so strongly when I did.
I'm not saying there should be an option to stop her. I'm saying there should have been an option to TRY and talk her out of it, even though it'd be doomed to failure to keep the story on track.
If the player knows that her going is a terrible idea, it feels horribly passive to just sit there and just go along with her plan without even ATTEMPTING to change her mind. I understand why those options can't be as blunt as "you're a half-elf, let's not give your blood to the government", but I'd still have liked to feel like the MC (my avatar in this world) had tried to do what I (the player) know is best, even though the MC's reasons would have had to be different than my own.
Would I LIKE an option where you discuss her being a half-elf, and that's why she shouldn't go? Yes, I would, but I know why it's not there; I thought the clues were pretty obvious, but this discussion has proven that they were not. Hence, such an option would have confused a lot of people. I legitimately didn't realise how few people put it together.
Go me.
I really thought you intended everyone to put two and two together; Hell, I even thought Maria was subtly dropping hints a few times, and only realised that wasn't the case when she happily walked into the lion's den.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not upset. I'm expressing a difference of opinion, one that was caused because I thought the majority of people would have worked it out, and therefore the MC should have had that option, too. You even agreed with me that if it was obvious then of course it would be a bad idea to go. The problem is, it was apparently a lot more obscure than I thought. You correctly anticipated that few people would even notice the clues, much less put them together; I thought there would be more than just Devian and myself.
Again though, for those few people who DID work it out, an option to express misgivings might be a good idea.
"Hey, Maria, I really don't think this is a good idea. Maybe we should listen to Hana?" and a little conversational back and forth between the MC and Maria where the MC ultimately realises she's going to go, with or without him, and the MC goes to the hospital with her in an effort to at least try and watch out for her, even knowing it's a terrible idea. Really, just some in-gme acknowledgment that it is a bad idea, even if you can't spell out WHY it's a bad idea.
Yeah, I'm one of the many who the clues went right over our heads. It definitely wasn't so obvious as you might have thought. Those among us who found the clues should definitely pat themselves on the back, that's some pretty good perception going on there, but so should Runey for doing such an insanely good job at hiding these things practically in plain sight.
Then there's the thing with Hana, when she said the things about not going, I didn't think she meant because of Maria potentially being eligible for enslavement, I thought it was more about what Maria might find out about who her parents were as people. There are some truly terrible people in the world who are parents even if only in the biological sense of the word and that can have terrible effects on offspring who didn't know about how terrible their parents were once they find out.
There are possibly more. You are discounting that many are willing to enjoy what is put before them and remain quiet and see if they were right.
Those of us that actively participate on forums are a vocal minority. In no way are we in any shape a majority.
Me... I figured it was bad and that she'd get "bad" results. Why? How else do you create drama in a VN so obviously? I'm an engineer so I often have to work against Murphy's Law. So certain situations, like this one, trigger my "Murphy Sense," to para-steal from Spiderman.
Don't get me wrong, I would have enjoyed being wrong and seeing her happy.
I tend to be one of these even if I do figure something out, though sometimes, especially with this game and "Lessons in Love," I like to make my theories known.
