Sycho

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even with 3-4 guests their quests overlapped with each other or with staff's quests.

ofc i usually took those who paid most unless there was quest to follow like einstein's quest.
What I always did was not take in any guests in order for me to focus on the girls' events, at least until I needed to level the staff up. Then, at that time, I started working on guest events and took advantage of having Amanda around on weekdays. :LOL:
 
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Cartageno

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What I always did was not take in any guests in order for me to focus on the girls' events, at least until I needed to level the staff up. Then, at that time, I started working on guest events and took advantage of having Amanda around on weekdays. :LOL:
That, and just not booking the hotel full when any troublemaker is included, so I can focus on the task at hand. Since one guest is enough to keep you in the black, that shouldn't be a problem.
 

cxx

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well no rush anywhere so can play with 4 guests (even with ms fernandez).
 

yoyomistro

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Being in the Midnight Sin thread the other day made me remember why I stopped playing this... there was a bug with some events added to the woods that made me unable to access anything except the Explore function the forest due to some bug when unlocking the town was introduced... Was hoping there'd be a bugfix but it never happened and I didn't want to start over, just gave it a shot again with the final version and it looks like it's still bugged.
 

PaxHadrian17

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I had no problem exploring the woods.

I do remember that I had to complete certain 'in town' events before some of the woods encounters were unlocked.

It's been a while since I played though so I don't remember which specific encounters were locked behind in town content.

Cheers!! :coffee:
 
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TheDevian

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Being in the Midnight Sin thread the other day made me remember why I stopped playing this... there was a bug with some events added to the woods that made me unable to access anything except the Explore function the forest due to some bug when unlocking the town was introduced... Was hoping there'd be a bugfix but it never happened and I didn't want to start over, just gave it a shot again with the final version and it looks like it's still bugged.
There was an issue once with older saves, that did not allow one of the downtown locations to appear, but I don't remember one for the woods.
 
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Sycho

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There was an issue once with older saves, that did not allow one of the downtown locations to appear, but I don't remember one for the woods.
Yeah, I believe it was the general store that was missing on the map in the older saves IIRC.
 
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yoyomistro

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I had no problem exploring the woods.

I do remember that I had to complete certain 'in town' events before some of the woods encounters were unlocked.

It's been a while since I played though so I don't remember which specific encounters were locked behind in town content.

Cheers!! :coffee:
There was an issue once with older saves, that did not allow one of the downtown locations to appear, but I don't remember one for the woods.
Yeah, I believe it was the general store that was missing on the map in the older saves IIRC.
I had unlocked the woods fully, then some options got locked out when the downtown locations were released somehow. Anyway my main point is is there a fix without having to start over lol? I'll just attach an updated save I made yesterday if y'all still do the save editing thing. I'm still mad I haven't figured out what encoding y'all are using. Not that I tried that hard anyway but it's typically something simple, not like I'm a cryptographer or anything lol.
 

Sycho

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I had unlocked the woods fully, then some options got locked out when the downtown locations were released somehow. Anyway my main point is is there a fix without having to start over lol? I'll just attach an updated save I made yesterday if y'all still do the save editing thing. I'm still mad I haven't figured out what encoding y'all are using. Not that I tried that hard anyway but it's typically something simple, not like I'm a cryptographer or anything lol.
I just looked at your save and I can see you have the lake, bank and the general store missing from your map. The lake and bank are easy to get, but the general store is not. So it looks like you might have used an older save there because that bug was fixed back when it was first discovered. Unfortunately that can't be unlocked, so you would have to start over.
 

yoyomistro

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I just looked at your save and I can see you have the lake, bank and the general store missing from your map. The lake and bank are easy to get, but the general store is not. So it looks like you might have used an older save there because that bug was fixed back when it was first discovered. Unfortunately that can't be unlocked, so you would have to start over.
Yea, I figured. That's why I stopped playing over 2 years ago at this point, and I'm pretty sure it'd be easy to fix on my own as I did many times with MoTH bugs. Big reminder here lol. I don't think I used an older save, I was playing every version back then up to v0.7.1. I think it might have been fixable by going down a version or 2, then going back up a version but I didn't want to figure out whatever steps that would take and I had already played through most of that update at the time and I would have had to go back like 10 saves. Not a fan of the encrypted saves from an indie dev, merits of Faerin's work aside.
 

Sycho

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Yea, I figured. That's why I stopped playing over 2 years ago at this point, and I'm pretty sure it'd be easy to fix on my own as I did many times with MoTH bugs. Big reminder here lol. I don't think I used an older save, I was playing every version back then up to v0.7.1. I think it might have been fixable by going down a version or 2, then going back up a version but I didn't want to figure out whatever steps that would take and I had already played through most of that update at the time and I would have had to go back like 10 saves. Not a fan of the encrypted saves from an indie dev, merits of Faerin's work aside.
Well, there is nothing for the general store in our debugger we use to fix saves, so that's why we can't unlock it. It is actually unlocked as soon as you go to the map when you first start exploring the area. The missing general store location would have been sometime around version 0.7x, so if your save is that old, that's why it's missing. Any saves prior to that version will run into this problem.

And the reason the saves are encrypted is to prevent players from tampering with the saves. This caused nothing but problems in MotH (missing hints, incorrect hints, unable to progress the storyline) because of that very reason and we were not going to fix any saves that were tampered with. I, personally, had ran into one player on Discord who decided to make in excess of 1,000+ changes to the flags in his save and they still expected support for it even though it was by his/her own doing.
 
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yoyomistro

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Well, there is nothing for the general store in our debugger we use to fix saves, so that's why we can't unlock it. It is actually unlocked as soon as you go to the map when you first start exploring the area. The missing general store location would have been sometime around version 0.7x, so if your save is that old, that's why it's missing. Any saves prior to that version will run into this problem.

And the reason the saves are encrypted is to prevent players from tampering with the saves. This caused nothing but problems in MotH (missing hints, incorrect hints, unable to progress the storyline) because of that very reason and we were not going to fix any saves that were tampered with. I, personally, had ran into one player on Discord who decided to make in excess of 1,000+ changes to the flags in his save and they still expected support for it even though it was by his/her own doing.
I get that reasoning, but personally I'd rather no support for saves, some sort of tamper flag that tells when a save has been modified, or some other compromise than an indie dev relying on their own ability to not screw up. I think I fixed at least 4 game-breaking saves in MoTH, none of which were a result of me cheating or otherwise tampering with the game. I guess since the game is completed it might be worth to restart but yea I guess I'd forgotten how frustrated I was with the decision you guys made on saves and that was why I'd dropped this for so long.
 
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Sycho

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I get that reasoning, but personally I'd rather no support for saves, some sort of tamper flag that tells when a save has been modified, or some other compromise than an indie dev relying on their own ability to not screw up. I think I fixed at least 4
game-breaking saves in MoTH, none of which were a result of me cheating or otherwise tampering with the game. I guess since the game is completed it might be worth to restart but yea I guess I'd forgotten how frustrated I was with the decision you guys made on saves and that was why I'd dropped this for so long.
We all agreed that this would be a better method to use to keep us from having to do clean-up work. That was a constant issue and players would actually get upset about it, but that wasn't our fault because they wouldn't quit tinkering with things they knew nothing about.

In any case, Faerin's two games (this one and the current game) aren't the only ones out there that you can't just open with Notepad++. Take Ren'Py games for example. Have you ever tried looking at saves from those games? Now, granted there is a small difference in that you can use an online save editor to make changes to Ren'Py saves, but even that can throw things out of whack if you change the wrong thing. And TBH, no one has complained about the use of encryption. If there's a problem, we'll look at the saves. If it's an issue that needs brought to Faerin's attention, we'll do that too. That's why we're active on here and Discord. We literally bend over backwards for people to help resolve whatever the issue is, no matter how long it takes and we enjoy doing so.
 

yoyomistro

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We all agreed that this would be a better method to use to keep us from having to do clean-up work. That was a constant issue and players would actually get upset about it, but that wasn't our fault because they wouldn't quit tinkering with things they knew nothing about.

In any case, Faerin's two games (this one and the current game) aren't the only ones out there that you can't just open with Notepad++. Take Ren'Py games for example. Have you ever tried looking at saves from those games? Now, granted there is a small difference in that you can use an online save editor to make changes to Ren'Py saves, but even that can throw things out of whack if you change the wrong thing. And TBH, no one has complained about the use of encryption. If there's a problem, we'll look at the saves. If it's an issue that needs brought to Faerin's attention, we'll do that too. That's why we're active on here and Discord. We literally bend over backwards for people to help resolve whatever the issue is, no matter how long it takes and we enjoy doing so.
Not asking that you can open it in Notepad++. A simple base64 encoding would be enough to deter the worst actors. I appreciate that you guys provide support but that bug never got fixed without having to go through hoops, and you were unable to fix it yourselves. From my past experience all I'm saying is I probably would have been able to either 1.) Figure out what caused the bug on my own or 2.) Figure out which of my own saves to go back to to solve the issue without starting over.

The comparison to Ren'py isn't apt; in any Ren'py game I can open the console and manually edit variables/input functions, I can literally open the scripts and fix bugs myself which I've probably done thousands of times at this point. Also Ren'py has an open SDK you can use on most Ren'py games. And even in the worst case, in most Ren'py games if you have to start over due to changes in code/bugs you can be back to where you were within 15 minutes of skipping as opposed to hours with the way skipping works in other engines. The first couple years I was in this space I quit so many games that wasted my time because I ran into a game-breaking bug from some 1-man outfit until I figured out how easy it was to undo their mistakes.

I understand that this is indie development and a difficult balance has to be struck but now that I'm rehashing the same points I raised two years or so ago in this thread I guess I just have to suck it up until I feel it's worth restarting this title; which is a shame considering how seamless the experience with Faerin's games usually is minus the occasional hiccup like this. I get that you guys have considered the tradeoffs behind the scenes and I'll assume this is where I left off last time I made this point.
 
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Sycho

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Not asking that you can open it in Notepad++. A simple base64 encoding would be enough to deter the worst actors. I appreciate that you guys provide support but that bug never got fixed without having to go through hoops, and you were unable to fix it yourselves. From my past experience all I'm saying is I probably would have been able to either 1.) Figure out what caused the bug on my own or 2.) Figure out which of my own saves to go back to to solve the issue without starting over.

The comparison to Ren'py isn't apt; in any Ren'py game I can open the console and manually edit variables/input functions, I can literally open the scripts and fix bugs myself which I've probably done thousands of times at this point. Also Ren'py has an open SDK you can use on most Ren'py games. And even in the worst case, in most Ren'py games if you have to start over due to changes in code/bugs you can be back to where you were within 15 minutes of skipping as opposed to hours with the way skipping works in other engines. The first couple years I was in this space I quit so many games that wasted my time because I ran into a game-breaking bug from some 1-man outfit until I figured out how easy it was to undo their mistakes.

I understand that this is indie development and a difficult balance has to be struck but now that I'm rehashing the same points I raised two years or so ago in this thread I guess I just have to suck it up until I feel it's worth restarting this title; which is a shame considering how seamless the experience with Faerin's games usually is minus the occasional hiccup like this. I get that you guys have considered the tradeoffs behind the scenes and I'll assume this is where I left off last time I made this point.
Point 1, you'd be surprised. If something or someone tells you not to do something because it will mess up your game, causing you to start from the beginning, do you honestly think those people will heed that warning/advice?

flags-warning.jpg

The above was from when the previous game had a flags console (that was meant for us to fix minor bugs in MotH). I can't count how many people came on this site or Discord asking for help when they failed to take the warning message to heart. It had to have been in the hundreds, if not more. And sadly, that's no exaggeration. They also did the same thing when they made changes to the flags and stats, thinking it will get them to the end faster (or give them faster access to spank material).

That also happened in MwM when people modded the game to add the debugger console we use. These are just a couple of examples, but suffice it to say, it wouldn't make sense to give people access to something we know for a fact people will abuse. We've seen it and heard it all before, so it's nothing new. If given the chance, people will push the shiny red button and then complain about it afterwards or give false reports of "bugs" when it's actually the folks who created the bugs in the first place.

You might have an idea what you're doing, but that doesn't mean everyone else does. :)
 

yoyomistro

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Point 1, you'd be surprised. If something or someone tells you not to do something because it will mess up your game, causing you to start from the beginning, do you honestly think those people will heed that warning/advice?

View attachment 3264059

The above was from when the previous game had a flags console (that was meant for us to fix minor bugs in MotH). I can't count how many people came on this site or Discord asking for help when they failed to take the warning message to heart. It had to have been in the hundreds, if not more. And sadly, that's no exaggeration. They also did the same thing when they made changes to the flags and stats, thinking it will get them to the end faster (or give them faster access to spank material).

That also happened in MwM when people modded the game to add the debugger console we use. These are just a couple of examples, but suffice it to say, it wouldn't make sense to give people access to something we know for a fact people will abuse. We've seen it and heard it all before, so it's nothing new. If given the chance, people will push the shiny red button and then complain about it afterwards or give false reports of "bugs" when it's actually the folks who created the bugs in the first place.

You might have an idea what you're doing, but that doesn't mean everyone else does. :)
Yea, I get that work in IT so I know how ummm... "uninformed" people can be. I'm just salty about starting over cuz of a bug, especially one that I'm pretty sure I'd be able to fix on my own; at least the game is finished now so that's whatever. We'll see when I get to it and maybe next time I'm back in this thread I'll be talking about the actual game. Not sure when that'll be though.
 

TheDevian

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Yea, I get that work in IT so I know how ummm... "uninformed" people can be. I'm just salty about starting over cuz of a bug, especially one that I'm pretty sure I'd be able to fix on my own; at least the game is finished now so that's whatever. We'll see when I get to it and maybe next time I'm back in this thread I'll be talking about the actual game. Not sure when that'll be though.
If you had played the updates as they came out, it would have been fixed, but skipping so many, there isn't a lot we can do about it. Sorry about that.
 

yoyomistro

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If you had played the updates as they came out, it would have been fixed, but skipping so many, there isn't a lot we can do about it. Sorry about that.
Oh OK. I actually have saves from each version I played archived, would a .6 save be able to be fixed? Or a .5, I guess either is better than starting over.
 

TheDevian

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Oh OK. I actually have saves from each version I played archived, would a .6 save be able to be fixed? Or a .5, I guess either is better than starting over.
The fix was in the update, not the save, you would have had to play that version to get it. Unfortunately, it's been so long, I can't remember what one fixed it. Loading that version would be the only way to fix it.
 
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