Author: NoMoshing

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Game Balance By Any Other Name

So, after extensive testing, I think I’ve figured out what’s going on with all the balance issue complaints.And by extensive testing I mean extensive– a week of playing and replaying the game, attempting events in different orders and testing different configurations of characters, items and skills.

After so long testing, what I discovered is that it’s not the game itself that is broken. Rather, the game gets significantly harder depending on how many party members you have when attempting various quests. The Night of the Raping Dead is meant to completed with four party members, going through Elvo’s manor all but requires three, and clearing the orc encampment is either challenging or insanely difficult depending on whether the hero attempts to solo it.

So how did I solve it? Well, the July release will feature a new character who gets forced into your party at some point. This new character won’t have a lot of dialogue and such yet, but will eventually be a fully-fleshed-out member of the cast. I’m actually looking forward to writing for this character- it’s very much a horse of a different colour compared to the other cast members and should provide an interesting new perspective.

Again, for many reasons this will be a smaller update, but at least there will lots of new CGs. I’ve enlisted helpful fan Gurotaku to help we with making the CGs because I kind of suck at it. He has made some new CGs for the release, as well as re-made some of the older CGs that were kind of lame.

If you’re a donor, you will be receiving a new version of Harem Collector sometime tomorrow afternoon or evening.

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A conversation

This may or may not have happened while I was working on the Player’s Guide.

Me: Why don’t any of the monsters in the Mourning Wood have MP? They’re not going to use any of the skills you assigned.
NoMoshing: Huh.
Me: You want me to fix it?
NoMoshing: Okay.
Me: *sighs* You’re already getting complaints about the balance…they’re gonna think you’re doing this on purpose.
No Moshing: I didn’t do it on purpose, you did. You just did it.

On another note I still can’t say Mourning Wood without giggling like a schoolgirl. Because I am a mature woman!

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Maybe If I Shaved It’d Look Bigger….

Looks like next week will be the smallest update so far. I’ve been bogged down this last month with balance issues and bug fixing, and between that and the incredibly time-consuming task of replacing all the hero’s dialogue portraits with new ones, I haven’t had a lot of time for new content. There will be a couple thing though, so look out for that.

I had my first real “NEVAR PLAYING AGAIN” complaint in the last month. I have to say, I’m very surprised that it look five months for someone to start acting like a person on the internet. Especially given the nature of Harem Collector. Who knew that people who followed porn games were just so damn nice.

It’s kind of funny that I haven’t received any hate mail yet, especially considering the rape-y content of HC. Maybe it’s just because of where I’m running my PR threads.

Anyway, sorry if I’ve taken a lot longer to respond to threads, comments and emails lately. Now that I have four threads to read, and Hongfire is less an internet forum than a manufactorium where the servants of the God-Emperor churn out an endless supply of comments, it takes awhile to catch up.

Donor release is next Wednesday and I have a whole lotta work to do, so until then, happy playing.

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Plans for July Release

Work proceeds on the next version. There were so many bugs related to the item table changes that unfortunately I didn’t get much progress done, but next month should feature a new quest (about the same size as One Is the Lonliest Party) and few other things added.

The big change that will no doubt be a bastard in terms of bug reports- I have a new sprite and faces for the hero and Meline I’m working on adding to the game. Also, the way the Seeker’s Stone works might change if I have time, becoming an infinite-use item that makes sparkles appear where there are hidden items.

Honestly, I wish I had started making custom sprites and face sooner rather than later. The majority of my development time seems to be taken up by re-doing things I’ve already done, then paging through all the events in the game to make sure it all looks the same (with mixed results). Hopefully as I catch up with myself, my work time will improve.

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Harem Collector June 2013 Public Release

Delicious Link

Now with slightly fewer bugs!

Ugh… what a week. In an embarrassing failure of QC, I had to release new versions of Harem Collector to the donors every day for a week. Thanks to their patience and vigilance, I can say that this version probably isn’t broken.

Note that if you are a donor- there is no difference between this version and the last one I sent you save for some bug fixes that were reported by dogsoneup.

Next release is July 17 for donors and July 24 for everyone else.

Changes- June 2013 Release
-The extended opening has been implemented! Yay!
-The Southport University District is now open and available to be visited.
-A new collection quest is now available in the Northmarket Slums.
-When you run out of slave collars, the Slaver’s Guild will now offer you a small quest in order to get new ones.
-For the sharp-eyed and/or obsessive compulsive among you, there is now a hard-to-find buried treasure in Lumberhill… and a clue in the Northmarket Slums.
-Finally, after first being promised in, what, March?, the Satisfaction Book is now 100% context-sensitive.
-The Content Testing chest now also drops an item that adds 100 Satisfaction on use.
-Lilac, Violet and Randi will now chat with you and accept gifts.
-Skills and Items have been thoroughly re-jiggered. Items now have a category tag in their description. Skills now have have a keyword description in their description.
-You can no longer use the Formation function from the menu. Instead, a party change menu will pen every time you leave you manor (or other estate).
-Hero no longer learns Lead the Way and Sound the Charge. Doll no longer learns Restraining Thorns. Meline no longer learns Radiant Chains. Therese now learns a new “Lay on Hands” power, and I’m not sure if they can be levelled that high yet but most mages can learn a variety of new powers now.
-What priests charge for blessings is now determined by the Hero’s level.
-New CG scenes have been added featuring Larelle and Lilac.
-New faces and sprites have been implemented for Therese, Randi and Alina.
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Crunch Time!

Just wanted to throw a quick update up here, and say that I’m currently crunching through the last of the stuff I want to have ready for the release tomorrow evening.

If a feature or change you wanted to have happen doesn’t make it into the game, in my defense, they were offering XCom for free on the PSN.

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Still lots to do….

I’m still pushing through the various fixes and new content. Lilac and Violet now can receive gifts and chat, though they don’t have much to say at the moment. Also, with Lilac at least, you can choose to have sex with her at any time. There is no benefit for doing so, other than a short scene and a single CG image.

You can no longer swap party characters in and out at will, and the Formation option has been removed from the menu. I needed to do this in order to control the game’s difficulty better. I’ve installed Yanfly’s Party System script, and now whenever you leave your manor the formation menu will open up for you to get the slave girls you think you’ll require.

The party chat feature works… sort of. The entire process is there, I just have to do the writing for it now.

As I said before, the extended opening is done, but I removed the credits from it because it was pretty tedious. For now, the credits monument will remain until I think of something else.

Unfortunately, something I did while applying mods to 3DCG causes it to have a critical failure when I open the program, but the error message is in Japanese and I have no idea what it’s saying. So I must re-install the game and start over, and hopefully not lose any of my already-complete characters.

Other than that, the Lumberhill stuff might not be completed, but I don’t know. There have been a couple setbacks already this week- on top of the 3DCG thing it took me the better part of Monday to figure out a not-retardedly-complex way of doing the party chat feature. I hope to meet all my content goals, but we’ll see.

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Lore about Slavery

Hello, all. Game development progresses at a steady rate, and I’m knocking down June release goals pretty regularly. Yesterday, for example, I managed to re-jigger the skill list as well as solve the whole “slave collar” issue. You now have to do occasional tasks for the slaver’s guild in order to refresh your supply of slave collars, and can’t progress on certain quests until you have slave collars to spare.

So I thought today I’d discuss part of the lore/fluff of the game, dealing with the legality of slavery. It’s pretty clear to me that sooner or later this will need to be said in-game, because a lot of you are confused as to what role legalized slavery plays in the setting. But until then, you get this lecture.

Slavery is legal in the Middle Kingdom. Obviously, considering that the Slaver’s Guild’s market is a central fixture in one of the towns. The majority of slaves in the Middle Kingdom come from cases of bankruptcy and debt. Middle Kingdom law allows a person to sell themselves or a family member into slavery as a means of cancelling debt. For a person without assets, this might be the only option they have for debt repayment. The Slaver’s Guild has sole right to accept slaves in exchange for debt cancellation this way.

Because of these factors, it’s not unheard of to extort someone into debt, until they must sell a family member (or themselves) into slavery, and then purchasing the resulting slave. This was probably the end goal of the gang that kidnaps Alina and her little brother. Poor Alina gets taken for a slave anyway, though.

It’s also possible to sell yourself into slavery, if you’d genuinely prefer that lifestyle. This is, effectively, what Meline and Florine do.

While the Slaver’s Guild has sole right to take new slaves, they don’t have a monopoly on the slave market. There exist a number of slave merchants who deal in the buying and selling of existing slaves. This is what Alim, the guy you get Doll from, allegedly does for a living- he’s just bad at it, there is money to made there.

The Slaver’s Guild also has the ability to import slaves from other countries. Of course, those other countries have different laws and practices regarding slavery. Kellos, the Middle Kingdom’s military rival to the east, does not allow slaves to be collected because of debt but does use slavery as a punishment for crimes. Kellos slaves therefore tend to have an entirely different skillset, and are more frequently used as slave soldiers and bodyguards than as household servants. Because there is no central government for the lands across the northern mountain range, the Slaver’s Guild conducts raids on nomad villages to forcibly collect slaves. This is what happens to Yamamaya.

Because these different practices result in slaves having very different skillsets, there does exist a global trade in slaves. Middle Kingdom slaves as prized as household servants, and as such are in demand in other countries. The Slaver’s Guild is an international organization with a great deal of power and influence, but it doesn’t have a monopoly on new slaves in every country either, and there do exist rival slave trading organizations.

So, what does this mean in terms of the hero? Well, he’s not necessarily wrong for collecting slaves the way he does. It could be construed that he is an agent of the Slaver’s Guild because he was given slave collars for the express purpose of getting himself some slaves. In that case, several of the slave girls he collects are willing or could be viewed as being collected in the repayment of a debt. The only slaves he acquires illegally are Randi, the item shop girl and Larelle (if he collars her without breaking her first). Now this doesn’t mean he’s a nice guy- in Larelle’s case, he’s guilty of kidnapping even if she accepts the collar eventually.

Anyway, that’s that. Last week ended up being kind of crazy for me, so I never got around to replying to emails and message boards. This week will be different though, and I’ll have lots of time to do that. You see, last week I lost my job. Don’t worry about me, I’m in a pretty good place for it financially and it wasn’t unexpected. This is not a call for more donations, I don’t use those funds for myself anyway, but I said I’d keep you all abreast of any changes in my life that could affect game develop. The upshot is, I’ll actually have a lot more spare time to work on the game than I used to. This could change very soon, depending on a couple of factors, but for now I’m happy to take advantage and get lots of work done on HC.

Talk to you again next week.