So we're having a game design dispute of sorts and we need some input from you guys. Being a multiplayer game some traits in a single player Harvest Moon are proving difficult to transition over. Mmorpgs need to should a long time unlike a single player game, and we're having difficulty with how to deal with marriage. When it comes to marriage in HM it usually occurs towards the end of the game and your final game goal right? However should we keep it traditionally as such, or should marriage be something easily achievable for roleplay purpose (example if you want to play as a married couple starting the game with a friend or spouse) or should you need to court them in game. How does your opinion apply to marrying other players versus marrying NPCs.
1. How long playing Pumpkin Online would you be willing to wait/ play before you get married to another player or NPC.
2. Does anyone know how many hours they put into any HM game before they got married. If not hours the time they spent playing to 'complete' the game
3. After you get married in the game would you?
a. possibly get bored playing since you reached your goal
b. restart as a new character and profession rinse repeat
c. be interested in continuing the game as your kid.
d. continue the game to completion as far as possible
e. will be off doing other things
Thanks any input or comments will be helpful.
How long should you be playing until you get to marriage?
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Jymaru
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- Posts: 80
Re: How long should you be playing until you get to marriage
1) No preference, don't care, I'll work at it as long as it takes
2) Considering that I always pick the hardest people to romance in HM games (ANB Amir anyone?), I usually end up playing for about 50 hours before I even SEE my potential spouse
3) d. Marriage should not be the end goal, but rather just another part of the journey
2) Considering that I always pick the hardest people to romance in HM games (ANB Amir anyone?), I usually end up playing for about 50 hours before I even SEE my potential spouse
3) d. Marriage should not be the end goal, but rather just another part of the journey
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Silent Kosmos
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- Posts: 1
Re: How long should you be playing until you get to marriage
#1 Less than a month.
#2 I know what HM is, but I haven't played it.
#3 d. continue the game to completion as far as possible
I feel that I have to explain this a little, first of all, and maybe it's just me, but I don't think one should be able to marry any NPCs in a MMO, theoretically every player could have the exact same partner and this would just be weird.
And this is the base of all my answers, because this then would only leave player marriages. And it should be the choice of those players to get married whenever they want.
Also, regarding to #3 this then would only be a little side feature, that of course, can have great possibilities, but still only would be a little step in a bigger story.
#2 I know what HM is, but I haven't played it.
#3 d. continue the game to completion as far as possible
I feel that I have to explain this a little, first of all, and maybe it's just me, but I don't think one should be able to marry any NPCs in a MMO, theoretically every player could have the exact same partner and this would just be weird.
And this is the base of all my answers, because this then would only leave player marriages. And it should be the choice of those players to get married whenever they want.
Also, regarding to #3 this then would only be a little side feature, that of course, can have great possibilities, but still only would be a little step in a bigger story.
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NivellaQ87
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- Posts: 2
Re: How long should you be playing until you get to marriage
1) Doesn't much matter to me, I usually consider marriage somewhat of a side goal that I don't rush to, even drawing the process out by gifting enough for reverse proposals.
2) Not sure of the hours, lots. I generally spend weeks of tiny play sessions that are kinda sporadic. in anb, what I'm playing right now, I'm in winter year 2 and I'm still not married (partially because I can't pick between a couple npcs and partially because I haven't gifted one enough for reverse proposal yet). Generally not concerned because I spend a lot more effort each day raising crops to max levels.
3a) probably not since it won't be my main goal
b. making alts? yeah, very likely. I'm something close to an altoholic on wow
c. Maybe? I'd probably recreate them as an alt though. I have a bit of a concern with how this would work between player couples. Who get's custody?
d. Yeah, I'd want to reach the top before I stop doing things on a character, and even then if I can support alts with money from a main, I'd keep checking in.
e. other things... in game? out of game?
2) Not sure of the hours, lots. I generally spend weeks of tiny play sessions that are kinda sporadic. in anb, what I'm playing right now, I'm in winter year 2 and I'm still not married (partially because I can't pick between a couple npcs and partially because I haven't gifted one enough for reverse proposal yet). Generally not concerned because I spend a lot more effort each day raising crops to max levels.
3a) probably not since it won't be my main goal
b. making alts? yeah, very likely. I'm something close to an altoholic on wow
c. Maybe? I'd probably recreate them as an alt though. I have a bit of a concern with how this would work between player couples. Who get's custody?
d. Yeah, I'd want to reach the top before I stop doing things on a character, and even then if I can support alts with money from a main, I'd keep checking in.
e. other things... in game? out of game?
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ephonia
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- Posts: 5
Re: How long should you be playing until you get to marriage
So here is how it works for me.
In traditional harvest moon games I tend to lose interest after getting married. Which is why I often put marriage off and woo every single character to max before getting married since I know once I do I will probably quit playing within the next 10 hours. Since all the harvest moon games I've played don't have hours played on save files I'm going to guess I play roughly 30-60 hours before getting married depending.
I almost never make it having children with some excpetions:
1) Animal parade because I wanted a new game with the bonus starting equipment.
2) Rune factory 2. Because you had your kid and then you played as your kid and you had all this new stuff you had to do. And could get fake married while you slayed all the mosters to find out what happened to your dad.
So with that background knowledge
a) In pumpkin online I don't know if I would stop playing. I know you guys are working on having all sorts of different things you can progress in. A New Beginning was a game I had planned to keep playing even after I got married because all of the outfits I wanted to unlock but I ended up with a new game before I got to that point.
b) Ok if I stopped playing that character I would definatly make a new character. Building from the ground up is the most appealing thing to me about harvest moon games- I actually don't like the point where you kind if 'beat it' and now you need to milk cows and feed chickens for 2 in game years while you try and get the money for whatever obsered unattanable goal for a vacation house they put in.
c) WOULD I EVER.
d) This depends I'm not a big fan of really hard achievments that are next to impossible but difficult achivements where I feel like the rewards are worth it I like. I don't do really hard achievements just to say I did them. There is too much other stuff to do with my time. But like if there's some outfit I really want and I think its in the realm of possibilty I defentily work at it.
Finally- I don't think you want people to be able to marry really quickly just because I think the idea about the game is spend some time playing it and not rushing through. But I wouln't want to wait more than a month or two to marry that just means I'd probably quit because its still a game I want to be able to go at my own pace which is not snail slow.
In traditional harvest moon games I tend to lose interest after getting married. Which is why I often put marriage off and woo every single character to max before getting married since I know once I do I will probably quit playing within the next 10 hours. Since all the harvest moon games I've played don't have hours played on save files I'm going to guess I play roughly 30-60 hours before getting married depending.
I almost never make it having children with some excpetions:
1) Animal parade because I wanted a new game with the bonus starting equipment.
2) Rune factory 2. Because you had your kid and then you played as your kid and you had all this new stuff you had to do. And could get fake married while you slayed all the mosters to find out what happened to your dad.
So with that background knowledge
a) In pumpkin online I don't know if I would stop playing. I know you guys are working on having all sorts of different things you can progress in. A New Beginning was a game I had planned to keep playing even after I got married because all of the outfits I wanted to unlock but I ended up with a new game before I got to that point.
b) Ok if I stopped playing that character I would definatly make a new character. Building from the ground up is the most appealing thing to me about harvest moon games- I actually don't like the point where you kind if 'beat it' and now you need to milk cows and feed chickens for 2 in game years while you try and get the money for whatever obsered unattanable goal for a vacation house they put in.
c) WOULD I EVER.
d) This depends I'm not a big fan of really hard achievments that are next to impossible but difficult achivements where I feel like the rewards are worth it I like. I don't do really hard achievements just to say I did them. There is too much other stuff to do with my time. But like if there's some outfit I really want and I think its in the realm of possibilty I defentily work at it.
Finally- I don't think you want people to be able to marry really quickly just because I think the idea about the game is spend some time playing it and not rushing through. But I wouln't want to wait more than a month or two to marry that just means I'd probably quit because its still a game I want to be able to go at my own pace which is not snail slow.
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Eiburine
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- Posts: 129
Re: How long should you be playing until you get to marriage
Hey protip to HM players on a 3ds :3 You can see how many hours you played in the activity log XD Even ds games if you played them on 3ds :D That should give everyone a rough estimate :)
1) It would really depend on the npc :3 Sometimes it may be like, "hmm I like you, I'll marry you after a while" or "You. Me. Spouses. Now." But generally, I think after I get the hang of the basics of the game, I'm making money, and progressing nicely, I'll take a look at marrying an npc, but in the case of a player marriage, I'd rather wait a while instead of marrying right away :3
2) I played about 100 hours on anb before marrying Allen :3 Mostly because my goal in the game was to try and make the town pretty because its so customize-able and that was the main goal of the game for me :3 In other harvest moon games I try to unlock all the characters and have them all move in before I marry someone, so it takes a while.
In magical melody though, I literally got about 90 of the 100 notes before marrying Alex, because I wanted to own all the land plots and unlock everything first XD
3) I'd continue to make my town pretty in anb and change the layout. Other than that I'd max all the hearts and stars to my animals and get perfect crops and max friendship with everyone and unlock every outfit in the game XD So I'd play the game to completion and play even further to get rich *w* I don't like restarting the game over with a new character because it takes so long to skip the beginning and tutorial stuff :3
In Pumpkin Online if there were things like house upgrades and stuff I'd play the game to completion after getting married. Unlock all the crops and clothes and everything XD
1) It would really depend on the npc :3 Sometimes it may be like, "hmm I like you, I'll marry you after a while" or "You. Me. Spouses. Now." But generally, I think after I get the hang of the basics of the game, I'm making money, and progressing nicely, I'll take a look at marrying an npc, but in the case of a player marriage, I'd rather wait a while instead of marrying right away :3
2) I played about 100 hours on anb before marrying Allen :3 Mostly because my goal in the game was to try and make the town pretty because its so customize-able and that was the main goal of the game for me :3 In other harvest moon games I try to unlock all the characters and have them all move in before I marry someone, so it takes a while.
In magical melody though, I literally got about 90 of the 100 notes before marrying Alex, because I wanted to own all the land plots and unlock everything first XD
3) I'd continue to make my town pretty in anb and change the layout. Other than that I'd max all the hearts and stars to my animals and get perfect crops and max friendship with everyone and unlock every outfit in the game XD So I'd play the game to completion and play even further to get rich *w* I don't like restarting the game over with a new character because it takes so long to skip the beginning and tutorial stuff :3
In Pumpkin Online if there were things like house upgrades and stuff I'd play the game to completion after getting married. Unlock all the crops and clothes and everything XD
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Angerfish
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- Posts: 37
Re: How long should you be playing until you get to marriage
1. How long playing Pumpkin Online would you be willing to wait/ play before you get married to another player or NPC.
Personally, I could wait up to 3 months since I'd be playing rather casually, but I think 1.5 to 2 months might be more ideal. I think it really depends on the amount of content involving marriage. If most of your interaction with a love interest come before marriage, then I'd say make marriage harder to attain. But if there's a focus on post-marriage interaction, or if there's little difference between pre and post, then I'd say go for a middle-of-the-road time frame.
2. Does anyone know how many hours they put into any HM game before they got married. If not hours the time they spent playing to 'complete' the game
Ah, i don't remember! I've never had a hand-held hm game, so I can't really check. Tho if I remember correctly for Animal Parade, I married after 2 to 3 months after playing only on weekends.
3. After you get married in the game would you?
a. possibly get bored playing since you reached your goal
I never set marriage as my goal in Harvest Moon. I love the marriage aspect, but I usually am driven to play by obtaining animals or crops. Like, I made it my personal goal to get an ostrich or upgrade X thing. This is why HM: Another Wonderful Life was a short lived game for me. The marriage aspect was very intricate, as was the child, but they weren't enough to carry a game I personal felt was barren.
b. restart as a new character and profession rinse repeat
I really enjoyed restarting my game in HM64, but was partially due to the fact that it was a fairly linear game overall compared to later installments. You're farm and life was determined by upgrades, rather than deliberate customization. I think for PU, I'd play a long time before resetting.
c. be interested in continuing the game as your kid.
I really have no idea! Maybe? Depends if I had the ability to customize my kid like my player character.
d. continue the game to completion as far as possible
^^^ This, probably.
e. will be off doing other things
If I make friends! @_@
Personally, I could wait up to 3 months since I'd be playing rather casually, but I think 1.5 to 2 months might be more ideal. I think it really depends on the amount of content involving marriage. If most of your interaction with a love interest come before marriage, then I'd say make marriage harder to attain. But if there's a focus on post-marriage interaction, or if there's little difference between pre and post, then I'd say go for a middle-of-the-road time frame.
2. Does anyone know how many hours they put into any HM game before they got married. If not hours the time they spent playing to 'complete' the game
Ah, i don't remember! I've never had a hand-held hm game, so I can't really check. Tho if I remember correctly for Animal Parade, I married after 2 to 3 months after playing only on weekends.
3. After you get married in the game would you?
a. possibly get bored playing since you reached your goal
I never set marriage as my goal in Harvest Moon. I love the marriage aspect, but I usually am driven to play by obtaining animals or crops. Like, I made it my personal goal to get an ostrich or upgrade X thing. This is why HM: Another Wonderful Life was a short lived game for me. The marriage aspect was very intricate, as was the child, but they weren't enough to carry a game I personal felt was barren.
b. restart as a new character and profession rinse repeat
I really enjoyed restarting my game in HM64, but was partially due to the fact that it was a fairly linear game overall compared to later installments. You're farm and life was determined by upgrades, rather than deliberate customization. I think for PU, I'd play a long time before resetting.
c. be interested in continuing the game as your kid.
I really have no idea! Maybe? Depends if I had the ability to customize my kid like my player character.
d. continue the game to completion as far as possible
^^^ This, probably.
e. will be off doing other things
If I make friends! @_@
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CalliopeSoul
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- Posts: 112
Re: How long should you be playing until you get to marriage
Ugh this is the second time I've had to redo this post because I was trying to hit the "bold text" key and accidentally hit the logo at the top that took me to the home page! 
1. How long playing Pumpkin Online would you be willing to wait/ play before you get married to another player or NPC. Around 3 months seems like a good time frame. I've often made marriage a main goal of mine in games like Harvest Moon. If marriage were too quick/easy to obtain, that would take the fun out of it for me. Although I'm not interested in marrying another Player Character (This would feel weird to me as I'm getting married in real life soon.) I think it would also be fun if there were some steps to go through before being able to marry another player character.
2. Does anyone know how many hours they put into any HM game before they got married. If not hours the time they spent playing to 'complete' the game I'm not sure on number of hours, but I've been playing Rune Factory 4 for a while and it makes one unable to marry Doug, the NPC I like, until after beating the main storyline. This annoyed me.
3. After you get married in the game would you?
a. possibly get bored playing since you reached your goal No, not if things were kept interesting! like if I could go on dates with my spouse, if they could help me, if we could have children, etc.
b. restart as a new character and profession rinse repeat I'll probably have more than one character to try out different professions, but not because of getting bored from getting married.
c. be interested in continuing the game as your kid. I'm interested in having in-game kids but not really in continuing the game as one of them.
d. continue the game to completion as far as possible Yep!
e. will be off doing other thingsProbably.
1. How long playing Pumpkin Online would you be willing to wait/ play before you get married to another player or NPC. Around 3 months seems like a good time frame. I've often made marriage a main goal of mine in games like Harvest Moon. If marriage were too quick/easy to obtain, that would take the fun out of it for me. Although I'm not interested in marrying another Player Character (This would feel weird to me as I'm getting married in real life soon.) I think it would also be fun if there were some steps to go through before being able to marry another player character.
2. Does anyone know how many hours they put into any HM game before they got married. If not hours the time they spent playing to 'complete' the game I'm not sure on number of hours, but I've been playing Rune Factory 4 for a while and it makes one unable to marry Doug, the NPC I like, until after beating the main storyline. This annoyed me.
3. After you get married in the game would you?
a. possibly get bored playing since you reached your goal No, not if things were kept interesting! like if I could go on dates with my spouse, if they could help me, if we could have children, etc.
b. restart as a new character and profession rinse repeat I'll probably have more than one character to try out different professions, but not because of getting bored from getting married.
c. be interested in continuing the game as your kid. I'm interested in having in-game kids but not really in continuing the game as one of them.
d. continue the game to completion as far as possible Yep!
e. will be off doing other thingsProbably.
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Marugin Aru
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- Posts: 5
Re: How long should you be playing until you get to marriage
1. How long playing Pumpkin Online would you be willing to wait/ play before you get married to another player or NPC.
I don't know, but I think I will wait however long to find a good NPC to marriage. (I may marry Zoey but I want to decide carefully)
2. Does anyone know how many hours they put into any HM game before they got married. If not hours the time they spent playing to 'complete' the game
Don't know
3. After you get married in the game would you?
"d." I will continue the game to completion as far as possible.
I think it's better that we can marriage anytime. Because PO’s selling point is flexibility so you should not set limit of marriage.
I don't know, but I think I will wait however long to find a good NPC to marriage. (I may marry Zoey but I want to decide carefully)
2. Does anyone know how many hours they put into any HM game before they got married. If not hours the time they spent playing to 'complete' the game
Don't know
3. After you get married in the game would you?
"d." I will continue the game to completion as far as possible.
I think it's better that we can marriage anytime. Because PO’s selling point is flexibility so you should not set limit of marriage.
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NivellaQ87
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- Posts: 2
Re: How long should you be playing until you get to marriage
Oh yeah! the activity log, I forget about it a lot, since I stuck a bunch of those default applications into their own file so they don't clutter the screen.
A new beginning is showing 221:59 hours of playtime, which is probably somewhat off because I know there were times I left it paused and open and idled while doing other things.
A new beginning is showing 221:59 hours of playtime, which is probably somewhat off because I know there were times I left it paused and open and idled while doing other things.
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