A Brave New Salem

[JohnCarver]

We have no intention to make a pure PvE Server at this time. We also are being as careful as we possibly can in balancing changes that we feel are necessary to bring and keep players in the game, and changes that we feel would directly attack the unique identity of Salem that we are trying to protect. It is an extremely difficult thing to balance and I'm sure we will draw a fair bit of hate either way we go with it.

On the one hand, we want Salem to punish you. We want you to be able to log on and be worse off than you were before you did. We want you to engage in a situation and regret that action for weeks to come if you are on the losing side of said action. On the other hand, we DO NOT want Salem to beat you so badly in the first few hours of the relationship with it that a new player fails to even see all the potential the game has and quits before he gets there.

While it is entirely possible to say "Tears are tears, who cares when we get them" I feel that players should have to reach a certain maturity level for their tears to taste just right. Under-matured Tears just simply drive players away who might have been nice assets the community and game-growth, and could have produced even MORE tears if they had something unpleasant happen to them LATER in their experience. The professional game design theory behind this just being that it is unfair to expect a player to put up with some of the hardships Salem puts you through until they have at least gotten far enough into it to realize that Salem is worth the heart-ache.

With all that being said, I have written a Tutorial for an "extended" character creation process. One that allows you to gather a few inspirationals, learn a few skills, craft a few things, and build a few buildings/containers in a fully instanced area for the first 30 minutes of a characters life. Of course, the minute you "board the ship" your right back to the real server with nothing but experiences to show for it. But it is my goal that your average 5/5/5/5 character will in fact be 6/5/5/5 with a few skills under his belt before he is subject to all the nasty that is the "Real Salem". This also has a nice side-effect of limiting and adding a monotonous task to quell alt-spamming.

Also, a wealth of general ideas which I classify as noobie-nice are on my list. Things like:

*Berry-Bushes and Maple Trees Respawning Faster
*Tinder Drlls being less of a pain.
*Scaling down Crickets so a noobs first encounter in Salem combat (without a storepack) isn't a 98% chance of failure.

Etc. etc.

As I've mentioned before, we want to reward the Vet's with a few things to do first before going knee deep into an early-game revamp. But hopefully this does show you guys its on our mind.... Heavily. Before throwing around the hate of "In my day I had to do X,Y,Z, This new crowd of players has it too easy", please keep in mind that we are aiming for a high new player retention rate than previously experienced and we feel a bit less of a punishing feeling in the first few hours might help with that.

[Voltaire1512]

Hello John.

Please don`t get my posts wrong. I like the basic idea. Settlers in a hostile environment making something out of their lifes. The way this idea was implemented, with the biggest threat being ones fellow settlers, was not to my liking. But, on the other hand, nobody needs my approval.

Maybe my posts are well described with this quote from Ron Paul (of all people):

When I say cut taxes, I don't mean fiddle with the code. I mean abolish the income tax and the IRS, and replace them with nothing.

Maybe it is enough to make small changes in the game. But maybe it will be necessary to revamp core mechanics.

Sincerely

[Procne]

For Salem, we need an economy. I don't mean an auction house or trade hubs or anything as vast as Eve's, but an actual need for trading with other players. We don't have that. With trade comes common interest and joint liability.

If we had proper trade tools then there would be plenty trade.
Currently there's plenty of wares people would be willing to buy and sell. But because of no safe or easy trade methods people don't want to bother with it. Right now if someone wants to sell something then he has to write a thread on forum, then talk with potential customers, appoint a meeting and risk being scammed. And then deal with some sock puppets who try to spoil his reputation. And that's when they decide to hunt crickets or argopelters.
And the same thing from the other side - people prefer to produce stuff themselves than go through all this, plus the risk of being scent-traced.

I know the trade would flourish with proper trade tools. 1.5 year ago, when I was running my one stall and offered to sell other people's stuff there, I had players PMing me everyday to sell stuff to me. And usually all the stuff sold well through the stall. They had a way to sell their goods safely and quickly, without having to organise meetings to sell 5 nails and shouting in town.

[vienradzis]

On the one hand, we want Salem to punish you. We want you to be able to log on and be worse off than you were before you did. We want you to engage in a situation and regret that action for weeks to come if you are on the losing side of said action. On the other hand, we DO NOT want Salem to beat you so badly in the first few hours of the relationship with it that a new player fails to even see all the potential the game has and quits before he gets there.

Tommorow if i will have time i will camp Boston, Jonny!

[Darwoth]

jesus christ i am so ***** tired of people pointing to eve as an example of ANYTHING to hold as an example here.

eve is a **** game from the ground up, the reason people play it is because......


1> character development is offline, botted and takes eons.

2> it is one of the only "sci fi" mmo's

3> it is a carebear game that people pretend is not, which means all of the "i had a high wow arena ranking man i know about pvp!" type morons hold it in high regard.

4> like every euro mmo it is a zerg dominated game, which further attracts **** players and **** guilds.

[Ukhata]

For Salem, we need an economy. I don't mean an auction house or trade hubs or anything as vast as Eve's, but an actual need for trading with other players. We don't have that. With trade comes common interest and joint liability.

If we had proper trade tools then there would be plenty trade.
Currently there's plenty of wares people would be willing to buy and sell. But because of no safe or easy trade methods people don't want to bother with it. Right now if someone wants to sell something then he has to write a thread on forum, then talk with potential customers, appoint a meeting and risk being scammed. And then deal with some sock puppets who try to spoil his reputation. And that's when they decide to hunt crickets or argopelters.
And the same thing from the other side - people prefer to produce stuff themselves than go through all this, plus the risk of being scent-traced.

I know the trade would flourish with proper trade tools. 1.5 year ago, when I was running my one stall and offered to sell other people's stuff there, I had players PMing me everyday to sell stuff to me. And usually all the stuff sold well through the stall. They had a way to sell their goods safely and quickly, without having to organise meetings to sell 5 nails and shouting in town.

i have loads to sell, but i wont because i consider everyone who breathes an enemy in this game.
i trust you as far as i can throw you.

as such i have lots of oiled planks, inspiratinals, high purity tree cuttings etc to sell, i just cant be arsed to be scammed.
so i grow my cotton and sell it at the NPC stall en masse.

proper trading would help a lot!

[Scilly_guy]

i have loads to sell, but i wont because i consider everyone who breathes an enemy in this game.
i trust you as far as i can throw you.

as such i have lots of oiled planks, inspiratinals, high purity tree cuttings etc to sell, i just cant be arsed to be scammed.
so i grow my cotton and sell it at the NPC stall en masse.

proper trading would help a lot!

Snap, I had about 150 oiled boards to sell and the same in planed too, when I did sell I sold cheap because I had so many, but I couldn't be bothered to keep paying the upkeep on my town that was too large, and someone noticed the town was abandoned, they got a good deal... in fact who did get the spoils of Invictus?

[Ikpeip]

Good afternoon,

Snap, I had about 150 oiled boards to sell and the same in planed too, when I did sell I sold cheap because I had so many, but I couldn't be bothered to keep paying the upkeep on my town that was too large, and someone noticed the town was abandoned, they got a good deal... in fact who did get the spoils of Invictus?

We looted Invictus and Elysium last week - Wednesday I believe. It was earlier the same day we killed Realak and destroyed Townsville. Elysium actually had about the same number of oiled boards you did - it was a pretty decent haul. Fort Supply still holds the Second Age record though.

Faithfully,

-PmP

[Guthix_Wizard]

i just started playing 2 days ago and i really enjoy this game as a hnh veteran

im more of a hermit tho, enjoying the exploration and crafting aspect

although combat raiding and total destruction and war is the end game because of the possibly of huge hauls and loot at the expense of making other people sad

[Frakked]

please keep in mind that we are aiming for a high new player retention rate than previously experienced and we feel a bit less of a punishing feeling in the first few hours might help with that.

***** you could just kill off Tribe- root and branch and change nothing... and watch the server blossom and overfill in a few weeks.

Ability or stigma- Tribe is a population killer and has that reputation. Honest effort or bots- it really doesn't matter.

Almost every action you take will be measured on how Tribe rises and falls; best just get it out of the way and kill them off... then re-evaluate.

I can honor Tribe for their accomplishments...and I do. I don't agree with their politics, but they have achieved much in this diminished game.

However, if MM Inc want to go forward, want to grow population, you'd do well to get rid this anchor... lest it weigh you down forever.

Vets will never let it die... to our chagrin... and Tribe legend.


You kill off everyone else... but I suspect the number who hate Tribe...been run off by Tribe... is in the 1000's... while Tribe itself has never broke 100.