A Brave New Salem

[alagar]

We have no intention to make a pure PvE Server at this time. ...

Then Salem will fail, again.

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.

I introduced about 15 players to Salem, which found the game by google. Some of them came because of the crafting mechanism, some had fun building objects, some had fun hunting animals and some liked the exploring part of the game.
No one came to Salem because he liked to kill other players. 14 of 15 quitted after they got killed the first time without provocation.

The theoritical aspect of "Tears are tears, who cares when we get them" is just *****. Many players may appreciate the tought, and many even might try the game because of the tough setting, but on the end most of them will quit the game, after they got killed. You will not succed in making the perma death an experience not resulting in loosing 90% of your potential player base.

It also doesn`t need to be a pve server as most "pve-players" I know appreciate a pvp setting in that manner, that you need to secure your property or you will lose it. So security massures make sense, finding others giving protection make sense etc...thats all fine. You also should fear death if you try to engage the thief or hunt big animals. But if you keep a healthy distance between you and a fight, you must be sure to not get killed. If this is secured I am very sure, the player base of Salem will grow. So we need a consensual-killing-pvp server.

I also would like to see wide distributed materials so that trade and transport (on roads etc.) can evolve.

Salem it's not minecraft.

[Inotdead]

Then Salem will fail, again.

What fun is building your base, if there is noone to protect it from? You no longer need walls, braziers or town bell.
You are no longer afraid of losing anything, and there is also no point in getting better stuff save for showing off in boston.

I play Salem as a survival game, and I believe that's the niche it fits best, especially since we have tribe.
If you are not careful enough, you die. It's that simple.
I believe what you want is a server without permadeath, or something like that, but a pure pve server seems meaningless to me.

[Horis]

I would keep permadeath but have some of the skills inherited by the kin of choice. So that not everything is lost. It would also serve the purpose of reducing the risks of interacting with other players and not fearing death so much. Thus more dying would in fact occur with less penalty.

It's almost as if absolute character wiping via permadeath was intended to reset players to the start so they don't actually learn that the endgame lacks in content. In fact player paranoia toward death means a lot of the players who invest the most effort are stuck. They spent so much time in the game saving themselves from character death/wipe that they make it to end game with nothing but boredom from a grind to lacklustre endgame. The boredom is because the risk of losing what was gained stunts player and game progress. they are afraid to interact with anybody for fear of losing what they have. So the game is dead end.

If anything, players should be grateful to be killed. At the very least death relieves the player from being trapped in paranoia.

The irony is awesome

And of course the forum drama is encouraged to the point where insults and aggression escalate to what, on other forums would be considered bullying. The forums is where all the real pvp takes place.

So maybe the real endgame is played out on the forums because can't be in game when everyone except the psychopath is terrified to lose all character progress.

[Voltaire1512]

Salem it's not minecraft.

Indeed. Minecraft is fun and sold 14 million copies for PC and 10 million copies for Xbox (according to Wikipedia).

On a more serious note. If Kreek`s Population Statistic is right, Salem has a daily average population of roughly 70 players. Not 70 million, not 70 thousand. 70. Meaning the playerbase could be gathered for a party in one large appartment. Despite I agree with the notion that Salem is a niche game and that such games are necessary, I also think that we can find a consent, that 70 players is way too small a niche.

In my book the combination of Permadeath + Open PvP + Long character development + Grinding treadmill could have no other result than 70 players. Unless we want to establish, that the playerbase could be 10 or 20 times that size, but the crickets are too badass or the character creation is not elaborate enough.

I guess, that there are people who would actually play an even tough and grindy crafting game, just to see their character make small advances toward civilization. But every gamers gametime is limited and everyone knows the worth of one`s time. And obviously the gamers don`t deem Salem in its current state worth their time.

When I and others propose to make fundamental changes to the game, we don`t want to destroy it (which is not possible, since it already is a trainwreck), but to get it off the cemetery. Permadeath must die, so Salem may live. PvP must be less open, so the game opens its doors for new players.

[alagar]

Salem it's not minecraft.

Permadeath must die, so Salem may live. PvP must be less open, so the game opens its doors for new players.

Again, if you want a crafting game where you can play your autistic style and there is no punishment, go play minecraft. The essence of salem is the constant fear and the drama of players.

[Voltaire1512]

The essence of salem is the constant fear and the drama of players.

And the outstanding success of this concept speaks for itself.

[alagar]

The essence of salem is the constant fear and the drama of players.

And the outstanding success of this concept speaks for itself.

Yeah, that's explain why havem got 300+ players with people dying and quitting every second and why in the salem reset the servers got about 500 players. The reason of the "fail" of the game is nothing more than the lack of updates.

[JohnCarver]

And the outstanding success of this concept speaks for itself.

There will always be those who enjoy a challenge, and they will always be rewarded for taking the path less traveled. You are free to pretend that your sheepish mentality makes you right. In reality, those who enjoy Salem will know in their hearts that their experiences are more meaningful and last with them longer than anything offered by the games catering to the masses.

We wish to improve this experience, and heighten its rewards. This in no way means that we aim to lose the identity of the game. Changes meant to attract more players will be emphasized with the intention to give more players a longer entry period of time so they may accurately see what they are missing. If they then still choose to play games that eliminate the risk, at the cost of cheapening their rewards, then I will lose no sleep over it. You can only lead a horse to water, you cannot force it to drink.

[Potjeh]

Hard to provide a longer entry period when early deaths happen randomly, with the victim virtually unable to make decisions to help avoid them. The only thing a new player can do is settle as far away from other people as possible, which kind of defeats the point of playing an MMO. You either need an invulnerability period for new characters (which would be exploited in countless ways), or a safe zone where new players can get through enough content to really get hooked. Boston can't work because allowing people to build anything there hasn't worked out well at all in the past, and you can't get to much content without building stuff. A possible solution could be player built "safe" zone, where new players could develop under protection of defences erected by established players. But for this to happen the established players would need a strong incentive to build and run this, either in form of some passive benefits (raising civilization rating for thwarting witchcraft) or by integrating the newbies into their town's economy via player-built market stands.

[orik]

We have no intention to make a pure PvE Server at this time. ...

Then Salem will fail, again.

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.

I introduced about 15 players to Salem, which found the game by google. Some of them came because of the crafting mechanism, some had fun building objects, some had fun hunting animals and some liked the exploring part of the game.
No one came to Salem because he liked to kill other players. 14 of 15 quitted after they got killed the first time without provocation.

The theoritical aspect of "Tears are tears, who cares when we get them" is just *****. Many players may appreciate the tought, and many even might try the game because of the tough setting, but on the end most of them will quit the game, after they got killed. You will not succed in making the perma death an experience not resulting in loosing 90% of your potential player base.

It also doesn`t need to be a pve server as most "pve-players" I know appreciate a pvp setting in that manner, that you need to secure your property or you will lose it. So security massures make sense, finding others giving protection make sense etc...thats all fine. You also should fear death if you try to engage the thief or hunt big animals. But if you keep a healthy distance between you and a fight, you must be sure to not get killed. If this is secured I am very sure, the player base of Salem will grow. So we need a consensual-killing-pvp server.

I also would like to see wide distributed materials so that trade and transport (on roads etc.) can evolve.

Salem would not work as a PvE game.

If there was a PvE server, I'd built a giant wall boxing Boston in that you can't destroy, and then you might just start to understand why Salem wont work as a PvE game.