Dev Blog: Post Production Pondering

[HolyLight]

Welcome back.

Looking forward to what changes you tell us about.

Screw the newer mechanics, Were are the mine carts and wagonways? I want my mining industry complete.

[Thor]

Yes, the idea of making throw-away alts (5 to 100 biles). Idea is that you have some sort of craving system right? If I understood correctly you "crave" for a certain category dish after eating another dish and this makes your biling most efficient (guaranteed bile-up on each correct food eaten)? Or is it possible to completely or partially ignore the craving and eat less efficiently "the old way"?

[HolyLight]

Yes, the idea of making throw-away alts (5 to 100 biles). Idea is that you have some sort of craving system right? If I understood correctly you "crave" for a certain category dish after eating another dish and this makes your biling most efficient (guaranteed bile-up on each correct food eaten)? Or is it possible to completely or partially ignore the craving and eat less efficiently "the old way"?

I personally would love if they done away with the ability to instantly produce high end alts 1>100/150/250 within a small time frame. I find it a boring mechanic, I have always had the infrastructure in all villages to produce them, however never done it. It really is a boring feature, People should grow stronger with time, I really pray the new system throttles characters ability to humor up, meaning it will take weeks / months to get alts into a combat ready position and it would make people more determin to relay on inherritance.

On that note, you only need a 50-100 humor alt now days, and the ability to play 24/7 to become an unstoppable force with reguards to pvp due to poison darts + Doughnut TBF claims + TBC.

[Ntlosa]

Good to see you JC!

[smakaka]

Hurra hurra you are back

[ToorimaKun]

Frankly, I have always found it fascinating that a player base could care more about this metric than the developers themselves.

most people that play MMOs do so because we like playing with other people... the more people online the more people we can have in our village, allied villages or raid.

Unique Nature

that is understandable to be developing on some thing you enjoy.
with that being said... maybe you should consider a 2nd server with a 2nd team to develop... the server you develop could be the "HARD CORE" server and the other server could be the "CAREBEAR" server... kind of like Path of Exiles set up.

this would allow you to continue the game you enjoy but allow those of us that like to "escape reality and relax" to still enjoy salem.

I know that I have no intentions of wiping this game ever and I will consider the time when I need to my greatest failure.

i think that is a bit unfair to your self as clay pits, lime pits and stone pits will eventually get to the point that it is just bound a worth while task to try and dig away the edges.... unless you do some thing to pits or add a mechanic to get these in a good quantity from an other means then they will run dry.

now i haven't been to dream world yet... so not sure if stuff down there regens or not... but there is also a limited number of mine points.

how many of you would really stick around if something were to pull me away from development for a spell.

I was the last person to quit on the old server... but only because all my villages had been raided and there were no more villages to join.... the server was dead.
I plan on being one of the last on this server also if it continues to die.... but i would like to see it to grow again.

changes to insanity/madness and to village authority objects should be on the top of your list.... not all of us like to lose every thing and start over.... building a village and leveling up a char is a LOT of work, time and effort.... i may not be as advanced as some one else who plays as much as my self... but i would VERY much hate to lose my char.... and really dislike losing my main village even tho the design was rubbish.

[Thor]

Well to be honest being able to do a char of +300 biles really isn't something that can be done in a small time frame (what is considered a small time is relative however) easy anyways (F&F debuff). Sure you can use potions but that still requires more effort. Balancing character developing, crimes and punishing mechanics isn't an easy task. But the way I see it that if criminals are hard to punish character progressing should also be harder and vice versa. If criminals are a piece of cake to punish and progressing new criminals becomes tedious as hell then we will get the farmville experience I think JC isn't pushing for.

[JohnCarver]

Yes, the idea of making throw-away alts (5 to 100 biles). Idea is that you have some sort of craving system right? If I understood correctly you "crave" for a certain category dish after eating another dish and this makes your biling most efficient (guaranteed bile-up on each correct food eaten)? Or is it possible to completely or partially ignore the craving and eat less efficiently "the old way"?

The way we envision it there would not be an 'old way'. To be honest this is the hardest thing that I have been wrestling with mentally. On the one hand I get excited about the idea that almost all characters represent an 'investment' that is measurable with 'time/age'. On the other hand I absolutely hate being 'throttled' and having an arbitrary mechanic telling me that I can only be so strong so fast.

I also don't like how prof. and gluttony are too 'similar'. In that they both have a speed at which you 'should' advance, and then a labor sync to 'beat that speed'. Prof have inspiration and Gluttony has FF. Since I prefer the inspiration system over the FF system we are looking to try to 'mix up' the way those two systems feel with the gluttony change.

Unfortunately, until I have something more concrete that i actually like it might not be all that productive for me to give you ideas and concepts that might never make it live in the first place.

And yes, I thought about finishing the mining system as we originally designed it. It is low-hanging fruit for sure.

If criminals are a piece of cake to punish and progressing new criminals becomes tedious as hell then we will get the farmville experience I think JC isn't pushing for.

One idea being tossed around was to greatly exaggerate the effects of whipping a criminal (I.E. Bile loss that really hurts), while simultaneously dramatically slowing down the ability to crank out alts and then remove the TBC entirely. This way you could just as easily do 'big damage' to somebody by having a stock/whipping party, but nobody suffers the 'hard sting' of a lost character without a more active involvement in their death....... still being debated though.

[Trismegistus]

+1

the things that make Salem different, which Ironically are the exact things I think make Salem largely 'unpopular', and even more ironically are the exact things I think make Salem great.

[Thor]

Salem is really unique game and it's been a real pleasure to see how it's shaping up over the years here. Excited to see what you come up anyhow =P