Salem Customer Rewards

Announcements of major changes to Salem.

Re: Salem Customer Rewards

Postby Fidgety » Tue Feb 16, 2016 11:09 pm

Tulgarath wrote:I use my PayPal for the family, but I'm OK with buying something small on each account to flag them as customers.

$1.99 for effectively a lifetime sub, where the sub perk is special in game items for holidays and events. The items are 99% cosmetic, usually with a low number of slots. Hardly pay to win.


When I read about being on the list to receive the valentines gift, I made a couple of small purchases from the store. I figured and hoped the gift would be cosmetic like the nationalist jersey I was given at the patch release. I like these as they are just decorative really.
I was planning on making these purchases to support the devs prior to this announcement. I plan to make a couple small purchases per month for support. I will never buy any item I deem to speed up my characters development and skip any game experience. I had to contact JC to have him push the gift to me and I told him this in advance that I did not want the gift if it was something that would boost my character. He said in advance it was basicly nothing like that and pushed it to me.
Exactly like you say, if these gifts are 99% cosmetic, I don't know why people are worried. They just mark an occasion. Something to see hanging on your wall or in a container that bring back memories.
Jeez, I paid like $10 to get a snack? I haven't even opened the box lol. Like you say, hardly pay to win.
User avatar
Fidgety
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Tue Jan 26, 2016 12:01 am

Re: Salem Customer Rewards

Postby Taipion » Wed Feb 17, 2016 3:13 am

Salem is surely not p2win,
but I wont debate on this now.

It still is sad to see such a move, not that it is killing the game for anyone, just that it is a suboptimal way to do it, whereas other ways are readily available.
It just makes it look like JC is trying to milk the players, and that's probably not true.
Need something? Here is my Shop (Including some useful info for new/returning players at the bottom of the first post)
Taipion
 
Posts: 2659
Joined: Fri Mar 08, 2013 4:12 pm

Re: Salem Customer Rewards

Postby JohnCarver » Wed Feb 17, 2016 3:45 am

Taipion wrote: JC is trying to milk the players,


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-OwMoAsP38
ceedat wrote:the overwhelming frustration of these forums and the unnecessarily over complicated game mechanics is what i enjoy about this game most.

Nsuidara wrote:it is a strange and difficult game in no positive way
User avatar
JohnCarver
Site Admin
 
Posts: 6826
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2014 3:02 am

Re: Salem Customer Rewards

Postby Taipion » Wed Feb 17, 2016 4:22 am

JohnCarver wrote:
Taipion wrote: JC is trying to milk the players,


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-OwMoAsP38


I have no doubt you would turn someones char into a cow and milk them if you felt like it. :P
But that is not the point here.
Need something? Here is my Shop (Including some useful info for new/returning players at the bottom of the first post)
Taipion
 
Posts: 2659
Joined: Fri Mar 08, 2013 4:12 pm

Re: Salem Customer Rewards

Postby er-queent8r » Wed Feb 17, 2016 4:30 am

ↁON'⏄ GᴉVE JC ᴉↁE▲S LᴉKE ⏄HOUGH⏄ ▲L⏄HOUGH ᴉ BE ᴉ⏄ WOULↁ BE SWEE⏄ SWEE⏄ MᴉLK OF ⏄E▲RS.
pietin1 wrote:this was for JC only not his ass lickers.

Proud to be a JC ass licker!
User avatar
er-queent8r
 
Posts: 775
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2012 1:13 am
Location: In the LOO

Re: Salem Customer Rewards

Postby Argentis » Wed Feb 17, 2016 12:07 pm

Taipion wrote:Salem is surely not p2win,
but I wont debate on this now.

It still is sad to see such a move, not that it is killing the game for anyone, just that it is a suboptimal way to do it, whereas other ways are readily available.
It just makes it look like JC is trying to milk the players, and that's probably not true.


Well I would like to debate on this actually as for me there is no doubt that Salem is Pay2Win. I'm not talking about coercive monetization, just simple stuff that you can pay to improve your gaming experience (tools for example). It's not necessiraly a bad thing (at least I don't think it is) but let's be honest with ourselves. Sure people will argue that Salem is not Pay2Win because you can't win the game. It is true but you cannot "win" any MMO games either and some of them are undoubtly Pay2Win (Perfect World, Gpotato Games, etc). Pay2Win is defined essentially as a game that allows a player to use real money in order to have an unfair advantage over another player.
Well let's take two fictionnal cases in Salem:

Steve and John are noobs just starting playing Salem. They each play exactly 45 hours a week. John spent money in the game in order to buy 20 Mysterytoolboxes, Steve didn't. Who do you think is gonna have more money, a bigger base and more stats at the end of the month (providing they share the same level of "skill")?

In my opinion, it's not a bad model per say, especially in Salem, where you can still acquire Store items through trade and theft. Let's not however be blind and try barrenly to convince ourselves that Salem is not Pay2win. Salem needs to be pay to win for the devs sake, I'm not sure how long the game could survive without the money generated by the store(probably longer than without our tears ;p).

We need however to differentiate between 'bad' Pay2Win and 'good' Pay2win. It's all about balance really and fitting the rules. No matter how much money you spend in Salem you are still bound by the same rules as non-paying (or not paying as much) players. . If JC were to start selling an item that would allow you to do crimes without leaving any scents then I would dare say that the game could be qualified as 'bad' Pay2Win.
User avatar
Argentis
 
Posts: 1667
Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2013 8:59 pm

Re: Salem Customer Rewards

Postby Procne » Wed Feb 17, 2016 12:11 pm

Out of the cash shop the tools are the least p2win things.

Having them does not grant you a win.
To win you are not required to have those tools.

Simple as that.

What IS pay to win however, is the memento mori. Whoever buys it gains the skill to murder other players - a skill that is practically not available otherwise.
Image
Procne
 
Posts: 3696
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 11:34 pm

Re: Salem Customer Rewards

Postby Argentis » Wed Feb 17, 2016 12:24 pm

Procne wrote:Out of the cash shop the tools are the least p2win things.

Having them does not grant you a win.
To win you are not required to have those tools.

Simple as that.

What IS pay to win however, is the memento mori. Whoever buys it gains the skill to murder other players - a skill that is practically not available otherwise.


I would argue differently. WIth enough time you can eventually unlock the skill to murder people (Story fo Cain and Abel). However with infintie amount of times (without considering trading) you could never gain the % speed boost you get by using a store tool.
User avatar
Argentis
 
Posts: 1667
Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2013 8:59 pm

Re: Salem Customer Rewards

Postby Procne » Wed Feb 17, 2016 12:28 pm

Argentis wrote:
Procne wrote:Out of the cash shop the tools are the least p2win things.

Having them does not grant you a win.
To win you are not required to have those tools.

Simple as that.

What IS pay to win however, is the memento mori. Whoever buys it gains the skill to murder other players - a skill that is practically not available otherwise.


I would argue differently. WIth enough time you can eventually unlock the skill to murder people (Story fo Cain and Abel). However with infintie amount of times (without considering trading) you could never gain the % speed boost you get by using a store tool.


1. The time and effort saved by the memento is magnitudes higher than whatever time you would save by using the store tools.
2. Digging / chopping / cutting faster will not grant you victory, while the ability to murder other players may.
Image
Procne
 
Posts: 3696
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 11:34 pm

Re: Salem Customer Rewards

Postby grapefruitv » Wed Feb 17, 2016 12:43 pm

Argentis wrote:Steve and John are noobs just starting playing Salem. They each play exactly 45 hours a week. John spent money in the game in order to buy 20 Mysterytoolboxes, Steve didn't. Who do you think is gonna have more money, a bigger base and more stats at the end of the month (providing they share the same level of "skill")?


Let's say John was lucky and got two very usefull tools, and not a pitchfork or even two, saw and a shovel. They both will start from building 10 board piles, a shop saw will save John about 30 minutes comparing to Steve, which is about 0,4% of the duration of the whole dry boards making cycle. Surely Steve can manage to squeeze in average of 5 more minutes/day to catch up with John or not to be too upset about being 30 minutes behind after a week of gameplay.
Additional food provided by gardening shovel will help John aswell, let's say they both have 10 pots. Steve has to make one time investment into making 5 more pots to catch up with John - doesn't sound like too long, especially since every day of playing will bring time investment closer and closer to 0.

The only real difference shop can make for those two is if John will buy 10k silver worth of goddies and get a townbell going on day one, but this only matters on the first week after wipe, i.e. hopefully never on Providence.
User avatar
grapefruitv
 
Posts: 709
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2012 1:53 am

PreviousNext

Return to Announcements

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 25 guests

cron