Why is there so few people playing the game? - Moved

[Sevenless]

I definitely agree that permadeath in a longterm grind game has some major issues, but as potjeh mentioned cranking out characters is very easy once set up. You can have an alt combat ready in a week with a well established town quite easily.

Overall I don't think salem is meant to appeal to anywhere near the majority of gamers. It's a niche game that is incredibly harsh. Diluting the hardcore and losing the base audience but not enough to attract mainstream without redesigning the game is the likely eventuality if the devs don't stick to their design goals.

[MaxDragon]

Like i said earlier if the game is not hard many player will not be fufilled, but with the permadeath being able to happen so fast most player will just go to another game upon there first or second meaningful death. A niche game has to hold player that find it. I think it is wishful thinking to think that a niche game can ignore a majority of gamer and not feel the hurt in revenue. This also hurts the player in the form of content, server stability, and longevity. I am not saying dumb it down, but you cant ask player to grind for a month only for it all to be reset in a matter of seconds to do it all over again and pitch that as fun content. Its just unreasonable player have to have a way to protect themselves. Risk vs reward system. My last post outlined it. Eve security rating system with wilderness and the darkness.

[MagicManICT]

I think it is wishful thinking to think that a niche game can ignore a majority of gamer and not feel the hurt in revenue.

I don't think anyone has ever had the illusion that it was otherwise. Not everyone publishes games to become a multimillionaire. Some people do it for the love of the art, others for the goal of creating and solving challenges, and hundreds more reasons. The point is to make money and have a sustainable income. Otherwise, why would I go to work for IBM as a programmer and "live comfortably" when I could start my own business, sell it to Google (or Oracle or <insert large corporation here>, and retire at 35?

I could easily continue on as to why this kind of thinking is such a huge burden on the entertainment industry, but the discussion is out there other places.

FYI, have you seen what other games Paradox Interactive publishes? Many are highly rated titles, but a lot of those are complex, niche games. There's always money to be made if you can keep budgets in proper order and have some knowledge of your target audience.

[MaxDragon]

I think it is wishful thinking to think that a niche game can ignore a majority of gamer and not feel the hurt in revenue.

I don't think anyone has ever had the illusion that it was otherwise. Not everyone publishes games to become a multimillionaire. Some people do it for the love of the art, others for the goal of creating and solving challenges, and hundreds more reasons. The point is to make money and have a sustainable income. Otherwise, why would I go to work for IBM as a programmer and "live comfortably" when I could start my own business, sell it to Google (or Oracle or <insert large corporation here>, and retire at 35?

I could easily continue on as to why this kind of thinking is such a huge burden on the entertainment industry, but the discussion is out there other places.

FYI, have you seen what other games Paradox Interactive publishes? Many are highly rated titles, but a lot of those are complex, niche games. There's always money to be made if you can keep budgets in proper order and have some knowledge of your target audience.

I have played many of paradox's titles, but I have to say that I know for a fact that the publisher is wanting money out of there deal. I appreciate there risk in supporting some untested waters, but end the end i think they want to make money.

Its funny really, I have actually talked to a few people that flatly told me that this company doesn't care about money. I don't believe them, but i do wonder if they really want to push a hard line for the sake of art or inspiration. I for one don't understand why you cant be a millionaire and express yourself. Sure you will have to sell out a bit on your ideals, but that's what makes for better entertainment down the road. Sure you give on certain ideals, but your make much more money catering to larger audiences and in turn receive more money for which you can see your inspirations come to a greater fruition. Also, I am not saying to change the fundamental game. If Salem is a "Crafting MMO", , then it should cater to crafters. Which most don't desire to have there stuff easily blown up all the time and there characters effectively deleted upon a speedy death. Moreover, the game is just so complex with very little in the way of explanation of game mechanics for the new player that may not go to the forums and read a lengthy guide first before they play. Look I am just trying to help. If the developers want to keep it as it is fine, but they shouldn't expect it to be welcomed by many gamers.

Off topic: I want to also say that I feel like i am getting dev trolled at times. The more i get into the game the more i find a little . Like the black bile being green and the phlegm being a lighter grey, or trees with leaves falling off them in the animation having no leaves on them and respawn at a horrible rate. Beavers having an almost rape ewok face and then skipping around and doing a little jig when standing still. Also, the "Crafting MMO" subtitle when we all know this is a hardcore pvp game.

[Sevenless]

During the recent podcast Jorb spawned 20 snakes on the gathered players as a little good bye present. Yes... yes they do troll just a bit.

[aholman]

I definitely agree that permadeath in a longterm grind game has some major issues, but as potjeh mentioned cranking out characters is very easy once set up. You can have an alt combat ready in a week with a well established town quite easily.

Overall I don't think salem is meant to appeal to anywhere near the majority of gamers. It's a niche game that is incredibly harsh. Diluting the hardcore and losing the base audience but not enough to attract mainstream without redesigning the game is the likely eventuality if the devs don't stick to their design goals.

I think the problem is to keep new players, including myself. The beginning of Salem is very unforgiving. As a new player if you cannot improve and get your camp together quickly you won't really go anywhere. I think the hardcore part is ok. But there are a lot of things that you learn by doing mistakes, mistakes in this game however can cost you a lot.. Maybe to much for a relativly new player to keep on playing.
Also without ender client I don't think I would have lasted more than a day to be honest.

[sabinati]

Also, the "Crafting MMO" subtitle when we all know this is a hardcore pvp game.

it is a hardcore pvp game where you develop your character by crafting

[MagicManICT]

Did I say anywhere in my post that Paradox isn't a company in business to make a profit? They have clearly canceled games that lack vision, excessively over budget, or for other reasons. They have also published and keep publishing some games that other companies wouldn't touch because the profit margins are so small. There's a big difference between "we don't care if we make money" and "we don't care if we don't become millionaires on this next title".

Compare that to EA, Activision-Blizzard, etc. I'm not going to say I've done a thorough research of these companies, but can anyone really say that a one of them has published a game that had less than a 5-10 million development budget? Some of the new games have 80-100 million dollar budgets (think that's the number I heard for both Halo 4 and the new Call of Duty). Again, I haven't done the research and someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like some of Paradox's games are getting out the door for relatively cheap in comparison.

[harflimon]

I definitely agree that permadeath in a longterm grind game has some major issues, but as potjeh mentioned cranking out characters is very easy once set up. You can have an alt combat ready in a week with a well established town quite easily.

Overall I don't think salem is meant to appeal to anywhere near the majority of gamers. It's a niche game that is incredibly harsh. Diluting the hardcore and losing the base audience but not enough to attract mainstream without redesigning the game is the likely eventuality if the devs don't stick to their design goals.

I think the problem is to keep new players, including myself. The beginning of Salem is very unforgiving. As a new player if you cannot improve and get your camp together quickly you won't really go anywhere. I think the hardcore part is ok. But there are a lot of things that you learn by doing mistakes, mistakes in this game however can cost you a lot.. Maybe to much for a relativly new player to keep on playing.
Also without ender client I don't think I would have lasted more than a day to be honest.

Other than getting killed by another player I think it is rather forgiving. When I first logged in and started playing I thought if I got killed by even a creature it would be permadeath, but quickly found out that I was simply knocked out and lost my inventory. For a noob that's not even that big of a deal, you just lose the stuff you've been picking up for the last hour or so and I guess a proficency level or two, but it's not that bad. And once you learn the very basics of the game all you have to do to not get KO'd is avoid snakes and bears (and other players). Given the size of the map, after I random dropped into the wilderness it was a couple days of playing before I even saw someone else. And since I was a noob with no protection I just logged off. If you see someone and automatically trust them, then maybe this isn't the game for you. Until you feel you can either defend yourself or don't care if you die, don't trust others unless you're in Boston or meet them on the forum (though given the social engineering skills of the griefers that's probably not wise either).

The only other unforgiving aspects I can think of would be not understanding the learning/inspirational grind. If you don't read a tutorial or figure it out it probably is frustrating as a noob to keep studying the same inspirational and not understand you're doing it wrong. But this is still a beta and the tutorials should be better by the time it's released. Also if you aren't a complete ******* you should be able to figure it out relatively quickly, or at least figure out that you need to ask someone or scour the forums for info. This is a hardcore game. People need to start dealing with it that way. If you don't enjoy using your brain or doing some trial and error then this game probably isn't for you. One of the fun things I've noticed is that when they do the content updates they post some general information about what's new and changed, but they don't spell it out completely. I don't know if that's intentional or if Jorbtar is just too busy/lazy to list everything, but I'm glad they don't. Most other games I've played list exactly what's changed and how, sort of destroys the fun of discovering/learning through making mistakes exactly how everything works.


P.S. I agree about ender's client, without the radar I would have quit by now. I suppose that's a barrier for newer players who aren't tech savvy or trusting of custom clients, but I think they plan on giving the vanilla client a major overhaul before release so it shouldn't be a problem forever.

[semomonkey]

Hi i just joined about 4 days ago. I kinda agree that the cities are a bit empty but i guess people are just working hard. TBH i met a few people just walking around. I didn't read this topic but my experience of salem is not empty. No sir i meet people everyday