End of game for me as well

[darnokpl]

It's almost like a single-player game, you "won" the game, watched the credits and then you put the game on the shelf. I do not complain - the game was free, didn't cost me a single cent. Thank you very much. Sadly, for me, the game has too little in the "staying power" department - and judging from the number of abandoned plots and that hardly anyone from my kins still logs in I reckon I'm not the only one missing this "staying power".

You should try to find friends in game and try to play with them, that is best part of this game.
Unfortunately with 44 users online it is hard :/

[Kerryann]

You should think about to join a bigger village, instead of being a lonely bored Hermit. Then u will find some things to do

For me personally, can't speak for steve, I did think about it, I even wrote out a LFV but in the end didn't post it.
I do intereact with other players the same as i do in Haven, so i'm not lonely, lol.
I like being a hermit, i like to do my own thing, not everyone is suited to village life, esp in a big village and for me anyway being a hermit is unrelated to boredom - i don't get bored in Haven.

(well, not until recently but that's down to lag and deserting players, lol).

[Steve]

You should think about to join a bigger village, instead of being a lonely bored Hermit. Then u will find some things to do

Frankly, are there "bigger" villages in the game? Granted, I may have missed it, but all I've seen have been small villages with max. 3 or 4 people and their alts. I also thought that being in a village makes the game even easier than it is when going the hermit route. And I found the game very, very easy. At no time did I have the feeling of struggle or challenge or something.

Salem practically throws billions of stuff/food/inspirationals at the player. I think that's a marked contrast to H&H where stuff wasn't as plentiful.

[Steve]

Just so that this thread isn't only about complaints I wanted to add a thing I would consider to increase the longevity and, yes, also the difficulty curve.

The most important thing I would change in Salem: think about a mechanic that introduces interdependence of players. Not for the starting player, but for the player that has crossed into mid-game, roughly defined as having the basic skills and about 20-25 points in all humours. From then on players should be struggling to progress further on their own. A second barrier should happen a bit later, say at roughly 40-45 points in the humours. Even villages shouldn't be able to be self-sufficient in raising their humours above that point.

In the current game I find it ridiculously easy for a hermit, not to speak for a village, to have access to everything. I would seriously want to change that. For example, have many more ores that are only available regionally, have more crops that cannot all be grown with good quality on the same soil. Make people need this stuff to progress further. Make people trade or barter for it. Of course players (F2P game!) will just create new accounts and alts and use the Boston instant travel mechanic to circumvent this, thus either the travel or the alt mechanic has to be adjusted to make it work, maybe even both.

Breeding alts is so easy in both Salem and H&H because of the inspirational and food mechanic. Just a thought experiment: How would the game change when inspirationals couldn't be traded or stored in containers? Would people actually have to play their alts instead of feeding them inspirationals from the village coffers? Inspirationals would become use-it-or-lose-it.

Another thought experiment: how would the game change if getting items to Boston took time, depending on distance? Think coach transport, if you're far away from Boston it may take an RL day or two before your goods arrive in Boston. Same with items from Boston to your village, your character may travel via teleport, the items will arrive via coach two days later. Shall we introduce a risk with that as well? Maybe the coach gets attacked and the items are lost? Maybe mitigate the loss by paying extra for a more secure sort of travel?

Anyway, in my opinion interdependence has to be introduced to give Salem longevity - otherwise it's just too easy. Sorry for my ramblings.

[Glennfinnan]

Mid game at 20-25 humours? :/
That doesn't even take a week to get.

And it would just bring back the unpenetrable fortresses just like in HnH.

[_Gunnar]

An increased local population makes the game significantly more difficult, and fun. Hopefully this will happen once updates resume, I hope that we are not too thinly spread over multiple servers...

I kindof agree that boston causes several problems, but its needed for the poor devs to make money, and is also useful due to the low population density.

[MagicManICT]

An increased local population makes the game significantly more difficult, and fun. Hopefully this will happen once updates resume, I hope that we are not too thinly spread over multiple servers...

I think the idea is to implement capability now so that when servers need to be added, they can be.

@Steve: I think you bring up a couple of interesting ideas there, but lack of trading would squelch a big part of the game (counter is that you could just trade the ingredients, of course). It also means it takes a lot more effort to develop a character properly for the role and lose focus. There might be a few other things that could be changed to slow down the development time some. I'm just not sure if that's needed or not. Just remember that almost anything that slows down alt development is going to slow down main character development and play times.

[darnokpl]

Another thought experiment: how would the game change if getting items to Boston took time, depending on distance? Think coach transport, if you're far away from Boston it may take an RL day or two before your goods arrive in Boston. Same with items from Boston to your village, your character may travel via teleport, the items will arrive via coach two days later. Shall we introduce a risk with that as well? Maybe the coach gets attacked and the items are lost? Maybe mitigate the loss by paying extra for a more secure sort of travel?

Travel weariness from HnH?
Yes it could be useful here, it should burn black bile.
Maybe calculate it in way to burn 100 black bile while teleport to boston from darkness border?
It should give interesting changes into towns placement during early game

[Banok]

I've hit this point each world, game just needs alot more content and population.

things got interesting when beta started and we had 800 players online but once it drops to 50 online... the "singleplayer" experience is only enjoyable for so long.

what we need is a big new content patch and open beta (AKA release).

and hey vibe