A Brave New Salem

[alagar]

Holy ****, the seasional stuff is brilliant. What would be even better was if it was in real time - in November, small flakes of snow start falling, in December, the ground is completely white. Adding special encounters which only appear during specific seasons, such as Yetis during winter, would also be a great addition.

Sorry. Maybe I spoke too soon. There will be seasonal EVENTS. I'm not opposed to changing the aslphalt to snow in December and invisibly harassing you guys with spawned yetis while taking a break from what I would consider the more pressing development. I just meant a re-occuring patched in fully fledged system of seasons would be 2015 at best.

Aw god don't make me back to play.

[belgear]

Exciting

[Procne]

You might be lucky that the new management might introduce a PVE server though

Not necessary. EVE shows, that PvP and PvE can coexist in one world.

yes, but EVE has much bigger world and population. And it still offers PvE regions where newbs can play in safety. And there's no permadeath.
Kinda hard to compare

[alloin]

You might be lucky that the new management might introduce a PVE server though

Not necessary. EVE shows, that PvP and PvE can coexist in one world.

yes, but EVE has much bigger world and population. And it still offers PvE regions where newbs can play in safety. And there's no permadeath.
Kinda hard to compare

There's pve & no permadeath inside the boston (*providence*) claim

[Procne]

Yes, and don't forget about character creation area in England!

[Jack]

You might be lucky that the new management might introduce a PVE server though


There's pve & no permadeath inside the boston (*providence*) claim

I'd like to play on a Player versus Environment server, or if that's not possible, can safe zone Boston be enlarged?

The pacing of this game and the skill progression is just right for me. Not many games let you learn how to swim, let alone learn how to put berries on a blade of grass. That sounds like sarcasm, but I'm elated by the simple things. The slow progression makes it all worth it. I don't want to be raiding end-game dungeons for loot with 19 other people after a month of play.

It's exciting, though, to strike out into the unknown dangers of the wilds, not knowing what you'll encounter—flora, fauna, geological formations, bodies of water, native inhabitants, the rare and dangerous wielder of curses and wearer of pointy hats. With great risk comes reward or abject failure, as is natural. That prospect is what makes this game enticing, the exploration and advancement amid a backdrop of mortal peril is what makes this game stir anxious fun within me.

The Harvest Moon games and Star Wars Galaxies did it right by rotating natural resource availability. I'd love to see something similar implemented. Also, Star Wars Galaxies had permanent death for Jedi at launch, did you know?

EverQuest had a book every character began with. If you destroyed it or put it in your bank, no player could attack you, let alone kill you. However, if you gave it to a Priest of Discord—no, not the chimera from Equestria—Player versus Player would forever be enabled. This allowed people who wished to tangle with each other the option while keeping passersby safe from undue harm, as well as letting a player choose when they felt they were strong enough to pick fights.

Permanent death is still an exciting feature, but allowing other players to grief you is not an exciting feature.

[Voltaire1512]

yes, but EVE has much bigger world and population. And it still offers PvE regions where newbs can play in safety. And there's no permadeath. Kinda hard to compare

To be frank: I don`t think so. That Salem has permadeath and EVE not does not mean that it is possible in one world and impossible in the other. The difference stems from the fact, that CCP made the decision to not have permadeath in the game (which is surely one of the contributing factors to the "much bigger population").

Basically it is all about design decisions. And, maybe, the audience you are targeting for. Do you want 40 players? Or 400? Or 40.000? The more players you want to attract, the more compromises you have to make. So it all depends, what the new management is aiming for.

[Procne]

I wasn't saying that in the meaning that it's impossible to have PvP and PvE together, just that both games are hard to compare as the core mechanics and features are completely different

[Voltaire1512]

I wasn't saying that in the meaning that it's impossible to have PvP and PvE together, just that both games are hard to compare as the core mechanics and features are completely different

Again: I don`t think so.

I have to admit that I play LotRO. One of the oldschool MMO with an endless amount of "Go to A and kill B-amount of C-monsters to get D-amount of XP"-type of quests. Not necessarily innovative, but kind of entertaining.

EVE, just like Salem, is an open world MMO, where the player starts all alone in a Universe, is left to his own devices and can do this or that and has to set his own goals.

The rest is, as I said, about design decisions. Do I want to allow PvP at all? If so, should it be consensual or open? If the latter, do I feel the need to nevertheless make PvP harder in some sections of the world (in order to not scare away too many players)? If so, how do I do that? Solution in EVE: HighSec, where one has to be quick to kill someone (although not too difficult considering that lots of miners dont tank their ships at all). Possible solution for Salem: Open PvP for those who join a Clan, all others are invulnerable for other players (dont take this at face value, I am just doodling here).

[Horis]

yes, but EVE has much bigger world and population. And it still offers PvE regions where newbs can play in safety. And there's no permadeath. Kinda hard to compare

To be frank: I don`t think so. That Salem has permadeath and EVE not does not mean that it is possible in one world and impossible in the other. The difference stems from the fact, that CCP made the decision to not have permadeath in the game (which is surely one of the contributing factors to the "much bigger population").

Basically it is all about design decisions. And, maybe, the audience you are targeting for. Do you want 40 players? Or 400? Or 40.000? The more players you want to attract, the more compromises you have to make. So it all depends, what the new management is aiming for.

Eve doesn't kill your character upon death, but if you forgot to save a clone of the character at a medical facility you lost all training since last save. Mostly, though, you lost a ship. Your ship is your most valuable asset. You can still fly the same ship after death, but you need to work with the economy of the game to either build one or buy one. And all production is player owned.

For Salem, we need an economy. I don't mean an auction house or trade hubs or anything as vast as Eve's, but an actual need for trading with other players. We don't have that. With trade comes common interest and joint liability. That would mean other players would want you to succeed in order to help them. Rivalries would form over resources and unlikely associations would form out of necessity.

If resources were distributed on the map in a manner that required strong factions to spread their strength thinly in order to grow, we would see all kinds of drama erupt. Drama that would be considered a succulent Chinese meal compared to the after school snacks we read about on these forums.