Some thoughts & Request for debate

[Claeyt]

I would like that comming from jorb or loftar, but as they dont post about this stuff, people never know whats actually gonna happen, and can only thought in things that happen in h&h, and can happen here.

It's come from Jorb, and the dev's many times now. Salem is not the same as HnH. It takes much longer to get a standard or high end base up with much more time involved. Wiping HnH between worlds is now standard, people expect it. Wiping Salem after repeatedly saying they wouldn't and without an expectation of a wipe from the players would lead to the last of us quitting and probably the death to of the game. They can fix everything about Salem without wiping, and in some cases they already have.

[morck4]

Wiping Salem after repeatedly saying they wouldn't and without an expectation of a wipe from the players would lead to the last of us quitting and probably the death to of the game. They can fix everything about Salem without wiping, and in some cases they already have.

Like Dallane said, long time ago the the "no wipe law" was born, with the new relationship with paradox maybe things will change, but who knows. I dont think a wipe will make all people leave the game, thats absurd, also i think is more absurd to have 3 servers with less than 60 players each, and i dont think that much people will quit the game with a wipe. I dont really care if they wipe or not, but i would like to know before keep working in my town or take a vacation from salem.

Here's to hoping that the optimism of some people will be rewarded by jorbtar with some nice content eventually

I guess they are making a new set of hats only for the betatesters that remain.

[Claeyt]

Wiping Salem after repeatedly saying they wouldn't and without an expectation of a wipe from the players would lead to the last of us quitting and probably the death to of the game. They can fix everything about Salem without wiping, and in some cases they already have.

Like Dallane said, long time ago the the "no wipe law" was born, with the new relationship with paradox maybe things will change, but who knows. I dont think a wipe will make all people leave the game, thats absurd, also i think is more absurd to have 3 servers with less than 60 players each, and i dont think that much people will quit the game with a wipe. I dont really care if they wipe or not, but i would like to know before keep working in my town or take a vacation from salem.

I would also like to know months in advance if they are planning any type of wipe (full wipe, purity wipe, character wipe, wipe but keep the map, etc...) so that I can quit playing, but after the Alpha wipes they had a reason, It was to keep people playing. Salem is much more intense on how much time and work it takes to get a good base going than HnH. It's what some of us enjoy and others hate.

There are not 60 people playing per server. Let's take Roanoke as an example. The high account pop is at any given moment around 65-80 on any given day on Roanoke, with a low in the 20's to 30's over the whole day. I would say maybe 200 people play on the server with multiple accounts every day. Translate that to not everybody playing every day, and it rises to maybe 400-500 with casuals and noobs joining randomly over the week and month. I've seen 50 separate people playing on my kin list playing with a server pop of 75 or something, so I think multiple accounts aren't as big a deal as everybody thinks. Is it low compared to back when we had 200+ playing at the same time, yes. For a history of the pop drop see the thread on it, but for a quick history, the first big drop happened when the HnH W6 lag was fixed, the second came after the purity nerf, and we've been hanging around there since then. This is an old argument tho, check some old threads, right now if you want to help raise the population for an independent game go on a gaming site and give Salem a good review like the rest of us are.

Here's to hoping that the optimism of some people will be rewarded by jorbtar with some nice content eventually

I guess they are making a new set of hats only for the betatesters that remain.

I'm always in favor of more hats.

As for optimism, it's a great, unique game that just needs to find an audience. There are 300 million video gamer's out there. Salem just needs a little advertising.

[JimmyJames]

The game will not benefit from a few people posting good reviews on websites, because the problem is and has always been that Salem cannot retain players the way it is set up. Players like myself, who enjoyed grindy games like Wurm Online and open world PvP games like old UO have been driven off by an even grindier, less rewarding (and with the option to lose everything to gangs of effective supermen) game.

This game has had lots of gaming press coverage. People know about it—and know to stay away.

Refusing to wipe during what is a beta stage is a bad idea, particularly when you're still experimenting with mechanics, but that's only a small part of the issue. The bigger, much more immediate problem is that the game's core mechanics aren't fun. The beginning part of the game is just brutal, and it's a part that players are faced with repeating if they die (unless you pay some cash!). Humors aren't fun, and they never have been. People have been posting this here for months but it has been ignored by developers and written off by a few dozen die-hard players who are now left wondering where everyone went. The publisher drops this game and we see player numbers surging in the other developer's title.

It's silly to have a beta and then ignore the feedback you get. Time to pull the plug on this experiment.

[DemonEyes]

The purity update did smash down the population.. there has been nothing since to attract back a single player, and there are always things that put off the new player.

It is said and it should be highlighted to all.. The start is a pain in the butt..

It has become somewhat easier.. but the lack of progress you get even with a significant input at the start is very limited.. industry is too hard to begin for a game where it can be all taken away from you overnight.. the silver required to start and grow a claim is the single most overlooked matter for most players.. and it is down to either having a lot of luck not being found for the first dozen weeks or so (and so being able to develop outside of claims unhindered) or just going ahead and buying silver.

imho H&H is being a lot busier due simply down to the fact claims are EASY, easy to build and easy to maintain, LP#'s literally grow on trees. The effort to break into a claim on H&H outstrips by far the effort to actually make one. Salem.. is not the same, the beginning is painful, and when all is lost you have no choice but to suffer the same pains. (yes there are ways to avoid this)

I think the monetization that the cash shop introduced hinders Salem by huge amounts and hopefully Jorb and loftar look at the loss of paradox as a means to reduce the impact of their cash generation mechanisms by readdressing the balance of silver worth vs amount of playtime to obtain silver. H&H does not have monetization and hence the game is very throwaway and accessible and has a larger population.

It seems hard for anyone to suggest workable ideas to reduce the butt pain of starting wihtout handing things to new players on a plate or holding their hand for the first weeks. Maybe this is what we must look at doing? Maybe New players should be given some skills to begin with, or an inventory full of goodies? Maybe they should be teleported to a camp with some buildings prefabbed on it so that they can learn? who knows?

I believe the idea of a newbie island, free of griefers and murderers for them to learn, a crate full of stuff that they need to craft stuff with and things to do to just learn the basics.. plus maybe a one off free claim stake put randomly in the wilderness as per wilderness guide. This ouwld take a tiny baby step to the starting pain.. but lets face it.. the best way to learn is to play. and have a hard time of it. Salem is maybe TOO lifelike.. effort in > gains

[mdm20]

I think the fundamental concept of this game is flawed. Combining a long, tedious character advancement process with permanent death, is not a recipe for success. Aside from that, I think it's probably the most new-player unfriendly game I've ever played.