Thoughts on Salem (possibly the worst game i ever played)

[painhertz]

I'll grant you that I personally have "used up" the available content in Salem and am more or less waiting for new **** to test, but this is "only" after playing for close to a year since Alpha. OP is trolling "hard" if for no other reason than claiming they have no interest in spending any more time with the game and sitting here on the forums waiting to argue with all comers. Don't like the game? Take off, don't let the browser frame hit your ass on the way out.

[femputer]

I also think you need to read this to get more of a grasp on what the game is about:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=181

Ive just had a look at the link, if gluttony and consuming excess berries shortens the length of time you have to wait for skill ups, it doesnt seem as bad. What sort of difference does it make? From minutes to seconds?

I mentioned there is no global chat and no one else has asked for it, why? It is essential to a game such as this. I havent enjoyed it thus far but i hope they can salvage the game, there are not too many survival games out and it might help for the developers to go back to the drawing board and think about how to make the experience fun.

BTW procne i also have played and enjoyed games like transport tycoon even though they are outdated, the graphics fit the game well and the gameplay is fundamentally quite good, challenging and fun. I dont mind games that take months to play, but not if they put in artificial mechanisms to stretch the game out over this time period.

[femputer]

If Salem was the worst game I ever played...I don't think I would be going to the community forums to complain about it after I decided that it was the worst game ever.

Well, maybe if I had to pay for it I might do that but...

Salem is FREE to play.

Yes, i am here complaining because i bought a key off someone for $20. I thought it would be worth it, but really i got ripped off. Salem could be so much more than it is.

Edit - i read the sticky and think i might give it another try, if gluttony makes such a stark difference my mine gripe with the game is gone. I am in raonake if anyone wants to accept me into their village (pm me). LOL.

[Procne]

Speaking of artificially stretching gameplay... I would say that Salem is the type of game which does it the least. Most other sandbox/economy games do just that - grinding. Gather hundreds of items, spend xxx time.

See EVE - you have to wait real time to learn skills, with no way to speed it up.
See Wurm - to do anything you have to repeat x actions, each with 5-20 seconds progress bars. Most of the gameplay is about watching progress bars.
See Xsyon - to learn new recipes you have to grind x simple recipes just to increase the skill and throw the products away.
See Tale in the desert - to learn new skills you have to buy them by crafting dozens / hundreds of items and turning them in school

Salem and H&H are the only games, in my opinion, where you actually play, and not wait / grind. Sure, it may take some time before proficiencies bars fill up, but hey - in the meantime you can forage for more food / inspirationals or craft them. And use said food to increase your humours. With increased BB you will learn faster. Or you can build walls around your place, or hunt crickets to raise some silver. Or find some trade contract to sell foragables to other players. The best thing I like about Salem is that you don't make hundreds of items which you will never use, so that you can increase skill slightly. Everything you make has a purpose - mostly inspirationals to study (or sell), food to raise humours or heal (or sell) and other materials to actually build stuff with them and so on.

To your question about how does Black Bile increase speed of learning - as far as I know, speed of learning is linearly dependant on your current (not max) BB. So, while studying try to keep your BB meter maxed. As an example (all numbers are made up though): let's say you have 10 Black Bile, and with every learning tick 2% of your Black Bile is turned into learning points, at the ratio 1:1000. This would mean that at first tick you will lose 0.2 BB, which will turn into 200 learning points. Now let's say you have 20 BB and now with first tick you will lose 0.4 BB which will turn into 400 learning points. Each new character starts with 5 BB, but it shouldn't be hard to raise it to 15 with only basic foods.

[TotalyMoo]

My OCD forced me to correct your title from "eve" to "ever".

Also, whilst I somewhat agree that you should have given the game more of a chance before calling it "the worst game you ever played" you do have a point.

If the game doesn't properly explain to new players that gluttony makes hell of a difference in study speed, then maybe it should be a little more clear? I'm not saying it needs to hold your hands but that is pretty basic information that I bet a lot of players oversee.

[Vibe]

Yes, i am here complaining because i bought a key off someone for $20. I thought it would be worth it, but really i got ripped off. Salem could be so much more than it is.

You're saying that Salem could be so much more than it is when you obviously haven't even gone past the "eating" (read: restoring blackbile) part of the game? No skill/proficiency ever took me more than 2 minutes to learn. Not that I'm saying 5 minutes is a long wait, because it isn't. And there's definitely a lot of stuff to do meanwhile.

Perhaps you should play a bit more than a day and read a tutorial here and there.

[alloin]

just for the OP,

I had the same as you,(never played h&h), the game really looked nice for me, finally had my beta-key, had 2 weeks of java-errors before I could play, started the game with the standard client, played for 2 hours and quit. (i was like wtf is this game)
BEFORE i started ***** on the forum, I did some research, found the custom clients, learned alot, booted up the game again AND MAN, the game felt much better already.

Couple months later, I'm still here, spent loads of RL money on the game and having a blast with people i've met in this game.


It's a very hard learning curve, especially if you come from Themepark mmo's or dumbed down multiplayer rpg's,
but once you know the insides of this game, it might be the best game ever !


I've been playing for months and still learning every day !

[mykey400]

The first thing i did in this game is study literacy and formal education, i kept food to keep black bile 'full' and it took a very long time t learn new skills, me and a few other players hd set up a camp, crafted everything we could, but were IDLE until we could learn those new skils. And guess what? Even with a high level inspiration in your inventory, you have to spam inspirations to raise a particular profiency as there is a cap of 500 on each one. As for using gluttony and having a farm etc to pump ou food to feed this, that is all end game, and while i played with several other people, there was no global chat and the experience was quite lonely. Communities cannot form or come together naturally as they would in another game, I had to stalk boston to find people and then often would find it difficult to play with them as people woud not have access to settle, so we were constantly walking. All in all this doesnt feel particularly different from smurf village (the 2d graphics are at least better in that), a game i bought for my baby nephew.

Edit - Even if they are a on a low budget they could get creative with graphics, cel shaded characters and environments or pixel tile sets. 3D graphics are over rated, especially when they are this bad.

Worst thing you could have done. Every skill you unlock gives you access to other things to do in game, except those who are just to help you, especially later in game. Most don't even bother with those skills until they have high humors.

About the community, there are the forums and the IRC channel where there are loads of people you could talk, trade and play with. Your mistake for not doing a little research before starting playing or even coming here to complain.

Graphics in a game mean nothing if there is no good gameplay and/or story. If you want to look at something pretty go find some kiddy game with pretty colors and nice character models.

Not every game is for everyone, if you didn't like you should have quit. Instead you came to the forum and started complaining when it is obvious you don't even know the basics of the game.

edit: One more thing: if studying was instantaneous as you said then everybody would have every skill in the game in one day, two tops. Nice game, where everybody was max level without any effort in 24 hours. No more studying for a long time, no more need to eat to keep bile and other humors up, no more need to hunt/grow crops/forage for berries and mushrooms, no more game.

[milonti]

Edit - i read the sticky and think i might give it another try, if gluttony makes such a stark difference my mine gripe with the game is gone. I am in raonake if anyone wants to accept me into their village (pm me). LOL.

Right there, you proved that you didn't actually try the game before arriving to your conclusion. Gluttony is a MAJOR part of the game and is the second half to character development. If you only have max humors less than 20, of course your studying will be slow.

However, like others have said you shouldn't be idling. You have a settlement to put together, resources to gather, and structures to build. While you're studying inspirationals, you should be out gathering or buildling. Start setting up your settlement. Cook some foods, build a wall, find some feathers for silver.

You made a comment regarding silver "speeding up studying" which is NOT an intention of the devs. You realize the silver is obtainable in game right? Any and all silver can be produced within the game, rather than buying it with real world money. There have been many suggestions on the ideas of selling aesthetics.

Right now we're playing a beta (though that should be read as alpha) form of a game. We are testers, and this is not a fully-featured game yet. Your complaints are those of someone who has not sought out help, but rather languished in a state of being new. There's nothing wrong with not knowing how to do things, but don't assume that the game sucks because you haven't figured out certain mechanics. One look at any guide would've told you how to speed up studying.

And on a final note: there are exactly 2 developers for this game. That means it takes a damn long time for ANYTHING to be coded. Because thats a very very VERY tiny dev team. So yeah, making super-nice graphics gets put way on the back-burner.

[Qukatt]

I'll grant you that I personally have "used up" the available content in Salem and am more or less waiting for new **** to test, but this is "only" after playing for close to a year since Alpha. OP is trolling "hard" if for no other reason than claiming they have no interest in spending any more time with the game and sitting here on the forums waiting to argue with all comers. Don't like the game? Take off, don't let the browser frame hit your ass on the way out.

something must be wrong, I agree with painhertz...