Salem

Hello players,

I am curious as to where this game is headed. I have been thinking of making some Youtube videos for the game, in order to bring in new players and put some spotlight on the game. My question is, though, can the game handle a larger playerbase? For some reason I can not imagine having a large amount of players ingame, due to lag issues mainly. Other than issues with the server, I was also wondering when some gameplay mechanics will be addressed. For example, a friend of mine tried the game but couldn't get past the fact that when walking, the player would jump back about a foot when stopping. Among the gameplay mechanics, I was also wondering about admin and player communications, and if some issues will be addressed such as access to players inventories, bypassing claim rights (for admins), and other such elements of administrating the game.

Another question I have is, will there be another attempt to greenlight Salem? Stardew Valley is a huge success and is comparable in a few ways, so I know there's people on steam who would be willing to play the game.

I want to help spread the word about Salem, as it is by far my favorite game right now, but I just don't know if the game is ready for more players. It's hard to picture 50-100 players standing in Providence with no lag.

There is a large player pool for this kind of game. I think with the help of Steam, we would see a lot of players. I too had a friend who was instantly turned off by the walking mechanics. A major con, but once you are use to it, you don't notice, but he will never come back because of it .

I am sure the servers can't handle a large amount of players because there is no need to support a large player pool, when currently it is small. I am sure as the players increase, the server performance will be upgraded as needed. I would love to see this game take off.

I spend most of my time gaming playing this. (only because there is so many damn chores to do and they never end..) I enjoy this and would like to continue enjoying Salem. There is so much potential for Salem, and I would love to see it all. This game is awesome, and it has been getting better and better each year.

It is too late and I can't hold a thought.

I don't know what the jumping-back-a-foot-when-stopping thing is.

^ I think this issue is lag related. Maybe you're lucky enough and never saw this.

This thing also made a friend quit the game (together with the strange hidden blueprint of the objects and the difficult of passing near them without getting stuck.

Yeah, walking around is really unpleasant... I know devs will never do pathfinding, but not getting "caught" on things as you just barely graze past them would be really, really welcome. Like, you know, in every single other game since Doom where when you run into a wall at a non 90 degree angle you just continue parallel to the wall.

And yeah, compounded by movement being (I think) entirely server-side so there's a delay in everything you do and a jumping-back effect whenever your client and the server disagree about something makes the movement interface pretty embarrassing. We get used to it of course, and used to kind of queueing up a short series of micro-movements so the latency is less tedious, but not great for prospective new players to say the least.

There was a thread regarding this "direction" question about 70 days ago. Here: http://forum.salemthegame.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16658

Other than that, it seems like you have a few very specific questions regarding specific aspects of the game that I would lean on the side of being better addressed in individual threads or even in PM conversations with a Dev rather than in an open forum for many others to chime in on. I say this because, on a base level, it sounds like you want to advertise the game,(For whatever reason you have. I won't even try to guess what the motives are.) but if and only if you, specifically, can be proud and maintain your integrity in doing that. We can only assume that the Devs would be happy to have free advertisement of their game, but I think the real question here, if we can sum your statement up in one sentence, is: Do the Devs have the same vision for the game as I do?

Trismegistus wrote:There was a thread regarding this "direction" question about 70 days ago. Here: http://forum.salemthegame.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16658

Other than that, it seems like you have a few very specific questions regarding specific aspects of the game that I would lean on the side of being better addressed in individual threads or even in PM conversations with a Dev rather than in an open forum for many others to chime in on. I say this because, on a base level, it sounds like you want to advertise the game,(For whatever reason you have. I won't even try to guess what the motives are.) but if and only if you, specifically, can be proud and maintain your integrity in doing that. We can only assume that the Devs would be happy to have free advertisement of their game, but I think the real question here, if we can sum your statement up in one sentence, is: Do the Devs have the same vision for the game as I do?

Not quite. I am asking if the game is currently able to have more players and become a more well known game, or if it would be a bad thing if too many people joined as the game stands

Paradoxyc wrote:Not quite. I am asking if the game is currently able to have more players and become a more well known game, or if it would be a bad thing if too many people joined as the game stands

Imo, even if it increased 10x it would still be playable... Just kind of intense. Providence is really stable right now, a bit too stable, so smooshing a bunch of extra players in there would be a welcome addition, I think. The town of providence might have to be adjusted a bit, like more or different types of stalls, maybe even adjustments to how/where people spawn when they port there (it's already a little too crowded at the port spawn usually).

100x players, OTOH, would be hard to imagine... But, of course, with huge increases in population comes huge increases in revenue so they may be able to afford another couple developers or something like that who could help with getting a new expedition going sooner (and, presumably, much larger than the last one if that many more players) and making major adjustments to how the town of providence works and possibly expanding the world somehow (doubt this though).

jcwilk wrote:

Paradoxyc wrote:Not quite. I am asking if the game is currently able to have more players and become a more well known game, or if it would be a bad thing if too many people joined as the game stands

Imo, even if it increased 10x it would still be playable... Just kind of intense. Providence is really stable right now, a bit too stable, so smooshing a bunch of extra players in there would be a welcome addition, I think. The town of providence might have to be adjusted a bit, like more or different types of stalls, maybe even adjustments to how/where people spawn when they port there (it's already a little too crowded at the port spawn usually).

100x players, OTOH, would be hard to imagine... But, of course, with huge increases in population comes huge increases in revenue so they may be able to afford another couple developers or something like that who could help with getting a new expedition going sooner (and, presumably, much larger than the last one if that many more players) and making major adjustments to how the town of providence works and possibly expanding the world somehow (doubt this though).

Hmm.. I remember there being quite a bit of lag when there was like 50 people in town for the butter churning event.

I also didnt just mean lag. I meant overall mechanics and what not, just some extra polish to make the game seem more fluid when doing tasks and other things. This includes the default client update too

Reviresco wrote:I don't know what the jumping-back-a-foot-when-stopping thing is.

If you look you can see that when your character stops moving, he moves back a good amount