I visited the Salem IRC (http://client00.chat.mibbit.com/?channe ... synirc.net) earlier today because I was a bit confused about a few things and luckily our developer Loftar (to the right in the picture) was around to answer my questions. More fans joined in on the conversation and Loftar actually graced us with his presence for more than an hour!
Here's what was said for anyone who's curious. Enjoy
ZtyX: So servers are transferred now, aren't they?
I've been online practically non stop, but I didn't notice a downtime at any point.
But the server performance does seem a little different than before.
Most of the time it feels the same, but I've noticed a few times when it gets worse for some reason. Maybe it's the lack of that insane i/o speed that Loftar was talking about.
Loftar: No, it's not transferred yet, and probably won't be for a few days, at least. (NOTE: 03.28 am)
I'm still in the process of setting the new server up.
And I thought it wouldn't hurt to give people a chance to update their server names, too.
The old server is still rented until the last of February, so I'm not in any extreme hurry to transfer.
ZtyX: Oh, my intuition was wrong then. OK, thanks for the heads up. .. Yeah, Kandarim updated very quickly and I thought that the transfer had happened because the new address works already.
Loftar: Well, that's because the new address still points to the old server. I'll repoint it when I've done the transfer.
ZtyX: I was wondering if you could by any chance give us a more precise date for when the new patch would be implemented at the earliest.
Loftar: I wish I could, but it's kind of hard.
ZtyX: Okay, no problem. Is Jorb still testing things?
Loftar: Well, among other things. I don't want to say too much right now, though; we were planning on posting an update on the progress soon. (We were planning to do so yesterday, but some IRL came and bit Jorb in the ass. )
ZtyX: Alright, thank you very much. .. Ah, really? I thought the progress update you guys were planning was the server transfer notification you posted.
Loftar: Oh, no, that was just an aside.
ZtyX: Well, OK. I'm looking forward to a game patch related announcement. Thanks for taking the time to answer. I won't bother you anymore.
Loftar: Eh, don't worry too much about it. If I'm answering, that means I have time at the moment.
ZtyX: Alright.
By the way, Loftar. How did you guys think of making the argopelters in the way you did?
It's pretty clever and a lot of fun.
Loftar: Well, it's part of their lore that they sit in trees and throw sticks at people, so that wasn't very hard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argopelter
ZtyX: That must be from that novel that is referenced sometimes.. Hmm, but still it's really well done how they move to the tree that is near you, but will sometimes.
Loftar: It was originally intended that they be able to jump from tree to tree as well, but I didn't have time to implement that at the time. It may still be coming.
ZtyX: @ Wiki Lol, yeah that's the argopelter alright.
Well, how will we kill them then if they jump?
Loftar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fearsome_ ... umberwoods <-- That's where most of them come from.
Well, that's your problem.
ZtyX: Lol
Loftar: If I just implement them from their point of wanting to survive, I'm sure y'all will find some way to 'sploit them. ¦)
ZtyX: There are so many monsters in here... You guys really have yourself a nice catalogue here.
Did you and Jorb mean for the argopelters to be farmed as extensively as they are currently in Salem?
Or did it come as a surprise to you that players found such clever ways of killing them?
Or were they meant as monsters that people would mostly run away from?
Loftar: Of course not. It's just a matter of keeping up with the Joneses, as always.
Dweorg: >we were planning on posting an update on the progress soon.
what does it mean?
hello btw
Loftar: Exactly what it says?
What is the ambiguity you feel?
Tonky: probably "were" instead of "are", loftar
Dweorg: no, rather is it update about game changes or stuff going about it
that's what i dont get
Loftar: The latter. I was hoping to post about why it's dragging out a bit time-wise, but I wanted to have Jorb on the post as well.
Tonky: well, i mean, you "were" planning it yesterday but didnt. you still are, right?
Loftar: I was hoping that we'd write a post about it yesterday, but as I said, a bit of RL came and bit Jorb in the ass.
Loftar: Well, the basic reason is that we're making the update a bit larger than we had originally planned, but I don't want to reveal more than that without Jorb on the train.
Dweorg: I remember you were talkinga about changing combat and something else besides gluttony
I could be wrong tho.
Tonky: oh take your time, loftar
ZtyX: Loftar, I know you prefer not to talk about specifics of the upcoming patch, but would you say that it's feature or content complete? And are we waiting for just the server transfer to be done with?
Loftar: Nah, the server transfer is quite independent of the patch. Though, of course, it eats a bit of my time currently.
Tonky: your work done for today? (NOTE: The time was around 4 am (Swedish time). Loftar works really hard !)
Loftar: I don't have such well-planned schedule that I can say that I'm done.
I needed a bit of brain-cooldown, though.
Dweorg: Loftar, btw, do you guys make backup for worlds now? anyway, I don't really remember why you couldn't save most of the worlds in hnh
Loftar: Well, a problem with Haven has been that the filesystem I'm running on the servers (XFS) isn't too good with abrupt power-failures and the like.
I've added mechanisms to protect against that, however.
ZtyX: Loftar, apart from the intention to remove gobbling and improve food diversity, did you and Jorb have other motives for improving the gluttony system such as perhaps character strength balancing?
Loftar: The main motive was to make it meaningful to add new types of food, ZtyX.
We recognized that a major problem with adding new content was that, with the current gluttony system, it wasn't really meaningful to add new types of food and inspirationals.
Dweorg: loftar, btw, can you tell filesize of salem worlds?
just curious
Loftar: Oh. Roanoke and Jamestown are about 30-40 GB each.
Plymouth is a bit larger, since it's been running longer.
Not really noticeably larger, though.
ZtyX: Yes, that's true. The current gluttony system prefers mushroom pies, cabbage cakes, windy poohs and some other foods while approximately 80% of the recipes are too slow and too impotent to warrant eating at higher levels.
Loftar: And around half of that is because almost all the map-files are duplicated, in order to have automatic backups.
Well, more importantly, ZtyX, there's pretty much one optimal food item for each temper, and there's never really a reason to eat anything but it.
Dweorg: loftar, what is lifetime of backups? seems like they could take a lot of disk space in some time
well, it is as well depends on how often they are created
Loftar: I just keep the old file whenever I save a new one, Dweorg. So that I always have two "generations" of the map.
Dweorg: what if both are corrupted?
Loftar: Then I'd have to grab an offsite backup, Dweorg, but that's not what I primarily worry about.
The main problem is that newly created files aren't always preserved in XFS over an unexpected system crash.
ZtyX: Loftar, when a player reaches 0% in the new gluttony mode, will he gain 0 to his humour from eating an additional piece of food or will he simply gain the minimum amount of points within the food's "range" for that particular humour?
Loftar: You'll just have to find that out, ZtyX.
ZtyX: I can't wait!
ZtyX: Loftar, players are able to reach "titan" levels of strength with the old gluttony system due to "gobbling" foods quickly and eating massive quantities of foods at 10% purity. Will players still be able to become equally strong in the new system now that "gobbling" has been done away with?
Loftar: I don't care very much about the nominal character values, ZtyX.
If the game needs to be rebalanced, it should be on the basis of how they are used, more than the values themselves.
ZtyX: Yes, certainly.
Dweorg: now I have wait for 3 games: dwarf fotress, kenshi, hafen
you made my life even worse
well, 3rd one should come out at least
loftar, do you play df by any chance?
or wear beard
Loftar: I don't, but Jorb has.
ZtyX: Do you play games too, Loftar?
Loftar: Sure, but far less than Jorb does.
ZtyX: Well, he is the designer after all.
Loftar: In general, I enjoy programming more than playing games.
That's of course not to say that I don't play games at all, though.
Though I must admit, I've been having trouble finding good games lately.
ZtyX: What about when you were a kid or teenager growing up?
Loftar: I played more than I do now, for sure.
ZtyX: What were some of your favourite games from back then?
Loftar: I really don't know where I should begin, now that I think about it.
When I was a kid we had a Macintosh on which I played such games as Loadrunner, Missile Command and Chipwitz.
Dweorg: unreal world is quite interesting one and it could be similar to hnh in some aspects
Loftar: We never got a NES, so I never got to play Mario other than at friends and family, which was one of my great laments in life.
Yes, Jorb has played it too quite a bit, Dweorg.
One of the last games that I got really hooked on was Guitar Hero.
ZtyX: Why did you guys decide to make Salem in Java?
Loftar: Mostly because of Java Web Start.
Though I'm beginning to regret that now that Oracle has decided to poo on those of us using self-signed certificates.
ZtyX: Yeah, it's rather annoying that the very reason (accessibility) you chose it for is being compromised now..
Loftar: It's not like we *couldn't* get a "valid" certificate, but I hate it.
It feels like having to pay a protection racket.
Especially seeing as how it isn't actually good for anything anyway.
The whole X.509 PKI is just a sham, if you ask me.
ZtyX: Would the custom clients also be able to use the same signature?
Loftar: Nope
ZtyX: Speaking of custom clients. How do you and Jorb feel about updating the vanilla client with all of the great features from some of the custom clients at some point? Is that something you guys are interested in or do you prefer it that other people customize the client?
Loftar: Well, that depends on the features.
Dweorg: I think there are some clients with too much features like these one a.d and maybe other clan using
ZtyX: I guess some of the features are a bit like cheating... Well, in general, is that something you would do (with the features that you approve of) or are you so pressed for time with other higher prioritized tasks?
Loftar: Well, the rationale is different for different features.
Take the persistent and pan-able minimap, for instance; I'd like to have that, but I think the way Ender has implemented it is a bit of a hack that I wouldn't want to use.
It's a bit hard to create a less hacky solution, however.
ZtyX: Yes, I believe I've read you talk about that somewhere, saying that it's not very efficient.
Loftar: It's not so much that it's inefficient as that I don't like the idea of going around and creating directories in the user's filesystem.
ZtyX: But don't you feel that it is a problem that so few people choose to play with the vanilla client? After all, it's not very accessibile if new players must always be referenced to the artifice & arcana board where they can find the latest custom client instead of being able to play simply from salemthegame.com.
Loftar: I don't really know how to do that in a good, platform-independent way.
ZtyX: I see. Hmm.
Loftar: Eh, it's not as if the vanilla client is completely unusable. If they feel that a custom client enhances their experience and decide to use it, I don't mind that.
ZtyX: Well, maybe Oracle will create some magic sooner or later.
Loftar: I wouldn't bet on it, however.
ZtyX: hehe
Loftar: Oracle generally seems to be sub-par stewards of Java.
Dweorg: but you are still using java for hafen
so
Loftar: I would rather see that someone creates a Windows distribution of OpenJDK.
So that we could all just dump Oracle altogether.
ZtyX: Hmm, Loftar.. Salem has been in open beta now for almost a year now and in a lot of ways it feels like it's not a beta game anymore. What would you say will be the difference between Salem open beta and Salem live?
Loftar: I don't know.
ZtyX: hehe ok
Loftar: To be honest, I don't care a whole lot about the distinction.
The main reason we call both Haven and Salem alpha or beta, really, is so that people don't get the idea that it would be beyond us to revamp the games entirely.
As we're doing with Haven right now.
Dweorg:some games just never go beyond alpha like kenshi or df
ZtyX: Oh, I did not know that Haven was in beta.
Loftar: (And to some extent with Salem, given the current patch.)
We've always called Haven "alpha".
ZtyX: Yes, this is a very very important patch for Salem.
Oh Alpha even.. hm. Despite 7 worlds.
Loftar: Well, you know, in the end, I think the "alpha" and "beta" labels are only really relevant for games that have a fixed release schedule.
Which is quite unlike these games, which are always under indefinite development.
ZtyX: Yes mmorpgs are under continuous development, but I still think that players do expect different things depending on whether the game is officially in alpha, beta or live.
ZtyX: I'm sure that once Salem will go live it will create a huge boost in the population for some time, but it will be difficult to make that happen again and some players even look down upon games that get low population while in the "live stage", whereas it's more accepted that a game isn't too populated if its "just in beta".
Loftar: Oh well, I should try to get to bed before 10 AM today. ^^
ZtyX: Thank you very much for the chat, Loftar. Good night and thanks for working so hard on our favourite game!
Loftar: Nightienight.
(NOTE: 4.49 am)
