Salem

A few questions.
Whats this about?
Whats the specific information the game doesn't say about it?

And please, don't give me this "too many claims" nonsense. I got lost 2 days with a pack full of indian feathers and i saw 6 claims and 3 times as many lean-tos. I don't think space & crowding is an issue yet.

Read the new update in the announcement section.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2625

DrShotgunMD wrote:A few questions.
Whats this about?
Whats the specific information the game doesn't say about it?

And please, don't give me this "too many claims" nonsense. I got lost 2 days with a pack full of indian feathers and i saw 6 claims and 3 times as many lean-tos. I don't think space & crowding is an issue yet.

As much as you don't want to hear it, it really is a mechanism to remove abandoned claims from the game (and to act as a money sink). The problem isn't that the whole world is covered with claims, but that some of the really nice locations are, or will be, taken by abandoned claims that previously NEVER decayed. This is a problem in every MMO that supports housing on the world map and some mechanism for removing unused housing is eventually introduced. Since this is a free-to-play game, you can't use subscription cancellation as a criterion for claim removal.

If you need to see the dark side, this is a mechanism to punish people who take more than a two month break from the game for whatever reason (boredom, hospital stays, hiking the Appalachian trail, getting deployed overseas, etc.).

Sure, there aren't too many claims now. You have to stop thinking about now though. This is an MMO that's hopefully going to be around for a while. This is future-proofing. Just because some things aren't an issue now doesn't mean they never will be. Similar reasons are why we wanted, needed, and now got tree planting.

Upkeep for claims is good idea but need raise the upkeep pay to 6 months instead of 2 months or just have bank as claim upkeep withdrawal so you place all money you'll ever need to pay for upkeep. As far as i know bank really have much use does it?

Geoxer22 wrote:Upkeep for claims is good idea but need raise the upkeep pay to 6 months instead of 2 months or just have bank as claim upkeep withdrawal so you place all money you'll ever need to pay for upkeep. As far as i know bank really have much use does it?

From what I have seen, the bank is just there so that you can withdraw purchased silver. Wurm Online lets you store silver in your claim stone equivalent and retrieve it later while also applying that silver to claim maintenance; however, I am not sure how the Salem PvP game would be affected if we had a similar safe bank to store our silver.

ramuller wrote:If you need to see the dark side, this is a mechanism to punish people who take more than a two month break from the game for whatever reason (boredom, hospital stays, hiking the Appalachian trail, getting deployed overseas, etc.).

This is why you join a town with a friendly long-term afk policy.

Yeah, for the hermit that has to take an extended leave of absence, it's going to suck. However, I can tell you what Haven looked like after about 6 months into a server. An active player base of only about 400 looked to be more like 2000 with the number of claims scattered about. While we may not have 500 active players, we have a lot of lurkers, and many of them are going to come back at some point now that content updates are rolling out again.

I keep hearing people talk about those that take extended breaks being "screwed" by this. Any expected absence, can't the person can put enough silver in to cover the absence. I'm not sure how the mechanism works yet. Do you feed the claim post like a village bell? Is there a max amount you can put in?

JinxDevona wrote:I keep hearing people talk about those that take extended breaks being "screwed" by this. Any expected absence, can't the person can put enough silver in to cover the absence. I'm not sure how the mechanism works yet. Do you feed the claim post like a village bell? Is there a max amount you can put in?

The original announcement post says 2 months max:

Claim Upkeep
As of right now claims require upkeep to the tune of 4s + (Claimed Area / 300)s per day. If the upkeep is not paid, the claim is turned off and the stone itself becomes possible to destroy. You can charge the claim with enough silver to last 2 months. Previously existing claims will be charged to last one month

I think the only thing that will "screw" players who may end up being gone longer than 2 months is that other players cannot add silver to your claim. A fully permissioned alt that I keep at my claim to test things was completely unable to click the main characters claim stone.

To have someone maintain your claim for you would, currently, require that you give them your login information.