JohnCarver wrote:Very interesting wall of text, and yes I did read it.
Salem has, and will continue to be a platform for the players who wish to risk it all, lose it all, and generally have a unique gaming experience they wont' find elsewhere. Unique does not mean better, or worse, but simply unique as only the end-user will be able to confidently claim if it is a superior experience for them. I believe the bigger reality to realize is that people play video games for different reasons. I would argue that most players play video games to relax, enjoy, and otherwise escape the realities of life. A mini vacation from the real world that is only a computer terminal away. Who wants to have their vacation plans ruined? Who wants to go to vacation only to find out their hotel is over booked or their tour guide got sick etc. etc. Mainstream gaming figured out a good decade ago that if you simply eliminate 99% of the 'bad experiences' and force people into states of forced positive progression they will have a much longer player retention. The latest few games that are releasing without chat interfaces so that players cannot slander one another is just one more step in that direction. The reality is, Salem wants nothing to do with those players, and those players want nothing to do with Salem.
Now, there exists another type of gamer. One who doesn't 'escape' to video games but one who uses them as a medium for competition fully understanding the pain of loss and signing up for it all over again anyway. There are gamers who do not sit down at their computer to 'escape and relax' but instead to increase their heart rate, release some adrenaline, and otherwise prove themselves on a controlled environment where a 18 year old at an internet cafe stands the same odds as a 50 year old mufti-millionaire . There are gamers who quantify their triumphs by directly contrasting them to their failures. I prefer people with this general mindset, competitive edge, and drive to succeed, if even in something as trivial as 'a video game'. Salem is being built for these gamers for two reasons. The first, because I feel that without Salem they are near home-less as almost every MMO on the market has shareholders, margins, bottom-lines, and greed motivating their choices over their principles. The second, because I consider myself one of them.
A bit of a rant, and possibly off-topic. But a little bit of insight none-the-less.
I admire your conviction and your fortitude, and I'm all about competition, but I'm simply worried that without a step towards a middle ground (a slight step), eventually there won't be enough players for the game to be enjoyable anymore by anyone. Every single game, in a sense, is an MMO. Hell, life is an MMO. Sitting down for a simple game of Halo gives me +5 Hand-Eye and +2 T-Bagging skill. There are plenty of bad experiences when you begin, plenty of frustration, and plenty of controllers being thrown out the window and inadvertently causing manslaughter (though that could just be me), that you can inevitably start to minimize as you progress, but still have the experience of the contrast you speak of of feeling the big loss and the big win. Perhaps even more-so once you get into the highly competitive experienced-user games where your reputation is on the line.
However, with actual MMOs, things are more pronounced, slow-paced, and versatile, but can actually, as you say above, have that boring linear experience without any loss. But imagine if every time you died in Halo, someone hacks your brain and deletes all your Hand-Eye or T-Bagging skill. Frustrating as ****, and you may never ever get the chance to advanced at all. My point that finding that middle ground where you have the best of both worlds, in my opinion, is the best way to go. As you said, that contrast of experiencing great loss and great success is what makes that great success feel so damned awesome, but that success nearly impossible to achieve, or even worse, really friggin' boring to get to due to having death not cost you a few hours, but a few months, seems harsh
The game could still have harsh penalties for death, but without destroying potentially months of work and driving off people who could help drive the competitive spirit you think of. In fact, I personally believe it kills competition to a certain degree, as fear of losing your hard-earned player causes people to wall themselves in. I've only played the game for about a month, so I have no idea if it takes a while or whatever for these fun wars to occur that I've read about on the Tribe wiki with epic, competitive, battles raging across the land, but I think that taking out permadeath could increase this. As I've said, there could still be a harsh penalty that will keep people from spamming their enemies fortifications with constant, ill-planned attacks, such as taking away maybe 25% of their humors or something like that if they die, and still keeping the fear a constant. The fact that are other things that can be devastating besides death also keeps the fear up, such as losing a valuable resource, hard-built towns, ext., should also be taken into consideration.
Basically what I'm saying is if you give people an incentive to step outside their walls and become a little more ballsy, such as your occasional high pockets of high Q metal (which I think is already in the game, though remember, new guy speaking here), but then take away the huge, overwhelming risk of having months of work being taken away in a blink of an eye, you not only will have encouraged competition, but you will have taken away the detriments of the PK system I've mentioned above. The game will become loads more entertaining for both those who want to play in peace and those who wanna go ***** on their neighbors. You'll have taken away a lot of what causes these continuous flamewars on the forums, and while keeping the majority of the competitive players, slowly drive away the ones too toxic to be worth keeping around.
Still, I'm only speaking as an outside observer for them most part. I haven't played the game for too long. Just my opinion, and I hope I hope I'm wrong, cus doing what I suggest may be just as bad for the game due to the divided fanbase. Who knows?
