f13.net

...huh?


They also say the game is "only in the early stages of development" but "due for a 2011 release."  :oh_i_see:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/01/20/paradox-announce-free-to-play-mmo-salem/

Permadeath is news?

Cuse uh, there are sandboxes with permadeath already. I can think of one off hand.


EDIT: After watching the interview, this will end well.  :oh_i_see:

I think "Paradox MMO" already makes my head explode, even before you bring in all the rest of it.

Will it include at least two expansions to fix basic functionality?

(I kid, Paradox, I kid....)


(Wait, of course it does... it's an MMO)

Is Wurm permadeath?  That would be interesting... spend months making a home so someone can walk along and take everything from you. 

Having flashbacks of UO house break-ins.   :ye_gods:

I'm just going to repost my comment from early last year on a different shitty game nobody remembers.

Needs more witch burning.

you do have to wonder what games will be like in the future from people who've only ever played WoW + Farmville.

I'm going to be a colonist tank.

I expect once they actually beta-test reality will hit. How they expect to run a cash-shop when you are buying benefits for a character that may will be shortly subject to perma-death also amuses.

Thank god you said it. Every time I tried, I thought about it and blacked out from the pain.

I'm starting to think there needs to be a dedicated gank squad to teach these people the error of their ways.  We can have a bat signal and everything!

Pffft this game isn't going to fall victim to that! First of all, they are going to charge $38.

Our "Alpha classes" are.

"There are plenty of things in the game mechanics themselves that are relatively conducive to an extremely dark game. Players in this world are able to attack each other more or less unprovoked and they will be able to kill each other and maim each other and raze the buildings that other players have built with their sweat and hard labor.

I believe that the game has all the potentialities in the world to balance itself. I believe the players will be the first and foremost fount of justice in the game. And I think that's another beautiful aspect about it, because there's nothing as awesome as killing the guy who caused a lot of trouble on your farm. That's going to one of the greatest things about the game, I think, a sense of well-earned justice, finally."

- Bjorn Johannessen, Paradox

I have never seen that myth proved.

Can a newbie kill a vet?  Can a squad of newbies?  Can a vet crush newbies?  If so, griefing will be taken to a whole new level.

Oh wait, that pretty much covers all angles.  This will go down in flames.

:popcorn:

That's because the guy just wanting to farm is solo and the guy burning it to the ground always has 4+ friends with him.   That's before taking into account the optimization of each character.

This is going to be hilarious.

I've always wanted a decent game built around the colonization and conquering of a vast wilderness. This one's just adding to the pile of disappointments, and I don't even need to write a snarky review article about it - the presence of permadeath outside of boutique dozen-player games simply doesn't work.

This'll be great for popcorn, though.

Just to add to the hilarity, there will also be non-respawning resources (http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2011/01/20/paradox-interactive-announces-salem-mmo/1).

Here's the thing: if that guy "causing trouble" on the farm doesn't start with killing the owner, he's just asking to be murdered in return. If the mentality is "kill or be killed" then that is what results.

More I read about it, the more fascinated I am with it... and the horror it shall bring.

Someone just needs to make the Permadeath+PVP Always MMO and honestly advertise it as a game for sociopaths.

This is what happens when online griefers grow up to become game developers I guess (only explanation for Eve too). Or is it something Nordic?

"We'd like you to grow as a character and help build your own little corner of the world... before we kill you and burn it down".

The idea of a hard-core perma-death crafters versus bandits is just so funny it must be a joke. A game in which crafting a structure infers the responsibility of guarding it 24/7 from people with torches?

The only way this will work is if the focus of the crafting/building/farming system is to build Dungeon Siege -like areas for the griefers to attack and kill themselves on.

I'd play this game if I was independently wealthy.

I'm curious about it because I expect it to result in a bloodbath.

It is F2P. Perhaps they'll sell 1UPs.

The only way I can see a F2P cash shop game working with permadeath is giving players the opportunity to purchase access: Better starting gear, ability to visit specific locations, prestige classes, specialized appearance options. Even if the player can't access those things without "leveling up" their newbies, the extra gameplay choices would still be worth the cost.

The capitalists behind this may be hoping players will pay for things that other players will destroy -- and a  few suckers might -- but it won't sustain a business.

Generously assuming it ever comes out they'll add Trammel within two months

I have visions of people dying (for real) playing this game.  If you log off for even a minute, someone will pass you on the power curve.  Can't have that!  :why_so_serious:

Reminds me of the episode of Mission Hill where Kevin and his buddies play the game Virtual Valkyrie.

Bit of digging. The people responsible for this are those developers working on Haven and Hearth (http://www.havenandhearth.com/portal/). A very cool 2D sandbox game. As confirmed here. (http://www.havenandhearth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=14667&sid=3ffd3f62daf6ec1af871e47d23e38c92)

There is even a screenshot:

At least there's a cool art style.  :oh_i_see:

(http://cache.heraldinteractive.com/blogs/sports/rap_sheet/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/popcorn.jpg)

Instead of a bucket of popcorn, it should be a bucket of acid.

Is... is the little settler on the left examining the little settler on the right's manhood? Who knew the Puritans were so progressively-minded!

 :ye_gods:

Expectations dashed with one screenshot.

What happens when you cross gay gnomes with Puritans? Now we know.

But le sigh. You can have a MMO with permadeath, but only if:
a) levelling to cap and other character development is ultrafast, the whole game is essentially 'endgame', and tools for social cooperation, etc., are very strongly developed
b) if character development doesn't matter and it's really all about what happens to the world itself.

Game where the whole point is progressive development of character abilities or resources? Permadeath = forget about it.

Plus the dev statements have a vague Dawn-ish whiff about them to me--fetuspults seem just around the corner.

What's the point of permadeath if nothing substantial is lost?

I would really take that screen shot as pre-work and highly subject to change.


Does it "hurt" to start a level from the beginning in single player games?

It's so far from anything remotely appealing, if they're using that as their testbed graphics it's a pretty good sign the final design will be awful. Mobile poo would be more attractive.

It hurts to start from level one if you can be permanently killed by players at max.

SA...?

The Escapist, of all places, has a four-page preview with more information than I've seen anywhere else.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/previews/8591-Preview-Watch-Your-Back-in-Salem


Emphasis mine.

Yeah that's a good idea. Have players log into characters that are dead because they got murdered by DarthPwn at 3AM.  :oh_i_see:

I actually do like that idea. Don't want to be killed while logged out don't steal  shit. Still not going to play this though.

So does killing someone whom you tracked because they killed someone produce a scent to track?

Yeah, there's a zillion dollar question. But as a player-enforcement mechanism, it's not a bad one. It's kind of like the theoretical idea of the scout class in Shadowbane: allow theft but empower a class of anti-thieves. Here, allow permadeath but make the potential consequences for permadeath super-high because the permadeath avengers can kill you easy, and any time.

What this certainly would lead to, though, is levelling kamikazes: create characters who's only purpose is to kill and then be killed. Unless there's a huge benefit that long-term characters accrue such that it would be nearly impossible for someone to be killed by someone who hadn't been around as long as they have...

Guess no one read the article? Yes, yes it does.

Seriously? That's a bad idea. That means the first killing that you're trying to make costly leads to an endless series of costly decisions, which means that no one will ever track and avenge a killing, which means everyone will get killed.  Which means why bother with the scent mechanic in the first place.

It depends on what the rewards of killing and getting away with it are. If they make it tradeable, you'll definitely have alts purely designed to be murderers who pass the gains onto peaceful mains. If the avengers level only by killing killers, then you have to incentivize people killing in the first place.

EVE is similar remember, especially now with the colonization mechanic and ability to take/destroy stations.  Granted, there's no permadeath unless you're not insured.

Also, the real trick with Salem will be if/how you can lose your holdings (farm, house, etc.) not just if you die.  Since you level with food and drink, if you dont have a fuckin farm to get good food you're screwed regardless.  In this sense, they force you craft.  One can assume if you've got a high level house/farm and get killed that it wouldnt be too much of a problem to re-level.  Whereas the cutthroat pirate type who has no interest in planting potatoes will be in bad shape if he dies unless he scores grub some other way.

Back to offline murders.  What better way to combat against logoffs and off-peak mischief?  With Salem's mechanic, you cant just murder someone and then logout or try and pick on the weak at 3am 'cause the pop. is low.  You will get punished regardless, unless you've found somewhere safe to hide (you get summoned if you're offline).  Also, the scent mechanic is no different than something from a game like GTA or APB.  It's just another strat. layer to maintain, or you pay the price for neglecting to monitor it.

All in all, none of these features really work without some form of permadeath.  (shrug)  I'm more interested in production quality really, rather than game rules in this case.  I can get over the permadeath thing if it's done right.

Say someone keep harassing you.  You're good enough to fend him off, but he keeps doing it.  You're either going to eventually kill him on accident, thus making you killable, or you're going to tire of almost dying repeatedly and finishing the deed, which makes you killable.

Also newbie characters designed to specifically harass and get people flagged, so their decked out PvP alt can yank your ass out of stasis while you're offline.

Are they even allowing alts?

It doesn't matter if they're not. You can always create a second account.

Very good point Stormwaltz; I was about to post that disallowing alts would encourage people to get a second account, then I remembered it will be f2p.

I was actually interested in this too, until I saw that screenshot.  :ye_gods: It looks like the GC version of Animal Crossing.

Edit: Looking at their site, at least their old game (Haven) had decent 2d art. If they had gone that route, this would be a nice, slightly more hardcore facebook game.

There is no doubt a scent being produced.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/85916/huzzah.png)

I like this game, sounds like something out of my play book of "yeah open world pvp is pretty darf darf so lets go FULL MONTY!!" The designers don't really care they really just want to encourage more pointless slaughter and e-property damage. Having to have basically a 24hr guild to protect your otherwise vulnerable afk ass is going to be fun to watch.

Oh and this is free.

The difference in EVE is the 24/7 killables are objects and stations that can be defended by other members of your corp.  If you lose your POS or Station it's because your alliance wasn't big enough or was out manuvered.    This is more akin to your ship never disappearing from the play grid, like when you have an aggression timer in EVE.

It's your character, playable only by you (in theory) so unless you and a few buddies are swapping the same character around so it's always manned, you're going to get ganked when offline.

ed:

So it looks like if you're online you can't be summoned.  Meaning char-swapping or botting will be the better way to gank folks.  Combine this with their later discussions on magic, and botted/ char swapped witches will be griefer supreme.

In a battle between automated systems to control griefing and a sizable number of people willing to put a lot of time into causing tears my money is on the humans. I mean what sort of player base do they believe they'll attract with perma-death?

The difference in Eve is that things have timers. Attacks while off-line give you one or more known times to gather every friend you can find. Of course the other part is that the objects have obscene amounts of hitpoints (to stop drive-by attacks), waiting out timers is boring and it encourages blobbing. But that's about all you can do to fix the timezone problem. Or use the Global Alliance method and only have periods of vulnerability correlating to your prime time.

Anyway, I hope they do it, it should be fascinating watching what happens when their game mechanics meet reality.

I'm rather looking forward to this.

I absolutely adored permadeath Diablo 2 and played it for years. You need a different mindset - you're basically playing your account(s) not your character and one of the best resources is trustworthy people who will support you.

The social ties and gameplay are utterly different. Basically it's gangsterism and you jostle for a decent spot in an effective gang. I imagine that slow travel and terrain will play a part - if we build our player stronghold on top of a mountain and patrol the foothills it may be hard to gank our smiths.

I just hope they don't do what some of the other hardcore games have done and have a skill system that rewards people for leaving their PCs on 24/7 with a macro running. I saw people botting for skill ups in Galaxies and I hated it then and have hated it every time it's popped up since. It's the reason I never tried Darkfall. I'm too uncomfortable with the notion of it as cheating to do it and too competitive to tolerate being out-classed because I don't do it.

"Perma-death" maybe isn't exactly perma-death.  Brief article on Blues that says that there will be 'descendants'.  Read the very brief note here (http://www.bluesnews.com/s/118549/salem-perma-death-explained).

Still seems like death is supposed to be more of a hit then most games.

I shall harp on the 'alt' thing again:
What's to stop them from allowing only one account per IP/MAC?  Sure, you may have some folk who are smart enough to proxy or game on a 2nd machine with another billing option, but is it enough of a percentage to gimp the whole game?

To take it further, they could get fairly strict on making an account in the 1st place.  You'd need valid billing, name, address, etc.  Even to the point of mailing activation keys and/or using telepresence to verify accounts.   :awesome_for_real:     No seriously.  They could even incorporate it into the game if they had to.  Like a required verifiation quest chain that must be completed within 2 weeks of installation or your toon dies.

It takes a handful of people to ruin the play of hundreds.  It's what griefers do.

It's a f2p game.  Asking for billing info is stupid.  Everything else can be faked as needed.

To think history and internet player behavior will suddenly change because you'd like to see a game succeed is naive at best.  This will be a rousing good failure.

Yeah, IIRC Raph said the losses of thousands of accounts in the UO days was narrowed down to only a dozen or so folks.

I recall him saying that 2% of the accounts were responsible for the majority of lost accounts.

Which considering the size of the original UO playerbase, probably isn't terribly far off from what you said.

Thanks for mentioning the interview... I would have never watched it and completely missed that self masturbating train wreck.

A year has passed, so some progress update:

The release date is now Q3 2012 :oh_i_see:

For sure. Or like they could have someone go to the street address and verify people are real.

Hey, there are starving children in africa.  They could hire them for rice and peanuts and I bet they'd gladly do it.  Outsourcing ftw!

My mother (who can't use computers) would cheerfully verify that an account is in her name and she is the player if I asked her to do that for me. As would about a dozen other people I know.

Ya the whole idea of trying to restrict alt accounts is totally retarded.

Developer's diary from GDC (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1hOm589pq4s)

which reveals that, surprisingly enough, the game does exist in some basic, semi-working form.

(and that perma-death is still in :grin:)

I'd never thought the concern was finding the PK'er (he's probably camping your village) or revenge after your character has been permanently deleted (who cares at that point?).

Still, it will be fun to watch how it plays out.

Realm of the Mad God handles permadeath so well (seriously, everyone who hasn't played it should try it ASAP - the single best MMO released since DDO's F2P reincarnation) that I'm newly optimistic about other companies hitting the sweet spot.

Only played it for a few minutes, it has not clicked for me yet, what is so special about it ?

Not a damn thing, I assumed it was a troll post and ignored it.

I'm not sure if you're asking specifically about how RotMG handles permadeath, or about what makes the game special in general, so I'll answer the latter. It takes a little bit of getting used to, because it's such a radical departure from traditional MMO mechanics. Full disclosure: I think traditional MMO mechanics are horrible, so that might color my views. But in my mind, of any MMO released in the last couple of years, RotMG has so much to recommend it:

-The best combat system, by far. The way RotMG innovates MMO combat is huge. A twitch-skill cooperative bullet hell shooter that feels challenging and exciting without ever feeling unfair.

-The best class system I've seen in a while. The classes feel modular enough when compared to one another (Playing a Wizard and like your staff's attack pattern, but wish you were a little less squishy with self-heals? Roll a necromancer, that's exactly what it is). Allows you to play it safe, go high-risk-high-reward, be group-oriented, solo-oriented, play however you wish.

-A beautifully streamlined questing system. Just feels totally organic.

-Leveling/gear/'hero XP' curves that feel just right for permadeath, allowing you to improve your character without making you a worthless sack of shit until you find the +3 MacGuffin. Also strikes an interesting balance between using gear/stat potions (RotMG essentially provides hero XP via stat potions that permanently +1 one of your stats, they're the game's currency) on your character and saving them in your chests in case you make a wrong move and bite the dust.

-Top-tier netcode. Seriously, whoever handles the back-end for those guys deserves a medal. I've never once died due to server problems on their end or lag spikes or disconnects... how many MMOs can say the same?

-An absolutely wonderful retro-kitsch art style. Bold, colorful, exciting.

-The permadeath implementation is perfect. Even fairly standard combat encounters make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. If I die, I might take a break for a day or two, but then I'm right back in. Permadeath stings, when in the heat of the moment I want to avoid death with every fiber of my being, but it doesn't feel insurmountable. The end result is MMO combat with an emotional component you haven't felt on a gut level since the early EQ death-is-hell days, but without any catassing.

-A really well-thought-out endgame. God-hunting presents a multifaceted, ever-evolving challenge. I'm fighting the Medusa, and it's going well but her grenades keep backing me up, which then backs me into a Leviathan behind me, and now all of a sudden I'm run-and-gunning and fighting both of them at the same time. I can group up easily in the endgame, but if I run solo I can keep all the loot for myself. I might kill a god that drops a giant blue "I have amazing stuff inside" bag, but then it's smack dab in the middle of bullet hell that's being spewed by his buddies, and the timer is ticking down before the bag poofs into nothingness... what do I do? The way the Mad God Oryx periodically teleports everyone in a given realm (even the level 1s) direct to the endgame of raiding his castle (a bullet-hell raid of up to 85 people) is amazing. Plenty of interesting, procedurally generated dungeons, too, and the way dungeon entrances spawn temporarily as boss drops keeps you from finding them ubiquitous and boring. You never, ever hear people tell you "play 4 hours a day for a week and then you can start doing the fun stuff".

...Jesus, just writing this up makes me badly want to play.

(http://thebestgardentips.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/mole.jpg)

Well, regardless he got me to google it! Oh yeah, played it for like 5 minutes and forgot about it....

Its quite an interesting design (ROTMG). One of those that speak to simple is better.

Salem Beta Signup is up, signing up yields a referral code, which after 3 referrals, nets you a beta spot.

Oh look, here's mine: http://beta.salemthegame.com/?ref=6e0a6fb9373

I rode schild's link; once two more of you have done it feel free to use my referral link. Ta

http://beta.salemthegame.com/?ref=ae58156d1e2

I've also signed up with Schild's link, so he needs one more.

Here's my link: http://beta.salemthegame.com/?ref=99e676dd932

Also signed up under Schild's link.

Here is my happy link. (http://beta.salemthegame.com/?ref=0cd301c2557)

I signed up w/ k9's link. here is mine.

http://beta.salemthegame.com/?ref=ff79b24140c

So... any reason a dude with some 3 extra email accounts couldn't just make this happen himself?

I'm the second sign-up under K9's link so he needs one more.

Here's mine: http://beta.salemthegame.com/?ref=8bc8f3c2a5a

This should round out K9's list.  Here's mine.

http://beta.salemthegame.com/?ref=e88a312e6ad

I signed up with Yoru's link.

Here's mine.
http://beta.salemthegame.com/?ref=6e1f3ad77d9

I used Xanthippe's. Here's my link: http://beta.salemthegame.com/?ref=9ebbbfef376

I've had two other friends sign up with my link, so go ahead and skip over me to the next guy in line.

Salem for all!  :awesome_for_real:

I look forward to the reports.

If everyone else manages to get their referrals topped up, here's mine.

http://beta.salemthegame.com/?ref=52b56d6066d (http://beta.salemthegame.com/?ref=52b56d6066d)

I clicked on Scold's.

Here's mine! http://beta.salemthegame.com/?ref=ee60f22d38e

(I have 1 already as I used my work address)

http://beta.salemthegame.com/?ref=4433aaaab74

Has anyone heard anything from this yet?

Used Naum's link

http://beta.salemthegame.com/?ref=376b974af73

Let's play Salem!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wb0zk9biYs&list=PL3EE5DB7A5C95026E&index=9&feature=plpp_video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9vtpLiPbKE&feature=plcp&context=C4dc56b0VDvjVQa1PpcFMlix52ctGZXV6fdOonXvypYF9WZTmtbZM%3D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFHC6GeiSuM&feature=autoplay&list=PL3EE5DB7A5C95026E&playnext=1

That was some pretty exciting game-play. Combine that with occasional resets to zero after PvP death and I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to be playing it.

Ok. I couldn't even look at that. Is that cobblestone or a missing texture?

It's so ugly :( Don't show it yet! Stop!

You missed a nail-biting battle between a man and a smooth pebble and you only have yourself to blame.

It's scheduled for Q3 this year, so I assume thats the intended appearance.

I watched 15 minutes of a man go out into the wild to look at a rock.

 :oh_i_see:

I'm sure that the high quality gameplay will make up for the appearance.  They'll probably patch that in right after release.   :why_so_serious:

I got a beta invite for this today. I dug around and didn't see any sort of NDA.

I am scared to try it after watching those videos.

Dude.

Radicalthon that bitch.

Those people look like big adult head babies. It's unique, I'll give it that.

I'm in the beta. I tried playing it. There were lots of people standing around the first town/area that you portal into and frankly, I don't even know what in the nine fucks was going on. There's no tutorial to speak of, the UI is a nightmare, and the game is just strange. Though, performance was good with a bunch of people on screen and the whole game might be java-based.

I don't know why this game got funding. I don't know why this game __________. You can say almost anything there and it works.

I'm in too. It is as terrible as Schild reports. You know that bit in the video where he's all "now to find a smooth stone" <screenwipe> "ok, so now I right click on my smooth stone"...

That screenwipe must've cut out 30 minutes or more of aimless wandering through muddy-textured "forests". I still haven't found one. Rule ONE of MMOs is to have enough newbie items for all the newbies. We had this shit handled back when Anarchy Online launched, for fuck's sake.

Fuck this game.

I walked around for like an hour, found one *smooth stone* before my phlegm meter went down to zero (not kidding, instead of health/mana, you have 4 gauges going called "black bile", phlegm, I forget the other 2, etc.…).

I could deal with the blocky tile graphics if the water actually looked like water, or the screen would not flicker different colors. Sounds like an interesting world for an MMO, but the implementation here is more amateur than most browser games or even indie efforts like Dominions 3 that sport better map graphics and UI.

I tried a random word generator. Here's what it came up with:

I don't know why this game moved my faucet.
I don't know why this game flagrantly mucked up the aquiculture
I don't know why this game has no flavorful primordial fouls
I don't know why this game has no endearing coroners
I don't know why this game responded with incomprehensible projects

These are all completely reasonable.

I can't tell you why it mucked up my aquiculture and has no flavorful primordial fouls - but sure enough, it did and doesn't.

Got a key for this and have been giving it a try. I've barely seen anybody since it looks like the initial rush of people has died off. It's reminding me of A Tale in the Desert but with more skills and items, but with worse graphics, a terrible interface and no real help for new players.

Based on screenshots I've seen it looks like they've improved the graphics, but the textures are still pretty hard on the eyes without some form of mipmapping. I actually like the skill system, but the bile system for energy is a bit annoying and it's pretty cryptic about how to get more max "stamina" for activities. After about 6 hours of play I have barely started being able to work with wood and I spend quite a bit of time wandering looking for resources.

The developers are still pretty adamant that PKing will be uncontrolled (although the skills to do it well are pretty time-consuming to invest in) and that any sort of law will be entirely player driven. I can see how it could be fun with a group of people, but playing alone is pretty depressing. It hasn't turned me off completely yet, but I'm getting there.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG THERE

Talk about zero casual use.

I've been spending quite a bit of time on this and I'm just about done with it. At any given time there's only about 80 players on and they seem to be inviting more people to beta just to keep some semblance of people actually playing. Everyone who joins runs into the same confusing mechanics and the developers are baffled as to why they aren't reading the walls of text they call tutorials. It has a nugget of potential that is eclipsed by the terrible interface and looming cloud of being able to be killed and lose all of the progress you've made building your character because someone who catassed before you got there is bored.

Before I started playing there was a purity stat on every consumable item that was a multiplier on its effects. This made skilling up quite a bit easier because the primary means of getting skill points is to consume curiosities that are crafted. Before I got my key they removed purity and now where it took 1 or 2 items to boost a skill it now takes 10 or more. Additionally, food can be used to boost your stats (HP, stamina, etc..) and some players exploited the purity system to get insanely high stats, which are uncapped. As a result there's maybe 5 to 10 really powerful characters who still play from before, desperately holding on and hoping things get better. Most new players flounder as they try to figure out the system and quickly disappear once the awful grind sets in. They say they plan to reintroduce a new purity system, but that does nothing to make the game enjoyable enough right now to continue grinding even to test the mid-tier content.

What is sad is that I really like the skill system and crafting tree they are using, it's just a god-awful interface coupled with a development team that seems to take a Toady-like pride in making things as difficult as humanly possible and delight in catering to their existing niche crowd. If I had the time, artwork support, and experience with gaming netcode, I would be so tempted to take some of the excellent ideas and work on a proper crafting and economy-based game that doesn't blatantly treat new players like fodder to feed the hardcores.

Based on the outcome of their previous title, Haven and Hearth, when this game goes live there will probably be around 3 main towns that you either join or get curbstomped. Even now the best policy when you see someone you don't know is to run or log off immediately and hope they're gone when you log back on. The folks who played the beta to the endgame content will know how to find the best spots to claim, skill up the fastest, and quickly band together to corner the economy. The more malicious thugs will team up and delight in killing everyone they see. Now, with permadeath, people just won't come back after they lose the many hours of skilling up they invested.

I'll probably keep an eye on this for some major changes that introduce Teh Fun, but for now I don't know why this game flagrantly mucked up the aquiculture.

One of the other gaming forums had a relatively organized presence in the game that evaporated when the purity nerf happened, so thanks for explaining the mechanics of that.

Server wipe, new map, new version. Some new content has been added and the newbie experience is slightly more gentle now. The skill grind was made extra grindy by introducing diminishing returns on studying the same item multiple times for a skill up. Most notable improvement is that they replaced the god awful ground textures and you can actually see things on the ground.

Having a sufficiently good time working on a town with a group of players that know what they are doing and have a plan. I'm still pretty newbish as far as game knowledge goes so I mostly forage for needed materials and work on leveling my skills. Trying to play as a hermit again (my mostly preferred playstyle) would be soul-crushingly tedious.

I don't think I can get past the way the avatars look. Manbabies creep me out too much!

If anyone is interested, mmorpg.com has some beta keys available. 
http://www.mmorpg.com/giveaways.cfm/offer/388/Salem-Beta-Key-Giveaway.html

My advice...don't bother.  It is horrible.  The man babies should have been my first clue to uninstall.

  As someone who was with Salem from the Alpha to now (And is friends with the Devs), I can tell you to not bother. paradox is more than likely axing this in the near future. instead, wait for development to re-start on haven and hearth or check out Topia Online.

Now in Open Beta:

http://www.salemthegame.com/

Watched one of their trailers on the front page and saw a humanoid horse-like creature with wings skipping along in the background. I had to do a double-take when I noticed it had some kind of extra hand sticking out of its crotch-area. :awesome_for_real:

(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/85916/suspicious_cleese.jpg)

I Can't help thinking the first game in this concept they made had more charm.

  Haven and Hearth (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=v72vZb2FL5M)

I'm kind of surprised that it's made it to open beta.  I would have thought the game would have slinked off to the corner to die some time ago.

Tried the game because the idea of world shaping, intricate crafting & permadeath was intriguing.  There's the germ of an interesting game here crushed by very odd design decisions.  Mainly the grind is utterly horrific and there's a WoW style powercurve.  A high level dude can destroy a whole city of noobs and there's jack shit they can do about it no matter how organised they are.  Combining a huge grind, open PVP and a WoW powercurve is just a bizarre decision.  People will poopsock like mad until they're basically untouchable then go on murder sprees while the victims quit because they're fucked with no chance of catching up.

I'm told the devs designed H&H the same way so don't expect many adjustments, they're obviously very fond on the internet psycho with infinite free time niche.

e: if anyone hates themselves enough to play, use the custom client it has a much better camera and interface: http://forum.salemthegame.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=50

Paradox dropped it, Seatribe to continue development.

http://forum.salemthegame.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6800

When Paradox refuses to fund your crazy indie title, its time to just light yourself on fire and go out in a blaze of glory.

From a population thread on the forums it looks like the average players online is about 40-50 for each of the 3 servers.

Didn't see that coming.

I would be interested in interviewing those 40 - 50 folks. Make a documentary about them.

You've have to get permissions from their doctors first.  :why_so_serious:

Well, now we know what Grunks been playing.

The pvp gameplay isn't exactly what you'd call exciting (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjxNkbEXrlc)

Why are those three midgets humping each other? And did they shop for those ginomrous hats at the same Sombrero store?

Also, FUCK ME at the number of buttons on that sidebar.

what an absolutely terrible game in all respects.