The old thread is long dead, and it's not really representative of the current state of things, so here's a new one.
Some of you may remember Salem from before, as the grindiest game ever. However, there's been a big update and a world reset of February 21st, and things have changed substantially. There are limits on just how much you can grind them in a given day now, which at a glance may sound bad but it's not something that you'll really feel as a casual player - and hardcore ones can't leave you in the dust stat-wise quite as easily. It also seems that the gain rate drops off sharply at higher stats, and that there are some rather hard limits on character power, but only time will tell if that's the case. The limits on stat grind don't mean you'll be stuck with nothing to do, though - there's been a ton of new content since the previous thread. Also, the game is no longer about spamming the same thing over and over again, whether it's cabbage cakes or spinning tops, as that just doesn't work at all. Now it's all about diversity of food and inspirationals, which makes for a much less tedious grind.
Anyway, if you haven't heard about Salem before, it's an MMO by Seatribe, the same guys that made Haven and Hearth. It's a game where you start off with nothing but the clothes on your back and work (with friends, preferably) towards building an advanced frontier town (the game is set in colonial America). This involves working your way up many production chains, such as farming, metal working and carpentry. It's all fun and games, that is until somebody kills you. Salem does have permadeath, but the only thing that can kill you is the other players. So yeah, it's not a game for the faint of heart. Though you will likely live for quite a bit even without taking any safety precautions, so you can experience the early game, so even if a death makes you quit a couple of weeks after start you'll still have had fun.
And finally, the bad. The griefers are still there in force. In theory the grind limitations make the playing field more even, and they could be kept in check if their targets organized against them (there's still a lot more peaceful players than griefers), but we all know that's not how people work. However, the map has been made a lot bigger than before, so getting found by the griefers in the first place can take months. How big you ask? 50x50 km ATM, and it looks like it's getting expanded. To illustrate, I walked ~2h more or less in one direction (impassable terrain got in the way here and there), and I crossed ~10% of on one of the sides of the map. And currently there's 200-300 players on the server at any time, which on a map this big means you can have a lot of space just for yourself. Do note however that the wilderness spawns put you fairly close to the starting town, so you'll need to make an epic journey to the west first.
Also, speaking of the bad, a proper alchemy system still isn't here yet. There's just natural purity spot, which never go above 10% pure, and you can use them to get your crops etc. to like 6-7% pure, but that's it. I reckon alchemy is the next big thing the devs will work on, though, and the game is still quite fun even without it.
So, if you want to try this, go
here.
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Topic: Salem MMO - actually fun now (Read 31669 times)