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[Sinistar]

Ispil: as Seriyu pointed out, yeah, there ain't really a strong in-game moderation. However, personally I'd say it is not really needed. Then again, depends on what you mean as "caustic" community. As Salem is perma-death game, you should be paranoid by default when dealing with other people. Always use caution and be prepared for the worse, even if the neighbor that lives nearby has kept a friendly appearance and fair trade for weeks. And never trust keys/give claim permissions to people unless you are 100% sure you can trust them and/or you can get in touch with them even outside the game.
At least that's what I do. Honestly, I had a very little player-to-player interaction, but better safe than sorry.

If by caustic you mean just people being trash-talking trolls? Yeah, we have that too. But again, you usually aren't forced to deal with those kind of people AND such behavior isn't so wide spread (as in, you teleport to Boston and you get spammed by random slurs - not in my experience). If you check the forums, yeah, forums are pretty... interesting. Some people it seems take this game too far. But I pay it no heed usually. And it's not so bad if you expect exactly what to expect of the game - harsh nad punishing, but not necessarily unfair. I mean, you do get trolls in game. Once, I had a chance of someone's new, naked char teleporting just outside my claim. He/she kept trying to invade it for days, weeks even. And by "invade" I mean just walk into it, in the same spot, just to get immediately knocked-out. I was sure it was a bot, even. Or maybe just a new player. SO I put up some warning signs, trying to persuade him to stop. One day, I finally caught him online. Turned out to be a trash-talking twat. I was sure it was just some random noob. So at one point I got fed up with him and I attacked him. Didn't have the kill skill that time so I just knocked him out few times. Fully planned on getting the kill skill just to deal with him. But as it turned out, I was just baited. Next day, my character was dead, my claim invaded.
But lessons were learned here. I learned to be more cautions. To not attack some random player, even if it seems like a random noob (ESPECIALLY if it seems like just some random, naked noob). I got a new chair, repaired my claim (wasn't that ransacked in the first place), I kept playing, that player got his satisfaction and we both moved on. If one day I get fully invaded and my claim completely destroyed, hey, that's the life of Salem. As I stated many times, with each update Salem becomes less of a chore and more of a just fun crafting mmo, so any future losses don't really sadden me.

intense: no, I don't think Salem is like that, at least I personally don't have such experience. Mind you, I don't go for hardcore, min-max powerplay playstyle. I take it easy, take it slow. I have 6 farm tiles and I grow some crops. I rarely go past the 1st (out of 3) tier ones, but that is mainly because i never wanted to put too much time into it (as we have seen some grind-reducing changes in agriculture too, I'm now actually trying to go into 3rd tier). I also never payed much attention to purity system (which makes your items, food, inspirationals just better overall). But I am completely self-sufficient. I have iron industry up and running, I hunt, I farm. Some of the higher-end skills like weapon smithing are hard to get and I'm still around just 40 biles or so. If I had someone to make me higher-end inspirationals to raise the former and someone for higher-end food to raise the later, yeah, things would go faster and I could specialize. But that would also make me really dependent on others. Point is, you MUST be self-sufficient if you are playing solo, but you also CAN be. Unless you are really trying to market your goods, you need not to worry either about the quality or quantity of what you produce.
I'm guessing life in town can be different, especially because town upkeep is much higher than that of a normal claim, but yeah, tl;dr - no I don't think you need to specialize.

As said though, nomadic playstyle is a no-go. Sooner or later you'll have to settle down somewhere, if you plan on having any sort of developed character.

[DJ]

I'm a hermit and I'm engaging in all the industries on my own, I even got some steel today from my own crucibles. Hermiting is definitely possible, but don't expect to advance anywhere near as quick as organized groups. Luckily the world is huge and defenses are overpowered, so it's highly unlikely for those faster advancing people to raid your homestead if you take some safety precautions.

[Tack]

So... Do we have a group?

[Sinistar]

I am not aware of any, others might be know more. But if there truly is none and you feel like it, you can teleport to my claim. Can't let you stay inside my walls as I am overcrowded with stuff as it is, but you are more then welcome to settle somewhere in my vicinity. I have decent abundance of all basics like lime, clay, spiders and beavers and I can also help you with some more advance stuff like walls, inspirationals and housing.

You will have to make a new character though UNLESS you haven't used wilderness guide yet with the current. OR you can make a trek on foot to my claim, but I honestly have no idea where in the world I'm even located so you'll have to make an epic journey into wast unknown.

[Ai Shizuka]

I played this for a while and got bored. Same thing happened with Wurm and H&H.
In this kind of games I greatly enjoy the setting-up phase, but get bored when I'm more estabilished.

In this case it's been the feeling of doing nothing but food stuff.
Eat food, gather food, train skill to make different food, keep track of eating timers.
Also, the horrible agriculture system. Imo, they tried to create a complex system, but it's just annoying. Not interesting or engaging. Just super-annoying to deal with.

Maybe I'll check out the recent updates.

[Dr Hook]

I was really suprised when i stumbled across this thread. To anyone reading this looking for something new to try i definitely recommend giving Salem a go. Since the new developers (Mortal Moments) took over late last summer the never ending monthly updates are significant (in quality and size) and the content/depth of this game is huge and like no other. Many of the mechanics and general speed of the game are totally different and reworked. I have played many games in my gaming life (wow, perfectworld, eve, silkroad, voyage century and countless others for extended periods) and none match this game even closely. I have been playing Salem for about a year and a half now and every day is a new experience.  There are no levels or questing, it is a completely interactive world. And did I mention the depth and content!!! One thing I will caution is that the game is permadeath,  so use caution,  the pvp is real. I won't go into detail about game play here but with the official launch coming later this summer and the community steadily increasing, I don't see myself heading anywhere for a long long while.  The upcoming March update is set to include a completely revamped tutorial for new players as this was always a bit of a hang up.

I have played mostly as a hermit but have spent time in towns as well. The core of the game is for individuals to come together and form towns. There are big advantages in numbers as the real time period would reflect. The sheer depth of the game makes specialized classes more of a thing, although with time one character can achieve endlessly. But again use caution, this game is not for the timid or weak at heart.

To anyone playing or giving it a try, if you need a little assistance getting going or just an in game contact that isn't looking to take advantage (lol) give me a shout.

cheers all and good hunting,

Dr Hook

[Fikes]

I logged in last night and found that I am sitting on a like 350 silver and have some good items, but I have no homestead to teleport back to. I found a little wagon train thing and hit "head west!" and started walking from there.

My biggest problem is that the game actually feels more obtuse now than when Seatribe was running it. The two main reasons for this are 1) There is currently no world map, a vital feature, and 2) There have been so many changes the wiki is way way out of date.

I was also really disappointed to see that the terrain isn't fixed yet. There are square parts of the map where the height seems completely random, making them impossible to pass. It is highly annoying.

That being said I am going to build a small town anyways. I introduced my older brother to Zomboid and he kept saying "How cool would it be if this was online and you could build a little village and trade." That sounded a lot like Salem.

[Dr Hook]

You are correct that the Salem wiki is behind, mainly because the amount of content added monthly exceeds what the 2 or 3 people updating it have time to add. This issue has been voiced already. Eventually it will get caught up. Also be sure you are using the right wiki (there are 2) - the old developer seatribe version hasn't been updated for about a year now and is completely obsolete. I might also suggest reading the patch notes for each months updates in the forum "Announcements" section, but as I said earlier there is so much being added and changed that every month reads like a book. As a former player I'm sure you will be quite impressed with the current direction the game is going.

[DJ]

There's a map here, but it's very rough.

[nikixos]

Please don't use the old wiki, it's like half a year behind.
This is the official wiki http://www.salem-wiki.com
Updates are monthly with no specific day

[Sinistar]

A minor tidbit - that is actually not an "official" wiki, it was primary maintained by Salem's biggest organized group MM Tribe and it does have some minor Tribe propaganda/inside jokes... but yeah, this shouldn't pose a problem to anyone and as that other wiki fell behind, this is the preferable wiki to check this days.

[Fikes]

I always use the tribe one, even though it appears the tribe isn't around anymore. It is somewhat up to date but there are so many things in the game it is hard to get enough information to make good decisions.

I have a couple of questions for you guys though... I accidently ko'ed a buddy using stomp. Can I get thrown in the stocks for that?

Where is the safest place for my valuables? We have a mine and iron now and I am worried about protecting my wealth. Is it better to log out with your stuff or stow it in a box somewhere? We have a crappy makeshift wall all the way around at least

[DJ]

AFAIK battery is a stockable crime.

As for valuables, your inventory and equipment can be stolen at your homestead while you're offline, so they're not any safer. You just have to put up some defences around it and then it doesn't matter if it's in inventory or a container. Wall alone doesn't qualify as defences, though, you need to put up a couple of torch posts and work towards braziers. Mind you, a wall doesn't do much if you don't have a lock on the gate.

[nikixos]

Battery or Ko' other players is not a summonable or major crime anymore, you can't get killed for doing that, it's now the same as trespassing in that the scent lasts 1 day and people can track you with that but they can't kill you justifiably

[Sinistar]

I am performing a medium-level necromancy ritual to breath some new life into this topic and share some info.


So, been a while since we talked about this game so we go straight for the big news - as of 19th June, Salem is officially out of beta! Version 1.0! Woooo! This of course doesn't mean the game is not being developed anymore, far from it. But we'll talk about it in a moment. For starters, version 1 opened a new server, Popham, that currently servers as a test server. For instance, animal husbandry and associated industry is in, but for now tied to Popham. The devs have yet to decide if this feature will be present on a normal server, Providence. But a neat trick is this - Popham is a server with limited life-time. That was known from the beginning. There was a race between players dabbling in witchery and god-fearing pilgrims to reach some statues hidden in the wild and depending on which side found them first, the fate of the server hinged. Or something like that. Anyways, apparently the witches won... and there has been a community event of building a Noe's ark ever since. Because the flood is coming to wash over the cursed world, and if the players don't work together to build the ship to store the animals on, well, the devs might not even put the animals on normal server! Kinda neat. BUT the Popham is just one of the new servers or expeditions as they call it to come, so future looks exciting.

There is also talk about gluttony rework, apparently about 50% done at the point. We have also already seen some proficiency rework, now it actually pays off to specialize not just by buying certain skill but also having high-level proficiencies.

There is sure some other stuff that happened in the past months that I should remember but I don't right now. If anyone has questions, I can try and answer them. But speaking about me, behold:

Spoiler: then (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: now (click to show/hide)

I've grown! In fact, I am planning on expanding even more, beyond my current borders. I've got myself a fruit orchard skill, one of the new ones, which get's you what it says on the tin - fruit trees. There is currently no fruit-food recipes, and you can harvest fruits only during everbloom season (did I mention seasons? Well, technically the world of Salem is still in permanent Autumn, but now you have everbloom, coldsnap and spoopy blood moon sub-seasons, so to speak) AND you need bees (bees!) or butterflies to pollinate them. But rotten fruits make a nice fertilizer, you can throw them at criminals in stocks (yeah, you can punish criminals now by putting them in stocks... but you knew that, right?) and after all, who knows what use fruits might have in the future. So  I'm thinking about creating an outer perimeter for fruit trees and some additional medium-scale farming. Here's what might interested some people - I'll be also welcoming anyone who'd wish to settle, either temporarily on permanently, within my borders. I have no intention of starting a town as this pulls after it all sorts of troubles not to mention it's costly to even put up. I'm thinking something like a small hamlet, a micro village if you will. I've got water, clay, lime and woods nearby not to mention up and fully operational mining operations with technology to make wrought iron (you can also make steel now, but I'm not yet sure when or even if I'll go down that route), so I'm pretty damn self sufficient.

But it's up to you. You can just make a quick stop by, and can make a backpack, some not-basic clothing, maybe slot an artifact or two and build you a canoe, then fill your pockets with some food and basic curio and send you your merry way. Or you can be my room mate (claim mate? Is this even a word?). I'm In the process of creating a large amounts of dry planks to I can turn them into oiled planks SO I can in turn make a plank wall out of them. I'm sick of stone hedges, new updates have also made granite a lot scarcer than it used to be (BUT if you have high enough mines&mountains proficiency, you could mine granite boulders for a living...).

So yeah, here's where the game and myself stand. Come take a look around, stay a while and listen, die, have fun.

edit:
Oh yeah, also, my claim I've been talking about is on the Providence, that is, the "normal" server. It's a long standing server, considered to be more safe to play on as there are a lot of well established claims/towns and raiding is thus not very easy and common. I have a char on Popham, but I am not well established there and it's been a while since I even played him.

Also also, the usual rules apply - if you are staying on my claim, please don't kill/steal/destroy or otherwise sell me out to potential raiders. I know some people might be into RPing a honest-pilgrim-actually-enemy-spy, but please, don't do that here.