Preview: Watch Your Back in Salem
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
Part of my avoidance of anything with the words "Massively" and "Multiplayer" associated with them is mainly to do with the fact that I'd have to put up with whatever assholes happen to be playing in my general vicinity on the server at the same time. This sounds niche enough to deter the worst of said undesirables, and the mechanics seem tailor-made to encourage people to be civil. It certainly sounds interesting, so I'll keep an eye on it.
However, I wonder what kind of release schedule to expect. It's a part of history that's very much exclusive to America (not necessarily witch-burnings, but the time-period, location, what it actually means to contemporary culture, etc) and it's likely it won't see much of an international release. Even if it were to be available in some form in somewhere like Australia, I'm thinking Oceanic servers aren't an immediate concern for the devs. Shame, becuase it sounds genuinely interesting.
However, I wonder what kind of release schedule to expect. It's a part of history that's very much exclusive to America (not necessarily witch-burnings, but the time-period, location, what it actually means to contemporary culture, etc) and it's likely it won't see much of an international release. Even if it were to be available in some form in somewhere like Australia, I'm thinking Oceanic servers aren't an immediate concern for the devs. Shame, becuase it sounds genuinely interesting.
Now this sounds intresting. But why do I feel likes it's gonna look like runescape( I know but i just get that picture in my head ^^). But it's great that it's gonna be free to play. I will try this game when its realeases. Hope it's coming for Mac( yeah I know Iknow...but it's the best computer I got right now. Our old PC is heading for retierment.)
You need to be careful about what is and isn't historically accurate, since the old rule 'history is written by the victors' is in effect.Therumancer said:CrystalShadow said:
To each their own about games, but I think you have some bad information. This is why I don't like current political agendas leading to people reinventing history. The inquisition did not torture people into confessing crimes, that's idiotic and I'm surprised people have gotten that idea. It's simply put stupid. By the time people were tortured they had already been convicted of Witchcraft, their death was a foregone conclusion. By the time things had gotten to this point typically the authorities had already sat in judgement and reviewed the evidence and the witnesses. Understand that in europe where most of this took place a trial did not need to be conducted with a person being able to actively defend themselves, nor did they have the right to face their accuser or anything else. That is why these rights exist, there still were proceedings however. What happened when someone was convicted of Witchcraft was the church felt it was their duty to try and save the person's soul. The torture was conducted to get them to accept their misdeeds as misdeeds, repent their evil, and accept Jesus as their savior so they could go to heaven. None of this was really used as evidence or anything like that. In cases of posession it was believed that the demon needed to be driven out of the body through pain, so the person inside could confess their sins, and thus go to heaven. Wonky yes, but not quite what you seem to think. It makes me suspect that instead of schools telling you "put bad horror movies about the Inquisition out of your mind, this is what really happened, which is scary enough" and decided to try and present the bad horror movies as what actually occured.
As far as those accused of being witches simply having knowlege, I think that's a retroactive justification. After all it's a way for the New Age version of a witch to claim ancient traditions, and provide an air of mystique and secrecy to the whole thing. "Secrets the world feared because they didn't understand them" or whatever. The problem with that logic is that The Church was actually the big defender of knowlege at the time, and the force which moved science along in the early days. Herbalism and the like was not exactly an alien concept to The Church as a whole.
It's also important to understand that current conflicts between herbal cures and modern medicine are because herbal medicine is largely unregulated and tends to cause as many problems as it solves. Modern medication and such gradually evolved from herbal remedies
and such, and in general given the option seeing a doctor is going to be far more effective than seeing a Guru. This is not to say that herbal cures are ineffective, but in some cases they can cause complications, or by treating symptoms never get to an underlying cause until it's too late. Right now there is so much negative-press aimed at the drug companies where a lot of people will look for "alternative medicine" in the belief that there is some great conspiricy to prevent people from using this stuff so big drug companies can make money. In reality if anything like that was going on, you'd have the big companies buying out the herb gardens and stuff and selling the herbal remedies for $100 a bottle or whatever.
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As far as Witchcraft having to be used for 100% negative purposes, it's a solid concept. The idea of Lovecraftian type horror is the insignifigance of people compared to the supernatural horrors out there. All magic by definition comes FROM those creatures and as such it taints the people who use it. This is why sorcerors in that style of horror ALWAYS come to a bad end, either becoming evil, turning into degenerate mutant creatures through the energy they channel, or having their minds shatter and going totally bonkers. You see this kind of thing in the concept of "Chaos" as it applies to say Warhammer 40k, where those who use Sorcery do so through the Ruinous powers. The thing is that in an even darker universe there is no flickering remnant of a psionic god's soul, or naturally occuring psionics who can resist taint with the right training. That's part of what makes this kind of concept horrific as opposed to just dark... we're totally irrelevent due to the way it defines the universe.
That said, if they are going with a system based on the beliefs of the time in a literal sense, then there are only going to be two powers, God and The Devil, anything not from God comes from The Devil, and thus any power Witches wield is inherantly evil and corrupt. They probably would have to go through a sort of "sign this contract" type faustian bargain to get power. As I understand things, I'd imagine they are making it a high level thing because your character has to prove themself worth the trouble to begin with.
The flip side of that would of course be the power of god, which would be wielded by the faithful. Probably involving the invocation of various saints for blessings (think of the old game "Darklands"), mystical dispelling, and similar feats. Belief wise it wouldn't do any of the more dramatic D&D Cleric stuff. I'd imagine in this kind of system a Witch would be really powerful, but would have to remain in hiding because someone with a lot of faith like a Priest or whatever would be able to ignore whatever they have and take them down rather easily (meaning such characters would have to be subtle and remain hidden, since if the player base as a whole ever finds out, perma-death awaits). At the high end a character like this might wield an artifact involving a piece of the true cross, or the fingerbone of a saint or whatever.
That's getting well off the subject though, it sounds interesting, but I'm not sure if I'll have time for it. Also, I admit I don't much care for the whole perma-death thing. If I was going to implement it I would probably look at old school "Star Wars Galaxies" for an inspiration. The way it sounds Witches are going to be really powerful, and that makes a degree of sense. Using Permadeath in that case would be a way of keeping them in hiding where they should be conceptually. In old school SWG when Jedi or Sith died (after all the work to become one) the character turned into a "glowie" (think Obi-Wan appearing in the movies) and could no longer do anything. You could pretty much just log it in and walk around to show "hey, I actually got a character up to Jedi!". For a while it pretty much ensured that the force users were hiding like they were supposed to be. Later when they got rid of that mechanic you'd have bored Force Users waltz into a busy Cantina and start break dancing until Bounty Hunters showed up, then there would be a big fight, everyone would die, and then go laugh at the infirmiry. Then came the entire rehaul of the game and it just got worse.
I personally won't go any further into the inquisition, since I don't know all that much about it, but the early history of modern medicine is very dubious indeed, and there were definitely massive conflicts between traditional healers, who were often from poor backgrounds, and surgeons, who quite often were not.
The medical journal known as 'the lancet' came into existence because a lot of surgeons did not attain their position through being skilled, but primarily from being family of the right person.
This has little to do with drugs vs herbalism, but the older conflict between surgical cures VS more traditional ones.
If you're going to argue about revisionist history by certain groups, make sure you also understand the history of what is now the mainstream.
As for the Christian church... (Well, that's a bit misleading, since there's more than one), there is a lot of conflicting evidence about it's history.
It doesn't help that most historians wanting to study religious history have usually been required to be religious themselves, which introduces some interesting biases.
Amongst conflicting reports is one which suggests Jesus never existed at all, and was an allegorical construct. (Yet mainstream historians often go looking for Jesus with the pre-concieved notion that it was an actual person. - IF you assume a particular starting point, you're much more likely to 'find' evidence.)
Other stories suggest the Roman Catholic church violently suppressed and destroyed the traditional Roman religions when it became the official state religion.
There's plenty more.
The problem is, history isn't an all or nothing affair in regards to truth. History is pieced together from clues, like a big puzzle.
And if those clues include such things as old books and parchments (which they frequently do), you run into the bias of who wrote them.
Consider the Surgeons VS traditional healers?
Who do you think wrote the history here?
Surgeons were from wealthy backgrounds, and quite likely to be literate, and what's more, the current medical community is descended from their traditions.
Traditional healers have all but dissapeared, taking their knowledge with them. - People practicing these things today probably don't even have any real connection to what these people knew, and are just doing their own reconstruction from what little they can find.
Of course they're not going to acknowledge the horrors of what the people they are imitating were doing.
They probably didn't even know about them.
But... The mainstream groups are no less trustworthy, and no less likely to have been covering up what they considered horrible.
(Were you aware how many churches had phallic and sexual imagery in their architecture? Did you know how much of this was intentionally destroyed by the Victorians because it conflicted with their views on the morality of sex? - It might seem like a minor thing, but it shows a group trying to deny the past history of their own religion, and doing things which erase a lot of evidence in the process - Leading future generations to having a different view of such groups)
Anyway... History is never more than an approximation of what really went on.
And be wary of who is giving you your 'facts'.
That very valid point this was more of general rant less directed at this topic. Though will they portray them as colonial British citizens of that era though ?AKmontalvo said:
Well, very few people even in the church deny that Christianity took over the western world with a lot of violence, warfare, and cultural eradication. In fact it's a good example of what it takes to win a war and overcome a culture more or less permanantly. Ugly and nasty, as I argue in other threads. Typically the problems with Christian motives come about when discussing the Crusades due to people forgetting what actually started it and got people that worked up, that's an entirely differant discussion though.CrystalShadow said:
When it comes to medicine, again it's one of those situations where what's dominant right now is demonized because people aren't happy with it. The battles over medical care, health insurance, socialized medicine and other things all come down to people hating the medical esablishment, and wanting to lionize alternative sources.
There is some truth that medicine DID have a tendency to be practiced by the rich and kept within the family, but at the same time that was common at the time for most professions given the apprenticeship system, and the way how most things were run by large guilds and cartels. Medicine was simply run like anything else.
It's also noteworthy that our modern morality can't deal with medical progression, because in general experimenting medically is ugly. Learning things pretty much involved taking people apart while they were still alive to see how things worked. That's how progress was made, and today when we look back at that we tend to freak out. It's also why more "current" doctors who did the same thing, like the Nazi Doctor Mengele, are viewed as virtual demons although we take advantage of their discoveries (which has raised all kinds of moral questions). There is no denying that modern medicine has a rather dark past, but at the
same time, it does work, and work well.
As things stand now we're not dealing with medicine as it was hundreds of years ago, and simply put it's far more effective than the homebrew stuff.
As far as Salem goes, the medicine is going to be considerably more primitive, but I also don't think it's going to be an either/or thing, as I think at that time period things like herbalism were mixed with the developing medical science of the time. As to whether someone is a quack or effective, it's probably going to depend on their skills and attributes.
These always jump out at me as grabs for attention.Ultratwinkie said:
"Waaaah! Look at me everybody I'm important and clever!"
"We were trying to have a normal conversation."
"In b4 you respond to me!"
As for the OP, I'd play it then the moment someone killed me offline I'd never play it again
. Pretty solid system for keeping my addiction level low I think.
If they ditch the whole offline players can be excuted thing the game will do better. Instead they should have it so that the "scent" timer dosen't decrease while your offline and also say make it so logging off makes you sit still for a minute so you can;t log off as someone chases.
This could also be benefited by say higer ups in society issuing warrants for players who have commited crimes. So say the town mayor puts a bounty on some guy as he killed someone. It is now fair game to killl him for everyone who accepts said bounty. Also could have a system of jailing. So instead of killing players who commit crimes you could take them alive and put them in the town jail.
This could also be benefited by say higer ups in society issuing warrants for players who have commited crimes. So say the town mayor puts a bounty on some guy as he killed someone. It is now fair game to killl him for everyone who accepts said bounty. Also could have a system of jailing. So instead of killing players who commit crimes you could take them alive and put them in the town jail.
This seems like minecraft but with better gameplay and some descent multiplayer. I hope it turns out well and isn't filled with trolls the instand it launches.
As far as I can tell from the devs, Salem will run on one server/shard. Even if the game is super popular and they have to open up new shards, they said that they'll have some way to navigate between them for a huge open world.Andronicus said:
Sounds like a potentially great time.
I hope they add something about falsely accusing people to be witches, though.
So you have to learn Murder in order to engage in PvP... does that mean if you avoid it you can never be killed without picking a fight with the wildlife?
I hope they cap the servers at a reasonably low level. My main problem with MMORPGs is that nobody I know in real life plays them, so the experience is both lonely and boring for me. I quite like the idea of necessary co-operation between strangers in individual villagers - enough to find people you get on well with and people you don't, but not so many that you loose the sense of 'us vs them' community.
Enforced random server allocation for each new character would be cool. Reduces the chances of starting in a new village only to find it full of fifty people from a single WoW guild who exclude non-guilders by habit.
I'll be keeping an eye on this!
I hope they add something about falsely accusing people to be witches, though.
So you have to learn Murder in order to engage in PvP... does that mean if you avoid it you can never be killed without picking a fight with the wildlife?
I hope they cap the servers at a reasonably low level. My main problem with MMORPGs is that nobody I know in real life plays them, so the experience is both lonely and boring for me. I quite like the idea of necessary co-operation between strangers in individual villagers - enough to find people you get on well with and people you don't, but not so many that you loose the sense of 'us vs them' community.
Enforced random server allocation for each new character would be cool. Reduces the chances of starting in a new village only to find it full of fifty people from a single WoW guild who exclude non-guilders by habit.
I'll be keeping an eye on this!
Oooooh... An actually interesting MMO? One not focusing around orcs, humans and varieties of elves, but instead with a different setting?
Count me in. I was sold when they mentioned paranoia.
Hopefully they won't make it too grindy.
Count me in. I was sold when they mentioned paranoia.
Hopefully they won't make it too grindy.
I predict this will last about a week before getting removed, or else this will just be GRIEFING: THE GAME.
This is... strange. The death system is extremely hardcore, surpassing even Demon's Souls.
It looks innovative, but it isn't the game for me. The Salem witch trials have always been extremely off-putting to me, and so i will not be caring about this game any more.
It looks innovative, but it isn't the game for me. The Salem witch trials have always been extremely off-putting to me, and so i will not be caring about this game any more.
