Salem has a lot of appeal for people as a game that brings back "the good old days" of MMOs with features like permadeath and a real focus on crafting. We had the opportunity to chat with Creative Director Björn Johannessen about Salem. Keep reading and let us know what you think in the comments.

MMORPG: Tell us a little bit more about Salem! How did you come up with the premise? Why Salem?

JOHANNESSEN: When my code gnome Fredrik Tolf and I first were invited to pitch a game idea to the people at Paradox I had three ideas that I presented to Fredrik. I had one idea about making a game in a gothic, occult wild west setting -- lots of ghost dancing and stuff like that -- one idea to make an MMORPG based on the Baron von Münschausen stories, and one set in gothic Colonial America with headless horsemen and shadows over Innsmouth. We needed some sort of frontier to make the game, and the last idea just ended up being the one we found most inspiring when we discussed it before pitching the idea to Paradox. No one had done it before and it seemed like we could make it really cool.

Read more of Cassandra Khaw's No Elves Allowed: An Exclusive Salem Interview.

"We provide a map that players can terraform, develop and change. There are no silly dungeons or raids other than raids on other players." made me smille.

Graphics, interface and characters look retarded, and I hate the same patterns (here tile + dead leafs) repeated ad infinitum and they actually didn't reveal anything valuable untill now but maybe it could be an interesting social/sandboxy mmo. Waiting for facts...

Originally posted by MyPreciousss

"We provide a map that players can terraform, develop and change. There are no silly dungeons or raids other than raids on other players." made me smille.

Graphics, interface and characters look retarded, and I hate the same patterns (here tile + dead leafs) repeated ad infinitum and they actually didn't reveal anything valuable untill now but maybe it could be an interesting social/sandboxy mmo. Waiting for facts...

Go play Haven & Hearth and you'll see what this game will be.

look its Vlad Tepes!

I like the change in graphics. The first time I heard of this game the character models looked like proportional, but low-poly messes. This is much better.

I'm excited about this game, wish it would release now. 

Waiting impatiently for this...

Why do I keep thinking of Bungie's Myth when I see those screenshots.

the character art is so hideous I'm going to hide under my bed now.

I love HnH, but it's too hardcore for it's own good.

Namely because the harsh setback of permadeath is so *easy* to obtain. First of all, I can count at least 5 times that a lag spurt sent me walking right into the path of a bear or boar that was offscreen... dead. Then, while you can get some skills back and continue from your hearth location, you can't reuse the names - so every time you die, you lose that screename to the void, or until a map restart. I ran through every moniker I had, and then had to make up some, or add extra vowels.

Hopefully they have a little more foresight this time around, seeing as how it's exactly the *same game*.

I  like the setting of this game and how they are implenting it.

The graphics don't look that great it wiill end up a browers game probly with face book as well but who games its all about the game play?

Salem will be the succesor to Haven and Hearth (HnH) http://www.havenandhearth.com/portal/

If you are a sandbox gamer then you will find HnH compelling and Salem is looking to be a brilliant follow up.

I am truely looking forward to Salem. 

Originally posted by GTwander

I love HnH, but it's too hardcore for it's own good.

Namely because the harsh setback of permadeath is so *easy* to obtain. First of all, I can count at least 5 times that a lag spurt sent me walking right into the path of a bear or boar that was offscreen... dead. Then, while you can get some skills back and continue from your hearth location, you can't reuse the names - so every time you die, you lose that screename to the void, or until a map restart. I ran through every moniker I had, and then had to make up some, or add extra vowels.

Hopefully they have a little more foresight this time around, seeing as how it's exactly the *same game*.

 

Exactly!

Why permadeath never works.  Character models are ridiculous for something being produced today.

Playing this game will be an exercise in frustration for anyone dumb enough try it.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Why permadeath never works. 

I definitely didn't say that, it just has to be much harder to have occur.

Early in HnH I crossed a river and drowned, then when I lost that char I said "well, I deserved that". Later on I was crossing a very small one that was easily done by any noob, and I was well into the game at this point, but halfway - lag... lost half my stam and made it to about a perspective yard to the shore and died. That time I was pissed.

Things like this can easily be fixed with bleedout timers (allowing rescue), or reliance on a critical overkill spurt of damage to cause it. Anyone ever play Blood Bowl? My friend flipped the table when I 10-die critted and killed his best player, but I *earned* it.

Heh, I live in Salem, MA.  We have permadeath here too.  And witches -- just check out the city seal, the statue of Elizabeth Montgomery in the center of town, and the higher proportion of tarot readers per square inch than New Orleans.  True facts.  More witchy-kitchschy than you can shake a broomstick at.  If the game studio wants to run a LARP here for publicity for their launch, they should get up with me -- I could arrange for it in costume.  Our only issue is that we'd show up their models...;)

yrs,

Shava

Wow. Those graphics are horrendous.

Minecraft does a clever job with low res 3d, but this game.. just wow. I am embarrassed for the people who spent time on this and have spoken so passionately about what it will bring to the table. There's nothing to bring to the table looking like that.

In fact, the graphics seem so terrible that I wouldn't be surprised if the game engine is just a quickly coded tool to scam people out of their credit card info before shutting down. I'm staying far away from this one.

Hmm... Just my opinion, but the game looks old and ugly.

H&H is a very nice mmo, yes its laggy and it's indy like, but damn it have more than enough to over come this. Even if i don't like much the graphics, i don't like them much in H&H either to be honest (even the dev joke about their awesome graphics btw), well some games aren't about graphics and when you play them there is actually something behind that let you forget about said appearance, which is not the case for most mainstream mmo, which are totally lost and empty if you skin them off. So yes i'm waiting for Salem.

If they shrink the heads to a normal size, ill play for sure. but not with those bobble heads, no way.

they want realism but then put giant, stupid looking heads on everyone.

EVeryone keep's saying graphics graphics graphics but it is all about the gameplay not graphics.