Greetings Salemites,
In approx 14 Hours we will be officially ending the “Beta” phase of Salem. It was a long and challenging road and I can honestly say that we would not have been able to do it without the support of this community. Where some people see a toxic community unwelcoming and off-putting I simply see a passionate community who is protective of their home and wary of the mainstream gaming culture that taints so much outside our walls. The changes we made were far more in scope than originally intended and the direction we took you swayed further than we anticipated. I appreciate the confidence that so many of you shared and with all sincerity appreciate you affording me the opportunity to helm this ship. I hope I have honored my original promise to all of you to retain the core spirit and values of Salem while simultaneously breathing life back into the title.

In the final weeks I was corrected by members of the team as I would frequently say “Almost done”. They reminded me, we are but “almost beginning”. The Alpha & Beta worlds of Salem will soon be fond memories and funny stories and before we know it even this first Expedition may be little more than tales for future Salemites to write books about (with hopefully better UI, I didn’t forget). We move on now to greener pastures ripe for all the wonderful ideas posted on these forums for each subsequent expansion to come.

Salem has been designed from both a business model, maintainability, and game mechanics model to weather the storms and provide the maximum assurances of longevity. Too many times when playing a game I wonder just when the profits will cause a studio to abandon the project, or just how long I have until the developers dumb the game down to appease the masses. We have put in place every precaution we could imagine to try to insure that Salem, and the investments & relationships forged here stand the test of time. Providence was catered to be defensible and ‘secure’ so that players had some reasonable probability they would have a base upon returning from vacations while Expeditions were designed specifically to make sure a hypothetical new player who finds us 6 years from now still has an opportunity to get their foot in the door. In conclusion, we hope you are as confident about the future as we are, for while we appreciate every moment you spend with us please keep in mind we built this world just as much for us as we did for you. This is our home too.

On to the big news!

The Server will be launching in approx 14 Hours from this post at NOON PST.

The server may come down a few hours before then for maintenance and to implement the last of the changes. Unlike the Beta you will find that going forward we intend to have much more vague Patch Notes. The Patch Notes in the days of yonder were done so that you could test and find bugs before launch. The new world of Salem will be about exploration, trial and error, as well as collaboration in finding the wealth of secrets. So with that in mind this launch brings you:

Animal Husbandry:
Marp will be hosting events and various opportunities to purchase animals will present themselves as the server goes on. The animals will have 6 genetic traits, three which you will want to breed to as low as possible and three which you will find largely beneficial. The animals will become upset under a variety of situations and if your male animals become too angry you will find that they will become quite a burden to your base and your health. Castrating them largely mitigates this but as expected will eliminate their ability to breed. Animals will have a chance to get sick. Giving them the appropriate medicine will cure them. Leaving animals outside barns in a cold snap will increase their chances to get sick. Feeding your animals treats will make them more happy. You may play with baby animals and doing so not only makes them happy but also lowers your insanity. Killing a baby animal increases your insanity. You may use a rope to guide your animal around.

Statues:
There are now 6 statues around the map. Praying to them will give you a bonus depending on the statue. Details on this system were largely discussed in the Sneak Peak: Expeditions thread. The first witch of appropriate power to pray to all of them will win the server and bring about the apocalypse.

Cannons:
Players may now learn Artillery and build both cannons and cannonballs. Once a cannon is lit it cannot be moved. Cannons do a great job at penetrating walls but can take anywhere between 1 minute and 7.5 hours to fire. There is no limit to the number of cannons that can be fired upon a base at the same time. Players who find creative ways to use various buildings to ‘block’ a cannon from breaking a way in will find that I will show up and torch your base. I care not if you can creatively stagger some oddball array of buildings to make something that a cannon cannot break, for I myself will just break it instead. Don’t cheat.

Booby Traps:
Players may now make several different types of booby trap. The trap does not care who opens it and will spring on anybody who right clicks it. Rifle through other pilgrims belongings at your own risk.

Cheese Making:
With the addition of milk comes cheese. Find the different cheese cultures out there and begin making your own cheese wheels.

More Witchcraft:
Witches have learned a handful of new spells and skill.

Other Things:
In addition to this we added a new hydration buff, several new artifices, several new clothing items, several new inspirationals, some new industry buildings & much more!

Please feel free to use this thread to discuss changes, ask questions, or post your finds once the Expedition begins.

Enjoy Salem!
John Carver
Mortal Moments Inc.

http://forum.salemthegame.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14237&sid=9f53786b983a3db6f1b3319bfd30a0a6

http://massivelyop.com/2015/06/16/ascents-first-election-will-determine-the-president-of-the-galaxy/

It looks like Aventurine is looking to sell the rights to the original Darkfall.  Rumor has it they want 600,000 USD for the rights to Darkfall 1 and the engine.

I apologize for the previous message, it was not approved for posting. I’ll try to be as specific as possible as per the community request to bring back the original Darkfall:

It’s well known that we’re a small independent game developer working hard to support one of the highest maintenance game types there is.

Bringing back the original Darkfall is unfortunately unrealistic and impractical. There is no doubt that it was a great game, which had its’ chance, but unfortunately stopped being viable and had to end. It’s as massive an effort and expense as launching any MMORPG and would require months of development in order to go back in time. Even if we did, it would require a sustained serious critical mass of players, in order for it to be viable. We are unfortunately unable to support that kind of an effort, and we don’t believe there is a market for it.

Having said that, we remain open to serious proposals for licensing and supporting the original Darkfall. Unfortunately, to date, there have been none other than some quick semi-anonymous emails asking “how much would it cost”. It would take a sizeable server investment to cover a region and a minimum low five figure amount just for bandwidth and basic systems operations. This doesn’t include developer and customer support, and it certainly doesn’t include the serious effort behind keeping the game updated. It’s a large-scale operation to run an MMORPG, but Darkfall in particular, due to its’ real-time nature, is even more demanding on hardware, bandwidth, and development support.

Our main development objective is to work on continuously improving our current game, Darkfall Unholy Wars, and to infuse it with some of the magic Darkfall Online had to offer. This is the time when we need to be able to focus on Darkfall Unholy Wars, and we need to know that we can depend on your support in that.

Thank you.

https://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?411303-My-message&p=6524255#post6524255