New England, here I am.

[TotalyMoo]

Greetings Puritans!

I'm John, your new friendly neighborhood Salem Game Master. From now on, until the foreseeable future, this game and forum part will be mine to take care of. That does not mean I am replacing anyone that is already active in this forum. All moderators, demi-mods and other Paradox employees will still be here and doing the same thing. I am simply an addition. See me as another BjornB (he's sitting on the desk right behind me) only that I am mainly going to work with Salem.

First of all; I am not here to change anything for the worse, my sole interest is to make the Salem user experience as good as I humanly can. I have the utmost respect for the posters in this forum and I do not want to change the ways you interact. Beware, this does not mean I will be lenient on rules.

I am here to make sure all your forum and game issues are solved and this sub-forum upholds a decent posting standard and mature environment. I'm also here to be a liaison between you and the rest of Paradox Interactive, so that your opinions and thoughts on the game will be heard by those who need to hear it.

I expect you, the forum poster and Salem player, to treat me with the same respect I treat you. If you act mature and follow the forum rules you will have no issues with communicating with me, if you don't. Well, then learn how to.

The aim is for us to work together to make Salem an amazing experience for both new and old players. As it has been mentioned before, this is only a beta. None of you are here to play the game as much as you are here to test it to make sure that when you actually do play the game it will be polished and fully functional. This means that we will probably endure both hard and good times.

Now, I am fully aware that most of you probably have a lot more experience with this forum and game than me so please consider this until I have settled.

Please ask any questions you might have about me and my role here in this thread, I will do my best to answer them.


Tl;dr - Hi, I'm John. I'm going to take care of this game and forum part. I am going to be harsh but righteous.



Yours Sincerely,
John Rickne
Salem Game Master, Paradox Interactive

[Raneman]

What's the difference between a "Game Master" and another moderator? Or is it just a fancy name?

[Tonkyhonk]

hi, john. nice to meet ya.
so, "Game Master" meaning, youre going to patrol around in game with the spaghetti mode?
also, may i ask how long you have been playing this secretly and your impression to the game so far?

[TotalyMoo]

What's the difference between a "Game Master" and another moderator? Or is it just a fancy name?

I guess the difference is that I'm employed by Paradox, sitting at their offices. I work more with marketing of the product, interacting with the players and I will be responsible for making sure that your opinions are heard and can be made reality.
I'll also be working with the transaction system, gathering your thoughts and opinions (combined with my own) to avoid this game turning into P2W.
The role also includes working with our separate ticketing system to aid you in other matters that are not connected to the forum itself.

[TotalyMoo]

hi, john. nice to meet ya.
so, "Game Master" meaning, youre going to patrol around in game with the spaghetti mode?
also, may i ask how long you have been playing this secretly and your impression to the game so far?

Double post here, secretly bumping my post count.

Nope, I am not going to patrol around the game nor have any special abilities in-game. This game promotes freedom and there is nothing, yet, for an in-game game master to enforce.
I guess my role will leak over into that area if this ever starts becoming a problem but as is, nope.

I've been playing Salem "secretly" since I started working here at Paradox this monday. So far I love it and I believe it has incredible potential.

Nice to meet you too.

[BjornB]

All hail the new overlord!

The difference would be that he will be handling support and community-work through all viable channels with focus on Salem. "Game Master" is usually the title used for MMO customer service representatives and as we wanted to be like the other cool kids we chose that title as well

Welcome John!

[marksteele]

Greetings John

Signed,
The Forum Lurker

[APXEOLOG]

Hi John. Nice to meet you. I hope you will make devs work hard

[Tonkyhonk]

oh cool kids, i see :P
btw, John's post doesnt seem to give that "cool" paradox icon to the thread when he has paradox avatar, while BjornB's does always. is it how it is, just by admins but not by GM? (i always find it convenient to quickly look for official comments being posted, although Brother Bean's doesnt give it either and not fully convenient in that sense.)

so, John, to bump another post count of yours, will you be handling with in-game player bans and such too once the game gets officially released when/if things get ugly?

[APXEOLOG]

oh cool kids, i see :P
btw, John's post doesnt seem to give that "cool" paradox icon to the thread when he has paradox avatar, while BjornB's does always. is it how it is, just by admins but not by GM? (i always find it convenient to quickly look for official comments being posted, although Brother Bean's doesnt give it either and not fully convenient in that sense.)

so, John, to bump another post count of yours, will you be handling with in-game player bans and such too once the game gets officially released when/if things get ugly?

How do you think will he ban players ingame? Sandbox haven't got any rules so players cannot be banned.

[milonti]

How do you think will he ban players ingame? Sandbox haven't got any rules so players cannot be banned.

Breaking TOS, abusing glitches and bugs, hacking the game, botting the game, etc.

There are still reasons to ban, just not as many as normal.

[Tonkyhonk]

How do you think will he ban players ingame? Sandbox haven't got any rules so players cannot be banned.

oh its a simple question, Apxe
abuses and exploits will happen as you are very well aware, and especially with microtransaction.
if there is a hired staff to enforce some rules for customers to enjoy fair gaming, why not?

[APXEOLOG]

Breaking TOS, abusing glitches and bugs, hacking the game, botting the game, etc.

There are still reasons to ban, just not as many as normal.

bugs / hacks / etc should be fixed by devs. So i cannot undestand what do you mean under "abusing" (i think it need some long time of usage)
Also the game is not released yet so our work is to find bugs. How will you confirm bug without using it?

I haven't seen any official posts about botting. You can link me some if i missed them.

[milonti]

bugs / hacks / etc should be fixed by devs. So i cannot undestand what do you mean under "abusing" (i think it need some long time of usage)
Also the game is not released yet so our work is to find bugs. How will you confirm bug without using it?

I haven't seen any official posts about botting. You can link me some if i missed them.

I more so meant after release. You're right, bugs/hacks/etc should be fixed. But if they exist, and we know they exist, and they are reported, people who abuse them while the devs are still working on the fix should probably be punished. That generally what happens in other games.

And I'm pretty sure botting would be against the terms of service somewhere. I dunno for sure. But I doubt its a sanctioned activity.

[Tonkyhonk]

Also the game is not released yet so our work is to find bugs. How will you confirm bug without using it?

read back what you quoted originally

will you be handling with in-game player bans and such too once the game gets officially released when/if things get ugly?

[staxjax]

What a way to greet the new pilgrim...by derailing his introduction thread!

Welcome TotalyMoo! I hope you will create a pimped out safe starter village to hunt down noob slayers around Boston and help the noobs get off their feet. As I see it right now, noob griefing is one of the biggest things that is going to keep the playerbase from continual growth.

[TotalyMoo]

oh cool kids, i see :P
btw, John's post doesnt seem to give that "cool" paradox icon to the thread when he has paradox avatar, while BjornB's does always. is it how it is, just by admins but not by GM? (i always find it convenient to quickly look for official comments being posted, although Brother Bean's doesnt give it either and not fully convenient in that sense.)

so, John, to bump another post count of yours, will you be handling with in-game player bans and such too once the game gets officially released when/if things get ugly?

Wow, nice accidental derail!

So far, as mentioned, there is no real things to ban players for. If there arises a situation where things get dirty and players manage to exploit an open world sandbox game I will of course be around to handle it. Here's to hoping not even total anarchy gets Salem to that point

I will take a look at the paradox icon thing. I just got my account set up so all things might not be activated yet.

I actually don't think botting will be a problem in Salem. It would be too easy to just kill the bots and steal everything they own.

[APXEOLOG]

I actually don't think botting will be a problem in Salem. It would be too easy to just kill the bots and steal everything they own.

I don't think so. History of HnH approves that

[BulMaster]

Wouldn't community manager be more appropriate? The MMO boys have one those as well, Pdox is going through an inferiority complex.

[JinxDevona]

Ello John. Welcome to our crazy family...lol. (Did you draw the short straw? j/k) No really, glad to see you here. Hope you have a great time dealing with all of us.