Test Release Discussion - 20 August, 2009
 

Release Notes - August 20, 2009[LIST][*]New Game Features:

• Notoriety Level Cap and Weapon Reputation Levels have been increased
  • Notoriety Level Cap increased to 50
  • Weapon Reputation Level increased to 30
  • Pirates can level their character up faster, as you get more experience when defeating enemies
• New cave environments in the following areas:
  • Murky Hollow, Port Royal
  • Royal Caverns, Port Royal
  • Thieve's Den, Tortuga
  • Lava Gorge, Padres del Fuego
  • Beckett's Quary, Padres del Fuego
  • The Catacombs, Padres del Fuego
  • Cursed Caverns, Isla Tormenta
• New cave environments feature new higher level enemies
• New Casa Muertos Quest (Quest available from 8/21 . 8/23)

[*]Game Improvements:

• Ship Speed Improvements
  • You no longer lose all forward momentum when making small changes to your direction
  • A new speed meter now displays how fast your ship is moving.
  • Ships now move faster
• UI Improvements
  • The map in the compass now maintains consistent orientation with the full-screen minimap. The arrow in the center turns as the avatar turns.

Pictures of some of the new areas can be found here.

I see everyone is making the thread called release notes, woulden't it be test release notes?

You're absolutely right ... I will fix that. Thanks for pointing it out.

:)

For the time I was able to spend on test before they pulled it down for maintenance, I'm giddy!

Looks beautiful, plays fast, the number of enemies has increased dramatically with the massive cave expansions. I didn't have a chance to find the Padres Back Beach before they pulled the game down, but I really like what I've seen.

I never thought of it before, but Lava Gorge alone is at least 4 times as large as it was...this should help with fighting over enemies to battle and rep stealing. I think the same is true with Tormenta, although I wasn't able to spend much time there before the game crashed.

Congrats to all of those who had "mastered" pirates on test - ye've got new adventures ahead of ye now!

These are awesome updates however I get the feeling more things are on the way. Such as wild islands and indoors (shops ect) are also to be re-done. It appears as if Disney is re-making the entire game.

Which BTW is fine by me.

Wow!!!! Logged onto test to have a look around. You need a bread crumb trail to find your way back out of these caves. And the enemies are higher. The enemies that you encounter that are lower than your pirate don't bother you. But the higher do attack. Didn't make it to Menta, but I did check out PDF caves & Tortuga. I was fortunate to have the company of a pirate higher than me (Thanks Grizz). My level 28 on test would have been dead quick fighting many of the enemies I encountered. It's all still like a jig-saw puzzle to me even with the maps. I'm certain this will keep pirates occupied when released to the regular site. Fair winds, mates & have fun...lol

No longer Mastered
 

Nice update, love the new looks of the caves. Having a mastered pirate on test, I find losing that notoriety seems wrong.

We are no longer master pirates, and we do get new points for stuff we use now. Losing that just doesn't seem right. A higher notoriety other than mastered would've seemed nice.

Weapons used after mastering are not calculated as someone had mentioned in another post, and ouch can imagine the points needed to hit level 30 in each weapon.

Funny coincidence LadyDi, I just posted this yesterday.
In this thread, http://www.piratesonlineforums.com/f...3&postcount=25

And I'm sorry to hear that those level 40's who continued to play and accomplish tasks haven't been given some sort of rep credit for thier hard work. I have 4 level 40's on Open that will be in the same boat.

Regarding this update...

Observations (hows it work):
Once you complete the first quest, it will unlock the other four provided the pirate is the appropriate level.
The highest level requirement, by new quest giver Jeremiah appears to require level 20 to unlock.

Observations (problems):

Enemies often spawn with "shadows" turned on or something, very dark. They immediately brighten up and come to life once attacked. (reported)

New quests: Must press ESC at end of receiving quest, to exit quest giver screen. (reported)

New quests: Bill Barrett's quest "Murky Hollow Relics" appears to be busted, no digspots in Murky Hollow work, and the clue, points towards enemies that do not exist in the area. (reported)

I havent found any major wall glitchs, I can walk through a few rocks, and hide in a few walls (reported), but cant really get anywhere im not supposed to, however I have heard/seen others that are obviously better at slipping through the fabric of time/space better than I ;)

Added: Compass has changed, now basically a fixed compass, with only what its reflecting moving about.
This facilitates the F8 maps, but IMO messes everything else up. Now you must pay attention to your ship in the middle of the compass to determine your position, and THEN evaluate all the other activity around you. The old way, you paid attention to the traffic around you, knowing your ship was always pointed forward in the compass. IMO they broke this to work in a non-conventional manner strictly because of the F8 maps. Maybe this works on land, but definately NOT at sea.

Thought I'd provide a public service this morning. That ray of light places ya right in front of the Governor's mansion and people just can't see the barrel as it's around the corner.

I didnt even know they had a ray of light on this quest task.
Most of the searching tasks have never had them in the past.


Edit: I copied some of the more relevant comments from the long winded open news discussion, to a thread here in The Helm.
Some testers may wish to take a look here: http://www.piratesonlineforums.com/f...ad.php?t=12922

Thought I'd share some of the info I've found out about the sailing.

You no longer lose all forward momentum when making small changes to your direction

They nailed this one good, you don't lose it all, but you don't keep flying at full speed when you hit a turn. Sailing on my sloop, I could hit a top speed of 11 knots without Ramming Speed or Full Sail. Turning took me down to a minimum of 5 knots, and I never dropped below it.

When using Full Sail (3), my speed increased by 2 knots, with a max speed of 13 knots and turning speed of 7 knots. It seems that getting your sails ripped off affects stuff now as well. Just had a Barracuda knock my sloops only sail off, and I couldn't get above 1 knot unless I used full sail, which only took me to 3.

Also, something they didn't mention, the Cannon GUI changed.

• Bug: Only your sea chest and the ESC option should appear, but sometimes as seen below the other GUI does not disappear.

http://www.piratesonlineforums.com/g...Cannon_GUI.png

That's good to hear. Before you it wouldn't take your sails into account. SvS should take an interesting turn if people go to lop off sails and masts to slow down their opponents.

The new cannon interface, its alot cleaner, only one thing I think needs to be changed. It reflects a stack of cannonballs, with the number of loaded rounds in middle.
That image should change depending on selected cannonshot (maybe its supposed to but broke?).

Captain Ezekiel Rott - The first 'new' quest unlocks at Notoriety level 4
After that only Bill Barrett is then available as of level 5.

It appears that enemies disengage a bit quicker than they did in the past as well.

Interesting about your sloop's speed. My light sloop clocked at 20 kts without full sail or ramming speed. And very small changes in direction affect forward momentum only the lsightest bit for just a fraction of a second.

What kind of sloop were ye in, Jack?

My light sloop tops out at 10 knots.
Full sail boosts it to 12 knots for duration of the skill.

I do not have ramming speed yet to test it.

For that matter, my War frigate has the EXACT same specs.

Ok, previously we had believed the new quests were level dependant right to left.

Well yes level dependant, not right to left.

So far....

Jeremiah Dedman - Requires Level 20
Samuel Shaw - Requires Level 8
Capt. Rott - Requires Level 4
Nathan Gould - <unknown>
Bill Barrett - Requires Level 5 (maybe 4, but you get level 5 doing Rotts quest).

Level requirements of quest givers left to right: 20 - 8 - 4 - X - 5

Do not know Nathan Goulds level requirement yet.

I was in a regular sloop. With my regular galleon I was only able to hit a max of 9 knots. It may be possible that if you go straight for very long distances that it will gradually increase speed, I simply based my result of the arrow reaching the end of the speed bar and my knot indicator stopping.

Windcatcher could also play a role in this?

Updated Notoriety requirements for new quests:

Nice to know, thanks Zep.

My pirate has no windcatcher anything like that.

Shiptype - Top Speed / With FullSail

Light Sloop - 10/12
Galleon - 8/10

I'll check mine in a moment, I think I have 3-5 on windcatcher.

edit:

Pirate is level 15
Windcatcher is level 5

Shiptype - Top Speed / With Full Sail

Light Sloop - 12 / 14 / ?

edit2:

It looks like windcatcher is (noticeably) doing its job. Windcatcher when maxed increases ships speed by 20%.

20% is 1/5th of the regular speed, added to the original.

My light sloop was going 12 knots without any skills. Zep who has no points in windcatcher only managed 10 knots. 20% of 10 would be 2. Add the 2 to the 10, that gives me my current knots. While the Full Sail just adds an extra 20%, or an extra two points (can't really tell from one example).

So given that, I assume that windcatcher does play a role in what our max knots are.

If I only had the gold to test these since I have no windcatcher yet. hehe.

I think it would be best to try to nail down all the speeds of the base ships, without ANY skills that would change a ships performance (windcatcher, tackmaster, etc)

Other minor issues I have found/reported:

Barrel: No Shift Ring
http://www.piratesonlineforums.com/g...2_18-01-52.jpg (FIXED)
Barrel: No Barrel
http://www.piratesonlineforums.com/g...1_12-07-19.jpg

Missing rock texture:
http://www.piratesonlineforums.com/g...0_20-10-15.jpg (Texture is there, but still pretty dark, even for a shaded side of the rock)

Claude D'Arcis the shadow assassin: (missing model texture)
http://www.piratesonlineforums.com/g...2_16-18-46.jpg (Its there actually, just real real dark)

NPCs too dark:
http://www.piratesonlineforums.com/g...2_17-53-42.jpg (FIXED)

Rocks you can walk through:
http://www.piratesonlineforums.com/g...2_14-35-51.jpg (FIXED)
http://www.piratesonlineforums.com/g...0_20-12-45.jpg (FIXED)
http://www.piratesonlineforums.com/g...0_20-13-18.jpg
http://www.piratesonlineforums.com/g...2_20-34-13.jpg (FIXED)

Anyone seen Neban the Silent? I haven't found him yet...

I haven't looked for him, i'm sure if he is there, someone else has seen him though :)

and nice screen shots Zep. I didn't think to take a screen shot of shift + F1... doh.. but I have the next best thing :D

No circle, but theres a dig spot.

Aye, saw him first night, hes somewhere still in Becketts Quarry :)

Added: Heres a map, look for the "N" at the bottom area for Neban.

I was inspired by those other maps! Any suggestions towards design, i'll consider, working on others too.

Becketts Quarry

Nice Map Zep...

Feel very free to rework the two I did. I didn't mark placement of barrels and crates on mine because well you generally can see them (unless they are the glitched now you see 'em now you don't variety). And according to some I missed a dig site or two.. but hey I got alot of the PR stuff mapped in the short time I had last week. (Was cramming in what I could before I had to get some sleep prior to my routine weekend long game disappearing act.)

The Mac version is working now, so if you were not able to log into test because of that you may do so.

Also, does anyone besides me plan to upgrade to Mac OS X 10.6 on Friday and test for compatibility with POTC?

Nice work Zep! Love the map. I used it last night!

Thanks Skip. I'm starting test right now and wondering what the update's all about (as there are no notes...grrrrr) I'm glad the compass is going back to the way it was, at least at sea. Time to go sink myself ;)

Me prayers have been answered...the compass has returned to normal..YaY!!!!!

Sarah's 624 compass bug reports had an impact!

Thank you, Sarah...you are a persistent pirate..LOLZ But it pays off in the end...Aye? :dancetl6:

I thought the compass made sense on land, but not at sea. Seems like Disney and the reporting masses agreed! I like the changes they made to the compass in this case.

It was only 622 reports ;)

Compass is back to the way it was at sea, but the new stationary compass is still the way it is on land. Going to take some getting used to, at lest for me. Maybe another report....:psmiley35:

Well, at least now I know which direction to shoot when sailing...Geez..talk about being confused...But then I do consume alot of rum so------>

Wooza! :D Hey - I'm always lost on land anyway so the compass could point right to me and it wouldn't matter hehe

But don't be taking me Ship Compass away! :D

lol, perhaps.
I am fairly certain the compass works on land the way it does to accomodate the new F8 maps. As they have implemented these updates, the areas with the F8 maps have been the ones effected in the past. Implementation of more of these maps has the compass appearing in the new mode more often. Go to the jungles that havent been 'updated' yet, and you'll see the compass at least look the old way it was, but does I see now work the same way as the F8 areas, just no cool detailed map in it. I do think it was a mistake to have it at sea the way it was, glad they agreed!

I'm sure you're right about the land map/compass Zep. It makes sense on paper, just not in my head yet...

Don't go there! LOL

I seldom ever used it on land except to find the pink dots that were me crew when I or they had wandered off.. hehe

Well, half is a start, but I'm still going to "feedback" on the land ones.

I don't mind the maps being stationary (I only glance at them, anyway ;)), but I really don't like when the compass doesn't line up with what I see... All I'm asking for is a toggle - work with me D! LoL

(and I'm sure that I sent in at least as many reports as Sarah...pfft... :biggrin8:)

EDIT: Ooh! NVM. Should've read page 3!

Awesome! I do like the new compass on land and caves. The older one is better for seas (though I liked the compass BEFORE the current one) but I'll deal.

Am I alone in thinking all the bosses have the wrong shadowing on them prior to being 'aggravated'? I know I reported it before, but guess I was hoping that would be addressed, and I am still seeing it.

Aye, that was my experience also, i do not think anyone gets credit for them. I 'think' it appears that one does if ye goes and sinks a few more afterwards before porting, or maybe not. Anyhow, I got nothing from mine as well, hehe.

The Bosses almost look like silhouettes with a greenish halo on my screen prior to being engaged. I have a screenie somewhere, be interested to find out if we're seeing the same thing.

More Mac trouble?
 

In attempting to get on Test today, it downloaded a new Launcher, then updated.
Now every time I log in or attempt to do so, it crashes my entire computer.
Any other Macs having troubles similar?
:sadmh9:

This is for Sarah, Aliese, and everyone else who has been whining (LOL) about the compass. (I didn't like it the way they first made it either.) Go pick how you want it to work!

http://www.piratesonlineforums.com/g...ss_options.png

Nice! That saves me some headaches ;)

Oh cool thanks for the pic! I dont know I kinda like the new compass movement.

Now that totally cool :D - who says Disney doesnt get it right... on the odd occasion hehe :D

I told you nagging worked!

And, shockingly, they actually did more than I asked for. Keep that up, D. LoL

OK, found the pic. Is this what everyone else is seeing? And do you think D meant for the bosses to look like this?

http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/a...eenShot002.jpg

I've seen plenty of bosses look that way.