Pirates focus meeting results
 

Okay, we're back and I have lots to talk about. First off I want to congratulate my little brother for winning an extra $100 for arriving on time (thanks to me). I also want to say that they were so impressed with his outgoing personality that they actually asked to talk to him after the group meeting which he did for an additional 30 mins or so. So lets get to it.

Before arriving, I had typed out a long list of questions, suggestions and such geared toward game play and the adult players. I tried my best to get in that room but darn it, they weren't having it so I had to wait impatiently in the waiting room for him to get out. They did take the information from my brother and they told us at the end that they were so pleased that we took the time to put it together and that they went over it in the meeting and there are several things that they are interested in. They actually told me that they were surprised that there was such an adult interest in the game???

Okay for the new stuff coming.....mini games...yup like poker and such, they have come up with several more mini games to be played out in pirates. One of them is going to be fishing, apparently u will perhaps have to buy a fishing pole and u can go fishing with several types of fish to catch like undead and such with different levels and when u catch them, u get gold.

Some type of ship repair game where u have to fix your ship. You will use a bilge pump and there is something about being careful not to pump too slow or too fast. Barnacle scraping where some barnacles will need more scraping then others, and something called Pitching (like whack-a-mole my brother is telling me) where you have to throw tar at the holes in your ship.

Potion Making, you kill enemies to get ingredients to make potions. Some potions you will be able to make are, Invulnerable for your pirate, Weapons potion to make them stronger. You can make a gold potion that doubles the gold u get from the enemies u kill. A damage potion that reduces damage, a rep potion that will give you double rep. All the potions are supposed to last for 5 minutes.

Cannon Defences, there will be cannons placed around different ports on land and pirates will be able to use them on the enemy ships. They didn't go into much detail on this.

SvS, they asked the boys what they thought about if during SvS when u sunk a ship that you could then board the ship and start attacking the other pirates (like a flag ship) which would turn into a PvP match right there on ship with the winners all receiving a gold reward for the win. You would then be returned back to your SvS ship for more action.

That’s all he has for new stuff and nothing was mentioned about the kraken and I totally didn't ask them after either (forgot but it was in the typed out notes to them). They are going to be coming out with a new commercial and showed 5 versions to the kids for their input.

There was a lot of talk in the meeting about cheating in the game. Many of the kids talked about Cheat Engine and how they do not like cheaters playing the game. This surprised me that the kids want the game to be played out fair. They do not like PvP cheaters as well and most of them said they don’t like to play PvP because of this.

The meeting was conducted by a professional market research firm executive and the thing that sounded funny to me was that the kids were in an interrogation like room with a mirrored window and apparently the Disney programmers were behind the window watching, taking notes and listening to everything. I was told after that the reason that they do not have the programmers in the room is because the meeting would go for hours and hours because the kids cannot get enough of these guys and just want to ask a million questions because they are so intrigued by them and the professional is better equipped to keep the meeting on track.

That’s all I have for now, I am letting my brother go to sleep now and if he comes up with anything more, I will post it here. Perhaps this can be a sticky for awhile so everyone gets a chance to see it?

Thanks to you and to your little brother ! I totally love these ideas ! Thanks again, really nice to show us !

Nitnek, the Frenchie

Kristine thank you so very much for sharing this very interesting information. WTG for your brother and you!

I would love to see the SvS on-ship-PvP-battle idea implemented.

Nice :D Thanks for sharing!

Awesome work Kristine, thank you so much for you efforts in this.

Captain Whale

THANK YOU to both you and your brother! Sounds like some cool things were discussed! Again I want to emphasize the THANK YOU since you are one of the very few who could bring us this info. :)

I'm really liking this "Cannon Defences" thing she mentioned.. I think that would be an extremely cool feature. Maybe we'll have some skellie ships rolling in with the invasions :O

Thanks a lot Kristine! Disney will keep no secrets from us ;)

I wonder why they only wanted 12 year olds...?
Your brother is very lucky, I wish I could have been there! XD
Thanks for posting that, did you ask them if you could though?
Just checking. :D
CS~

Bold added by me.

Thanks for providing us with these details!

I don't think fishing sounds that good...
I don't think pirates really had the time to do so...
At any rate, I hope it's better than ToonTown's fishing. That thing stinks. XP
CS~

First off, thanks for posting this! Gotta say the mini games thing is kinda weird. Very Pixie Hollow, which is full of mini games. Call me odd but I like Pirates the way it is. Got good potential already.

So, they just don't want to admit that most of the players are not pre-teen boys? Or were they truly surprised I wonder.

i agree about the mini games. dont believe i'll be taking part in those often, but the new svs/pvp idea may just turn me into an svs pirate.

Throwing a sticky on this, for now at least.

THANK-YOU for the post and info!


Some comments:

Disney wasn't 'surprised'' about how many adults play the game. They KNOW how many players are adults.

Mini-games may be fun short-term distrations, but they will never replace the main story line(s).

Ship to shore battling has been discussed many times. Both as defense and as attack. (We should be able to pummel King's Head from sea.) It would be a good addition if they implement it properly.

I like the SVS ideas, but fishing? Eh- I don't think that's very piratey. I mean, aye they needed to get food.. and perhaps they did fish, but in my personal image of a pirate, fishing just doesn't fit. At least not in the game. Everything else seems cool :) Thank you so much Kristine for sharing this!!!!! And thank you to your brother as well!!

Wow this is some good information.I would like the fishing if its done right along with the cannon defences and svs boarding very much. ( anyone remember the privateering land glitch were you could fight hand to hand? I boarded a spanish ship that way once and started on the driver with my doll :p)As for wondering if they really knew about the adult fan base I wonder if there aware of the fanbase in Europe. ( i'm even not quite sure the size of it)Not liking the hole pugging tar idea unless they can really pull it off without killing the game.( if they do fishing they .... oh yes needs to be at sea... I was thinking Lgend of Zelda for a second. :p Thank you and your brother Kristine.

Mini games...eh...whatever.

One idea that I particularly hate is the SvS/PvP thing. I like SvS. I hate PvP. Keep 'em separate.

Cannon from land idea sounds ok but will people be shooting (aka rep stealing) the same ships that players at sea are? This would mean players in ships would have to travel farther out to sink ships - and ships farther out are generally tougher. This would affect low level players and high level players alike.

I think some of the ideas are cool but i want to see some SUBSTANCE.

Thank you & your little brother for the time & effort you both put in on this!!! great job!

i like the fishing idea but you should be able to eat it for a tonic

Aye i love these new ideas and i wonder when they're coming maybe next on test who knows? One Comment from me: it is kind of disappointing that they didn't bring up the kraken even though its the most requested thing in the game. oh well I'm still crossing me fingers for this year mates!:smiley:

Kristine - thank you and your brother very much for sharing the results of the meeting with us!

The mini games will give us something new to do (something bright and shiny...oh - is that a bird? LOL). I'm actually a bit pumped about the tonic mini game. That sounds like a good idea.

I'm a bit sad they didn't discuss the Kraken either. For some reason I have a feeling they've branched off from that idea and we may not see it for quite a while, if at all.

They were surprised at the number of adults playing? I'm hoping that was just the research company talking. Because if the Devs haven't figured that out by now, we're in big trouble.

Swash, you're giving me the impression that you think the repairing will be for ANY time our ship is damaged.

Now think about this. Do you really want to wait five minutes repairing your ship before you can go back out at sea? I'm hoping this repair system is for long periods of damage. Like your ship was sunk five times and instead of paying gold you have to do a lot of work on it. I don't have time to repair my ship on my own.

Also, I hope the fishing isn't as time consuming as it is on toontown. Fishing on toontown can get boring really fast.

And, they're surprised adults are interested in POTCO? I thought they said they liked this site? They obviously don't pay too much attention when it comes to POF, because there are some very in depth discussions when it comes to game content and new releases.

I find it hard to believe that they're surprised. Games like POTCO are generalized as "kiddy games" from most people.(at least when I get laughs from jerks that's what I think their impression of the game is) Seriously, this could go far if they had mixed opinions. Twelve year old boys aren't the only one playing pirates.

P.S. Jason Davy, I agree. I'm almost certain that if they put cannons on land the ships will be for the island only. It would just increase lag if boats out at sea had to fight the ships we're shooting out.

Thank you for sharing this information with us. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the ship repair and island defense ideas play out into the game. I also hope that the on-deck fighting idea is added to SvS.

Also, congrats to your brother on winning the cash!

Much thanks for sharing the information.

Sounds to me, like they are incorporating alot of their ToonTown games into Pirates.
Fishing... sounds like Toontowns fishing.

Mini games?
Like repairing your ship with a bildge pump.. cant go to slow or to fast?
Anyone play the toontown cog tug O war mini game? cant go too fast, or too slow... to beat the cog. Maybe the same, maybe not.

Now the potion idea sounds new, and interesting. Cannon defenses? We cant attack ships from land now.. but who knows.. looking forward to anything new really. Just see a definate parallel to some of the toon town games in a few things mentioned.


Thanks again for sharing.

Great info. Thanks!

Fishing? I can't get rid of the mental image I have of a pirate pulling up a Magikarp...

I don't for a second believe that Disney would be surprised that adults play the game. On the other hand, I have NO DOUBT that a bunch of PR/Marketing firm consultant types wouldn't know that there are a TON of grown-ups playing pirate...

Sounds interesting but if Disney tries to "kid" this thing up too much, it might just backfire on them.