Test Release Notes - Nov 20 '09 Discussion
 

Release Notes - November 20, 2009

• OSX clients may not be able to connect.
• Crew members's ships may not be available in the Dinghy's Choose a Ship's panel.
• Ships and Sailing have undergone several improvements. You may see a boost in performance while at sea and slight changes to ship design and sail animations, depending on your graphics settings.
• Jolly Roger has moved on to attacking other islands after Port Royal.
• A new lighting and fog system gives more atmosphere to the environments based on the time of day.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Crew Display to disappear at random times.
• Pirates now get a small Reputation Bonus for reviving a fellow Pirate.
• The Viper's Nest Dagger Skill breaks multiple attunements.
• Your ship will no longer take damage from enemies sailing beyond visual range.
• Less valuable cargo will be dumped to make room for more valuable chests earned from sinking ships.
• The screen no longer flashes red when you get hit by friendly fire.
• Added new Tutorial Loading Screens.
• Fixed several visual issues with a few cut scenes.
• Shortened Captain Barbossa's cut scene.

Please report any issues you encounter using this feedback form.

The heck is this?!?! Thanks a lot, Disney.

Haha.. Nice D. So badly want to see the new ship aesthetics, you make it crash when we try to test it out. /thumbsup /rolleyes

edit: Hm. Did board a public ship. Jack said he noticed only light frigates were out.
edit2: was able to launch my regular frigate from Cuba.

Looks like they took out that reduce your speed to half when you get hit by something but it does seem to reduce your overall sail speed a bit more. They might have been hitting my sails more but just an observation right now.

One thing I noticed in the short time I was on...Cut Scenes take forever along with tp'ing to someone...or is it just me?

Edit: PPl are getting booted when they try to sail, but their ships leave dock after they are booted. Not everyone but many pirates. Saw it happen from Tuga & PDF

I got the boot when I tried to launch my war sloop from Tortuga. Logged back on and was able to launch the ship with no problems.

Anyone else unable to start the game after the update? (running Windows 7 on a PC)

I got booted too after launching my ship and sailing maybe a few seconds...on test

It seems to me that cannon damage has been SERIOUSLY reduced. I think I could do more damage with my pistol... :Pirate3: :pirate6:

No trouble sailing. The war frigate has a fresh coat of paint on it. No more "stunned" ship nonsense either. Also Full Sail adds 5 knots instead of two and Ramming Speed took my War Frigate up to 19 knots from 10. Loading screens take FOREVER and cannon damage has been SERIOUSLY reduced.

And then I got booted, failed to load, locked screen and forced to restart the computer. Yippee!

But I did get to play around at the Tortuga Invasion. The LAG potential there is unlimited!

I noticed a difference, too. Thought it was just me. And since my pirate does not have take-cover, yet, I had to dock alot faster because of the damage I took. But then, Lizzy isn't the best sailor in the Caribbean...

I tried it with Windows 7 and it would not start up. Kept freezing before the Pirate Select screen. I am set up with a dual boot with windows xp also and had to switch over to that OS in order to log on. I talked to tech Support about Windows 7 when I was first upgrading and they said that they do not officially support the use of Pirates online with Windows 7.

The enemy ships are definitely stronger! Tried again today and my broadsides couoldn't take down a ferret or bulwark with one firing. I have never seen that b4. I know I'm not the best on the seas, but c'mon...I'm not that bad..lol
Also, several emotes show up in chat like flip a coin but many pirates aren't doing the action itself...
And the bridge from Fort Dundee to the gypsee by the town was MIA today...

I am crashing when I sail, was only able to sail once so far. Send those bug reports!

I'm REALLY having to play around with the graphics settings with this release.

Default settings look like this:




Switched to medium everything and that looks better to me








But then night looks REALLY dark on land. Or is it supposed to?

Its supposed to look really dark with the new "Weather feature" or whatever they also added a tiny update to test and live as well but it wasnt enough for an update loading screen to pop up anyway they added what they're calling this year "The Brethren Feast". I hope the Host GM's come around and lite the fires, and not wait a week until Thanksgiving. :)

Well pirates have been waiting all day long at the bonfire pit...No sign of any Host GM's yet! Just about everyone is afk!

It's 5 days until Thanksgiving. I kind of gave up on getting my supply of Hams for the year... :piratetongueor4:

The flames were reaching high from the bonfire & pork was cooked on the spit...Ham Tonic for all!!! And just in time for an invasion or two or was it three? Hmmm...

Some observations:

The islands are even closer together than ever before.

They have made the sails on a frigate invisible to the upper front cannoneers. (This is a good thing, the upper cannons can now see forward.)

If you sail from an SvS island:
Your sails don't show color, there is no protection bubble when you first board the ship, and there's a whole bunch of glitches if you sail to a non-SvS island.
I sailed to PR, and then became invincible. I could die, but I would immediately jump back to my feet with full health. If I killed an enemy, I didn't get any rep or gold.
If an enemy defeats you, you may not be able to pull any weapons anymore.
After being killed a number of times, and immediatly regaining full health, I couldn't TP anymore.

I was in Fort Charles, and couldn't leave. The doors wouldn't open when I clicked the shift key.

The new design of the Galleons has made it even harder for solo sailing to work cannon. Moving the wheel to the new mid-deck and no cannons on that level means you have to run to the upper level or the main deck if you want to use cannons.

In under an hour of testing, I filed about 17 bug reports.

I hope it's supposed to look that dark, because it makes it look more real. As long as the old night is the early night and this new night is the dark night I'm happy.(meaning I hope it doesn't just all of a sudden get really dark, but gradually)

Thank you Basil for reporting. I think it is becoming a lost art. Even the people I play with have no interest in reporting bugs. I have filed a handful myself...

I like this update but it's buggier than a frat house kitchen... Once they are fixed, this is a worthy update!

TY, Basil. The invisible sails on the frigate for upper cannons is indeed a good thing. But I also agree that the repositioning of the galleon wheel definitely is a disadvantage for a pirate like me who does much solo sailing.

To ex8404: I report bugs when this pirate finds them. I may not be as technical or learned
as many pirates, but what is the purpose of test? But you are right...many do not...in fact I have seen pirates look for glitches, but refuse to report them. Not reporting them voids the true purpose of the site IMHO

There were 3 of us from DW on test late last night. I know that Piper and Bec were also filing bug reports like crazy.

The entire update just seems like a ton of steps backward in the base code to take a few steps forward in the new additions.

Exhausted today. I ended up being on test until after 2am, and I can't begin to guess how many reports I made.

The facial and body construct of the female avatars has been messed with again creating new issues. Right eye of the avatar is smaller with a droopy eyelid, eye tattoo now blotchy, mouth now permanently partly open showing some teeth, bizarre protruding collarbones on females wearing vests.

Glitching under galleon stairs is as easy and walking into them.

Number of ham tonics in possession randomly jumps up and down on icon, lower right of screen.

Still sailing issues with leaving an island and seeing nothing but open sea in all directions...no islands, no NPC ships (although the latter do show as red dots on your compass).

New sails added to the aft of skel ships look out of place and not consistent with the existing sails.

With all of the islands having been drawn closer to the imaginary center of the game (Devil's Anvil, ostensibly), and an undamaged sloop now achieving a top sailing speed of 15, sailing from island to island has become laughable.

Nearly impossible to set sail from any island without being immediately under attack from an NPC ship: it appears there are the same number of NPC ships on the water as before, squeezed into the now seriously smaller space of the reduced sea size.

It goes on and on. With 4 days until Thanksgiving I know they want to release this to open ASAP, but if they don't fix the sailing from SvS islands glitch that Basil noted, there are going to be hordes of SvS'ers screaming bloody murder I'm guessing.

Invasion in Tortuga in about 25 minutes.

UPDATE: Looks like there was not enough pirates defending the bride on the bottom server, it burned in the 5th wave.

Another neat little addition with sailing, although they may have moved the islands closer together which many people do not like, they did atleast make them look like more than just plots of land. (All the islands and your sea chart [M] have changed)

Here are just a few examples of the changes.


It's hard to see in the bottom two shots, but the Kingshead main dock is part of the island view, and on Cutthroat you can now see detailed cave entrances, rather than just holes in the island.

I have not experienced the immediate attacks upon launching my ship and I have not had the empty ocean thing either...

I have a love/hate thing going with sailing right now. I love how my War Frigate can hit 19 knots on Ramming Speed. And I love that my ship can no longer get "Stunned."

But I hate the fact that it takes 3-5 broadsides from a War Frigate to bring down a Panther. It took me two just to sink a Navy Ferret. I hope this was a mistake and not intentional. I reported it as a bug.

Cuba/Pantano River is a disaster area. I looks like the coders started it and then got bored with it and went to White Castle or something.

The skies and Islands look nice and everything but I get booted EVERY time I enter the Misty Mire and I spend three times the minutes staring at 'Loading Screens" than I did before the update. I really hate loading screen by the way...

The Tortuga invasion is OK but the fact that Tortuga is small and crowded to begin with means that adding 100 more pirates and undead and all their special effects turns POTCO into a SLIDE SHOW on my PC.

I still think that this update was worthwhile and may be the harbinger of good things to come but it is no where ready for prime time yet...

Here's an example of the female pirate's face issues...
http://i287.photobucket.com/albums/l...se/AliFace.jpg

It's like they're trying to give us the blinky eyes - :blink8: LoL

And what's with the pouty lips? :piratetongueor4:

All female pirates on test look like we had a hard night out with too much grog, and maybe a fight or two on the way home. =P

Pirates is already a slideshow during invasions for most players... ugh...

And yeah, the lighting looks good, but now emotes arent working? And the islands were already close enough, moving em closer is silly.

That made me literally laugh out loud ex!

And I agree - the atmospherics are really nice now. I sent them an attaboy over that and the Frigate-upper-cannon-sail improvement.

But I am bitterly disappointed in the galleon changes and the fact that all female avatars now look like cheap, badly used tarts. I took screenies tonight on open of my War Galleon as I know I'm going to grieve over it's build when it's gone. Guess I'll screenie my avatar's face tomorrow night on open so I'll be able to look back on the "good old days" when I didn't look like a hag of questionable virtues.

Found earlier that I was able to achieve 18 knots on a slightly-sail-damaged frigate with ramming speed. Considering how much they've shrunk the ocean universe that is a bad joke.

Here we are, 4 days from Thanksgiving. The pork tonic counter is fouled and I fear it's going to be released to open without repair, as I remember this same issue from last year, before I had test access.

Yes, I do see that the devs are taking steps forward, but I'm very disheartened that I continue to see basic, simple issues I've reported (as have others) time after time not being corrected.

You have door placement issues with both blacksmiths on Padres that are not being adressed. Would it enhance our gameplay if it were fixed? Nah, not really. Does it affect game performance? I guess not...I'm not savvy enough to know about those things. But is it wrong and sloppy? Yup, you bet it is. And I hear uncle Walt spinning in his cryogenic chamber in Florida over it. :piratetongueor4:

Just my two cents and humble opinion, but some attention to detail would be welcome to me. I wanted to be on test for over a year to help make an impact on the game for the benefit of all players. In the 9 or so months that I've been on test I've made untold number of reports. I can honestly say that not one single, solitary thing I have reported on test has been corrected before being released onto the open servers. I've seen many issues I've reported corrected in open, but NEVER before.

Still, I feel proud and priveleged to be a POTCO tester and will continue to do my very best to try and make a better game for everyone. But it's sad to feel like you're reporting into a black hole.

Sorry - had to vent my spleen a bit.

*Edited to say: Thank you VERY much Jack I on those before-and-after island shots. That is an amazing difference in the appearance and I didn't recognize it until your post. Kudos!!!!

18+ Royals
 

Tested the Drop Cargo And It Worked Well. Got 18 Royals

Wow Mikhail! 18 Royals...way to go!

yeah, they have to fix this. Sarah looks like she lost a bar fight...and who cut her hair like that??
http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/a...hot007-7-1.jpg

Nice. Looks like that's buggy as well. I thought it was supposed to "drop" the lesser cargo.

Let's see... If it counts the "best" cargos by gold worth, the total should have been 1960 (w/o bonus) (appr 2450 w/ bonus of 490)
If it counts "best" as Royal > Treasure > Crate: 1930 (w/o bonus) (appr 2412 w/ bonus of 482)

^ That's counting just up to 18 drops (assuming you were on a War Galleon). The first equation leaves out one emerald royal chest since its value is less than the gold bars.

They counted everything... all 18 royals and 5 treasure chests (23 cargo drops).

I also think it's funny that gold bars in a Treasure Chest are worth more than Emeralds in a Royal.

An intern, probably. Possibly even the same one that gave us super-pronounced collarbones.

Aye, i do wish they added those new weapons they talked about, and another thing didnt they mention a secret weapon that Jolly Roger had? How come that wasnt in this update? :/

I haven't sailed yet, but my pirate does have that droopy eye going on. Yea thats an attractive look.

And then my game crashed to desktop. *sigh* Report sent in.

goliath!
 

Here are screen shots of the goliath on test!

they also didn't mention the fact that they improved the bo beck model but most noticably in his teeth. I don't know why either

Oh wow, the goliath looks AMAZING.

In the first picture, I agree. In the second... I just want to laugh at that boxy thing floating in the water. I mean seriously, they need to fix that ASAP.

First Picture was taken in high quality settings. as for the second picture, it was for another boss battle - my graphic was set to low to help the game load faster when TP or landing ( and it does work pretty well )

You dont like the boxes floating in the water?

The second one could use some work.....

Oh, ok. Now I see the cannon, too.

Only thing that bothers me is... well, I could have swore that the low graphics looked even better than that. I mean... that's runescape bad.

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. And sometimes, screenshots have lower quality than what the game shows. At least, that's what happens to me, and I unfortunately must run the game on low quality at all times.

Was on test this morning and the issues with cannons has been taken care of. With my War Frigate and lvl 17 sailing, can put Warlords, MOW, and Dreads down with 4 to 5 broadsides. And taking masts out has alos been corrected. Three to four lightings now do the trick.

Windows 7
 

I made the upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate and no help from Disney. Now the Live Server and the Test Server will not operate it keeps freezing and stops responding. The Tech Personel have made no indacation that Windows 7 is the problem. Any ideas outthere?