Release Notes - July 16, 2008 (Test)
 

• Made the Privateering Islands' name tags brighter to make them more visible at night
• Updated the launcher to correctly clean out a cache. This was causing some model related bugs such as missing textures or misplaced geometry.
• The radar now remembers your zoom level when boarding and leaving a ship
• Cannon balls are no longer be able to be shot through islands
• The Crew HUD should now be hidden during NPC interactions
• The High Seas Scoreboard should now be hidden in Privateering mode
• Updated the Basic Access player popup
• Fixed a problem with certain male avatar bald hair and bandanna combinations displaying properly
• Adjusted the positions of GUI elements so they no longer overlap
• Made the crew bonus display more accurate
• After dying in Privateering, you will respawn on your ship and be temporarily invulnerable
• You can now use the Lookout system to find a Privateering crew

Looks like some fine tuning for the most part this time around, nothing major as a change in this update that I notice besides the last one.

I really like these updates.
I hope this is the last update before privateering hits open.

Good find thats good more updates to the test hopefully we can see it coming to live soon?

and yes im glad its fine tuning meaning we should be seeing this in test withing maybe possibly 2 weeks?

Sounds like they are making progress, and working hard to get things right.

Dont see mention of it, but didnt before other than a testers comments either.
I hope they "fix" Hex shot so it works appropriately again. :(

I also heard that privateering ships can leave the privateering area and be not be attacked by enemy ships (while they sink thier fill of them), is this true?

Unless it is a bug that came up in a last update, zep, no. They can leave the privateering area and not be attacked by Navy/EITC/Jolly Roger, but as soon as they shoot it they engage. Only difference is you can't board in those situations, as soon as a flagship is "crippled" by a privateering ship it sinks.

Thats good then. Doesnt really give them any advantage other than a safe sail to wherever thier hearts desire.

Know if HexEater shot is still ineffective (as had been reported)?

Its still ineffictive as of today (an hour ago) and I did send another message about it... will they read it?? Donno :)

Probably have to wait for Ironhawk to update us with that info, me any my lowly little level 4 doesn't have any of those fancy skills and such. :laughks2:

I used the hex eatter shot in the Test, and it worked, the Gypsy (undead) stopped hexing me and stuff while I shot at her

Umm, you gotta do the full test there Fillyteen, once Hexed try to hit the Gyp with any weapon and it comes right back to life - and mine didnt stop Hexing at all.

They better fix this - SvS might be cool - but it doen't replace having to obtain 300,000+ REP points without a Main Story Quest and no way to do any major advancement (no 1500 REP Side quest is going to replace losing Hex, and also making the Gun / Hex basically a useless weapon).

I've mentioned many times that the Game Engine design and how REP is calcualted was wrong, but at least its liveable with Hex and the ability to attack larger enemies for higher REP. If Hex goes away basically new pirates will be - well - lets just say they will be in BIG trouble to get higher Noriety :)

Hex eater bullets still not eating any hex...
If this is intended and not only a bug then it's very disappointing.
It's better if they never give this kind of bullet in the first place because
so many players already spent multiple skill points in hex. What a waste!

Good. No more weird spikes sprouting from undeads.

Hmm.. I'm confused. Pressing the ~ button still display the scoreboard
during ship pvp. It's always hidden when that button not pressed.
Nothing changed before and after this update.
I hope devs not trying to disable scoreboard during ship pvp because we
need to know how many ships out there and which has the most bounty.

Well looks like they're wraping up with privateering on test! =D Can't wait til it hits open!

Nope. I was wrong. This undead lieutenant still has some weird spikes.
http://i352.photobucket.com/albums/r...lieutenant.jpg

Crew HUD now display the rep bonus in %.
http://i352.photobucket.com/albums/r...rew_hud_04.jpg

The cannon and broadside damage are lowered again but ONLY
in ship PvP. This is more like it. War frigates and galleons won't
easily sink my light sloop anymore.

Crippling a flagship during normal sea combat (outside pvp) will
cause everyone on that ship to CRASH. Maybe devs are trying to
fix the invincible ship glitch and cause this bug.
Until they fix it don't try to cripple any flagship.
If we are in privateering mode, crippling flagships will still
immediately sink them and we won't get booted from game.

If these privateering upgrades aren't fixed soon, I really don't feel it should come out, at least until the boarding rights to all ships are fixed. Plus, does this mean if you don't even use firebrand, the ships will sink, or we'll crash anyway?

I Could care less for the spikes, though they look bad, but, I do want privateering boarding and outside of privateering boarding.

I remember back to when they added new weapons, sometimes when you boarded you would go offline, and Mac's would just go Offline all of a sudden.

Sounds like things are starting to look up, do you have any clue if they are going to stop the flying glitch? By somehow putting up an invisible wall or something people can't cross to get over the edge of the world?

They likely are trying to fix the flagship glitch, and thats good, fix it please, but if its not fixed right, Id much rather allow glitching ships. Its better to have glitching ships, than have a ship and its entire crew crash when trying to overtake a flag ship.

Fixing glitchs like that is like spending $100 for a one time savings of a $0.10

To tell you the truth, I really see no reason why firebrand should even sink the ships, is that a bug or something?

Cause if it was added for some crazy reason, I don't know how that reason would make the game any better, or realistic.

Weird spikes...
Wow the damage is lowered!
Finally my light galleon won't get sunk in about 3-5 hits!

I just tried it today and we don't get rep or plunder from NPC ships while in privateering mode. And yes like Ironmalley said they only atack if we fire at them first.

Other bug i found:
- "Toggle Crew Icon" button won't work/activated if we join a crew through the "Find a Crew" button.

Bugs fixed:
- Ship Info no longer overlap the Crew HUD.
- Crew mates' weapons displayed correctly in the Crew HUD

Ironhawk - once again confirmed the Hex Pistol still not Hexing any of the voodoo undead, and the Ship Grappling is confirmed as well - as soon as you go to grapple the ship, you crash to the desktop.

Sent the reports in (again, for the Pistol) - lets hope they at least read some of the information sent to them in the e-mail message :)

Seems these problems may not be solved so easily, hopefully we won't have to wait so long, but, they may not know what's causing this in the first place.

There is a new update on TEST!

Yes actually this is the 2nd one today. The one this morning caused
everyone to crash when trying to buy something and the last one
fixed that bug.
But there are new bugs:
- got crashed very often
- other ships look like doing the moonwalk, sometimes sailing
backward etc. Anyone notice or maybe my eyes just tired.
And old bugs still there:
- the useless hex bug
- the flagship crash bug
Oh well...

I'm no longer crashing when boarding flagships. I think that issue is fixed.

Everytime I use Hex, I see -125 in blue appear on screen. Seems to be working.

Ah yes i just tried boarding a flagship and no crash.
The crash in previous try must be from other cause.

Hex shot always make those blue damage point.
Before the update the enemy can't attack us anymore
when that blue damage no longer appear, but now they
can still attack us long after it disappear.
Just tested it again on undead lieutenant and still not working.

Another update...

- Ship "Jitter Bug" not fixed from last update
- Hex still not right
- Random Disconnects (3 In 15 minutes - but also 3 'district' disconnects - may they are working on a Sunday???)
- Right Island form French / Left from Spanish Glitched - you can now hide your ship in the island and have a grand old time
- The Flagship Grapple appears to be fixed (though there were so many resets testing this was hard this morning - but did grapple two - boarded one and was almost done when *poof* another reset happened).

I think the Jitter Bug ships are going to give me a seizure... :D

Just be sure to switch weapons and all when using hex shots, I don't feel like them only making it so you have to use hex shots alone, not being able to finish with other weapons.

Oh, that's a REAL post... joking dude - we already got it covered :D

Ironhawk and his 'band of pirates' were pratically the Inventors of the 500 REP attack using Hex, and I, though only a Humble Sudent of Ironhawk's notes - am quiet capable of getting 550+ a turn...

Of course - thats when the Hex IS WORKING.... which is currently isn't :(

lol Max i'm flattered.
Btw has anyone tried the song request?
It's from the musician in Royal Anchor tavern (Port Royal)

I actually did Ironhawk - played me two songs, the first and the last one on the current list. Too bad they didn't last longer (the second played for about 45 seconds... long enough to get a ship and start sailing...)

Might of been cool for a bit of sailing, but I donno if I'd pay 5G for a song each time for 45 seconds... I'll put that in my next report :)

A new update is on test, I think they fixed the glitchy ships. They seem to be sailing alot smoother

UPDATE: Hex Shot is working again!!
Thanks dev for listening to us!

ALRIGHT!!:laughks2:

What!?!? I think I'm feeling 'sick at work' all of a sudden and must go home - VERY SOON! LOL :D

I'll be excited to test this when I get home... y-e-A! :D

Big shout out to the Devs reading this post, I know I sent in like 4 'rather lengthly' messages which I'm sure they shook their heads at, and I'm glad it is back to normal...

lol, Max, Wickedly awesome, now we can be sure Hex Shot works, or hopefully think it does.

Hrm...I don't think thats a right fix...seems like the gypsies will just stop attacking you. yea, it's easy mode but not 100% fixed.

Huh..?
If it's not 100% fixed then how can i get 532 rep from this mollusk today and that's without a crew bonus.
http://i352.photobucket.com/albums/r...skdefeated.jpg

SO I finished about 1/2 hour ago - and suire enough it seems ALL good here :D

I will try again shortly (had to eat... the human body's need for survival.. gee wizz LOL)

The Right Large Rock Island from the French Side is still bugged - I can still hide in there and doodle away, and no one can get me... sort of ;) You can't shoot anyone either (the new code for shooting through rock works both ways, so you can't soot in, and can't shhot out) but... I can sneak about 1/2 the ship out and get the guns to work making me a VERY small target to hit...

Ships looked ok today... I'll double-check them as well (no 'jitters from SvS anyway...)

I'll play more tonight and check the Pistol Hex again and some of my other back issues...

They stop attacking you for too long. If you just hit them with one hex shot, they will just stand there. I think they're suppose continue to attack you but pause for a few seconds when you hit them with a hex shot. So, hex shot is working but it's making the mobs stop attacking for too long.

So after some more play, Hex appears to be back to normal (or the way me and Iron see it - not sure about Breaks though ;) )

Breaks, Voodoo'ers for the most part usually do not attack back once Hexed - though occasionaly they actually do regenerate voodoo and begin their attacks again (and you can once again hex them, and they repeat the process after 20 seconds or so). This is the exception than the norm though :)

I'll admit, I wouldnt mind them regenerating some voodoo and attacking back after 30 seconds or so, as long as it was the same as a player's voodoo (they would have to wait until some voodoo regenerated, they use it and lose it so couldn't attack again or we could hex again to take it all away again). The challenge would be more and make Hex even more valuable, but, I don't think its right that the bug allowed them free attacks at will either.

Ship Jitter Bug is gone, had a Cargo issue (got a full Hold but only got credited for the Crates) but couldn't duplicate it.

Yes.. that's what we want lol

Max, about that cargo issue did u experience crash before that?
Sometimes when we crash while sailing and have cargo in hold then
when we log back the cargo still there but not counted after docking.

Possibly, I know I had two crashes the last three-four times I played (all exit crashes - not in-game) but can't remember if the crash I had on Monday was the last time I played before the test on Tueday or after... I'll keep an eye on it now I know what to posssibly look for...

And dang it - forgot to check the Ship Grappling fix last night... got taking pics of the Right Island Bug (then got distracted doing a Level with Hex on Padres Beach :D 'Working as orginially designed I'd say Woo!) Then I did crash on the last time out last nite so I sent in notes. I'll check this tonight.

I also noticed in SvS the Full Repair feature... my boat getting 'fully fixed' each time I sink someone - not really liking it too much (yea its cool when you sink someone, but if going for a hard target and you get them 1/2 damaged before they sink you - what's the incentive to go again if he gets full repair free? At least I had a chance to get him on regen if I got back to the target on time - and repair now is useless... get my point? or am I the only one getting free repairs? (which if thats the case... I didn't say ANYTHING LOL :D )