Updates Are Here!
 

Release Notes - October 17, 2008

Added new Quests for Level 5 Weapons. These new Quests are unlocked when a weapon reaches Level 20 and only after the Level 4 Weapon Quest for that weapon has been completed. These new Quests involve defeating Boss Enemies, so make sure you have a crew to help fight them! The Level 5 Weapons are:
Pirate Blade (L5 Cutlass Weapon)
Bloodletter Dagger (L5 Dagger Weapon)
Grand Pistol (L5 Pistol Weapon)
Taboo Doll (L5 Voodoo Doll Weapon)
Vile Staff (L5 Voodoo Staff Weapon)
Boss Enemies can now be found in the Caribbean. They are marked by a glowing skull icon over their heads and are much more difficult to defeat than normal enemies of the same level. Some boss enemies will always spawn in the same location, while others are more rare and randomly spawn throughout the world.
The Dagger has been rebalanced with new abilities:
Backstrike - Attacking an enemy in the back using a Combo Attack now does a Backstrike and deals extra damage. However, attacking an enemy from the front with a Combo Attack deals less damage than before.
Attunement Breaking - The Asp and Throw Dirt skills now can break Voodoo Doll Attunement on players and enemies. If a player using a Voodoo Doll is hit by these skills, they will lose their attunement and will need to re-attune their targets. Also, players who recently had an Attunement broken will be immune to further Attunement breaking for 30 seconds. Skeleton enemies who have their Attunement Broken will be unable to cast voodoo hexes for a short time.
Interrupt Ability- The Asp, Throw Dirt, and Viper Nest skills can now Interrupt another player who is charging an attack (such as Take Aim, Long Volley, and Staff Hexes). Interrupting a charge will cause that player to have to start his charge over again.
Throw Dirt also now gives a 25% reduced accuracy instead of 40% and lasts a shorter duration.
Trainer NPC's at local blacksmiths can now retrain your weapons, by retraining a weapon you can refund all your spent skill points and allow you to re-choose your skills for that same weapon.
Captains now have more control over who boards their ships with a new ship-boarding permission system. Additionally, players at dinghies now have a better interface for finding ships to board.
The Game Options interface is now more clear and easy to use.
The maximum size of Guilds has been increased to 500 members.
Fixed a major issue in Privateering affecting when players can make ship repairs.
Fixed a bug where players were not allowed to sell a ship if they could not carry the gold received from the sale.
Pistol and Grenades deal slightly more damage in PVP now.
The targeting sights for weapons now only turn red when the enemy is within range. The Voodoo Staff targeting sight turns yellow when the target is within range of a Blast and turns red when the target is within range for the selected Hex.
Improved the sky, as well as updated and optimized many visual effects throughout the game.
Health meters for enemy ships should no longer randomly disappear.
Enemy ships can now attack your ship after you've disabled a flagship (but not after you've boarded it).
Players can now replay The Black Pearl Boss Battle even after defeating the Goliath.
Fixed some animation issues with NPC's that occur when players interact with them, also updated NPC movement to be smoother and less erratic.
Fixed an issue where crew members were not receiving their crew bonus when sailing on larger ships.
Fixed a bug preventing enemies from recovering Health and Voodoo. Since enemies now recover Voodoo again, Hex Eater no longer permanently disables a Voodoo Doll using enemy. Constant Hex Eater shots will still keep an enemy's Voodoo near zero (preventing heavy spell-casting). Once the shots stop, the enemy will recover his Voodoo slowly and begin casting spells again.
Green and Grey leveled enemies yield slightly more Reputation Points than before


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And now I start complaining even more about the game! I wonder how many bugs we're going to have...

Fixed a bug preventing enemies from recovering Health and Voodoo. Since enemies now recover Voodoo again, Hex Eater no longer permanently disables a Voodoo Doll using enemy. Constant Hex Eater shots will still keep an enemy's Voodoo near zero (preventing heavy spell-casting). Once the shots stop, the enemy will recover his Voodoo slowly and begin casting spells again.

Not happy about this one... I guess, that means I can look forward to being zapped now while I try to level nades on Molies and Urchins.

However, attacking an enemy from the front with a Combo Attack deals less damage than before.
Making dagger even more useless...

Interrupt Ability- The Asp, Throw Dirt, and Viper Nest skills can now Interrupt another player who is charging an attack (such as Take Aim, Long Volley, and Staff Hexes). Interrupting a charge will cause that player to have to start his charge over again.

So does that mean no more ganging up on an enemy?

yup...out with the old annoying issues and welcome some new one!

However, this could make for a fun wench night tomorrow night. we can do boss battles again, go find some new boss enemies, do a little SvS, perhaps a boat race or two.

should be a hoot.

Actually, that's what I was thinking too. It'd be fun to hunt down the new bosses and possible new problems together. lol

I am definitely going to complain about the voodoo deal - that should not have been a bug!

If enough people do, they will hopefully change it back; they have for other things...

ETA: I'm going to complain from all four pirates. LoL

I'm confused as to why it's a problem that the enemies can regain their voodoo....I could be wrong, but doesn't your pirate do the exact same thing? Why do people complain that the game is too easy, but then when they put in things to make it harder, they complain that it's not easy anymore?

i don't want to put words in piper's mouth but i think she may be referring to the old "if it ain't broke don't fix it" saying.

with so many things in potco that need fixing, this game "tweak" just kinda seems like it's out of left field.

as always time will tell whether it's a good addition to the game or unneccesary.

Two things.

One - I never complained that the game was too easy, and I certainly never complained about how hex shot worked. I loved that ammo, and I love that Pirates is a game I can dink around in and have fun with, without dying every three seconds. If I wanted a challenge, I'd play something else.

Two - By changing it, they've effectively taken away the only non-glitching way to kinda sorta but not really level up grenades.


I don't even buy that it was a bug in the first place - I've been playing for six months and it's always been that way. I never saw anyone complain about it, either. In fact, I saw tons of people utilizing it. Even if it was a bug, Disney should have done the smart thing and embraced their happy accident, not ticked off players by "fixing" something that no one thought was broken.

If it ain't broke don't fix it!!!!!

Yes, the game is easy but if I wanted a challenging game or one with a real point I wouldn't be here! I work in corporate accounting office with a bunch of bitter old women, my life is challenging enough. This is my escape! I'm a paying customer and if they change something I do not approve of or like, I have every right to complain or to have my opinion just as every other paying customer for anything! I've never made one complaint to Big D about anything in this game... the changing of the voodoo/hex thing will probably be my first.

If Big D really wants to fix the game, fix the glitches that are bother-sum! Yet they'll still exist and/or we'll find more. As far as I'm concerned they can take away the cheats - wall hacks, Kingshead as a whole (the glitches not the island), etc.

As I said in my first post, they took the only fair and decent way to level nades with out resorting to cheating. TY Big D, for making them an even more of a huge pain in my behind!

You watch, now that their able to regain their voodoo, you will ALWAYS be hit by the strongest voodoo hits they are capable of, just because it'll be another "glitch" that Big D attempted to fix and went horribly wrong. OR they'll never lose all their voodoo to begin with! While you get to sit there and twiddle your thumbs and wait for your voodoo to regain itself.

LoL Oooh it's about to close for maintenance! LoL


Another new thing - dinky little enemies are slowing me with every hit. Like, level 1's "slowing" my fully mastered level 40. That's beyond dumb anyway - we're not allowed to hit anything too high and yet they can. Talk about fair... ;)


ETA: Now we can all know what it's like to be on test - this thing is SO buggy! LoL

Big surprise!!!!!

Pfft... I'm already riled don't get me started on the fairness too!

Well before they kicked me off I was able to complain about the voodoo not working the way it should, baby enemies slowing me (there were actually a lot of bugs going on with them too - lots of floating guys with their arms straight out, for example), and that the bosses look silly with their low levels (not only does every other enemy in the game have a level that corresponds to their health, I just plain want to see higher levels - they look cooler).

Yea i hate when that happens. You are just walking and a lvl 3 cadet hits you takes away 3 health but you are stunned for like 20 seconds!

Well hopefully they bring 'er back up later... so I can hopefully sneak on and fiddle a little.

I have no idea why they thought it was ready to go live in the first place though...

Some other stuff - enemy ships were being really weird. They seemed really easy to sink (I hadn't played on Ali in a while, but Reapers going down in three hits? I think I'd remember that...), and the one skelly that did start shooting at me shot only lightning in a constant stream (between the broadsides and cannons); never saw a normal cannonball and never saw any hesitation between shots (another count against the game in terms of fairness - everything we do has to recharge, and we don't get any fancy schmancy broadsides).
Ships also were sailing funny - sharp turns and weird paths. Though, I had a couple that were headed right for me turn and head the other way instead of attacking (kind of like what they used to do with each other). That tweak didn't bother me so much. LoL

Also, enemies were "triggered" from much farther away - I couldn't run through anywhere without having half the guys on me. They also seemed to follow a lot longer than they used to (in fact, I don't think I saw one disengage, though it could be because they annoyed me so much with their baby attacks [which, of course, slowed me] from really far away, and never stopped, that I turned around and flamed them before they had a chance to).

Yeah I saw the release notes this morning. All I can say is WOOT!

Woohoo... play by play updates! I still have at least 3 hours until I can mess around with the new problems, see how much the little buggers will bite my ankles. And since Mercedes isn't exactly the most graceful, I'm sure I'll have everybody chasing her.

I played for a while this mornin, and yes it is buggy as heck. However look at the bright side.....

NEW QUESTS
RETRAIN WEAPONS
REPEAT THE BB

I had to laugh at a lv 4 bonebuster this mornin..... A swamp gater is a boss...LMBO!!!!

Now that I retrained Bella I am sure she will slink her way out of the shack and play with others again... In fact I think she will be the one to join us on WN.

Bella

Today is making out to be a great Friday... now I could really kill something!!!!

I don't know that I'm interested in retraining Mercedes in anything... She is my learning experience and Mercy too... hopefully Rae will be my tough girl. :D

Wonderful... found Remington on Kingshead and he's glitched. Everything I do to him is a miss! Lovely!!

That sounds like D. ;)

Shame that the nice new features are totally buried underneath massive bugs...

Alrighty... so I'm now finished with the LV5 quests... and there's only 2 new weapons I like... the dagger and staff. The doll ain't to bad looking either... I'm neither all for it or against it... but the new pistol and cutlass I don't like at all. The cutlass may have a chance to grow on me... but that pistol doesn't stand a chance in ......

aye finish them to, the quest were to short, not impress with this update, but what a pirate gonna do, big d not really listing to us anyway

Piper and I were talking about that in the game, LV4 quests were definitely more difficult or lengthy.

Big D better learn to start listening to people or their game is gonna end up a huge flop if they keep this sorta junk up.

Well, I sent in my formal (read: lengthy LoL) feedback to D, including a short list of positives, and the long, detailed list of negatives...

I was annoyed before, but they took away my WG glitch - now it's personal.

ETA: Yep...D's awesome:
http://i287.photobucket.com/albums/l...unkyUndead.jpg

http://i287.photobucket.com/albums/l...nkyUndead2.jpg

Ewwwww.... Glad their not doing that to me.

With the way we are Piper, I'd say they should put us on Test servers, we'll definitely tell 'em whats wrong, but then again in the example of people like Sarah, we know it wouldn't be worth it because we'd just get ignored anyway!

I'll soon find out if "feedbacking" (as I like to call it, LoL) makes any difference - I doubt anyone's feedbacked as much as I have the past couple days... :D

ETA: I bet that'll be the next thing to stop working. LoL

And it'll be all your fault! :P

Well they did shut down the grog blog.......I wonder if it was to save fact to nonplayers?

Non players... New players... players that may be not as involved to notice things so quickly. Who knows, I wouldn't be surprised that they were reviewing each comment as it came in before it was posted publicly. Probably shut it down so they didn't have to hire an influx of employees to monitor a possible over load of complaints.

Well, I was able to get the fence to work at Kings. Did have one rather spastic round where they were all going nuts, racing around, but most of them were fine.

I'm still majorly PO'd about my ship glitches though - WF doesn't work either. Grrr...

Have ya tried to glitch off a sloop yet?

Light sloop didn't work. :(

So much for us having any fun during the SvS quests.........

Yup... So far I've tried every ship except the light galleon and light frigate. None work. I even did a BB to try the Black Pearl...

Needless to say, I'm bigtime mad at D. If they took it out because people were using/abusing it in SvS battles (not what we were doing, obviously), they should have just taken out the ability to hurt other players with everything besides cannons.

It looks stupid for them anyway - the glitches are still there, they just don't let you do anything fun anymore. Brilliant.

I gotta see if my glitches are still there, the few I like to amuse myself with... ie: Padres Beach Roof Tops :D Plus there's the huge rock I've now found ya can walk up... I was dropping nades on Mr. Boss Gypsy's head and his one minion's head below... heheh They didn't like that to much. :)

Just hope nobody tells Big D about my rock, I like my rock. But I figure if they find out I can kiss it goodbye, since they seem to be against all goofy fun outside of the quests.

Is anyone else experiencing jaggard moving enemies? Like they'll be in one position and a second later their 3 inches away, disappearing for the space in between. I didn't notice it until I got to Tormenta... first noticed something funky going on with the crabs and even the all the enemies in the cave are doing it too.

I saw that a lot tonight - ships and other players too.

Oh, and here's my Grog Blog entry:

How much you wanna bet it never appears? :tongue8:

I bet it won't, I'm surprise they didn't mark you as spam from the get go. They did to me three times before I could get my Grog comment to go through. I bet nobody will see mine either.

I had also sent a bug report, I did that on either Friday or Saturday... received yet another e-mail from Disney stating they did not receive my log files with my email... when I get home this will be the 5th time I send them the logs. Rather convenient... 3 times of it not going through via email? BS! It's not like their asking for it to be an attachment, they wanted it copy pasted into my reply so it was. Getting more and more annoyed...

I did have a little bit of happiness last night before I logged off... I found the Padres Beach Rooftops still work and you can pick off the Boss from the one roof top. Also fell into the one weapon shop by accident from playing around on my rock. And you can still get to the uncompleted exit on Padres as well... But that's all I've looked for.

And you can still get to the uncompleted exit on Padres as well

hmmmm...not familiar with that one...do tell!

This is one of the many goofy glitches Piper has showed me. I had noticed the extra door on Padres showing up on radar before Piper showed me, I just never bothered to venture towards it. If you do, it will take you to a huge bolder that sort of doesn't fit in, like Big D just dropped it there. From there it's sorta hard to explain (at least for me), ask either Piper or I or anyone else online that may know where it is and we'll show it to ya while it lasts. :)

There's an easy wall hack up the hill a bit from the lower tavern. There are a bunch of boxes stacked up on the left, just before the archway, and if you glitch off them you get pushed into Padres. Go forward enough that you're swimming, and then head over to the door symbol to your right. It should pop you back up there.


Oh, and I saw an Admin comment on the Grog Blog that cracked me up bigtime. Saying that they knew some people were upset that certain "glitches" (hex included) were gone, but they were never meant to be there.

WTG Disney! Admitting that good/fun/amusing stuff in your game was an accident is awesome! "Sorry, our game was never meant to be fun." :D

I threw another Grog comment their way, it probably won't be posted either but I don't care. Let the Admin read it and throw it out, at least my thoughts on hex would have gotten to someone else...

Also emailed their support, but not about anything related to bugs or glitches or my precious hex shot. I wanted to know what all will happen to my account if I cancel my subscription and if I'd be able to resubscribe at a later date.

Let me know what you find out about that, Mercy. :lipsrsealed:


Oh, and it's nice to know one of the people who's to blame for my fun being ruined:
:smiley-channel.de_g:http://disney.go.com/pirates/online/...eg_profile.jpg
Boo on you, Greg Wiatroski. Boo on you.

:smiley-channel.de_ghttp://disney.go.com/pirates/online/...eg_profile.jpg
Hada take my shots too... :)

I'll be sure to let you know what I find out.