Current News: January 16th 2009 - Flex Your Pirate Muscles
 

January 15 2009

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Feats of Strength Contest Details

Have you signed up for the Feats of Strength Contest taking place this weekend (January 17, 18, and 19 from 11 AM - 2 PM Pacific Time) on Tortuga? You could win recognition and other great loot! Hurry, your chance to sign-up is ending soon!

We'll post a full event schedule Friday afternoon, January 16 on the Grog Blog -- if you're signed up, be sure to review the details for the contest challenges, your competition time and server location.

TIMES ARE POSTED!

PIRATES A-D

PIRATES E-J

PIRATES K-Q

PIRATES R-Z

Feats of Strength Event Overview
January 15, 2009

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All contestants should read these rules and familiarize yourself with the event challenges before the event.
The Feats of Strength Contest consists of three separate challenges. Pirates must complete all three challenges as fast as they can, in order, following the course routes. Pirates that finish the race without completing all task are disqualified.
Refer to the schedule posted here for your competition time. Please arrive at your designated ocean (server) early! Late contestants or no-shows will not be able to participate.
Please Note: All Pirates are welcome to watch the event from the beach or docks of Tortuga, but be respectful of your fellow Pirates competing in the Feats of Strength Contest. Please don't block the course route, use weapons during the contests or interfere with the contestants.
Challenge 1: 3 Laps around Town
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The race begins with 3 laps, as Pirates run counter-clockwise around the town of Tortuga.

Challenge 2: Swim the Beach
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After the footrace, Pirates swim the length of the beach. Pirates will go straight from the footrace to the swimming challenge without stopping. Please note the start of the swimming challenge - Pirates must swim around the Shipwright.
Challenge 3: Defeat 1 Crocodile
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Pirates will swim to the Jail, then defeat 1 crocodile. After defeating the crocodile, the first player to race back to the GM in front of the Jail wins. There are prizes for first, second and third, so don't stop until you finish the race!

Event schedule will be posted with participants names Friday afternoon.

Hmm, hate be all "glass half full" here, but how many hoards of pirates ya think will be blocking the GM chatting away?

Forget the dumb lifeless people blocking the path im worried about the lag! Ive been to those GM events and have seen the amount of people talking to them and even me with a very strong computer gets lagged by up to 2 minutes!

Ok, im with Sarah on this one, sounds neat hope it all works out, but there are going to be people all around the GM (blocking that 'jail'). There are going to be staffers out there blasting... couldnt seem to avoid them on previous GM appearances. Lag likely to be an issue here.

Does sound like fun though, best of luck to all the participants!

Gotta agree with ya on that Chris - Lag is going to be a hefty issue... I rarely lag - but anytime I've been an area of more than 30-40 pirates its choppy...

Guess we'll have to see how they divi-up the servers / contestants to see how this goes...

Agreed max i hope they put some sort of barrier between us and the crowd and combine servers for more strength less lag hopefully or else before someone sees the word start its already over.

Do any of the rest of you think this will be a total farse? There is still nothing posted reguarding a schedule of times and servers that I can find. Nothing is taking place on the servers.... I got a feeling this was some thing cooked up in about a 10 minute confrence due to all the emails Disney is getting complaining about the lack of new things. I may be wrong, but I am very skeptical at this point as to what is going to actually happen this weekend. I know nothing I have ever posted in the Grog Blog ever makes it on the site... the same went with my registration for the Feats of Strength event. Has any one else heard any information I am missing?

Larence Tuppington
Level 40
GM: Skallywag Alliance

Another thing i just thought of they said there will be prizes im wondering how they will get us those prizes could they be testing a new way of putting items in our inventory manually or possibly trading also what kinds of things i mean only thing would be special clothes i doubt they would give the winners special weapons and most 40's have maxed gold so that would be pointless.

I haven't even seen the list of those chosen posted as of yet. I am concerned about the lag as well. We shall see.



Robert Darkskull
Pistols N Blades


:zn3ltx:

Events like this are very difficult to arrange. I can't see how they will monitor the lap checkpoints (no checkpoints even indicated) so I hope they have a few tricks up their sleeves (session recording, etc.) to make this run smoothly. I hope they have a mechanism for ejecting spectators that lag-bomb with flaming skull/grenades/etc.

Be interesting to see a motion-video capture of this event...Max, any possibility you could do your thing?

I wonder if contestants will be able to enter, while in the skelly glitch. Doing a quick grave shackles might slow some opponents down.

Hmmm. If an entire guild lines up and just clicks on people as they pass by, the clickees will incur extra lag, with no visible cause. Whispers could be more than annoying, too. Likewise friend requests, crew invitations, team battle challenges...

That last part sounds interesting. Defeat a Crocadile (alligators and crocadiles are two different animals) . I mean the only thing a higher level player can do is fire one shot from their pistol and hold that arrow button lol. Unless there is some kind of set up, a player could shoot both just for the fun of it.

Hard to say - between timing and locations... it would be all hit or miss...

Interesting Chris...right now on test there is a new feature in the clothing shop "enter code". Clicking on it opens a box to type in a "special code to claim your item {something like that}" (kind of like typing in a guild invite code).....could be.

Hmm im wondering if maybe thats what they will do...

TIMES ARE POSTED!

PIRATES A-D

PIRATES E-J

PIRATES K-Q

PIRATES R-Z

Competitions Times are up!
 

I didn't sign up but I'll definitely root my fellow Pirates on!

woohoo SOS is in! The last place finisher for the 1:00 Caicos on Monday is ME!!!!!

Hopefully I'm fixed and can cheer for you... or trip you.....

I am sure you would trip me.......

goodluck to all who are taking part in this event

Omg my name isnt on the list. My comment didnt even get approved O.o. they never do.

I retract my statement some what now, even though my post never appeared on the Grog Blog... I am on the official event time and location list. I hope this goes well, but as we all know many will be staffing and bombing the playing field unless some thing special is set in place. Time will only tell how this turns out. Good luck to all those competing.

Larence Tuppington
Lvl-40
GM: Skallywag Alliance

Glitched
 

Alright I'm in. I've been set for Monday on Caicos.

I didn't see a list posted last time I checked.....



Robert Darkskull
Pistols N Bladez


:sadmh9:

Is it too late to sign up?

I can't even estimate how many people they are planning to have in each race. I like their comment about the "overwhelming response" - they have my sympathy. (Well, I'll save my sympathy for later, when people start screaming that they missed events, or complaints about unfairness/cheating start rolling in.)

Good luck to all ye pirates! May the best pirate win! Keep doing your practice laps on quiet servers...

From what i counted there will only be about 20 pirates running a race at one time at one server so it shouldnt be that bad.

I just came to one of the races and if you win they give you a code you can type in and get extra gold. I think it's another emote /code. Third place gets 100. Second gets 500. I didn't see what was first. As everyone predicted... crowded... I wouldn't suggest this if you have max gold.

My take on this event: SNAFU...FUBAR.

The lag is as bad as any event of this type I've ever attended, if not worse.

Started late (as usual).

Captain Walter was calling out the names of contestants that were signed up for Barano server...when we were in fact on Caicos. So he's saying none of the contestants showed up when in fact the CORRECT contestants for that server were yelling that they were there.

Cluster...circle...well. You get the picture. Not looking forward to my race tomorrow.

Ouch. I only got to "watch" a single race so far. I don't think I saw any of the participants actually running, the lag was so bad. "Overwhelming reponse" was something of an understatement, I think. Bravo to the Disney GMs for seeing it through. They each displayed the patience of a saint. (And yes, they have my sympathy!)

maybe.... it was to test the lag levels in the game.... you know?

to see how much lag there was with a lot of pirates in a single server?

I was in the Barano server for the 1:00 pm (pst) race. I think all but 2 showed up for the race I was in. I finished third, but I seen a lot of people cheating. Some didnt make 3 laps... some didnt swim around the shipwright and the dock... Some just ran over to the G.M. infront of the jail and said tag after about a minute or so lol. This thing as I thought was a total joke. It would have taken them maybe a days work to actually create a boss arena to take each group of pirates to, and run a fair type of race. The GM person over the line ups for the race I was in was named Rose some thing. She began the race by asking if any one had any question, and I replied that I did. As we all know the final leg of the race in the online instructions said to kill a crocodile. I being worried if this was some new creature within the swamp, wanted to know if it really just meant a regular gator. So I said I had a question and proceeded to ask after being recognized that I had a question, and told to pose it. As I was typing... "Get Ready ... Set... Go..." pops up on the chat. Being befuddled I hit "R" and went for it. I managed to pick up some ground and get in the 1st place spot as I was heading to the shipwright. After that I seen no one else till I got to the jail... There was some one behind me in the water, but that was it. I got to the jail and seen 2 others say tag... so i fired a shot at a gator, and put up tag. This could have been so much more organized... with so much better prizes than just gold. After talking to the GM after the race, I recieved rude comments, and threats of being booted by her if I didnt act properly. She then eventually answered me and said that a crocodile and gator are in the same family, its not that big of a difference... then she instructed me I should become a biologist if I knew so much. I couldnt believe how rude she was. I do not think any of these GM's really play the game... They may just be interns at Disney more than likely. I am going to wait one more month on substantial upgrades... Then I will be joining the continually growing sect of Basic Level 40's.

Larence Tuppington
Lvl-40
GM: Skallywag Alliance

Go Disney?

way to treat a paying costumer... you should have reported her... she should abide the rules just like anyone else...

Commodore,

I feel your pain.

I hopped on this afternoon to watch a guildie race. What a lag fest. I was on Barano, for the noon PST race, but they were running WAY behind, so we were probably there at the same time.

I saw the start of two races...no one "competing" did the whole thing. It was one lap around Tortuga, and check back in with Rose.

Then, the prize...gold. I know that at least two in dueces tried to enter the code to get their gold, and did not. When asked about the invalid codes, Rose said, "Oh, we will see if we can get that fixed for you", then she started gabbing away about how she liked some pirates tats....HUH??

Personally, I think POTCO is testing the new code system implemented in test for clothing shops. (just my opinion...) Not enough testers. "let's make up some game to see how our enter a code thingy works on open". And so they did. And It Failed.

I sent a long email today to Disney. May not do any good, but it made me feel better.

For those signed up for the rest of the weekends races...have some fun, don't take it all to seriously.

I can't believe they left the GMs out there with no method of immediately booting people. If Rose hadn't been hung out to dry there, she probably would have had a lot more patience for your question, Lawrence. (I was standing by the seamstress' shop and saw your race. Oh my.) I can't imagine how many aspirin tablets she must have inhaled, as the voodoo-staffs kept blasting. From my vantage, I just kept PvP challenging everyone that I saw with a weapon out, but nothing seemed to help.

Barano server, Tortuga.

I sent a complaint to Disney about the incident. Im sure this was just some sort of test like mentioned. There was no reason though for her rude behavior towards me. Prior to the race I was trying to help others out by answering some of the vast amount of random questions popping up about what the race was, and where to find the information pertaining to it.

Side Note: I really think that some of these G-M's are just interns at Disney. I watched Rose attempt to jump on that box infront of the Shipwright about 20 times while watching the last 3 races after mine. She never made it on the box, I was so amused at it. I wish they would offer some real players an opportunity to give ideas for the game, and try to help.... but alas I guess that would be to much for them....

Im just very disgusted with the game right now lol... (off the soap box) :pirate2wn0:

Larence Tuppington
Lvl-40
GM: Skallywag Alliance

Hehe
 

I dunno. I normally have no trouble getting up there, but I couldn't (during the start of the event) either. When I tried to do a practice lap (between races) it took me about 20 seconds to make it to the archway, 15 seconds to make it all the way around back to the dock, then 45 seconds to make it to the side of the shipwright.

As far as theories about why they chose this particular event: my theory is that someone on the Disney staff, lost a bet. :-) But really, who knows? Hopefully they collected good data about lag induced, with different pirate densities.

My guess is that this event spawned from the Founder's Feast. Walter held impromptu races through Tortuga then and a lot of people joined in. Of course, that was a lagfest too, and there was no prize at stake, so it was all in the spirit of fun.

This is a different animal and I think the Disney folks didn't take that into account.

And the GM's HAVE to have some way of controlling people. I was there too, at the same time as Edward and Lawrence and it was a nightmare. There were players there who were BEGGING to be booted. I was hitting report like crazy.

I was totally dissappointed by the entire fiasco.

1) Lag, lag, lag, lag
2) Griefers staffing the entire area prior to the race
3) Having one of the guildmembers of the race throw grenades at their guildmember's opponents to lag them and slow them down....it worked.
4) The guild that was supposedly there to 'help' the GM's, even though nothing is mentioned about a "help" guild in the grog blog. One of my friends actually had the leader of that guild kill the alligator as she approached. Thankfully, the GM that was there noted it, said to stop it, and my friend still got second place.

I am growing more and more disappointed with POTCO. As you said Commodore, I may become a basic lv40 as well.

I don't care if she is a GM, Rose was not gettin on that box ;) Mine!


http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/h...7_15-20-16.jpg

but sven managed to knock me off...

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It was a total lag fest, and poor Rose seemed greatly ill prepared to deal with the crowd. And again with the "like your tat comment"...pfft

Nice to see a lot of POF'ers there though ;)

Feats of Strength...
 

Well,.. I agree that the Lag was just off the hook crazy.
Really, there is no way to have this type of event and not have the lag, unless, as it was mentioned, contestants whisked off to a private server or, perhaps added for the moment of the event in a special Crew and then have access to a special server location?

There are many other type of contests that would work, but in truth, a MMO will not work with this type of event with all congregated in one location.

And last,.. for the record,…
Rackat, I do apologize to your friend, whoever that is, who participated at the time I "shoe in" participated as well. Your description clearly points to me with the exception that “Achilles” is not the guild master, John is,.. But,.. nonetheless, that was the last race and contestants were lacking and Captain Walter declared a “all can race” moment and so I took off with the group and ran the whole course, and at the last, killed a gator, perhaps since I was a shoe in I shouldn’t have shot the gator, GM Xavier was a little surprised as well as you noted and I had some explaining to do at that moment.
So, please tell your friend I am truly sorry to add to a frustrating moment if that was her perspective, and I would gladly give her a gold code if she did not receive one or was unfairly deprived of such.
Most sincerely,….

-Achilles


.

If you are feeling uneasy about your actions during the contest and feel you need to discuss it, please PM me so that the thread can continue unedited. There is a rule on this forum regarding "Naming Names". Please note that I did not name any names. I did not name the name of the guild that had their members throwing grenades at their guildmember's opponents, nor did I name any other guild.

wow
 

Hey, did anyone get the standing of winners circle?

Chris always seems to make a post of results...? anything Chris?

Many Pirates were unruly and discourteous to the GM's.

Much the same
 

I took part in the Feats race (I must be masochistic) on Sunday. Barano server, 1:45 race time.
Dutifully following the guidelines on Grog Blog I arrived early, and proceeded to crash 8 times because of the lag.
I finally got up on the seamstress' porch and that seemed to help, just being away from all the gibbering monkeys in the crowd. Most of these were endlessy repeating "Can I change my race time?" "Can I be in this race?" Geez.
Did I say 1:45 race time? HA! Late, of course. My race started at 2:15.
Bozos standing right in front of us racers as we waited at the line up, most moved after first being asked, then told to move.
I did not experience any lag during my race, oddly enough. As it was the last one on Barano for that time, perhaps a lot of people had left by then.
The race GMs were Ruby and Rose. Neither of whom would answer anything I tried to ask. Not even, "Which race is this"? when I merely wanted to know if my time had come up yet.
So, the race starts and I go out in the lead right off, and stay there. WAY out front. No one near me. (One non-racer doofus tried to run with (or into?) me, but I left him behind as well. I do all 3 laps, swim the correct water lap, get to the jail and run over to the swamp with pistol ready (no one else in the race has yet to catch up with me) and ....... NO GATORS. I am counting the seconds. No gators. The other racers all arrive, all looking for gators. None. Zip. Nada. We are all shouting, "WHERE R THE GATORS?" Still no gators. Racers are running all over the swamp area. No gators. Then the GM announces some guy as the "winner". What? He claims he went into Misty Mire to shoot a gator. Uh uh -- the gators are supposed to be by the jail area. I tell the GM so, and changing the rules in the middle of the race is wrong.
I get announced as "second place".
OK -- I did this whole thing KNOWING it was going to be yet another farce and FUBARfest, but by googly moogly, I had won the blamed thing by the proverbial mile and this was utter fecal matter.
And guess what, all the time she's announcing the winners, and giving us the codes.....still NO GATORS.
Then without a word of farewell both GMs disappear.
Know what happened immediately after the 2 GMs left?
Yep...the gators appeared.
Way to go, POTCO.
Just another badly planned, poorly executed, over hyped dog and pony show.
:piratetongueor4:

I agree that this may have just been a test to monitor the load on the servers and how much lag there was. There obviously was too much cheating and confusion to truly see all of what transpired.



Robert Darkskull
Pistols N Bladez


:pirate.capta:

Well i compete today at 3 pm est. On server Barano i can see s few of my competition :D good luck and may lag not get the best of ye.

Good luck Chris!

I guess I can admit I am happy. Happy I had absolutely not a thing to do with any of this. I suckered in for that last time.

Maybe I am the only one that read into this problems from the start. A race = fastest Internet connection, and most cut back graphics as possible.
Several laps = check points. Never have seen them utilize players (founders perhaps in this case) watching racers cross a check point three times.
Two alligators by the jail, from the get go a spawn issue for three places.
No doubt crowded area lag, and from what I read here trying to lag others which I wouldn't of called ahead a time such a case as it appeared to be.

At least one good thing I saw from the start was the map was situated so the race track was not on one of the quick easy hill glitches to short cut the track.

I agree with several others this was likely another attempt for a test. Maybe not so much a test for server lag like last time, but likely for this new code they have implemented on all things on test right now.

The way this has gone off by reading the posts here, it appears this has just made people more upset than anything else.

I AM NOT A COMPLETE FAILURE.......I actually won my 1:00 pst race on Caicos!

Having checkpoints would have been a pretty good idea. Having a way for GMs to log disruptive people off, would have been a pretty good idea. Having contestants matched up by ping-time or average latency would have been a pretty good idea. Having extra gators spawn for the event, would have been a pretty good idea.

Overall, a pretty interesting event. With over 500 participants (480 official entrants) I'm glad it wasn't mine, to watch over.

I lagged out in the middle of mine...

Ouch Ironbones, sorry for that man.
Hope those who participated in this event have won something.