Test Release Notes- June 20,2011
 

Release Notes - June 20, 2011

Pirates can dare to become a "Scoundrel of the Seas" now on the Test Servers. Set sail, plunder all you can from enemy ships and try to unlock all the Scoundrel levels.
Enemy ship difficulty will increase based on the amount of plunder in your ship's hull.
Added four Scoundrel levels of difficulty, each with its own jolly roger icon on the ship HUD (top-left while sailing).
Optimized frame rate for flagship boarding.
Fixed a bug where teleporting off a ship causes other Pirates to exit the Ship Repair mini-game.
Fixed a bug where new Pirates could become stranded on Kingshead before receiving a ship.

What's that noise? Ah, right, it's William Goldwalker bouncing off the walls (love you, Will ;))

Sounds like a pretty decent update. Gonna have to get some time to check it out! And somebody get screens!

The Hunter ships are definitely NPC ships. The are extremely fast and high level (51 War Sloop). They seem to be triggered to attack War class ships with full cargo. I did not encounter any Hunter ships on my regular Galleon, but while cannoning on another pirate's War Frigate we were attacked by 3 Hunter ships.

Hunters will attack any ship if provoked. Its based off the ammount of treasure you have. I tested this theroy on my light sloop with anyother crew on the SOTL. We both got 4 royal chests and that is when our first hunter came after us. The Size of the ship does not matter only the looting you do.

Excited to see some new updates! Really looks cool.
Thanks for the screenshots, Kat!

Hunters are not quite as tactical as Fleets and the QAR are, as they lack long range fire, double cannon fire and the ability to shoot multiple players at once. However, they are quick to change targets. The Cutter Shark and Flying Storm are the strongest, as their Explosives really pack a punch. And they're War Sloops, too!

The War Galleons, Century Hawk and Killyaded, are decent at damage, but their hull and sails suffer badly. They're pretty easy to sink.

Thank you for the clarification Tom - I guess I didn't have enough royals to bother them.

I'm pleasantly surprised that in 6 different outtings I didn't discover any bugs.

It looks kinda like Disney needs to learn how to spell... I mean we still have the "Mechant Sea Chart" and now we have the Vengence which is supposed to be spelled Vengeance, and En-Garde, which should be En-Guarde. If you fix this, D, you will earn so much more respect from me.

Finally got some time on test today & I thought the updates were so cool! And, I believe the amount of plunder has a great deal to do with the Bounty Hunters attacking. I sailed alone at first from PDF to Port Royal. Only filled my hull up to 14 of 18 before I ported. I never got attacked. But, when I boarded another ship that had already filled their hull , we were attacked relentlessly. The funniest thing that occurred was that we tried to port at Raven's Cove to discover that Tuga was the only port open. I would say that this is a very intense update-especially when you are being persued by a gaggle of Hunters. It was alot of fun & provided pirates the chance to work together regardless of guild.