Release Notes - January 30, 2009

[Batleth]

Release Notes - January 30, 2009

• New and improved Port Royal: Players should see significant performance increases thanks to the new layout.
• New and improved Tutorial: Now more action packed!
• Added a player Profile Card so you can view details about players you meet.
• Early Quest Line has been smoothed out and should be much more fun.
• Overall smoother gameplay: Fewer hiccups and pauses during the action.
• Improved crew making and display: Starting and joining crews is easier than ever before. The onscreen crew display is now even more useful.
• Improved Chat interface: Only one text entry box now and it routes your message appropriately.
• Clothing Store changes: It is much easier to browse through all your wardrobe choices.
• Fixed another exploit that allowed you leave a PvP while still undead.
• Reputation gains are no longer reduced for Basic Access players.
• Lots of other small tweaks and improvements!

[Will Badbreaker]

I've seen the note about improved chat where it "routes your message appropriately" and I have no idea what that means. In using it, I still have to select which tab the message belongs in. How is it doing any routing? Anyone have an explaination?

[Maximvs]

Originally Posted by Will

"routes your message appropriately"

The Plus Filter Chat is gone - instead replaced by the Italics filter, hence instead of guessing if you can type in the box or if someone with plus chat is in the group - they will still see some of the messages (and you will know what they don't see).

[Chris]

Known Issues - January 30, 2009

• If you have issues launching the game or experience poor performance with OpenGL, please try changing the graphics library to DirectX9 via the "Graphics Options" button on the Launcher.
  • When clicking on another pirate or a friend in the friend's panel you may experience a crash. If this happens, change your graphics library (API) to DX9. This should resolve the problem.
  • The text describing emotes is not showing up in the chat log. We are currently working on a fix.

[Commodore Larence]

I just found a massive bug in the game today. I was on the new Port Royal testing out the privateer lookout (which i can not find a way to turn off once activated)... But back to my story. While sided with Spain, I came across another player on the French side. He began to hack his sword, and I hacked back at him... we were damaging each other. You can fight other players who are either in lookout for privateer or sided, I'm not sure on the specifics of it... It may just happen while on the new Port Royal. Is this supposed to be this way? I dont think it is... this seems to me like a giant bug in the game. Sorry if this is old news, I have not seen it posted any other places.

Larence Tuppington
GM: Skallywag Alliance
Lvl-40

[StellaInTheSky]

1. The chat interface kinda stinks. And no more typing numbers is really irritating as well. I know it's a parental safety/Disney thing, but still.
2. Crewing is all kinds of messed up. Looking for SVS crew, it just keeps popping up ANY crew that's open instead of solely SVS. Also, when looking for a crew the crew captain's name is clickable (to pop up the Player Profile card...?) but nothing comes up when clicked.
3. My dagger is useless as of right now. Using the first 2 throwing blades just makes my pirate lock up momentarily while the dagger is thrown, but I never know where it goes. No red circle for it or anything. Just the sound effect.
4. My formerly white skirt is now BLUE. I go into a tailor and find that my white skirt is a sky blue, and when I went to the color wheel, Disney's white is apparently blue as well. Weird thing is, my other white clothes stayed white...

But I will say that all in all I like the new Port Royal. Even though my guildmates and I were lost pretty much the whole night. =)

[Poison elf]

This looks like a altercation from the svs bug I have been posting. This a big bug I thought, but apparently not taken as so from the reports I sent in on test.

If in a crew before entering your ship in svs this occurs. Soon as you dock, you can no longer get back in svs on your side. (maybe you can if 1 or more ships are on other side than your side)

Any Case this seems to break the svs, you remain to have privateer chat, though it can't be used. As well your entire crew shows flying a flag for your side of svs.

Last I saw this was still happening, I haven't got to live and checked this particular one. I tried many things in test but only way to get this off you is logging out from what I could find.

[Crazypirate]

Can anyone answer for me why I can run shader lvl 4 with openGL or DirectX9 but with DirectX8 it tells me minimum hardware not detected and doent give me the option to use it at all. DirectX8 its the only one that doesnt lag real bad when I sail now with new updates.

[Will Badbreaker]

Originally Posted by Maximvs

The Plus Filter Chat is gone - instead replaced by the Italics filter, hence instead of guessing if you can type in the box or if someone with plus chat is in the group - they will still see some of the messages (and you will know what they don't see).

Ah ok thanks. I had noticed the difference with the italics and things in red. It is refreshing to know you can type and it will go through, just still not always sure if the other side will get everything.
Also typing shortcuts like PR for Port Royal now is in red and italics, which is silly.

[drwr]

Originally Posted by Crazypirate

Can anyone answer for me why I can run shader lvl 4 with openGL or DirectX9 but with DirectX8 it tells me minimum hardware not detected and doent give me the option to use it at all. DirectX8 its the only one that doesnt lag real bad when I sail now with new updates.

DirectX8 doesn't support shaders, so you can't enable shaders when you are running with DirectX8. Incidentally, this might be why it doesn't lag as bad as the others. Have you tried disabling shaders on OpenGL or DirectX9 to see if it smooths out there? A lot of cards have performance issues rendering shaders.

David

[Crazypirate]

Thx it helps alot but just wondering why it started I never had any lag issues b4 update with graphics turned all the way up even in svs or abasa.

[Ghostcannon]

looks cool. There's the new map on *.pdf format, however it's missing the location "U" which correspods to Lucinda.

[Edward Edgemenace]

Originally Posted by Ghostcannon

looks cool. There's the new map on *.pdf format, however it's missing the location "U" which correspods to Lucinda.

"V" is Lucinda...it's on the map just fine. Dunno who James MacDougal is.

[Raikel]

Wow, seems like a deprovement, it's probably the slowest game of the year unless you have a good computer. I'll be getting a good computer from alienware and it should run perfectly with pirates online, no mater, it will still crash with game errors, but it will stop lag for the most part, and the processor can deal with up to 4 Terrabytes, so I see it will have no issues.

[drwr]

I think the new release is more likely to default shaders on. Those of you who are having more lag issues after the release than you had before it, probably didn't have shaders turned on before, and maybe didn't realize it. Be sure you turn them off now in the Game Options panel. All it does is change the look of the water anyway; and even though the ocean looks good with the shaders, if it makes you laggy it's not worth it.

David