Release Notes - October 17th 2008 - OPEN

[Blackskull]

Can anyone else not get into Pirates right now??? I try to select my avatar and everything crashes. Anyone else having this problem??

[Nautical Nattie]

I'm there now working on my quests. lol when grenades are thrown at me i get flung into the air, it's hilarious.

[Poison elf]

I agree, this wasn't ready, though a lot of bugs resulting to new stuff had been fixed, I sent in at least three bugs yesterday of kings jail doc grogs, tattoo parlor on padres black out or partially black out in just rooms alone.

Dislikes that I for sure sent in. Killing in one shot with not even a fully max siege bomb in pvp. Dagger 25% decrease in damage to front attack. Rare occasion of a back stab doing only 8 points more than front - half the time. Cutlass - dagger combos set in stone rather than a choice. Leaving a lost point to recover in blade instinct again, if you had 5 with good combo's already set up. Grenade leveling, pity anyone not done with that yet. Hex shot now a lost item to pistol.

Paying customers now recently have lost dagger damage. Lost cannon damage and around half max damage to pvp ships. Choice of combos skills in cutlass and dagger, where cutlass has 5 combos and we have a total of 25 points. Hex shot in pistol. Grenade on the hot plate doing single shot kill with complaints soon to follow.
The question I have to ask is the people paying gained what exactly?
Only thing possibly I can think of is a 2 point increase in 2 of 5 weapons that weren't degraded, that takes half a day to complete.

Though I see things that I like in additions to the game, I can only see the main results. Paying customers are degraded, everyone gets new additions, such as bosses. All founders get something for Halloween, paying and non paying each get 31 chosen to receive something. It looks quite obvious to me I am in the wrong category to pay for everyone else to get perks, while my accounts are degraded?

== soon to be one of many whinning to make my free-bee as good as suckers that pay for this.

[mm1984]

First off, I am not a tester, nor is it a "privilege" that I ever want to have. Testers, thank you for what you do for the game. With that out of the way, I agree Poison Elf. I'm not one to complain, unless it is warranted. This update seemed way too rushed, IMHO. While there are features that I like, mainly the point reallocation, degrading the weapons that were already hard enough to level, making them now virtually useless (if they could even be called useful in the first place), is not a way to make me want to keep paying to be a pirate errand boy for a bunch of lazy NPCs and button mash just so I can level up weapons to a point where I have nothing useful left to do with them, except for protecting fellow pirates.
Also this whole thing about fixing "bugs" that actually helped us level and didn't hurt anyone else (like the KH fence and to an extent the flagship glitch for grenades), yet not fixing the host of SVS problems that they said they would, does not help POTCO development's waning credibility in my opinion.
I'm sorry but if this trend of updates degrading the gameplay continues, I have better things to spend my $10 per month on. It's becoming an interactive chat room, and frankly mates, I have better things to do with my free time. It's not that I won't miss the friends I've made either.
Ok, my rant is done. This has been an editorial by the manager and sole employee of this station. Thank you for your attention. Now back your regularly scheduled program.

[Mr.LoveLocket]

I hate this update, lag, glitches.
OMG i hate this

[Alien Emperor]

I'm not horribly dipleased with the voodoo regenerate thing, since the only thing I used gun for was hex eater.

The dagger... I'll still use it because its anti- doll now, but not quite so frequently.

All in all, it's ok, but a little rushed. I hate that you have to get the 4th level of weapons first, tho. I also haven't noticed any bugs... yet.

[wmah]

This is horrible just walking around towns on dead servers the player keeps stalling. Buildings take forever to appear causing me to walk into them. While launching my own ship twice I was under the floor Game crashed twice leaving me with a black screen of evil and on the one computer I had to reboot along with the flashing buildings cause the game graphics options don't help anything other than the appearance of the game but hurt the overhaul play of the game making it unappealing.

[The Skirata Clan]

the excitement we all felt is dying really fast!

[Chris]

No kidding! Lol i went from Yay Yay Hooray! To BOO Boo This Sucks! In less than an hour!

[Christopher Trueshot]

Some of the updates are cool like the bosses and graphics and skill point relocation but they fixed some bugs that werent causing a big problem compared to ones like the svs glitches and stuff. And the hex eater shot update was terrible. i give the update a generous 7 out of 10

[mucki]

Overall, I really like this update.

I love the skill point re-allocation, the ship boarding options, the better display of Captain's Orders, the bosses, and having new quests.

Initially, I was dismayed at the changes to Hex Eater & dagger skills. However, after playing the updated versions and comparing them to my previous style of play, I've realized that I enjoy the new version more than the old. I'd gotten bored with gun & dagger, and hadn't really realized it; the update has made these weapons a bit challenging again, and I really appreciate that.

I don't love some of the new bugs that came along for the ride, such as sprinting Navy guys & skeletons - it's tough to kill 5 Grenadiers when they won't stop running! Unlike some of you, I haven't had any show-stopping issues or crashes with this release, and I'm optimistic that minor updates along the way will smooth things out quickly...

I give this update 8 out of 10, but I'm still hoping to see a new quest chapter before my game subscription lapses...

[Deadpool]

I've seen a friend with the level five Cutlass and it just looks like the Iron Cutlass. I like Fine Cutlass better. Soon as I get unlimited again I can either ignore the quest or do it and claim my reward.

[Evie]

I totally agree about the new cutlass. I likes the fine cutlass better too.

After playing this pretty much all day yesterday, there are things I like and things I don't. For one, I like the weapons quests. So far, they have actually been fun, but what happens when they're over? So my level 40 has new weapons... to do what with? Once she has them (which won't take very long since I got 2 of them yesterday) she goes back to leveling nades, then goes back in the box.

I'll admit to being in the minority and actually liking the fact that the kingshead and catacomb barrier glitches are gone. And I used them! But I found yesterday that I had to be more creative in how and where I threw my nades so that I could defeat an enemy without dying. Much more fun than hiding behind a wall collecting free rep. For the first time in 3 pirates, I actually liked this weapon!

I love the new bosses. Even the easy ones will give my baby pirates something to do. I love being able to retrain my weapons. My first pirate made more than a few mistakes, so I retrained all of hers.

Overall, I liked the changes. The bugs are annoying, but they usually fix them quickly. I just wish they would give my 40 more to do. Something that would last longer. Like a story quest...

[ukebec]

Well, here's my take after playing for about 4 hours last night.

Bugs I found:

While we can no longer hide in the rocks in the Catacombs on Padres, the grenadiers can. The first grenadier you encounter coming into the Catacombs from Lava Gorge melts into the near wall. The corner back wall where you could glitch through to the unfinished path...another grenadier glitches in there.

Navy seargent at the top of the tree-lined path on Kings glitches into the stone wall.

The floating seargent on Padres, just past the wooden bridge by the shipwright, is still floating and will now chase you nearly to the far arch into the village; the one that leads to Romany Bev's path.

Behemoth was firing double firebrand broadsides. Not just a graphics glitch...both rounds were damaging my war frigate. First round bloomed up around my ship from nowhere. The second round fired from the Behemoth as usual. The 2 rounds occurred with only 1 second's pause between rounds.

Navy on Kingshead giving their best 50-yard-dash tries.

More grenadiers in the game overall (not a glitch, but makes some areas feel very crowded).

Hex shot still did stunning damage to a witchdoctor in Tortuga graveyard (stopping him from using his doll), but one in Murky Hollow on Port Royal wasn't fazed a bit by it.

Undead bandits and giant scorps in Wild Woods on Tortuga are competing in world's fastest athelete competitions. An undead gravedigger in Kings Run on Port Royal is apparently training for that same event.

When running, you will know you've been hit by an enemy because you will immediately show down to a walk, even before a hit point is registered, and before a loss of health or dizziness shows.

Many structures, on multiple servers and multiple islands appear to be lit by spastic strobe lights as you're running toward them.

Enemy NPC ships needed for quests are not being "spotlighted" and do not always appear as a gold star on the compass.

At least one EItC Ogre seems to have now gained "come about" ability. Was making the tightest, quickest turns I've ever seen an NPC ship execute.

As mentioned before, F12 doesn't remove chat. Very annoying.

When changing servers, or tp'ing, chat disappears. A bother when you're in a conversation and have to keep opening the chat back up.

You cannot type the name of the Boss enemy brigand Bonerattler (in the Catacombs on Padres) into the chat box. This seems arbitrarily weird. He's a legit NPC, so why his name should trigger the filter is beyond me.



Now...to not just complain, there are some things I like:

Skill reassignment. Yay! I played this game solo for so long, with no guild affiliation, and not aware that POF existed, that I made some atrocious skill point choices. It's nice to be able to correct those mistakes.

All enemies that "sprout" from the ground now seem to give off a noxious green/yellow glow before they begin to appear, so you don't run right over the top of them as they spawn.

Boss enemies are challenging. Neban the Silent is a booger! He's a very formidable opponent.

I'm still questing for the new weapons, so I don't have an opinion yet on them one way or the other.

I do like the new game interfaces. And I also like the new weapons sighting changes. Nice to know right from the start if an enemy is out of range or not.



So, there are my observations.

[DvLzArchAngL]

Undead bandits and giant scorps in Wild Woods on Tortuga are competing in world's fastest athelete competitions. An undead gravedigger in Kings Run on Port Royal is apparently training for that same event.

I almost spit out my coffee reading that. lol

Took me a minute to take down that 90mph scorp.

How about the mini enemies too? Seems like some spawn as little bitty buggers.
Prolly just graphics since the tags are small on them too...