Milestone 6 Feature Discussion: Ship Room Revamp

[Aether]

This post describes a pending feature to be included in Milestone 6: Blood in the Water. Please use this thread to share your thoughts and ask any questions you might have.

Important: While your feedback related to this feature is important, there is a very real chance that the information shared below will be changed or moved to a future milestone as a result of testing, or to make room for priority features. It is crucial that you take that into account before becoming too attached to a specific idea presented here.

Ship Room Revamps
Sweeping changes for Pirates has begun thanks to a new vision and direction as it relates to the look and feel of our game, which greatly impacts our ship-rooms. Most of the art for these rooms, while being spectacular, need extra elements to make them more stimulating. We’ve been placing forts built from shipwrecks, ramshackle outposts, and other piratey landmarks to show the character of each individual location.

[Alexande]

Forts built from ship wrecks . LAME. please reconsider.

Ramshackle outposts. LAME please reconsider

Piratey Landmarks . Which piratey landmarks do you mean? ones based on things that existed on the planet Earth or ones that exist in disneyland amusement park rides?

Please move toward an actual Earth based game. You've got a crap load of fake ghost stuff as it is. People want more realism. Realism and immersion go hand in hand. For example, Master and Commander is a good movie even without talking skeletons.

PS. the game looks better right now. Keep up the good work.

[ArmEagle]

I really have no clue what you meant to say there.
It's called 'ship-rooms', but then you talk about all kinds of other stuff.

[LoJo028]

Sounds kinda cool to me. The Tortuga waterfront looks cool and its made of busted up ships.

I have to be honest here though, what do you mean by "ship room", I'm not totally clear on what is and what isnt a "ship room".

[Aether]

Originally Posted by Alexande

Please move toward an actual Earth based game. You've got a crap load of fake ghost stuff as it is. People want more realism. Realism and immersion go hand in hand. For example, Master and Commander is a good movie even without talking skeletons.

I can understand your point of view, but we've made a conscious decision to inject some more piratical elements into the look and feel of our game. While some of those visual elements may appear more fantastic, that is most certainly by design.

Pirates of the Burning Sea is a romanticized version of the 1720's Caribbean. In our world, fun will always trump historical accuracy. Players can anticipate seeing many more changes to that effect in the coming milestones.

Best,
Aether

[Alexande]

Originally Posted by Aether

In our world, fun will always trump historical accuracy. Players can anticipate seeing many more changes to that effect in the coming milestones.

Best,
Aether

FAKE does not equal FUN. No one said make this a boring game, No one has proved a game thats based on real earth is boring. Quite the opposite! the Total War series is accurate and insanely fun. Knot tying simulations are boring, games based on real world concepts are not boring. If they were, you would not be able to explain the insanely popular WWII genre games. Your argument that fake and Disney equals fun while history does not is based on a wildly inaccurate assumption. In fact, to go further, some might conclude from talk at e3 and comic con that Disney romanticized versions of pirates (and comic genre heroes etc.) are worn out.Been there done that. This is why movies like bat man returns grow darker and more gritty. Mystical is thrown out for technical. There are lots of examples that seem to insist that prancy yaar yarr is getting old.

Fun and Historically accurate are NOT mutually exclusive.

[Aether]

Originally Posted by ArmEagle

I really have no clue what you meant to say there.
It's called 'ship-rooms', but then you talk about all kinds of other stuff.

A "Ship Room" is our internal label for any space in our game world, outside of the Open Sea, where ship combat takes place.

Hope that clears up the concept, we should definitely think of a different term for this.

Best,
Aether

[Aether]

Originally Posted by Alexande

FAKE does not equal FUN. No one said make this a boring game, No one has proved a game thats based on real earth is boring. Knot tying simulations are boring, games based on real world concepts are not boring. If they were, you would not be able to explain the insanely popular WWII genre games. Your argument that fake and disney equals fun while history does not is based on a wildly inaccurate assumption.

Thanks for the feedback, your concerns are duly noted.

Best,
Aether

[LoJo028]

Originally Posted by Aether

A "Ship Room" is our internal label for any space in our game world, outside of the Open Sea, where ship combat takes place.

Hope that clears up the concept, we should definitely think of a different term for this.

Best,
Aether

Ohhhhh, in that case hell yes. I love that kind of stuff, I've even stopped to pass by things before a second time just to get a good look at a sunken ship or something. It would be neat to see more moving things in the map with you as well, for example a dolphin or shark, or some stranded people waving thier arms on the beach. I think that would be cool.

(yes I know there are some sharks and stuff in OS, but I've never noticed any in ship combat areas)

[Aameron]

In that case I would say I am all for sprucing up the battle instances. The art in the instances is actually already very good - I think in my case the issue is that I would like to see more opportunities to make decisions about where to go and how to approach the battle. For example, more land masses, more nooks and crannies. Instances where when you enter your group has a few strategies available to it - head out to open sea to duke it out in the open, or pull the enemy into an area that has more obstructions, twists and turns.

For skirmishes you are going to need to develop a set of archtypes for instances anyway.