Release Notes - January 30, 2009
 

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!

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?

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).

Known Issues January 30th 2009
 

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.

Massive bug found today!!!!!
 

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

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. =)

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

For some reason since the release of the new Port Royal my dagger no longer moves. You can hear the sounds it makes and it does do damage but my character just stands there with dagger in hand. Weird! I turned in bug report the first night out and changed graphics to DX9 like they said in their report back to me. I just turned in another one in regards to the dagger problem. And omg on svs was horrible last night. Don't know if it has anything to do with the release of the new Port Royal or just the glitchers in svs but it has gotten worse. If this has been addressed I do apologize but I have been away for five days in a wretched ice storm.

Kani of Spartan Ellite
http://www.piratesonlineforums.com/f...ine=1232734754

That bug has been alive and well on test for quite some time Kani. Shame it had to hit open before it was adressed, let alone fixed. Keep reporting, perhaps they will listen.

Simply pitiful... they always add way too much on at once, one reason thy should go week by week updates. Who cares if they're big or not, at least they can fix bugs before they release, and I also noticed this dagger glitch back when the new bosses showed up. But it was only the enemies that were messed up in their movements, not my own character.

I wouldnt quite call this pitiful I would say more on the lines of "them rusing to get their own money" ;)

"Just sit around and do as little as possible" I believe that was the motto they said when I paid them a visit last time.

Thanks ED, I was using small font so the "V" looked like an "U" lol.


Has anyone noticed that after this new upgrade, the game takes longer to launch and also lots of disconnects, and the chat window all you see is "garr, yarrr, arrr".
I know why, but it's annoying.

It seems to take longer to launch at first, but then seems to be much faster with all the other processes. Have not had any disconnect issues, on open or test. I like the new chat somewhat, id rather be able to type what I want, and it censor what it thinks it should from those it thinks it should, than to make me try three times to type it. Downside is the numbers issues, of course numbers were still hard even before, and I dont believe they are screened for open chatters.

Other than the limit of characters, I liked this type of chat over on the Toontown game. And they fixed the character limit on POTCO. I think most the chat changes are definately positive ones. Although can be annoying, when your used to just not seeing stuff at all, and now your seeing "garr, yarrr, arrrr" etc as you mentioned.

Yes, I've noticed an increase in the number and frequency of game crashes since the new port royal was released. I've chalked it up to me doing weird testing...

ah I see but one question, could they read my pirate name and or guild name when typed before the update? My Pirate name is Darius or I go by D, both of which is now red and italic along with my guild's name. Seems it would make it very difficult for youngsters to ask for help from a particular person in and out of guild. It seems to me that if Disney approved a pirates/guild name it should be able to be typed and read by all. Incidentally "rumrunners" is italic but words such as "dumb" and "stupid" aren't.

Here is how I believe it works, as its a combination of TT chat now.

If you have/had "Open Chat", then you should see everything it allows, even the italicized words not found in Big D's dictionary. (this is comparable to True Friends in ToonTown)

If you have/had "Plus" chat (previously requiring the [+] be turned on), then you can see all the chat EXCEPT for the italicized words not in Big D's dictionary, these show up as "arrrr!" etc. (this is comparable to Plus chat in ToonTown)

I believe I know some reasons why this may be happening, they may have made Port Royal out of something new, but, they original Port Royal may still be there. Sounds like something pirates would miss and leave out thinking they got rid of it. Such data being hidden could add up multiple frequency's and also cause the game to crash at times.

The difference is, now they hear "blah blah blah arrrr blah blah" instead of nothing at all. I test several accounts over and under their age limit; when my pirates can't hear each other (on the same computer, no less) then it is a problem (By the way, it's Rumrunner's.)

The italics filter in that regard, is about 50 million times better than the old plus chat filter.

I've been wondering about the chat filter thing for a while now...before the update I could always say things that were probably not 'legal', such as city names and the like. But now I can't even say a fellow guildie's name. I have to phonetically spell it out (which takes forever since most of the phonetics are 'illegal' too!). We've resorted to using initials or something similar. I'm more than the so-called age limit so I know that shouldn't be the issue. :sigh: Going to go on live chat if I get time tomorrow and see what their excuse is for it.

Please note carefully: people that can hear the words that are italicized now, could hear them before. The people that CAN'T hear the italicized words, previously heard NOTHING AT ALL. Your entire line of chat was censored, with the plus chat system.

Maybe 100 million times better, not just 50 million times better.

Ah ha left out the apostrophe hehe .
I understand the filter and the fact that it IS somewhat better than before ... when the entire line was censored. I just know from talking/chatting with the +chat kids that they find it frustrating to chat to get help. And it is frustrating for me to try to understand what type of help they need. I just think it could be a very simple program tweak to have the pirate names/guilds and islands able to be typed so everyone could read them. Remember that some of these kids aren't good spellers or typers to begin with. I've even had problems typing something simple as "I need to kill 5 Navy Soldiers" (and of course rumrunners - LOL) the word "kill" seems to be the problem word ... so I've gotten use to saying Keel - LOL - also you can't type De Porc - LOL you have to type it as De Pork.

True - it still has major issues. But I maintain that simply having people hear "arrr/yarrr/arrgh" is light years better than nothing. Previously, they could only assume they were being ignored, with no indication to either side that messages were not getting through.