Release Notes - December 10, 2009
 

Release Notes - December 10, 2009
New Game Features and Improvements:

• Ships and Sailing have undergone several improvements.
• You may see a boost in performance while at sea and slight changes to ship design and sail animations, depending on your graphics settings.
• Jolly Roger is now invading Tortuga
• A new lighting and fog system gives more atmosphere to the environments based on the time of day.

• Pirates are no longer physically blocked by other Pirates. This means you can walk through another Pirate rather than having to walk around them. This makes it easier to walk through tight, crowded spaces.

Fixes and Additional Improvements:

• Fixed a bug that caused the Crew Display to disappear at random times.
• Pirates now get a small Reputation Bonus for reviving a fellow Pirate.
• The Viper's Nest Dagger Skill breaks multiple attunements.
• Your ship will no longer take damage from enemies sailing beyond visual range.
• Less valuable cargo will be dumped to make room for more valuable chests earned from sinking ships.
• Ship sails and masts now take significant damage from Chain Shot
• Ship armor is now more effective across all ships
• Boosted the defensive capabilities of enemy ships by 25%
• The screen no longer flashes red when you get hit by friendly fire.
• Fixed several graphic issues with a few cut scenes.
• Shortened Captain Barbossa's cut scene.

Known Issues - December 10, 2009

• Privateering Ships may not have their sails and nametags colored correctly.
• Galleon and Frigate sails do not raise when playing on Low Graphic Settings.
• There may be some missing cannonball sound effects during combat.

Truthfully, I think this is a bad change.

Me either, I cant even think how bad the lag will be in a group of people...
Especially at the GM events, Everyone will be up with the GM, It would just be lagging like crazy...

Oh yeah... and the AFK pushing.

I agree Basil, it's very wierd to run through everyone and you lose some of the realism that way. Not to mention AFK pushing P)

I am sure they did it to cut down on lag when there are large groups around like invasions and GM events. So I understand but prefer it the other way.

Captain Whale

Argh! Why the go-through update? Pirates is slowly losing realism!

Did they fix this before bringing this update out? Last time I tested this feature out a couple of days ago, it wasn't counting correctly.

IMO, if they didn't adjust this so masts cannot be taken down by JUST hitting the sails, it's a bad move. Certainly takes away the need for too much skill in mast peeling. I honestly didn't see a problem with Chainshot before. I don't think it needed adjusting.

At the moment, I don't see how it will help reduce lag. The pirate models still have to be rendered. If anything, this may INCREASE lag due to the models intersecting and rendering complexities when they do. It should be common sense to Disney to keep all models separated from each other. They're using some sort of collision detection algorithm to help players not walk through walls (though it fails sometimes) and this routine should be constantly checking for these scenarios, whether it be a building or another player. I would think that they've actually added code to the routine and slightly increase the processing time for this task.

If Disney wants to combat performance issues, they need to seriously look into fixing the memory leak that their Panda3D games have had since they engineered it. There's really no reason why this game should be taking 50-70% of a computer's CPU when the same computer can run a much more graphically advanced MMO while taking only 20-30%. I don't really have too much hope for that solution though. ToonTown Online has been plagued by the same memory leak since its inception. If you contact Disney, support is likely to say to just restart the game or close any other open programs. Not a good solution, imo.

Oh no! Now their will be "naughty" pirates taking naughty screen shots(there is that phrased better?) -_-

Hope they are talking Enemy ships, who needs more damage to ours when a single Round Shot takes out half of your ship sail speed!

I totally agree I can imagine the email the mouse is going to get now. I have seen the positions some pirates have managed in the pre-invasion waits. Having gone afk during the wait for Jolly Roger and returning to find a person in my avatar.:psmiley27:

Fortunately, they nixed that change in this update. Sailing speed is no longer affected by enemy fire.

So far, I have to say I'm not a big fan of the way the ships look now,(especially mine). :sadmh9: I was a big fan of the way they looked before, and all I really wanted was to be able to change the color of my ships sails and hull.

I keep walking through JR during invasions when I try to attune him. Then he has to play catch-up. But I just wait and try again...that is if he hasn't knocked me out with his voodoo. But for me my Dolly is the best weapon against him, so he & I play relay til I actually get him attuned. It's all part of a pirate's day...lol

combatlizzy, kinda said what I have noticed. Walking through others makes it harder to attune them with the doll. I rather have the ability to bump them on the run attuning them. Running through them is just not right. This really needs to be reverted back.

Same here,I just don't like that one.It seems every time D makes six or seven good chagnes they always make a disageable one as well.

Ever hear the phrase "One step forward is two steps back"? Well i think that applies to this update. :laughks2: Seriously, though they need to take away that feature.

Aye James,that and the large islands look a tad odd....and I think enemy ships do not have drivers anymore.

Also I'm not sure if this is a new bug but I went to Basic again today becaiuse me week's time was up and the clothes reset,but none of the original hats (or Mortimer's shirt for that matter) came back.(last time I downgraded clothes stayed the way they were)But good thing I have another code,so I can fix the clothes for now. :)

ok I dislike the walk-through it just doesn't seem right. I also am not liking the ships on SvS that arent flying colors-if your not watching compass your gonna get sunk by a ship that appears to not be in the game-I also have had issues with it letting me get to a cannon-and last , it's not really an issue but I hit ramming speed and speedo showed 21 knots LOL-
in short if you see these our other issues send Mickey a note saying so

:ship:im so dissatisfied with my ship and enemy ships the look so fake more so the sails i hope the big D isn't finished with the ships cause if so i refuse to sail ever again

sometimes running into (and being blocked by) an enemy's form is the only way some of us can manage to actually HIT an enemy during the invasions! this latest "walk through people' update is extremely annoying in my opinion... im thinking that if this turns out to be more a problem than lag solution, that other players that dislike this new aspect send feedback asking for personal space to be reinstated.

Here's my criticism:

1: Walkthrough Pirates: As everyone else has said, going through other pirates like some phantoms from the Graveyard? Yeah, I'm not liking this one. 0/5 stars for this update.

2: Redesigns For The Ships: I don't mind the new looks, but War Galleon sailors have to go up/down a flight of stairs just to get to a cannon, then go down/up the same flight of stairs to get away from that Corsair that's just about to bomb you to smitherines.
Redesigns For War Galleon: 4/5
Redesigns Overall: 6/5

3: Water Sounds While Swimming: The old sound was better, and more realistic. 2/5

4: Tortuga Invasions: Well, of COURSE this is gonna be awesome. 5/5

5: SPOILERThe Goliath: BEAUTIFUL LOOKING GOLIATH.[/Spoiler] Much faster, much more fun to fight, so for this, the 25% Hull Defense update is good.
Goliath: OVER 9000!!!!/5
Hull Defense ( Goliath Exception ): 5/5

6: 25% Hull Defense Update: Not the best update. It's a little unfair that NPC Ships get better defense on their ships, while we get more damage in return. 1/5.

7: The Pearl's Hull Defense: Most of you will enjoy this, most of you won't.
The Black Pearl's Hull Defense is that of a Lv45 Juggernaut you will be attacking as a Lv1 Pirate with a Lv1 cannon. You take VERY LITTLE damage, even from the FINAL fort, and the Goliath. I, for one, do NOT like this, because it makes no challenge. But at the Goliath Battle, I had been going Face-to-Face with the Goliath, and before it sunk, the last few shots it made did this much damage
( | | ).
Anyway, 0/5 ( this is sure to also be a bug ) to this update/bug.

8: X Marks The Spot, Literally: Now, the Dig Sites are marked with Xs, and have a color of sand that stands out. This makes no challenge to finding the Treasure Chests. However, if you are one to find them quickly, then sure, I don't mind. But, at least, I say Disney add an option to allow the X-Marks-The-Spot Xs to appear or not ( like whether you want the music/sound on or off ).
3/5

9: Ships sink head-first: Ships now sink going forward, unlike before, how it was the Rear went below the surface of the sea first.
3/5, not my most favorite update, but ok.

10: Graphics updated: Now, medium graphics players will see some of the things you would see with High graphics options ( well, that's me ).

If you do not wish to view The Goliath in it's UPDATED form, do not click this Attachment.

Just think of it: 300 people can stand IN a GM during an event! It will be like NOT crowded!

What in the world is up with this X marks the spot garbage? I just can't stand the way Disney is dumbing down this game! In my opinion, if you're not willing to take the extra time to find a dig spot, you shouldn't be playing this game. What a waste of an update over all, the only thing good I can see so far is the Tortuga invasion, and i haven't even witnessed that yet. Good Grief!!! :sadmh9:

P.S.

I really really hate these ships now. They look like a 6 year old designed them, of course I'm really starting to wonder if the programmers really are 6 years old! Maybe that's the reason we can't get the things we really want, the programmers are too busy with nap time. :sadmh9:

Is it me or do ships have no drivers anymore?

Honestly, they just need to add more animations for ships sinking.

And, there's a Panda3D memory leak, Sven? I never knew that, but that would explain why I can play other games for hours but after a while on pirates I have problems.

To the testers:


Did all the bugs you guys reported were fixed?

I agree with MacIronhawk, there SHOULD be more ship sinking animations ( LIKE THE ORIGINAL BACK-OF-THE-SHIP-SINKS-FIRST ANIMATION, plus some new ones ). All ships shouldn't sink exactly the same.

To The Skirata Clan:
Yes, the boots and other bugs were fixed. Gladly.

Was on test and was defeating Black Pearl.
Was not loosing health of ship but health on the side panel.
Then all of a sudden we came to the goliath and sank in a second.
What happened?

Hey everyone here! Go to the grog blog and leave comments about the memory leak so others can see and the GMs will have to fix it. HURRY! we can save the game!

I hate just about everything with what's going on at sea.

Waves are smaller. Ships boxier. Cannons make no sound when hitting other ships. There's no "feel" like there was before when getting hit.

And they said broadsides aim better, did they not? That's the biggest lie I've ever seen in an update. They aim worse! Missed three times in a row when I was dead on during a battle.

Just pathetic.

And islands only look better at sea as far as details. The textures have been taken away from the whole islands except for the new details like trees, etc...

And things aren't to scale, either. Dang, the people working on this game must like downgrading everything.(I'm off the soap box now)

P.S. I reported this on test but they didn't fix it. I reported that all the animations at sea were way too fast. Falling masts fall down too fast for gravity in our world...

i left a grog blog message, and a ingame feedback message saying how unsatified I am about the look of the ships now. It's to the point now that I don't feel like sailing so I don't have to look at my ships. If Disney doesn't see fit to make things right again, then maybe for their next grand update, Disney could have the shipwrights sell brown paper bags to put over are ships so we don't have to look at them. Of course they would call it ship customization!

- applause -

you have neatly summed up most of my irritations also. I wonder if its possible to take an update back? i'd almost enjoy that as much as new content. devs please take a look at this thread.

Ships look fine on a higher end computer but on my older laptop they look like (fill in the blank).

On female pirates, the bandana is broken to the user who is controlling the pirate but to everyone else it looks correct. Male pirates show them correctly regardless.

I still say its not right walking right through someone. I did see what some call a little perverted positioning, cause of this.

For those of you seeing ugly ships, are you on low settings or something? Because I gotta say, on high settings the ocean is a visual feast now. The islands look awesome - I can see trees and buildings and forts and stuff where they used to just be big plots of lands. And the ships look just as good as ever - I'm not seeing ships pop in size as they get closer. Some of the ships used to sometimes shrink or grow suddenly when you got closer to them and I'm not seeing that happen anymore, in fact I can barely tell when they're switching to more detailed ship models now unless I'm really looking for it (except the ghost ships with their wacky looking sails, that's an obvious switch). Those things plus the new lighting - being at sea looks fantastic. :pirate2:

Here are some other things I noticed while testing some of the new stuff:

• crows nests match the ships now (no more yellow and red crows nests on EITC ships)
• masts wobble a lot when they're hit (maybe I just didn't hit masts enough before but I never noticed them wobbling this much)
• It's way easier to disable a mast now because hitting the sails counts towards that
• I can see my body underwater in some places now (next to the dock on Tortuga is where I noticed this)
• I can't see anyone on any other ships anymore, not even other players. People on my own ship show up fine still. They're making the ocean feel so much lonelier...
• The new dig spot graphic looks okay in some places and just plain stupid in others. Why was this even necessary?
• It's really strange to log in and be standing inside someone else. I'm not so sure about the whole no-player-bumping thing and hope that D had a really good reason for it, but...
• You can still push players around, you just have to use enemies to do it. I found some AFK folks on Devil's Anvil and pulled a level 2 crab over to them. I was able to push them around with the crab just as if I were pushing them.
• SvS sails don't always show up properly colored - who's the bonehead that broke this one?

It looks like if you run on high graphics settings, this patch is a win but if you don't, things look worse now. The question I have, then, is whether there is some kind of performance boost that was gained for all the graphics that low settings traded in for? I didn't notice any on high, but I don't have a slow computer to test low settings with.

Gotta agree with this all around.
:sadmh9:

The masts never wobbled before, but some would say these wobble more than needed.

It's way TOO easy to disable a mast now. The sails don't even get torn anymore. There's no skill in mast peeling anymore. Pirates used to be proud to be able to knock the masts down by hitting them square on (close-quarters, from a distance, at full sail, etc) whether it be with regular cannon fire, thunderbolt, chain shot, or otherwise.

I was one of those pirates and now I am so disappointed.:sadmh9:

I was..um...am one of those pirates that can't fire a cannon to save my ship. I was peeling sails all over the place last night. Yeah, if I can do it now, it's really been made way too easy. I feel badly for those pirates that had skill in sail peeling.

My thoughts on the 12/10 update
 

In total, this update is terrible!

1) Even on high graphics, the ships look worse than ever.
2) Enemy ships don't leave the compass when sunk. This is confusing to say the least.
3) They still haven't stopped enemy ships from spawning right on top of you.
4) The new speed increase in my ship makes it so that you run right up against the enemy. It's like, the closer you get, the faster you go, and the closer you get!
5) The whole thing about peeling the masts stinks. I was peeling masts from Man-O-War from the very edge of shooting range with only iron shot. If you can strip 4 masts from an enemy ship when they aren't even in compass distance yet, that is wrong.
6) The ability to go through people is wrong also. I want my personal space back!
7) Personally, I think the new lighting stinks. It looks like you are under flourescent lights all the time. This is the Caribbean, it's supposed to be natural sunlight!
8) Shadows! There were times, especially on ship, when I had 2 or even 3 shadows going in different directions. Like there were multiple suns in the sky! When did the Caribbean move off planet to a place with multiple suns?
9) Although my crew display didn't disappear once, my friends/guild list went away every single time I transported. Go through a door, friends list off screen, launch a ship, friends list off screen, TP to someone, friends list gone.

What Disney referred to as improvments, seems to mean, cheaper to make work, and uses less server to function!


Here's the things I like about the update:

1) The dropping of cargo. I have always said that we needed the option to jettison unwanted cargo.
(Although it still isn't working quite right.) When my War Frigate first hit the limit of 16 cargo, we had 5 Royals, 2 Treasure and 9 cargo crates. As we conitnued to sail, Each time an enemy ship gave up a Royal, it got added and a cargo crate disappeared. Eventually we had 14 Royals and 2 Treasures. I kept going and we added the final 2 Royals. My ship board list showed 16 Royals. We landed, and my final display list showed the 16 Royals, but it also listed the 2 Treasues. My 16 capacity ship had 18 chests in it when we landed.
2) The fact that the sails on the Frigates don't interfere with the top cannons anymore! This is the best thing in the update in my opinion!
It has long been a peeve of mine that if you had people on the top cannons of the frigates, they couldn't see forward cause the sails were in their way. I love this change.


Ther were no Tortuga invasions, as a matter of fact, no invasions at all. So I can't give any opinion about that.

They did fix the fire effect when graphic options are set to DirectX9; however, the new graphical effects aren't working for DX9. Everything is all plain, especially at sea. The ocean is a generic textured matte of blue and the ships look like cardboard cutouts on it.

And loading time from the character selection screen seems to be longer on DX9. Some players have said load times even going through doors is a bit much as well.

I think I'll stay on OpenGL. Been there ever since the fire went black, but back then the graphics were a lot better in DX.

Thank you Basil for saying this! If I wasn't in such a fit of rage over this so called "update", I probably would have said a lot of the same things or at least said them in a better way. I'm a player who took pride in the ships he owns, and now I can't stand to look at them. I play on low graphics, but even when I switched over to the high graphics, my ships still looked horrible!

Even though I have a decent graphics card, I play on the low or medium settings so I don't have to worry about alot of lag.

thanks for the post, it's nice to know I'm not the only one that feels this way!

For sure you need graphics set to high for the best look. A few months back I changed from Open GL to DirectX 9 because of a POTC update. Yesterday was really bad graphics at sea and over 30 seconds on teleports and going thru doors.

Between last night and this morning I tweaked settings and have gone back to Open GL, Custom settings, all dots/boxes checked and Gama unchecked. All graphics are nice - the sea is indeed a visual feast. My TP time and time thru doors is now back to what it was before. The initial entry into the game after ocean selection still seems longer.

I also don't like the going thru bodies thing. If D insists on on keeping that, then at least make the Attune range a little more in our favor. I'm not asking for Witchdoctor range, just something more than arms length.

Basil,

I was going to respond to this but I really think that you said EVERYTHING I was thinking. These guys (Disney) are MASTERS of taking stuff away and making us think that they are adding it.

Remember the hurricanes? I swear they existed... Where's my old ship's Figurehead? No one is driving enemy boats anymore? Why? The old Beckett's Quarry was a great place for solo level grinding. Now? A limited sight-line hallway with enemies. The islands used to be filled with farm animals. It added character. Not too long ago, enemies looked like something from a few paces off. Now? A soldier-shaped blob of color. They actually lowered texture rates and told us it was an improvement. Just fix the memory leak!

And so on...

I don't mean to gripe. I am not ready to give it all up just yet. I am, however, very disappointed. There are some major things on the horizon I am sure. It's just that for $10 a month, I would like to SEE something.

YAY!!! AFTER A YEAR OR SO OF WAITING THEY FINALLY TOOK UP THE IDEA TO DUMP CARGO!! WOOHOO!!

( Credit should go to where the idea came from *cough* yours personally *cough* just search my name ) :laughks2::laughks2::laughks2::laughks2::laughks2: :laughks2:

Are you responsible for the boxed ships, the lower graphics, that memory leak, and everything else that is disappointing most of us?! You better not! Argh!!


All jokes aside good to know that D is listening... Maybe in a year or two we will have the 2nd Chapter.

This update seems to answer my poll about general graphics downgrading.Downgrading is far to real,I hate instability.

Sigh... I am one of those people having login issues. First time it was Pirates is not responding. Second time, your internet connection is broken. Third time was a charm, but we shall see if I stay in....



Edit:

I can now officially say, been there, hate that! The Galleon class change makes me sick! That was my favorite ship. You guys in guild know what I mean. It took me some 3 months to finally decide to get a War Frigate. Took me 3 minutes to decide I hated my War Galleon and sold it for a War Sloop. Way to go D, took one of the die hard Galleon sailors, and turned her full Frigate. :(
The lighting stinks. Full day in PDF looks bleached and it's really hard for me to read the blue guild chat and especially the white local. The transition was fine, but the day is way too glaring.
Still not a fan of walking though people. I hope D will see fit to give us personal space back, but this is D, when do they admit the futzed?
Sigh, what a downgrade!

PS, why does the water turn blue green when an invasion is coming. I mean, what an odd color!

Yeah...it won't let me on. At all. Lovely.

I guess they don't want me to see all the things I feedbacked about on Test appearing on Open unchanged. :(

Hmm... A Greyhound broadsides my War Galleon and it took away outer hull armor on BOTH sides of my ship. What's the deal there?

Oh hi there! Ships sure do like to come to shore now. You're safe if you don't bring down your sails or fire though.

is that a glitch or what Sven??????????

In the second pic, Sven, isn't the JR reflection in the water backwards or upside down, or something? Looking at the ships reflection, ,the JR sun should be in some other attitude.

What good did the testers do? I really don't think D listened to any of them. If they did we would still be waiting for this junk to be on open cause none of it is any good. I am honestly surprised I can actually log in and try to play.

On test I tried to log in and it would take forever if I could get on. And when I did I had such horrible lag. I reported the problem with the female bandanas not showing correctly on the individual users screen and to everyone else it looked right. And what happens it made it to open. I have also noticed already that abassa is very easy to get on to if you like going there. Does that mean there is that many that can't get on?

If I could talk to these guys(Disney) for just an hour, I'm sure I'd be able to tell them how disappointed we all are and what they need to do to fix it.

However, they only want to talk to the much younger generation, so that's impossible...

People... I am not surprised that this happened... again.
It happen before and it will happen again. The Testers are never taken seriously. Ever! I can read on all the stuff they report and then read what they fix. Then it goes to open and most of the reported stuff goes in unfixed. I guess that if I owned a High End computer I would have no problem. I haven't fully quit the game because I love this game. I complain because I love this game and want it to become what it could be. But Disney needs to get rid of the Tease Server (because that is what it is, sorry, but I think that the real purpose of it is so that players can tell others what is coming up and gets everyone sort of excited about the things to come) and have a real Test Server. Don't get me wrong I am glad that at least they are doing the very small effort at releasing this and doing all those GM events (which are a character meet and greet much like they do at parks or at resorts, which I worked at, when the parks close or when its early before opening or late after closing. They are keeping us entertained when nothing really goes on.

People on Private test server are few and many, as people on live server are thousands to millions. If people report bugs on live server a million times than the small percentage on Test server than im sure Disney and it's developement crew are sure to do something.

But that is why the have few... So that they can pay all of their attention to the reported bugs.

If that is the case then just eliminate the middle man and send whatever they have to open, let the thousands to millions report the stuff and eventually they will fix it.

The Test Server is to prevent that the thousands to millions have to report any problems.

I think us testers should have access to disneys in house test server so they know on the fly what works and what is december 10th but that knowing disney will never happen

There are way too many bugs making it even to the test server. They should be cleaning up 95% of the bugs in their in-house test department before even sending it to open test. Things like islands missing from the map, SvS sails not displaying properly, and fluctuations in hull armor should all be worked out and resolved before even going to open test. Open Test should be for making sure things work across a much larger audience, not using a much larger audience as their quality assurance department.
In my opinion, they're rushing things to test that aren't even ready for test. Of course, this is only my observations from the posts in the Helm and news forums since I don't have test access yet...
But it seems like some of the major changes that were introduced late in this test round (eliminating player bumping, hull armors, chain shot damage boost, etc.) were just sort of thrown in at the last minute. These are some significant changes and it seems like they should have come with the first release to test. Coming when they did makes it sort of seem like an afterthought.

de-provements
 

Walking through peeps ....ah... makes for some interesting screen shots. I guess the AFK pushing thread will die lol.

The wait for log in and TP is intolerable. When Jolly sent my Cougar to jail, I had to exit the program - she just never arrived and was stuck somewhere in inner or outter space.

I would rather lag than use the unanimated ships in low graphics.

And what happened to the hidden cave under the empty Kings????? That is one of my favorite things to do (jump to the top, fall down). Empty Kings is there but can't find the cave. Come on big D - PLLLEEEAAASSEE put the cave back!!!

Sorry kat But Disney finally caught up with the cave and likely empty kings that and the secret dock may be next

Something as simple as the coin flip animation. I reported the female avatar coin flip as being incorrect, as did MANY other people around - its the male animation and has a glitch.

I see it GOT THROUGH to the new LIVE updates! How hard was that to fix??? Geez Disney, do you even READ the bug reports???

ok - well there goes one of the things I thought was fun about the game. Was that hurting anyone??? What was the point of taking it out??? I wish someone would please explain that to me.