I went through and copied a few of the posts from the open forums, that were mixed amongst those chatting about what the update did and didnt have..

Copied what I thought were somewhat relevant/useful for test forum here.

Comments from open forum
 

Release Notes - August 20, 2009

• New Game Features:
  • Notoriety Level Cap and Weapon Reputation Levels have been increased
  • Notoriety Level Cap increased to 50
  • Weapon Reputation Level increased to 30
  • Pirates can level their character up faster, as you get more experience when defeating enemies
• New cave environments in the following areas:
  • Murky Hollow, Port Royal
  • Royal Caverns, Port Royal
  • Thieve's Den, Tortuga
  • Lava Gorge, Padres del Fuego
  • Beckett's Quary, Padres del Fuego
  • The Catacombs, Padres del Fuego
  • Cursed Caverns, Isla Tormenta
• New cave environments feature new higher level enemies
  
• New Casa Muertos Quest (Quest available from 8/21 . 8/23)
  
• Game Improvements:
  • Ship Speed Improvements
  • You no longer lose all forward momentum when making small changes to your direction
  • A new speed meter now displays how fast your ship is moving.
  • Ships now move faster
  UI Improvements
  • The map in the compass now maintains consistent orientation with the full-screen minimap. The arrow in the center turns as the avatar turns.

Beckett's Quarry




The Catacombs





Lava Gorge




Murky Hollow









Royal Caverns





Thieves Den









Tormenta Cave







Ship Speed



ETA: Another change that's not listed is that screenshots now have their own subfolder.

Found another addition that they didn't include in the release notes - when you run up to (what I think of as) a portal - say from the PR north beach into Royal Caverns, Royal Caverns to Governors Garden, etc. Pull a weapon before you reach the portal. As you run through the portal it puts your weapon away like always, but when you come through to the new environment the game automatically re-pulls the weapon you had out when running through! :peopirate07bouncele I've wanted that since the very first day I started playing this game!

The levels increases are a dream come true.

The new environments are unbelievable - Lava Gorge is now HUGE. Get ready to get lost in some formerly well-known environments. The attention they've paid to detail in the surroundings is excellent.

The increased ship speed makes island hopping a breeze - it's a snap to get to Tormenta now. I'm not sure how this will affect sea battles yet - haven't tried that.

There are now 2 Dregs on the beach at each of the entrances to the Tormenta caves. You can run past them, or choose to fight them before heading in.

I'm having a very difficult time adjusting to the new compass - not a plus in my view, but it's SO overshadowed by the positive changes they've made I'm not going to say too much.

Disney devs - thank you!!!! :mickeypiratezd4:

E.T.A.: Have "lost internet connection" on test twice tonight. Now, at 7:03 CDT, I'm getting the "site closed for maintenance" message and can't log back in.

I believe Mac users are having issues connecting to their servers.

Doesnt look like on test that any credit was given for anything done after 40

It simply will not let me log in. Keeps saying:

Could connect to gameserver.test.piratesonline.com.7676.
Try again?

I'm on a Mac and I've tried restarting, re-downloading, EVERYTHING I can think of but still no luck.

Anyone else having this problem? Anyone know how to fix it?

Only thing i can say is the COMPASS SUCKS. I want it to move with the direction my screen happens to be facing like before. Anyone remember they tried this before on the ship where it stayed the same direction your ship happen to be going? That was bad enough but not to have it fixed in one direction and you have to tell your brain which direction you are going.

All in all, love this update. Every single part of it including the compass. I may be the only one there but D will change it again for the sixth time I'm sure. Shouldn't really be a big deal. People will get used to it. Right now it makes sense with the caves. The compass stays stationary (with North at the top) so it's perfectly aligned with the F8 maps. A lot easier to follow the map if the compass isn't spinning around, losing your bearings. I'm not having any issues with it at the moment.

They've also seemed to have gotten rid of the 100 rep limit per weapon as well. I was using dagger exclusively on General Bloodless and received 168 rep after 45% crew bonus. Not really sure if there's no limit now or if it's just a higher limit.

IF you are a member of the Helm, here on POF, you can follow these links to the test server download. Zep has the links posted for both PC and Mac users.

http://www.piratesonlineforums.com/f...04&postcount=1


Also, I did get to spend a little time on test last night. I only went to Murky Hollow, but I can tell you the following things that I noted.

The graphics are GREAT!
The caves are confusing. Real caves, tunnels, rocks, roots, twists and turns, AND DEAD ENDS!!! I love them.
Disney has definitely changed the way you earn rep. You can earn a lot more rep per enemy now.
Example:
Lars is a level 19, almost 20. He still has double rep from the Father's Day quest. The first enemy I saw was a GREY level 6 Skeleton, Pirate I think, and I took him out using about 4 swings of the cutlass. This would normally earn me about 3 rep points. Yesterday, I got 6, and then it doubled.
Later, I found General Bloodless?, (The one who hangs out in Murky Hollow.) and he was level 13. He showed as a RED enemy. I treated him as if he were Timothy Dartan on the back beach, using each of my 4 weapons, and not using combo strokes. I took about 1/4 of his health with each weapon, Cutlass, Pistol, Doll and Dagger. I waited for him to respawn, and did this a total of 4 times. I was getting rep in the range of 650 to 760 from each kill. (Now remember, I was getting double rep.) But, I think I was getting quite a bit more rep than I would have from before the update.

Another item I noticed, and tried a few times, was the aggression level. It seems to have changed again.
As I ran through the cave, if I ran past a Grey enemy, I could go stand right next to it, and it would not attack me unless I attacked first. BUT, if the enemy was Green, Yellow or Red, my nearness would set them off and they would attack me without me attacking first. (Almost got beat a couple times testing this theory.) Then, I tried to figure out how far I needed to run to get them to disengage. They seem to disengage at a reasonable distance. In other words, an enemy wouldn't latch on and chase me through the entir ecave, but would give up after a short, but hardy, chase.

OVERALL, I can't wait to get this on open! I can see me letting my two younger pirates go into stasis, and bringing out the big guys again! I just hope Disney doesn't try to rush this too fast and not give the testers time to debug it first. And, I hope the testers actually TEST it, and not just try to be the first one to reach level 50.

Awesome posting Aliese.. I was gonna post pictures but you thoroughly beat me to it.

I did finally get logged into Test and decided to map out a couple of the caves before I had to get some sleep.

I can't guarantee that I got all dig sites, but tried my best.

Murky Hollow Layout:




Royal Caverns Layout:




There was one odd circle that kept moving as I pivoted in one place.













Other things.. I actually like the compass. (just opinion)

And yes you can run through a portal with your weapon out and, even tho it puts it away automatically, it will be brought back out once you reach the other side.

I noticed that as well. Also if you're notoriety level is EXTREMELY lower than the enemies, they won't attack you unless you attack them. Lil Test Sven (Noto 14) was tromping about almost all of the caves, even Tormenta, without getting attacked. But if I got near something that was within my capacity to fight (and win) such as in Thieves Den, they would attack me if I got too close. I suppose that way, lost lower levels won't become fodder if they wander off into the wrong area.

We're the only ones probably. ;)

My views:

• Yes, aggression has changed. It seems to me that if they are lower level than you they won't attack. If they are higher, watch out. I got POUNDED last night.
  
• Caves are awesome as are the graphics. But I view it as eye candy. I diidn't want awesome caves, I wanted new content.
  
• I was able to glitch into the lava in Lava Gorge. I attacked an enemy form a "safe" location. He ran right up to me and destroyed me. They are not stopped by glitchers (good thing). However, you can now navigate those caverns by glitching and avoinding enemies alltogether (bad thing).
  
• The quest I had hoped was a new story quest. And it may be, what with mention of *things*. HOWEVER, it seems clear that even the lowest level players will be able to work on this new quest, since it begins at the uber easy level. It seems to be a parallel quest, not a follow-on story chapter. I was disappointed by that, but we'll see. I'm only on the second feller. He's hungry.
• I tried sailing. I like the new speed indicator and enjoy the fact that you can see how much your turn affects your forward velocity. Now, if we want to talk about reality (we don't?), I would suggest that the speeds of each ship need to be adjusted. I have a bit of sailing experience, from single-handing small sloops up to sailing as part of a crew on tall ships. Ergo, trust me on this. The light sloop should not be anywhere near as fast as it is. When it comes to sailing speed, thee longer the ship, the faster it is ABLE to be (called hull speed). The smaller, the slower it will be. Now, yes, dispacement and sail area and point of sail all matter (what did he say?), but there is no reason why a light sloop, the smallest boat in the game, should travel at 20 knots! Even in the Pirates movies, the Black Pearl (a Ship proper, or what the game would call a galleon) was a fast ship--nigh uncatchable. Okay. Now back to fun.

No one with a Mac is able to connect to their servers. We log in fine, but get a message, "Could not connect to pirateserver.test.piratesonline.com:7667." I sent a bug report with log files to Disney and this was my answer....

"Our servers require TCP ports 80 (HTTP), 443 (HTTPS), and 7667 (game) to be open for sending and receiving packets. We apologize for any inconvenience and hope this helps to alleviate the issue you are having."

...Less than helpful, I have no idea what this means, AND I've had no trouble getting in game before this past update. SO FRUSTRATINGGGGG...I am planning on giving them a call tomorrow. Will let you know what they say.