Release Notes - December 10, 2009

[Cpt. Charlotte Doyle]

Originally Posted by MacIronhawk

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...

- 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.

[wmah]

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.

[JakeTheSnake]

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.

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.

[ninety3rd]

Originally Posted by MacIronhawk View Post
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...

Originally Posted by Cpt. Charlotte Doyle

- 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.

Gotta agree with this all around.

[Sven Niscadae]

Originally Posted by JakeTheSnake

• 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

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.

[gingeeann]

Originally Posted by Sven Niscadae

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.

[Sarah]

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.

[Basil Dreadflint]

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.

[Sven Niscadae]

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.

[Charles Darkwolf]

Originally Posted by Basil Dreadflint

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!

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!

[Kid Heartbreaker]

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.

[ex8404]

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.

[Kaionai]

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 )

[The Skirata Clan]

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.

[Dockwrecker The Privateer]

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