Release Notes - December 10, 2009

[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.

[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.