Killick

Just found out about Sea Legends and I'm super excited! To me, this sounds like exactly the game I always hoped NA would become. Can't wait to see the first screens or video's. Good luck developers!

It seems like there is a solid basis of people who would like to have this – minor – modification of the camera positioning so that ships can be controlled from deck both in battle instance and OW. Would it be possible for @admin to briefly comment on this? Thanks in advance!

I'm not sure if I can add anything useful to this discussion, but perhaps it's interesting to hear the opinion of someone from a different category. I do not belong to the group of players who has dropped this game and neither to the group of players who is still playing it. I belong to the vast group of people who has never bought the game and never played it. I only know it from YouTube movies and forum discussions like this one. In short, I'm one of the many customers that GL never had. I have been following the development of NA for years and I have been hoping for it to become the game that I always imagined: a beautiful and immersive simulator of the age-of-sail era that would allow me to feel the thrill of seeing a single sail at the horizon after a long time of sailing and then chasing it in the hope of forcing an encounter – or being chased and trying to outrun the other. Basically what I want is an age-of-sail version of Silent Hunter: single player, realistic ship handling, challenging weather conditions, one giant map, no instances, time compression and – very importantly – first person view from deck. I have voiced these thoughts several times in the past on the forum. But with every decision from the devs I have seen in the past years, my hopes of that game ever emerging out of NA have diminished. The chance that I will ever buy the game now is very small. Yet, I occasionally check the forums to see if there are some people that are of the same opinion as me. I am glad to see in this topic that there are.

I am very glad to read this. In fact, the inability to control the ship from the deck is one of the things that is currently keeping me from buying this beautiful game. I look at all the YouTube videos and I just get tired of all the jumping in and out of the ship. Watching the ships from above makes them look like small digital toy boats, which in my opinion is a shame because they are so carefully and beautifully modeled in great detail from nearby. Perhaps I'm just getting old, I don't know. Anyhow, reading this thread gives me the impression that I'm not the only one who would find this important. Some people even reported that the current camera system makes them feel nauseous, which I could imagine. Would it be possible to give a tiny bit more info on the plans for the 'future single player game' mentioned above? Of course, I understand no promises can be made. But any info would be greatly appreciated.

Yeah, I saw that, thanks. But isn't the guy in the movie just using freecam to float across the decks and along the rigging? Or is your motion actually limited to the decks here? Anyhow, the point is of course that the ship should be controllable from this viewpoint. Is there any progress on getting that implemented?

Why are the devs not responding to this request? It would be so simple to implement and there is clearly a high demand for it. Rather than continuing to add more content to the game, they should spend a little time on these immersive issues. Personally, I haven't bought this game yet and I do not plan to do so until it seems like I can enjoy it from a first-person perspective on deck (and not in helicopter view or at best ten feet above deck). Every time I see the YouTube movies, I am disappointed of the viewpoints.

I'm so glad someone is bringing this up. The view from the deck is hugely more immersive than all those helicopter views I see on the YouTube movies all the time. I really don't understand why deck view isn't just the default. You get a much better sense of scale and perspective, and the ships are made with such care for detail. But with those ultrafast drone camera's flying circles around the ship, even the Victory looks like a toy boat. And sure, you get a little less strategic overview when looking from deck, but isn't that just realism? I have the feeling that this game has enormous potential to re-enact the age-of-sail feeling, but that it is being wasted by making it just another top-view RTS game. Please devs, think about ways to implement deck view or, even better, walking over the decks. And I'm not talking about creating avatars, just camera positioning and movement.

I visited the Bataviawerf recently, and they told me construction of the Zeven Provinciën has stopped indefinitely. They need all the funding they get to keep the Batavia afloat. The Zeven Provinciën will most likely never be completed, but its frame will be kept to show visitors how ships were built.

Well, I've said it before but I'm happy to repeat it here again: for those who really like realism and immersion (like myself) it would be fantastic to make the camera moveable across the deck. As if you are walking the ship. Yes, it would take you a few seconds to be able to look forward when you happen to be standing aft, but so it was in real life. In addition I vote for limiting external view to non-combat situations only (on dedicated realism servers). Please note that all this does NOT require avatars to be made. I don't need to see myself nor any other captain, I'm just talking about being able to move the camera at walking speed. This should be relatively easy to implement and adds a world of immersion. I want to have the feeling that I am ON a ship, rather than that I AM a ship.

I agree with the notion that creating avatars is a waste of resources, and that adding avatar combat would destroy the game. The only thing that I would really, really like - I've said this before elsewhere - is the possibility to walk around my ship in first person. Perhaps not inside the ship, but at least on the decks. This does NOT require any avatar to be made, because I won't be seeing myself. But I think it would add a lot to the immersion at hardly any additional costs in terms of resources (seeing that the ships are already modeled beautifully). EDIT: Let me clarify this a little more. If one can only move the ship, it is as if the player 'is' the ship, rather than its captain. By allowing the possibility to move independently on the ship it will feel much more like you are just a person riding on top of that giant ship. I believe it will make the game feel much grander.

This is just brilliant: you guys have a lot of great ideas. I hope ships will also be known by their name, not just their owner's name, so that even when it changes owner it can still be feared for its qualities. (Edit: still haven't figures out how to properly quote on this forum, but I meant this post in reply to the unique stats post of admin.)

But the ability to close the gun ports is currently not implemented, right? So now you would be forced to reduce sail, preventing you from outrunning the enemy and escaping battle, whereas in real life they could just have closed the ports.

Sorry, but these are ridiculous reasons for not making the ships walkable. Of course not every closet needs to be walkable and I also don't foresee having to use the in-game privy much, but at least the upper decks can be made walkable, right? Just the big flat parts: not every corner inch has to be defined. How hard can it be? I also really don't see how performance will be affected by players moving their camera along the deck of their ship. Whether or not there will be an actual captain-avatar moving along with the camera is up for debate, but personally I wouldn't even care about that. Just give me the impression that I can walk my ship by letting me move my first person camera across the decks.

Do I understand correctly that the game will not in any way tell me where I am? So I have to completely figure it out based on visual sightings and dead reckoning: that is really great! Will the ships experience leeway? In that case you could end up quite off from your destination after crossing a large body of water. I have to get used a bit to the fact that there will be instanced battles, but I suppose it has to be like that in this type of multiplayer game. Hopefully the battle map will be a good representation of the location on the real map (no random islands like in POTBS). The transition should be as smooth as possible. Also, the relative positioning of the ships at the beginning of a battle should be based on the real-map situation.

My apologies, it wasn't intended as advertising at all. Just a suggestion for the UI. I won't be offended if the devs choose to remove my post.