Niels Terkildsen

Ah. I was afraid it was I who had done something wrong. I'll await your re-upload eagerly.

When I use your resources.assets as per your instructions, the game tells me that it's corrupted and that I should verify integrity.

I think it's a lovely map, and I would love to have it in-game. My only issue is the amount of clutter in some areas (e.g. Lesser Antilles), so I'm thinking that the in-game map could do without the port names since they are already there through the UI. Then all the islands could be named instead (St. Thomas and St. John aren't named in the map currently for example).

Jodgi, get some trader to back you or go out hunting for them? OP: Nice clickbait, love it. More OW fortune transportation, please!

I think it's a good idea. Now that we have land in battles, this would make sense (and should be possible). It would have to be balanced though. I don't remember how long you can stay in the instance after the battle is over, but depending on how long it is, it could allow the players in the instance to cover some distance from the starting point (slowed down only if they have to sail back and assign prize-crews etc.). This would also make it a little bit harder for revenge fleets to position their tagging ring.

I'm just going to give you my thoughts on this as well. I'll keep it to the question of after-battle options since my opinions on the ROE are expressed elsewhere. I think revenge fleets are a big problem. I remember how this worked some while ago when Danish waters were attacked by gankers; we would scramble a group to counter the attackers, and I recall feeling very silly, sitting spread outside an instanced battle, waiting for the participants to pop out. I'm generally in favour of as realistic a game as possible, within the restrictions we have with OW vs. instanced battles. The solution to the issue of after-battle options is very difficult. I'll say that I favour the ability to exit to a friendly port over the current system, and let me tell you why: Not only does that solve the revenge fleet issue (which hopefully everyone can see is utterly unrealistic and detrimental), but it also makes life easier for players with time constraints (as well as more casual players); you may have to sail quite far if you want to be certain to find some decent PvP, and if you do engage the enemy somewhere far from your home port, you may only have time for that one battle, or two before you need to set sail homewards, which also takes time. With the current system, the enemy can deny you an exit indefinitely, forcing you into battle after battle. Now, I think it's desirable that you have to sail home after such a sortie to hostile waters, but the issue of time compression means that in the time it takes to fight the initial battle, you could've actually in OW time have fought the battle and sailed home. This is why I think, from my point of view which favours a close-to-realism-approach, exiting to a friendly port after battle is acceptable. PS. It is not in the question of these mechanics that we should solve the issue of unreasonable ganking. I'm of the opinion that ganking will always be part of a realistic PvP game, but the game mechanics should balance the scales carefully between wolf-pack groups and home water patrols. But, as I said, this is not where we solve it - we must solve that before rather than after battle closure: The balance issue must be handled with carefully tested and well thought out ROE that first and foremost make sense, but also facilitates enjoyable gameplay. (For example, I find the signalling perk very unrealistic and undesirable out of principle, but understand how it could make for a decent gameplay compromise. See here).

Trying to commandeer all my customers with a fancy moving picture. I dare say you aim to put me out of a job!

"Haiene" sounds quite interesting. It's easy to find old Norwegian books in antiquarians, but Scandinavian inter-literacy is in decline, so it probably can't be found in any kind of bookstore in Denmark. Ordering online is the way. I suppose, we'll see, I have plenty of books I want to read - I acquired some of Sigrid Undset's lately ("Olav Audunssøn" and "Kristin Lavransdatter") so that's probably my next Norwegian read. Being a bit of a silly, romantic idealist myself, I quite enjoyed "Markens Grøde" (but I also enjoyed "Pan" and "Sult"). If you like or kind of enjoy these early 20th century eccentrics, I'd recommend Johannes V. Jensen; either his most successful novel (said to be the best/most important Danish novel of the 20th century) "Kongens Fald" or if you're up for a challenge, his series called "Den Lange Rejse" (most importantly the chronologically second book "Bræen" that was written first). I've found that the books you were forced to read in school, and at the time probably found terribly boring, later on in life may come to be seen in another light and be appreciated.

Nice! Where in Norway does your dialect come from? The last Norwegian book I read was Markens Grøde, and there's a bunch of dialectal words in there - such as "dokker" that is pretty exotic for a Dane.

A Swede should never trust the history books in school... Just saying. --- Eg håper dokker får ein kjempefin dag! (I hope my attempt at Nynorsk is understandable, wouldn't want to cheat with Bokmål ;-)).

You seem to ignore that both getting a hold of and outfitting a ship will be faster and cheaper: You can either capture a ship or buy one (at 1/5 the price that you have to invest now), and you don't have to worry about crafting/buying upgrades anymore. So, unless you head out to sea without any money or any other ship in reserve, replacing a lost ship will, all things considered, be both less time consuming and less costly. How will ship cost be too high? If you can get a 1-durability ship at 1/5 of the current price of a 5-durability ship, and you don't have to get upgrades for it, will it not be cheaper than now?

Why would players be more cautious? We won't lose upgrades with this new system (which was the main reason that 1 durability ships weren't sailed before), so we won't have to be cautious for them, and ships will be easily obtainable by capture (additionally a 1-durability ship should be cheaper than the full 5-durability package), so ships in themselves won't be hard to come by. Capturing a ship from an enemy will now give you a perfectly use-able ship (maybe with some unique feature?) in contrast to the current system where captures (other than 1st rates) are broken up or sold for scraps -> PvP more meaningful.

It's going to be interesting to try this fresh approach; will ships feel more unique? Will the game be less gear-dependant (i.e. skill>gear)? What will happen when captured ships are on equal footing with crafted ships? Can't wait to see how it turns out. That's me being optimistic. Now this concerns me: Hopefully it doesn't mean that the 1 durability system will be implemented shoddily only to show us that you were right all along, that it doesn't work. This method seems familiar to me somehow. I'm sure it's just imprecise English and that I'm reading too much into it... As I said in one of the threads about this, 1 durability can't be tested in isolation: Crafting, upgrades, etc. need to be tweaked at the same time - and it seems like this is what's going to happen. Hopefully.

It only denies a "kill" if no significant damage has been dealt, at least that's how I understood it, but you get the ship nonetheless. You misunderstand my proposal: The winner doesn't get the regular upgrades no matter what (though the loser gets to keep them if he surrenders), and he's only denied the permanent (and semi-permanent) upgrades if he chooses to sink the enemy ship (or it is destroyed in another way). Again, you still get the ship if the enemy surrenders, and honestly, it would only be more realistic if we saw less sinking ships. Lose everything? Fair enough, I can go with that as well, but my proposal was simply a more lenient route where you at least would have the possibility of keeping some of your upgrades (those that are not tied to the ship itself). In some ways I agree that there should be more options to choose from as a victor, though I think the more severe options such as the slaughtering of the whole crew should be reserved to pirates if included at all. I wouldn't mind being able to "inspect" a trader's cargo, and letting him go if he told the truth about it being empty, for example. On the other hand, this would not be very suitable for the time period. If you captured a vessel owned by an enemy nation, you would probably be court martialed for letting it go.

I'm not sure it would be user friendly if half (or more) of the player base mistakes s for f... I look forward to see what the developers come up with in terms of the UI - hopefully it will be both functional and immersive!

It seems to me like people aren't afraid of losing a ship's durability as much as losing their precious upgrades. A solution could be (if we imagine that we have the 1-durability system) that permanent upgrades are much easier and cheaper to get a hold of, while regular upgrades are kept upon surrendering. See my earlier post: So, basically we could have three types of upgrades: - Permanent upgrades: Non-human tweaks that are firmly attached to the ship, such as copper plating, extra planking, reinforced mast, etc., and that are rather cheap and easy to craft, but are lost with the ship (and kept on the captured ship). - Regular upgrades: Crew/officer (human) based tweaks like marines, powder monkeys, carpenter teams, charismatic botswain, etc., that are kept upon surrendering (in the same manner as crew and officer lives). - Semi-permanent upgrades: Non-human tweaks that are loosely attached to the ship, such as Pellew's sight, extra pump, boarding ladders, steel toolbox, etc., that are affordable, and that are put in the regular upgrade slots (and thus can be equipped/unequipped), but that are lost with the ship (and kept on the captured ship). Yes, you will still lose quite a few upgrades upon losing your ship, but not necessarily (if you surrender) all of your upgrades, and in this case, the more valuable upgrades are kept. There is still a chance, however, that people will lose their most precious upgrades, that would never otherwise be lost with the current system, and this will, in my opinion, help combat the inevitable inflation that occurs when long-time players hoard the upgrades that cannot be lost (that is, if using multi-durability ships). Players will have to risk the regular upgrades if they want the advantage, but can in most cases prevent their loss by surrendering in time. In conclusion, with the current system all upgrades are lost with the last durability - the solution above will give players the opportunity to keep their regular upgrades upon surrender, thus hopefully making the 1-durability solution more acceptable.

To add to what Fargo said above, you can't test the 1 durability option in isolation, testing it in a way where only a couple of ships are limited to 1 durability while all other ships stay the same is nonsense: it has to be all or nothing here. And, contrary to your argument, I see plenty of 1st rates even though they only have one durability (due to the simple fact that you need to compete with the enemy over how many resources you're willing to risk). In terms of the ship cost itself, if prices are adjusted accordingly, losses will be the same whether you lose 1 durability of your 5 durability ship or you lose your 1-durability ship - the only change will be the loss of upgrades. Personally, I think this is where the real issue is: the upgrade system needs to be looked at. My suggestion, which I seem to recall having seen/put forth before, is that permanent upgrades stay on the captured ship (this can be done due to the 1-durability system, since upgrades won't be duplicated then), and that regular upgrades are tied to the same mechanic as the officer life and crew; that is the surrendering mechanic - meaning that when you surrender, not only do you save your officer's and crew's life, you also get to keep you regular upgrades. (In conjunction with this, upgrades may need to be redefined more sharply than now, so those upgrades that involve human beings, for example powder monkeys, marines, etc., are regular upgrades while non-human, ship-attached upgrades are permanent - or perhaps a third category could be introduced, that are lost in the same way as permanent ones, but can be taken on and off at will).

Honestly, you could replace "3 duras" with "1 dura" in these sentences, and for me at least, that would make just as much (if not more) sense.

Seeing the recent suggestions, I thought this deserves to be revived...

You want to run this paper in particular? I mean, I spent a lot of time on this, I'm not sure I want to hand it over. But if you're serious about it, maybe we can work together. Of course, it's very important to me that it's done correctly. My main concerns would be that you don't speak Danish (?) and as such would not be able to spice it up with that, and also, I've yet to see anyone that I recall making use of the correct versions of S for this type of period script: Are you familiar with that old system? Then there's the general knowledge of the history and period in the Danish West Indies... Alternatively, you could make another newspaper in a similar fashion, but as I said, this whole business requires some experience with picture editing; but if you're familiar with gimp, that might work as well.

For inspiration etc. here's a Danish repository with thousands of different historical newspapers (mostly Danish): http://www2.statsbiblioteket.dk/mediestream/avis In my newspaper pages, I use the 18th century font posted by WinterPatriot above. I posted some more information about my newspaper creation in particular here.

Sure, it would be great to have more people make "newspapers"! I use Photoshop 7.0, a template blank page with the header and such (basically stripped down and shortened version of this real issue), and I use this font. In the beginning I used small snippets of the historical newspaper for adverts etc., but then I found this page where there's an endless supply - plenty of inspiration for any aspiring publisher. The time consuming part is the actual writing, and then the aligning of the text - and when you're not used to having two types of S, used in different circumstances, checking for errors. It makes it a lot easier if you have some experience with Photoshop too. I sent out a request for stories etc. on the Dano-Norwegian forum (which seems to be down now) a while ago, and I did get one request, about a convoy service, that I didn't fulfil (sorry!) since I lacked the time and wasn't active. Generally I'm more likely to make new issues when I'm active in the game, and that's also the reason it's been very quiet lately: I'm taking a break, most likely 'til the release, but I intend to continue making these whenever I'm in the mood and have something useful/fun to tell. If you want to see more issues, the best approach would be to send me stories that would be suitable for the paper - preferably in short article form, but I can also rewrite from general information to make it more immersive. You can also check the database I linked above for fun little adverts etc. that I could include - or even better, if you want to include a small notice about stuff you're either selling or want to buy in-game, etc.

Captain Johann Procopius Christoffersen, having received his Letter of Marque from the Governor-General of the Danish West Indies, has now set sail towards hostile waters in his 20-gun sloop-of-war, Kaiserin Zita.

Still fourth rate port battles, means that third rates continue to be of very little use: Makes me sad. Then again, I probably won't participate much in port battles before they're improved beyond the floating-tower-shooting anyway.

Just like the Ingermanland, which is among the ships that I'd consider too old compared to the other ships we have in the game so far.