No Orcs, Elves, Dwarfes, or Trolls

[Cecil Selous]

1 hour ago, Wraith said:

Yeah.. those Russians, Prussians, and Polish sure held a lot of ports and influence in the Caribbean. 🙄

All of this hand wringing over historical settings and simulation elements along with half-baked Alliance systems does nothing to solve the largest problem the game will ever face:  Population. 

The game was at its best with 2000+ players.  It's empty and meaningless with fewer than 500.  When you institute mechanics that increase the unfun factor you're killing the game, period.  @Old Crusty is espousing bad mechanics that have tried and failed, pure and simple. We are proposing mechanics that are tried and true in many other MMO contexts, and which are plain and simply rational.

Ffs, once again. I actually didn't support the suggestion of the opening post, I just reacted to Christendoms suggestion of a solely clan based game. Nation vs Nation is one of the main underlying elements in this game. The historic setting is the age of sail placed in the Caribbean with all major nations that were present back then. Yes, there were some nations added that had no role in this part of the world or had nothing that you could call a real navy. Why they were added? I don't know. But is the fact that we have Prussia, Russia and Poland now an excuse to cut everything historic down to the basic elements or what? Then we can really stop this hand wringing over historical settings and go full arcade and fantasy then! Invent some really fantasy cannons and ships also, we have Prussia in game after all. Ships that can sail 20 knots or more. It isn't historical but why should we care, we have Prussia after all.

At least some of those nations are a more realistic and possible fantasy than some other mechanics we already have. There has to be a balance and I think we all agree to that but removing the importance and distinction of nations ist destroying a key element. 

I also think this game would be a blast and even better then the good old times if we had 2000+ players now. You could probably walk over requins from Cuba to the Bahamas but over all I think the game got better. If we just had the population to really make it shine. Not all decision in the past were good and the speed of adding new meaningful content is slow. But the few people on the project can only work so fast. There are so many factors that you can't exactly name the ones which really caused the loss of so many players (maybe the time that passed is the biggest reason).

Edited August 20, 2018 by Cecil Selous

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

4 hours ago, Oberon74 said:

You know, the pair of you (Cetric & Crusty) seem to look down your political noses...

The faction interested in national politics and diplomacy isn't just two persons mentioned, it is a large group in this game.

[vazco]

1 hour ago, Christendom said:

I think he is implying that Prussia, which I don't think had much of a navy, now owns most of N Haiti.  Aka Historical accuracy has been thrown out the window.  

I mean that we're sailing ships to capture cities, while irl eg. Santo Domingo was captured by Haitian slaves without any naval encounters. Similarly wars of Bolivar were not about naval encounters, but rather army operations and politics. 

Navy worked completely different from what is depicted in game. 

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

How pitiful, always to use the same old argument "we had diplomacy once and it resulted in two big blocks, red and blue, and it was boring...".

As if diplomacy could be inserted only in one way and no other. *sigh*

It's a must have in a historical inspired game, or else we could drive around in Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny avatars pew-pewing each other, for your pointless pleasure. What some of the other faction probably do in another MMO, but this game is not like any other and we have to make sure it stands out of the crowd. The more it does, the longer it will stay on the scene and bind a loyal clientele.

Some of the most legendary game titles have clever politics features incorporated (Civilization, Total War series, Europa Universalis, Age of X...) - and that is mostly the ones dealing with history. And when I look at my ships, at the map, at the cannon types and what else, I get the strange feeling I am in such a game dealing with history. What we love it for.

I accept clans as navy units etc and necessary for game mechanics, especially port battles, but they are supposed to be submitted under the rule of their respective nation, and what the nation gives out as order of the day. There are already enough proposals in the forum how to do this painlessly and as democratic as possible, including by myself. Nobody is supposed to accept the rule of another player over him, but by the entity of all clans, the (national) faction. In a way you are already doing this in your clans and I hear no complaining about that either.

[Cecil Selous]

8 minutes ago, Wraith said:

I'd say this is debatable at best, as it has always been faction vs. faction where those factions constitute one or more nations that are allied. But not one of us has actually asked for us to remove the national backdrop to the game. Instead, it should remain as a tapestry upon which the real RvR is played out in clan-based fashion.  We now have the ability for clans to move from nation to nation, much as you would with a letter of marque, and we can prosecute RvR on behalf of a nation as we see fit with the mechanics that I proposed.

The nations and their flags can remain as color to the game world, but they are overly restrictive in an MMO context with regards to fluidity of the diplomacy and warfare.

What's the point then in having them at all?

[Rabman]

12 minutes ago, Cecil Selous said:

What's the point then in having them at all?

Backdrop and flavor

[vazco]

1 hour ago, Banished Privateer said:

We don't have natives, slaves, revolutions, civil wars or independence wars. Nonetheless, French side used about 70 ships during the conflict and probably more have been used by English and Spanish sides. Game focus is on naval battles, so I see no reasons to add land troop battles unless we get ships transporting soldiers on land to capture ports (suggested before).

If you count in US ships and smugglers involved, it goes to very large numbers. Still, no real naval encounters. Navies were used in a different way than we do. We're fighting in our small depiction of Waterworld. It's all in large extend a fantasy.

Edited August 20, 2018 by vazco

[VirtuallyIdiotic]

2 hours ago, Banished Privateer said:

Only not historical presence in the Caribbean is Russian, Polish one can be arguable (depends on point of view) and the German presence around was real. Only troublesome thing is the name of the country, as Prussia. Formed after Brandenburg, but Geman cities and states were really divided and not only Brandenburg had a colony here. Holy Roman Empire (HRE) would fit much better the historical background, but I guess Prussia is more popular and beloved in many games.

Mostly merchants, but it's up to players to write their own history.

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_German_colonies

Russia had only very few merchants or travellers in the Caribbean like here:

https://books.google.pl/books?id=kUPBWo-n4loC&pg=PA181&lpg=PA181&dq=Russian+merchant+in+the+Caribbean&source=bl&ots=zaD-pOdC7c&sig=XNK4NqDFX8v64p7jvJeuqqHQJuk&hl=pl&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiIyfOwsvzcAhVB-qQKHRvfBHEQ6AEwDHoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=Russian merchant in the Caribbean&f=false

Russia is the biggest odd ball of the three hardcores. They were Pacific not Caribbean. Poland's colonies were trivial and were nothing but an extension of Courland. So not as bad of a stretch but a stretch since no exact period was given. Only a timeframe. Prussia is odd only because Prussia destroyed/discontinued its navy relying on funding a large land force understanding it could never compete with France, Espana, and Great Britain on the seas. Brandenburg was the german state that had a naval force but that was destroyed soon after they merged with Prussia. Prussia however as you state is one of the recognizable names of the german states. The pirates should be made what the hardcore nations are. 

[Malachi]

Sorry to say, but including Prussia, Russia and Poland before Portugal was a f****** joke. Prussia especially....pft.

[Malachi]

Pity we dont have a fixed date ingame, this would make arguing wether the treaty was still in effect or not much more fun 😛 

By the way, I did know about polish soldiers fighting during the American revolution but not about polish privateers. Sounds interesting, any info about this on the net?

[Cecil Selous]

23 minutes ago, Malachi said:

Sorry to say, but including Prussia, Russia and Poland before Portugal was a f****** joke. Prussia especially....pft.

Da spricht der Bayer in dir   But I kinda have to agree.

[Malachi]

Hehe...erwischt 😛

[Teutonic]

Clans over Nations.

while we are at it, we have too many Nations, strip some off the pedestal.

[Christendom]

8 hours ago, Banished Privateer said:

Only not historical presence in the Caribbean is Russian, Polish one can be arguable (depends on point of view) and the German presence around was real. Only troublesome thing is the name of the country, as Prussia. Formed after Brandenburg, but Geman cities and states were really divided and not only Brandenburg had a colony here. Holy Roman Empire (HRE) would fit much better the historical background, but I guess Prussia is more popular and beloved in many games.

Mostly merchants, but it's up to players to write their own history.

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_German_colonies

Russia had only very few merchants or travellers in the Caribbean like here:

https://books.google.pl/books?id=kUPBWo-n4loC&pg=PA181&lpg=PA181&dq=Russian+merchant+in+the+Caribbean&source=bl&ots=zaD-pOdC7c&sig=XNK4NqDFX8v64p7jvJeuqqHQJuk&hl=pl&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiIyfOwsvzcAhVB-qQKHRvfBHEQ6AEwDHoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=Russian merchant in the Caribbean&f=false

I agree that it's up to the players to write the history, hence my support for a clan based game.  Nations shouldn't really matter.

[Slim McSauce]

We're limited with nations first, there's only so much cohesion that you can have with a hundreds of players at once. Not to say we shouldn't have nations play a part, clans should be the ones waging wars. I think NA should adopt the alliance system of E.V.E, clans of the same nation can form an alliance and call it whatever, it acts as it's own entity to declare war on other alliances, or ally with other alliances within the same nation even. Clan leaders decide actions as one with other clan leaders.

Here's the kicker, you get large alliances who pretty much act the same a nation's government and you aren't forcing anything on anyone because clans can choose not to join these alliances, or create their own for other purposes.

I would make it so a clan can even declare war on clans/alliances within their own nations like a pirate clan who is in that nation but a pirate like a little checkbox you can click when creating the clan. The balancer would be that only clans can do this, not alliances and that would finally make pirates pirates, and clans would function how they should've from the getgo.

Edited August 21, 2018 by Slim McSauce

[Fenris]

14 hours ago, Christendom said:

most of those fantasy MMOs that you reference have more than 600 people on a time.  Runescape which is more than a decade old has more active members than we do.  Years ago I played an MMO called Star Wars Galaxies, it has since closed down.  There is a emulated version of it that plays the original classic mode called SWGEMU that gets 2000+ on a day and it's fan run.  My point being, those systems worked.  This one does not.  A 15 year old game that is run by fans on a server somewhere has more active players than we do.  With over 120k copies of this game sold and 2 years later we only have 500-600 on stable at a time means that this game just does somethings or many things wrong.  Chief among them is this 11 nation bullshit.  500 players split into 11 nations (or factions) is just far too much.  We're spread too thin.  With the inclusion of clan owned ports and smaller BR port battles the devs already transitioned this game into a clan based one.  They need to take it 1 step further and make it fully clan based with nations as simply a backdrop or a race.  

If you want to be a Pirate or a Brit national that sails around the Caribbean and scratch that history itch you should be able to do so.  If you want to go do RVR and take ports you should be able to do that also.  Conquest or RVR at a high level simply does not work with the current nation model.  Most of these games you reference have different levels of content.  PVE / Casual and Hardcore.  Think of nations as casual and the clan/war company RVR has hardcore.  There needs to be room for both.

Ditch the 11 nations, make only 5 or 6.  Have them be most PVE casual player catch-alls.  Create a new "RVR" faction the players can join and create clans that fight each other for the 200 or so ports out there.  Player X is a brit player who gets a letter of marque to join the "RVR" faction and creates a company/clan that fights.  Seems simple IMO.

First of all economy ,trading, conquest as such need a meaningful purpose. AND Diplomacy.

As long as we don`t have it in game, it doesn`t reall matter how many nations we have, or is this pew pew game only clan- or nation based. Game is BORING, that is the main issue, not the amount of nations. Players want to do more in this game, not only join  a clan and shoot shit.

They could switch RIGHT NOW from nations to clan only wars, it wouldn`t change nothing.WHY? Because everything stays the same.And again you will have 500 online...

 

[Fenris]

15 hours ago, Banished Privateer said:

Pirate nation, uncapturable capitals and safe zones are the biggest fantasy things in this game. Economy is fake, driven by fake port consumption, always same ports consuming same things, fake items that do not influence the game economy but are used only for money printing, prices are never adjusting or these resources, just either max price or 1 gold if there is too much. Rare resources magically spawned in ports instead of buildings, some stuff in game is taxed, other is tax free (repairing ship, extraction of resources from buildings). NPC ships/fleets are sailing back and forth doing nothing. In normal games with economy, NPC ships carry goods from one port to another, buy and sell them to make profit

How many times do we have to mention this untill something changes?

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

12 hours ago, Wraith said:

We now have the ability for clans to move from nation to nation,

That is actually part of the problem, because clans beaming themselves into other nations can torpedo what is believed there to be the national stance (as it is now), thus sabotaging relations to other nations (and clans who are serious about their position in the game world, if you like that better). It is a chaos factor at the present, without disciplinating measures in sight.

[Hethwill]

Before clans mechanics ( port conquest, taxes, friendly clans to enter PBs, etc ) were even a thing, players could beam themselves into other nations along with their friends.

The "clan" existed already even if there wasn't a registered name at all. A group of 2 players is a team.

A Reputation system was suggested at the OW inception. It would affect all. Including YOU as a navy officer if you'd fail your duties, such as failing to be brave. An example ( taken from historical accounts and changed to fit ) of raising reputation would be...

- " (...) On the 20th of August, the (insert your ship name here ) of 38 guns, Captain Cetric de Cornusiac, being on a cruize in the bay, fell in with two enemy frigates, which when perceiveing 'being under chace', separated; Captain Cetric pursued the largest (...)"

 

Actually sir, I think you are onto to something and I like it. But it must work both ways - for traitors of the nation and for cowards as well.

 

[Malachi]

3 hours ago, Banished Privateer said:

*snip*

Much appreciated

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

13 hours ago, Cecil Selous said:

Yes, there were some nations added that had no role in this part of the world or had nothing that you could call a real navy. Why they were added?

For marketing reasons, obviously. Like you would have in a Civilization a nation called 'Americans' you could start with 4000 BC, while everyone knows the United States are an entity appearing as late as 1776. Because the US are a big market for selling video games.

So it's about immersion and identification opportunities. NA wants to sell in Eastern Europe as well as everywhere else, so they offer Russia and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as platform for customers there to identify with. And Prussia was maybe intended for German players.

It's still not entirely fantasy as those countries existed then and could have sent an expedition to conquer some islands (what Brandenburg actually did, quite unsuccessfully). To use this argument against a major role of nations at all is just ridiculous.

[Hethwill]

Quote

On the 9th of February, a court-martial assembled on board the (nation) Flagship (name) at Port (of your choice), to try Captain (name) of the (ship name of your choice), on charges exhibited against him, for not having paid proper attention to the homeward-bound Jamaica convoy committed to his care, by carrying so much sail as to prevent their keeping up with him, by which means several of them were captured. The court continued to sit (Sundays excepted) till the 1st of March; when it appeared on the face of the evidence that the charges were proved in part; Captain (name) was therefore sentenced to be reprimanded, and to remain on half pay during life.

No traitors nor cowards. Keep the Nation strong, united and free of "personal interests (clans)" by appropriate ruling.

[Tiedemann]

18 hours ago, Banished Privateer said:

Pirate nation, uncapturable capitals and safe zones are the biggest fantasy things in this game. Economy is fake, driven by fake port consumption, always same ports consuming same things, fake items that do not influence the game economy but are used only for money printing, prices are never adjusting or these resources, just either max price or 1 gold if there is too much. Rare resources magically spawned in ports instead of buildings, some stuff in game is taxed, other is tax free (repairing ship, extraction of resources from buildings). NPC ships/fleets are sailing back and forth doing nothing. In normal games with economy, NPC ships carry goods from one port to another, buy and sell them to make profit. 

On top of that, we don't have any real admiralty. How do you want to make nations work without admiralty, admirals etc. making the major decisions for the nation? Admiralty could always imprison, demote, punish rogue players, remove permissions etc. Clan system partially implemented into the game solved many alt-exploit issues. Normally alts/spies have same national rights like every player and nothing can be done about that.

So yea, before talking about any economy or national unity, maybe fix everything that kills it.

I might be bius because I agree, but is this not spot on!? 

[Raf Van Boom]

@Cetric de Cornusiac

Anyone can lead a nation and unite the clans, if they have some charisma and diplomatic skills to make that happen. There is no lack of diplomacy in the game, get some charisma and people to follow you and you may get a shot at it. There was a time when the francophones and anglophones in the French nation worked together but we lost the people who made that happen, Kamaa, Lone Wolf, you want to step in and fill their shoes? Go right for it but judging by your entitled posts you would definitely not get the job done.

[Zorion]

Yes please! We do need some order (diplomacy) against the present or inteded anarchy Mad Max style and i fully support the idea of the logistics!

To me, its quite confusing to claim this is a realistic game for hardcore players when we simplify and make it so easy in the matter of logistics. Leaving ther port without caring or having to consider food, water amunitions, salaries or the plunder sharing to the crew (pirats) seems all but hardcore. I used play a online game where i would sail from Europe to India and Japan and back. the journey took 3 to 6 hours and i had to consider how much food, water, amunition and even the cost of the payment to the crew.