Special kind of Support needed...

[RooSalad]

TL;DR
I need emotional support. Long time gamer, but have always been extremely passionate about colonial era ships, free sailing, battle, etc. My brain will not let me set an expectation level for this game, for fear that it will not see the number of players I hope/wish it will (as it deserves, too!) - meanwhile my body is shaking with excitement to play as a solo (or small group) Pirate.

 

To put it in as few words as possible...
I just purchased this game. I've done extensive research on it, and it appears that the attention/interest this game gets is extremely low at times, and very high at other times (when some YouTubers covered the game).
This scares me.
I've seen more games than I can count on both hands make an appearance on the market, make me super excited, bring something refreshing to the table.... all only to have the burning light being muffled out in the darkness that is, in essence, bland/streamlined AAA titles from monopolistic companies (*cough EA*).

I just now ordered this game. I'm trying really really hard not to have expectation levels that are unfair, but at the same time- I just don't know if I can take seeing another glorious brilliant adventure game going unnoticed, having no playerbase, or simply being abandoned by it's original vision-seers.

Sail along side me, and reassure me it's all going to be okay.

Best Regards,
    Roo

[Arvenski]

Naval Action's in a pretty early stage of development, which is why it hasn't gotten a lot of attention. The game hasn't had a lot of "buzz" around it yet, as far as I know. Because it hasn't gotten a lot of attention, presumably not many people have heard of it, and therefore not many people have bought it. YouTubers like SideStrafe and RamJB and Jingles probably helped it, but they haven't put up any videos of it in quite a while, and on top of that, the game hasn't been publicly for sale for the past year or so, until just recently. However, the devs want to release the game on Steam Early Access soon^tm, and that should get it more attention and players. The more people who play it, the more talk there will be about the game and the more attention it will get, which should mean yet more folks hearing about it, getting interested, and buying the game.  

 

TL;DR: The game's a bit early in development to be getting a lot of attention, but that should change as the game gets closer to completion. I wouldn't worry yet.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Arvenski

[Arnaud Arpes]

I wouldn't worry about it. I played the game back when there would be only 40-50 people in the entire Open World online. Lately, that number has quadrupled since the purchases were opened up. You also have to remember that a lot of players are anxiously waiting the coming EA wipe, so that they can finally begin the final grind without worrying about wipes.

Even at 150-200 players online, I came across other players often. While the game map is large, you'll find that most players tend to sail along predictable routes, and frequent the same locales.

 

[RooSalad]

Thanks for the replies, fellas.
It's always been a dream to find a game exactly like the game this one promises to be.

I guess I'll have to just sit on my hands, enjoy what's given to me (hope it's $40 worth, though I'm sure it will be), and try not to take plans and goals for granted.

[Ned Loe]

We are Glad to have you here. You my friend picked the right place to start your journey back in time. Naval Action community is very big and has a serious amount of skilled players with many years of experience from previous Age of Sail Games. We have people who are experts in 3d modeling,  History, Shipbuilding and even classic music compositors..etc. Thanks to this great community, NA forum has one of the biggest amounts of old ship plans you will find on Internet. 

 

New website is coming soon with many updated things that will promote player interest in this game. New game trailer is WIP and Steam page is getting update too. Naval Action is still a very young game and needs more time to expand and develop with your support. 

[Nathaniel]

It's about 10.000 sold copies which is big. Imagine how many will return to EA once the last hard wipe has been accomplished.

 

I wouldn't say the game is in a very early stage either. It has already most of the features that were promised in the beginning. Of course there is always room to grow, but the core essentials are here. I would compare it less to an early alpha, more to EVE Online of the 2003-2006 phase, slowly evolving from a core set of features and relying on world of mouth for a steadily growing playerbase. Let's see (and hope) if NA can repeat the same path.

[Renset]

Welcome aboard Roo

 

I too had similar fears for the longevity of NA at first.

After reading the forum posts and talking with players while sailing I have found there is very healthy heart beating in this game

As to the cost, I got my moneys worth in the first 2 hours of play

- appeared in port - visual wow

- set sail - smooth intuitive cool

- first battle  - awesome

 

And it can only get better

I can now die happy

[RAMJB]

Couple things here.

For all I know the devs don't want too much attention. In fact when I started putting NA videos up and Bis and SideStrafe came along with me a pretty strong following ensued and lots of new players came along, too many to handle properly, and the devs were thus "forced" to stop the sales to keep the player numbers at manageable levels.

With time its normal the attention span of lots of those who did get into the game became weaker - game was in development and not complete and many people never really understood the meaning of that. They'll be back in time once the game's released. Or at least most of them.


Personally I stopped playing back in summer because my computer simply broke down and took me almost a month and a half to put it up in working order again. Game evolved a lot in that timeframe so when I came back I found myself in the middle of rebalancing after a major update. As there was no pressing need for me to make videos about the game (due to the devs not wanting extra attention about it) I decided to just stop uploading NA content to my channel, and decided to give it time to settle down and come back once most mechanics were at work before coming back and playing it again seriously.

But that's bound to change soon ..