PixeButt's Wish List

[PixieButt]

I don't think putting your wish lists on a board will set you up for a bummer when the game comes. In fact I think it's a good way to gauge how far our expectations have come.

1) "Bubble Bath" storyline
As metioned in another thread, I explained the idea behind "Bubble Bath" storyline. Rather than a string of events the player must follow through, quests should be self sustained and free to engage/ignore.

2) Personal Combat
I think PotC made a great leap in personal combat. Although the nestolgeic battle the captain has its place in my heart, it certainly was not that simple. Seeing that P!2 will be using the same Marrowind engine, combat will be personal, though broken up into representations of strength as PotC does. Although I like the idea of Dynasty Warriors' hero system. PotC set a bar for personal combat.

3) Expanded Ship Combat
Pirates love mule ships. Although ships often sailed alone trying to go unnoticed, that wasn't the case always. Caravans of ships would group together for protection, but I pirate would draw out the strong while setting up the weak for boarding. I agree for multiple ship combat.

4) Animation of Ship
I love the mod for PotC that allows you to see the crew on the ship when you're in first-person mode. What I would like to see is that taken a step further. Men manning the guns and reloading them realistically when their fired, with powder monkeys running along. Men getting ripped down by grapeshot, and men dragging them out of the way to man their fallen positions. Perhaps not even you are safe, should a critical hit explode a powder magazine and injure you or kill one of your officers.

5) Skill-Based Leveling
Again, based on Marrowind's system, where the more you do something, the better you get at it. Does it make sense if you're a born figther, killing everything when you board, but can assign points to your currency rating? Not to say it should limit what you do, but the rewards of your actions should benifit the actions you undertake, not the ones you want to level out.

6) Historical Immersion
The one thing I loved about Pirates! was it's historical accuracy and immersion. I don't like the "create a new world" of islands that are bengin to Caribbean idea. I'd like to see the heroes and villans of the time be in the land of the time, fighting along side or against the fameous pirates, while hearing tales of their exploits as they happen. Hell, you may even have the opportunity to rewrite history with your actions. It's all fun, as long as you know Havana isn't gonna be easy pickings.

That's all I can think of for now.

[Falconer]

Agree with you completely on the expectations part.

One small note though: PotC does NOT run on the Gamebryo engine that Pirates! 2 will run on. Akella uses their own engine, called Storm if I remember correctly.

That does not however, mean that personal combat will be very different. I think combat is done really well done in PotC and it's obvious that Akella have looked at Pirates! for clues on how to handle boarding parties. In both games, sheer numbers define a huge part of your success though your own fighting prowess seem to have less effect in PotC than they did in Pirates.

In any case, personal combat in Pirates! 2 will likely be handled similar as in PotC which in turn is similar to Pirates!

Got to love games inspired by other games huh!?

And yes, Sid's games have always been high on historic events and locations. I'd be very disappointed if Pirates! 2 would be different. *grin*

[MarkQuinn]

All excellent ideas and yes POTC uses the Storm engine (Storm 2 actually, I think).

Hey this is off topic and if this thread gets out of control Falconer please feel free to punish me accordingly. But maybe I can disguise this as an addition to the wishlist which I know we'll never get.

After taking a ship in POTC last night I walked around the hold and saw that little hand icon meaning there was treasure right under my nose. I did some sniffing around and found all sorts of hidden treasures in the barrels and chests below decks. It was a nice addition to the typical plunder of cloth and sandal. Very nice touch that some real treasure would be hidden, but you have to look for it. This is just a heads up for those who play POTC and haven't discovered that. And yes that would be a nice little addition for Pirates! 2 (there, it's on topic ).

[El Diablo]

something to Pixelparks No.3:

I played a long time Port Royale and saw the multiship-battles there. And tried some. What was difficult, is the coordination of your own ships. It ended in a "stop and go", because you had to give every second new orders, new directions... to avoid damage and to set your ships right, fire in the right moment and all that stuff...
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Don't consider a creation to beeing perfect, unless you sat on it from dusk till dawn

[Falconer]

Yep, true, I experienced that too. Without the ability to pause the game and give orders, it's really difficult to keep your ships alive, especially against a slightly larger fleet.

So, lets hope we can pause the game eh?

[El Diablo]

Well,

nothing against that wish, but for me then the fun is gone. Its a game and it should bring fun - a lots of fun, cause its a "Siddys"- Game and not end up in work.
When I played Pirates I had action and no tactical thinking (OK, navigating and fireing and so on, after short time gon in blood) and that stuff every "paused" second.
If this would come, the game will loose a lot of atmosphere, cause that is not my and I believe noones expectation.

Because of that, the player should only fight with one Ship, the AI may have some more... like in Tortuga and i think, it'll be in all other forecoming Ascaron-Games that way...
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Don't consider a creation to beeing perfect, unless you sat on it from dusk till dawn

[dclare4]

At the risk of making a bad suggestion, I think the best thing for Multiship combat would be to not to make ALL ships completely controllable (which makes the game prone to hitting the pause key) but rather through a more realistic system of orders and signalling (in the British fleet, a frigate was always stationed out of line just for the purpose of repeating the flagship's orders!) with AI (assuming it's good...) commanding your other ships as per your orders. Depending on your 'skill level' and/or perhaps some non-player characters you could 'assign' command of your other ships, the other ships could be more 'obedient' or 'insubordinate'. Smoke or distance could result in orders being misconstrued or ignored. Sometimes orders could be ignored by aggressive captains who could attack targets on their own and even capture them. If he's especially successful he could get a swelled head and challenge you for command of the expedition.

Just a thought,
Clare

[El Diablo]

This Idea is great, just taking it from some flight-simulators or space-fighting games.

The Idea of one captain, duelling you is brilliant, too. Just a drill out of the old feature, if your crew got sick and angry...
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Don't consider a creation to beeing perfect, unless you sat on it from dusk till dawn

[Capt-JakBlak]

Amazing that I never found this, but I haven't been trolling here as much as I should. PB's suggestions are wonderful and though I don't think all will be realized, they are all worthy of consideration. With regards to the Animation of the ship, and what inteface they will create to sail the carribean, I doubt we'll see the level of detail that PB is talking about. With a large enough ship you could be easily talking about over 100 men moving and reacting to events, even without worrying about battling other ships. That detail would require a bigger engine than Gamebryo could provide, I'm afraid. Maybe I'm wrong, though. I think we'll have to wait till Pirates! 3 for them to add that much detail to the world. Anyways, I just wanted to bump this up so people took another look at it.