Info that may useful found throughout the WWW --- FYI

[PiratesFan]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/r/?page=http://www.computerandvideogames.com/homepage/front_homepage.php(que)skip=yes(amp)kwd=maxpayne
Thursday 15th May 2003


E3 2003: SID MEIER UNVEILS PIRATES!

Ahar, me hearties! Sid Meier's Pirates! is sailing back to a PC near you, plus brand new Civilisation pack

14:33 At an Atari reception for select members of the press on the first day of E3, the company revealed the first fruits of its long-term development and publishing deal with Sid Meier's company, Firaxis.
Pirates!, which is set to launch on the PC in late 2004, is a follow-up to Meier's 1987 swashbuckling smash that saw strategy fans roaming the high seas in a unique blend of open-ended role-playing shenanigans, real-time adventuring and thrilling action sequences.

"I still have fond memories of the original Pirates!," Meier told us. "It struck me that games these days are always pigeon-holed into particular genres such as fighting games, racing games and so on, whereas Pirates! mixed genres and brought the action to life in an exciting way. That's why I wanted to return to the game and give a new generation of gamers a chance to experience it for themselves."

Like the 1987 original, Pirates! won't force players down a set path, instead offering a non-linear experience where gamers can write their own story and live a life of freedom on the ocean waves. And with fully 3D, real-time graphics, Pirates! should be one of the best looking games to come from the Meier stable so far.

The game itself will allow players to experience the 'career' of a pirate, starting out as a young man and progressing to old age, awarding players a special ranking when their peg-legged hero snuffs it.

Although he refused to be drawn any further, Meier also hinted that the game will also feature a multiplayer mode, but he said that single-player action will still be the focus of Pirates!

Also announced at the press conference was Civilisation Conquests, a new expansion pack for Civilisation III that will arrive in time for Christmas.

The new development and publishing deal between Atari and Meier's company also means that Firaxis has the rights to several other classic properties including Sid Meier's Colonisation, Covert Action, Gunship, Silent Service: The Submarine Simulation, F19 Stealth Fighter, F15 Strike Eagle and Sid Meier's CPU Bach, meaning that many more modern Meier updates could be on the cards over the next few years.

Dave McComb

[PiratesFan]

http://www.pczone.co.uk/news/news_story.php?id=91780

Friday 23rd May 2003


Gaming legend Sid Meier spoke to us at E3 about the reinvention of his swashbuckling classic

16:23 Sid Meier's classic Pirates! title, originally released back in 1987, was in many respects a game way ahead of its time. The swashbuckling smash that saw gamers roaming the high seas featured a unique blend of strategy, role-playing, real-time adventuring and thrilling action sequences, all presented in an open style of play that was really a precursor to what we see today in the likes of GTA III and GTA Vice City.
Pirates! is now being reinvented for the 21st century, the remake, like the original, a non-linear experience where gamers can write their own story and live a life of freedom on the ocean waves. Players will follow the career of a pirate, starting out as a young man full of visions of grandeur and progressing through to old age. Spiced up with 3D real-time visuals thanks to today's technology, it should look a treat.

We had the opportunity to chat with Sid Meier at E3 to find out a bit more about the resurrection of his classic. Meier is currently director of creative development at Firaxis.

Your original Pirates! game came out in 1987. What thoughts and feelings does looking back at that period conjure up for you?

Meier: Pirates! is a game that's very close to my heart. It's been quite a few years since I wrote Pirates! originally, but I still have a lot of fond memories of creating that game. It was a great deal of fun to put it together. Looking at it from today's point of view, a couple of things struck me as interesting.

Today we like to talk about games in terms of genres, a game has to fit into a genre and be a shooter or a real-time strategy.

We didn't understand that back in the days when we designed Pirates!, but Pirates! is really a game that crosses a lot of genres, and what we were really trying to do when we put Pirates! together was bring that world to life in the most interesting way that we could imagine it.

What was it about Pirates! that was so appealing?

Meier: In Pirates!, you are the pirate who is the star of the game in the same way that an actor is the star of a movie.

The model that we used when designing Pirates! was almost a movie one, not in terms of cinematics and video, but the way a movie brings something to life in terms of the pacing, the focussing on high points, taking you quickly from one highlight to the other and using the idea of a star.

The movie approach took us into a lot of different areas. There's a story that's told in an adventure-like fashion, there's sword fighting, ship battles that are exciting, there's the whole chasing after treasure and a strategic element.

So Pirates! was really a game that crossed genres. It was hybrid game that used whatever element or approach we thought would best bring a certain part of the game to life.

Why bring Pirates! back to life now?

Meier: One of the main reasons that we've decided to bring Pirates! back to life is the many requests we've had from our game players - game players over the age of 25, let's say. They always ask us when we're going to do another Pirates! game.

It's been a game, in our minds, that's really stood the test of time, and we're at a point now technology-wise, in terms of creative ideas, it would really make sense for us to re-imagine this game for the 21st century.

I think that what has happened with Civilisation has really convinced us that it does make sense to re-invent titles that have been out there even for a little while. And there's a new generation, and even the generation that played them originally is interested in a new version [of Pirates!].

The people tell me they really enjoy the idea of a wide-open world where the game doesn't force you to go down a certain path; it's not a puzzle-solving game as many adventure games were in those days.

The game provides you with a wide-open world with many things to do, many exciting places to go, and essentially you write your own history, your own story as a pirate. And in this wide-open world, every story is different.

We're very excited to be working on Pirates!, there are a lot of great new things that we're going to be able to put into the game, but I think that we want to be true to the classic gameplay that people have responded to for 15 years now.

Pirates!'s career feature is obviously a very important part of the game...?

Meier: The idea of a career was a very strong element of the original game. Time passes, you start of as a young pirate, but you get older, your body starts to fail you - you have an actual career as a pirate. People responded to some of these ideas we introduced in Pirates! - something like Grand Theft Auto has this wide-open world idea, and I like to think we that introduced that in Pirates!.

How exactly are you going to expand on the original Pirates! game?

Meier: I think we want to build on the strengths of the original game, certainly the idea of a wide-open world where you can go anywhere and choose your path: are you going to be a noble pirate that upholds the honour of the king, or are you going to be a scurvy pirate and grab any ship that sails by?

The focusing on the exciting, heroic aspects of pirate life - that's something that we want to focus on. With today's technology I think that we can do a much better job with those types of things than we were able to do 15 years ago.

But I think the core of the game is sound and one that we really believe in and so that's something that we want to build on.

Is Pirates! going to be the type of game that will appeal to Civilisation fans, or are you aiming it at a wider audience?

Meier: Our games historically have appealed to a somewhat more strategy-orientated games player. Even Pirates!, although the topic was very exciting, had elements of role-playing and planning and trading and it was not a slam-bam action game. I think that's been our strength and I think that's something we want to continue.

I have a 12-year old son and he enjoys plying these games, so I don't think it's about age demographic, it's about a certain style of game, a type of game that people enjoy playing that requires some thinking, some imagination and perhaps deals with an historical topic, where you take a kind of hands-on approach to a piece of history. We're appealing to players who enjoy that type of gaming.

Will there actually be any kind of storyline in Pirates! directing events, the game having a definite ending, or will it be completely open-ended?

Meier: The strength of Pirates! has always been that you can create your own story, but we want to provide you more story elements to create even more interesting stories. So, I would say that we want to give you the best of both worlds, a story where you're the star, and a creative based on your actions - with today's technology we can provide you more and more interesting elements.

Are there any other games you've developed in the past that you'd personally like to bring back to life?

Meier: There are a number. I think there are some good games in that catalogue. But right now we're talking about Pirates! [laughs].

[PiratesFan]

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/sidpirates/media.html

Don't want to spend the money to become a member of gamespot. But this is supposed to be the inerview with Sid Meier about his upcoming project about the new Pirates game.

[PiratesFan]

Just a reminder this is jsut stuff I found searching for more info on the Game. I tried to reference all websites that I found this information from. I hope this provides helpful to everyone.

[Falconer]

Yep, you posted a lot of the links that were to be posted in the planned but much delayed (*blushes*) links section, so, good stuff there.

One day we'll have that links section hehe...

[PiratesFan]

I would of held off if I wasn't suppose to post this info... You do have the option of still deleteing this and doing the links page

[El Diablo]

Or lets do something different:

we open a "link-thread" everybody, who has some new, posts them there.

we juste quote the last post, eliminate the quoting signs and put the new link below.
with this technique the last Post would contain all links, no need to scroll much...
_________________
Don't consider a creation to beeing perfect, unless you sat on it from dusk till dawn

[PiratesFan]

Its an idea !!

[Falconer]

Hehe, that's not what I meant P.F. Wasn't being sarcastic towards you. If I was at all, than it was towards Black and me for not having it up yet. *grin*

But people should always feel free to post links in the forum. I despise moderating forums because the whole idea behind forums is that they're supposed to reflect the thoughts, ideas and wishes of everyone involved.

Unfortunately there are some exceptions in which we 'will' moderate. We simply can't allow software piracy here for instance, and rudenesss to one another (unless it's meant/taken jokingly) won't survive here long either. There are a couple of other things, but not much.

So, if you wanna open a links thread, feel free. In true pirate fashion, anarchy reigns surpreme in this forum! *grin*

[PiratesFan]

[PiratesFan]

OK ... here is an informational link of the Carribean 17th century

http://www.kipar.org/society/author/pirates-history/carib-guide.html

In fact if you have time look over the wholle site. Lots of really good information. Definately gets a Pirate's Cheer for this site.

[Capt-JakBlak]

Ok, here's my list of Pirates! and Pirate-Related sites:

http://www.interknowledge.com/bahamas/pirates01.htm - Good info about Bahama Pirates.
http://www.piratehaven.org/~beej/pirates/ - Lots of cool pictures of pirates and stuff.
http://ecani.com/pirates/ - Another Pirate info site.
http://frigate.free.fr/ - Site dedicated to Pirates!
http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/qar/ - Site about Blackbeard's shipwreck and recovery effort.
http://www.scoundrels.org/index.html - Very wierd site about a BBQ'ing Pirate gang.
http://www.burningsea.com/links.php?link_section=1 - It's for PBS, but their links page has a bunch of generic Pirate sites on it.