Jeff_ATARI
Landlubber
Hello everyone! I wanted to give you a general update on the progress of the beta testing.
The testers have been given specific tasks to focus on for each day of the beta. While day one was simply "play the game and give us your general impressions," subsequent days focused on specific topics such as `sword-fighting`, ship battles, sneaking and dancing, quests and `in-game` content, and most recently, "play the whole game on Apprentice" (as we start to gather comments about difficulty levels.)
As is expected for a `wide-reaching` beta test, lots of compatibility bugs have been filed, and the Firaxis developers and Atari QA team have been actively going through the database, identifying specific issues, and closing them down one after another.
Each day brings about a new thread of comments, questions, war stories ("So this one time I played the Dutch, and got a lot of help from the French because they had a treaty, but then I was thrown in jail after a `run-in` with a Spanish warship, but fortunately I managed to sneak out of town..." etc.).
Besides the sharing of pirate tales, here's the two comments I've seen most frequently:
- "X is really easy, but Y is really hard." Some people just don't have the rhythm to dance, but can take out even the toughest top 10 pirates with ease. Others are wooing maidens left and right but can't seem to make headway with the town sneaking. While there is still some tuning required to even out the difficulties, what we're seeing is that the blend of genres is giving each player his own personal set of challenges, and that the game plays differently every time. (Hmm. Reminds me of Civ.
)
- "I didn't realize how much I'd like dancing." A few people still choose not to put on their dancing shoes, but most people have embraced it. Here's my favorite quote: "I get a rush when the dancing gets faster and you close in on the view. It's almost like you get tunnell vision towards the end when you are really zoomed in and all you can see are her arms. And you know you are getting towards the end. If I have gone the whole dance without a stumble, I get pretty anxious for it to end when it gets hectic. The forward, back left back left backe left, forward, back left back left back left sequence at some of the endings leave me pretty nerve wracked. Which I like."
I did ask the beta testers to give me a `1-2` sentence "sound bite" to describe the game so far. There was the equivalent of laughter as testers suddenly fancied themselves as "ad writers" and wrote flashier and flashier quotes about the most amazing game ever. But I tried to pull some of the more thoughtful ones together and have put them here for you.
- "Thanks Firaxis and Atari for giving me an early Christmas present that is BETTER than I hoped for!"
- "With most of the game complete and playable, it's already the best swashbucking I've ever seen on the PC. And even from the few pieces we can guess will still be added you can see how cooler the final Pirates! is going to be."
- "Heck my butt is glued to the chair now playing it"
- "Pirates! isn't even done yet, and it already rocks. I'm drooling over the final version already."
- "Awesome game! Find myself playing for hours when I should be sleeping for work"
- "I can finally justify $250 for my video card!"
- "As a diehard Pirates! fan, I was a bit skeptical of what this `re-release` might bring. Let me reassure you that the game is faithful both in gameplay and feel. The new additions definitely answer those "I wish I could..." questions from playing the original."
- "I'm truly enjoying this updated version of such a classic game. There's SO MUCH MORE out there to explore!"
- "The day Pirates is released I expect a nationwide run on eyepatches and puffy shirts. You don't just play it, you live it!"
- "Pirates! is a beautifully rendered update to a classic game. It combines strategy, action, and endless adventure in one bountiful treasure."
- "Who needs sleep when you have caffeine and Pirates!"
- "For new and old players, this game will bring back memories for some and instil memories for others. Trully a remake of a classic set for the next generation"
- "All this, and cannons and flying bodies too! WhooHOO!"
I'll post some more thoughts from the testers early next week, if not sooner. In the meantime, look for a handful of "preview articles" posted here that have been written by beta testers whom we've authorized to disclose information about the game.
Best,
Jeff Foley
Atari
The testers have been given specific tasks to focus on for each day of the beta. While day one was simply "play the game and give us your general impressions," subsequent days focused on specific topics such as `sword-fighting`, ship battles, sneaking and dancing, quests and `in-game` content, and most recently, "play the whole game on Apprentice" (as we start to gather comments about difficulty levels.)
As is expected for a `wide-reaching` beta test, lots of compatibility bugs have been filed, and the Firaxis developers and Atari QA team have been actively going through the database, identifying specific issues, and closing them down one after another.
Each day brings about a new thread of comments, questions, war stories ("So this one time I played the Dutch, and got a lot of help from the French because they had a treaty, but then I was thrown in jail after a `run-in` with a Spanish warship, but fortunately I managed to sneak out of town..." etc.).
Besides the sharing of pirate tales, here's the two comments I've seen most frequently:
- "X is really easy, but Y is really hard." Some people just don't have the rhythm to dance, but can take out even the toughest top 10 pirates with ease. Others are wooing maidens left and right but can't seem to make headway with the town sneaking. While there is still some tuning required to even out the difficulties, what we're seeing is that the blend of genres is giving each player his own personal set of challenges, and that the game plays differently every time. (Hmm. Reminds me of Civ.
)- "I didn't realize how much I'd like dancing." A few people still choose not to put on their dancing shoes, but most people have embraced it. Here's my favorite quote: "I get a rush when the dancing gets faster and you close in on the view. It's almost like you get tunnell vision towards the end when you are really zoomed in and all you can see are her arms. And you know you are getting towards the end. If I have gone the whole dance without a stumble, I get pretty anxious for it to end when it gets hectic. The forward, back left back left backe left, forward, back left back left back left sequence at some of the endings leave me pretty nerve wracked. Which I like."
I did ask the beta testers to give me a `1-2` sentence "sound bite" to describe the game so far. There was the equivalent of laughter as testers suddenly fancied themselves as "ad writers" and wrote flashier and flashier quotes about the most amazing game ever. But I tried to pull some of the more thoughtful ones together and have put them here for you.
- "Thanks Firaxis and Atari for giving me an early Christmas present that is BETTER than I hoped for!"
- "With most of the game complete and playable, it's already the best swashbucking I've ever seen on the PC. And even from the few pieces we can guess will still be added you can see how cooler the final Pirates! is going to be."
- "Heck my butt is glued to the chair now playing it"
- "Pirates! isn't even done yet, and it already rocks. I'm drooling over the final version already."
- "Awesome game! Find myself playing for hours when I should be sleeping for work"
- "I can finally justify $250 for my video card!"
- "As a diehard Pirates! fan, I was a bit skeptical of what this `re-release` might bring. Let me reassure you that the game is faithful both in gameplay and feel. The new additions definitely answer those "I wish I could..." questions from playing the original."
- "I'm truly enjoying this updated version of such a classic game. There's SO MUCH MORE out there to explore!"
- "The day Pirates is released I expect a nationwide run on eyepatches and puffy shirts. You don't just play it, you live it!"
- "Pirates! is a beautifully rendered update to a classic game. It combines strategy, action, and endless adventure in one bountiful treasure."
- "Who needs sleep when you have caffeine and Pirates!"
- "For new and old players, this game will bring back memories for some and instil memories for others. Trully a remake of a classic set for the next generation"
- "All this, and cannons and flying bodies too! WhooHOO!"
I'll post some more thoughts from the testers early next week, if not sooner. In the meantime, look for a handful of "preview articles" posted here that have been written by beta testers whom we've authorized to disclose information about the game.
Best,
Jeff Foley
Atari
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