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Feature Request Pirate ranks look odd in dialogs

It is true that in reality there was no such formal organisation of pirates, and if you don't like the idea of joining such a band and gaining "ranks", there's a very simple solution, which is the one I normally use - don't join!

The idea of making all the "rank" names the same is a lot sillier than keeping the existing names. You'd start off as "Brother of the Coast", be promoted to "Brother of the Coast", and when you reach rank 12 you'd gain the lofty title of "Brother of the Coast". xD As for making the rank names invisible, what's the point? Wasn't the whole idea of the "Brotherhood" to give pirate players the opportunity to gain "ranks" the same way as privateers in the service of nations?
 
Grey Roger said:
It is true that in reality there was no such formal organisation of pirates, and if you don't like the idea of joining such a band and gaining "ranks", there's a very simple solution, which is the one I normally use - don't join!

The idea of making all the "rank" names the same is a lot sillier than keeping the existing names. You'd start off as "Brother of the Coast", be promoted to "Brother of the Coast", and when you reach rank 12 you'd gain the lofty title of "Brother of the Coast". xD As for making the rank names invisible, what's the point? Wasn't the whole idea of the "Brotherhood" to give pirate players the opportunity to gain "ranks" the same way as privateers in the service of nations?
Click to expand...

Well, my thought was to simply not have an active promotion dialogue of any sort and just have it happen in the background. Also, you should get something the way privateers gain land. instead of getting estates 9which makes no sense from the Brethren, make it a nice one-time cash award for each. This could replace the promotion dialogue. Example:

Player: "I was told you had something for me."

Pirate Boss: "Indeed, Captain! The Brotherhood wants to recognize your efforts with a well deserved boon. Take this with our compliments."

As far as rank names, if you aren't given a specific promotion than the rank names repeating don't sound silly. There could also be some changes that happen at certain milestone points instead of every one of the 12 ranks. You could start as a "Brother of the Coast" at rank 1, a "Senior Brother of the Coast" at level 6, a "Pirate Commadore" at rank 10, and a "Pirate Lord" at 12.

I want the Pirates to be a proper faction, we just need to tweak things so the difference between them and the national ones make better sense.
 
You don't get estates but you do get swords at a couple of specific levels.

There's little point in awarding cash. One benefit of joining the "Brotherhood" is that you get a much higher percentage of the value of a captured enemy ship, plus you'll have earned that "promotion" by pirating ships, which means you'll already have quite a bit of money.

The existing "rank" names don't sound silly. They sound more like reputations than ranks, which is how they differ from national ranks, and I changed the governor's dialog to reflect that. Actual ranks such as "Pirate Commodore" make no sense for an informal group like the Brotherhood. (And female pirates are not going to like being called "Brother of the Coast". xD)
 
The next piece of dialog which can do odd things to pirates is "GetMyAddressForm". If this is told to use ADDR_TITLE or ADDR_IMPTITLE, it uses the character's rank if he has one, otherwise it passes through a couple of other functions and ends up using ADDR_CIVIL or ADDR_POLITE respectively. A pirate who has gained some "rank" with the Brotherhood will therefore be addressed by that "rank", as I found out when I cashed in a few promotions when visiting Sao Feng and he introduced me to his niece.

Option 1: leave it as it is and laugh at pirate governors and their relatives pretending to be real nobility and failing. xD
Option 2: change the line in "GetMyAddressForm" to this:
Code: 
retstr = stringret(GetRank(&pchr, nat) > 0 && nat != PIRATE, XI_ConvertString(GetRankName(&pchr, nat)), GetAddressForm(ADDR_TITLE, fakeNat, bsex));
That means pirates will be addressed as "Mister", "Monsieur" etc depending on the fake nationality being used for the pirate. Mister Jack Sparrow is still going to have a problem, but it's probably better than Cutthroat Jack Sparrow...
 
Option #2 sounds sensible enough.

(But I like the hilarity of option #1! :rofl )
 
Leave it as it is, then - so far the only time I've seen it is when a pirate "governor" introduces his female relative. I'm going to start a FreePlay game as a pirate named "Island" and not accept any promotions past a certain level. xD
 
When you get a promotion, you also get a +5 reputation change. For naval officers and privateers, that's fair enough - you're supposed to be an officer and a gentleman. For pirates, if you're trying to cultivate an evil reputation, it's not a reward, it's a penalty!

Suggestion: for pirates only, if your reputation is already "Rascal" or lower, get a -5 reputation change instead. If you're trying to establish an evil reputation by piracy, you become more evil. But if your reputation isn't evil, you get the normal +5 change.
 
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