To the Modders

[StevenSSX]

I'm stuck between two games right now:

Pirates of the Caribbean - because it has all the mods.
and Age of Pirates - because I love this game a lot.

So, here's the deal: I've been playing Age of Pirates 2 for a few days and I liked it except for some very annoying sound issues, and some graphics issues. It had a lot of bugs and stuff like that, which basically turned me away from it. I heard about the previous version so I installed Age of Pirates and tried that out. I loved everything about the game - the simplicity of the menus, the easy gameplay, and the beautiful graphics. I checked to see if there were any mods because Age of Pirates 2 had a bit more features that I wanted (first-person view, more locations in town, more islands to visit, etc.). The SuperMod wasn't a big deal for me - it didn't add a lot, and it was buggy for me, so I uninstalled that.

Then I saw Pirates of the Caribbean and decided to try that out because everyone was saying that 'it was better than Age of Pirates with the SuperMod and Age of Pirates 2'. I installed the game and played a bit and I must say I didn't like it compared to Age of Pirates 2. My biggest issue with the game was the graphics and the interface. The graphics were outdated and made the game look childish, and the interface was also outdated with large fonts. The sailing interface was also ugly IMO. I was glad to see all the available modifications for this game, which I really wanted in Age of Pirates. Now I'm downloading the Build 14 mod to see what that includes.

So here's what I am asking you guys to do, because I heard you are getting the codes or something for Age of Pirates 2 in order to update the engine. Would you guys please either: a) include the PotC mods in Age of Pirates, b) update the graphics in PotC and add the ability to change the interface to that in Age of Pirates.

Each of the 3 games has their own advantages, and I think it would be really neat if you guys took all the best parts from each game and made it into one.
Examples:

-graphics from Age of Pirates (they look beautiful, the sunrises and sunsets and the night sky are gorgeous, the ocean waves are accurate and look good)

-some textures from Age of Pirates 2 (the villages, towns, and forts look the best in Age of Pirates 2)

-Caribbean map from Age of Pirates 2 (this game has it all from Mexico, to the northern tip of South America, to the Antilles)

-in-land locations/towns from Age of Pirates 2 (this game had a lot of locations to explore including caves, lighthouses, jungles, etc.)

-First-Person view

-First-Person view while sailing WITH crew (I know you have this with PotC mod already)

-the interface from Age of Pirates or Age of Pirates 2 (they are the similar if not the same - this includes the sailing interface)

-main menu screen from Age of Pirates (this screen seems to be the best; it is animated and very simple - it looks good)

-maybe a menu where you can select mods or (like in Civilization IV) where you can select options before a game (ex. how much money/skills you start out with, your ships, your crew, items, etc.) instead of having to edit game files which can get confusing

-the 'chatting' interface in Pirates of the Caribbean (this is my favourite because it has the characters in 3D at the top corner)

-town sacking / capturing (from PotC mod and Age of Pirates)

-all the ship modifications from PotC

-ship upgrades / flag customization / paint customization

-the character interface from Age of Pirates (scratch the 'PIRATES' from Age of Pirates 2, that is annoying)

-character movement from Age of Pirates 2 (Age of Pirates' running is off, PotC side-stepping is off, and the running is slow - AoP2 seems to be the best)

-character customization from PotC

-selectable music from PotC

-storylines from PotC and Age of Pirates 2 (combined)

-fighting from Age of Pirates 2

-items from Age of Pirates 2

-sound from Age of Pirates

-ability to roam the cabin and decks of the ships with sailors appearing (maybe more features in this section such as viewing maps in your cabin or changing appearance in your wardrobe)

Those are just a few things I'd like to see, I can't think of any others now, but if I come across them I'll post them. Don't feel overwhelmed, your not obligated to do any of this, I already appreciate the work you've done in PotC with Build 13 and 14, these are just suggestions if you guys are ever taking them.

And sorry for the long post.

 

[Thomas the Terror]

Perhaps just porting over things to AOP2? Makes it a whole lot easier! But that is not going to happen within a year. So if you'd like to see, perhaps start modding yourself

 

[StevenSSX]

Perhaps just porting over things to AOP2? Makes it a whole lot easier! But that is not going to happen within a year. So if you'd like to see, perhaps start modding yourself

Is modding difficult? I know little about computer programming... Are there any easy to use tools?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

This is definitly what I would like to see happen eventually.
And also add in as much content as possible and usable from various Russian modpacks and such.
But it's an incredible amount of work to do this and we decided that, if we are going to do it,
we'll do it after PotC Build 14 is complete.

For now, we've still got a lot of things to work on for PotC.
The graphics are a bit outdated, but they're still not horrendously bad.
And I don't think there's anything wrong with the menus we've got in Build 14 Beta 1.

Modding is as hard as you want to make it. Depends on what you want to do.
Some things are real simple and some things really are not.
Most of the work required for combining PotC+AoP+CoAS would be coding and that can be done even with Windows Notepad.
We do have various modding tools we like to use though, such as:
- Notepad++ (same as Notepad, only better for code-work)
- WinMerge (compare different versions of the same file)
- GM Viewer (view game 3D models)
- TX Converter (required for texture conversions)

 

[StevenSSX]

This is definitly what I would like to see happen eventually.
And also add in as much content as possible and usable from various Russian modpacks and such.
But it's an incredible amount of work to do this and we decided that, if we are going to do it,
we'll do it after PotC Build 14 is complete.

For now, we've still got a lot of things to work on for PotC.
The graphics are a bit outdated, but they're still not horrendously bad.
And I don't think there's anything wrong with the menus we've got in Build 14 Beta 1.

Modding is as hard as you want to make it. Depends on what you want to do.
Some things are real simple and some things really are not.
Most of the work required for combining PotC+AoP+CoAS would be coding and that can be done even with Windows Notepad.
We do have various modding tools we like to use though, such as:
- Notepad++ (same as Notepad, only better for code-work)
- WinMerge (compare different versions of the same file)
- GM Viewer (view game 3D models)
- TX Converter (required for texture conversions)

Your right, the menus in Build 14 Beta 1 look good. Unfortunately, my laptop wasn't able to run Build 14 very well (about 3 FPS) so I couldn't even play it.
It's good to see you guys are thinking about this, which is eventually what I'd love to see, it would be the perfect sailing game. For now I'll be sticking to Age of Pirates - it has beautiful graphics, the gameplay is mostly realistic, the interfaces, music, and sound are all working well, and the game runs really smooth on my system. Sure it doesn't have the best storyline or the most features, but I'm in it for the sailing. The only thing I'd like to see (there might be mods already out for this, which I'll have to search) is the ability to fast forward time while on land and in map mode, the ability to walk in the cabin and below decks, and the ability to see your crew while sailing in first-person. The rest (story and land features) can wait for me. But anything more is just a bonus, I like what the developers did with the original game, and I like what you guys are doing, and I'll just wait it out until some recent mods come out or something. I might try out New Horizons when the final version is released, hopefully you guys can work something out with the system requirements and match them to the stock game.

Also unfortunately, I don't think I'll be doing any modding yet. It would take me awhile to learn and I don't have much free-time now that I'm back in school. But I'll see what happens, maybe I can do some ship models or texture work, who knows? Thanks again.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Did you install ENB or SwiftShader? I recommend NOT installing any of those.
Beta 1 has been running quite smoothly on my laptop, hardly less smooth than the original game.
And I DON'T have a good laptop.