This is just about the most amazing news we've had ever since modding started on Pirates of the Caribbean six years ago!
It means that game engine limitations are finally a non-issue. The only limitations now are our imagination and our abilities.
Of course there is many implications involved and I don't think we should rush into anything.
For one, there is the PotC vs. CoAS vs. seperate game decision.
Then there are the whole legal implications.
SOURCE CODE: WHAT TO DO WITH IT?
We do not yet know exactly what versions of the code we might be able to get.
Would we get the CoAS Storm 2.8 version? Or could we also get some older code, say the 2006 or even 2003 versions?
That would be most useful because it'll show us exactly what would need to be changed to adapt PotC code to the updated engines.
Having the source code means we can basically do whatever we want.
However, this also means that we get so much more chances to mess up real badly.
There's been some complex coding for the PotC Build Mod in the past,
but that is going to be nothing compared to the complexity involved when we get into the game's source code.
How are we even going to compile the source code back into an updated ENGINE.exe and MODULES folders?
These are all things we will need to discover and find out before anything can even be attempted.
And for this, we will need people to REALLY get into the coding side of things.
It will then not only be useful, but
required, to have some members here with serious prior coding knowledge.
PotC vs. CoAS?
Then it comes to deciding which path to follow as far as the game to work on.
For this, I would like to refer you to the old
"Porting the Build Mod to CoAS?" thread,
which contains some still very valid discussion on the matter.
PotC - THE GOOD: MOVIE TIE-IN AND PUBLICITY
The game was originally quite succesful despite being rushed, mainly because of the movie tie-in.
This is an aspect that cannot be ignored. I myself would never have gotten into this game
if it hadn't been called "Pirates of the Caribbean".
Certainly the same will have applied to many other players who have bought the game because of the license,
only to find the PotC Build Mod later and become enamoured with the additional gameplay and realism value added.
Known intellectual properties just work very well to generate interest.
This has also been seen with the PotC Build Mod where people are instantly interested
in the Horatio Hornblower and Master and Commander involvement in the modpack
not to mention the ever-lasting requests for Jack Sparrow, Davy Jones, the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman.
This is something we should bear in mind if we port or go stand-alone.
PotC - THE GOOD: BUILD MOD!!!
This just cannot be denied. The PotC Build Mod has become absolutely incredible
and what we have been able to accomplish blows all our expectations out of the water!
More features, some of which have been oft-requested, but thought to be impossible, most notably DirectSail and Different Flags.
More historical realism, with different time settings being available within the same game.
More story, with various storylines being available with different characters, new scenes and events and different gameplay.
Improved graphics, new textures and models.
It is really by rights that our modpack's official name has been redubbed to "Pirates of the Caribbean: New Horizons".
It has gone beyond being a modpack to beind close to a fully new game experience and
it really does offer new horizons for the players to explore.
PotC - THE BAD: AGE
The main problem with PotC is that it is a 2003 game and it is just not properly available anymore.
This seriously limits the audience the game can reach and thus also the chance for new people to become interested.
In it's day, PotC had seriously good graphics and as far as I'm concerned, it still does,
but game development has not stalled and by comparison with current popular games, the graphics are lacking.
Since people's interest in a game comes for a great extent through the images they see in videos and screenshots,
this is also something that cannot be ignored.
CoAS - THE GOOD: AVAILABILITY
Playlogic has done a seriously bad job at promoting and distributing CoAS,
which has resulted in not many people being even aware of the game
and the game being very hard to buy legally even for people who do know it exists.
The game was listed to be available for digital purchase on
Gamers Gate, but has since been removed.
It is said that the game will be released through this platform on the 26th of December after all anyway.
This would solve the problem of availability for quite some time into the future,
which has proven to be becoming a big issue when it comes to modding on PotC.
I don't know if Gamers Gate keeps also old games available, but if so, that might even solve the availability issue forever.
That is a big win of CoAS over PotC to be sure!
CoAS - THE GOOD: WORLDMAP
One of the coolest things in CoAS which the Storm 2.8 engine has made possible has to be the realistic Caribbean worldmap.
No longer does the game take place in a fictional archipelago (stock PotC) or an inaccurate one (PotC Build Mod).
For the first time ever, even the Mexican shore is present, which could offer a great realism value.
CoAS - THE BAD: ADVANCED GRAPHICS, BUT IS IT BETTER?
However, there are some things about CoAS that I just don't like.
Although there's some improvements in the graphics of the water and light effects, not everything looks convincing to me.
Spending much time at sea for real, I can tell you that despite the improved graphics, it doesn't look real.
Compare this to the clean, simple yet highly effective look of PotC,
especially with the added bonus of the best cannon fire effects I have seen in a game (thanks Merciless Mark!).
Of course this still doesn't look real, but the bright colours give things a bit more of a comic book feel,
which makes it easier to dispense my disbelief and 'buy' the game world for what it is.
CoAS - THE UGLY: INAPPRORIATE STYLE AND LACK OF HISTORICAL FEEL
It gets worse when we compare the modeling in PotC with that of AoP and CoAS.
Location models in AoP and CoAs are modeled quite nicely, but appear very generic.
It doesn't look like actual period towns and there's nothing about them
that indicates a certain historical style or nationality.
The ship models in AoP and CoAS also appear to me to have a less realistic look, despite using more polygons.
This is in part because of the very "clean" look of the textures,
but there's also something about the models themself that I can't quite lay my finger on.
The thing I dislike most in AoP and CoAS though are the character models.
They are clearly inspired by the Japanese anime and manga style,
which doesn't feel right in a historical world involving mainly western pirates.
Also, the character models again appear too clean and seem to lack a certain amount of personality.
So different this was in PotC, where some character models were deliberately based on characters from various pirate films,
such as Cutthroat Island and Pirates of the Caribbean.
GOING STAND-ALONE AND LEGAL IMPLICATIONS
The question of making our own game from scratch has been raised many times in the past
and this development might make things a lot more possible on this account than before.
This does bring us into a lot of legal issues that we must first examine before being able to go this way.
After all, pretty much all content in the Build Mod is based on stock game material,
even if it has been subsequently been retextured or remodeled by us.
So then the question has to be asked, if we DO want to go stand-alone,
who owns the rights to what and which content can we reuse and which content can we not?
Can we re-use stock PotC locations like they did in CoAS? How about character models and ships?
How about MODIFIED locations, character models and ships? Can we use those?
Because they're still based on material of which the rights *may* lie with Bethesda,
who we can't seem to be able to contact and thus cannot even ask for permission.
And what about Disney's role? They are definitly very protective of their intellectual properties.
We have got movie-accurate built-from-scratch ship models of the Black Pearl and Flying Dutchman.
This means that the rights to these models lie wie no game development company,
but with the original modelers (Kazeite and ZarethPL in this case).
However, the designs are still copyrighted by Disney. So can we use them?
If we go standalone, can we legally add in a Jack Sparrow storyline or can we not?
PORTING vs. STAND-ALONE GAME
Whatever we choose to do, we need people. Lots of people. More people than we have.
So we have to generate interest and publicity, recruit people
and cooperate with Akella, seaward.ru and other Russian modding communities.
This all to gain a bigger knowledge base and workforce.
But to be realistic, this cannot all be done overnight. This has to be built up carefully.
We have to consider the path we want to take and how to get people onboard for the ride.
For me, I think going fully standalone might, at least based on our current status, not be feasable.
It will require just too much new modeling and texture work, for which we simply do not have the people.
So until we manage to attract so many people that this becomes realistic, I reckon we should set our goals lower.
PATH TO FOLLOW?
I will always stick to the opinion that we must finish the PotC Build Mod before we continue onto bigger things.
The reason is partly because of historical value and for old time's sake
and we cannot just abandon things when we are closer than ever to having a finished version.
Another reason for finishing Build 14 first is because I believe that whatever we choose to do,
we should include as much of our own Build content in the final version.
If possible, we should use Build 14 as a base for future progress, which is much easier if Build 14 is actually a stable base.
We could then try to update the PotC game engine and make Build 14 work with the Storm 2.8 engine
or our own modified version of it, which includes what we want and leaves out what we don't.
We can then try to move over as many features as possible from CoAS into our now-modern version of Build 14.
I prefer doing this over doing it the other way around, because we are familiar with the PotC Build code
and we have spent so much time on developing a general game base that we are generally very happy with.
CoAS has been developed by other people to become a game base that they are happy with, but we do not necessarily have to agree.
In fact, admitting I have not played CoAS very much, there's some things about it that rub me the wrong way.
Once we have completed this, we could choose to remove all stock CoAS files from our files and include the stock PotC files.
Our work has then become a modpack for CoAS instead of for PotC, which by that time should be properly available through Gamers Gate.
This will enable everybody who we can interest in our work to actually play this game as well.
Akella and seaward.ru would probably be very interested in this version as well.
If we have managed to reach this point, we could try to get to work on making our own resource files from scratch,
including the worldmap and islands (maybe not limit the game to the Caribbean anymore?) and the location models
(make historically accurate and nation-specific towns, as well as different types of outside locations).
If we can get the legal issues with the Storm engine sorted out with Akella, we could then release it as a stand-alone game.
Remember also the game "Voyage Century Online", which is a MMORPG and is also based on the Storm Engine.
If we have access to the code and we can find people capable of writing MMORPG support for the game,
maybe we could even eventually be able to expand our game to that level,
which would certainly increase interest to a very large extent.
But we should always keep the standalone game experience as far as I'm concerned.
MY ROLE
As all of you should, by now, be aware of, I am not a game developer by any means.
I never had any education on programming, texturing, modeling or anything else.
Everything I know is self-taught, but has served me well in the things I have done.
When we get to work on porting the game to CoAS or using the source code to develop a stand-alone game,
my knowledge will be found severely lacking.
Also, I have a completely different professional life outside PotC Build Mod involvement,
which has nothing to do with pirate games, only with modern ships.
I never intended to become "community leader" and "big bad boss" in any way shape or form
and I have never considered myself as such. This has and hopefully always shall be
a democratic community in the best sense of the word where everybody is welcome,
everybody is helped to the best of our extent and we try to listen to everybody.
But I can't deny I ended up in a bit of a leadership role.
But with our activities expanding such, I think we will need additional people to lead this community.
People who know more about coding and about modeling and people who can be present here when I'm at sea.
I cannot keep this up forever and eventually somebody has to take my place and do a better job,
just like I took Nathan Kell's place when real life became too busy for him.
I do want to stick around to help out as much as I can, of course,
but mainly to provide ideas and information based on my experience
and knowledge of the history of PotC modding.
CONCLUSION
In the end, getting access to the game's source code is incredible news with huge implications.
This could be the beginning of a whole new era in pirate game modding and development.
We could create renewed interest in that time period and get people who otherwise like only fast-paced arcadey games
to appreciate the subtleties of historical realism and slower and more thoughtful gameplay.
We could combine the best aspects of all previous Storm-engine based games into one game
and expand on them based on our own ideas and preferences as well, taking into account the "modern gaming audience".
If we play things right, this could become a truly amazing project. More amazing than it already is.
To join different people from all over the world with different languages and cultures together on a common project
and work together in a democratic and supportive way without caring about race, age or religion would be an incredible thing.
Not just from a gaming perspective but also as a view of what this world could be.
Even if we can live up only to a fraction of the possibilities, we will have gained more than just a better game.
As such, I wish us and everybody who joins us all the best for the future!
And MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!!!
Image made by Thagarr
:will 
, this is the best christmas present anyone could ask for. It would be nice to see more work been done on COAS, a few of us have started making a combined mod for COAS which i'm sure your already aware of but we are either new to COAS code or are new at modding, if we had more experienced modders we would i'm sure be able to port much more over. Officerpuppy is the most experienced of the COAS modders, i think we're doing well so far but of course its not like POTC where it became much more difficult to mod after the builds was been done, but one day it will be just like that one day. Ok time for bed my minds going blank. 
The most modding I've done for POTC and AOP was some music/sound mods. As a matter of fact the first thing I did for COAS was port over my old mods to the game.
).
