mjh623
Rum Runner
Well the lads and I loaded some new ordinance on the barky last night, namely this here Build 14 Beta 1 New Horizons. We trimmed her a bit by the stern, ran up the colors and headed out to sea. Here are my first impressions and observations after about 3 hours of game play. Keep in mind that I have never taken the plunge with any of the Build 14 Alphas, so features that many of you take for granted are all new to me.
My first observation is… WOW that opening cannonball scene is LOUD!
For those of you booting this up after you’ve tucked the wee ones in bed, fair warning. Next, jumpin’ jellyfish there are a lot of choices to make when starting a new game! It took me a good 20 minutes to sort through all the options and actually click “startâ€Â. That is not a complaint, mind you. My first nitpick though is with the introductory screens when you are choosing your game and setting up your character. There are a number of grammatical and linguistic errors in the descriptions that could use a cleaning up. They don’t affect game play and are easy enough to understand what is meant, but it kind of tarnishes the brass, if you get my meaning, and would be pretty simple to clean up. I’ll go and proofread them tonight so I can post some editorial suggestions, if I may.
I chose the New Horizons story line for my first run through. The tutorial went well, with some nice new touches. The cutlasses being placed in the weapons chest was good. Teach them lubbers right from the start what its there for! Then the sword training… on the deck?!? Sweet! Now off to shore to take care of business.
The merchant stall threw me for a minute when I didn’t see the spy glass, but then I remembered reading something about tabs, :mm and sure enough, there they were. On into the town and a visit to the store. Probably not the skin I would have picked for a respectable shopkeeper, but it is one of my favorites for officers or crew. Everything smooth there, off to the shipyard. Again, no hitches. Only issue so far is I’m being pickpocketed right and left. I managed to recover some of my loot a couple of times, but by the time I got to the tavern, I didn’t have enough left to hire crew. Ok, off to the dungeon to build up the kitty a bit. Drew my trusty saber and… died with one hit. Wow, sword fighting is harder on adventurer than it was in B13. Ok, reload and go to the tavern for the night instead. I loot the chest in the room for a couple of swords and a bottle and head to the merchant stalls again. Now I have enough to complete the crew so after a stop at the inn to round up some rascals and wet the whistle, I head to port to make good my escape before the Frogs bring the place down around our ears. I jump to the deck of my ship and land on… my deck! Amazing that something so simple and sensible can give me a smile. Go into my cabin and poke around, then down into the hold to plunder the chest there- we really should fix that, but it so handy at desperate times! Then off to sea…
Where I am immediately dismasted and set on fire by the fort. Doh!
That rum cully in the tutorial did mention as to how I should change my flag, didn’t he? Ok, reload again, rinse and repeat except this time remember to change the jack to my personal flag. (Note to self- learn how to make a new personal flag!) Much better. Two graphical anomalies have appeared though. For one, the water by the beach and jetty looks like an oil slick with prismatic swirls throughout it. Second, there is a pixel about midway up the mainmast that is projecting a fan shaped spray of mast-brown pixels towards the viewer that oscillates and gyrates spasmodically. Very distracting, and I wish I could describe it better. Maybe I can get a screenshot of it tonight.
Ok, back to the task at hand. Wind is on the beam, so other than dodging these great hulking French buttertubs, not much of an opportunity to test the ship handling yet. They don’t seem to be able to avoid collisions with friendly vessels very well now. Of course, they weren’t very good at it before either, but this looks more comical somehow. Well, they finally untangle themselves and somehow managed to not trample me in the process, and we are all headed out to sea. Wouldn’t you know it, they all want to follow me, so I guess direct sail is out for now. I go to mapview and sail to… ‘the island formerly known as Redmond’… Jamaica, mon.
Docking in Jamaica, I discover I now have two options. One anchor takes me directly to port, the other takes me to… wait for it… my deck! Yep, still cool. Once I figure out where the sally port is, I am off to town. Being short of funds, I head straight to the governors little shack. Run through the usual rigmarole with him and… wait, did the old cheapskate just advance me 1,000 ducats? Who are you and what have you done with Silly Ma… er, Governor Silehard? So, got any other work, besides sailing right back to where I just came from? Scuttle a pirate for ya? Sure, sounds like an opportunity to upgrade.
So, back to port, onto my lugger, and… lovely, straight into a 27 knot headwind. (The oil slick water and pixel ray are still present by the way.) Well, guess we’ll see what this newfangled ship handling stuff is all about. Up full sails, hard to port to get some headway before we back into the beach, hard to starboard to avoid the cliff. Com’on girl, get around! Nope. Not enough headway. I’ll have to box-haul her, losing some hard fought ground. Ok, we’re making headway again on the starboard tack, heading towards the fort. Prepare to come about. Off tacks and sheets. Hard a starboard. Nope, started too late and the water shoals quicker than I remember. Grounded her on the beach by the fort! :boom Ok, box-haul her again, start making headway on the port tack. Up and up, start the tack earlier. Enough headway to get around? Yes, just! Back on the starboard tack and moving well now. One more tack and we’re out. Build up speed to 8 knots, and she comes around sweet as can be. Now after that scallywag in the jackass-barque. As for the new ship handling features? So far, well done. There will be a bit of a learning curve for each new ship in finding the right amount of headway needed to smoothly tack, but after the initial awkwardness, it became more intuitive. IRL I sail a little wooden gaffer sloop, and the feel of this was pretty intuitive. And the counter rudder? Spot on! Excellent feel to it, conveys the sense of bulk and momentum just right. For the Lugger anyways, the new handling physics are beautiful. WBT FTW!
ahoy! Now where were we?
Ah yes, that pesky pirate. Well, it seems a couple of lineships have gotten a head start on me and mauled her pretty good. The mizzen has gone by the board and her canvas looks like the moths have been at it. I only get a couple of bow chaser rounds and one good broadside at close range before she surrenders. Not a lot of opportunity for maneuvering . So I swap ships and limp the barque back into the harbor, drop anchor and…
The game crashes.
Engine.exe error, or so the lovely little Microsoft window says. Since it now nigh onto 1:00 am, I decide to call it a night. Saved last just before the barque was in bow chaser range, so not too much lost. Being able to save pretty much whenever is good. My three minor gripes are grammatical, graphical and of course, the crash. I’ll report more as I continue on my adventures.
My first observation is… WOW that opening cannonball scene is LOUD!
For those of you booting this up after you’ve tucked the wee ones in bed, fair warning. Next, jumpin’ jellyfish there are a lot of choices to make when starting a new game! It took me a good 20 minutes to sort through all the options and actually click “startâ€Â. That is not a complaint, mind you. My first nitpick though is with the introductory screens when you are choosing your game and setting up your character. There are a number of grammatical and linguistic errors in the descriptions that could use a cleaning up. They don’t affect game play and are easy enough to understand what is meant, but it kind of tarnishes the brass, if you get my meaning, and would be pretty simple to clean up. I’ll go and proofread them tonight so I can post some editorial suggestions, if I may. I chose the New Horizons story line for my first run through. The tutorial went well, with some nice new touches. The cutlasses being placed in the weapons chest was good. Teach them lubbers right from the start what its there for! Then the sword training… on the deck?!? Sweet! Now off to shore to take care of business.
The merchant stall threw me for a minute when I didn’t see the spy glass, but then I remembered reading something about tabs, :mm and sure enough, there they were. On into the town and a visit to the store. Probably not the skin I would have picked for a respectable shopkeeper, but it is one of my favorites for officers or crew. Everything smooth there, off to the shipyard. Again, no hitches. Only issue so far is I’m being pickpocketed right and left. I managed to recover some of my loot a couple of times, but by the time I got to the tavern, I didn’t have enough left to hire crew. Ok, off to the dungeon to build up the kitty a bit. Drew my trusty saber and… died with one hit. Wow, sword fighting is harder on adventurer than it was in B13. Ok, reload and go to the tavern for the night instead. I loot the chest in the room for a couple of swords and a bottle and head to the merchant stalls again. Now I have enough to complete the crew so after a stop at the inn to round up some rascals and wet the whistle, I head to port to make good my escape before the Frogs bring the place down around our ears. I jump to the deck of my ship and land on… my deck! Amazing that something so simple and sensible can give me a smile. Go into my cabin and poke around, then down into the hold to plunder the chest there- we really should fix that, but it so handy at desperate times! Then off to sea…
Where I am immediately dismasted and set on fire by the fort. Doh!
That rum cully in the tutorial did mention as to how I should change my flag, didn’t he? Ok, reload again, rinse and repeat except this time remember to change the jack to my personal flag. (Note to self- learn how to make a new personal flag!) Much better. Two graphical anomalies have appeared though. For one, the water by the beach and jetty looks like an oil slick with prismatic swirls throughout it. Second, there is a pixel about midway up the mainmast that is projecting a fan shaped spray of mast-brown pixels towards the viewer that oscillates and gyrates spasmodically. Very distracting, and I wish I could describe it better. Maybe I can get a screenshot of it tonight.Ok, back to the task at hand. Wind is on the beam, so other than dodging these great hulking French buttertubs, not much of an opportunity to test the ship handling yet. They don’t seem to be able to avoid collisions with friendly vessels very well now. Of course, they weren’t very good at it before either, but this looks more comical somehow. Well, they finally untangle themselves and somehow managed to not trample me in the process, and we are all headed out to sea. Wouldn’t you know it, they all want to follow me, so I guess direct sail is out for now. I go to mapview and sail to… ‘the island formerly known as Redmond’… Jamaica, mon.
Docking in Jamaica, I discover I now have two options. One anchor takes me directly to port, the other takes me to… wait for it… my deck! Yep, still cool. Once I figure out where the sally port is, I am off to town. Being short of funds, I head straight to the governors little shack. Run through the usual rigmarole with him and… wait, did the old cheapskate just advance me 1,000 ducats? Who are you and what have you done with Silly Ma… er, Governor Silehard? So, got any other work, besides sailing right back to where I just came from? Scuttle a pirate for ya? Sure, sounds like an opportunity to upgrade.
So, back to port, onto my lugger, and… lovely, straight into a 27 knot headwind. (The oil slick water and pixel ray are still present by the way.) Well, guess we’ll see what this newfangled ship handling stuff is all about. Up full sails, hard to port to get some headway before we back into the beach, hard to starboard to avoid the cliff. Com’on girl, get around! Nope. Not enough headway. I’ll have to box-haul her, losing some hard fought ground. Ok, we’re making headway again on the starboard tack, heading towards the fort. Prepare to come about. Off tacks and sheets. Hard a starboard. Nope, started too late and the water shoals quicker than I remember. Grounded her on the beach by the fort! :boom Ok, box-haul her again, start making headway on the port tack. Up and up, start the tack earlier. Enough headway to get around? Yes, just! Back on the starboard tack and moving well now. One more tack and we’re out. Build up speed to 8 knots, and she comes around sweet as can be. Now after that scallywag in the jackass-barque. As for the new ship handling features? So far, well done. There will be a bit of a learning curve for each new ship in finding the right amount of headway needed to smoothly tack, but after the initial awkwardness, it became more intuitive. IRL I sail a little wooden gaffer sloop, and the feel of this was pretty intuitive. And the counter rudder? Spot on! Excellent feel to it, conveys the sense of bulk and momentum just right. For the Lugger anyways, the new handling physics are beautiful. WBT FTW!
ahoy! Now where were we?Ah yes, that pesky pirate. Well, it seems a couple of lineships have gotten a head start on me and mauled her pretty good. The mizzen has gone by the board and her canvas looks like the moths have been at it. I only get a couple of bow chaser rounds and one good broadside at close range before she surrenders. Not a lot of opportunity for maneuvering . So I swap ships and limp the barque back into the harbor, drop anchor and…
The game crashes.
Engine.exe error, or so the lovely little Microsoft window says. Since it now nigh onto 1:00 am, I decide to call it a night. Saved last just before the barque was in bow chaser range, so not too much lost. Being able to save pretty much whenever is good. My three minor gripes are grammatical, graphical and of course, the crash. I’ll report more as I continue on my adventures.
(dungeons are tough unless you have good sword/melee skill)
