Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Indie Caribbean Legend - Classic Pirate RPG Sea Dogs: To Each His Own Remake/Remaster

Infinitron

I post news
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
99,558
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Released:



https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2230980/view/4042612637297270003

Caribbean Legend - Out Now!
The next big discount will only be available in October.

Ahoy!

There is not much to say - buy it now on Steam while it's 25% off. Limited time offer—only two weeks and
the next big discount will only be available in October.

Now that we are done with salesmanship, what is Caribbean Legend? First of all, it is more than a game, it is a unique genre.

If you have played any of Sea Dogs games before
, you probably already know everything about Caribbean Legend. Read this open letter, explaining our vision and our mission, and you are good to go for your pirate raid.

If you have never played any of the Sea Dogs games before
, then I must inform you that they are known for being hard, clunky, and outdated. We've improved on each of these aspects, but they still exist and they can still ruin your day. If you manage to get through them... well, welcome to the best pirate game out there. It's true; how many games do you know which have all these mechanics?

  • Combat at sea.
  • Land combat.
  • Exploration on land.
  • Global map.
  • RPG system.
  • Dialogues.
  • Companions and love interests.
  • Linear and generated quests.
  • A deep narrative with choices and consequences.
  • Loot, collectibles, and crafting.
  • Building and management.


That's right, not too many. Give Caribbean Legend a try, but be careful - if it clicks with you, you'll find yourself lost in the Golden Age of Caribbean piracy for several hundred hours.
 

Sibylla

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck Douchebag!
Joined
Jun 2, 2014
Messages
272
I'm playing the free version and its fun with generic quests only, slowly capturing better ships and having to sink the old one everytime because crew gets absolutely slaughtered. Enemies dont engage suicide fights with forts anymore. There doesnt seem to be direct sailing like without using world map.

Lack of rpg mechanics: you pick premade character attributes and cant change them so why bother having it? Skills are increase by use which i also dont like. Cant even choose officers' perks i guess.

Anyway blackmark is based so they will release scripts of the game after a while then you can modify whatever.
compared to this https://cmdrhammie.itch.io/beyond-new-horizons, the biggest not-russian mod where they added everything they fancied with no thought of consequences, i find this game more reasonable.
 

Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi

Hoarder of loli kats./ Funny ^._.^= ∫
Patron
Joined
Mar 4, 2019
Messages
7,987
Location
Brasilien
Codex+ Now Streaming!
1706899172586576.png

the "go to jail script have being broken" arghhhh away my frens.
 

Sarkile

Magister
Patron
Joined
Aug 13, 2003
Messages
1,496
Is this worth it if I already have To Each His Own? I've never played through it because the French are fags and I hate having to play as one, but I generally like Sea Dogs.
 

Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi

Hoarder of loli kats./ Funny ^._.^= ∫
Patron
Joined
Mar 4, 2019
Messages
7,987
Location
Brasilien
Codex+ Now Streaming!
well if u own TEHO you can get a 50% off the game, but overall it's just the same game with slight improved graphics, some improvements and making some quests easy.
 

Jack Of Owls

Arcane
Joined
May 23, 2014
Messages
4,408
Location
Massachusettes
I wish they at least added controller support (something Sea Dogs 1/Pirates of the Caribbean on Xbox had) or the ability to jump or even step down off a fucking 5" high sidewalk. So, to paraphrase the late Jon Pertwee about the daleks (old style), "They can't even go up or down a couple of steps so they're screwed if they're chasing you!" Does this remaster have all the DLC of the original game? As for controller support, I created an Xpadder profile for these old Storm games back when I played (or tried to anyway) New Horizons that works well.
 

cyborgboy95

News Cyborg
Joined
Aug 24, 2019
Messages
3,054

First DLC and Patch 1.2 - release date!
Ahoy!

A quick update to let you know that production of Patch 1.2 is on schedule and will be released on June 27th. The final scope of changes and new content is yet to be determined, but this patch will definitely be as big as 1.1 and 1.1.1 combined.

Here is a little sneak peek of the upcoming changes.

1299cacc8aa4d1cb7df788c3bf58b029aa96f0e7.jpg

Ships' hulls are real in-game quality. The sea, sails and rigging are rendered separately.

You can find more in the recent Dev Diary.

In addition, the first DLC will be released on the same date, featuring a new freeplay quest with the most powerful loot in the game so far.

 

cyborgboy95

News Cyborg
Joined
Aug 24, 2019
Messages
3,054
Dev Diary IV
44075afc63e767c5217a41f43ace2af95ba18b4c.png

Ahoy!

Aye, let's get straight to the point. Patch 1.3 will be released on September 11th. On the same day, the second DLC, Black Mark Pack, will also be available.

Development Status
If I still had any lingering doubts about the game’s prospects and development, the recent news has finally cleared them up. But let’s start from the beginning.

You know our plan:

  • Version 1.3 — uplift the early game and adapt it for new players.
  • Version 1.5 — complete the Story Mode and refine the Sandbox Mode.
  • Version 2.0 — a major quantity/quality leap, setting the benchmark for a game on the Storm Engine, paving the way for a full-fledged sequel.

To make all of this a reality, the game needs commercial success. But how do you measure that success, and what does it even mean?

Fortunately, Steam has specific metrics: you need to reach a certain gross sales figure within the first six months after release.

Only 3% of all released games achieve this goal. If you’re among these three percent, Steam considers your game “successful” and starts actively promoting it. If not, the game dies, and usually, so does the team.

Even though we hit the required number not in six months, but in just the first month of sales, and Steam started promoting us long before the release, it was important for me to get official confirmation from Valve.

And a couple of weeks ago, I got it. On September 11th, we will return to the store’s main page!

The main business goal of the first post-release year is completed ahead of schedule, which means that all doubts are now gone. We’re working on version 1.5, then 2.0, and aiming to go from the top 3% to the top 1%.

This achievement is primarily yours. You are the best community in the world. Thank you.
:respect_soldier:


DLC
8319d1829bfa242271030b73e4fd519fa9499b63.jpg

Our policy on paid add-ons is very simple and, in my opinion, quite fair:

  • A new DLC is released with each major patch.
  • DLCs are developed last — after the main work on the free content is completed.
  • 80% of new content is free, 20% is paid.
  • DLC sales fund the studio’s work and create a financial safety net.

The Black Mark Pack DLC is essentially a developer support pack. Such packs are not uncommon: they usually cost as much as a full game and offer a bit of cosmetic content as a reward. I don’t like this approach, so our pack will be filled with treasures:

  • Five new items, including new armor.
  • A quest available in both story and freeplay modes.
  • A unique officer — a musketeer.
  • Three Steam achievements.
  • Probably a new ship. Probably.

By purchasing this pack, you not only ensure the future development of the game, but you also get a ton of cool content that will really enrich the beginning of the game. Make sure to wishlist!

And now for the sad part. We planned to include a new ship in this DLC, and what a ship it is! A brilliant idea, really, thanks to our Lead Writer, Vagrant. And that’s why I’m genuinely upset that we’ve recently had problems with the ship production. More about this below.

Patch 1.3
Ships
Since we started talking about ships, let’s just continue. The planned list for 1.3 looked like this:

  • the Meifeng
  • the Valkyrie
  • War Schooner
  • Fluyt
  • DLC Ship

And what do you think? There are two and a half weeks left before version 1.3 is released, and all we have ready is... the Valkyrie.
:rofl_pirate:


307e7522e668ce62f89348885e84606da24a1de1.jpg


And an unfinished war schooner.

a1d3a626c21958a8bbfe32ad0102ca77fc36be7c.png

I won’t go into details about how this happened; I’ll just say that the problem with a small team and a unique engine is that if even one person drops out of the process, work stops abruptly in several areas at once. I haven’t figured out how to fix this vulnerability yet, but I can immediately say that in addition to ships, the new boarding scenes are now also at risk.

Boarding Scenes
661d405cf84b27e19567d3c7d7148a372f798990.jpg

Again, according to the plan for version 1.3, everything looked very promising:

  • Lugger vs. Barque.
  • Lugger vs. Sloop.
  • Military Schooner vs. Brigantine.
  • Brigantine vs. Fluyt.
Do you see the idea? If we extend it to all other ship ranks and stick to the most popular ship choices, the boarding scenes will reflect the actual ships of the opponents most of the time. Looks very fresh and plays very fun too!

923914621bc5d9c14bc1d71a51b1cf35b00aa44d.jpg

9e147e48b319ff4dea3cec3417f5b4966fdf2de1.png


However, the delay with the ships means we have more or less finished only the first two scenes, the third is in question, and the fourth is not ready at all. There’s no one to blame here; c’est la vie as it is.

But I’m still optimistic, so in the worst case, the ships and boarded scenes will be released in version 1.3.1, as it always happens with the stuff that didn't make it into the big one.

Animations
Do you like our sword combat system? I don’t. It's really all about energy war and dealing tiny damage numbers. Sooner or later, we’ll have to make it completely new system, but for now, we have to use quick methods.

We added 7 new death and dying animations, giving them context — depending on the type of weapon or ammunition that dealt the fatal blow. It turned out great; sometimes, there are some very juicy and brutal scenes happening.

As for town animations, new ones have been added for churchgoers and drunks on the streets. Slowly but surely, the cities are coming to life. If we have time, we’ll also update the animations of tavern visitors, including female ones.

32b3abee4fefa81358db7f09516da43afe7b9ac2.jpg

049e46cc290c90e6173c713ecb8d7b627f62b7d0.jpg


In addition to town and combat animations, version 1.3 introduces a new direction — quest animations that are created exclusively for story cutscenes. This is an experiment, so whether we continue in this direction is up to you. Play the new Longway quest and let us know. Speaking of which...

Longway
The real star of version 1.3. The most expensive (production wise) and most variable storyline we have ever created. The first quest that directly changes the game’s plot since 1.0, offering an alternative way to eliminate François Levasseur and new scenes with Mary and Helen.

a472df15e0ab759ef50f801b5a45c4d4a545d29f.jpg


The rewards include a unique sword, a super useful ward, and accelerated leveling of Longway to suit any playstyle. By the way, our Chinese friend can now use a musket. So, if you become a proud owner of the Black Mark Pack DLC, you can assemble a squad of four musketeers. There is a Steam achievement for that now.

a436c8e73bc1cb58fd647b73db8e2814dc82d292.jpg


I don't want to spoil it — you’ll see everything yourself.

Miscellaneous
I suppose you’re already tired of my writing, so let’s wrap up this diary with a visual list of the most significant remaining changes of the upcoming patch 1.3.

The new notification system. Character's drunk? Overloaded? Failed skill check? Gained exp.? The game is properly interfacing with the player now and there are about a hundred cases for that.

27d7a24b1603191dce08089000aa9a7ba6f2a80a.jpg

c13339c8118c46e9dc4c5857f4806724ec1d7a87.jpg


Helen McArthur has been added to the list of playable captains for freeplay mode. Currently, more like an early access version, but we’ll polish her gameplay by 1.5.

9bdd5841185628c8c5cabc536803cf541b789f99.jpg


More tutorial windows. They can now be disabled in the settings or directly when they appear.

14013b91013739660c3240cce2f35f0aebd812eb.jpg


A true next-gen feature — direction markers in certain situations. This will be useful for those who constantly got lost in the jungles of Martinique.

feb824f19c64d874cff85e047c5ada55da855f6c.jpg


Indication of available skill points for officers. Useful if you have a ton of them.

048ca68afecd216a77881b0bca261021c1c85ba2.jpg


And a whole lot of other cool stuff, half of which will traditionally be rolled over to version 1.3.1: unlimited key remapping, even more Steam achievements, improved locations and textures, interface tweaks, and bug and balance fixes.

That’s all for today. If you are wondering how you could help us and the game, add the Black Mark Pack to your wishlist and leave reviews as blue as the Caribbean Sea.

See you on September 11th.
 

cyborgboy95

News Cyborg
Joined
Aug 24, 2019
Messages
3,054
Patch 1.3 and Black Mark DLC
Ahoy!

First, the important stuff:
  • Patch 1.3 is available. We've never done anything like this before as a studio.
  • Starting NG is not required. We recommend loading version 1.2.1 saves made while on land.
  • Today marks the game's second 'release'—Steam will be actively promoting it for two weeks.
  • To celebrate, we've set a historic low price—50% off.
  • Now's the perfect moment to start playing if you’ve been holding off for any reason.
  • Black Mark DLC is out now.



What's New:
Ships
307e7522e668ce62f89348885e84606da24a1de1.jpg

One of the goals of Patch 1.3 was not only to rework the remaining player-favorite early-game ships but also to lay the groundwork for the planned boarding scenes. The ships turned out great.

f9a4a0cea4b46e9f2b2a8c0803905c7c7730d88e.jpg

bb92a57554e44b12040ec97b23b705dd42f743b5.jpg

904dea0020e94ef30c83e5f96fd03e89ff0ad0c5.jpg


New ships:
  • The Valkyrie
  • The Meifeng
  • Fluyt
  • War Schooner
  • The Principio (DLC)
  • Improved sail and rigging quality for all ships in the game.
In total, ~30% of the entire game fleet has been revamped by 1.3 - just as planned.
Quests
Extinguished Star
We’ve never created a quest this complex, non-linear, and intricate before. It has everything: new content with Mary and Helen, direct impact on the main storyline, cutscenes, crazy flashbacks, and valuable loot. The quest starts at the end of "The Dutch Gambit" and continues through to "Turtle Soup." No spoilers—see it for yourself.

a472df15e0ab759ef50f801b5a45c4d4a545d29f.jpg

Black Mark
A non-linear quest, designed for the early stages of the game, offering valuable rewards and nods to veterans of the "Sea Dogs" series. Available in both Story and Sandbox modes. Part of the "Black Mark" DLC.

796fd6ecd8b2b719e464bd73408bc40d34bb7a73.jpg


Rewards include: a duelling double-barreled pistol, an Italian rapier, an Army broadsword, a Black Spot ward, armor, as well as a new officer—Tommy Irons, and the legendary Pink of Nicholas Sharp, the Principio. The Pink is stunning, but the true star of the DLC is Irons. He's got killer jokes.

d545d1771d658c07e40bc27ef4d1199bd431430d.jpg


Locations
No new locations in this patch, aside from a few scenes for the Longway quest. The boarding decks took up almost all of our time and will continue to do so. All four decks will be included in either Patch 1.3.1 or 1.5.

However, we did update several old locations, especially those that significantly lagged behind the newer ones in quality.

Locations update:
  • Locations and scenes for the "Extinguished Star" quest
  • The Old Lighthouse
  • Port Royal Lighthouse
  • Several beaches
  • Indian village
  • Improved ground textures in towns.
Animations
36b1932a71befa4a87eb7439eedaca35da3942c4.jpg


We continue the challenging journey of bringing quests, battles, and cities life to life. The minimum program has already been fulfilled, and with Patch 1.5, we aim for something even more ambitious. Next-gen is just around the corner.

e4bdffc817a9eb257c9536c1644f9a512ff418fc.jpg

32b3abee4fefa81358db7f09516da43afe7b9ac2.jpg


New animations:
  • Unique animations for the "Extinguished Star" quest
  • 7 new contextual death battle animations
  • 2 prayer animations in churches
  • 2 animations for drunks in towns
  • Tavern musicians no longer drown out the game’s music
  • Fishermen, blacksmiths, and musicians now work according to the time of day
New Hero
a375d3c2abd77a20c37084c2a8bc49aa3722312d.jpg

Due to popular demand, Helen McArthur is now a fully-fledged character in Sandbox mode. She is compatible with the "Vile Little God" and "Black Mark" DLCs. She has unique dialogues in her hometown Blueweld, unique achievements, loot, and starts her pirate career on a war schooner.

For now, she doesn’t carry a musket or visible armor, and there may be some "gender errors"
:rofl_pirate:
in the dialogues. Her development will continue in Patch 1.5, along with other Sandbox characters.

Notification System
Traditionally, games in this series have never been known for being player-friendly or transparent, often requiring guides. What happened to my character? Why did I fail a dialogue check? What reward did I just receive? Any game needs to communicate with the player—and now Caribbean Legend does. I consider this the key feature of Patch 1.3.

c13339c8118c46e9dc4c5857f4806724ec1d7a87.jpg

New notifications:
  • Over 100 new format notifications on sea, land, and in dialogues
  • Combat statuses—from poisonings to critical damage
  • Loot markers—so far, only for plants in the jungle, but this is just the start
  • Quest navigation—so far, only for the beginning of the game
  • More quest markers over characters and on the global map
  • New tutorial videos for core game mechanics
94b2f240c1ea990df3ecd70c7b5d4445dcb450c1.jpg

Interface
Let’s be honest, we have the best interface. But somehow, the list of fixes for it has already stretched to three pages.
:rofl_pirate:
The first half of the first page finally made it into Patch 1.3.

03c9e371fad5d3f361d9cb22e92d78fd4914f051.jpg

UI update:
  • Unlimited key remapping—adjust the controls to your liking
  • Control hints in loot, trade, and exchange windows
  • Highlighting new entries in the ship’s log and documents
  • Highlighting available skill points for characters
  • Keeping the selected character when switching tabs between inventory and skills
  • Displaying character roles in officer assignment windows
  • Improved interaction with items in the inventory
  • Added a DLC button in the menu—if all are purchased, it will be inactive
9ff765df6a71eb6a95e65d2b94ca236c3265bc56.jpg

Miscellaneous
  • 13 achievements
  • New ward
  • New sword
  • Automatic crash reports sending - let's see how bad it really is out there
  • Longway can now carry muskets
  • New dialogue camera
  • Missing textures restored for some objects in the "Flying the Jolly Roger" quests
  • Claude Durand now reliably triggers his loyalty event after a set time
  • Obtaining a patent removes pirates from the crew
  • Reputation no longer drops if the player exits "Flying the Jolly Roger" questline before Cartagena
  • Fewer soldiers in towns, and they stop the player less often
  • Chance to deceive the guards can no longer exceed 90%
  • Governors no longer ask you to infiltrate friendly towns
  • Passengers no longer ask to be taken to hostile towns
  • "Iron Will" perk no longer allows intimidating officers
  • Missing item descriptions—skill bonuses, etc.—have been added
  • Additional optimization of the tutorial on Martinique
  • Spelling and grammar corrections - thanks to all reports you have been sharing on Discord
  • Numerous bug fixes
  • Improved overall game stability
1.5
That’s all for now! Over the past six months, we’ve done an incredible amount of work together. We’ve done everything possible and even more. Except for the Story mode epilogue, of course.

We could have done it already, but it would have been too... simple? I want to create something special and worthy of Charles de Maure's story—call it a "director’s cut" of his storyline, if you will. Plus, the game has long needed list of truly new mechanics, fixes for old ones, a complete rebalance, a new loot category, and a proper uplift of Sandbox mode. Not to mention improved controls, gamepad support, Steam Deck experience.

Patch 1.5 will take at least six months, and it will definitely require starting the new game. So for now, we’ll take a short break, rest, and then get back to work.

Leave reviews
:steamthumbsup:
as blue as the Caribbean Sea, download the patch, buy the DLC—and if you’ve been putting off playing the game for any reason, now’s the perfect moment to start!
 

moleman

Arbiter
Patron
Joined
Mar 8, 2018
Messages
669
Location
Birthplace of the headless horseman
Playing this right now. I'm still in the tutorial. Liking it so far.

Also, this game has the most based writing I have ever seen:
Had a quest to get the store owner some assistants and he told me "not to bring some lazy gypsies".

Another quest from the store owner:
help his friend to rescue his daughter from indians.
He tells you that two other guys had disappeared too and he believes that they were taken by the "savages" as well. Gouvenor did't want to help because he thinks that his daughter had run off with some lover and the other guys disappeared for other reasons.

You have then two options:
Help him attack the indians.
Tell him: "Maybe we should checkout the other reasons for the missing folk."

Well, in other games you would know that second option is the "good one" and the first option is the "evil one".

Nope, not here. Second option will end the quest and first option is the correct one. Kill all Indians. Turns out they actually did take the towns folk. Oh and they are cannibals, too :P.
 

cyborgboy95

News Cyborg
Joined
Aug 24, 2019
Messages
3,054
Dev Diary V
Ahoy!

This dev diary won’t feature any sales pitches, sneak peeks, or triumphant reports. Put away your maps, cutlasses, and pistols — we’re having a serious conversation today. It’s your turn to speak and share your thoughts.
:seawolves:


Today's Items:
  • Patch 1.4
  • Plans for the future
  • The Big Question
  • FAQ
Patch 1.4
Eight months ago, we launched the game. Back in February, we decided to focus on two key things: lowering the entry barrier for new players (tutorials, notifications) and rapidly filling the game with as much content as possible — animations, quests, locations, ships, and more — for veteran players.

This focus allowed us to triple the size of our team, streamline our processes, and discover what we do best. However, it also created a significant amount of technical debt and exposed the game’s biggest problem — outdated controls and camera mechanics. Bugs frustrate veteran players, and the controls confuse new ones.

That’s why I decided not to rush straight into patch 1.5, but instead, release an intermediate patch — 1.4. In this patch, we’ll focus on fixing bugs and creating a new control and camera system.

The bugs are straightforward to fix, but the camera and control issues are more nuanced. The problem is that most new players rely solely on WASD, without actively using the mouse. This results in "tank controls". As for the the camera is too close to the player, doesn’t respond to character movement, spins sharply, and often keeps enemies out of view.

In other words, the game doesn’t fully support gamepads, which leads to a lot of frustration for new players who want to enjoy the game but can't. It took us some time and R&D to fully understand the root of the problem because, after so many years of development, our vision of certain things had become a bit blurred.

Without fixing this technical debt and addressing the controls, there’s no point in moving forward.

  • Hire new team members.
  • Quickly add new content to the game.
  • Lower the entry barrier for new players.
  • Begin research to improve graphics, the engine, and controls.
  • Understand what we do best.
    [You are here]
  • Understand what players want most.
  • Resolve the technical debt.
  • Fix tank controls and janky camera.
  • Write the design document for version 1.5.
  • Make a significant leap forward with version 1.5.
  • Resolve technical debt again.
  • Release version 2.0 and [redacted].
  • Resolve the technical debt one last time.
  • [redacted]
  • Caribbean Legend 2
e0ca8f58cd9f6c8b1d9e3a82d0ef4744d2acf8af.jpg

New boarding scenes and muskets as proper secondary weapons

The Future
While the technical part of the team will be suffering from stabilizing the game and fixing the controls, the creative side will be enjoying themselves with quests and designing version 1.5.

If the first stage of development (1.0–1.4) was about exploring the game, the dev team, and the players, then the second (patch 1.5) and third (patch 2.0) milestones will mark significant changes and leaps forward. The future of Sea Dogs series and all that.

Caribbean Legend is a massive game with over 200 hours of gameplay, countless mechanics, and hundreds of content pieces. Games like Sea Dogs, Mount & Blade, and Kenshi are rare. But no matter how strong the ideas from the 2000s may be, the game needs to evolve; otherwise, it’ll become stale and sink into the oblivion. We can’t rely on old gameplay forever. If we want to preserve this genre, which still has no real competition in terms of depth, we must keep moving forward — like how Mound & Blade: Warband transitioned to Bannerlord.

And no, it’s not just about aimlessly adding new quests, perks, ships, or updating graphics and throwing in mechanics for the sake of numbers. We need to make ship plundering and trading fun again. Rebuild the combat system. Recapture the sense of novelty and exploration that makes great new games so captivating.

e134e03708786bf21599a267f47c284edf807fb9.jpg

Port Royal in its glory

Patch 1.5 will be the first step in that direction. Right now, we’re gathering data to prioritize correctly. Prioritize incorrectly, and we risk breaking the entire project. We already have player metrics, feedback notes, our own vision, and a well-established development process. We're also working on the design document for version 1.3 — dissecting the current game to fully understand how it works now.

Almost everything is ready, but to start writing the design document for 1.5, we need just one thing — your opinion. Every one of you has your own vision of what the game should be, and it’s up to you to answer the Big Question.

Freeplay or Story?
No, this isn’t about choosing a game mode from the main menu. This is about what you want to spend most of your game time. It’s about what truly matters to you and what you consider fun.

If you choose freeplay, we’ll focus on things like trade, high seas piracy, colony raids, career progression, wealth accumulation, and restoring that sense of novelty and exploration. The benefit of freeplay is that it also enhances the story mode. The downside? Lots of unknowns, because game design is pure alchemy and randomness.

Possible Freeplay features:
  • Boarding parties and their upgrades.
  • Weapon mods and sharpening.
  • Personal pirate treasures, more physical appearance of money and loot.
  • Plantations and factories.
  • Reactive world: live factions and new bounty hunters system.

If you choose story, we’ll focus on the epilogue and adding more quests. The plus side? Our tasks are clear, and we already have hundreds of pages of content ready to code. The downside? Story is subjective — some are already tired of Charles de Maure, while others may never have cared about his story in the first place. And, of course, any story can be written either poorly or well. That’s a bit of alchemy too, I suppose.

Possible Story features:
  • Epilogue.
  • Rework of the "Happily Ever After" questline.
  • A proper pirate path and a career of Charlie Prince.
  • Targeted improvements to quests and cutscenes.
Personally, I lean toward Freeplay. Raiding ships and hoarding doubloons — isn’t that why we play this game? And based on current stats, only 10% of players will ever see the epilogue. Maybe we should focus on increasing that percentage first?

Survey
We’ve prepared a survey[forms.gle] that will be open for a week. It’s short, and the best responses will receive a unique DLC with three in-game items.

Beyond the epic showdown between "freeplay vs story", there’s another important point in the survey. Patch 1.4 will include a refactoring — we need to go through the code and fix long-standing issues that have been bothering the community (WHEN WILL YOU FINALLY FIX THIS?!).

We really need a list of these issues. Without it, we’ll have to go through the entire code line by line, which is highly inefficient. If you’ve been playing for a while, you probably have a list of these kinds of issues. Please share them with us.
:respect_soldier:


This won’t be the last survey, but after this one, we’ll be able to start writing the design document for patch 1.5 with confidence. And patch 1.4, with fixes and new controls, will likely be released in December.

To sum up:
  • Together, we’ll make the strategical choice between freeplay and story.
  • We’ll stabilize the game and introduce modern controls — for both veteran and new players.
  • We’ll focus on what matters most and take the game to the next level with patch 1.5.

a270a71e7b3a41e5bed469aee81e4092b9ea9f10.jpg

Visible armor for everyone

FAQ
For fun, try loading the Russian version of this blog post.
:rofl_pirate:
The FAQ is 10 times bigger, and the reason for that is explained in the first item below.

What's up with all the negative Russian reviews?
Simply put, the game has a long history and deep ties with the Russian modding community. While this community was, and still is, crucial to the existence of the genre, it also brings a fair amount of toxicity. Plus, I’m not the best community manager.

Tank controls. When will you fix them?
Hopefully in Patch 1.4. The game was originally designed with extensive mouse camera control in mind. Everything is built around it, including combat and level design. Not to mention the several hundred animations we’ll need to create to make the switch.

In short, our goal is to create controls that can fully support a gamepad with a reactive camera. This involves more movement axes, animation blending, etc.

Pressing A or D will make the character strafe. W/A or W/D will make the character run in circles until the player stops pressing A/D, at which point the locomotion will continue in the chosen direction. If the player turns the character far enough, the camera will gradually and smoothly match the direction. That’s the gist of it.


I hate the wind on the Global Map. Is it rigged to ruin my day?
It’s random. The trouble with randomness is that we tend to only remember when it works against us. We plan to adjust this in Patch 1.4, making wind much less of a factor in Global Map travel.

Sailing is too slow. Any plans to fix that?
Aye, we’ll make sailing super fast and easy in non-combat mode to eliminate this unnecessary drag.
The energy system is boring. It drags down land combat and makes it less fun. What about that?
Oh yes, the energy war. Eventually, we’re going to scrap this relic entirely, but that will require us to overhaul the entire RPG system. For now, how about a compromise? We could turn off energy consumption for basic attacks while increasing it for special, heavy, and group attacks. This could be interesting and would definitely speed things up.

Will you ever fix the crashes?
According to our automatic crash reporting system, only 1% of players experience crashes. The most recent spike in crashes was caused by patch 1.3, which introduced a lot of new ships, preventing older sea-based saves from loading. That’s on us — we should have made it clearer by adding in-game notifications. Most of the other crash causes are hardware-related. The game still doesn’t get along well with AMD, and we’re working hard to fix that.

When will proper modding become available?
As soon as the game no longer requires regular tech support, and once we finish active development. Ideally, we’ll also implement a proper module system for modding.

Will you add support for more languages?
I believe that German and Spanish localizations are almost done at this point. French should be in progress too. They all need centralized dev support and coordination. Stay tuned for future updates.

How is the state of the English localization at the moment?
It’s improving with every patch. I might be overly optimistic, but I think we’ve finally fixed most of the major issues. Big thanks to all the players who posted English bugs and errors in the dedicated Discord channel.

Anything I can do to help?
Filling out the survey [forms.gle]would be a massive help, really. Also, if you know any senior C++ devs who would be interested in a paid job working through 20 years of legacy code — please DM me. Especially if they have experience with custom game engines and DirectX rendering. Lastly, if you think the game deserves it, please leave a blue review. I know it’s lame to ask for reviews, but seeing those 500+ hour red reviews with “devs are bad” is surprisingly demotivating.

That’s all for today, folks. Brace yourselves for 1.3.1 and 1.4. Things are about to get very interesting, very soon.

Good hunting.
:jollyr:
 

cyborgboy95

News Cyborg
Joined
Aug 24, 2019
Messages
3,054
The Crew Has Spoken
Ahoy!

In short:
  • Our first survey is complete! Results are below.
  • The team, as usual, is hard at work on tech support and has already released 6 mini-fixes.
  • Patch 1.4 is in the works — updated controls with strafing, camera improvements, stability, and yes, new content!
    :charles_happy:
Survey Results

With over 1,100 players participating, we've got plenty of data to make informed decisions. For those who enjoy diving into the numbers or
:rofl_pirate:
don’t fully trust us, here are the full results for both the Russian[docs.google.com] and English[docs.google.com] surveys.

Contest winners are highlighted in the table. In the next couple of weeks, we’ll be sending out keys for an exclusive DLC to the emails provided in the survey. Thanks for all your fantastic responses and your love for the game!
:respect_soldier:


Is it even good?

8c924129428716c926b102a631de43cfb8dd6456.png


This one’s straightforward — almost 90% of players rated the game positively, though the Russian survey showed a slightly higher score. There were no restrictions, and everyone could vote, so the takeaway is simple: we’re thrilled you’re enjoying the game — and we’re committed to making it even better.

Freeplay or Story?


4c3cd5011a23b718e1afdcd26a6bb03c6f808f13.png

Freeplay took the win.
Does this mean Charles de Maure's storyline is complete and that next year will be all about core mechanics?

Not quite. The preference split isn’t wide enough to make such a dramatic call. So, version 1.5 will definitely include Mary and Tichingitu’s quests, and if we can manage it, we’ll rework "Happily Ever After" into a true epilogue. Beyond that, we’ll leave the storyline as is and focus on expanding the key features that make this genre so engaging. Piracy, trading, career, ownership and leadership.

Instead of an epilogue...
:rofl_pirate:


1fafc6fed8f4f212890aadab410a31bc2dbced1e.png

e4b70a3889606cda85942c0cd3f191c638e5e30b.png

9067167aee9d397c53ecd175f8623d06d35d983f.png


We still have some processing to do with the survey results, but here are the key takeaways so far:

  • Crashes affect only a small portion of players, but as long as it's over 1%, it’s still a problem.
  • Players love the game for its roleplay, freedom and large-scale battles, leading their own crew.
  • Common criticisms include pacing and limited activities beyond the main story — especially noticeable in the later game. That’s likely why there’s a big demand for colony management.
  • Few major bugs or recurring issues exist, but conflicts between NPCs spawns (in taverns, at piers, or coves) break the game very often.
  • The most of quest timers complaints may be caused by how the wind on the global map works.
  • Controls have faced plenty of criticism — and deservedly so. Our top priority from now on.
  • None of these issues are unfixable.
  • And everything you already love about the game can still be improved.
Beyond this, we received lots of kind words and well-wishes. It means a lot to us — especially in these challenging times.
:steamthumbsup:


That’s all for now — see you next month!
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom