Pirate The World - Online Adventure Game

Ahoy me hardies! I've been a member for about six weeks and I love this game. I love it so much that I spend money I make at other sites to buy extra moves and fame resets.

I have seen a lot of discontentment in the forums as well as seen some good members leave and noobs give up quickly. This post is a good example: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2325

It is frustrating when you can lose more overnight than you can gain from farming and if you have a pocketful of gold, you dare not attack towns and greenies indiscriminately as your fame builds up at a very rapid level and leaves you open to being plundered! Even worse as the example above illustrates, if you get plundered good, chances are you will be gang plundered! I know this from experience!

I have not seen Socorban lately and rumor has it she went ashore after being savagely plundered. That is sad as she helped me and others when we started.

I have seen some good ideas in the forums and I have a couple of my own.

FAME
No matter what, a successful attack yields 1% on 0 fame. That's wrong! 0 Fame should be rewarded and a ship with 0 fame should be treated like a town with a maximum of 100 gold taken upon succesful attack.

After the first attack at 50% loss, successive attacks should be substantially reduced until the next fame reset is reached. This will discourage pack mentality and prevent discouraging pirates into quitting.

I have seen the suggestion of being able to keep unneeded fame resets, I also saw the objection based on not buying more to support the game. Perhaps a meeting in the middle of allowing pirates to keep 10 per month?

Limiting fame for noobs is an excellent idea as will will help keep them from getting discouraged.

Attack/Defense
Defense only protects a pirate from those weaker, if a pirate has a higher attack than your defense, he will take the same amount of gold if successful without regard to levels. There should be an Attack/Defense ratio, for example a pirate with level 5 defense would lose less from a pirate with level 6 attack than he would from a level 7 or 8. It works both ways, it encourages spending gold to protect onesself as well as spending gold to get more gold!

Stealing - what's with that? How is a pirate supposed to find out if he can overpower another pirate if he's afraid to hit them? It's bad enough you get 3 fame for a failed attack, why further it by taking gold too?

Hidden Islands
The game grid is 400 x 400 which is 160,000 grid squares. Seems like a lot until you realize that the largest ship with the largest radar can effectively cover the entire grid in a rapid scan, picking out targets which he has learned from experience.

In considering the real pirates of the past, they worked relatively small areas of the sea on any given day and changed locations after long days at sea. Imagine if Blackbeard could see the entire ocean each day!

It's too easy for the largest ships to hit the most players. They have no doubt earned their upgrades so reducing the effective size of ships and radar doesn't seem fair but what if there was one island for each ship, a port, where they could hide to prevent being attacked overnight?

Not an assigned island but rather scattered at random so everyone would have to find them and if another pirate is hidden there, the island disappears and is reflected as ocean or reef so as not to show who is there to prevent ambushes.

all good suggestions...but lets pick these boys apart one by one...


First things first, your thoughts on fame...

I don't see why you would be upset about losing 1% gp with 0 fame...wait til people can take 4-5k a pop when you are safest...then we can talk about that....but anyways, treating a pirate like a town doesn't seem like a good idea...those that have good defenses are treated well since not that many people can get through, and their upgrades might cost a ton, but they need the protection...if you are smaller and want the same freedom, time to get started on your prime pillaging!

as far as a limit to how many you can keep, I still strongly disagree with it..I like the idea of giving a noob 5 fame resets to keep in their chest from the very beginning..almost like a training wheel...then, once theyget used to using the treasure chest, they might be more inclined to buy more

with the attack vs defense in terms of levels, there should be no punishment for being much higher than another pirate...

And as far as stealing goes, that seems to be implemented to put more use for observation, as far as what I have been told...without stealing, obs is pointless, and I would be one pissed off pirate...just be more careful as to who you decide to attack!

as far as the game grid, it is actually 401 x 401...the widest radar is 10, and even though you can sail through the ocean at a rapid pace, it is still difficult to track down pirates...so there is nothing wrong with that

as far as a "port" for a pirate to sail into to be hidden, there would have to be a drawback to it...

like, your radar would imediately be black, and upon going to this port, your fame is doubled...

otherwise, whats the point of finding a fame reset for the end of the day when you can just sail to your house?

Ok, so if the widest radar is 10, and I am assuming the largest ship can move at that speed per turn, it should take a fully upgraded ship approximately 1600 moves to cover the entire map.

That's not out of the range of possibilities with the amount of extra moves that appear on islands. That does seem a little unreasonable. Unfortunately there's no good way out of it. Downgrading folks who already have an upgrade and capping it just doesn't help.

Making the map larger when we have a slightly shrinking population (at least based on the home page stats) makes it difficult for new players to find other ships and makes the game boring. Seems a little bit of a head scratcher.

Strikers point that it is difficult to find pirates only applies to moving ones for big scores. Trust me, folks can find anyone who's not online for a nice 1% hit. I'm a nobody and I've had 15+ a day for a while. And that is why a lot of lower powered players are complaining about the 1% fame hits. Not 'cause they lose 1%, but because they come back the next day and it totals 10-15, sometimes 20%.

I'm kinda ambivalent at this point. I've personally determined that this game really isn't for everyone, so I've limited who I've told about the game. This game is for those who are serious about playing with a determination, and can come back from a loss with a vengence. A vengence to succeed, not just to pound who pounded them.

I think that every good game should have the navy involved. There should be a couple navy ships that are out looking for pirate ships. Not too many, but admin should have at least 2. In the old days, the navy from certain countries were always out after the infamous pirates, trying to capture them, etc. As far as the smaller pirates are concerned if the navy runs into them, they can press them into service for an hour,etc. Something just to make the game a little interesting. That would give the smaller pirates a little more firepower against the larger pirates. Then the navy and the small pirate could split the gold take. Plus it would help admin too. Just a thought.

CSStriker - I'm not upset with the 1% loss per say, what bugs me is that overnight, I get hit by anywhere from 10 to 25 times by larger ships and the combined loss can be several K per night. I could show you my attack logs but you know it's true as you have had your share of turns there as well!

I am not a powerful ship YET and the larger ships work to ensure that my upward progress is slow. When an upgrade costs say 18k for example and farming yields only 4K to 5K, a loss of 2K is substantial. It makes the noobs feel like they will never get there.

Sometimes I play the odds and rampage which can yield as much as 25K in a sitting but as often as not, someone realizes I'm rampaging and gives me a swift kick in the stern to knock 1/2 my wallet into my wake! What makes this worse is when the attacker notifies his buddy that there's good plunder to be had and several hit before a fame reset can even be pulled from the treasure chest!

Myself, I could care less if we keep the status quo because I am determined and I will be a big ship someday but I know that the game would be a lot more fun if there were more active pirates! Not only more fun but better for everyone as there would be more people spending money on moves and resets! I buy moves cause I like to play, I know others do too!


I think maybe you misunderstood my point or I didn't state it clearly. I agree there should be no punishment. What I was trying to say is the larger the difference between attack and defense, the more that is taken, for example;

Attacker...Defender...........Plunder at given fame level
level 10.......level 5...............100% current rate
..."............level 6.................90% current rate
..."............level 7.................80% current rate
..."............level 8.................70% current rate
..."............level 9.................60% current rate

As shown, this would encourage people to build their offense and defense to keep the spread as large as possible! If you still see this as punishment consider your own words "those that have good defenses are treated well since not that many people can get through", If you attack a smaller pirate and take 10% of his gold, 1,000G for example but take 10% of a large pirate who would be holding more, possibly 10,000G and it hurts even more!

Make no mistake, I'm not unhappy in any way and I'm not sore about being plundered as it is part of the game and every dog will get his day if he holds on long enough. My concern is the turnover I see and the lack of retention of new players!

Let's make the game a little more friendly and it will raise game revenues which in turn will make it possible for more experienced pirates to improve their earnings while not discouraging noobs!