Pirate The World - Online Adventure Game

For some reason the fact that the new version of the game isnt going to have a coordinate system bugs me. It seems like the absence of coordinates takes away from the strategic value of the game and minimizes how fun it can be. So, i have an idea...



In the real world, plain old latitude and longitude coordinates arent nearly accurate enough to find cities, let alone individual objects such as pirate ships. You need Minuets of Angle, which are 1/60 of a normal angle (which equals about 1.86 km or 1.15 miles at sea level), to have a good relative location of a small city. And you would need seconds of angles to be able to find smaller things such as a pirate ship.
In the late age of pirates, the most accurate instrument for measuring latitude and longitude was probaly the sextant, sometimes being able to measure as accurately as 10 seconds, or about 310 meters (1012 feet), however this was only with very precise instruments; Common sextants were usually only able to read as low as 1 MOA. These measurements arent very accurate, however they still can get you where you need to go.


Now, say PTWII had a coordinate system, however it just wasnt very accurate. If latitude and longitude are used, then you can still get to a general area in the map without knowing your exact location. This would not be very useful to fleets because it could take their target out of their viewing range, however it can help someone get to a particular island or place on the map. If the structure of the map were set up to have movement from one square to another at 0 degrees latitude equal to about 1 MOA, or 1.86 km, then there would still be 60 squares of error in your coordinate location. If the map isnt detailed enough to have 21600 squares at the equator and 10800 squares at the prime meridian, then movement between two squares can have a larger value, and lat. and long. can be aproximated to the nearest multiple of 5 or 10. If the map is larger, then smaller measurements can be used.

There are four drawbacks to using latitude and longitude:
1. Because of the nature of longitude, making the map a realistic representation of a sphere would mean making a map with decending amounts of squares along the parallels (latitude) the farther away from the equator you get. This would give the shape of the map one similar to a traditional wall map of the earth, except as an ellipse instead of a rectangle with rounded sides.
2. The map would need to have a major axis (the length around the equator) that is twice as long as the minor axis (the length from the north pole, or top square, to the south pole, or bottom square); This is because there are 360 degrees of longitude and only 180 degrees of latitude. This only applies to perfect spheres, and even though the earth is not, it generally is represented as one.
3. Navigation across the maps edges would also be different. Since you cant travel to the south pole and automatically get to the north pole just by passing it like on the maps in the old version of the game (going from 200S directly to 200N), the game should be set up so that by going down passed the south pole, you would automatically end up going back up, except halfway across the map. For instance, if you pass the south pole at 180 degrees east or west then you should start traveling north at 0 degrees east or west. Or if you pass the south pole at 90 degrees east then you should be traveling north at 90 degrees west. In other words, your position should deviate by 180 degrees and your direction of travel should be the opposite. However, traveling across the map east and west should be the same as the old map; You should always be at the same latitude and you should always be traveling in the same direction.
4. Though your path along a sphere's surface may be strait, represented on a map it is not. Once again, because of the nature of longitude, your path on a map is curved. If you look at a world map, you will notice that all of the lines of longitude are curved. These would be the same as your path from pole to pole. Accounting for this curvature can be hard, especially when using a map that divides the sphere's surface into squares.

I know that all of this sounds overly complicated but its really not; its just simple logic turned complex with cartography. The mathematics involved are brainteasers. However, one simple way to eliminate the problems i addressed is to eliminate the use of a sphere. Though this may take away from the realism, which was supposed to be a point in creating a new version of PTW, it makes everything much less complicated and still allows a coordinate system to be used. I still think that even without the sphere factor, latitudes and longitudes can be used, given a rectangular map with twice the length as the height.



The degree of accuracy in the coordinate system is the important thing in this topic though. 60 squares (or any other variable) can be used to mark the distance between different lines of latitude and longitude, that way to prevent fleets from getting multiple hits while also allowing for a general sense of location on the map.




please do not shoot this idea down just because its too long and complicated to understand. Read the last paragraph to get an idea of what im getting at.

In all actuality, what you have done here is to complicate the mapping system overall in order to induce point deviation to to discourage accurate mapping assistance with the use of the coordinate system. I doubt the average player would know how to find let alone calculate a 6 or 8 digit coordinate set.

Personally, I rather like the fact that the new game map will be all visible and there will be no coordinates shown. SeaCaptain and BCP have clearly stated that the world map will still be a grid but without a set of known polar coordinates.

This will be a deterent to fleets but not limit them entirely, nor will it prevent the average player from accurately mapping out the game. With any grid, if you know and can see a land mark, it's not that hard to count how many spaces in what direction to the next landmark. Sure it makes mapping harder and it will necessitate those insistent upon fleet manuevers to come to some sort of agreement where their map point 0/0 is but it can be done rather easily.

That, my friend, would depend on how unique the landmarks are.

For me the jury is still out as far as if this is a good thing or a bad thing--- and we'll not know until July 1st (or possibly even beyond that as well all try to figure out this whole 'new world').

My gut says we'll see the coordinate suggestion again though.

Edit: The most egregious of fleets seem to actually hunt together-- I especially liked this one hunt where one of them kept getting in my path to slow me down so that the others could hit as they were close behind. Depending on how much you can see in the game, I'm betting on actually more of that type of bullying action from those who play in fleets, since we'll have an upsurge in players. It will just take them a little while to find each other before this starts.

Look for the fleet complaints to start in August.

Awe, so you noticed that you were being followed too! And here, I thought I was paranoid! I took notice of that particular fleet member following me around on the map and until I got hit by a few other fleet member just thought he was lost. Now, I know better. I just hope the new version ties their hand (oops...cannons) in a knot!!! We wouldn't have to have a new version of PTW if fairplay were evident!!! Looking forward to new game version!

Fair play has nothing to do with it. There is nothing in the rules against playing as a fleet an conversing with the other members of the fleet to zero in on a target filled with gold.

Thats the thing there isn't a rule because stated time and again, there would be no way to enforce it.

However it is clearly the intent of part of the new game to limit this behavior. It can then be inferred that even the admins looks down on this form of gameplay. In fact in the Payoff forum, they claim this was the intent of not having coordinates.

With the way a particular fleets been practicing, looks to me like they intend to hunt together despite this--- which tells me the intent is lost.

not to worry looks like most of us may be gone when the game relaunches , no maps and punishment for cashing out is enough to probably make me look for entertainment elsewhere.

not having a map will probably mean ill have to pay for a reset 2-3 times a week and I have never really spent money on online games and im not planning to in the future.

I'm thankful for all the cashouts I have received as well as the friendships I have developed , I will definatly give the new game a try before I make my final decision.

can i buy the old version so that i can continue playing on my home computer??

PS : i do like the idea about hunting in a pack , that will certainly be one spot to avoid on the seas LOL

I dont see where you have come up with a 6 or 8 digit coordinate set. Its a simple concept to apply a single coordinate value to multiple points on the map that are close together. All one would need to know is where in general they are in the game.
I do think that the complicated part of my suggestion only involves making a map that is a realistic representation of a sphere or planet. This is everything i said in my 'four drawbacks', and all of this is unapplicable if the new map were to be flat (and not a representation of a sphere).



From the picture provided in the email about PTW2 it seems that islands are going to take up a fairly large ammount of area on the map and each tile movable is going to be fairly small. If there are nearly as many islands and towns in the new version as there are in the current version, then the map is going to be huge and the scale of movement is going to be very small, thus making the distance between islands in terms of tiles huge and hard to keep track of. This virtually eliminates the use of 'landmarks' and tile counting as an even remotely accurate way to make a map of the grid.

Have you ever played the game The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker? This game is of a seafairing adventure, and the map provided has a coordinate system, however each coordinate covers an area so large that the map can really only be used to get to a general region in the game, making finding stuff like sunken treasure a pain because of the maps inaccuracy. The reason i point this out is because if the new grid that PTW will be played on is large enough, then an individual landmark in a specific coordinate's 'region' could possibly be out of the veiwing range of your ship, thus making it very hard to judge exactly where your ship is.

The point of a world map to a pirate would have been to find where in relation to the rest of the world he was. There is nothing accurate about saying "i am at 80 degrees west and 21 degrees north." this would mean that you are in that general region, given that the general region you specified is 12454 square kilometers in area.

I have absolutely no clue what is going on in this thread, so I will continue to smile and nod

Thats one heckuva assumption on the map size.

It could be anywhere from an Ultima I to VII and beyond... or in fact less...

Of course the map size alone will be seems to be part of the mystery, since there will not be coordinates, it could be an adventure alone to figure out the size of the world.


And Pops--- We've heard that tune before.