Pirate The World - Online Adventure Game

Really,i mean on the (level)there's nothing wrong with my keyboard.
Listen to the drum roll and the smash of the cymbal.
Ah cha cha cha.
BTW My psychiatrist called me a raving lunitic once........
So i fired her.

I think you are missing the point personally. Over 2 years ago the original owners of the game came up with the idea and hired a programmer to create it. The programmer they had was not a PHP specialist and the end result, while workable, made changes virtually impossible. Having spent close to 30 years working and programming computers, I can freely admit that the code used in the version of the game we purchased was far from optimized. A lot of the lag issues I am sure come from this, but without a complete rewrite of the code, it is virtully impossible to completely combat this. They closed down the site due to the fact that they could not afford to pay someone to rewrite the code with the lack of income they had.

The situation today is nothing like that. Our concept has always been to return half of all income generated back to the players as cashout and prizes. The big players don't have any reason to spend and the new players get pounded so bad they feel it is a waste of money to try and catch up. The new concept is a way to work between these two ideals so that the game is still a challenge, but there is a price to pay for the rewards which will hopefully level the playing field. I have played many games over the years I understand that without a source of income these games will go by the wayside.



I have no idea what you are talking about pop since I have not blocked you on MSN. I am not on as much as I used to and I did have a hard drive crash a while back and did not realize for over a month that I never reloaded MSN, but it is up now and if I am at my computer I answer if messaged.



Thank you for your understanding. The decision process on this has been difficult and what we ended up with, we thought, was the best solution. We did have several options:

1) complete reset. Pros - everyone is on an even playing field, people who played and left may come back, income increase possibility. Cons - in 6-12 months we are back here, the same people will be in the top, game stagnates, lag issues will not change.

2) incorporate changes mentioned into existing framework. Pros - opportunity for more people to cashout, playfield levelling, possibility of more interest in the game from new players. Cons - loss of hard core players, programming nightmare. The rewrite needed to accomplish this, due to the poor coding structure in place, means basically a complete rewrite of the code. Unknow if lag would be reduced.

3) rewrite the game into a new programming format with new changes. Pros - New look, format is such that lag issues should be a thing of the past, opportunity for more people to cashout, playfield levelling, possibility of more interest in the game from new players. Cons - loss of hard core players, time consuming to create a new format.

Option 1 is a bandaid, basically a temp fix, quicky discarded.

Option 2 was what we seriously looked at until we got into it and realized how badly written the code was. Since a complete rewrite seemed inevitable we explored Option 3 and decided upon it.

The current version of the game is such that it is easily exploitable. What challenge is there in 3-5 people using phones, IM, Voice chat, etc. to rape a player found with high fame? While I did this myself in the past, I also realize that it ends with what we have now. People expecting something cause 'that's how it's always been'. For the month of July we paid out more in cashout than we earned for the entire month and that is not even including the server payment. It was expected though cause of the announcement about the new game, but how long can you operate at a deficit? How long can you keep your business open Pop if you are spending 2-4 times what you bring in? But we are the bad guys for taking away the cashout while trying to complete the new version.

So, should I make a poll to see what the community wants?

1) Reset current game and keep it running as is
2) Don't reset and only have prizes
3) Continue working on the new version

Cap and I have had an offer to purchase the game in it's current form. I have no idea what programming knowledge this person has, but unless you are a fan of option 1, I would estimate it would cost about $5-10,000 to have the needed coding changes done over and above the cost to purchase the game unless you have the time to do it yourself.

My biggest problem was the time frame for being notifyed that there would be no cash out or piracy rewards this month, and the way it was announced.

If it had been posted at the beginning of the month and the reason behind it there would not have been any problem. But instead it was posted, in the forum in a reply to a post. There was not an offical post or email about it. So those who dont read the msg board or go into chat have no idea there wont be any cash out this month even now.

As for shutting the game off until the new version comes out I dont see why that has to happen. You could make changes to the way things work now and still keep the game going. Wheather that is by getting someone to help admin the site or act as a site helper to you two.



Changes that could be made:

1) start reduceing stats on cash out. You take a cash out you lose stats. Much like the idea for the new game. That is if you plan on keeping the cash out feature.

2) Put tshirts up for sale, purchased with gold from the game at the current gold rate of even a set amount decided on by you.

3) Get rid of the piracy prizes

4) or just simply reset it and every one plays for free. Much like last time the game got shut down.

There has been no word on when the new game will come out. Which makes some of us wonder how long the game will be down for.

A little more communication from thos in the know would go a long way in keeping us happy.

All I ask is to be notified as soon as the new game is up and running so I can get in quick. I have never cashed out on PTW, but I did win a great prize (laptop). It is worth it to me to await the new game. I think, it will be great for everyone to start off on a clean slate. I still love this game.

honestly, I remember when the game went down with no look to cashout, and I was fine with it...I didnt mind running around and smacking pirates for the hell of it to pass some spare time...

What nimizts said sounds cool with me, if I am understanding him correctly...

1) continue what you are doing, with the new game and whatnot
2)keep this game running while you are working on the new one, disable cashouts and piracy, and reset stats...therefore, it is for 100% fun, *****but keep the prizes out there*****

The only problem I see with this is that you wil have to pay for the server, but I wouldn't m ind going back to square one and making it to the top again...(or at least near it, haha)

I'm looking forward to the new version of the game,and finding prizes out there.

I agree the timing on the announcement was bad, but use a little common sense. It was announced that we were going to bring out a new version. Due to this announcement what do you think happened? Purchases fell through the floor cause everyone wanted to wait and see how the new version would be. We were a little too optimistic about the time needed to complete the new version, yet with virtually no income we are now being told it is unfair to take away cashout. Personally, I'd say be glad the cost of gas does not affect the cost of internet usage like it does food and other service type items.

Now, some of your ideas are feasible, but others aren't.

1) Can't start reducing stats on cashout unless we want to do it in a long drawn out process of editing every single person who cashes out. This is why the new game is happening cause the game code would have to be rewritten to accomodate it anyway.

2) The t-shirts have always been available for sale for $15 or 15 GD

3) Already done

4) a possibility, but there are still server costs. The bandwidth used by this game does not allow the $15 a month servers option.

On the communication side, that is why I posted here. I personally would not mind keeping the old game up, but there are few prizes left and no income to buy new ones.

yes brian you are right didnt block me on MSN, but I never shared any ideas about my game concepts.

There was a time when my business was losing money everyday, i looked back at what i was doing wrong and the #1 reason why my business was failing was ME . I wasn't putting in enough hours into my business to make it profitable. being an absentee owner much like you and seacapt have been the past 2 years(no offence), I wasnt around to fix problems and the business suffered... i lost customers and you lost players simply because we were not there. I made changes like you are doing now but closing the doors for an undetermined amount of time will most likely make you lose even more players much like I would lose a good portion of my customers if I lock the doors for a month.

was the offer to purchase from me? anyways programmers are much cheaper than what you are claiming, i could of hired an Asian or Indian programmer to make an exact duplicate of PTW1 in 1 week for $600 and with the 3 enhancements i wanted added into the game my Total bill would of been $1000 and the program installed on my server all within 1 week!

Um, my name is not Brian.

And if you only paid $600-1000, I am sure you'd only get what you paid for as well.

Anyway, no offense taken, I know we have not been here 100% of the time, but that is not always possible. My problem is that I am about 20 years out of date on programming so am unable to help with the new work, and while I could write into the old script, it would not be optimized to work the best it could. I am not used to the {} and () and all that is needed and often leave something out and then have to debug. I remember shortly after getting the game I wrote up a script for the pearls, took me 2 hours and ended up being about 300 lines long. Sent it to Cap and he read through it and sent me back an 8 line script that did the exact same thing. :/

If you're referring to me I don't have you blocked on MSN either. If you're going to drop hints in a public forum about something you're upset about that only involves one person, please take it OUT of the forums and deal with it with that person in private.