20) Hey, man. You posted the thread. I've moved it to the Ask a Developer forum because that really is a better place.

19) As luck would have it I'll be at a bar filled with game developers tonight. There might just be some adult beverages there.

18) Long term, there's the skirmish system that will allow people to practice PvP risk-free (and play balanced PvP fights whenever they like.) Shorter term, this is still something we're working on. Rewards for pirates are coming in 1.4, and that's a step in the right direction.

17) It's intended, more or less. A level 50 in a level 20 ship is obviously a lot easier to kill than they would be in a level 50 ship. They are also risking quite a bit less. That's why we give you a smaller reward for killing them. That could probably be a bit higher, but it's definitely supposed to be closer to level 20's reward than level 50's.

16) All careers are getting love in 1.4. Pirates are getting the most, but everybody is getting something. The Navy definitely lost the most in the 1.2 patch. We don't know yet how 1.4 will shake out for them.

15) The economy is working pretty well in general. We're keeping an eye on it, but it seems to be working. Do you have something more specific you're asking about?

5) Making MoVs tradable (and adding turn-ins to get faction from MoVs) is a mechanism for moving money from the rich economy players to the poor PvP players. It does put a price tag on everything else MoVs are turned in for. Now that they've been tradable for a bit we need to evaluate their drop rates and turn-in rates. We're adding a new system for turn-ins with 1.3 that will make them far more manageable (and make the UI not suck). Retuning of all turn-ins in the game is happening in 1.3 as a result.

4) I did talk to them. We don't know when/if we would make this change. We have other things in mind for pirates (and how to reward them for port conquest) so it will probably not happen before that stuff starts to show up in 1.4.

2) I wish! It's making very very slow progress. I managed to score one of the Russian "support piracy" shirts a couple weeks ago. I hope we can include that one in the store.


Joe

We've wanted to do something similar to this for a long time with player port governance. Our idea was that the port would collect all of the taxes you pay there (AH fees, taxes on economic production, so on) and those would go into a big treasury. We would allow players to 'run for governor' of a port using a special, and fairly complex, system.

Once elected Governor, players could spend the tax money saved up by the port to improve it in various ways, much as you described. The defenses of the city could be improved (effecting port battles and potentially unrest generation), the economy of the city could be improved (including possibly new structures that only function when the economy at a port is improved), and additional services could be added to the port.

When a the port changes ownership (including pirate raids) some or all of those improvements are destroyed, and, potentially, the attackers raid the treasury.

Thoughts?

http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20306

Is a thread I started for discussion of the Buccaneer, a new pirate career that's in concept.

We did try to fix this problem with the last patch, but since we never repro'd it internally, I'd be super grateful if you tried to push your antialiasing back up and enter Campeche (or Rosignol).

Thanks so much!

Testbed is a really useful tool to allow players to try out a build before it goes live. The problem is that people play their main characters on other servers, and don't want to restart a new character, especially when some of the new features require a mid to high level character (such as Bey's Retreat in 1.2).

To solve this problem we have been working on a tool that will allow people to copy their characters over to the testbed server. We are just putting the finishing touches on the character copy system now, so it should be ready for people to try out next week.

With just a few exceptions all of a character's information will be copied to Testbed. The character’s level, inventory, money, ships, and mission progress will be moved with them. They will keep all their skills and outfitting. They will keep the same structures in the same port. Any items a transferred character has listed in the Auction House will appear in the same port as an expired listing.

There are a few pieces of character information that will not copy with a character. The Friend and Ignore lists will be empty after the copy. The character will not be in a society when they reach testbed. Personal unrest or contention points the character has earned will be wiped out. These things don't copy because they may not necessarily make sense on the destination server.

If the name of the transferring character is already taken on Testbed they will be given the opportunity to rename themselves as part of the copy process. Obviously all the same name restrictions will be in effect.

Please keep an eye on the site next week for all the details, and get ready to make some new friends on Testbed!

Enjoy, won't you?
Aether

We did attempt to fix this problem, however, our confidence in this fix isn't high. (Neither we or NVidia ever managed to reproduce it). So, if you don't mind being our guinea pig, please turn up your AA and report back!

Thanks!

Are you in game right now, Mahakmar? The loading screen bug messes with the GM's tools, so they may not be able to see you.


Joe

You don't "freeze" it exactly. You just stop subscribing. Your account stays there along with all your toons. Anyone can do it; just go to your account information and choose "end subscription". You can play until your paid time runs out and then you don't have access to the game any longer.

Tell me about it! I've met him in person!

This is the best idea I have ever seen on the forums.