I'm not 100% sure I follow what's going on here, but that could be because I'm under the influence of a nasty flu virus right now. Keep in mind that, while it's rather improbable to be happening consistently, others could be voting on the same content as you and thus changing the rating in unexpected ways.

In either case, please take screen shots (print screen and paste into your favorite graphics program, or with some screen shot utility) and file a support request documenting this behavior.

Ok. We're rebooting the Rackham cluster in 10 or so minutes. That will almost certainly fix it for everyone.


Joe

Those are nice flags! My only suggestion is make the "weave" of your fabric texture parallel to the edges, rather than on the bias (angled with respect to the edges). Fabric cut on the bias stretches more easily, and that's an undesireable quality in flags. With a subtle texture like this though, it's not something for which we'd send these flags back for revision -- consider this advice optional here.

We just restarted the Open Sea zone on Rackham and that seems to have fixed the problem for some people. Are any of you still having a problem?


Joe

Star Wars references always work, even without added profanity.

1. Server list changes - Isildur addressed this already. Basically we failed to communicate this well. We changed the display from showing a 20 minute peak to showing a 1 week peak so you could use this display to decide which server and nation to pick even at 3am.

2. Merchandise - You mean like t-shirts and other PotBS merchandise? I've been beating that drum for YEARS. It seems we're finally starting to get a little progress on that front, but we don't have anything to announce yet.

3. Inventory management tools - Do you have a thread you could link to? Inventory and Economy UI work is on the UI Strike Team's list. I think it's coming right after the mission and grouping work in 1.3.

4. Pirates causing ports to revert to their original owners - We aren't doing this. Isildur explained why not in the thread, but it boils down to: When a nation takes a port it's theirs now, at least until the server reset. Giving the pirates the ability to revert it its original owner would make captured ports obviously not really belong to the nation that captured them. See Isildur's reply for more details.

5. Ship/class balance - Major skill changes went into 1.2. These are significant enough that I'd like to see how they work out before making more changes.

6. Server population problems - We are look at this very closely. I know that doesn't satisfy, but there really isn't any information I can share right now. That will hopefully change this week.

7. Personal loot spam - This issue just came on my radar (because it caused a bunch of people to not get their one month celebration items, sadly). I'll follow up with the designers on it.

8. Ship size caps - Posted in the other thread. (Did you mean to put in a link to a thread about AIs and debuffs?)

9. Apparent lack of promised communication - My excuses: a) communicating with you guys is the part of my new job that I have the least practice at, so I've got some learning to do. b) We're in the transition period between the end of one milestone and the start of another. That takes a TON of producer time. I'll have more time in a week.

10. NPC pirates providing unrest - This has been mentioned internally, but I don't know the specifics. I'll make sure it's in the bug DB so it can get attention when that programmer has a spare moment.

Let me add a few more:

11. The Lag - We think we've fixed the lag problems on Rackham, Kidd, and Morgan. Please let us know if it didn't.

12. Short notice of downtimes - We're trying to give at least 24 hours notice now. We're also going to try to have fewer downtimes in the first place.

13. Too few NPCs to kill around certain ports - We're taking a very close look at this in 1.3 and have several fixes planned. NPCs will appear in more appropriate numbers and closer to the port they're intended for.


Joe

Let me bring this up with the designers and see what we can do here. Putting an (optional) cap on ship size is definitely something we're doing for the Skirmish system for all the reasons mentioned here.


Joe

Ok, I get where you're coming from. We generally don't see populations that out of whack on the higher pop servers. Basically, once a nation gets to a certain minimum, a larger pop nation has an advantage, but not an overwhelming one. Certainly not so overwhelming that an alliance between two of the other nations couldn't easily nullify that advantage.

Obviously, there is a point at which a crazy ratio would be a problem. The issue that really concerns me is that with light servers, even our expected (and reasonable) ratios aren't good.

The best thing to do with works in process is to start a thread for your flags and sails, and post your work directly here -- all before submitting. That way you'll get comments and feedback, all without having to go through the hassle of withdrawing your work as you change it -- or worse yet, just waiting until we can review it, only to find it rejected for some reason.

I've edited this thread to be your very own, so let's see that sail!

If you feel a design of yours was sent back for more work unfairly, please follow the instructions here on filing an appeal.

I don't even want to know why you know this.