[modernknight1]

Really appreciate the kind words Marty. It’s really very nice to hear after so much silence for so long. I don’t even know what to say except thanks.

I feel like the dog who has been experimented on his whole life in a cage and suddenly is let out in the grass – and his reaction with his first experience of what grass feels like on his feet.

MK

[modernknight1]

No one is more unhappy or disappointed about how everything has gone than yours truly.

I could write a long diatribe of how I feel and what I’ve thought about doing and why things are where they are, but I don’t really think at this point anyone cares or would read it anyway.

Yeah Jeffrey is sitting on a bunch of content I gave him a year ago – but I was so unhappy about any acknowledgement after I’d made
some announcements that I told him to save it for later after he got a couple more of his own upgrades done. So now I have two years worth of stuff I’ve put together but its just the same old stuff (new ships, ships skins and town skins, characters, items etc,) that
I’ve put out there over and over again and am told no one cares about because they want new quests and places.

I have a lot of stuff done for the Pirate battles DLC, (characters, ships, locations, narratives, starting conditions, etc) but I need help putting this stuff together.

Jeffrey is still working on some stuff for ERAS but frankly he’s way more interested in continuing to improve the game engine. He works on a few things on our list from time to time – but he’s really got little interest in ERAs at this point.

When Orazio ghosted us that basically shattered the new map work and new place work I was attempting to get in game. I figured out a way I can still add new places and it does indeed work in experiments. The islands and towns will appear on the map but you will be able to sail through them on the world map because there is no model underpinning the location – just visual manipulation of the map. When you go to sea it will be one of the existing islands just like we did with Bodden’s Landing. But it takes a whole lot of work and I just don’t care much about it right now.

Look. Bottom line, no one loves this game more than I do. I’ve been retired from the Army for eight years now and have devoted thousands of dollars to development and several years of my life.

I put up a Patreon page to try to get help for the new website – been up like a year and zero dollars. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=47097313&fan_landing=true

I could spend my own money but I’m not going to now. Would you spend money on a sinking ship?

My health has been awful this last year. Tons of pain in the gallbladder area but they can’t find anything wrong with me after going to numerous different cities, hospitals and so called experts. I finally figured out what was wrong on my own and I think I am on the mend.

Also I got hit by not one hurricane this last year – BUT TWO!!! – directly over me. Look up Hurricane Laura and Hurricane Delta and
take a look at what they did to Lake Charles – but the news media almost completely ignored it. People are still picking up the pieces including me.

I have been attempting a move to my boyhood home for a number of years but continual obstacles have prevented it. This is the year it
will finally happen and I am very busy at the moment kicking off the effort.

I just see so little interest in what we’ve done. Maybe people have tried to get a hold of me and can’t – there’s good reasons why people can’t get ahold of me if you’ve looked at my facebook (Aaron Shields) and read down a few posts. https://www.facebook.com/buccaneers.reef/

My email address is [email protected]

If I get a large amount of people sending me emails asking me to continue to keep the site up and work towards a new site and continue to work on ERAS I will continue the effort this autumn after I get fully moved into my new house and fix the old one up for relatives to live in. If donations were to start coming in I would also redouble my efforts to get stuff done and get it out there into the hands of players. Jeffrey and I joke that we are developing the game for myself and for Old Timer – our only consistently devoted fan.

If however, nothing happens – which I think will be the case because I think very few folks actually give a squat about what we are
doing now – then I will not pay any more money keeping this effort going. I’ve spent about $400 bucks a year just to keep this crappy website up for the last five years. This is likely our last year – it was a pretty good run I think for such a small effort.

I will eventually get all of this stuff I’m working on fully rolled up into the game – just so that I can play it myself… if you’ve seen some of the screenshots on Facebook you know I’ve got a lot of it in my test game already. However just like the famous Little Red Hen from the kids story – I will only share the completed bread with those who were around. That means at this point that I will make sure to give a special download link to Old Timer – and that’s frankly probably the only person who will get it.

I turned down a lot of good career opportunities a few years ago because I really thought we were going to go somewhere – but oh well – sigh. I make good money from a Retired senior army officer’s pension and 90 percent service connected VA military disability – but I still get good offers and I will likely go back to work just for something fun and new to do once I get moved into my new house.

What would you do if you were me?

Respectfully,

Aaron R. Shields
Lieutenant Colonel (Retired)
US Army, Field Artillery (FA57)
[email protected]

A.K.A. MK

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by modernknight1.

[modernknight1]

TEHO is worth a playthrough but is very frustrating just starting out – on a closed quest stairstep beginning (although I’ve heard that’s changed since I played last). The main thing I don’t like about TEHO is their very limited ships choices. The ships they have are very nice – but so few.

MK

[modernknight1]

Frankly I see very few edits to your weather system. You say you spent hours on it – well I spent months on it.

I did a massive overhaul of the weather in ERAS2. This is why you see much lighter CORRECT tropical colors – much less fog – much less rain – way different skies – many more wave types – and much more translucent see-through water in many places (like it actually is in the Caribbean and I’ve visited it a TON)

Jeff and I are actually developing a new method that will allow a set of random weather changes to occur more gradually. It will mean that there are three times as many sky boxes as there are now and they are all pictures I took myself in the Caribbean.

They one thing I might use that you have are the island textures – they do look better – but I wouldn’t call anything in this old game “HD”. Did you take those from somewhere else or are they actually your own photoshop work?

MK

[modernknight1]

You have to fight them between the 10th and 20th (not after the 20th).

[modernknight1]

I fully realize this website is outdated. I spent thousands on trying to build a new one and got swindled by someone I was assured could do the work and would be helped by his older brother who was one of Twitter’s original developers. He was not up to the task and just gave up. That’s what I get for trusting family recommendations.

I have a company ready to do a brand new professional website for us – but they want $4,000.00 dollars US. I have the money, but will not spend anymore on this old game and project unless I knew we were going somewhere. When Orazio abandoned us, I just kinda gave up.

If I saw that people might still be interested and wanted us to continue I might spend the money, but was hoping the PATREON account might allow that – however, even though others recommended me doing that, not a single dollar has been dedicated to it yet so I think I’m going to just take it down.

That’s where we are – and its not a good place. So that’s why I’ve kind of just given up now.

If a new modeler came a long or Orazio came back and put those new models I’ve collected in the game – it might be enough to inspire me to spend more of my own money again. We don’t have enough in our sales to do it or we would. We have about half the money in our sales and were hoping we would make more. We’ve never spent any of that money we’ve made from the Engine on ourselves. It’s just waiting there for us to use when we need it. If PATREON even pulled in 2000 dollars we would have enough to do the new website.

MK

[modernknight1]

The characters are one of the MAJOR features of ERAS and so when they are taken out and offered somewhere else I feel like its stealing ERAS Mojo away. The old GOF team who put together 1.2 (that I was a part of) never cared about my vision of where I wanted to take the mod. They had their own vision. That’s why we split up and started doing our own thing.

[modernknight1]

Also I have a new female character I’ve been working on – but have run out of historical personalities and fictional ones as well. Any suggestions? Should I just make something up or am I missing someone I don’t know about? MK

[modernknight1]

Sorry I overreacted. I’m just frustrated at how invisible we are. I’ve tried all kinds of things, and thrown away a lot of money and time, but we remain hidden away and only a very small group of people actually know about us or even like what we’ve done. I started out trying to make my perfect immersive pirate universe – and I should be satisfied with that if others don’t like it. However, I guess I finally understand why Willy Wonka closed his chocolate factory for so many years. LOL

[modernknight1]

I have been having the same issue as well. There are several other serious problems when getting to advanced level and playing multiple national questlines (PANQL). I also have a Flying Dutchman that keeps spawning after I kill it and sell the ship. It comes back even after making it vulnerable and taking the ship – it doesn’t want to die. LOL

I’ve already brought the spawning issue where you go to cabin and sleep overnight and suddenly you are at a different nearby shore. Jeffrey is aware and I’ve sent him some saves so hopefully he is working on it. He has become very busy with his work recently so is probably not going to be available so much.

MK

[modernknight1]

Gosh I’m sorry Gnat, there are so few interested in this game these days that we don’t advertise our development often.

To answer you questions. 1) NO – PANQL is not currently active in your version of the game. HOWEVER, its funny that you mention this because Jeffrey and I have been in the process of finishing it to work for the last couple of months. That is what I am doing right NOW!!!

I have successfully done the French and English questlines and am about to start the Spanish. The way we implemented it is that it does not have to be done in any particular order. After you get done with one about a month passes and you will get a notification that everything has gone back to how it was. So any cities that were taken before go back to who they belonged with originally. The reason this has been difficult is that Jeffrey has had to do a lot of fixing her with regards to nation nationality and neutrality with forts, citizens, soldiers and governors. While testing I would go into one of the cities that had been taken before and it would still have its English governor in the Spanish town and even though the soldiers were Spanish the citizens and fort would stay English with no flag. So there was a lot of sorting out to do and Jeffrey only just got it finished. We are not ready to release the update yet until I have successfully got through the Spanish questline with only the Dutch one left.

2) After you fight the skeletons you have to go and talk to the governor of the town and get a reward before you can fight them again somewhere else. I have done that myself and you have to go back to the city where you last fought them and talk to the governor. Its a simple mistake and I’m pretty sure thats whats happening with you.

MK

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by modernknight1.

[modernknight1]

Not to be an ass but this almost seems like Noob question.

Haven’t you seen the many screenshots I’ve posted showing me fight the Spanish treasure fleets. Frankly that is one of my favorite missions and in ERAS2 Jeffrey and I made it so it is possible to face up to 50 ships in the treasure fleet.

There’s even a button on the dev console that can generate it if you are sick of waiting or you missed it (were too late). It is generated numerous times – its not a one time only thing. I LOVE going after the treasure fleets!!!!

MK

[modernknight1]

I use all of the old modding tools in the old standard bundle – I haven’t got sophisticated enough to learn anything new. https://buccaneersreef.com/forums/topic/ship-modeling-and-modding-tutorials/

I don’t change the meshes. I just reuse all of the hundreds of existing models and sometimes might change their heads out for one with a hat or no hat. Jeffrey has modified some of the animations to be more modern.

[modernknight1]

I knew a few characters were taken by the Russians but do those mods allow for the game start date to be different depending on character and for them to have a correctly named historical vessel and equipment at the beginning like we have in ERAS. To my knowledge we are the only game that offers the specific start dates, ships and equipping. Old GOF1.2 had nothing like that. They came with the standard Windchaser ship at the beginning with the same meager equipment and same start date.

[modernknight1]

You know it sometimes feels like I have no voice – and no one realizes what I’ve worked on or what I am currently working on. Sometimes I get inspired and have the time and put out massive amounts of stuff…. and conversely sometimes things happen or people do crappy things to me or disappear and that makes me just stop working on anything for a long while until I find inspiration again.

It kinda just sucks the air right outa my sails to even release anything when I see all those dozens of characters I took so much time to research, develop, build historical bios for with timelines and in many cases visually made something altogether new for my beloved ERAS – and then that same content just being lifted out like an unwilling organ transplant into the very mod that caused me to break away from the GOF team and develop ERAS in the first place.

I’ve been working on a batch of 32 new historical characters for quite a while now that I feel like will really finish out the holes in the historical tapestry to make it fairly complete – also now including a realistic Chinese character based on a real historical person with a Chinese war junk in the Caribbean (Ming Koxinga – second son of the great pirate warlord Zheng Koxinga who had a Dutch advisor and who defeated the Dutch at sea in a great battle and conquered Taiwan from the Dutch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Koxinga). Here’s a list:

1. William Wright 1675 pirate

2. George Cussack 1668 pirate

3. John Benbow 1665 English Royal Navy

4. Francois Le Sage 1678 pirate

5. John Bear 1684 pirate

6. Jean Hamlin 1681 pirate

7. Don Benito 1720 Spanish pirate beltro model

8. Jacob Evertsen 1680 Dutch pirate out of Port Royal sometimes working as English privateer

9. Thomas White 1700 pirate

10. John Auger 1718 pirate ?

11. John Bannister 1684 pirate

12. Adrian Claver 1703 Dutch

13. Jean Davy 1703 French

14. William Rhett 1699 English

15. Hendrick van Hoven 1695 Dutch pirate

16. Pieter Janszoon 1665 Dutch pirate mercen_5 model

17. Regnier Tongrelow 1703 Dutch

18. Alexandre Bras de Fer 1665 French

19. Nicolas Brigaut 1665 French mercen_4 model

20. Jean Charpin 1680 pirate Shark blaze model

21. Mathurin Desmarestz 1665 pirate Matthew model blaze animation

22. Jean Fantin 1680 pirate

23. Nathaniel Grubing 1690 French

24. Etienne de Montauban 1676 French gay etienne Leito lejo character needs retexture of face

25. Mateo Lucia 1710 Spanish Sharl8 Sharl8xxxxxx models masked guy needs face and armor retex

26. Lancelot Blackburne 1681 English (secret agent)

27. Francois Groginet 1680 pirate

28. Thomas Anstis 1718 pirate

29. Thomas Tobias 1665 (Irish) Dutch navy captain

30. Sir John Harmon 1673 English

31. James Kelly 1696 English Pirate

32. Ming Kox (Koxinga) 1660 Chinese (Dutch freebooter)

All those beautiful ships in ERAS not found in any other game or mod – the best most authentic Dutch and English period warships for the 17th century existent on the planet by Stephen E. – but most people don’t even know they are here…. and all of the other models I purchased with license or were built just for us.

Its so frustrating hearing about discussions on PA and Steam and folks not even realizing what could be had – they would rather eat cardboard instead of fillet mignon but don’t know any better.

I literally have nearly two full years of work almost ready to offer on top of the ERAS mod. We are close to finishing the Famous Pirate Battles DLCs – but…. burn out and frustration and then our work being torn apart without permission and put other places with no context of why the work was done in the first place.

This is why I hold stuff back just for myself these days. I didn’t used to be like this – but I’ve become like Mett over on the Russian side with Secret Shore. He’s been working on it for years and showed his work but keeps it for himself. I guess I’ve become a ‘mod miser”. Its a hobby – like people who work on model ships and never share their work with anyone – but they still get great satisfaction and enjoyment from their work.

I’ve been putting together a video with all of our new features that most people don’t even realize are in the game – like being able to bury treasure and have a map reminder in the log that will guide you back to it – just need a caching chest and a caching spade. Also the frying pan and the soon to be released El Kabong guitar.

Has anyone tried to use the frying pan as a weapon? Go on try it. Its the most OP weapon in the game. And here you all just thought it was another worthless item.

Its ok – it is what it is. As I said to Jeffrey the other day – I think we are about done here anyway.

Rant over. I will play Bannerlord now. MK

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by modernknight1.

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