Checking in again…

[Vincent]

Hey guys, been a few years. Figured I’d just check in and see what was going on, and I’ll say that it’s certainly discouraging. That said, I would like to try and offer some aid.

First off, the website issue; Modernknight, I would like to ask if you would be willing to let me try and convnce my uncle (a former professional web designer) to try making a new website for you. If I do get your permission, I would definitely stipulate that the work has to be done for free or with any payment upon delivery of the finished product ONLY. I would love to try and contribute in some way.

Secondly, I can certainly try to put up some YouTube footage again, and see if it will attract interest – I haven’t played ERAS in a while, as I was waiting for some of the bigger updates so I could have some new stuff to enjoy in my next playthrough. My channel is extreme minority, though, so I don’t know how much good it would be able to do.

Thirdly, I read somewhere that you mentioned having unreleased content for the game that might or might not be somewhat major. I’d certainly like to see that content, and especially to play with it, but that’s up to you. I would try to encourage you to not give up, but that may be a fruitless task at this point. I will say that with a bit more publicity, the new content may just raise more interest.

Fifth, let’s discuss the topic of publicity. I think I might have suggested it before, but I want to suggest the possibility of making the game available through more prominent media sources – namely, Steam, GOG, and/or Humble. I think Itch is kind of flooded with indie games that are crowding ERAS out of the spotlight, and it kind of seems to be a niche market vendor in the first place. You have a product, and it does have interest, so why not try offering it on one of the more ‘mainline’ markets? By offering ERAS and the engine in a single download on markets like GOG or Steam, you could push the price up to $20-30 (especially with all of the new content), get more publicity due to the wider audience reached by those platforms, and even start releasing the DLC packs you planned out to raise more money that could go into the game.

Sixth; I am sad to see Orazio leave the team, especially since he was the only 3D modeler on it. I have no experience with computer modelling, but I would certainly be willing to try putting some work into doing so for the project. I don’t think I’d be able to create new models of ships or structures, but I’d certainly be willing to try my hand at porting existing ship models into the game, or even putting together new scenes like towns and jungles using existing models. If you’re interested, I’d be willing to try my hand at it, so let me know.

[Jeff]

Some good ideas there, especially porting through a more high profile platform like Steam. Have noticed a lot more interest on there for games not a fraction as good as ERAS is now, never mind how it could be. Great content will often trump graphics for a certain audience. This game has a lot to offer to a bigger audience, if they knew it was there.

[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.

[Oldtimer]

Mr. Knight,

that was a sad read. Im greatly honoured by your appreciation of my presence here but unfortunately Im not able to help in any substantial way. No coding knowledge and lousy health.
I totally understand your disappointment that so much quality receives so little recognition, I`m disappointed by it too. Perhaps migrating to GOG, Steam or BitChute may lead to a turnaround but nothing immediate I fear.
Taking up a work-career and keeping ERAS as a personal hobby could be something to consider.
In my darkest moments I suspect that Maelstrom/ERAS are TOO good to become popular.

Anyway, THX awfully for your and other devs dedication,

Oldtimer

[Pasquale]

I am an Italian Fans of this title and of your work, in my small way I tried to contribute to the cause, in fact I would also be willing to translate the game into Italian if you send me the documentation, between one commitment and another, I really appreciate the your job and I say that it is pleasant that the game still keeps up to date, what many well-paid games have not done for a long time, even if I am not very active but I assure you that I often visit the website to find out about the new ones details you add, I am sorry for your misfortunes modernknight1, but I will also be sorry if this game will end up forgotten, so I ask you if possible to share your projects with me too.

sorry english and see you soon!

Io sono un Fans italiano di questo titolo e del vostro lavoro, nel mio piccolo ho cercato di contribuire alla causa, infatti sarei anche disposto a tradurlo in italiano il gioco se mi inviaste la documentazione, tra un impegno ed un altro, io apprezzo molto il vostro lavoro e dico che è piacevole il fatto che il gioco tutt’ora si mantenga aggiornato, ciò che molti giochi ben pagati non fanno più da tempo, anche se non sono molto attivo ma vi assicuro che visito spesso il sito web per conoscere i nuovi dettagli che aggiungete, sono dispiaciuto per le tue disgrazie modernknight1, ma mi dispiacerà anche se questo gioco finirà dimenticato, quindi ti chiedo se possibile di condividere anche con me i tuoi progetti.

scusate l’inglese ed a presto!

[peter]

Hey modernknight1 🙂

For what it’s worth: please keep going. Also, please keep us posted.

There’s not much to say for me regarding the many problems you’ve had to deal with, except that I’m rooting for you. 🙂

That being said, it’s certainly untrue that Oldtimer is the only person interested.

As far as the Facebook stuff goes: I don’t see any posts. Do I have to login for this? I’ve never had a Facebook account and don’t want to create one. I saw an Epstein meme, though, as for some reason it does display pictures. Maybe it’s my adblocker.

I don’t think migrating to another platform would work/help. Just keep doing your thing.

Ah, also, regarding finances: thanks for keeping this site running! I appreciate it.

400$ per year sounds way too expensive, though. It costs between 5 and 10 Euros per month to rent a virtual server good enough for a website + forum of this size. Take up Vincent’s offer.

(I haven’t commented on your health issues, Orazio’s ghosting and so on, but I’ve read it.)

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

[Daniel]

Hi,
I am quite saddened by the messages regarding this topic and would like to offer my help. I have been a fan of the Age of Pirates series and its many mods since more than a decade now and time and again I check up on the still active mod developments. Having read your emotional message @modernknight1, I guess now is the time to write my first post in this forum. In your message you wrote that you are in need of a website-developer who would be able to renew this website and forum. I believe I might be of help here, as I have some experience in building websites, especially in WordPress. For my work as a system administrator for a medium sized company, I have learned to build WordPress-websites around four years ago and I set up, rebuilt and improved our company’s website quite often so far. Doing so, I mostly work with a great custom theme that costs quite a lot to use, but eases the development a lot. Now, because of my unlimited corporate license I would be able to rebuild your website with the theme installed and without additional costs occurring (I checked with my superior and they would be fine with using the license for this). Furthermore, before writing this message, I did some research and made sure, that the theme and BBpress (for the forum) harmonize well, which would be the case. Considering this, I want to offer to rebuild the website and forum for you free of charge. Obviously, it’s going to take some time, but I am confident that I would be able to rebuild the site in a couple of months. If you are interested in pursuing this, I can send you the link to our company page (it’s in German as we serve the European market, but that does not really matter for your page) and more information about me by private message, so that you can see the quality of my webpages for yourself.

[Author]

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