Current Status Update
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OK so I wanted to let everyone know a few things about what is going on – don’t wanna leave ya in the dark.
1st: The new update that I’ve promised to loyal active members which will be released in the next few days and then to the entire community in a few months is almost complete. I don’t like to hurry myself, and some of these new ships and skins are some of my best work yet. So you will all be very happy and surprised about what you find in here.
2nd: I would say with certainty that I would have this done by tomorrow, but there are some major things going on with my family right now. My Daughter is moving to Austin and my oldest son and his wife were washed out of their apartment in Houston because of the flooding. I have to go pick up a truck I own in Oklahoma to give to my son since their cars are currently under water. They are living with me at the moment, but are going to help my daughter move into their new home and then stay there. So I will be taking care of all of that for the next couple of days. I will take a laptop and work on what I can late in the evening before bedtime.
3rd: The Buccaneer’s Reef team have had a major break-through this week. Orazio and Jeffrey have been able to combine the two landmass models into one AND get them to correctly open without corruption or errors. What does this mean to you? Well if you go back and look into my announcements from a couple of years ago – where I showed that I could import new colonies (Saint Kitts in this case) however – I could not correct or add models to the large land mass models, which forced me into a workaround solution where I had to photoshop pictures of the modeled islands at the appropriate coordinates on the waves/sea maps.tga. so they would appear – BUT you could sail right through them. Pheww catching breath – If you remember that, – this new breakthrough means that we WILL NOT have to do that poor work around to the problem to add new island models and colonies/cities/locations to the game. We can now ADD NEW MODEL ISLANDS and their town locations to the large map model! THIS IS HUGE! It means that my vision of doubling our colonies this year CAN and WILL HAPPEN. Doing my happy dance right now. I hope you are all as pumped as I am about this!
4th: I noticed someone comment on PA! that our game is the best. My favorite individual over there responded by asking if we had added new quests. So I want to say two things about this. Jeffrey and I are trying to find the original source plug-in that has an interface for developing scenes, dialogues and quests. I am in discussions with two different Russian mod teams presently that might be able to help us with solutions in this regard. Even IF they can’t give us this, our team has become familiar enough with both the tools we currently have and the file structure/code of this game to add new quests once we have all of the new Caribbean world/setting content complete – which is priority number 1 for us. So the questions about new quests is – NO not yet – BUT SOON!
The second thing I would ask is – does anyone around here who has played New Horizons know how many quests they have in that game? I played three and a few sub quests. I am thinking just off the top of my head that they might have a dozen main quests and as many subquests for each primary quest. If this is the case, then I would say that City of Abandoned Ships has that game beat stock out of the box by three times the number of quests or more.
A free cookie or some other bonus I can give out (a custom character or ship skin by me just for you) if someone can break this down and give me the answer. What are the actual quest numbers for the two games? I want this so that some member around here can reliably shove some pie into a certain hole. It wont matter by next year anyway, because we will have many new quests by then.
5th: I had such bad website problems two nights ago that the website actually SHUT ME OUT. I could not sign in to my OWN WEBSITE!!! I called the domain support and the problem ended up being with WordPress plug ins and the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com – because I upgraded the plug ins as WordPress advised, I ended up downgrading my version of the web developers toolkit and shut myself out. I believe that this is quite deliberate to make people pay money to upgrade – and it aint cheap I can tell you.
I finally figured out that using the Go Daddy console I could force my way into wordpress.org web console for our site, however because my membership and avatar had been downgraded to WordPress.com toolkit, it signed me in AUTOMATICALLY AS JEFFREY!!! WTF! I believe this is because Jeffrey has full Administrator rights to everything on the site and I no longer did. Thank GOD I had give Jeffrey full rights because I was able to disable the WordPress plug ins and get myself back into the site under WordPress.org. Phew!!!
So if you notice all of the little social media tabs and things missing and things look a little differently on the home page, that’s why. I will slowly reenable some of these things, but no longer trust WordPress to advise me through their Jetpack utility of what things to upgrade when. Bottom line is that I HATE THIS CRAPPY CLUNKY HOSTING AND LAYOUT AND I CAN’T WAIT TO GET US ALL OUT OF HERE TO SOMETHING BETTER. I wasted a whole night that I could have been finishing the game update for everyone – just unscrewing all of this total complete buffoonery.
And now you are all on the same page. You know what I do and what’s going on. Feel free to comment or add your own status updates.
MK
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I’m still heavily engaged with taking care of home and family business, but working on our stuff late at night.
Just thought I would tempt everyone with a little teaser of what the team is working on. This is not conceptual. What you see below is the actual new revised island model in the game! Orazio still needs to add Bonaire and a few more Bahamas islands and we will be ready to import the new colonial towns to their new locations! Going faster than I expected. EXCITING!!! Orazio continues to amaze me. MK
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Thanks!
Unfortunately we can not have now a 100% accurate representation of the Caribbean, due to engine limitations (the game doesn’t seem to accept a rectangular map, which is a better shape for this region) and the existing islands/land models not being very accurate. Besides, many of the new islands are just an approximation, because I used pieces taken from PoTC and SoFS/Caribbean Tales.
Creating a new world map for the entire Caribbean area from scratch is a big task, that I’m not doing now. But I think this revised map is a good compromise.I’ve added what was missing, and the map looks like this:
And by the way, the maps showed here are not in-game screenshots, but I can confirm I have this exact map in my game, working and being tested.
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I talked it over with Jeffrey tonight and decided not to reveal the map behind the map which shows where all of the colonies are which Orazio has built this masterpiece to as a guide. This way none of you will be disappointed if we can’t get all of them in place as we desire.
I never intended this to be a dead accurate rendition from the get go. However, in the original map I simply selected from the inventory of islands I have been collecting for years and popped them onto a JPEG for Orazio to follow. HE HAS GONE WELL BEYOND MY WILDEST EXPECTATIONS! He took those islands and re-scaled them and reshaped them to more realistically represent the real islands. Florida started out as Trinidad and Tobago turned around and he has made a completely new land mass! Look at those Bahamas.
Jeffrey called me all excited to tell me he was sailing all around the new islands! Just wait until you see the new colonies attached to these places folks! Once we have the world just like we want it, then the new quests will fall into place. For those of you who have been reading my commentary for a long while now, you know the first new quest will be THE ANNEKE QUEST – a completely new wife quest different from the Isabella quest.
In addition Jeffrey even now is developing the female citizens to occasionally proposition you with lewd offers. One of these days you may be able to court any woman in the game and buy a house to keep her there.
The DLCs we’ve already revealed that are forthcoming (of Sets of Historic Battles) will come before the developed questlines, but I will give you a teaser. We have already decided to go a little on the side of historic fiction for our first major full blown new questline – THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. Florida in the game has made this possible.
Lastly, Vincent, Ya did good Mate. I appreciate the effort. The result on their end is no surprise at all to me. They started it with their commentary asking if we had new quest lines when they are completely ignorant of just how much better our baseline game is than their ancient clunky junkheap on the surface. I think they got more information than they expected or wanted and the result was their usual ban and bury tactic while deflecting and acting the victim. I would just say to them that “IF YA CAN’T TAKE THE HEAT – GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN!” HA LOL!
Just PM me and tell me what you would like. You’ve earned it.
EDIT: OH yeah, one more thing. Their admins seemed butthurt by a comment regarding ship period inaccuracy in their crappy game and one of them posted a quote from Wikipedia about what galleons were. I laughed so hard I almost spewed my snifter of brandy. So I threw a little article together I am posting now called – GALLEONS FOR DUMMIES
Take a look at it! It’s fun. I just HATE how some people over-react sometimes. Hate could be too strong of a word though. Right? LMAO!!!!
MK
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WOW I was so sorry to see that there are fires at Multnomah Falls. What a tragedy. Damn it will take years for all of that beauty there to grow back. I am so glad we went over there a few weeks ago when we came out to see you. I took a bunch of pictures of the bridge. I will put some of them up on my flickr soon.
Yeah, I have started calling PA!’s methods dealing with us and/or any of our members – “Ban and Bury”. I think Dennis has now been banned four or five times now. Galleon has been banned at least once. Hammer was banned. My son Hraktuus is banned. I wonder if they banned Vincent for asking that question. If they did, I am sorry Vincent. You’re in good company though and it’s easy enough to make another membership and get back in if you want to. They ban at the drop of a hat and they don’t even let anyone know its happened. They also give no reason.
I don’t think they realize the closed environment they have now fostered and nursed to full adulthood. There is no real free discourse of honest ideas on that site anymore. No one can actually speak freely without worry of being chastised or corrected by the thought police. Lurkers will never come out of the woodwork in a place like that. Very sad.
Any post mentioning Jeffrey’s New Horizon’s implementation on our MAELSTROM ENGINE – or giving a link to it – is deleted immediately. It’s both pathetic and amusing at the same time. My Galleons for Dummies posting was in direct reaction to their draconian policy.
Anyway, enough of them. Everything is progressing nicely – much better than anticipated actually – both with regards to the game and our development AND my personal life. My son now has a rental car as of late this afternoon and has returned to Houston. They have their power back. Most of his stuff is OK. Their cars are a complete loss however and were totally under water. They were on a second story so put their valuable things up high and everything is good.
Tomorrow I have to make my way to the northwest again via road trip with my Mom. She is elderly and live with me. I will be taking her to my Aunt’s for a month while I go check on my 80 year old Dad. I am taking my entire rig with me and will continue to work on the game in the evenings I am not engaged with family and friends. I am trying to get moved up to my child hood home from the deep south. I have been trying to do this for the last few years, but stuff (life) keeps getting in the way.
I DO NOT have the update ready yet. I am truly sorry folks. If the crisis hadn’t have emerged with my oldest son it would be finished but I am not going to give you a 90 percent solution when I can give you the 100 percent in another week’s time. Just content yourselves knowing that you dozen or so guys will be the only ones to have all of these new beautified town locations and ships (and other new stuff that will be a surprise). Everyone else in lurker-land will have to wait until Christmas or so.
Take a look at the screenshots thread. I put a few shots of Bodden’s Landing’s new textures over there. Here are some more. I will be effectively out of the loop for three or four days. So I will see you soon.
PS I manually approved a few new members tonight, so hopefully some will jump into the conversation.
MK
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I took a little break from the world map, and decided to try and make one of the new locations, also to learn how to import new islands.
I chose the Alacranes Reef, and it was made by taking two islands from PotC and the rest from other models MK sent me. I’m not entirely satisfied with those PotC island, you can see some flickering from time to time, due to how poorly those models were created by the original developers (they mixed islands they already had to get new ones, and this mixing process wasn’t really clean, there is a lot of clipping).
It’s almost done, then I’ll need Jeffrey’s help to generate the foam, and to solve some apparently random teleportations that I experience when sailing in the new location.
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I got a little bit sidetracked from the work on the world map, when I looked at the models to use in some of the new locations and noticed one in particular: a fort (a representation of San Felipe de Barajas Castle), that was very well made, but at the same time very poorly textured and with some detail that could be improved.
I like that model so much that I have decided to spend some time to “fix” it, completely UV re-mapping it so the textures are now applied correctly, improving some of the buildings that were way too simple, adding other details like entrances and cannons, and lastly creating a matching series of tunnels to connect the different parts of the fort. Not finished yet, but I’m almost there.BEFORE
AFTER
BEFORE
AFTER
BEFORE
AFTER
BEFORE
AFTER
TUNNELS WIP
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Awesome work Orazio as always. Your work continues to inspire me to do more and do better. Thank you for that!!!!
I have been working away myself on the update which has grown three times in size from my original intent.
I got especially crazy with two of the sterns on the Frigate_MB. I created two new variants since you stern mapping – Besides the Frigatta Olandesa we now have the French FregatePremier and the Dutch ZwareFregat. There are 17 different hull skins for this ship (three different ships) now.
I will show three here. The first is a Dutch version of the famous Van Yk’s treatise on shipbuilding – one of the oldest extant in the world. I recreated what I believe to be the Roman Goddess Ceres on the stern – goddess of prosperity and freedom. I think I got pretty close and this screenshot does not do it justice at all.
The next one is taken from a woodcut/lithograph of a Spanish/Portuguese galleon from around 1663-68. This one was fun and one of my favorites in the game now. The red version is stunning.
Next is my version of the Friesland. I always thought this model was fanciful because it is not in any paintings. It is in the muster rolls, but no illustration of it that I can find exists. I thought the transom decoration to be a work of English fiction, because William of Orange-Nassau’s coat of arms is wrapped in the Order of the Garter with Motto. I thought it would be funny for Dutch nobility to be members of the Garter – however, after some research I find that – THEY WERE. Williem’s great grand-father Prince Maurice also had the Garter.
Here’s a picture of the model with my version following –
Here is my photo stream: https://www.flickr.com/photos/49225014@N05/with/23925897338/
So the update is nearly ready. Sorry for the silence, but a great many things have gone wrong for me lately. From health, animals, family, travel, mechanical, transportation and land scaping – this has been a very bad month for me.
So with only two interested people making a total of three possible entrants in the modeling contest I am scrubbing it. When the new website is up and running I will try to relaunch it next year with better promotion.
I am not ready to transition the website yet either. I will not be doing this myself. I am paying a professional.
Lots of new stuff getting ready to flow out of the pipeline. Its just really too bad that I have to have a presence here all of the time to keep people active. Oh well – it is what it is. We are moving forward me – and we will take this bloody bridge, win this bloody battle and ultimately triumph in this bloody war.
MK
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All new ships are completely integrated and all new textures/skins are finished. Only a couple of more characters left. Here is a list of the new characters and here are some teasers.
Jeremiah Basse
Nicolas de Larraspuru : (I used Basil Rathbones face) This guy was a real actual assassin who worked for the Spanish crown and the Inquisition in the Caribbean. His father was a famous admiral and the family was wealthy and from nobility. Larraspuru was a true psychopath with over 65 deaths attributed to him – THE REAL ASSASSIN from Black Flag eh???
Michel le Basque
Pierre Labat
John Ansell (I used a certain members photo)
Thomas Anstis
James Browne
Alonso Ramirez
MK
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OK so I just wanted to let the community know that I am going to be out of the loop for the next week or two.
First off I am heading down to Utah to sit down and talk face to face with someone whom I very much hope will be our web developer – the guy who will perform the website rebuild we have wanted and have talked about for the last year or more.
Lets hope for success there. I’ve seen his work and it is good. He seems enthusiastic. Let’s hope we can figure things out and negotiate a successful transition to something much better than we have now!
After visiting with relatives down that way I will be heading down to the Southeast again and possibly making a trip to San Juan Puerto Rico.
I will be checking into the site periodically and Jeffrey and I communicate often via phone/email.
I will have a small netbook laptop with me if anyone needs to email.
@Orazio please feel free to call or get ahold of me via email at any time to discuss in more detail what we had previously.Also I have a great deal of new site content almost ready to go in terms of articles, stories etc… so this will give me a chance to get that done in the evenings. So be looking for that soon.
Fair Winds Mates!
MK
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by modernknight1