Introductions

[modernknight1]

EDIT: LOTS happening folks. Dennis who is our Discord group guy asked me to sticky the information about the Discord group here. Good discussions happening there and more activity than I expected. Here it is: https://discord.gg/Ps3zMtP

My thanks to Dennis for putting this together for us.

MK

(original introductions post)

Hi all, MK here. This is a place where you can greet the community, give feedback and tell us a little about yourself.

I will start. Hello, I am Modernknight1 aka MK. I am the main admin and creator of this site and the ERAS2 mod for COAS. And – I am a game-aholic. Its been three hours since I last played a video game. LOL

MK

• This topic was modified 5 years, 8 months ago by modernknight1.

[truth serum]

Hello everyone and hello MK. I am truth serum. You can also call me John if you like. Like MK I am also a retired senior level military officer. I have been a sailor all my life. The last few years have been difficult for me because of a string of personal and health problems. I lost my wife of 31 years last year. My kids are grown and gone and with my health problems I can no longer lead the active lifestyle I have been accustomed to. So I began playing video games. My kids had left behind a playstation and N64 and I began to play old west type games and a funny flying game called Pilotwings. I went ahead and bought a nice computer and started playing stuff my boys had left behind. That’s when I discovered Age of Pirates 2. I have been an addict ever since. I was overjoyed when I found modifications for this game and when I found Eras I was dumbfounded at the beauty and immersion in this game. I can forget I am alive and my present circumstances when I enter Eras.

I have to tell you that I may have done something that will tick you off MK. I made a couple postings over at the Pirates Ahoy site telling people about this mod and defending you. I did this as a reaction to your recent post about people being spineless that don’t speak up. I recently gave a lot of money to wikepedia during their fund raiser campaign. So I also though to myself, as much enjoyment as I have taken from Eras, I shouldn’t be silent. I should speak up and participate. So this is why I made that post and here I am to test anything you like. I know nothing about what makes any of this work, so half of what you guys talk about is Greek to me. However, I do know history and I do know a lot about pirates and a ton about handling boats and sailing in modern times. So that’s about it. Here I am.

[modernknight1]

Welcome to the Reef John!

Very good to have another senior officer here. I am very sorry for your losses. Goes with the territory at our age. I hope your health improves. I try to follow the regimen recommended by the VA and walk every day. I have a membership to the local gym and sometimes I lift weights and I work the nautilus machines.

I just read what you wrote and I think maybe you didn’t understand what I meant. I wanted people to comment HERE – NOT over there at PA!. I felt people that were members there were afraid to comment over here and that was confirmed by a couple of individuals. It’s very clear you are not afraid to speak your mind LOL.

That is a lost cause over there. Those folks will never see things my way because they did me wrong and they know it. Just to put the record straight, I offered to pay for some modeling work from someone that had just come on board and thought she might be interested in what I was doing as well. At the time my work was part of the PA website so I did not see that as inappropriate. Also I wanted to acquire a model she had done for POTBS and see if she was willing to give it to us. I was willing to share it with everyone. Their overblown negative reaction towards me scared her away permanently.

As far as Jan Marten is concerned, don’t believe a word he says. His site is dying because he is so xenophobic and close minded. He doesn’t want to share anything he does with the wider community and that was always my problem with him. I did nothing disruptive on his site. I never posted anything there that was disruptive. On the contrary one of his members hacked me in the worse way possible – very destructive attack that I successfully traced. I even reported it to IC3.

His problem with me was that he was on the losing end of some historical arguments on PA and could never produce any proof to back up his claims. He believes that most ships in those times were not painted. What a laugh!!! LOL! Also he was pissed that someone downloaded his mod for me when he only wanted a small select group of Germans only to download it. He is a joke and wants to say I am not a gentlemen when he doesn’t even know what that is. If you look at my military/professional background, they don’t hand out the Legion of Merit to just anyone you know.

So now with that out of the way – obviously I can’t tell you not to post over there anymore. I am not your boss, however, I would ask everyone here – if you have any respect for me, please don’t post anything further on PA! about our efforts here. I believe we are at the point where we are getting more exposure than they are anyway. There may not be many members here simultaneously and I don’t have the tools on this site to show how many people are on the site to you at a given time. But – I have a developer’s dashboard and at this moment there are 37 people on the site. I think that is pretty good and our average during peak traffic times is in the 50s. We get about 160 visitors a day average. Just the fact that the mod has been downloaded thousands of times shows the exposure level even if people don’t comment.

So John, thanks for the effort. I know you meant well, but I really want nothing more to do with that close minded bunch over there at PA. I see them as a bunch of hypocrites. What difference is there between me offering someone some money for a ship I was going to share with everyone and the Letter’s of Marque effort breaking off from HOO and going commercial – pulling in HOO members to help, and Pirates Ahoy promoting their efforts. Really??? Its like calling the kettle black in my opinion. I am such a bad bad person.

Silly really and I want to forget I was ever over there.

Thanks and welcome again. Please comment HERE on our forums!

MK

[truth serum]

I already read most of your previous explanations on that in several threads before I spoke up. I also already read the paint discussion in the ship modeling thread. Very entertaining reading I must say. I find it surprising and amusing that they reacted as they did to the Hitler comment. I think they should go have a look at a few political internet forums. If that comment bothered them so badly, they would have heart attacks reading the things said in those heated discussions. They remind me of kindergartners putting their fingers in their ears when they hear a mildly bad word. It’s just darn funny. Its clear none of them have military backgrounds or any real skin to speak of.

My main problem was not just with your “silent is consent” comment, but also that they avoided discussing the eras mod whatsoever when answering questions about available Age Of Pirates 2 mod options and if the game was still being worked on. In my mind leaving your mod out of the equation and simply saying that the game is no longer being worked on is just a bold faced lie and misleading to searching game players. So I understand and concur with your comments regarding their integrity. This is disheartening when your efforts are clearly the best most current product available for the Age OF Pirates 2 game.

Sorry I stirred things up a little over there but I’m sure you remember the old adage, when the air is stale and stinky, open some windows to let a little fresh air in on the problem. Looks as if they prefer their own stink. As you said – “closed minds”. I didn’t expect them to be so child-like about this thing. I will of course honor and comply with your request Sir. I will not comment further on that site. I feel quite at home here thank you very much.

Also I have a recommendation. Would you mind if I made a thread on real world sailing here? I would like to share some of my own boat pictures and location pictures on the site and maybe add a narrative or two of previous journeys. I think by doing this I might attract a few of my mates here in the process. BTW what kind of boat is that in your profile picture? Looks like a Hake.

[modernknight1]

Well thanks for the support. I hope at some point many will see the reef as an internet “home”. I used to see PA like that before things went sour. “Child-like” is the word you used to describe them and I can’t think of a better word. When things did sour it was because I was dealing with a group of historical idiots who cared nothing for real historical truth, facts or authenticity and whose maturity level was quite lacking. Older members had gone silent and one in particular had disappeared for sometime and had told me at one point in a private email, that a particular member and the kiddie atmosphere were what drove him away. He suddenly reappeared and completely turned on me when things went bad. I deleted a post of his and that is what set him off. I wanted to show him how angry it would make someone to have their posts arbitrarily deleted for no good reason that they had put time and thought into. I was really HOT! Those folks showed their true colors, depth, level of loyalty and dedication. Wouldn’t want them at my back in a bad situation.

It is a kiddie site and the moderators show their maturity and intelligence level regularly. You used the term in your post of coming over to their camp. I recognize this as terminology from COA and decision briefings and it totally reflects your background. However, they don’t get it. They can’t comprehend that people could possibly be on my side and believe what was done to be unfair. As long as there are people over here on Buccaneer’s Reef (many who have emailed me expressing this support), then there is indeed another camp. They actually created that schism themselves even though they can’t comprehend it. Their actions drove the remaining COAS modders away and their actions against poor Chris Wood and the deletion of the Zeven Provincien work that was almost complete (because of me) drove the remaining modelers away. These people have never returned and several wrote me notes of support (so you see they are in MY camp).

The COAS section over there is nearly abandoned and only rarely get questions from newbs that don’t know about us over here. There is only one guy that ever gives good or correct answers. The other guy responsible for maintaining that part of their site consistently gives erroneous information to questions. I saw you corrected him about the flags not being an item for sale. (Not a bad idea for a mod though perhaps???)

So anyhoo, lets leave the kiddies to their kiddie pursuits over there and we will look to better things over here and treat everyone as adults and with respect. You are correct, that is a 2002 HAKE Seward 26RK. Its the largest trailerable boat they build (I’ve heard the 30RK can be towed but am not certain of this). It has a shoal keel that moves into the hull so that I can beach her right up on a soft sandy island without breaking her back and have a picnic on shore without using the dingy if I want. However, the keel deep makes her a great handling boat in the chop as well. So it has everything bigger boats have in a smaller package. I want a larger boat but can’t afford it at the moment and have been doing so much to help family that it will be another year or two before I can really get into the sailing again. I’ve only had her out three times last year. Hoping for more time this year. Going on a Caribbean Cruise in February!

I have no problem with you adding a thread on sailing and your adventures. This is the kind of input I was hoping would eventually come about with members. Please do! It’s good to have you on the Reef John. Thanks again for the support.

MK

[modernknight1]

John A.K.A. Truth Serum, I have added the topic you requested plus some additional ones. Please post whatever you like there. I plan to join in there as well – you go first.

Sailboats, Sailing, and modern Adventures on the Waters

MK

[truth serum]

Sorry I was a no show yesterday, dealing with some financial issues.

Honestly MK, after reading everything I have concerning those pukes I believe you are way too good for them anyway. They have no idea what an asset they turned their backs on. Also, their actions seem to have created serious competition against their own interests and alienated a whole lot of people in the process. They probably don’t realize this but I think other more intelligent people see it. They seem to have knocked the wind out of your sails some, so the speak, but you seem to have recovered well. I hope that you will continue your historical fiction because I have quite enjoyed the Hawkins piece and the Heyn piece as well. Just wanted you to know that someone is reading them as it seems you don’t think anyone is – and stopped writing? Don’t know if you’ve stopped or not, but I think more people are probably reading than you think. Especially if they’re here.

Thanks for creating the new topic, heading over there now. I have never sailed a Hake before but I hear they are fine boats. I have been dealing with a little larger vessels for a while – more about which – in the forum topic area you provided.

[modernknight1]

Thanks for the note. No I haven’t stopped writing. I switch around to different things I am writing quite often. Haven’t done much lately because I have been so busy with family and working on the MEGA PATCH. I actually have 12 different books I am in the middle of writing now. My New Years Resolution is to get several of them actually finished in the next 6 months – and maybe a couple published this year. The next couple Piet Heyn story chapters are finished I just haven’t got around to posting them yet.

MK

[Teo]

Hi modernknight1 and truth serum,

It’s been wonderful to find your site, mk1. Your GoF-ERAs2 mod is simply outstanding.

I hope that you can manage to finalize it and can experience some well-deserved rest, and find the satisfaction from playing it in a completed form.

I am 45, got my first VG console in probably 1980 (maybe even 1979). It was a Prinztronic 5500, I still have it and it still works. Online sources say it was released in 1981, though I am sure that cannot be correct as I moved from Scotland to Australia in March 1981, and had been playing it for about a year at that point.

I’ve owned and used various consoles and computers over the years, so video games have featured prominently in my life.

I know that this is not much of an introduction, but I am mainly posting to let you know that you, personally, have given me moments of great enjoyment in my life. I want you to know that your efforts are truly appreciated by me. You have added something wonderful to my life experience.

I have read various posts on your site and want to wish you the very best. I’ve enjoyed your writing and deep historical knowledge, thank you for sharing your work.

Finding your site was especially pleasing, as, to me, it shows your inner strength, and strength of character as an individual, to continue sharing what you clearly have so much talent, passion and knowledge about. After being treated so obviously harshly and unfairly. I will say no more, other than to state my agreement with what truth serum has posted in the thread.

Once again thanks, and take care, mk1.

[modernknight1]

Welcome Teo!

It’s interesting that so far the only folks here making introductions are mid 40s people like myself – over the hill. When I first decided to develop my own video game (an effort which fell short of funding goals and a partnership that went sour), I had collected survey data for months which reflected that there was a good enough audience base that were older, affluent, and historically knowledgeable and focused. That survey data is what got my initial backing for the project, so I know there are a lot of us out there and making a game like that is VERY viable from a return on investment/profit standpoint. This group is mostly silent I think because many are somewhat ashamed that they have this video game addiction at our age. LOL That’s something that you outgrow and only kids are into – right? I think it should be nothing to be ashamed of myself.

I remember when I first saw the ATARI 2600s at Sears in about 1975. I would stand there mouth open and eyes glued to the display for half an hour while my parents shopped. Then a neighbor got one. (My father would never buy such a thing and got angry when he found out I spent my quarters at a local videogame arcade in the bowling alley after getting paid from my Paper route). I was at the neighbor’s house all the time after that. When they also got a TRS-80 (the father was an engineer) me and their two boys who were my age spent hour coding games we would get out of catalogs. You couldn’t by a disc or even a cassette yet, you had to buy a softcover book full of hundreds of pages of code that you had to write yourself. Talk about patience – the end result would be a little tower made up of syntax characters and little crossbows at the top of the tower and on the ground that would shoot asterisks and exclamation points at own another. The goal was to stay alive while you knocked enough holes in the base of the tower (which showed alphabet soup debris fly off when you hit it) until it finally collapsed. We would play those games we made ourselves for hours. They were great friends and I was so fortunate to have grown up with them right across our alley way.

Thanks for your kind comments. Comments like that keep me continuing. I have written similar comments to others over the years because I truly feel the same way. When a game enriches your life and the diversion becomes one of complete joy, you are just so thankful to the creator of the content. So thank you and I am glad I could share it with someone that appreciates it so much. Please stick around, I am in the middle of some consulting work currently and my health is very poor but in another week or so I will be able to completely immerse myself in ERAS development again. I never get tired of this game. I will also do more with this website and glad you like it. I am all by myself with this stuff and am a busy guy, so there are never enough hours in a day.

Again thanks for the kind words and I hope you will stick around.

EDIT: When I say I am “all by myself” I mean of course with the website piece of this. Obviously I am not alone when it comes to the mod development. The mod wouldn’t be what it is now without the help of so many people. Several great contributor recently have ensured that the next version and upcoming patch will make ERAS better than ever.

MK

• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by modernknight1.

[truth serum]

Just read your Curacao article and all I can say is fantastic! When are you going back? Maybe we could go together. Just tried to leave comments on your article and it wouldn’t allow me to. Don’t know why? I just got back from a sailing trip myself down the inner-coastal waterway from Norfolk down to Oriental. I will be sharing my experiences as soon as I can get the pictures downloaded. If you can handle navigating around barges and floating logs, this is a pretty neat experience. All I can say is that I’m glad it wasn’t my boat.

[modernknight1]

Welcome back John,

Looking forward to hearing about your adventure. I’m glad you liked the article. I’ve heard the comment issue from others and will contact the host about it tomorrow. I haven’t got a clue why its happening.

Thanks on the offer, but I’m kind of a loner when traveling these days John. I don’t make friends easy. Been let down too many times. In fact I was just stabbed in the back again today.

Gonna step away from all of this for a few days because of it I think.

MK

[Schiavonna]

Hi guys. Thought this is as good a place to leave an update on what’s been happening in my life.

I moved into a rented property 3 years ago on November. After several weeks there, I became aware of a damp problem. The floor, which was mostly linoleum and tiled in bathroom, appeared to be soaking. I just had a mattress without bedstand when I intitally moved in – this was getting soaked each night. I would go through one complete newspaper a day…to absorb this damp from the floor. Just so you can get a picture of this.

So, I made my landlord aware of this the first month. And the second. And the third…finally, got someone in to look at the boiler, changed a pipe that was open and possibly leaking, and that was that. Waited for floor to dry….

Nearly 3 years later…and the floor is still wet. And now I’m aware that it’s chipboard underneath – which will not dry. But come end of september this year major black damp started appearing, ruining my laundry, a tablet, the fretboards on two guitars, bah! Due to difficult working factors I couldnt get hold of my landlord to tell her about this recent escalation of this problem that was consistently ignored in the past. So come october…and the floor in bathroom started to give away! Great! So, landlord finally came to see it…agreed there was a damp problem and promised to get some work done from a joiner and maybe plumber immediately. I had an event on that weekend, so wouldnt be in the house. So, left for a friend’s daughter’s 21st birthday do and hoped my toilet would be fixed when I returned..and maybe receive some enlightenment on the ongoing damp issue…

Didnt work out like that. Received nasty text saying I have to leave in 2 days and have my stuff out by end of week! That and not said, but heavily implied – that I was the cause for this floorboard hole. The only work that transpired was she took the cistern/tnk of the toilet, so effectively disabling it for my use!

LONG STORY SHORT – got in touch with support organisation for housing/ tennants’ rights and they read her the riot act! This changed the ballgame in my favour and now the landlord was made aware that SHE had been negligent and it was HER responsibility to find and pay for suitable accomodation for yours truly!

So if anyone was wondering why my activity here’s been quiet of late – now you know! I’m now in a new flat, sharing with another guy (I haven’t been in shared accomodation for nearly 10 years now…feels very wierd!), the chaotic sudden upheaval of finding a new home has passed and things are a little more stable for now.

You want to know the funny thing though? There have been professionals in to access the place…and they are damning to the extreme and have been quite sympathetic towards my situation – maybe empathising with the health risk. Here’s the punchline – after maybe the 5th time of bringing up the damp floor problem in the first year…my landlord actually suggested…it maybe be my sweating in my sleep thats causing it… – !!

You couldn’t make it up could you! 😉

[modernknight1]

WoW that sucks! When I was a young guy in college my first apartment was in the basement of an old house built in the 1890s. My wife, myself and my young baby boy went through all kinds of drama in that place. Not only were there plumbing problems, but the damn place was teaming with spiders that were living in the boiler room for heat and coming out to hunt in the apartment during the winter months. There was not a day we didn’t kill a dozen of them. We complained numerous times. I only had a 6 month lease, so when it was over, I had made other arrangements.

It ended up that my father had given up the music business (except part time) to become a carpenter and cabinet maker a decade before and was well known in the area. I was able to get the historic commission to put us up in another house built in the 1890s but this time a large stone mansion. My father and I restored much of the porch that ran around the place. We gave tours and maintained the place. I filled dozens of holes in the attic to prevent bats and a cousin of mine invented a machine that emitted a high pitch beyond human hearing that interfered with the bat’s radar. We lived there rent free for the next three semesters until I got a full ride scholarship to ASU for my last two years of school. Here’s the house. Unfortunately the city sold it because they couldn’t afford to maintain it. So its in private hands now.

I just finished fixing a slab leak in my own house which was flooding my back bathroom and garage. So I understand some of your pain. That leak and the damage caused/fixing required, is the main thing that prevented the patch from being finished already.

Sorry about your problems. Glad you’re here. You might be interested to know that more characters are going into this next version as well. If you have any new ones of your own please show them to us for consideration.

WELCOME!

MK

• This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by modernknight1.

[Schiavonna]

Cheers MK! I know you’ve been having similar problems with water pipes bursting – I hope you didnt get to many things damaged irrepairably due to this (its not funny…really). And the irony of the situation – here we are discussing ‘water’ problems on a pirate/naval/ships/sailing/sea site.

What you said about the spiders made me jolt! From late october onwards I had a household fly epidemic. Never got flies in the house even in summer (scottish summer – some would argue this is a ‘concept’ that doesn’t actually exist in reality! LOL!) – but they were coming out about 10-20 per day after the floorboards started to go in toilet and this was in November! But now you mention it there was an incredible amount of spiders active in the property. The day before finally leaving the place, I checked out if there was anything worthwhile still in my shed – which is literally 4 feet from my front door, adjoined to my living room wall. I was greeted with the sight of 4 HUGE spiders (certainly very large by european standards) that had made some rather intricate webbing among my dismantled bedstand. So…I just left that for the landlord to clear. Poetic justice!

New character models for ERAS v1.5.8? I have been working on a few. Nothing 100% original, just retextures of old stuff from Corsairs Harbour and ERAS. The “de Soto” character model – came up with a nice, different retexture on one of them and used it for an “Emmanuel Wynne” character*. I introduced him over your ‘davy jones’ character (so long Ron Perlman!). Works well as an officer too, which having introduced a few days ago, I really like. For some reason reminds me of ‘Pvt Mellish’ (with a ponytail) out of Saving Private Ryan! Might have a few more too 😉

Tried to touch up your ‘Hans Sloane’ model/texture…with mixed results – somethings really wrong with the texture’s forehead. Needs alot of patience to get that right, which I didnt have when attempting first time. Its a really nice model, but the texture just seems too bright.

Where would I put such things for your discretionary viewing? PM you and put up a MEGA link – ?

* Emmanuel Wynne – I have scoured the web and peroused various David Cordingly and Daniel Dafoe tomes and I CANNOT find any more imformation regarding this historical character, bar the “credited with the first jolly roger” references. After literally hours of delving, learned a crumb more of insight about him: That he operated off the North American coast, preying on English shipping, then departed south to the Caribbean for more lucrative Spanish prizes. If you have ANY MORE INFORMATION beyond the typical copy/paste jobs that abound on the web (- I’m looking at you Mary Lou Tyndell and others of your ilk!) – please, I’d be most grateful if you could inform/educate me more on the matter. Same applies for Jaquotte Delahaye 😉

[Anonymous]

I wish you all the best year you’ve ever experienced 🙂
And, above all, Gesundheit 🙂 (german word for health)

[modernknight1]

Thanks Ram. I’ve spent the last two days putting new stuff up on the site. It will all be visible to everyone as soon as I get everything just right. Happy NEW YEAR!

@ Schiavonna,

The Hans Sloane model does need a retouch. That is Hugh Laurie – House. It was one of my first celebrity face graft attempts. I’ve gotten much better at building character models since then.

If you have any good ones for me get them to me fast because Jeffrey and I are wrapping the new version up right now as we speak and even though I said I was only going to put a couple new characters in, there are actually quite a few new ones. Don’t want to spoil it here because the list will be in the announcements to be published later today.

I do have a little more data on some of the people you ask for. I have been working on an article on the jolly roger. The thesis of the article is that there is some pirate symbology in lithographs/woodcuts and prints that are shown on flags in printed form PRIOR to the Emmanuel Wynn flag. Still working on it because this research is going in my book as well.

MK

[Mot]

Heya there,

I’m 24 and an Aussie, love my pirates, absolutely love your mod. Had a few issues getting an account going (I’ve read about the Go Daddy issues) but I figured I’d jump on to show my support for your great mod MK. It’s a damn shame that the community split (I last played GOF in 2012 I think? and the community seemed fairly cohesive back then) but that’s no reflection on the high quality of your work.

My dream is that one day there will be a new pirates game with a purpose built engine but till then, your GOF version is easily the best pirate game out there.

I did check out the FB page, but it’s a bit political, particularly for someone without any sort of stake or opinion on the issues.

Anything else you want to know, just ask away. And thank you again MK for the great work, and your dedication to accuracy.

[Schiavonna]

^ Bonus points, MOT, for the cool avatar (Loved “Monkey” when i was a tot!)

Out of the frying pan and into the fire,,,and back in the frying pan again…!!

Long story short: Out of the last temp accomodation (dont ask!), short stop in a “hotel (Hostel would be more accurate) in a really dodgy bit of Glasgow. And now currently residing in a dilapidated flat in South East Scotland. Place was abandoned for 5 years after previous tenants abused it and had most of its copper piping robbed! Landlord is good friend of a good friend, so no funny stuff this time…in theory! So I now have electricity, water supply, a functioning toilet again, internet (notice my prioritising!), shower but NO lights, bar table lamps. Fuses keep popping when I try the lighting. Might have something to do with upstair’s over-running, badly-fitted, external drain that is constantly dripping on next doors doorstep. Mmmmmmmmm……. -!

My backyard…looked like a rubbish dump. Absolutely stinking! Finally cleared it last week with help from neighbours and friends. Loads of bottles, tins, baby shit, nappies (dypers??), old clothes, general mould and decaying food, etc….a right breeding ground for disease basically. Also it was blocking the air vents to property, so one side of house has bad damp (oh shit, not that again!).

In the meantime, had to work at festival. Returned with bad chest infection (can think of two “Plague Mary’s” that possibly gave me it – both selfish bints that should know to go home and not spread their viruses amongst their colleagues!). And trying to subsequently recover from that….with damp walls…lol!

Well the offending rubbish/garbage has been removed, some internal walls have received a few licks of paint, chest is beginning to heal again, it’s all getting slowly but surely better…phew! Think I’ll download the latest version of ERAS to celebrate! 🙂

Just in case you thought I had abandoned you all – now you know 😉

• This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by Schiavonna.

[Capt Qbert]

Apologies if this ends up being a double post, I did an edit and then it disappeared but still shows as if I had posted a few mins ago (thanks GoDaddy)…

Capt Qbert reporting for duty!

Actually, here is my 1st post, I had not seen this intro thread initially…

https://buccaneersreef.com/forums/topic/new-features-and-changes-id-like-to-see-added-in-future-updates/#post-4589

I am an avid gamer going on 4 decades, mostly strategy and RPG types but also loved the Borderlands series for the RNG (random number generator) loot system and all the Civ, Alpha Centauri, MOO 2 and Heroes of Might and Magic games as well. I played the original Sea Dogs and loved it….so was uber happy to find COAS ERAs (of course after paying on GOG for the original game, lol). I just finished playing Kerbal Space Program…love that game since you can mod the crap out of it and it’s based mostly on real world physical law, gravity, etc. Now am hooked into GOF Eras Mod 2.

I work in Mobile/Website QA and dabble in some code but am by no means an expert. I was savvy enough to edit the sea/land font sizes, CameraAI zoom levels, vendor availability and compass textures in ERAs by reading through a good chunk of MK’s & Jeffrey’s posts.

But most of all, I just wanted to say thank you to MK, Jeffrey and all others involved for all the work and ongoing initiatives for this game!
Will be happy to help test, report bugs, etc as needed where possible. Also thanks to MK for the help getting me through the sign up process!

– John
California Pirate in Training

[modernknight1]

Thank you Schiavonna, Mot and Captain Qbert for your introductory posts and your interest in what we are doing here.

WELCOME TO THE REEF MATES!

Schiavonna has already provided a lot of good input/opinions and we always look forward to more.

Captain Qbert, Thanks for the additional input to Vincent’s excellent post. We will certainly take you up on your bug report and testing offers. Jeffrey and I have been putting so much new stuff into the game the last few months we don’t get much time to actually play it. This means we miss things and we really need good testers that will bring things up that are happening to them.

MK

[Antiscamp]

Hi,

I’ve been lurking for a while. I found the Buccaneer’s Reef through YouTube videos by Vincent Spencer where he tells the viewer more about the game and how to download it. I’ve bene playing the Sea Dogs games since they became available on GOG.com and been exploring all the mods. I like TEHO as well, but think it’s a bit too rigorous in its quest requirements. So now I’m just starting out in GOF Eras2 and find the open world gameplay very interesting.

I’ve been gaming since the 80’s and my very first favourite game was Sid Meier’s Pirates! I’ve been moddign games since way back. In fact, my first game mod ever was when I changed the graphics in Pirates Gold on Windows 95, but back then it wasn’t called modding. Mostly I’ve been modding the Civilization series and the Elder Scrolls since Morrowind. I’ve also been doing Let’s Play videos on YouTube in my day; mostly strategy games like Empire Total War and the like.

Thanks for all the hard work you’re putting into this impressive project and keep it coming!

[modernknight1]

Welcome to the Reef Antiscamp!

Yeah Vincent has some good videos. Thanks for taking the time to introduce yourself. By the dates you can see you’re the only one in the last year to do so. Glad you’re enjoying the open world. We have big plans to expand that world and add more depth in the way of both new locations and new questlines.

Right now I am on a quest to locate a freelance editor builder who will build us an active interface which will allow us to add to and edit new scenes on the fly no matter what formats we are reading in. I feel like I am getting close.

We also have new DLCs in development as well. Things are slow here at the moment, but I have a feeling they will pick up in a few months when people start seeing all the new things the DEV team are playing with.

Thanks for the complements. We are proud of our work and very frustrated that more people haven’t noticed it or just simply criticize us badly without even trying any of it out at all. Their loss I suppose.

Welcome!

MK

[Antiscamp]

Hey, ModernKnight.

The planned editor sounds really interesting. That’s the sort of stuff I’ve been doing in the Elder Scrolls. I’ve become quite a level designer over the years. Here are a few examples of an island I created for Skyrim a couple of years back: https://frontierskyrim.wordpress.com/screenshots/

I would potentially be a candidate to work with that editor to create scenes for GOF Eras in the future, so I’ll keep my eyes open for any news on that. Really interesting!

[modernknight1]

Oh Dude! Wow! Yeah that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Nice work.

However, before we can build that stuff we need the magic editor. We will find someone who is not too expensive who will build us the sacred shrubbery.

It has already been done even. If you look at Mett’s videos for the Russian Secret Beach work, they already have one derived from Unity. I’ve asked him how they did it and if they would share with us, but I never get an answer. If they can do it we can too – and ours will be better. I will see to that even if I have to pay the guy stupid money to do it.

BTW welcome to the Loyal Members group Antiscamp for your posts here on a thread which hasn’t had activity on it in a year. You will be receiving instructions on how to download a better version of additional content for the game soon that only loyal members enjoy. Congrats!

MK

[Antiscamp]

Thanks man! I appreciate it! I’ve been playing the game every day now and would love to check out the loyalty patch as well.

[modernknight1]

bump

Stickied to top of thread:

EDIT: LOTS happening folks. Dennis who is our Discord group guy asked me to sticky the information about the Discord group here. Good discussions happening there and more activity than I expected. Here it is: https://discord.gg/Ps3zMtP

My thanks to Dennis for putting this together for us.

MK

• This reply was modified 5 years, 8 months ago by modernknight1.

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