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ATP Features |
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May 2004
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| Pirates E3 Gameplay movie - (Pirates) |
| Thursday, 27.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By Hatjo |
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The movie shown at E3 showing off the gameplay in Pirates can be found at Gametrailers. This movie shares many scenes with the other trailer that was just released, but there is definitively new scenes in this movie also.
You can watch the movie here.
This movie has allmost the same scens as the first trailer - but there is some new fighting sequences. And also a very close up of sailing around. You also get to see you and your crew walk a bit more on land. |
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| Strategy Guide - (Pirates) |
| Wednesday, 26.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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PiratesFan over at Cutlass Isle found some info about a Prima Strategy Guide for Sid Meier's Pirates! at EBGames.
There were some discussions on their boards about how this guide could be any good - since the game isn't released or anything, but then Barry Caudill from Firaxis popped by in the same thread with this information:
"It probably helps that the Strat guide is being written by Paul Murphy, a Firaxian who is also writing the Manual as well as the Pirate-O-Pedia tm"
Well, I suppose you cannot get it much better than that :) - If you want it, you can get it here, it's scheduled for October 12th, 2004. |
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| New pirates video - Official trailer! - (Pirates) |
| Wednesday, 26.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By Hatjo |
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Bluesnews has the story on the release of a new video for pirates! This time its the official trailer, around 1min 50 seconds long. The video can be found at several sources, and some seem to have the video in a different format than others (Some have quicktime format on the video, others have normal avi.)
Here are the links to download the video that is around 15-20 megabyte in size depending on what format you download it in:
Filefront, Fileplanet (Requires registration) , Gamespot (Requires registration) , 3D GAMERS and finaly Worthplaying
So if you want to see several sea battles, fighting in taverns, ships and governors mansion, girls smashing evil pyrates with glasbottles and much more I suggest you download the movie now instead of reading all this jibberish!
Anyways here is a short review of the movie:
The video starts off with quotes about the original pirates as "Computer gaming - hall of fame" and many more quotes.
Then you get right into the action with a "A treasure is recaptured" You see the player sailing close to an island, you also notice all the little things they have added, several icons on the left lower site, and also a picture of a person on the top left site (maybe an advisor?)
Then you see a fight with a pirate sloop vs a spanish trade galleon. (They are labeled in the video..)
After a short while you get sucked into a big ship fight where you get to see a lot of fighting sequences, notice now there is a red and white energy bar at the bottom. Also there is icons on the left and right with how much Crew each side has (60 for both in this case) There is fighting both from a ship, tavern and governors mansion. You even get to see a girl smash a bottle on some evil pyrate in the tavern :)
Then there is more sailing, this time closer to the shore, it seems that the icons on the lower left are flag icons - maybe they show what "national" water you are travelling in now? Also you see a shot flick of someone watching you sailing from land.
After that there is dancing, a big red icon and several small ones on the top middle seem to indicate how good your flirting is going with the chosen girl. Our gentleman heroe produces some smooth moves and impresses the girl, you know those kinds of moves everyone tries but allways fail - well not our gentleman pirate that is :)
Then even more sailing, nothing new here, maybe the nice rippeling effect in the water.
After that there is several fight shots - i think the first is between a pirate sloop and a English Large "Merchantman" - it was hard to read - then vs a spanish trade galleon again, then vs a french merchantman and vs a English large merchantman again. There is also on the lower site of the screen info about cannons and crew - im not sure if this is only for the videos information or if you see this in the real game.
Then there is fighting, burning cannons and people falling in the water! Arr!
Its a very fun trailer to watch! If you havent allready downloaded the trailer, I can put my word that its very informative and fun to watch.
Update:
The movie is a high resolution and quality version of the flash on the Pirate site. Still its very good because now you actually manage seeing what is going on :) |
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| UGO E3 Preview - (Pirates) |
| Monday, 24.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By Hatjo |
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A good E3 preview that missed our radar screens for a few days was the UnderGroundOnline Sid Meier's Pirates E3 Preview
The article by Hugh Sterbakov, a contributing editor over at U.G.O sheds light on a whole lot of details would be pirates have been wanting to know.
If you like to read it yourself i suggest you head over there now instead of reading my boring newsitems.
In the article Hugh Sterbakov confirms that you will have a html output with your greatest achivements when you retire. This is good news for would be pirate-braggers :) I quote:
"At the conclusion of your game (and retirement of your pirate), you're ranked on a scale from pickpocket to governor. The game will even output an HTML document with your greatest achievements, which will no doubt be the stuff of many fan websites."
And yes Hugh Sterbakov this will be the stuff for many fan websites :)
The game is still in pre alpha as can be confirmed by the statement: "We started an interactive demo of the game, which is still in a pre-alpha stage (..)" Remember this was probably seen at the E3 show, but still this means the beta is probably still far off.
You will be able to upgrade ships to move and turn faster. And even different types of weaponry. Add to this that there is 27 ship types and you have a lot of fun to be explored. The upgrade and ship types seem to be dependent on what year you start the game in. Quote:(from Barry Caudill) "There are 27 ship types in the game," says Barry Caudill, also from Firaxis. "And each can be upgraded with things like cotton sails to move faster, copper plating to turn faster, and different types of weaponry. Some of this depends on which year you choose to start in."
There will be famous pirates like Blackbeard - who will feature a ship with 32 guns and iron scantlings (seems to be a upgrade) - that tells me he got a ship bigger than a sloop but still not a very huge ship so he might be light, agile and deadly hehe. Quote: "But heavy-hitters like Captain Kidd, Jean Lafitte and Blackbeard are ready and waiting: Blackbeard's ship features 32 guns with iron scantlings and all the upgrades."
Picture: A close up of a battle
If you read this far i suggest you read the entire article over at ugo, its written well and is very informative - I guess there is a reason Hugh Sterbakov is a contributing editor at the famous UGO. :)
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| Official Pirates! site live! - (Pirates) |
| Sunday, 23.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By Hatjo |
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The official site for Pirates! seems to be in the last stages of going "live". While im writing this news item the pirates2.com site is getting more and more updated -for example they now added the fansite links WHILE I was writing!
The site can be seen in US english, UK english, French, German, Spanish and Italian. There is allready added a lot of contence, but some parts of the site is obviously still under construction. There is a great video on the site and several new screenshots. The site promices a "Behind the scenes with Sid Meier" and you also get to see how the finished Pirates game box will look. There is also a promiced of a developers diary with the first entry beeing written by Sid himself. Finaly you can sign up for the avast newsletter. A worthy note is that there is a "community" link and I am glad to announce the www.pirates2.com site have us in they`re link list. Thanks a lot to whoever created the fantastic site. Im sure we will work our hardest to deserve this honor.
If you like less talk and more action I suggest you head over to the offical site yourself and look:
www.pirates2.com
What can i say of the site? Its one of the most beatifully created sites ive seen in a long while - the background sounds of woodwork giving in to the wind and the storm brewing..fantastic - and the graphical features on the site is also top notch. All in all a very good site for presenting the Pirates! remake.
The screenshots on the site are also stunning - the screenshot in the governers office seems particulary nice, but there is something from just about every part of the game, the ballroom, the tavern, battle on the sea, more from the tavern, the pirate defeated, more from the tavern, sea travel, town, plunder and more!!
The US english site seems to be more updated than the rest of the sites at the moment, most of the links are working and you can read Behind the scences with Sid Meier/Reimagining pirates!, you can also watch concept art, read the legacy of pirates, System requirments and much more! (like fansite links)
Pirates2.com website design and layout score:
12 of 10 points. Head over to www.pirates2.com - I higly recommend it.
Update: The site is live, and all the links works as far as I know! |
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| More on the board game - (Pirates) |
| Wednesday, 19.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Firaxis has a press release about the new, upcoming Pirates! board-game.
It will be for 2-6 players, and a game is supposed to take around 90 minutes :) - Sounds like a game you and your friends can take out anytime to play!
We have already covered this board game in this news, but now it is made official by Firaxis. |
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| Yahoo games E3 impressions - (Pirates) |
| Sunday, 16.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By Hatjo |
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A "special" from the Games domain / yahoo games staff can be seen over at Gamesdomain/yahoo.
The article discuss the E3 impressions of Sid Meier's Pirates! The screenshots have been seen before but they do have some new info - you can improve ships - so that really sets the discussion in a new light in our forum thread Pirates and sea battles where we discuss of you should be able to make better ships and such. Head over there and throw in your two cents if you like :)
Here is a quote from the article:
(start quote)
A range of available ports-of-call are available (including Dutch, French, and Spanish colonies, as well as the famed English Port Royale) in which to cull together a crew, hear the latest rumor-muck, improve or repair ships, engage in dodgy trade, or even perhaps seek an "honest" commission from one of the proxy governments. There are also special rare items and treasure maps for sale from a sketchy soul in yon locale taverne.
(end quote)
You can read the whole article here
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| Pictures from CGM mag - (Pirates) |
| Saturday, 15.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By Hatjo |
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This might be a bit old news but i noticed over at the piratesahoy! forums they had scans of the whole Computer Games magazine article on Sid Meier's pirates! Here are the links:
Page1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
I especially like the part on page 4 where Sid promices a fat and juicy manual like in the old days. I loved the manuals for Sid Games - choke full of usefull information! Like when i got colonization i marveled even at the manual :) (and it wasnt that big just so good quality)
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| Yahoo: Sid Meier's Pirates on E3 most wanted - (Pirates) |
| Friday, 14.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By Hatjo |
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According to gamesdomain.yahoo.com, one of the most wanted games on E3 is ...drumroll.. Sid Meier's Pirates!. They even throw in a Yarr! as can be seen by the full quote:
"Yarr! Splice the mainbrace and man the lifeboats, because another well-loved classic is getting a remake. Sid Meier's 1987 cross-genre masterpiece has picked a great time to come back, thanks in large to a couple of recent high-profile Hollywood movies. Expect a mixture of sword fighting, sea battles, and Morrowind-style open-ended exploration -- much like the original, in fact. Meier's one of the golden boys of PC development, so Pirates!' development will be under considerable scrutiny."
Read about this story here.
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| More on the Xbox Pirates! rumor - (Pirates) |
| Friday, 14.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By Hatjo |
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Gamespot Asia (yes i do read a lot of stuff ^^) has news about the Sid Meier's Pirates! xbox rumor.
They have a link to the first article to start the whole rumor flow, an article by Stuart Bishop on April 16th at computerandvideogames.com, that you can read here.
Gamespot Asia discuss the fact that the graphic engine used by Sid Meier's Pirates! has been known to be easily ported to the xbox (The Elder Scrolls III ported well), and therefore there might be something to this rumor. The offical word from an Atari spokeperson was "We haven't announced plans to develop the game on any other platform."
Gamespot Asia still belives there might be something to this rumor. You can read about it here. |
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| IGN / GameSpy Live Wire - (Pirates) |
| Friday, 14.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By Hatjo |
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| If anyone was so lucky to listen to IGN / Gamespy livewire at Wednesday 12 may at 3:33 p.m. (according to this scedule), they would hear Jeff Briggs from Firaxis speak about Sid Meier's Pirates! and more. If anyone was so lucky please send me an email or a live record from that so we can post up at least what it was about! |
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| Pirates Ahoy! E3 impressions - (Pirates) |
| Friday, 14.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By Hatjo |
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After a dry period of little E3 information, today Friday the 14th of May we get an article from Pirates Ahoy!
The Pirates Ahoy! correnspondant, Keith, was at the first live demonstration of Sid Meier's Pirates at the E3 Expo this Wednsday in the Los Angeles Convention Center. After his visit, Keith has written a three pages long article that contains a good amount of information about Pirates! and the screenshots in it are very good as well.
Keith met up with Barry Caudill and Jeff Foley and then Barry proceded to playing the game while Keith got to watch and get screenshots (lucky man!). Bary was sailing a ship with sails containing the Firaxis logo, and also the MicroSoft logo as well (As can be seen in one of the screenshots - told you they where good screenshots!).
Another cool thing apart from the logos you can have on your sails is the fact that you can pick up people in the water from the ships you just fired cannon volleys on.
Quote from the piratsahoy article:
"Ship Fighting
This part of the game will be extremely familiar to the Pirates! veterans here. Keeping the wind to your back can be the difference of life or death in certain cases. You’re not just limited to one particular cannon attack either. For the demonstration, Barry fires from a distance regular round-shot and manages to hit the Spanish Merchantman. We watch 2 men fly overboard into the water. “You’re now able to pick these guys up and add them to your crew” says Barry as he sails to them. His crew now up by 2 and approaching the Merchantman, Barry switches to grape-shot to take out more crew. “The grapeshot doesn’t fly too far so you have to be up close.”"
If you want to learn more about custome sails, english smugglers, attacking towns, you the player, towns, menu interface, taverns, old grizzled-looking sailors, dancing, ship fighting, sword fighting, buried tresures, or just plain and simple Pirates!, then I higly recommend you go read the article here. |
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| First E3-screens - (Pirates) |
| Friday, 14.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Found the first "E3-Screenshots" of Pirates! when I was searching through IGN.
One of them is pretty neat, shows our captain meeting the gouvernor in his mansion, where the gouvernor is giving the directions to the nearest enemy town :)
Another screenshot shows how the world-map will be while sailing - you will see names - landmarks - of the different areas you sail into.
View 3 new screenshots here. |
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| E3 Site-Changes - (Site) |
| Friday, 14.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Well, as you might have noticed - we have updated and made a little "E3-section" - which is viewable either by clicking the E3-related link in the Main Navigation menu, or by clicking the E3-coverage graphics in the top right section of the side.
We felt it was a good idea to gather all the E3-info at one place - so now you have it - easy to find what you are looking for!
Also, I fixed the forum news-posting a bit - so all news from now on will be posted by the Addicted News-user on the forums instead of my user - no more extra post-count for me! :) |
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| Pirates! Board Game - (Pirates) |
| Thursday, 13.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By Hatjo |
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Eagle games will be making a board game version of Pirates! after its success on the civilization board game. Eagle games has reciced many awards for theyre board games and are considered by many as one of the best board game makers.
The story can be found at The Wargamer where Chris "Pie4foo" Abele writes about this partnership between firaxis and eagle games. You can read the whole article here. |
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| E3-Pirates! - (Pirates) |
| Thursday, 13.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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According to Dan Magaha, Associate Producer of Firaxis Games over at The Talking Parrot, Pirates! will be shown in the Windows XP booth, the ATI booth, and most likely the NDL (GameBryo) booth.
Seems like it is Barry Caudill from Firaxis that is on E3 to promote Pirates!.
ATP will of course bring more updates as soon as we hear anything at all about this very highly anticipated game! |
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| New Updates - (Site) |
| Wednesday, 12.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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I have done some work today on the site! First I've fixed all the links (I hope), then I've added a new poll - obviously about what you think of the new design. Also got the IRC-applet back up and running - so go visit the official unofficial Pirates!-IRC Channel :)
Back to the design, we would love to hear comments from you in our forum, The Talking Parrot, so please join up and be honest! We cannot improve if we don't know what to improve!
And, oh yeah, I'm sure you wonder what that little box in the top right side of the page is... Well, wait and see! But it is something that talks... |
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| Pirates! Beta in August? - (Pirates) |
| Tuesday, 11.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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According to Jeff Foley over at the Cutlass Isle boards, there will be an open beta-test for Pirates!, but only for those who have signed up for the Avast newsletter.
"We are planning to save some screenshots and videos to give Avast! subscribers (and people on fan forums such as this one) a "first look" before the rest of the world can view them. Throw in a few sweepstakes and contests, and it should be a lot of fun!
And as you mentioned... though we have not determined how many beta testers will participate in the game, we have decided that we'll only be taking them from this list of subscribers, and that they will be the first to hear about it (via the newsletter) when registration opens.
You will also be able to sign up for Avast from the Pirates! website which is almost ready to go live."
So, what are you waiting for? Oh, yeah, of course... You want that link to sign up for their newsletter? Well, here it is, don't abuse it ;)
http://www.infoyouaskedfor.com/r.cgi?=m6991_6824431
Special thanks to PiratesFan for digging this news up ;) |
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| Design - (Site) |
| Monday, 10.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Well, most of it is up now - but I'm gonna do the rest of the updates tomorrow.
Maul has done all the graphics on this new layout, and I've done the coding / converting from the old layout. Note that we will still be adding more to it in near future.
Please use our forum, The Talking Parrot, to discuss this new layout. What do you think? We need suggestions on what to improve, new features etc...
One new thing is that you now via the "Submit" button on the top can submit your own news via a very simple form. It won't pop at ATP instantly though, we will review it before we post it, but we will credit the submitter - in that case you will have to leave the name / nick. You can also leave e-mail if you want us to contact you.
Well, that's all for now, I will continue to update the page tomorrow (well, today actually - 4 AM now, so need some sleep and then I'll continue)!
Enjoy! |
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| New Design Coming - (Site) |
| Monday, 10.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Just as a notice, we are currently working on uploading and fixing / tweaking / adjusting / whatever / making the new design work... So for the next 24 hours (hopefully not longer) things could be quite... Weird... :)
Stay tuned! |
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| Gamespy with E3 Update - (Pirates) |
| Wednesday, 05.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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GameSpy has another preview on Pirates! here.
Some new info is - like shown in IGN's videos - that you can pull up a spyglass while sailing, to view ships or towns - to find out wheter to flee or engage :)
Also note that the flags will be customizable by players! |
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| 7 New Pirates-videos @ IGN - (Pirates) |
| Wednesday, 05.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Thanks to Per over at The Talking Parrot, who posted this news :)
I'm going to try to make short "reviews" of the videos below.
Battle to the Edge:
Shows swordfighting on a ship, other pirates fight around our captain to make it looks realistic, very nice. Possibly a bit long between the moves, but I'm sure that's something they are tweaking.
Ship-to-Ship Fire:
This videos shows two ships in a battle, shooting and navigating around, in the end you'll see that the largest ship fires the cannonballs through the sail and it makes a hole - very neat!
Bottle Bashes Head:
Again, our captain is fighting, this time for a woman. Very nice moves and effects, added a good portion of humour :)
Dancing:
Another good movie, this time dancing with a lady. Notice the top of the screen, I can only assume its a love-o-meter or something similar - probably how well you are doing.
Sneaking Around:
Now our captain is sneaking around in the city, trying to avoid guards - and knocking down those he can't avoid. Good perspective, you get a very good view of what's going on.
Sailin' Around:
Shows a sloop sailing around, and using the mouse to scout with, very nice feature. Eventually this ends up in a battle with a Spanish Trade Galleon.
The last video needs registering at IGN, sadly - but head on there and see all the 6 free videos for yourself - here. |
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| Graphics Poll - (Site) |
| Tuesday, 04.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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I've had the poll about the Pirates!-graphics running for over a month now, and so far it's looking good for Firaxis.
72,7% thinks the graphics is either "Awesome! Fantastic!", or "Very Nice". Only 13,7% thinks it's "Poor" or "Terrible".
When you conclude with my earlier poll about what people thought was most important for a game like Pirates!, where 8,1% said graphics - it tells me that only 1,1% of you probably won't buy the game because of the graphics, while 5,9% of you will buy the game just because of the graphics.
So, if we have 6.000.000.000 people in this world, 5,9% of that is 354.000.000. And if Firaxis gets 10$ per game sold, this means that they will make 3.540.000.000$ on this game, JUST BECAUSE OF THE GRAPHICS...
Hehe, if this was true, I think Firaxis would be jumping up and down infront of their computers with champagne-bottles in their hands!
Well, a little mixing with numbers is always fun :) - and in my little conclusion I've taken for granted that people will buy / not buy the game just because of the graphics.
Anyways, it is good news for Firaxis that so many seems to like their graphics. It has never been their strongest side, but in my opinion never the most important side of their games either. But I do like the Pirates!-graphics a lot :) |
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| E3 Preshow Impressions @ Gamespot - (Pirates) |
| Tuesday, 04.05.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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GameSpot has posted E3 Preshow Impressions of Pirates!, which reveals a few new things.
Among one of them is that you will be able to "set your own dance music in the game via "beat files" that you'll be able to make for music that you own".
You will also be able to attack forts with artillery, and fight against both infantery, artillery and cavalry.
Read the whole article here. |
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© 2004 Addicted to Pirates! All rights reserved.
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Contact us / Forums
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Pirates! Release Dates:
PC - Released
XBOX - Released
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09.01.2007 - 
