August 2004
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| Update on Beta - (Pirates) |
| Tuesday, 31.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Jeff Foley (Atari) has popped by the Pirates Ahoy! forums and given a little update on when the beta might start.
It seems that they are aiming to select beta participants during this week, and then start the beta by the first full week of September.
So far they have already several thousand applicants, while there are only a couple of hundred slots (at most).
Read the thread over at PA! here. |
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| Avast! is out! - (Pirates) |
| Thursday, 26.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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I JUST received the Avast! Newsletter! Check your mailboxes everyone!
Update: There was 3 new screenshots with the newsletter, but whenever I clicked the thumbnails to view larger versions of them, I was only directed to the official site for the game. If anyone finds the large version of the screenies, please help out :)
If you don't have signed up for the Avast! Newsletter and still want to see the images, I've made a page showing them here. Please not that I haven't found a large version of them yet! |
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| New Box & Rating - (Pirates) |
| Thursday, 26.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Over at Atari Australia & New Zealand I found a slightly different version of the box-shots we've seen so far. This one looks about the same, but has a different logo on it than the European version. Below to the left is the new one, the right is the "old" one:
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Also note that the game is rated 7+ in Australia and New Zealand, which probably gives a good indication what rating ESRB ends up at.
About release dates - it seems like the Australian release-date is set to November 26th, 2004 - 10 days after the US release. |
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| Beta Signups Today? - (Pirates) |
| Thursday, 26.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Over at Pirates Ahoy!, Jeff Foley (Atari) has popped by their forums and told that the newsletter should be going out yesterday or today - and since yesterday has passed with no newsletter, I'm guessing that it might come today :) Read more in this thread.
For those who doesn't know yet, your only way to sign up for the beta will be via the newsletter, so if you haven't signed up for that yet, go to the official site and do it now. |
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| 20 New Screenshots & Boxshots - (Pirates) |
| Wednesday, 25.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Worthplaying has published 20 new screenshots from Sid Meier's Pirates! - you can find them here.
Is it just me, or do the screenies look better and better for each round? Thanks to Blooduk for the tip ;)
And, as that wasn't enough, Jeff Foley (Atari) sent us some very nice versions of the North American boxes, both standard and Limited Edition. We've seen the regular version already, but the Limited Edition shots are new - and it looks very, very nice - if I have to say, and I do :)
I've made a page about the Limited Edition, where you can find the Limited Edition box-shot from two different angles. Click here to go there! |
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| The Legend Returns - (Pirates) |
| Wednesday, 25.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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A new trailer for Sid Meier's Pirates! has been released and is available for download here.
Some dancing, fighting, ships sailing around - and a good portion of humor :)
Thanks to Blooduk (or BLOODUK as he likes to spell it!;) for the newstip! |
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| Euro Box-shot & Release Date - (Pirates) |
| Wednesday, 25.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Kai Fiebach from Civ3.de tipped me about this one, Amazon has just released a brand new box-shot for Sid Meier's Pirates! in Europe.
Also, Jeff Foley (Atari) said before that they were aiming for a simultaneous release in the US and Europe, which now seems to be confirmed by the release date Amazon has on Sid Meier's Pirates!, November 18th.
Takes a couple of days to get it overseas ;) |
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| Power-Ups only for Xbox - (Pirates) |
| Tuesday, 24.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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There has been some discussions lately around the power-ups seen in the video of Atari's video presentation of the Xbox-version of Pirates!.
Jeff Foley (Atari) confirms today in our forums that "The power-ups are definitely a console thing". So no need to worry about getting those power-ups in the PC-version anymore :)
He also tells us that there is a "separate development team within Firaxis working on the Xbox". Seems like they are putting a lot of work into making sure that it isn't just another ported game. Very nice!
Follow the current thread in our forums here! |
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| XBox Hands-on at GameSpot - (Pirates) |
| Sunday, 22.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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GameSpot has published a new hands-on on the XBox version of Pirates!
Nothing we didn't know, exept maybe that you possibly can rescue sailors after you've blown them off the enemy ship, and have them fight for you.
Read the whole hands-on here.
Thanks to Blooduk on the "official" IRC-channel for the news :) |
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| Video of Atari's Presentation - (Pirates) |
| Thursday, 19.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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GameInformer has posted a video of Atari's presentation of the XBOX version of Sid Meier's Pirates!
You'll see the start of the game (shortened down I believe), some sailing around... And then it REALLY starts to get interesting!
Suddenly, the game restarts, and they choose the multiplayer features. Ship vs Ship battles! They start to choose from a list of ships. These are the new ships that I can confirm:
Brigantine
Coastal Barque
Fluyt
We also see the Tartane, but we already knew about that. The ships also has different stats. Firepower, Defense, Speed and Turning, which seems to vary from 1 to 5 pirate flags, where 5 is best.
So, they choose a battle between a Fluyt and the Tartane. The Fluyt, being a Square Rigged ship, doesn't stand much chance against the Tartane, which outmanouvers it quickly. When the Fluyt starts to sink, you'll see lots of tiny crew jumping overboard - and then you hear laughter amongst the viewers :) Pretty funny!
The Tartane ship also grabs a power-up in the end after the battle, which upgrades it's attack.
Well, you should view the whole presentation yourself, go here!
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| 1UP New Preview of Sid Meier's Pirates! - (Pirates) |
| Thursday, 19.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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1UP has previewed Sid Meier's Pirates! again.
They tell us the thing GameSpy didn't, what Sid Meier didn't like about his Pirates! 3 months ago. The Land-battle system. It has been fully redone since then, according to 1UP.
Quote from the preview:
"Land battles occur when you're trying to take a hostile fort or town by force across an island; your crew is divided into divisions based on ability, and you have at it with the enemy in a real-time strategy setup. Except you don't. The land battles are now turn-based and much more strategic than before, with scouting units, height advantages, and so forth. It's still very quickly paced, but they aren't a simple matter of one side overwhelming the other with manpower anymore."
Turn-based huh? Very interesting mix for a real-time based game :) Perhaps you'll find it interesting to discuss this in our forums!
Anyways, read the whole preview here! |
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| GameSpy Updates Sid Meier's Pirates! - (Pirates) |
| Wednesday, 18.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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GameSpy has posted a new preview of Sid Meier's Pirates!, along with all the other ones that did around this date :) Did you perhaps know that Sid Meier said the game wasn't fun, and that it was time for serious changes only 6 months before the release? (May, ATP).
Read the whole preview here. |
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| Design Update - (Site) |
| Wednesday, 18.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Okay, okay! So we did some changes again! :)
This new design is a bit wider, and is a bit more compatible with... Well, everything... The only thing is that those who use the Opera browser won't be able to see our screenshot-slider in the top right menu... Don't ask me why, it's compatible in all mozilla-based browsers, and of course IE.
We are not 100% done with tweaking it of course, awaiting some feedback from you as well.
You'll notice there are a few (perhaps a few too many) links in the left menu that has a (Soon) mark next to them... No, you don't have to wait for 6 months for them to be done, more like a day or two... Or three :) At least expect them to be done within a week!
We've also placed the "important" news alone in the middle menu, and increased the number of topics showing from 5 to 7. The rest of the news has been placed in the menu to the right.
The screenshots section is coming soon, for now the link isn't working (it's just a # link) when clicking on the chainging screenshots, but we are working on that too - and will get it up asap!
We hope you like the new minor redesign, and if you have comments and / or suggestions, feel free to post them in our forum! Have a nice day! |
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| Sid Meier's Pirates! on GameSpot as well! - (Pirates) |
| Tuesday, 17.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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When I thought I had covered it all with my four news-articles, I discovered the new GameSpot preview over at Cutlass Isle!
The GameSpot preview has an interview about land-battles, xbox, and other stuff, with Barry Caudill from Firaxis - along with more detailed information about how land-battles work. Here is a quote:
"You and your rivals will have several companies of one or more of the following: infantry, pistoleers, cavalry, and artillery, which, in your case, are cannons you drag off of your ship, assuming you have any left. While you'll need to mind some strategic concerns, like the power and speed of cavalry against the relative weakness of infantry, for the most part, land battles will feature just enough depth to be interesting without tying you down in lengthy, drawn-out sessions--like pretty much every other aspect of the game, really"
And a little thing that hasn't been mentioned much before, but is a very good thing to be able to: Remapping keys! You will be able to :)
You will also find 3 new gameplay movies and 32 (!) new screenshots there!
Head over to GameSpot and read the whole preview along with the video interview with Barry Caudill! |
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| 10 New Videos @ IGN - (Pirates) |
| Tuesday, 17.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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IGN has with their hands-on of Sid Meier's Pirates! published 10 (yes, ten!) new videos.
The new videos is showing land-battles, dancing, trading, ship-battles, sneaking around and sailing at the sea.
I find the trading video particulary interesting, as you are shown about everything you can do while visiting a town - from talking to the governour, visiting the tavern, hiring crew, buying old pirate maps, talking to the barmaid and the barkeeper and trading with merchant - which, by the way, is showing us some of the goods that will be in Sid Meier's Pirates!
The confirmed goods is:
X) Luxuries
X) Goods
X) Spice
X) Sugar
And of course food and cannons... In the old Pirates!, the goods available varied from what time-period you were playing in, so perhaps that is the deal here too. I found it weird that I didn't see any tobacco for trade :)
From the other videos we find out that when you sail around with multiple ships in your fleet, you will actually SEE all the ships, not just the leading ship like in the old Pirates!
You will also notice that the enemy towns will fire at you in real-time when you approach them - so it might be dangerous to sail by the wrong town :)
Click here to visit IGN's media section for Sid Meier's Pirates!
Update: Thanks to Civrules who actually made me scroll down on the media pages and discover 5 new movies :) |
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| Limited Edition Contents - (Pirates) |
| Tuesday, 17.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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In the hands on at IGN, they tell us a bit about the Limited Edition. Here is a little summary of what the LE features:
X) DVD-Rom
X) Original version of Sid Meier's Pirates!
X) "Making of ..." Feature
X) MOD-Tools
X) Developer Diaries
X) Tips and Tricks
X) Lot of early concept art
X) More?
I'm not 100% sure if this is all, but at least this is what we know for sure, and what is confirmed in the preview at IGN.
Discuss the contents in our forums. |
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| Pirates! Hands-on @ IGN - (Pirates) |
| Tuesday, 17.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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There is a new, great hands-on preview of Sid Meier's Pirates! at IGN. The two-page article is written after they got to play a near-beta version of the game.
They cover a lot of aspects in the hands-on, dancing, missions, land-battles, modding, the xbox-version, and more... Along with the preview, you will find 10 new videos and a bunch of screenshots.
Read the whole hands-on here.
Special thanks to BloodUK on our IRC-channel for the news-tip. |
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| Sid Meier's Pirates Preview - (Pirates) |
| Tuesday, 17.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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GamesDomain has posted another preview of Sid Meier's Pirates... We just can't seem to get enough of these previews!
It's better written than some of the other "previews" we've seen lately, so head over there and read the full 1-page preview here. |
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| Pirates! on XBox - With Multiplayer! - (Pirates) |
| Saturday, 14.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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That's right - Firaxis and Atari has finally announced what many of us already really knew was coming, Sid Meier's Pirates! on X-box.
What is more surprising is, well if I have to say, shocking, that there will be a multiplayer component via Xbox-live! Quote from the article at Gamespot:
"The Xbox Pirates! will be fully Xbox Live-enabled and will feature a versus mode, 5.1 Dolby Digital surround, and HDTV support."
Well, this might not be much, but it was exactly what the PC-gamers had been asking for! I'm sure this will lead to lots of discussion around multiplayer, which won't be on the PC-version.
Read the whole article at GameSpot.
Thanks to Blooduk for the news-tip on our IRC-channel! |
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| Totalgames Preview - (Pirates) |
| Friday, 13.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Found another preview over at Totalgames.net - it's better than the last one, looks more like a preview :)
A few interesting things mentioned - nothing that hasn't been said before, in one form or another, but it's worth a read. And somehow I haven't seen one of the two screenshots before - the one below the other... Maybe it's just me - or maybe it's a new one :)
Read the preview here. |
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| Chat Today! - (Other) |
| Thursday, 12.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Don't miss the chat today!
Time for some of the timezones:
EST: 13:00 (Toronto, New York)
CET: 19:00 (Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Paris)
GMT: 18:00 (London, Dublin)
CST: 12:00 (Austin, Chicago)
MST: 11:00 (Denver)
PST: 10:00 (Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver)
(Thanks to Falconer :)
We are aiming for a cool chat with many visitors! Ask questions about the game, share what you know to others, explain, discuss! Join today!
IRC-SERVER: IRC.STRATICS.COM
CHANNEL : #PIRATES!
Or via this link.
Cya there!
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| Designer Diary, Part Three - ((default)) |
| Thursday, 12.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Time has come for the third designer diary! This time, it is by Firaxis' Sound Engineer, Mark "Cromerzone" Cromer - who explains, guess - about the sound - in Sid Meier's Pirates!
Here is a quote:
"For the speech audio found in Pirates! we needed material that would help carry the emotion of a character, but not so much as to be distracting. So, we decided to create our very own language--we call it Firaxlish! The voices are rich in character, and prove to be a great way to immortalize the voices of our wonderfully patient Firaxis staff and families. (My wife is the voice of a governor's daughter!) Occasionally, listeners claim to hear actual words in our Firaxlish, but any resemblance to speech, present or past, is strictly coincidental."
There are also a couple of new screenshots there... It is probably just me, but I actually find the graphics better with these screenies than the older ones... :P
Anyways, head over to GameSpot and read the whole article there.
Thanks to Civrules for the newstip :)
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| Another preview - (Pirates) |
| Wednesday, 11.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Armchair Empire has previewed Sid Meier's Pirates, it's actually a couple of weeks old, and its nothing new in it. In fact, there is very little told at all in this one page-preview.
For those who are interested in reading as many previews as possible, I hereby present you the link to the preview. |
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| Chat @ Thursday - (Pirates) |
| Sunday, 08.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Hi folks!
As you know we have a chat-channel (along with Cutlass Isle), for Sid Meier's Pirates! - it is the official "official" chat channel, which means that it is not official in the way of Atari and Firaxis (too much legal stuff ;p) - but it is made "official" by the largest fansites :)
Anyways, what I'm now trying for is to get a large number of visitors joining at the same time - just to have a cool, live chat with eachother. I encourage EVERYONE to log on the following channel on the set date below:
IRC-SERVER: IRC.STRATICS.COM
CHANNEL : #PIRATES!
DATE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 12th 2004
Time for some of the timezones:
EST: 13:00 (Toronto, New York)
CET: 19:00 (Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Paris)
GMT: 18:00 (London, Dublin)
CST: 12:00 (Austin, Chicago)
MST: 11:00 (Denver)
PST: 10:00 (Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver)
(Thanks to Falconer :)
Ok, these timezones make me crazy... If you are in any doubt when the chat is, use the feedback form on the menu to the left and send in and i'll try to explain more.
Remember, you can join the channel both via an IRC-client, download the most popular at www.mirc.com, or via the chat link in the menu to the left.
I will most likely post again about the chat, but make room for the chat already :)
I hope this will be a fun meeting where we will at least get 20-30 people online at the same time to chat and have fun!
I can't promise any devs or others from either Firaxis or Atari, sorry. But I do hope that maybe someone will stop by if they are reading this :) |
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| We do have a chat :) - ((default)) |
| Wednesday, 04.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Just letting everybody know again, been a few months since we have promoted the chat for Sid Meier's Pirates!
server: irc.stratics.com
channel: #Pirates!
You can join via your own irc-client (mIRC is a common one), or via our IRC-applet via your browser - using this link (also you can reach it from the left menu).
Please idle in channel - who knows who might stop by :) |
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| Upcoming Pirates! Info - (Pirates) |
| Wednesday, 04.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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A little information about upcoming - information - about Sid Meier's Pirates!
First, Jeff Foley from Atari says in this thread over at the Cutlass Isle forums, that we will get "an in-depth article about [land-battles] in an upcoming Computer Gaming World magazine article". So stay tuned those of you who are subscribers of that magazine, and share some info with us :)
Secondly, he also says that he is working on an upcoming video about Sid Meier's Pirates! that will hit online before the end of August.
Thirdly, he promises us some more (neat?:) screenshots as Firaxis finishes gameplay and adds the artwork (which probably means that parts of the graphics in the current screenshots is placeholder graphics).
And if that wasn't enough, Atari is soon to announce the full details for the Limited Edition version of Sid Meier's Pirates!, along with a pre-sell program, according to this postin our own forums... All this coming soon to a website (and magazine) near you!
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Phew! And there is more waiting for us, like the first edition of the Avast! newsletter being sent out soon, according to a post by Jeff Foley on the Pirates Ahoy! boards. It will contain a link to the beta sign-up as well as other, well, newsletter stuff I suppose :)
And who knows - we are in August now, just a bit over 3 months to the release... During that time we will see a beta (hopefully), screenshots, videos, interviews, previews, designer diaries and more!
Stay tuned - ATP is bringing you the news! |
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| Sid Meier's Pirates! release date confirmed! - (Pirates) |
| Wednesday, 04.08.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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It's final! It's confirmed! It's... Good news!! :)
According to this post over at the Pirates Ahoy forums, the official release date is, as has been known as the unofficial release date for some time now, November 16th, 2004.
This was in the same post confirmed twice by Jeff Foley from Atari.
Quote (Jeff Foley - Atari): "You misunderstood -- or perhaps I wasn't clear. What I'm saying is, you should be very lucky, because November 16th is the confirmed date.
We should get the pre-order program in place by September, but I'm hoping to release some information about it in the next two weeks."
Special thanks to Mack the Knife at The Talking Parrot for digging this up:) |
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09.01.2007 - 
