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ATP Features |
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September 2004
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| Designer Diary, Part Four - (Pirates) |
| Thursday, 30.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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It's time for another designer diary, we have reached number four this time - and it's associate producer, Dan Magaha, who is writing in the diary this time.
As always, the diary is published on GameSpot, and this time they topic is "Tornado Wrangling" - it's about the challenges and difficulties involved when making a game - and also what the secret to the company's game design is.
Of course, there's a catch. There's always a catch! In this case, however, that's a good thing. During the feedback process, we may (and often do) discover that something we thought was going to be really fun just isn't. Or we come up with a better way of doing something. Or someone sends us a bribe of cash or fine chocolates to get their favorite feature into the game. Wait, that last one's never happened. And even if it did, you couldn't prove it.
Want more? Travel through this channel and check it out yourself.
Be sure to check out the two new screenshots that were posted there as well. |
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| No Demo of Sid Meier's Pirates! - (Pirates) |
| Tuesday, 28.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Jeff responded to us in this thread about an eventual demo for Sid Meier's Pirates!
Here is what he said:
There is currently no demo planned for Pirates. Demos require additional work to lock them and make them secure. That's time taken away from bug squashing. If Firaxis worked on a demo, the game would be coming out in January. It's possible that a demo may be completed after the game has been released, but I'd consider that unlikely.
So, no demo - at least not before the release. And frankly, why do you really need a demo? Just buy the game! ;) |
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| Beta Quotes! - (Pirates) |
| Monday, 27.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Another happening at The Talking Parrot today, and it's Jeff again! This time he brought lots of quotes from the first beta-testers of Sid Meier's Pirates!
Check it out here! |
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| Video Update & Euro Limited Edition - (Pirates) |
| Monday, 27.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Video Update:
Just a little update to bring you some daily news, in The Talking Parrot today - Jeff tells us that the Making of Pirates!-video that was released late last week was indeed a mistake. The video was never meant for public release, and that's why it was pulled off all servers quickly.
Lots of us have already downloaded the video however, which by the way was a down-sized version of the one that will come with the Limited Edition - that explains why the resolution was so low.
Anyways, I'm gonna encourage you all to not spread the video further - and I hope you help both Atari and Firaxis with this :)
For those of you who haven't seen the video yet, fear not - you'll get the whole, higher resolution video with the Limited Edition that you just HAVE to pre-order, and if that isn't enough, Atari will be releasing snippets of the video online for download during the next month.
Euro Limited Edition:
In the same post, Jeff also says that to his understanding, there are plans in motion to make the Limited Edition available both in Europe and in Australia/Korea.
This is good news for all us non-US fans of Sid Meier's Pirates!, and which in my case means that I don't have to pay $32 for shipping the US LE to Norway. I hope. ;)
Read the whole post Read the thread here. |
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| GameDaily Preview of Sid Meier's Pirates! - (Pirates) |
| Sunday, 26.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Found this over at Cutlass Isle :)
GameDaily offers a new preview of Sid Meier's Pirates!, which offer no new information, but hey - it's Pirates! right? I'll do a short quote and then I'll give you the link:
"You'll have to employ a good amount of strategy to succeed in the game. Your opponents will be military captains, merchants, members of the gentry, even other slimy pirates, and you'll have to alter your tactics accordingly to emphasize your strengths and take advantage of their weaknesses. There'll be plenty to take into account as you size up your enemy"
Check it out here! |
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| Video - Making of Pirates! - (Pirates) |
| Thursday, 23.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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BLOODUK has again shown his newsdigging skills, and this time he found the Making of Pirates at Filefront. It's about 100 MB to download, but as Civrules says in our forums, it offers "great humor and great information".
It's a very good movie, so you should all download it and watch it, if you have the connection to download that size.
Edit: Due to the fact that this video was never intended for public release, all links for downloading it was removed. For further details check here. |
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| Gamershell with screenies too! - (Pirates) |
| Tuesday, 21.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Gamershell has posted no less than 19 screenshots from Sid Meier's Pirates! today.
I'm not sure if there is any of those that are new (apart from the 8 ones that was posted at Worthplaying earlier today), but you can always take a look yourself here.
Thanks BLOODUK :) |
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| Talk Like a Pirate Day! - (Pirates) |
| Sunday, 19.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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As a reminder, as we've discussed in a few days already in our forums, the international Talk Like a Pirate Day is today, so go out there and talk like a pirate, yarrrrrrr!
(Ok, I suck - along with Civrules - to talk like a pirate, so I'm gonna let it be with that :D) |
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| Boomtown preview - (Pirates) |
| Sunday, 19.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By Hatjo |
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Jacob H. Nielsen has a preview over at Boomtown (danish / international chain of cybercafes). It's the first preview in a long time that actually gives us some new info about the game.
It was Falconer over at Cutlass Isle who first discovered this, probably when he was looking for some old treasures on the beach of St. Google - who knows :)
You can go read the preview here. |
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| Beta Mails Sent - Lucky? - (Pirates) |
| Friday, 17.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Well, we haven't really gotten an official confirmation on this - but over at the PA! board there is already three users that claims to have gotten their beta-email. And in a poll I started here at our boards, two users have voted that they have received the beta-invitation.
So, have you gotten one yet? It seems like there is a lot of frustration going on at the forums, and that's pretty understandable. Everyone had of course hoped to enter the beta. So what are your thoughts? Did you get in? Feel free to discuss it further in this thread. |
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| Story of a Pirates! Player - ((default)) |
| Friday, 17.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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This is a story of a guy called Nate (not to be confused with ATP's Nate Chapman / Maul), who was so lucky to play Pirates! at a gameshow. I am writing this little story based on what Nate has told me.
So here goes... For some mysterious reason, there was almost noone there playing it. Maybe that was because there were no instructions on how to play, so you had to try and fail until you found out what to do. A timelimit of about 20 minutes was in effect, after that - you had to restart the game, which ran smoothly on an Alienware system with 1 GB RAM, GeForce 6800 GT and Athlon 64 3400 / FX-51 Cpu's. That system should be able to play most games anyways - so you can't really tell if the minimum system requirements is enough at this time ;)
Anyways, the game took about 15 seconds to start up. After that, he was cruising in his ship. He made a deal with the governour to halt all Spanish ships and wreak havoc on the nearby Spanish ports.
Right now, as I understand, it's a bit hard to find out what direction the wind has, exept for probably seeing what direction you get the highest speeds at. Anyways, it's well known that you can attack ships that sail by, but watch out - they can also attack you! The ship battles and duelling seemed very simple, just as in the original.
Escaping from jail is something we probably have to do once in a while. For now, it seems like the camera is locked in the 3rd person perspective from behind the character. Nate didn't find any way to change it either. Anyways, stay in the dark - and avoid the redcoats walking around with lanterns. It was no problem at all.
Currently, the keys you use in-game is the arrow keys, the numpad, and the spacebar - pretty much the same as in the original version. |
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| Preview & Screenies - (Pirates) |
| Sunday, 12.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Found this over at Cutlass Isle, Falconer has been digging deep into the sand, and discovered a brand new preview of Sid Meier's Pirates! at Gamesradar.
And if that wasn't enough, he even found a batch of new screenies from the Xbox-version over at Team Xbox. Check them out here. |
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| Beta Delayed - (Pirates) |
| Friday, 10.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Jeff Foley (Atari) confirmed today that the invitations for the beta of Sid Meier's Pirates had NOT been sent out yet.
Due to some complications not worth going further into, the beta has been slightly delayed, but hopefully everything is ironed out by next week.
Read the thread here. |
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| More Game Stars Live Coverage - (Pirates) |
| Friday, 10.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Thunderbolt.be had a Game Stars Live coverage, and far far down, I found some coverage of Sid Meier's Pirates! :)
Sid Meier's Pirates! ~ Philip Morton
Now I'm a bit of a fan of pirates in general, so Atari's latest game was one of the titles I really wanted to see at the game. It didn't draw much of a crowd, so even at the busier times I was able to have a good, long session with the game and get a feel for it. It actually plays like a cross between Escape From Monkey Island and Civilization III, with the player given control over a pirate ship which can be sailed from port to port. The controls are kept to a minimum, with only the number pad and mouse needed in most situations. When you're navigating the game map, you simply press 5 to attack another ship, which then takes you to a close up viewpoint of the battle.
These engagements are surprisingly tactical, with three types of ammunition available and the utilisation of the wind crucial to success. You can keep your distance, obliterating the body of the enemy ship with cannonball, or sail in close and fire shot at your opponent's rigging, thus disabling their ship. Because of the speedy nature of the battles and the ship's over-exaggerated maneuverability, some smaller ships can turn to face a long range barrage, reducing their profile. Get close enough and you can actually board the enemy vessel. It's clear that these sea battles have been thought out well, making no victory impossible if the right tactics are used. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see some of the more intriguing features like sword fights, escaping from jail and dancing, but from what I saw of the sea battles and general navigation, it looks like Pirates! will be a very enjoyable game when it's released.
Read the whole coverage here. |
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| Pirates! Listed in GameSpot's Top Offerings of 2004 - (Pirates) |
| Thursday, 09.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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GameSpot published an article of the top strategy games of 2004, the PC Strategy Roundup 2004.
As GameSpot says it:
"Trying to choose a PC strategy game? This feature summarizes the top offerings of 2004."
Sid Meier's Pirates! is not listed in the front menu (at the time of this post), but when browsing the roundup, I found it at page 20! |
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| Beta News - (Pirates) |
| Thursday, 09.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Jeff Foley (Atari) has in our forums told us that the beta CD's will be mailed (yes, the beta will ship on a CD, it will not be a download) this week, and the email-notifications will be sent.
In a post over at Pirates Ahoy!, Jeff said in a post that they have printed the CD's already, and that the beta will still be shipped outside continental U.S., but that the final selection of beta participants "was weighted more heavily towards North Americans". |
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| Japanese Coverage of Pirates! + Screenshots! - (Pirates) |
| Wednesday, 08.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Sooo, I was sitting in my chair surfing a bit, when I suddenly popped by a Japanese site covering the Game Stars Live show that was last week.
I'm not very good at Japanese, in fact, I haven't even installed the Japanese Language Pack for iexplorer, but - I still noticed some new screenies a bit down on the page, showing some lucky bastards playing Sid Meier's Pirates! *grin*, and then a few ingame shots as well...
Check it out here, and if you know Japanese and can translate, send me a mail :D |
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| More about the Pirates! board game - (Pirates) |
| Wednesday, 08.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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This is a couple of weeks old, but I haven't seen it any other place (I might be blind though), and didn't see it last time I visited GameSpy either... It's dated August 20th though... Anyways...
There is an interview of Eagle Games' Glen Drover about the new upcoming board game for Pirates!
Check it out here! |
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| Pirates! on Game Stars Live - (Pirates) |
| Sunday, 05.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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Ok, I'm a bit slow with this one - the Game Stars Live is entering its last day I think... Running from September 1st-5th.
But, to the point, I found a press-release over at GameSpot, which tells us that many GameBryo titles, including Sid Meier's Pirates! is displayed at Game Stars Live, the European Games Network (EGN)'s consumer international interactive entertainment event held in London September 1-5, 2004.
And for the record, Sid Meier's Pirates! will be on display at Atari's booth. |
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| Sid Meier's Pirates! in PCGamer UK Magazine - ((default)) |
| Friday, 03.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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| According to Blooduk - the PCGamer UK magazine has a 2-page preview of Sid Meier's Pirates! on pages 31 and 32. I haven't been able to read this preview myself, but if you have access to the latest issue of the magazine, take a look :) |
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| GameSpy Hands-On - ((default)) |
| Wednesday, 01.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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GameSpy has posted a new Hands-On Preview of Sid Meier's Pirates!
This 3-page preview is larger and goes deeper than the other previews we've seen in a long time - it's almost like a walkthrough - it covers about every aspect of the game.
Here is a quote:
"Just like the original, the updated version of Sid Meier's Pirates! feels like it has that insanely addictive quality that secured the original a coveted permanent place on my hard drive for many yarrrs! -- I mean, years."
Read the whole preview here.
Thanks again to Blooduk for the tip ;) |
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| Screenies at GameSpot - (Pirates) |
| Wednesday, 01.09.04 | Captain's Diary | Log Entry By KriFos |
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GameSpot has posted some new screenies dated August 31st, 2004. 40 of them to be precise... However, I'm not sure that any of them are really new.
When double-checking towards screenshots that were posted on August 25th, these screenshots are exactly the same. In fact, there isn't even 40 different screenshots, it seems like GameSpot has posted many screenshots two times in the gallery with "40 new" ones...
And, When considering the fact that the last screenshot update on GameSpot was August 21st, I'm 100% sure that there really isn't any new ones :)
But, head over there and have a look yourself.
Thanks to Blooduk for the tip! |
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© 2004 Addicted to Pirates! All rights reserved.
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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Pirates! Release Dates:
PC - Released
XBOX - Released
XBOX LIVE - Released
PSP - Released
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05.10.2010 - 
