Skull and bones to have a " historical " setting?

[Ruthless4u]

Seen this mentioned here

Realism • r/SkullAndBonesGame


thebug
Ubisoft
•
3d
Our game has a historical setting but it’s not a historical simulation.

Pirates and other sailors of the day believed in all sorts and manners of myths.

The seas you will sail in Skull and Bones have more fearsome predators and challenges than just merchants and empire warships!



By a supposed Ubisoft employee( the bug)

I hope this is true and am very interested to see how historical it is and what it entails.

 

[LarryHookins]

Well, I gotta say it sure is pretty.

I suspect in the end it will be mostly a game, with sea monsters and undead opponents and other goodies made for the mass market. It would be nice if their "historical setting" turned these fantasy elements off. Or they might be part of a story line. Either way it should be good.

This is not a complaint but I always cringe when I see a game where the helmsman spins the ship's wheel. That wheel is connected to a "barn door" that's mostly under water: considerable resistance and no inertia to keep it spinning. And everyone does it.

If it's in beta and they're asking people to join, go for it and let us know what you find.

Hook

 

[Antiscamp]

Why can't anyone just make that "historical simulation"? Why does it always have to be myths, fantasy, seamonsters and skeletons with cutlasses? Sea dogs is the closest to that historical simulation I've come for a long time, but unfortunately even this series has its fair share of skeletons with cutlasses.

 

[Ruthless4u]

Why can't anyone just make that "historical simulation"? Why does it always have to be myths, fantasy, seamonsters and skeletons with cutlasses? Sea dogs is the closest to that historical simulation I've come for a long time, but unfortunately even this series has its fair share of skeletons with cutlasses.

This is what I've been wanting for over 20 years, Naval Action does a good job with the ships but the time needed for trade, travel time etc is a bit much with a baby on the way in a few weeks.

I did sign up for skull and bones beta, just to see if the good outweighs the bad but not holding my breath.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Why can't anyone just make that "historical simulation"? Why does it always have to be myths, fantasy, seamonsters and skeletons with cutlasses?

You can probably blame the success of the PotC films (and Monkey Island before that).

Sea dogs is the closest to that historical simulation I've come for a long time, but unfortunately even this series has its fair share of skeletons with cutlasses.

While we added a lot of supernatural madness to New Horizons, all of that is easily avoidable.
So you could have a realistic historical experience if you want.

 

[Antiscamp]

Yeah, wish I could play that, but I don't have the base game and I can't find anywhere to buy it either.

 

[Cerez]

Why can't anyone just make that "historical simulation"? Why does it always have to be myths, fantasy, seamonsters and skeletons with cutlasses? Sea dogs is the closest to that historical simulation I've come for a long time, but unfortunately even this series has its fair share of skeletons with cutlasses.

Sea Dogs - Caribbean Tales is actually skeleton and fantasy free, and it comes pretty close to a historical simulation (for a game). There is still the romantic pirate theme/legacy it is built upon, but this is not the most prominent theme in the game. You can actually play this game as a trader, or a buccaneer, or in any other fashion you like. You can fight for your own country and be a national hero, fight for your own interests and become a pirate and a tyrant, or just enjoy sailing and transporting goods and passengers, building a seafaring business and a convoy of ships. The choice is entirely up to you.

In fact, the game gives you free will from the start, with no quests you need to follow, and no preset tasks to do. You're a captain of a small but fast, private ship. You have a crew you need to feed and pay for their work. That gives you an obligation to look for available work. That is the objective that starts you on your journey, and where you go is entirely up to you, and to random chance, or opportunities you can find.

This is actually the reason I've chosen Caribbean Tales as my favourite sailing/pirate game. It's the most openminded, the most true-to-life, and the least cliche that I know. Yet it still pays a small tribute to the romantic pirate lore and the stories of the past. And it has gripping gameplay.

The only thing that could make it better would be actual, real time sailing -- which is only partially implemented in the game's open world.

 

[Cerez]

To give you an illustration -- right now, in my game, France is at war with England in the Caribbean colonies. I am a French buccaneer, serving the country as well as my own cause. I've maintained peaceful trade relations with all nations/parties, I have multi-national officers and crew, and so far I've only had one major skirmish with a British patrol of three Corvettes at the beginning of the story/game, where I lost my first ship, and which I have (tactically and) miraculously won -- heroically, so to speak, by a hairline -- and acquired myself a beatiful Corvette named the 'Reunion' in its place.

I have been working trade, escorting trade ships, sneaking into English towns, and delivering high profile passengers and packages to designated destinations. Surely, that's hardly like a fantasy-filled pirate adventure! My officers and crew love me because I am mindfully taking care of them -- all except my pirate-born bodyguard, who's never happy -- and I'm loving it! ^_^

The pirates in my game, since I am in friendly/trade relations with them, don't bother me at all, never attack, and, since I am not attacking other nations, either, my only enemy in the game are the occasional British patrols I encounter, and the race against time and weather to keep my budget up and keep on sailing.

My current goal, after assembling a competent crew for my own ship, is to build a convoy and command 4 ships of my own to do business with. That's a force for the English patrols to reckon with!

 

[Antiscamp]

Caribbean Tales sounds fantastic! I got it packaged with City of Abandoned Ships on GOG.com so ima try it out later. Since I had never played it, and only heard about it, I actually voted for GOG.com to include the Sea Dogs series in their catalogue a year ago or so, then forgot about it and just a couple of months ago they actually started selling the old Sea Dogs/Age of Pirates games. Only a few weeks ago did I buy them and have been playing this series ever since. I clocked 70 hours on To Each His Own during the Easter holidays lol, so I'm pretty hooked. The games are right up my alley. I started my entire gaming hobby back in 1987 with Sid Meier's Pirates, so this series takes me back and there's a certain nostalgia about it.

I mostly enjoy open world gameplay, like you describe there's in Caribbean Tales. I'm something of a trader; the Trading skill was the first one I developed to 100% in To Each His Own. But I also enjoy a good story. i think To Each His Own is way too rigorous on the story; they might want to include more open world characters to play, like there was in City of Abandoned Ships. In a way, I think they hide that fantastic open world experience behind the rigorous story that you absolutely have to do in the beginning of To Each His Own. Many new players are turned off by it.

 

[Cerez]

Caribbean Tales is the opposite. It's so barebone, so gameplay only, that you're screaming for just a little bit more story and dialogue content. TBH, I can't stand COAS -- mostly because it reuses a lot of CT's content, but sets it in a different world, and the dialogue in it is not gameplay/objective oriented at all, but not comprehensive enough to make sense and feel natural either. The same with all the in-game actions and locations. My first experience playing COAS was getting lost in a cave and pointlessly wandering about for 30 mins. Needless to say, wasn't much fun... I kept wondering why the game even let me enter it... >.<' (...and the experience awfully reminded me of Neverhood!)

CT keeps the game focused on where its gameplay lies, and doesn't let you pointlessly wander off. They are two very different games, even if they are based on the same material (or, rather, COAS is built on top of CT). I suppose it depends on whether you like POTC's adventure-like role-playing exploration gameplay or a dynamic, open-world, sailing/trading/naval-combat simulation instead. Having both seems a little too overwhelming for me.

But CT, in its official release, is quite buggy -- disappointingly so! I've done some work on my game to patch some crucial and game-breaking bugs up, and released these patches here publically. I recommend you try them out with your game. If you have enough space on your hard drive, you can just create a copy of the GOG game's folder, and apply the patches on it. That way you'll have both versions for a while, and you can compare.

I plan to develop an English language story/dialogue expansion as well that doesn't add too much unnecessary dialogue, but rather just colours in the experience a tad with a little more variety -- and that removes the awful and completely unnecessary, tacked-on main storyline from the game (which you don't need to follow, trust me).

 

[Homo eructus]

Yeah, wish I could play that, but I don't have the base game and I can't find anywhere to buy it either.

That's because it's literally unavailable to buy anywhere (unless you can track down a physical copy somewhere and I ain't selling mine), so you can pirate it wth a clean conscience.

 

[Cerez]

...so you can pirate it wth a clean conscience.

I love how they call it "pirating" -- seems like I'll never get over it. Simply sharing content is more like it. No-one's raiding game studios and stealing their games here -- especially when there are no copies of the game being sold. What is anyone stealing here, really? It's just another exercise in corporate control over consumers.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

CT keeps the game focused on where its gameplay lies, and doesn't let you pointlessly wander off. They are two very different games, even if they are based on the same material (or, rather, COAS is built on top of CT). I suppose it depends on whether you like POTC's adventure-like role-playing exploration gameplay or a dynamic, open-world, sailing/trading/naval-combat simulation instead. Having both seems a little too overwhelming for me.

My preference: have everything possible available in the same game.
Then the player can decide what to do: follow a story, do some free play, mix them up, or whatever.
But I could indeed imagine that sort of freedom could be overwhelming...

 

[Cerez]

I think there's a point where a game can become too vast in scope. But I guess this is a very much personal time and preference thing. I tend to enjoy video games where I can see and dive into the gameplay mechanics clearly and unobscured these days. In the past, I used to enjoy storytelling the most, often even at the expense of gameplay.

I can't argue with needing to have both. I'm just not sure they need to be in the same game.

 

[Navegador]

This game really got on my radar, its been age's since a good single player sailing game came along, with or without pirates, but at least with good sailing, adventure, open world, exploration and marry fun to be enjoyed, i keep slipping into The Witcher 3 in my fun memories. Given its UbiSoft and how they know how to make a decent RPG single player, thinking of Assassin's Creed Origin's, its a bit sad to see what they want this game to be.

Its been mostly publicized as an online live services gaming experience, with plenty of ship to ship combat and what i see as mostly PvP, no mention of a significant single player story driven experience, no boarding actions, minimal role play, no inland play or city/town play. At this stage it feels mostly very arcade with just fast passed ship to ship action, sort of like For Honor by the same UbiSoft.

Reading through most comments here, i have to agree, I keep going back to CT or COAS for my fun immersion in a world of free sailing, exploration, story and adventure. But i can't help to wonder what a evolved gaming experience of this sort would look like, in the vain of a Witcher 3, with solid story telling, engaging characters and an open vast world to experience, it would feel truly brilliant.

 

[Dat Scharger]

Reading through most comments here, i have to agree, I keep going back to CT or COAS for my fun immersion in a world of free sailing, exploration, story and adventure. But i can't help to wonder what a evolved gaming experience of this sort would look like, in the vain of a Witcher 3, with solid story telling, engaging characters and an open vast world to experience, it would feel truly brilliant.

Too bad that those new games either fail hilariously or have a mandatory online-MP with no SP tacked on.

 

[Navegador]

@GAZ Vodnik indeed, the big guru's EA, Activision, UbiSoft, etc. are all going the live services MP-online way, single player games aren't popular anymore they say and in the end they just follow the big money, online monetization.

Still there's a few indie studios that care for the single player RPG, hence me mentioning The Witcher 3 as a template.

 

[Cerez]

...single player games aren't popular anymore they say and in the end they just follow the big money, online monetization.

That's what they say, but what they really mean is, "We can't track and can't control (sales to) our consumers/players as well with old-school SP as we can with the power of online gaming. And we need ever more money and power to keep growing and consuming the world. SP won't cut it anymore, so it's 'not popular' anymore -- we've made sure of that."

 

[Pieter Boelen]

That's what they say, but what they really mean is, "We can't track and can't control (sales to) our consumers/players as well with old-school SP as we can with the power of online gaming. And we need ever more money and power to keep growing and consuming the world. SP won't cut it anymore, so it's 'not popular' anymore -- we've made sure of that."

 

[Navegador]

That's what they say, but what they really mean is, "We can't track and can't control (sales to) our consumers/players as well with old-school SP as we can with the power of online gaming. And we need ever more money and power to keep growing and consuming the world. SP won't cut it anymore, so it's 'not popular' anymore -- we've made sure of that."

I fully agree, they bake the cake and must eat it as well, it has been a long 20 year old road for them. Remembering back in the late 90's the DRM controversies and later issues with steam, they seem to be getting they way. But i doubt good SP's will just vanish, they just get to be far in between.

I've been keeping an eye on E3 for this year and Ubisoft released a few more details on Skull and Bones, but really nothing hinting to a deep SP's game. The game play feels a bit repetitive over some time, boarding actions seem to be cutscene based on auto-resolve, no melee fighting on the part of the player, there's a bit of town/stronghold traveling but its limited to shopping for upgrades to the character's ship.

Remembering they last Assassins Creed Origins and they planed new one Odyssey, its odd how they thought a online game would scale higher in popularity, even in sales. With this setting they could have launched a completely new IP with great potential and we all know they can actually accomplish it.

I'll try to leave here a vid of gameplay, if its permitted, if not i apologise.