Ahoy, Mateys!

[iDisOrder]

iDisOrder at your service!
I couldn't find a place on the forums to introduce myself,
so I hope by combining my introduction and offer my help here is acceptable.

I am a 46 year old recently retired Teamster, now full time gamer.
(that's right, I get paid to stay home and play all day!)
My wife doesn't mind either.
Matter o' fact, she prefers I stay home and play rather than get ahem, "lost" for the weekend.

I enjoy playing several genres including sci-fi, RPGs & strategy games.
I am usually the guy that starts his own guild when I enter a new game, because I like to ensure certain things within that guild.
First off, everyone needs to follow these simple rules:
#1: RESPECT fellow members
#2 Have Fun dammit!

Although now on a limited income, I try to do as many contests within these guilds that include giveaways of some sort.
Everyone loves being part of an active, respectful & fun community.

Why am I telling you all this?
Well, once upon a time I was a computer programmer.
However, I have been away from it for so long,
people laugh when I mention I learned BASIC on a Tandy TRS-80 (wth is that??)

Hey!...easy with the old man jokes or I'll hit you with my cane!

Anywho, I wanted to tell you guys that I stumbled upon your site(s) while doing an image search for a Baron's Galleon for Shroud of the Avatar.

My first question is:
why on earth have I not heard of this wonderful game sooner?
I belong to all kinds of Alpha/Beta testing sites, I have Kickstarted games too numerous to mention
(at least to my wife anyway)
and have a large group of friends yearning for a game just like this!
(we were all burned by SONY's nerfing of our beloved Pirates of the Burning Sea)

I did indeed help fund Naval Action but honestly played it roughly 30 minutes or so before finally logging off.
I did not want my only hope for a sailing ship game to be influenced by the bugs associated with it's current alpha state.

I was looking through some of your entries here on the forums to get a feel for how the community is,
and how the game is coming along.
I noticed you guys were looking for help in a variety of positions.
I did read a comment that experience in mod design was not required and I am no stranger to modding and learn rather quickly as well.
I can do story/quest writing (I have quite the imagination)
I can do PR work - yes, I have quite the gift of gab as well.
Development/R&D; I actually had a large part in several ship design changes in Star Citizen
I also read on several posts that for some reason you guys were against posting on Kickstarter.
I'm sure you have your reasons, but I'd like to assure you there is a rather large player base for this genre just waiting to throw money at a game of this quality.
(myself being one of them)
and I would do my best to help with that and get the word out as far and wide as I could!

I offer my services free of charge, unlike the post I read where someone was actually looking to get paid to work on such a wonderful project...sheesh

So, in conclusion, I want to say thank you for developing this wonderful game and giving us hope.
I am available to do anything you see fit, just say the word.

You owe it to gamers worldwide to get this game released!

I thank you for your time,
iDisOrder

 

[Thagarr]

Ahoy iDisOrder, welcome aboard mate!


I learned BASIC on a TRS-80 as well, ah the good old days of tape drives and green screen! Model 1, Model III and also a COCO and COCO II. Fun times! It's amazing what you could do with just 4k! Well, what some people could do, I was never good at programming, unless I had a book to copy out of!

Anyway, you read correctly, there is no previous modding experience required, though it does certainly help. The main requirement is a willingness to learn and help in any way you can. We appreciate your enthusiasm for our project and hope your friends decide to join our community as well.

To answerer your first question, why you have not heard of us before, we haven't really made a big push publicity wise with Hearts of Oak yet. We wanted to wait till we had something really concrete, and we are getting closer!

There are several reasons we have not yet done a Kickstarter, we have not ruled out the idea completely, but our original goal was to keep money out of this project if we could. Though we have recently started accepting donations to help us purchase Untity Pro assets, a necessary evil.

Yeah, we have had several forum members come over here from POTBS, several of the ship models we have in our mods were designed by some of the POTBS modelers. that game had some serious potential that it just never did quite live up to. Sony has a habit of trying to micromanage and control every aspect of what ever they sink their talons in to. That seems to be pretty much standard operating procedure for any corporation though.

If your interested in doing some quest writing, right now we are mostly just brainstorming/ @Dario is our writing coordinator. If your interested in PR, then I reckon @Pieter Boelen , @Armada or myself are responsible for most of that. Just let us know what area your are most interested in helping out in. I am also planning on creating a manual for the game at some point, but that is probably a ways off still.

We are all a bunch of volunteers. We as a community, have been telling the big game companies for over a decade that there is a huge market for a game like this, but they insist on pumping out mindless eye candy. Mainly because it is quicker and cheaper. Because we are all volunteers, we don't have that problem and can take as much time as it takes to create the game that we all want!

 

[RobinPC]

Welcome aboard sir !

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Ahoy indeed, matey! Your help and enthusiasm would be very much appreciated.

While we have tried to do promotion for our game where we can, we haven't yet been able to reach as many people as we would like.
So your help in that would be much appreciated. You would be welcome to post any ideas you have on promotion here:
http://www.piratesahoy.net/forums/promoting-the-game.141/
We can use all the help we can get on that front so that our main developers would not need to focus on that.

And our Quest Writing Team could certainly also need a bit of a boost. So as far as I'm concerned, you would be very welcome to join in that as well.
Already knowing the basics of programming would help a lot there too, since you'll have a good idea of how to actually translate the written word into a workable game.

So just let us know what you'd like to do and we'll set you up accordingly.

 

[Dario]

Welcome iDisOrder !

Liked your post! I'm positive your creativity and sense of humor are going to be an asset for the Quest Writing team.

I'll send you a PM.

@Pieter Boelen Can you make him a Provisional Writer?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Done. Welcome to the team!

 

[iDisOrder]

Arrgh, I knew ye all were just a bunch of soft-hearted landlubbers under that thar tough Pirate skin!

Thank you all for the warm welcome
I apologize for the delay in responding...
seems we had an unexpected visitor this holiday weekend.

A Provisional Quest Writer???
lil ole me?

I can't wait to get into some great writing with you guys!

PM received and heading over to my assigned thread now to have a read-thru.

Thanks again for all the warm welcomes!!!
(you just made this old man blush)