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Major breakthrough with Akella

You can try just getting AoP and playing some online sea battles with that.
 
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->...
... he suggest we (Seaward.ru and the Pirates Ahoy! Build Mod) should cooperate and futhermore states, that we are using the wrong tools for modmaking. He have got the stuff we need to mod PotC, but needs to refer with Mr. Akhipov before he hands them over to us...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

In my humble opinion getting the right moding tools would be the major break through. Sounds like a speciffic issue everybody agrees upon, and the ability to renew the game with entirely new locations, cities and so on would certainly garantee the future development of the modding on the PotC - as this community is definitely not short on potential in terms of ideas and abilities.

So subsequent to sending the very good and polite letter I think the first marker on the communication schedule should be to get Mr. Arkipovs clearance for this matter.

In terms of what is offered in return as mentioned earlier in the thread, I can only speak for myself, but in short the words are undiminished entusiasm for Akella. The implication is obvious: I allready bug the game joint as to when they expect a confirmation regarding The City of Abbandoned Ships and I know I'll throw-in the shine as I did with the AoP not only for having it myself but also as gift and presents for friends and family... and then probably still staying with the PotC as my favourite mindscaping I'll surely be ready for their other future releases in the genre too.

But as I said this is far too obvious to be a trading argument. But do we need one ? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":shrug" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" />
 
Hi all,
I finally had a reply from Zaitzev.

Dear Anders,

First hello and Mary Christmas. I regret, but I could not answer you earlier. I've really very borrowed.

Shortly about our team. AlexusB and I have finished add'on "Sea Legend is Back" three years ago. Company Akella has suggested us to transfer add'on on engin Storm 2.5 and to publish game in Russia. We have agreed. Game "Corsairs: Return to the Legend" has gone on sale in February, 2007. It was our first commercial project and it became very successful. Now we already have prepared for new game "City of Abandoned Ships" for translation into the West.

I have closely read through about directions of your works in your Build, but is compelled to disappoint you in some aspects.

1.Storm has restriction of quantity of poligons at loading one location. If this restriction to break, the engin will work astably. For navigation from island to island without an output on the map, it is necessary to load all islands at once. This repeated excess of a limit of poligons.

2. We have obverse animation in game, but to sound all dialogues to us it is not possible. It's necessary for this system of synchronization of movement of lips and to speech. The Storm engin has no it, unfortunately.

As I already spoke, I shall help you any affairs where it is possible. Therefore I ask you list the list of problems in which the help is required to you. From its part I ask support of release "City of Abandoned Ships". As I suggest you to pass to the platform "City of Abandoned Ships", Storm engin 2.8.

Unfortunately I cannot write very long. If you have any questions on "City of Abandoned Ships", I am ready to allocate the special person who will give answers.

Best Regards,
Edward Zaitsev.
 
Awesome! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/w00t.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":woot" border="0" alt="w00t.gif" />

1. Interesting. They claim it cannot be done and CouchcaptainCharles did. Sure it's not perfect, but it DOES work! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/razz.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":razz" border="0" alt="razz.gif" />

2. We don't intend to have sounds for ALL dialogs. Just some. Lip synchronisation wouldn't be that important. The most important thing would be to stop the previous sound when moving to the next level in the dialog. But I think <i>a simple virtual sailor</i> actually found some sort of solution for that. Unfortunately we haven't heard for a while from the person who would do the voice acting.

Question: What kind of support would they want from us for their City of Abandoned Ships game? Personally I wouldn't mind moving to a better engine; it would give us quite some new options to toy with. But we don't want to lose our work here either.

I think our main problem right now is with the ship models: The reversed lighting effect on new ships, wrong collision detection, 1st person camera, etc.
 
Is the AoP engine "better"? Or just a new set of problems? Would conversion actually solve any problems, or just move them around?

And I've already said but I'll say again, if it involves that bloody "starforce" security system, we should drop it like a diseased rodent.

Did he send the editing tools? Or just the note? We need the correct editing software, regardless of where else this conversation goes.
 
<!--quoteo(post=228359:date=Dec 29 2007, 05:11 PM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pieter Boelen @ Dec 29 2007, 05:11 PM) [snapback]228359[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Question: What kind of support would they want from us for their City of Abandoned Ships game? Personally I wouldn't mind moving to a better engine; it would give us quite some new options to toy with. But we don't want to lose our work here either.

I think our main problem right now is with the ship models: The reversed lighting effect on new ships, wrong collision detection, 1st person camera, etc.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think us supporting their release would bring him more cookies in his jar. Meaning: the more stuff available for people who bought the original, the more copies he will sell. I would´nt mind moving to a better engine either, no sir!


Else, my quess is us being in the main dilemma: what we want is the tools and nothing but the tools for PotC. What HE wants from us, is that we move to Storm 2.8.
Meaning: if we can´t fulfill his needs of moving on to the new generation engine, why should he fulfill our desire of working on an engine, thats no longer supported, and certainly wont put any cookies on his semi-professional jar. Bad, bad dilemma!

It would be cool if he has the tools to translate our stuff from PotC to Storm 2.8 == everybody is happy. As I see things, thats my point of view.
 
As far as I know, the Storm 2.5 and Storm 2.8 engines are indeed "better" than the Storm 2.0 engine. There's several new options, such as the ability to change a ship's hull model alone through code (PAINT JOBS!), lights at night on ships in 3D sailing mode, the worldmap "remembering" what was there when you return so that you can't avoid encounters and storms anymore by going into 3D sailing mode and better graphics.. There's bound to be plenty of other improvements as well that I don't know of.

Of course we do not want Starforce. But I think that is just something the Western distributer added to AoP and is not something Akella added. I'm pretty sure they are working Starforce-free.

I do not want to lose our amazing modding work, but I would not mind moving to the Storm 2.5 or Storm 2.8 engines at all. After all, it would open up a lot of possibilities.
 
if peter willemoes can make the game work on the storm 2.5 engine, like he's trying to do right now, this could actually work out.
 
Dont count on it. Actually, I dont know what I´m doing <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

EDIT: But scchh, dont mention this to anyone <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />
 
well, i won't mention it to anyone, but actually posting it doesn't help that much either. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rolleyes:" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" />
 
Whahahaaa! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />
 
I know I'll add cookies into the Akella jar anyway and most of you people wil certainly do that too! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rolleyes:" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" />

... even though this isn't that obvious for somebody from far away when entering the Pirates Ahoy site...
The old chapter with pirate games reviews and release dates would have been helpfull now ... maybe an update for The City of Abandoned Ships on the home page could also do...

But let me get back on track: Won't the comunity dedicate automatically a forum to this game upon its release and develop on it?
Sure it will! It could be made a bit more obvious right now but it certainly will.
And won't everybody be willing to move to a better engine?
Sure thing!
There are however so many mods for the old storm engine that asking for the proper tools for it is indeed a reasonable request.

There are many ways to read that letter, but it certainly makes a statement which can't be there without a reason: They have already made a development on the old engine COMMERCIALLY.

Statement needed from this community is therefore regarding COMMERCIALITY and observing their conditions - if any - in obtaining the tools for the old engine... along with this communities agreement to forward the mods on the new engine, that might again be used by Akella commercially.

The way I read Russian - this would be the main topic to agree upon here.

Does this community settle for the modding pleasure leaving Akella to take care of the trivial commercial issues?

<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="icon_wink.gif" />
 
Of course when a new pirate game will be released, especially one that can be modded, I am pretty sure a new subforum for that game will be made. Provided that the admins show up again to do it.

That does not nescessarily mean that we would move on to the new game. The PotC modders never did really move on to AoP and now modding for AoP on this site seems to be pretty dead while modding for PotC remains alive. Of course the main reason for sticking to PotC is because we simply do not want to lose all our work and start from scratch again. That would be a major loss and the improved graphics and improved functionality in the new game's engine would only be minor compensation. What I think we really want to move on to another engine is to take the main part of our work with us to the new platform.

As far as commerciality is concerned: I personally don't care if my work is used for somebody else's profit and many people see things the same way. Some people would want to see some monetary return and some people don't want their work used commercially at all though. So what we could do is to make the work of all those modders who <i>don't</i> mind their work being used commercially available to the Russians and we, they or both could try and work on putting our stuff to good use in the new game that they're developing. The content that they don't want to incorporate and the content that our modders don't want them to use commercially we can then put in a free add-on for their game, similar to our current Build mod.
 
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/yes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":yes" border="0" alt="yes.gif" />
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/me.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":onya" border="0" alt="me.gif" />
 
It´s so easy to be carried away here. As Nathan Kell says, there are much promises in thoughts alone.

So, I decided to keep up the democratic appearences by making an overview of what people actually said about this whole thing. Everybody, feel free to correct me if I got your messages wrong or left them out. I will correct and update it.

<!--coloro:#FFFF00--><span style="color:#FFFF00"><!--/coloro-->Coorperate<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

For
<!--coloro:#008000--><span style="color:#008000"><!--/coloro-->Hook
Doober
Merciless Mark
Inez Diaz
bassman7
SuoiveD
Seb
Cap´n_Drow
High Sea Lass
IncredibleHat
PeterWillemoes
Kazeite
NathanKell
Dart-me<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

Against
<!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->James Ironhook<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

No opinion
<!--coloro:#696969--><span style="color:#696969"><!--/coloro-->pirate_kk
Inzane
Cylon13
Bartolomeu o portogese
Thomas the Terror
Short Jack Gold
Morgan Terror
Fred Bob<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

<!--coloro:#FFFF00--><span style="color:#FFFF00"><!--/coloro-->Move to new engine<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

For
<!--coloro:#008000--><span style="color:#008000"><!--/coloro-->Hook
Pieter Boelen
Merciless Mark
SuoiveD
Inzane
Cylon13
Morgan Terror
NathanKell
High Sea Lass
PeterWillemoes
Kazeite
Seb
Darth-me<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

Against
<!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->pirate_kk(starforce)
bassman7
James Ironhook
IncredibleHat<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

No opinion
<!--coloro:#696969--><span style="color:#696969"><!--/coloro-->Doober
Inez Diaz
Cap´n_Drow
Seb<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

<!--coloro:#FFFF00--><span style="color:#FFFF00"><!--/coloro-->No statement on neither topics<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
<!--coloro:#696969--><span style="color:#696969"><!--/coloro-->Bartolomeu o portogese
Thomas the Terror
Short Jack Gold
Fred Bob<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

The terms for this discussion is hard to put in a box. But these could be the terms, if Pieter agree:
Most of the statements by old members come with additional terms, especially regarding old work getting lost. Pieter Boelen, the last in line from the earliest modding teams, is the garant for all previous modding work not getting lost (transfer guarantee).
Furthermore, he will have the last word in this democratic debate, if the criticals: "loosing any member of the community" and "disregard legal statements by any member, old or current" should come up.
 
For both but I would not mind to get some money <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />

And if my memory serves me right, starforce is removed with patch 1.5
 
i'm against moving to the new engine and for it at the same time. against because i won't be able to play the game anymore, but for because of better graphics and possibilities.
 
How do you know you wouldn't be able to play the game? You could try. Also: Perhaps we could make it so that the old engine would also still work. But that would only go for graphics, not functionality. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":?" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" />
 
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