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Ubisoft to Publish Puzzle Pirates
Ubisoft announced this morning that they have come to an agreement with 3 Rings Design to publish Puzzle Pirates in retail stores. This exciting news couldn't come for a better game, winner of the IGF 2004 Technical Excellence and Audience Awards for Online games. From the Puzzle Pirates site: "Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates is an online game in which you play a Pirate character in an ocean world. Hundreds of your fellow player Pirates swarm these Isles and Sea-lanes. For Pirates who love acronyms, Puzzle Pirates is an massively multi-player online roleplaying game, or mmoarrrrpg." Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates is available for Demo on PC/Mac/Linux.
Puzzle Pirates is a great game. I played it for about 6 months quite regularly and had a great crew of people from around the world that I played and chatted with. Lots of fun. Then I got a new job and had little time to play and my account lapsed. (Also, I installed World of Warcraft :) There's only room for one MMOG in my life at a time now.)
:)
Anyway, I highly recommend it if anyone's looking for a change of pace from MMORPG grinding. And, if any Marine Knights are reading, Rhodes didn't die, he just put his fleet into drydock for a while.
...will it be published on September 19th?
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
The game is rated "Arrrr!" for pirates.
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Strange, I just finished reading the 8-pages comments about Mac VS Wintel, where someone stated that good games don't get published simultaneously for PC and ;ac, and then we read that this new game is published at the same time for PC, Mac and Linux.
Good!
Pumbaa! I don't wonder; I know.
Like these?
Trolling is a art,
because ninjas are better. simple fact. ninjas are cutting off heads while pirates a trying to find buried treasure. its a simple choice, if you ask me.
Nearly half of all people are below average
Seriously... what a horrible idea. It was great as an online subscription game. Free game, $10 a month to play (much cheaper if you buy quarterly or yearly). But to charge people another $20? I don't think they'll recover the cost to produce/box/ship the game. They should simply sell it as a CD in a CD case for like $5 as they do with some demo discs for those with slow broadband connections.
Plus the PC game market is falling prey to the console market with its teenage-type games, and the only people look for is graphics.
I've seen far too many 'really good' games die off because they thought they'd play well sitting next to the latest fad game (ie - grand theft auto).
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Fresh on the heels of the Wired sex columnist who recommends MMORPGs as the place to cyber, we now have a pirate-themed MMORPG.
I guess it's time to put on my robe and wizard hat and, umm... HARRRRRRRRRR!
I played this game for a while. It has a lot of depth and it solves the BIGGEST problem in MMORPG - namely idiots with a lot of time can dominate you. With this game, intelligence counts for a lot - namely your ability to do tetris-style puzzles.
It also has a lot of teamwork - you need to work together to get a ship from port to port. It also has a big time element - it takes time to build new swords, to buy a new ship, etc.
Or if you want, you can just stand in the town center and duel people for money.
I disagree. Movies are about the same cost, and you get a lot less entertainment out of them. Obviously it depends on the person - some people like playing online games, and some people don't. ...but for those people who like it, $10 is quite a deal.
..., but you can really get quite a bit of entertainment from a multiplayer online game.
I do agree that they should (a) make the game free to download if they're going to charge monthly, and (b) do some scaling on the price, so if you play less than 1 hour/month for example, you get the month free...
I store my recipes online (the way nature intended)
Not the way I see it.
I usually have one online game that I pay for at a time. The ~$15 I pay is by far cheaper than other types of entertainment.
Been to the movies lately? Played a round of golf? Bowling? A bar?
One should not theorize before one has data. -Sherlock Holmes-
It's a lot cheaper if you buy in bulk. $75 for a year, or $20 for the first 3 months - which drops the price quite a bit.
-Liz
From the Installation FAQ:
Puzzle Pirates has been developed in Java. This has given Three Rings a lot of advantages, in particular being able to run on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Disclaimer: I'm not saying this makes it awesome, or that Java rules, or that it couldn't be done another way, or that cross-platform Java doesn't have its problems, etc. etc. etc. I'm just shedding some light on how it was "published at the same time for PC, Mac and Linux," by quoting directly from the FAQ.
In other news EA has entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with the American Pirate Association. The deal, reportadly worth $5 billion US, gives EA a monopoly over Pirate Related games for a period of 250 years.
James Blackbeard, president of the APA declined to say which deserted island he would deposit the booty at.
It is not clear how this deal affects software pirates.
I loved Puzzle pirates, and have been kicking myself for a year for not taking them up on the lifetime membership that was offered to beta testers. I'd love to play it, but just can't justify the monthly fee.
:-D Still very playable though, it's just not as polished as when running under the Sun x86 Jvm, I guess be forwarned if you are running out to the store to buy it.
I'm really happy for the guys at Three Rings.
If it's not mentioned somewhere else, the Mac performance is weird (graphic trails, messed up transparency), but it's not Three Rings' fault, the JVM in Panther (so far) doesn't completely support the image object they use. I forget the name. I talked to the java-dev mailing list about it and a forth coming JVM will fix it. I don't know anything about when
(Caveat, never tried running it under Linux)
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
I've been thinking about opening the source to PirateTrader and PirateTrader OCR (http://dracosoftware.com/piratetrader/), because I'm too busy to do it all by myself.
They're assitants for Puzzle Pirates that are Terms-of-use friendly with the game.
Anyone want to help?
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
The graphics are intentionally cartoonish. I would have said they look like fisher price people. The game has an intentionally light atmosphere, so if you want to look intimidating its the wrong place.
You really can't play if you don't like puzzle games. Each of the games is different though, so its possible to play if you don't like any one particular game. You can choose which role to play on a crew based on which puzzles you prefer. But the one puzzle that you really can't avoid is the sea battle puzzle in which the entire crew participates. Fortunately no matter how poor you are your team still has a decent chance.
Are all of the puzzles tetris-ish? Is it possible to play the game without doing any puzzles?
Can anyone offer some of their experience with it?
while there are a few dropping blocks puzzles, I would hesitate to call them tetris-ish. The main puzzle for swabbies, sailing, is very reminiscent of Dr. Mario, however.
I've found the puzzles to be quite varied and engaging.
It is not possible to play the game without doing any puzzles. Practically any task you want to do is based on a puzzle. And how well you do on the puzzle is reflected, both in how productive you were at the task, and in your personal reputation in the game.
Though you can freelance, a lot of people join a crew. Whether you've joined a crew or not, there are temporary crew positions open pretty much all the time. However if you are not in a permanent crew, you can't become an officer, which means no ships for you.
A ship needs a crew of from 6 to about 30 to operate. Any spots not filled by a person can be filled by a (generally average) AI bot, at the discretion of the captain. There are three main duties on a ship, sailing, bilging, and carpentry. In addition, you have the more advanced duties of gunning and navigation. I would highly recommend going on a naval ship to practice gunning as that's a skill that's in high demand, especially since if you need someone to gun on a ship, you need them to do it well. Kind of a chicken and egg problem.
Landside there are plenty of crafting type puzzles to do. Most pirates have a few landside jobs as well as their piratical duties. In fact, the economy is based on it. I personally love distilling.
There are a few versus mode puzzles, swordfighting and the drinking game can be played for a wager (swordfighting is also played between two ships when one intercepts the other) plus there's some in-game card games.
I've been a subscriber for a few months, logging on maybe twice a week. Every time I go in it seems like they've improved a part of the game. Updates are frequent, but relatively speedy over my broadband connection.
P.S. I'm Mrln in the game if anyone wants to say hi real quick.
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
This is a great day for Three Rings; they have my hearty congratulations for surviving and then succeeding in the face of the withering trials of a small independent game developer.
Without a giant corporate bankroll and without any notice from the retail distribution "trust," they succeeded in launching really distinct and fun proprietary content, creating a thriving community, and finally just being so plain good that the majors were forced to notice.
I wish them all the success in the world, not only because they've clearly earned it, but because their story is a potential wind shift for smaller independent developers everywhere. Maybe the publishing system is finally seeing the costs of its hubris about budgets, "3dism," genre-lock and dealing with little guys, and realizing the value in doing smaller more unconventional deals.
There is an enormous untapped talent pool out there on the internet; Three Rings is one of many little guys who are doing great things way outside the norms of video game "Hollywood." Recognizing them, and fitting them into the distribution system in some meaningful way, would be a good thing for the industry, a great thing for gamers.
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the community is mature, not the content. There is a default chat filter that turns most online and d00d speak into more pleasant piratey versions. 12 year olds find that they don't fit in well at all, unless they act more mature than kids their age usually do.
there is no level grind. While there is a wide range of levels (as in any RPG), it's all skill, not artificial experience points. You go up in levels by simply getting better at the puzzles.
there are no predefined classes of players, but there are many different ways to play. You can make money pillaging, trading, being a merchant, or even just winning swordfighting or drinking competitions. If one form of play gets boring, you can move on to other ones.
teamwork is a fundamental design goal, and all of the duty puzzles come together to make ships sail in a fun and intuitive way.
once you've gotten sick of just puzzling and pillaging, there is a vast political game to play. Players fight for control of islands in blockades that require weeks of planning and involve hundreds of people.
most importantly for the slashdot crowd, there is a good dialogue between the designers and the community. Developers have even been recruited from the player base, adding some valuable perspective. A few months ago they released the island editor for designing landscapes, and ran a design competition. The winners were invited to finalize the entries to make up one of the archipelagoes in the new ocean.
So give it a try if you are looking for something fresh. There has been quite a flood of new players with some new ad placements, but the players will still go out of their way to help you get aquainted with things.
I've been a player for a year and a half, and the community is actually the most diverse I've ever seen in an online game. Most of the players are between 15 and 35, but there are a fair number of families that play too-- kids as young as 6 years (with parental permission of course) and parents as old as 50.
Because the game is so socially focused, you find that the most socially and politically adept people become the Captains, Kings, and Governors of the game. It's not at all like a traditional MMORPG where your guildmaster is the guy who logs in the most often and has the items with the highest numbers. Teamwork and community are the foundation of the game, so it naturally attracts those people most interested in those things.
Puzzle Pirates *is* free to download, with Win, Mac, and Linux clients. What are the Prices? Pricing for Puzzle Pirates is as follows: Monthly: $9.95 / month. Quarterly: $19.95 / first quarter, $24.95 / subsequent. [ $7.90 / month average over a year ] Annually: $74.95 / year. [ $6.25 / month ]
I've been playing this game for about a year now. I run a small crew of skilled pirates.
One of the things that keeps me coming back is the way this game has so many levels. When you first start playing the game, it is all about mastering different puzzles. After a while, you realize that their are ships to run. And you move to the level where you are not only doing a puzzle, but managing a ship and other pirates. You then spend your next chunk of time learning to do this well. It is often an exercise is multitasking combined with a bit of being social. After a while, you realize there are things to do and places to go with your ship. You start exploring the ocean and investigating how the economy works. This leads you in to investigating running a shop. At this point you start playing the economy game -- running a shop, managing labor and raw materials, and selling goods. Puzzle Pirates has a real, working, complex economy. Evenutally, you'll realize that your crew is in a flag and that your flag is involved in politics. And these politics can be fascinating.
And that's the level I'm at. And I suspect there is something more out there, but I'm still looking. At this point, I sometimes log in and just play the economy game - no puzzling involved. At other times I log in and puzzle for a couple hours. And sometimes I just log in to chat with all the interesting people I've met in game.
five pirates have 100 gold coins. they have to divide up the loot. in order of seniority (suppose pirate 5 is most senior, pirate 1 is least senior), the most senior pirate proposes a distribution of the loot. they vote and if at least 50% accept the proposal, the loot is divided as proposed. otherwise the most senior pirate is executed, and they start over again with the next senior pirate. what solution does the most senior pirate propose? assume they are very intelligent and extremely greedy (and that they would prefer not to die).
(to be clear on what 50% means, 3 pirates must vote for the proposal when there are 5 for it to pass. 2 if there are 4. 2 if there are 3. etc... )
Solution
Agreed. Honestly, it's the best community I've ever seen in an MMORPG (mostly because it seems to be a bit of an older one, attracting both men and women in their mid-20s).
Now I feel REALLY old.
-G
www.pixelstatic.com
Puzzle pirates is simply the best MMORPG ever made. Only World of Warcraft can even come close to attaining the same consumer satisfaction. It is an everquest for those who hate everquest, but love the idea behind it. The absence of any discernable level grind combined with the presence of discernable but uncoded levels of skill make puzzle pirates the first game to even come close to achieving what pretty much everyone wants to have a shot at achieving when playing an online game:
The idea of the hero. There is no other game where a player can realistically hope to achieve heroic type fame. Granted, it is similar to hoping to become the best basketball player around, or the best chess player on earth, but the fact remains that you are not as hindered by a mixture of luck and hardcoded statistics as in everquest, world of warcraft, or any other MMORPG that has come out, ever. Puzzle pirates remains the only game out where this is an achievable dream.
I like the Monte Hall puzzle better, because it's less broken.
In real (pirate) life, if I was a low-ranking pirate in this logic game, I'd walk away with 25 gold and leave behind one dead senior pirate because I know how to make a side-deal which includes, "And after we kill the blighter, we stop messing around with this stupid voting nonsense. It's this way, or we all get screwed by so-called, 'logic'."
Game theory only works in controlled environments, (like computer simulations). In the real world of global politics, it only screws those who agree to play by the set rules, which is pretty damned stupid, considering where the rules come from. This is directly linked to such sayings as Tacitus' "The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws."
Long live Chaos!
-FL
As vitreolic as the parent's tone was, I would have to agree. This article really does sound like an advertisement. They tell you who is making it, what sort of awards it has won (which is why you should buy it), and what the game is about. Though this may be useful information, I can't see why this has any place on Slashdot. The "Games" section should contain information about new gaming technology, system upgrades, how to build a hot gaming rig, and so on - not "news flashes" about the latest game you should go buy.
I am scientifically inaccurate.