Age of pirates 2 ( city of abandoned ships) - win/fail?

[Troll]

i think soon <a href="http://www.ageofpiratesthegame.com/" target="blank">age of pirates 2 ( city of abandoned ships)</a> will join the list of games bashed by mainstream that are good - or at least games that i like and disliked by most.

Today I've played it and rather enjoyed Peter Blood's storyline but made the mistake of visiting the official forum looking for a map of the islands. That place made me hit my had against the wall - 99% of the topics were about how different quests were impossible to finish and therefore bugged. everything from the fact that the character was supposed to loose a fight against 3 guards and reach the colonies as a slave - he was a doctor to begin with - and ending with quests that you fail by following a wrong dialogue line.
Don't get me wrong - the quests aren't that complex; but the game doesn't take you by the hand - no compass unless you're on the ship, no map with your position on it - sure you can get a map of the island but it won't show you where you are making them superior to the quests I've played lately.

And on top of this - they didn't change the graphic engine for this - no bloom, same clipping issues of the first. I'm actually happy with this - i hope this gave them a lot of time to fix the bugs from the previous game... although... today i did experience some crashes after 4-5 hours of play - tip - save often and use different save games to avoid loosing your game; also a weird bug in which having stolen a frigate but being unable to outrun the following vessels i sunk one and rammed the other full force ( smaller vessels, high numbers of troops on them ). Well... the other ship did get destroyed, i got about 15% damage to the hull but afterwards my ship got pushed sideways like magic.. also taking 50% more damage and this felt like a code for recovering from something nasty - as in previous versions there is access to the source code so this stuff should be moddable.

So bottom line - i think the game is unaproachable for the mainstream gamers. Although it's mediocre to good ( more on the good side but no chance of goint towards excellent ) it needs a way of thinking that doesn't exist in today's style of gaming. Iits old graphics and lack of special effects, although completely functional, won't bring it fans.

Games today should have an IQ requirement written on the box.

So... seeing how the thread evolved - in a true Andhaira way - do you think AoP2 is win or fail?

Discuss


p.s. - given that i'm troll and also talking about things that give us orgasms - difficult quests and obsolete graphics, a poll is in order

 

[Luzur]

i didnt know pirates built cities of old ships and was able to use diving equipment to walk on the bottom of the ocean?

 

[Jaesun]

I never played the first one. :shock:

 

[Troll]

the game is supposedly sea dogs 4, previous games were:
Sea dogs
Pirates of the carribean
Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales


and indeed, city of abandoned ships is one of the weirdest names i've seen, and unless it's got something to do with the storyline the marketing guys need a smack on the head.

Also, if you didn't know, the developer is Akella, who also managed to get their hand on 2 other awaited licenses: Disciples 3 and Jagged Alliance 3.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I only played Sea Dogs out of all these, and hell, while it was tough and entertaining, it was also buggy as fuck. For example, the main quests require you to storm some cities and install new governors in them in the later parts of the game, BUT if you happened to storm them before you can click the 'New Game' button, because while you'll be able to attack the cities again, you won't be able to do anything else but loot them.

What I liked about Sea Dogs though, were the naval battles, sword fighting wasn't bad either. The crew management was also neat, since apart from simple crewmen you could also hire (or 'persuade' those from boarded ships) specialists that would give you various bonuses and penalties to your skills. For example, in the very first town you could hire a blind gunner, who'd give you +something to your gun damage (I think) but -something to your accuracy, while in another town there was a 'normal' gunner who didn't give any penalties, but his bonus was significantly lower. There were also other specialists like first officers, navigators, medics, cooks etc. Hell, it was a really cool game, a shame it was bugged as hell, and the difficulty was frustrating later on iirc, since every naval battle would be something like you against 4 ubertough vessels.

 

[Troll]

well so far i haven't found any game breaking bugs, but after 9 years they'd better make sure those things don't happen.

All those stuff you mentioned are still there. Naval battles will take a bit more time unless you start the game using the fast navigation or something option but hey, i don't expect a ship to go full speed in 6.3 seconds and turn using a handbrake ( ok, tuning the ship 180 degrees in a few dozen seconds is still possible if you have a navigator with this skill ).

sword fighting against more than 1 opponent is hell, next to impossible on the difficulty i play ( corsair - 6th out of 9 ) so basically in these cases i have to run until i can bring them to a tight place where only fighting 1 vs 1 is possible.

A good crew is very hard to get. Even finding a lousy crew is difficult - i don't want to give up the frigate but i run it undermanned, i've got just about the minimum requirement for sailors, about 1/3 of the gunners making reload very long; firing broadside on both left and right doesn't work in these conditions, as for boarding the few soldiers i have are ranked land lubbers, they die with the first cut they get.

So far i haven't found anymore good Navigators; treasurers seem to be pretty important or else rats will destroy your goods, besides they're pretty good negotiators too; medics are good for epidemics onboard but when you loose all your medicine to rats and an epidemic starts on board in hostile waters you're screwed.

 

[Cynicus]

I'd keelhaul the Pope for a good pirate RPG, so I'll be trying this out, but I hope it's much better than its predecessor. I liked Sea Dogs for many of the same reasons Darth Roxor did, and PotC wasn't entirely terrible once the community fixed it up, but AoP was a letdown.

 

[rob66699]

This game is terrible...got stuck on a loop where it just ends because a quest failed when i could not find a fishermans house, so had to start over.. also, once iv killed all the spanish guys invading the city nothing more happens, I go back to see the guy who is going to be my navigator (I forgot his name), he just says "goto the city we will get you there" but the city is 100% empty. I cannot find any of the other men who are supposed to be escaping with me but they are nowhere to be found.

WTF is up with that?

the tavern is empty but it sounds like its full of people

 

[Darth Roxor]

This game is terrible...got stuck on a loop where it just ends because a quest failed when i could not find a fishermans house, so had to start over.. also, once iv killed all the spanish guys invading the city nothing more happens, I go back to see the guy who is going to be my navigator (I forgot his name), he just says "goto the city we will get you there" but the city is 100% empty.

This sounds so much like Sea Dogs

 

[rob66699]

seriously, i feel like uninstalling it. not sure if its just a bug or im doing something wrong. Either way I will not be restarting it from the beginning, the game will be on a one way trip to the trash can

 

[Pirate]

I need help. Sorry to bother you people!!!!!

Well i am playing this game. But on the game of Ian Stance i cannot walk along my boat. I can just watch through telescope. And my cannons do not fire even if they are loaded. next is i cannot change the moving controls to the 4 arrow keys. they say it is used. But for which ones it is used i do not know. Please give me the solution of these problems.
I am much obliged to you if you help me.

thanking You
Pirate(my username)

 

[Rorschach]

Hells motherfucking yeah, it's about time Errol Flynn got his own video game.

 

[Eccelons]

@ rob dunno if u still need it but the thing u have to do is get ur crew thats waiting for u behind the shipyard. since the gates are locked u have to go into the water and swimm around. once u get there head to the spain ship /by swimming again) and kill all including the captain to flee from this island.

thats as far as i got cause then it really sucks... my cannons won't fire... sometimes they just fire once but never again sometimes they just dont fire... restarted the game 3 times reinstalled it 3 times, tried to change the keys, still doesn't work and now i'm stuck on the sea trying to outrun the 2 ships heading in all directions with x2 speed but even after 15 min just going straight in 1 direction i cannot find any island to land!

any help here ?

 

[overtenemy]

Aaahahaha. You're not finding any islands because you're not on map mode. Finding an island would take FOREVER the way you're doing it. To enter map mode, you need to either outrun or destroy the enemy ships attacking you. There's really no alternative.

 

[Oarfish]

no bloom

Yes there is, enable post processing in the config.exe.

Not that I have played it, as it isn't out yet and that would be stealing. Also the Tages protection doesn't break the Peter Blood storyline while trying to get your officers.

 

[Serus]

Sea Dogs was an excellent game, AoP was more polished and had a map of Carribean instead of random islands but was worse than Sea Dogs - i was never able to find why, it just felt worse.

 

[tyfighter55]

At least you all can play AOP2 , i have problems with my game crashing everytime i load to either save or enter a door. Ive tried to scan the files i downloaded from disc to see if they had any bugs and it came out clean.

NVIDIA GeFORCE 7050 / nForce 610i

32 Bit Operating System

Windows Vista Sp1

Intel (R) Celeron(R) CPU EL400 @ 2.00 GHz



It plays fine until i come to a door or save a game , then crash.

Anyone have any answers to it?

 

[Redeye]

I was under the impression that it would be based in an artificial island made out of old ships.

Is there at least a location like that?

 

[rob66699]

thanks eccelons il try it, hope i can figure it out...

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Alright, I have to bump this thread due to my interest in this game. The concept I absolutely love, but I'm not certain on throwing thirty dollars down on something I'm not sure of. Also, the people complaining about how difficult it is honestly gives me half wood, although I'm a little alarmed at the reports of bugs. Anyone delved deeper into this yet? Worth the time and the not quite so hard earned money? (God, my job is easy)

 

[Doom314]

I'm sorry, but those easy-to-fail quests are just plain stupid. Talk to the drunk, and you auto-fail, no save. I'm sorry, that's stupid.

You have 24,996 coins, but you need 25,000 to buy the ship. You fail. That's stupid. You can't go to the moneylender for 4 coins? (Even though he loaned 5k to another slave, and you just handed him 27,000?). You're carrying gems, gold, silver, but can't sell any of it for 4 gold. That's stupid, honest.

Anyway, I finally blundered through the ridiculously stupid 'quest' thing, got my ship.

So, now I'm fighting 2 little ships. But my guns won't reload. I get one and only one shot. I have a gunner, I have cannonballs...but they won't reload.

Nothing in the rulebook offers a clue as to how to get the guns to reload.

I'm really not an idiot here, and I think there's a nice game in this ridiculously user-hostile game...but can I get a very slow and careful walkthrough of everything you need to do to get the cannons to reload?

Otherwise, back to Dwarf Fortress for me...something easier.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

You need to have enough crewman and also you need powder. If you have those you shouldn't have a problem getting them to reload.

 

[CreamyBlood]

edit: wrong forum, actually, wrong website.

But to add to this new Sea Dogs thing, I really didn't like the sword fighting tutorial.

 

[Doom314]

But I don't have the option to get crewman or powder before the fight starts. If I sit around for 15 minutes (timed it with a watch), I do get to shoot again...but there's no notice (like the manual says) that the cannons are ready.

It's the very absolute first ship fight in the game, and I'm really supposed to sit and read a book for the 15 minutes it takes between shots? I estimate it'll take 6 shots if I'm lucky to sink both ships.

I'm seriously supposed to watch a movie or mow the lawn or something while playing this game?

 

[Trojan_generic]

You can speed up the game by tapping on the plus key on Numpad. It surprisingly works even when you are running. Minus key slows down again.