City of Abandoned Ships - Interview @ RPGVault

magerette

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RPGVault has posted something a little different in the current RPG arena with an interview with Russian developer Seaward concerning their upcoming title City of Abandoned Ships. We're interested in your feedback on this one to see if it merits continued coverage here, so let us know how it strikes you.

Here's the background description:

City of Abandoned Ships is an RPG in development at a Russian studio, Seaward.ru. The game takes place during the aforementioned period [17th century], and incorporates a number of historical figures including the two named above[Henry Morgan, privateer, and the historical Governor of Jamaica, Thomas Modyford]. You can opt to sail the seas under the Jolly Roger, or as an officer in the English, Spanish, Dutch or French navy. Whichever you select, you'll build up your character through the P.I.R.A.T.E.S progression system; the initials stand for Power, Impression, Reaction, Authority, Talent, Endurance and Success. The story you write will be your own since the campaign structure is open-ended, with approximately equal portions of land and maritime adventures.
Here's a little snip from the Q. & A. :

Jonric: To start with the basics, what is City of Abandoned Ships about, and what types of gameplay will it provide? What's the balance of land and naval action?

Yury Rohach:
City of Abandoned Ships is a based on a romantic view of pirate life in the late 17th century. It offers the opportunity to explore a gigantic, self-sufficient, independent world that players can affect, depending on their particular decisions. There is a wide range of freedom in these choices, and in the ways of completing tasks...
Jonric: What range of characters can the player choose, and what's the impact of decisions made at this stage?

Yury Rohach: The game starts with three options for selecting a character, each with a destiny to become a merchant, adventurer or a [naval officer]. We can also pick out a nation to get to the first city and the initial story that will lead us to the main ones.

The choice of the character will affect the attitudes of other NPCs towards him. All the characters can be equipped with weapons and several types of cuirasses.
Jonric: What kind of advancement system are you implementing? What are the primary attributes, and are there many skills and abilities to develop?

Yury Rohach: The game is based on the P.I.R.A.T.E.S role-playing system - Power, Impression, Reaction, Authority, Talent, Endurance and Success. These stats affect the development rate of the character's 14 skills, which skills are divided into personal (authority, light, medium, and heavy weapons, guns, luck and stealth) and seafaring (navigation, accuracy, arsenal of weapons, boarding, defense, ship recovery, trade).

Every skill gets its own development path depending on the way the player gets through the game. For example, shopping increases the Trade skill, and its development will finally decrease and block the Boarding skills. If you fire guns, you develop your Gun skill only, becoming more accurate and fatal to enemies. Sea battles develop Accuracy and Arsenal of Weapons skills, etc.

As the game proceeds, the player receives various personal or ship ability points - perks. They can be assigned to any or all of the 55 different abilities. The way abilities are arranged affect whether it is easier either to trade and settle conflicts among nations, or wage wars with merchants and colonies. Such is the life of an adventurous pirate.
More information.
 
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from the description it looks like a cool game
I'm only concerned about dialogues and npc/party (if any) interaction.
 
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The game sounds very, very interesting - that is, if they deliver what they promise, of course. In any case, worth keeping an eye on (only wish those screenshots showed a bit more (like, say, the interface), since the game is apparently due out in not-too-long).
 
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Is that soon for the Russian or English versions?

Anyway, it sounds nice from what I read, but on "paper" many things sounds nice. Its what gets on my hard drive that matters, but this one seems like a good one to follow for the time being.
 
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Fallout on the high seas. Done well, this could be fun.
 
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Nice find, magerette. :)
They sure make it sound like Fallout design structure, don't they Prime Junta, if only we could be so lucky, in 2007. ;)
 
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Well, no idea about the Fallout parallel but I like the name of their skills system :)and it does seem to stress lots of choices and consequences, diverging paths and so forth. I got the impression the devs are a bunch of pirate grognards that have played or worked on most of the pirate-themed games out there and now have a serious desire to make their own. Pirates aren't a big fancy of mine, but good rpgs are-and I like to hear devs say" "Made by game fans for game fans." as they do here-we'll see how it plays out. :)

They've got all kinds of crazy ideas:
Among the unusual places to visit, there will be the City of Abandoned Ships itself, which is chaos on the sea, full of waterlogged vessels; and Tenochtitlan, the former capital city of the Aztecs, where the gamer can explore dungeons and temples filled with mysteries. There will be separate unique locations involving some missions below the waves. One of them requires the character's searches for an ancient prototype of an underwater suit...The bosses include famous pirates and military officers. While boarding an enemy's ship and fighting on the deck, you can regard every enemy captain a mini-boss. You'll definitely remember the Aztec leader and one of the ancient gods who decided to return to life.

At sea, the main character will face various ships, and forts on shore. The most unusual boss at sea is probably the Flying Dutchman. She can, however, be captured if luck is on your side.
 
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Fallout on the high seas was exactly what my first thought was (which I'm sure is exactly what they were hoping for in using the P.I.R.A.T.E.S. system).

Here's hoping it doesn't suck (and that it actually gets finished and released in English somewhere).
 
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Well, perhaps there's a certain soft spot for Captain Jack Sparrow, and of course, the ancestor of them all, Long John Silver. :) :ahoy: I haven't ever played a pirate game, though I have occasionally wanted to try Sid Meier's Pirates.
 
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OMG!!! You have no idea how much fun you're missing out on not playing Sid Meier's Pirates! It would probably squeeze into my top 5 all-time list.

In fact, before you said that I was going to post here that while this new game sounds cool, I have never played a pirate game that didn't dissappoint after playing Sid Meier's Pirates way back on original Nintendo. It was that much fun even then! :clap:
 
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