Forculus

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Joined: Mar 30, 2011

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On the Horizon: New Ocean, Big Changes! Reply to this Post

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We're excited to announce some big plans that we've been working on for Puzzle Pirates later in 2017. We are going to be adding a new Ocean as part of a release that we're calling...







The Plan:

The goal for Dark Seas is to introduce an entirely new ocean where the rules are a bit different. This shadowy new ocean is a volatile place full of more danger and unexplored frontiers. We are going to introduce some new theme and story elements involving an insidious darkness that is invading the ocean, affecting the appearance of the world and the very nature of the pirates who live there. Some of the gameplay changes we're looking at including are: All players will be required to choose an alignment in the dark vs. light battle, and PvP between these two factions is automatic.



Shops can be demolished as part of the island takeover process, encouraging a robust turnover of managers and territory.



A new ocean layout to accompany the dark vs. light story, with some newly created islands to explore.



A Sea Monster Hunt rotation so that only one type is available at any time, to help concentrate player activity and voyages into a more condensed area of the game.



Poker will have greatly reduced buy-ins on this Ocean.



Dark Seas will be an isolated doubloon ocean where doubloon trades with our current oceans will not be enabled.



The ocean will be accessed via Steam and will not be connected to other doubloon oceans. In addition to the gameplay changes, there will also be new scene art connected to the Dark Seas theme. Here's an early example of this:







The Reasons:

One of the main motivations behind this release is to bring more players into the Puzzle Pirates community, and these are some of the ways we think the new ocean can help with that:

We want to introduce Puzzle Pirates to players who have perhaps never played the game before, and there will be much greater exposure to new players with a standalone release on Steam.



By launching a fresh new ocean, new players will have a chance to get started on an equal footing with everyone, rather than being many years behind the established players.



This new Ocean also allows us to experiment with some changes to the core mechanics of Puzzle Pirates that might be too disruptive to the established oceans (such as shop destruction, limiting poker, and increased PvP).



The new release exposure on Steam will give us the opportunity to bring back former players who may have retired, but would be excited to try something new and different in the world of Puzzle Pirates. We expect there will be many players who return to check out Dark Seas, but will also want to revisit their old pirates on the other oceans.



A separate ocean allows us to continue to update our current oceans separately, though many of the changes and improvements we make for the Dark Seas release will be applicable for all oceans.

Your Feedback!

We will of course still be updating and supporting all of the oceans. We'd like to hear your ideas on what sorts of changes should be included as we develop this content in the months ahead, as well as any improvements we could make to help the game as a whole be more welcoming to new players. We're excited for the future of Puzzle Pirates, and we thank you for joining us on the adventure!



Edit to add a link to the Dark Seas: FAQ update thread.

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[Edit 2 times, last edit by Cronus at Apr 24, 2017 9:19:47 AM]