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Games Entertainment

Pirates! 106

Posted by michael from the keelhaul-the-landlubbers dept.
fm6 writes: "Worried that too much computer gaming stunts your social skills? Try Pirates! You simulate a voyage of discovery, trade, and plunder by walking around a physical gaming area carrying a PDA equipped with a proximity sensor. Encounters with other players (including naval battles) happen when the two players actually approach each other. Here's an article on Business 2.0."
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Pirates! More

Pirates!

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  • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Think of it as an even geekier, tamer version of laser tag


    oh yes, and we all know how great lazer tag was.

    somehow i think making it "geekier" and "tamer" are going to help.

  • Why not up the ante and make it global? Add a GPS to the palm and transmit your location around the globe, so you could meet ppl all over where your travel takes you and kill and plunder them.

    Seriously, is this game really getting any adepts? i'd rather hone my social skills at a weekend long rave and blast the ppl i play with in Counter Strike.

  • Sounds like a cool party game!

    I'm gonna have something like this arranged for my wedding!

  • Been there, done that... (Score:5, Funny)

    by HongPong ( 226840 ) <hongpong&hongpong,com> on Saturday August 25, 2001 @06:39PM (#2216796) Homepage
    I'm chillin' on the corner, a deal going down, I pass a fresh CD-R to a comrade, and some old biddy's all up in my face like "Pirates! Pirates!" and I tell her to fuzz off like the Medicare Momma she is.

    Fuckin' A, man, it's gettin' so you can't run a Carracho server in this town without gettin' bitched at by the self-appointed warez hounds. I tell ya...

  • "In addition, each device is equipped with a custom-built sensor, which is used to infer the players relative proximity to each other, and to locations in the physical world."

    No refrences to how much that's gonna cost ya, or where you can pick one up.

  • Arr! (Score:5, Funny)

    by shiwala ( 93327 ) on Saturday August 25, 2001 @06:40PM (#2216802)
    From the article...

    Upon arriving at an island, a player might find something valuable, such as tobacco.

    I get the feeling that the people who will be playing this game might need something more valuable...soap!
    • I get the feeling that the people who will be playing this game might need something more valuable...soap!

      Historically, that's probably true of the actual pirates too. Or maybe the way they smelled was part of their game plan, i.e. "Full speed ahead mateys! They'll be killed by our stench before we're in range of their cannons!"
  • I'm sure employers will love their employees playing this game around the office.
  • I can see this being big for about two or three months and then fading out (<I>all your base</I> ring a bell). Its still a pretty cool concept and would be hella cool if wearable 'puters and virtual reality glasses were more comman place (and there was an app like this for them ofcourse.)
  • the game IS pirated and everyone who plays it actually ARE pirates.
  • Haven't you ever had a really good game of steal the flag? If this is done right, it could be like that, but with a high geek quotient.

  • Trash? (Score:1)

    by mazur ( 99215 )
    Thye concept certainly has merit, and can (and therefore will) be used for even more interesting games. But the Business article has a remarkable sentence in it:

    but because the rivals are standing right next to each other, they can talk trash

    I've been on the net for quite some time, but I've never known proximity being a relevant factor in any visitors ability to talk trash. If there was some sort of factor inducing an inability to talk trash, now that would cheer me! Though I fear, that for some people that may result in an inability to talk at all, but that wouldn't bother me overmuch.

    Stefan.

  • "low-range" radio data (Score:3, Informative)

    by dgp ( 11045 ) on Saturday August 25, 2001 @06:54PM (#2216834) Journal
    hmm. "low-range radio" transmitter/receiver pairs in a PDA. now what existing technology [bluetooth.com] might replace their custom hardware?

    Seriously, I think there is an interesting new genre of games that integrate PDAs and real world locations and/or real world people. Its nice to see others working in this direction.
    • Bluetooth would allow many people to play online, instead of just in reality...

      Something the pokemon and giga- pets never had.

      (Darn thing too....If they had internet capability, I wouldn't have had to see so many of the obscene things in public.)
    • I was at SIGGRAPH (www.siggraph.org) this year where they were showing this off, very cool. I talked to the people there, and they can't actually use bluetooth because the bluetooth specs have some lowlevel protocol that prevents them from using bluetooth for what they wanted, so they had to go with shortrange FM transmitters.

  • Another game based on mobile positioning (Score:4, Informative)

    by eram ( 245251 ) on Saturday August 25, 2001 @06:56PM (#2216835)

    There is another game based on mobile positioning called BotFighters [botfighters.com] in action since a couple of months in Sweden. Basically, a player may shoot at another player or attempt to take his/her weapons, but only if they are close enough to eachother.

    Anyone with an ordinary mobile phone can play the game, as it uses the positioning information available form the cellular network. Using WAP or text messages may not really be as exciting as having a full-screen PDA in a wireless LAN, though.


  • I'm still waiting for the Laser Tag infrared mod for my Palm. :) Fun for the whole office; you could have "Accounting Beanheads vs. Executive D00ds" at your local ISP...

  • Pirates are people with eyepatches who plunder on the high seas, not people with PDAs who simply beam information to each other.

    I can't stand it when people use the term "Pirate" to refer to such innocent folk. Just because it's in the dictionary doesn't make it right! Stand up for what you believe in!


    Dlugar
  • I thought it's original name was "Napster"... :)

  • What crap (Score:2, Funny)

    by thejake316 ( 308289 )
    Hey /. editors, I realize you're all really busy, what with your exhaustive testing of this code, extensive grammar and spelling checks for your one-sentence editorial comments on every article, modding people you disagree with down to -1 right before stories are archived (that one's not sarcastic), putting in incredibly useful links to keywords in everything2, and justifying to whomever the hell is paying for this mess (I assume still some abstraction of VA "fill up the red toner before you print the company financials" Linux) that you're not doing more harm than good, but please be more careful about what slips past your "editors" and perhaps come up with some better form [slashdot.org] of selecting what gets published on your site.

    I'm feeling generous, so here are some suggestions, free of charge:

    • Magic 8 ball
    • The I Ching
    • Rochambeau a la Cartman


    • What's so special about a "404 File Not Found" error?
      • Actually, that's a funny story, too. I hit the preview button, and this fine Slash software here dumped me back to the front page, and in the course of copying/pasting what I had put in this fine "comment" form I think either I screwed up my URL or this fine Slash software did. Considering there's a brace of invalid characters in the url I'm more inclined to blame Slash (the software, not the Guns 'n' Roses guy) than myself. But then, just because Slash (n. gnr) has horrible bugs doesn't mean it works correctly.

  • Privacy? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LarsG ( 31008 ) on Saturday August 25, 2001 @07:22PM (#2216874) Journal
    I know that Scott said that we should 'Get over it', but anyway..

    Anyone know the technical details on this stuff wrt 3rd parties getting hold of your location information?

  • The problem with this idea is (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tmark ( 230091 ) on Saturday August 25, 2001 @07:32PM (#2216898)
    Worried that too much computer gaming stunts your social skills?
    Somehow I suspect that interacting with the kind of people who would play this game would just further stunt /. reader's social skills.

  • Pirates! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dr. Awktagon ( 233360 ) on Saturday August 25, 2001 @07:40PM (#2216918) Homepage

    A fun game in which players are given PDA's with infrared transmitters, and MP3 copies of five popular songs, chosen randomly out of 100. Each person has to convince others to share copies of their songs, and whoever collects all 100 first, wins the game!

    Sounds easy, right? But watch out! Hillary ®osen and her crack gang of ©opyright police are out in full force, posing as regular players, and whenever you try and share with them, they take all your songs and you have to start over!

    It's loads of fun! And remember, sharing is stealing!

    • Or you could call it Pok'eMP3 - Gotta Trade 'em All! Could also include virtual avatars to represent the artists of each MP3, so you could have Eminem beat the shit out of the Backstreet Boys in a VS mode. Could include the "virtual pet" features too... You'd help your artist get gigs, a record contract, sell albums and rise up the charts - or fail miserably and become a one hit wonder. Hmm, if I wrote games, I'd get started on this one...

    • > A fun game in which players are given PDA's with infrared transmitters, and MP3 copies of five popular songs, chosen randomly out of 100. Each person has to convince others to share copies of their songs, and whoever collects all 100 first, wins the game!

      > And remember, sharing is stealing!

      Sharing something that doesn't belong to you is stealing.

      That's pretty much the definition of stealing.

  • I played this game briefly (Score:4, Informative)

    by Lightningbug ( 467366 ) on Saturday August 25, 2001 @07:49PM (#2216945)
    The article neglected to mention that this was a.) a technology demonstration and b.) an exhibit at the recent SIGGRAPH show in Los Angeles. Probably a reason why Business 2.0 is rumored to follow The Industry Standard into the grave.

    That said, the game's physical game area supposedly took place all over the "emerging technologies" showcase, with low-power, short-range (1 meter or so) 802.11 access points that represented "islands". At each island, there were several "?" scattered about, which you could explore. Each "?" was like drawing a card--a random even could wipe out some of your men, or you might strike gold, for example.

    It was well done, although it didn't strike me as any more interesting than those Japanese gadgets that supposedly light up when someone "compatible" is in range. A year ago, these guys would have probably tried to promote this as the next hip party game, tried to go public, and flopped like the rest of 'em.
  • Not in the WLAN, but in the WorldLAN. For years I experimented with real-time real space role-playing games, and in so doing I learned one absolute truth -- NOTHING IN THE GAME is more interesting to the players than the interaction with players and GM.

    To walk up to a live person so you can interact moderated by a computer screen is the lamest, silliest idea possible. The human-human bandwidth is not for talking trash, but for making a real and dynamic story-telling occur -- let humans do what humans do well -- and get the machine out of the way as soon as the game mechanics permits.

    I definitely think that there is much that can be done to enhance RTRSRPG using technology, but the trick is not to take a high-bandwidth situtation (human-human interaction) and cripple it to be mere color for the low-bandwidth moderated game interaction on a palm.

    Nice use of the tools (Disney did this briefly a few years back with GPS-based palm-held machines running Squeak), but so far as I can tell, a lousy game design and story-telling concept.

  • Piracy (Score:2, Funny)

    by Phroggy ( 441 )
    So where can we pirate this game?
  • Is this based on the old Micro Prose game by the same name? That game could improve your social skills too, I mean how else would i learn to sweep a beautiful young heires off her feet with my pirate antics?
  • Didn't microprose release a game in '87 called "Pirates!" for the commadore 64, amiga, ibm compatible, etc? sid meier? Did these people bother looking to see if the name had been used? :)

    -Erik <erik@smluc.org> [http://math.smsu.edu/~erik/]
    • Did these people bother looking to see if the name had been used?

      That would be so typically american!! "Hey, I patented that name 20 years ago, so you cannot use it even though I don't use it myself.. and now I-am-gon-na-sue-you!"

  • I liked this game better... (Score:3, Informative)

    by D_Gr8_BoB ( 136268 ) on Saturday August 25, 2001 @09:52PM (#2217191)
    when it was by Sid Meier and ran on a 68k Mac (monochrome or color!).

    I know some old school gamers will back me up on this.

    • Yeah, I loved the original too. I instantly followed the link with great anticipation of a modern remake, but it was not to be... which leads me to the question: has there been a game since then that was like a remake, or at least was as a good simulation along the same vein of the original Pirates! game? I still have fun once in a while playing the oldie in PC64.
      • Yes, Pirates! Gold. It's exactly the same, just updated graphics. I'm pretty sure ther was a peecee version, but I know there was a Sega Genesis version, I just haven't been able to get my hands on a copy. I followed the link with the same hopes...I've played Sid's game on C64/Tandy1000HX/Amiga500/and even on a peecee with a C64 emulator.
        • there was also a port to the original NES, its dificult to find on ROM sites though. Thrust Parry Thrust Parry. What was great about that game is that you selected fencing as your skill, kept one piss-ant sloop in your fleet, crash^?^?^?^?^?board the bad guys ship and beat him senseless, keep the rest in big ships for crew and transport, a cake walk game
    • I hate the idea that I would be considered "old school" (I'm not that old) but I used to actually play this on an apple II and I still think it was one of the best games I've ever played. Just recently I got sick of the newer games and just had to find a copy of it to play. I like it for the same reason I like alot of ATARI 7800/2600 games, they actually had good game play. There was some sort of interesting plot, some strategy, openendness, some thumb candy, and you never got stuck in some position where you couldn't make any progress (I can't tell you how many games I've given up on because I just can't figure out where to go, I like challenges in games, but finding the damn "magic" pixel I need to click on to continue in the game is not my idea of fun, same thing with navigating some maze like geography... I didn't shell out all that money to play lab rat), and it didn't have to rely on flashy graphics to make it fun, it was just fun to play. I think a lot of that is lost in games
      in new games because so much effort goes into making them look pretty, (ohh wow... I can have blood and guts splattering at 80fps... this must be good!!!!!) and the end result is soemthing that is less interesting then a decent game of hearts. Now why would I shell out $50 for that?

      Just one more thing,... It bothers me that the copy for the PDA actually copied the name right down to the "!" at the end and didn't give any credit to the origional game. I couldn't even find any mention of the origional on the web page (and no, I didn't read the pdfs, maybe the mention it in there).

      Any I'm done ranting... I'm gonna go play a game of cribbage.

      -Ben
    • Yeah, I skimmed the article here on /., seeing 'Pirates!' and 'PDA', and hoped that some kind soul would have ported it so I could play it on my color palm...

      No such luck, as usual...

      Perhaps it's time I port the damn thing myself, ofcourse, I would have to release it on FreeNet so I don't break DMCA for reverseengineering amiga code...

  • Duh! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Futurepower(tm) ( 228467 ) <M_Jennings @ not ... futurepower.org> on Saturday August 25, 2001 @10:13PM (#2217238) Homepage

    Worried that too much computer gaming stunts your social skills? Try Pirates!

    Worried that too much computer gaming stunts your social skills? Try socializing!

  • Pirates Ho! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by NickisGod.com ( 453769 )
    This looks good: http://pirates.devolution.com/

    Not as offtopic as the topic I hope :)

  • Pox (Score:1)

    by jimmcq ( 88033 )
    Is thing any thing like Pox [p-o-x.com]?

    Its sort of a Pokemon type game that lets kids battle each other via short range Radio Frequency... but it only costs $30, which is a little more accessable than a $300 PDA.

    There was recently a NYTimes article [nytimes.com] about it.
  • Really now. I don't recall needing a PDA to play "Ghost in the Graveyard" or "Capture the Flag".

    K.I.S.S. applies in this situation.
  • Is there any way that a PDA can have its location determined accurately within a wireless network?

    If the position could be triangulated or something there would be a complete new genre of games for wireless PDAs.

  • Perhaps instead of interacting with people who have expensive electronics in their pants, how about geeks just get over it and play by normal social rules? This "Pirates" is pretty much the bottom of the ladder
  • Microprose has already released a pirate computer game called "Pirates!" (complete with exclamation mark).

    Is there going to be a conflict concerning the naming of this game?

  • Hmmm...I guess this isn't the same as this [iarchitect.com] Pirates...

  • geek meets goth, the world is saved
  • I myself never really got into computers or video games until I hit 13 or 14. I use to go outside and play like regular kids and I always felt great afterwards. It was only until I moved from a rural area to a suburb when I played games and got into computers because there was nothing to do. Play is essential in brain development and frontal lobe stimulation and helps children learn social and spacial skills when they become adults. There was an author (forgot the name)who did some research on this subject and it turns out engineering graduates from suburbs who only played video games for play were great in mathmatics and science but had trouble applying them when designing things. Graduates from area's like Montanna, Alaska, and Idaho who lived in rural area's and played outside regularly when they were children did alot better in designing and actual applying spacial skills. Auto repair shops notice a difference in young mechanics from those who played outside vs those who played video games inside.

    My point is nothing beats learning social skills and eye-hand cordination then going outside and playing or hanging out with friends. Even as an adult I love games like UT or QuakeIII but I still prefer to find a few good buddies and some paint ball guns and head into the woods for a real fight. I also notice parents think the problem is kids have too much free time so they encourage their children to enroll in accelerated classes with hours upon hours of homework a night so they have no social life expect maybe an hour or two of video gaming. THis is bad and is causing more harm then good. For high school students its a little bit different because they are quite mature and might need extra education for college prep. Anyway their is a link between constant video gaming and lower social skills and frontal lobe stimulation and this game is not going to help. I think paint balling or sports with other peers is the only way to increase it. Its also alot more fun.

  • Eeeeek!

    This is a reminder of the game i have around here called 'Pirates!' (within quotes) from about the mid-1980s, that was released my Microprose (that's right, exclamation mark and all), along with a version of Gunship and Airborne Ranger, of the same vintage.

    Ah, the game was rather interesting to start, I mean boot, up. Nice touch for days when HDDs were expensive.

    (BTW: There's no references to the old versions of these three games at their support site [ina-support.com], so I suppose I am showing my age. :)

    Now, where the heck did I put those 3.5-inch and 5.25-inch original discs? ...and the copy protection code books? Drat! I've lost those! :(

  • Sail to small island. Go to coconut tree. Turn right. Walk 10 paces. Climb out window. AAAAAHH........**SPLAT**.

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