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Ubisoft to Publish Puzzle Pirates 151

Posted by Zonk from the yohoho-and-a-bottle-of-arrrrr! dept.
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.
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Ubisoft to Publish Puzzle Pirates More

Ubisoft to Publish Puzzle Pirates

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  • Great Game (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Skidge ( 316075 ) * on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @01:02PM (#11542229)
    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. :)

    • Re:Great Game (Score:5, Informative)

      by TheSpoom ( 715771 ) * <slashdot@@@uberm00...net> on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @01:18PM (#11542445) Homepage Journal
      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). It has an entirely player run economy, very active devs and player support staff (OceanMasters are always on and always available to help), and it generates a sense of teamwork I haven't seen in any other game (effectively, you puzzle together to keep a ship afloat and running well).

      Give it a try, you can download the client [puzzlepirates.com] and play it for a week free.

      - Spoom
      Captain of the Monkey Hunters
      Prince of Angels and Demons
      Evil-Eyed Peglegged Monkey Pirate

      • Re:Great Game (Score:4, Funny)

        by Rei ( 128717 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @01:55PM (#11542885) Homepage
        Is there any competitiveness? I mean, the whole point of being a pirate is learning insults so that you'll be good in a swordfight.

        "You fight like a dairy farmer!"
        "How appropriate. You fight like a cow."

        • Re:Great Game (Score:3, Informative)

          by cowscows ( 103644 )
          There is a lot of competitiveness, if you go looking for it. And it manifests itself on a few different levels. There's things like one-on-one sword fighting and swordfighting (or drinking) tournaments. There's PVP sea battles. On a larger scale, flags (allied groupings of crews) can wage war on each other, and battle for control of the different islands in the game. There's actually some pretty intense political wrangling going on within the game, if you wish to get involved in it.

          As for character develop

      • Puzzle Pirates Community (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Ted V ( 67691 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @02:50PM (#11543506) Homepage
        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.

      • Older Community? (Score:3, Funny)

        by ppp ( 218671 )
        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.
    • I unfortunately paid for a 6-month subscription a few weeks before things got really busy and I haven't played since. The game was really fun although you still get sort of level-grinding happening, except you do puzzles. It's OK, and that's that I'm not a fan of MMORPGOSOs or whatever.
  • PiratesBay to pirate Puzzle Pirates.

    Must be a SLOW news day.

    • PiratesBay to pirate Puzzle Pirates.

      Is an infringing copy of EverQuest worth much? Without a paid-up account key, you can't log on to EverQuest or Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates.

      • Is an infringing copy of EverQuest worth much?

        Nowadays, about the same as an uninfringing copy ... evercrack ain't all it's cracked up to be anymore.

        I haven't heard a story in waht 6 months, about parents having to lock up their kids or get them to deprogrammers because of evercrack addiction.

        I can see it now "Little Johnny won't stop going "Arr, matey, pass the bloody ketchup." at the supper table".

        Maybe they should let Valve handle it - they've got technology that is notorious for getting people all

  • Yes, but... (Score:4, Funny)

    by rufo ( 126104 ) <`moc.zehcnasofur' `ta' `ofur'> on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @01:03PM (#11542257)
    ...will it be published on September 19th [talklikeapirate.com]?
  • Puzzle Pirates is an massively multi-player online roleplaying game

    on P2P networks for quite a while.

    The network IS the game...

  • Age groups (Score:5, Funny)

    by dsginter ( 104154 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @01:07PM (#11542308)
    The game is rated "Arrrr!" for pirates.

  • Multi-platform, eh? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Paolo DF ( 849424 ) *
    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!

    • Re:Multi-platform, eh? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tobias Luetke ( 707936 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @01:16PM (#11542421)
      This is because its written in Java. A fine choice for this kind of game I want to add.

      Its great to see people using the right tools for the job.

      • Re:Multi-platform, eh? (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        But it doesn't have multi-shadered texture-pixel-pooping shadows!!!oneelevenone!!!

        Ohwait, it's actual fun ? Damn ;)

    • In this case, the developers primary development platform is linux, Debian is their flavor.

      It running natively on linux is the only reason I started playing in the first place. I'm glad I did though, it's a fun game.

    • Cross-platform via Java (Score:5, Informative)

      by Rescate ( 688702 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @01:22PM (#11542486)
      From the Installation FAQ [puzzlepirates.com]:

      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.
  • $10 per month is way too much to pay for any computer game.
    • It's okay if you play for at least 10 hours a month, $1/hour isn't that bad for personal entertainment you know. $5/m would be a nicer price, sure, maybe a "buy a year of online gaming" package.

      I'm sure that many geeks here have paid hundreds of dollars for an hour of personal entertainment ...

      So ... the money is in the online gaming, yes? So, err, how much will Ubisoft be selling the game in stores for, or will that include a month or two of free play?
    • 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.

      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... ..., but you can really get quite a bit of
      • 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 ]

    • Re:10 dollars a month (Score:4, Insightful)

      by shaka999 ( 335100 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @01:18PM (#11542439)
      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?

      • Re:10 dollars a month (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        At least at a bar, you don't need to associate with a bunch of MMORPG nerds :P
    • I don't think this is true. I actually save money by playing a MMORPG. I am currently playing World or Warcraft and before that City of Heroes. I pay 15 or so dollars a month, but I don't buy any other games while I am doing this. Before I started playing MMORPG I would by a new game for at least $29.95 or higher each month and would generally buy 1 or 2 DVDs more each month than I currently buy. It is not just consoles and piracy (arggh!) that have taken a bite out of computer game sales, it is MMORPG

    • Re:10 dollars a month (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      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

    • $10 per month is way too much to pay for any computer game.

      Well this is what the world is coming to my friend... Monthly costs for entertainment is has been proven to be something customers are willing to endure... and the developers are showing that they will meet with demand: Microsoft making streaming games for its new system... Monthly fees for video/game renting services... etc etc. Either jump on board or get left at shore (no pun intended with the puzzle pirates theme). Also, with the advances

    • Believe me, no one is getting rich at $10/month. I know one of the folks on the inside of this game, and as much as he would like to be rich, $10/month at the player level isn't going to do it. Less may attract a few more players, more may run most of them off... but, really, if you like the game, can't you dig around in your pocket and pay 3 Rings what you'd pay Dominos for the one pizza you eat while you're playing the game, one time that month? And the game lasts all month, unlike that pizza. Wake up! Ev
    • Why is it too much? How much do you pay for your internet access? How much does your cable TV cost (if you have it)? How much do you spend on luxery goods each month? How much do you spend on DVD rental, cinema tickets, books, magazines and newspapers a month? How much do you spend on entertainment a month?

      $10 for a months entertainment is good value, whichever way you cut the cake. Kudos to these guys for making it that low.
    • Should have gotten in on the beta, best $70 for a two year membership I ever spent.
      Especially for such an awesome game!

  • Puzzle Ninjas is better (Score:3, Funny)

    by nicholasharbour ( 648961 ) <nicholasharbour@NOspaM.yahoo.com> on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @01:10PM (#11542365) Homepage
    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.
  • Ubisoft paid good money to get this earth-shattering bit of information posted on the front page of Slashdot. Please click [gamespot.com] the [igf.com] links [puzzlepirates.com] and wander through the site a bit so your favorite news source [slashdot.org] stays in business.

  • What a terrible idea (Score:5, Informative)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @01:11PM (#11542372) Homepage Journal
    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).

    • Re:What a terrible idea (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      From the FAQ on the box release:
      Cleaver wrote:
      Your play experience will be unchanged save that you might see the odd person with something that you can't normally buy.

      People have no obligation to buy the box over the download in order to play on the servers, but offline puzzling is an awfully handy idea IMHO.

      -Liz
    • a) There are people who don't hear about games until they're featured in magazines or actually appear on store shelves.
      b) Packaging a game differently from other games can turn off those who only pay attention to the "big box" titles. I'm a game addict from way back who doesn't have to have the "latest, greatest" and I still only look at the cheap jewel cases when I'm either hunting for a specific older title or shopping for someone else (my mom likes casino and pinball and dad likes card games, so many
    • According to the FAQ, [puzzlepirates.com] the game is playable via dial-up, but I don't think there are many dial-up users that are willing to wait for a 40MB download.

  • I put on my robe and wizard hat (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @01:11PM (#11542375)
    > For Pirates who love acronyms, Puzzle Pirates is an massively multi-player online roleplaying game, or mmoarrrrpg."

    Fresh on the heels of the Wired [wired.com] sex columnist who recommends MMORPGs as the place to cyber, we now have a pirate-themed MMORPG.

    sweet17: What do you need me to do?

    Bloodninja: I need you talk like a pirate.
    sweet17: ???
    Bloodninja: When I start to go limp... you say "HARRRR!!!"
    Bloodninja: ok?
    Bloodninja: Hello?
    sweet17: You can't be serious
    Bloodninja: Oh yes I am!

    I guess it's time to put on my robe and wizard hat and, umm... HARRRRRRRRRR! [sreality.org]

    • Actually, from that very article, she wrote this:
      But even if you join a game for the sole purpose of cybersex -- which I don't recommend -- you will not be able to sustain yourself in the game world long enough to find the good stuff.

  • Perfect solution for the MMORPG problem! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MBraynard ( 653724 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @01:13PM (#11542402) Journal
    See this. [gamerankings.com] Game Rankings really got an unbalanced percentage. Anyway, onto my comments.

    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.

    • "With this game, intelligence counts for a lot - namely your ability to do tetris-style puzzles." Yeah, because my 6 year old brother can't figure out tetris ...
      • He can probably figure out chess too - but that doesn't make him a grand master. Thanks for your snootie comment. Go back to your level treadmill.

        Seriously, this game is driven by creative thinking. There are differnet kinds of puzzles though they mostly all involve arranging shapes and colors. The point is if you are good at this, you will win against others who are not as good.

        However, time invested does not count for nothing - you can invest in better tools with your credits ("swords") that give you a

    • Or you can stand around in bars AND DRINK. :-D MUaha.

      Yeah, if you loved Puzzle Fighter you will LOVE sword fighting. And the team sword fights on the high seas are awesome. I totally agree with the parent poster -- Puzzle Pirates is to fun because it's not about you being 'level awesome' and me being 'level suck' because it's really about wits and spatial relationships. It's kinda the same thing that makes (forgive me) Counter-Strike fun, because it's not about how great your character is, or your +39 Swor
    • Unfortunately someone will eventually build a AI solver for the puzzles, run it side by side with the game, and then your idiots will once again dominate. You can't keep idiots away forever.

  • Puzzle Pirates is an massively multi-player online roleplaying game, or mmoarrrrpg.

    I just want to say that that line made my day!

  • Serious fun, Win or Mac (Score:4, Informative)

    by David Rolfe ( 38 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @01:32PM (#11542602) Homepage Journal
    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.

    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 :-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.

    (Caveat, never tried running it under Linux)

  • With this in mind... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dracolytch ( 714699 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @01:42PM (#11542727) Homepage
    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
  • ... teletubbies. At least to me. I like the pirate concept, though.

    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?

    • 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

    • Re:... All the avatars look like ... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by merlin_jim ( 302773 ) <James@McCracken.stratapult@com> on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @02:07PM (#11542995)
      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.
      • Not to insult Mrln but his answers were rather inaccurate. There are 7 different types of boats. The smallest size can be handled fairly easily by yourself where as the largest boat can hold 150 people (but needs about 70-80 to run well.
        Every action except chat involves a puzzle of some sort. Otherwise Mrln is basically correct. There are many many different puzzles and you can usually find yourself to be very good and like a few of them. I have been playing now for about 9 months. I log on every day,
    • I don't know about teletubbies but I would say they have a striking resemblence to Playmobil [playmobilusa.com]

      Especially the Pirate Playmobil [playmobilusa.com]

  • A positive sign for all independent developers (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Concern ( 819622 ) * on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @02:24PM (#11543190) Journal
    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.
    • "The fact is, nowhere on FAIR do they "admit" to being liberal"

      They did. The term "progressive" is the one preferred by most leading-edge liberals any more. If anything, it is considered to be a little to the left of "liberal".

      "You tried to use the dictionary to use weasel propaganda..."

      The weaseling was on your side alone. You were using the term "propaganda!" in a fairly meaningless fashion in order to incite emotion in your support for massive censorship of political opinion you do not like. You su

      • They did.

        You can say they did, but you never gave any reason to believe you, and you gave dozens of reasons to know you are lying.

        I deflated your appeal to emotion by pointing out what the word actually meant.

        Do you mind if I say I kind of liked this line? "Appeal to emotion." I think you really were trying to end strong.

        I'm surprised your singled out appealing to emotion, though. You are one of the least rational people I've met on slashdot, and that's saying something. I figured you would know that
        • "Your an apologist for propagandists, and a proponent of censorship in th mass media"

          Yes, I am an apologist for people being able to advocate their political causes in media. However, I have never called for censorship of such advocacy or other expression of political opinion. You have.

          "You know what's great about our time together, AtariAmarok? Our conversation provides convenient, unimpeachable evidence that you are lying about this, and that you also probably know it

          I provided analysis of a few of

          • Oh, look. The liar has reversed himself and made his "goodbye" a lie as well.

            How fitting - he flip-flops on this too.

            Look at how he thinks. It's not "propaganda" - it's people being able to advocate their political causes in media.

            And really, let's not forget - without fairness, its some people being able to advocate their political causes in media. And others, not.

            I have never called for censorship of such advocacy or other expression of political opinion.

            Sure you have. I have carefully explained
            • "And this is your "evidence" that they are part of the vast left-wing conspiracy"

              I said that they were proud that they were left-wing, and it is found in this quote (from their own web site). If they were not happy with it, they would hide it. I never said they they were part of a conspiracy I don't even believe in. So, no, it is not evidence of this. You keep creating this "left wing conspiracy" stuff. If I say Ralph Nader is left wing, your response would be that I said he was part of a vast conspiracy

              • I've so enjoyed your latest comments. So glad you are still unable to stop yourself.

                I said that they were proud that they were left-wing, and it is found in this quote (from their own web site). If they were not happy with it, they would hide it.

                Note: not actually found in the quote

                I never said they they were part of a conspiracy I don't even believe in. So, no, it is not evidence of this. You keep creating this "left wing conspiracy" stuff.

                You don't have to admit to it.

                If I say Ralph Nader i

  • Another, fairly new feature of Y!PP: Spades tables. If you get tired of sailing or crafting or tournament fighting, you can always settle down in the Inn for a nice game of cards. Hopefully, with more income, they can go add some more games to thier card engine.

  • Fantastic Game (Score:5, Interesting)

    by drc500free ( 472728 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @02:39PM (#11543383)
    I've never been one to actually pay for my games, but I gladly fork over $25 a quarter to Three Rings for this one. There are a few really strong selling points.

    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 think that this game's best asset is that not only does it have a Mac version but a Linux one as well. There are so many hypnotized developers [rice.edu] that ignore these two platforms in favor of Windows only titles or spawn poor Mac/Linux afterthoughts.
  • I couldn't bring myself to pay $10 a month to play tetris-like games online. $5 maybe.
    • The price is lower if you pay for more months at once... If you pay for a whole year up front it comes to $6.25 for a month.

      Also, most of the games aren't anything like tetris.
    • Wow, you haven't even tried the game at all and you're assuming it's just a bunch of Tetris clones put together. Ye know what, mate? We don't want you.
  • Looks like a good mmorpg for the wife, but I am not sure if that is a good thing. LOL

  • Game has multiple levels (Score:3, Informative)

    by diagonti ( 456119 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @03:28PM (#11543972)
    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.

  • Pirates Logic Puzzle (Score:3, Interesting)

    by telstar ( 236404 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @03:29PM (#11543980)
    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 [techinterview.org]

    • Deja who? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Fantastic Lad ( 198284 )
      I remember disecting this puzzle on Slashdot a couple of months ago.

      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 control

      • 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'."

        At which point three of the remaining pirates decide to kill you and split the gold into 3rds. Then two of the three that are left kill the 3rd and split the gold

        • Are you honestly arguing that the system presented in this logic puzzle is the only rational or valid one in existence?

          They're pirates. Back-stabbing was the rule. But so, I believe, was the concept of 'fairly shared booty'. --What kind of retard pirate would set sail knowing they weren't going to get fairly compensated for risking their lives? (Well, other than U.S. soldiers who are not getting paid $1000 an hour like the corporate mercenaries doing the same job in the next oil-field over.) --Feed a

  • The one true bling (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Shanoyu ( 975 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @05:31PM (#11545505)
    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.
  • Play the beta, was hooked. But could not justify the monthly.
  • Weird vibe, this.

    Another ultra-fluffy pirate world drawn in simple cartoon faces which is nonetheless broad and popular.

    I can't figure out the life metaphor here. --Though, 'One Piece' (the manga series) was peopled with endless reams of charismatic sociopaths in search of treasure who were hard-wired to back-stab friends or stand up for comrades only when it could better their own lot. The whole thing traded on a very primitive understanding of morality.

    Perhaps the metaphor here is as follows: The cur
    • I wish I had some idea of what you are talking about.
    • I don't know about that. One common theme is that we only look like pirates. Generally speaking justifying any action with "But.. but.. but.. we're pirates!" will earn you the scorn and derision of the community, unless of course what you're doing is interesting and compelling and somewhat competitive, instead of just annoying and futile. But then you don't need to justify it with "But..but... but... we're pirates!"
  • i haven't even figured out how to use this compu

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