State of the Game 2023

Ahoy, everyone!

Our dedicated team has been working tirelessly to bring ye all extraordinary new content, and today we'd like to shed some light on the progress we've made and take a moment to provide ye with a glimpse into the fascinating world behind the scenes.

Firstly, we want to express our heartfelt gratitude for yer unwavering support and passion. Yer enthusiasm fuels our creative endeavors, and we are immensely grateful for the opportunity to continue building a game that brings joy to so many.

Over the past few years, we've embarked on an incredible journey of improvement and expansion. We've listened attentively to yer feedback, incorporating yer valuable suggestions into the game. Together, we've witnessed the game evolve and flourish, making it even more immersive, captivating, and stable.

So without further ado, let's jump right into it!

Latest Bugfixes

This section discusses some of the current bugs in the game that we are working on as well as highlighting some of the larger bugs we've recently fixed.

Memory Leaks: Over the last few months we have had a major effort to identify and fix as many memory leaks in the game as we could find. Memory leaks are common programming bugs that are notoriously hard to find and are particularly irksome because they reduce the performance of an application over time and can make an application more prone to crashing. We have made significant progress reducing the prevalence of memory leaks across the game and have reduced the server's memory overhead by 30%.

Performance: A huge focus of ours has been to improve client and server performance. Through the memory leak fixes mentioned above as well as countless other optimizations and refactors, we have greatly improved server and client performance. We will be continuing to work on this and keep pushing the game's FPS even higher and reducing loading times.

Ray of Light: Ah, ye look famliar... haven't we tried fixing ye before? Jokes aside, we have made great progress in fixing many of the worst mistracking issues the Ray of Light has had, but it's still not perfect and needs more attention still.

These are what we believe to be the most major bugs in the game right now, and are our top priority. We are of course also working on squashing other bugs too, this list is not exhaustive.

In the Spotlight: New Story Chapter

Immediately after releasing Chapters 4 and 5 last year, we got right to work on Chapter 6 and are proud to report we have made significant progress! In this quest ye can look forward to continuing yer hunt for the Headstone, uncovering new locations in old stomping grounds, and exploring brand-new islands! We have done an incredible amount of research into what the future would have held for the original Pirates Online had it not closed down in 2013 and are continuing to pay homage to the original Pirates Online developers' intentions in this new quest.

Our team is making significant progress in creating new islands, interiors, caves, jungles, and other elements to enrich the environment for the upcoming Story Chapter.As shown in the picture to the right, we are dedicated to breaking new ground and expanding the Caribbean with meticulous attention to detail, ensuring a fresh and immersive experience for all players.

We are happy to announce that we have finished creating 80% of the in-game locations ye will see during the next Story Chapter! However, we will not be sharing any specific details about the quest itself at this time or any anticipated release dates.

We know ye will love this new quest and are incredibly excited!

In the Spotlight: Weapon Upgrade Refactor

Thanks to YER feedback, we have refactored Weapon Upgrade quests to improve quality of life with these quests and increase incentives for player exploration.

    => All Weapon Upgrade quests no longer appear in yer journal by default. Instead, ye must pick them up like a side quest.
    => Ye are no longer required to have completed the level 15 Weapon Upgrade quests to begin the level 20 Weapon Upgrade quests, but ye must still have reached level 20 in the appropriate reputation track.
    => Ye can now drop Weapon Upgrade quests from yer journal.

Weapon Upgrade Quests can now be picked up from the following NPCs:

    => Alexander Thayer (Tri-Barrel Pistol)
    => Erasmus Grimsditch (Grand Pistol)
    => Ferrera (Bloodletter Dagger)
    => John Wallace (Coltello Dagger)
    => Roland Raggart (Vile Staff)
    => Romany Bev (Taboo Doll)
    => Tia Dalma (Pirate Doll & Harrow Staff)
    => Will Turner (Both Sword Quests)

In the Spotlight: Weather

Those of ye who have been with us for awhile may remember this feature from the earliest days of Beta. We have been hard at work creating a new weather system.

Picture this: as ye navigate yer mighty ship through the vast High Seas, dark clouds gather on the horizon, signaling the approach of an imminent tempest. The wind picks up, howling through the rigging, and rain begins to pelt down, drenching the deck. Lightning flashes across the sky, illuminating the menacing waves that surge around ye. With each thunderclap, yer crew braces themselves, ready to face the fury of the elements.

In the Spotlight: Original Island Caves & Interiors

Almost 2 years ago in the Summer of 2021, we re-released the Original Islands and for the first time in 12 years, players set foot on the previously lost land. However, the savvy eyed among ye may have noticed there weren't any doors, caves, or jungles!

We haven't forgotten about them! It turns out putting a door or cave into a Lobby was not part of the original plan and the code needed some refactoring to be able to support instances within instances. We've finished this up and are just about ready to release these lost relics back to the game once more!

Do ye recognize the game location in the image to the right? Leave a comment below with yer best guess for its name!

Behind the Scenes: Quest Editing

Did ye know that for almost every quest we've ever added we had to manually edit by hand the existing exported quest database file the game uses? Yuck! This by itself was a very error prone and tedious process that we spent countless hours working through. As a reverse engineered game, we didn't have any of the tools used to be able to create the quest database that we were editing - until now!

We have written a full visual Quest Editor that lets us build incredibly elaborate quest experiences without all of the manual data editing that we used to be doing.

Before we start inputting all of a quest into the game, we first write the quest out in very detail design documents line by line. That way, by the time are working on adding something into the game itself, it's already long planned out and we know exactly what we need to do.

We began work on inputting Chapter 4 dialog into the game around September 2021 as we normally would've; by hand. However, if ye ever played Chapter 4 then ye know inputting all that dialog and those quests would've been no easy feat! We knew fast we needed a better solution and that led us to create the Quest Editor!

We hashed out all the foundational work for the editor when adding Chapter 4 into the game and got it nicely polished up when adding Chapter 5 and the Storage Unlock Quest. With this new tool, we've been able to spend so much more time focusing on brand-new content that ye will be able to experience during a quest. An early example of this is the interactive world environments seen in Chapter 4 with rebuilding Pagia's Wagon and moving the crew to a secret hideout.

Behind the Scenes: Level Editing

Some of the most fun work we do is creating new environments, also known as "level editing". Much like the situation we described with adding new quests, for the longest time didn't have a level editor for the game. This meant that any new environment had to be painstakingly created by-hand, prop-by-prop.

No longer! We have made building tools to assist in creating new content a top priority. We first got a simple level editor working a few years ago that could move props around and add new props, but we have since recently expanded it into a full sandbox where ye can craft completely custom game environments from the ground up and export them straight into the game.

Conclusion

As we reflect on past years, we can't help but feel a sense of pride in how far we've come together. Yer support and passion have been instrumental in our determination to keep creating new content that exceeds all expectations. Thank ye for being the beating heart of our game, and may the future be filled with countless more moments of joy and wonder.

We have put a big focus on quality of life and are thrilled of all the results we're seeing from this work. Another big focus we've had is on engagement. We are actively thinking of ways to keep players engaged while playing and are developing content toward that mission. We're very excited for all of the upcoming content in the works and will be sharing more information as it gets closer to being ready for release.

Before we go, check out this mesmerizing population distribution graph of the game, showcasing the diverse player community traversing our virtual universe!

Stay tuned for an unforgettable journey that awaits just beyond the horizon!

See ye next time!
The Crew @ TLOPO