NAVAL ACTION wipe 19th-20th April - But an early access ship announced

[Destraex]

It's been a really long journey for these devs. This is the first wipe for a long time. I actually welcome the reboot.

Hello Captains.
This is an important announcement on the asset wipe. 

Most importantly - your xp is safe.

Bad news
All assets (including money) will have to be removed from the game. We tried hard to find the way to keep the assets, but unfortunately due to the sheer volume of resources accumulated during experiments (which sometimes provided too much money or resources or both). In addition to that keeping resources will not allow us to properly test the economy changes, ship changes (including 1 durability), upgrade changes, npc resource distribution. All assets will be removed. We will provide 4 ships of various rank as redeemables to all players to give some head start.

Good news
We mentioned some time ago (several times) that all participants of the early access will receive rewards for all the pains endured during this hazardous voyage. Today we can announce a first exclusive reward (there could be more) that all players who have owned the game during early access will receive.

Pandora - beautiful, fast and agile light frigate famous for the search for the Bounty after her mutiny.
veKKwIC.jpg

The ship will be delivered on release of the game or maybe earlier (for testing). It will be added to redeemables in one of two forms (we do not yet know which and will provide more information on this closer to release) un-tradeable permanent blueprint, or an eternal redeemable ship similar to the yacht.

Timeline (timelines are not final)

Series of patches will be applied to testbed by the 10th of April (last patch to testbed was applied on 27th Feb)
Asset wipe by 19th of April
Preparation of the server merges and reorganization by 19th of April
Opening of servers 19th-20th April


We understand that the action we take could be painful but it is absolutely needed for proper testing of the game before the release.
Thank you for your attention.
http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/19501-important-news-first-full-asset-wipe-exclusive-early-access-frigate/&

[RedArgo]

I'm looking forward to the reboot.  My main character is US on PVP1, but I played for a bit on PVP2 as Spanish and it was fun being back in a basic cutter exploring parts of the map I had never been to.  I do need to go on PVP1 again though, I have a Victory and Santisima that haven't even seen action yet, so I need to take them out until they're sunk.

I'd be great when we move to PVP Global if we can see the distribution of players and their timezone so everyone can spread out a bit to the different nations instead of everyone piling on to a couple nations.

[mikeck]

PvE has been batted back and forth. Originally, there was to be a PvE area of the map encompassing the Gulf of Mexico mainly. The devs then decided- because of the wailing of people like me who only play PvE- to keep the PvE server and begin to add meat to it with NPCs that can attack and such. That was the biggest flaw in PvE...the player couldn't be attacked by ANYONE...not just humans. So I would sail my English HMS Indefatigable right passed a French fleet and they wouldn't blink. That needs to change...and it will

I know it has to happen but I can't say that I am looking forward to the wipe. I don't want to have to go make tons of money again to buy my ships. Plus-apparently, the color quality system is scrapped- my ships were all gold and upgraded. I had an Indefatigable, Endymion, Constitution, Essex, Agamemnon and Renomme. Love them all and they are all getting wiped. Gonna be a long time until I can sail my Agamemnon between to frigates and watch her 24 and 18 lb'ers rip them to shreds. Back to the cutter

[MengJiao]

I'm looking forward to the reboot.  My main character is US on PVP1, but I played for a bit on PVP2 as Spanish and it was fun being back in a basic cutter exploring parts of the map I had never been to.  I do need to go on PVP1 again though, I have a Victory and Santisima that haven't even seen action yet, so I need to take them out until they're sunk.

I'd be great when we move to PVP Global if we can see the distribution of players and their timezone so everyone can spread out a bit to the different nations instead of everyone piling on to a couple nations.

I'm on PVP Global...which seems to be in North America server-wise.  I'm Spanish.  What's odd is that the Pirates and everyone else have taken almost all the Spanish ports so now I'm more or less a pirate and the pirates have an empire in the New World.  Of course they can attack each other, but this only makes them sort of more an alien infestation than an Empire -- it seens unlikely that pirates could administer an empire.

[Destraex]

Pirates are a major problem in Naval Action. Because of movies like Pirates of the Caribbean every man jack and his dog wants to be what they perceive as freedom fighter dave... in other words a pirate.
There have been long winded debates with the pirate kiddies on the naval action forums about making it so that major colonies cannot be conquered by pirates and that they can only have ships up to a certain limit. Because naturally they would not be able to maintain large enough crews and pay for the huge expense of a ship of the line fleet. That is for nations with a civilian population supporting them with other
industry and farming etc. A proper economy in other words. Heck an entire Australian clan of over 50 members swapped to pirates in protest at the above long ago. Promising to rejoin the brits when a fix was patched in. Effectively pirates are one of the most powerful nations simply because of the romance behind being a pirate, which for the most part is nowhere near the reality.

But I fear the devs are in too deep. If they change pirate mechanics now they will cheese off 50% of the community.

[MengJiao]

Pirates are a major problem in Naval Action. Because of movies like Pirates of the Caribbean every man jack and his dog wants to be what they perceive as freedom fighter dave... in other words a pirate.
There have been long winded debates with the pirate kiddies on the naval action forums about making it so that major colonies cannot be conquered by pirates and that they can only have ships up to a certain limit. Because naturally they would not be able to maintain large enough crews and pay for the huge expense of a ship of the line fleet. That is for nations with a civilian population supporting them with other
industry and farming etc. A proper economy in other words. Heck an entire Australian clan of over 50 members swapped to pirates in protest at the above long ago. Promising to rejoin the brits when a fix was patched in. Effectively pirates are one of the most powerful nations simply because of the romance behind being a pirate, which for the most part is nowhere near the reality.

But I fear the devs are in too deep. If they change pirate mechanics now they will cheese off 50% of the community.

  What's odd is that effectively, I'm a Pirate since:
1) There are few ports open to me
2) I can attack almost anyone I see
3) If I do have large crews available, I'm not going to risk them all in a big warship

So the pirate dynamic is odd in this game.  But that's more a result of making the game persistant (which is a real game-wrecker in my opinion)

Better to have short campaigns or wars like say WWII Online did (or does if they still exist).

For the moment the game is pretty fun...found a note in a bottle and I'm going across pirate-infested waters (well that's the whole game really) to find a shipwreck.

[mikeck]

I agree. Right now it seems like everyone is at war with everyone. So playing as a Brit, I can attack every non-British ship. It's still Beta but right now it just seems like a free-for-all

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I stayed in PvE but ended up quitting after the wipe.  I wasn't bothered by that as much as the fact that they went and reset my control scheme.  Remapping's a bitch as the game autodetects my HOTAS and it swaps in joystick inputs for every single key I try to remap.  I unplugged the throttle and stick and remapped my controls but when I plugged the stuff back in, the stupid game decided the HOTAS inputs would take preference over my key controls without my say so.

[Destraex]

You use a hotas to play naval action? I have never heard of anybody doing that. Impressive.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

No, I don't.  That's the problem.  I want to remap my controls to the numberpad but when I do, each time I go to input a key command (say replave sails up's "W" with "NUM8", the game detects a joystick axis and maps in "Joy1 -y-axis" before I can select "NUM8".  I unplugged my HOTAS and then remapped the keys how I wanted (and how I used to have it pre-wipe) but when I plug the HOTAS back in, the game starts using joystick and throttle signals as inputs even though I don't want it to and I can't find any way of shutting it off other than either unplugging the devices or resetting controls to default.

[MengJiao]

No, I don't.  That's the problem.  I want to remap my controls to the numberpad but when I do, each time I go to input a key command (say replave sails up's "W" with "NUM8", the game detects a joystick axis and maps in "Joy1 -y-axis" before I can select "NUM8".  I unplugged my HOTAS and then remapped the keys how I wanted (and how I used to have it pre-wipe) but when I plug the HOTAS back in, the game starts using joystick and throttle signals as inputs even though I don't want it to and I can't find any way of shutting it off other than either unplugging the devices or resetting controls to default.

  That's pretty bad.  There's an amazing amount of total crap in the game system and in the overall construction of the game -- which is sad because they have a great world and fantastic ships and the battles are entertaining -- but they can't seem to make an worthwhile game out of it.  If I were them I'd rebuild it with a more focused structure and maybe include some pay-to-win stuff and an editor for solo battles.  More like Heroes and Generals meets ARMA III than an old-style RPG with a persistant world and "economy"...

[mikeck]

I think it would go a long way if they tied the mission system into the admiralty. I don't feel like I'm a British captain. Maybe an option to become a naval officer..a career path. You get steady income, prize money and access to better ships, free crew and free repairs. But upon leavimg, you don't get the ship. You receive missions and orders from the admiralty. Or you can do the old way and privateer.

Basically something structural so I don't feel like I'm playing Elite

[MengJiao]

I think it would go a long way if they tied the mission system into the admiralty. I don't feel like I'm a British captain. Maybe an option to become a naval officer..a career path. You get steady income, prize money and access to better ships, free crew and free repairs. But upon leavimg, you don't get the ship. You receive missions and orders from the admiralty. Or you can do the old way and privateer.

Basically something structural so I don't feel like I'm playing Elite

  Anything other than the archaic RPG theory that "you craft things for your guild" would be a huge improvement.  I don't see why the player (who spends most of his time commanding a ship of some sort) should have to get coal to melt the pig iron for his long guns (but not for medium guns...they just drift in from alien pirate space or something).  You can buy a whole ship, but getting gear to repair it is more difficult unless of course somebody crafts it for their guild.  The craft things for your guild "economy" has wrecked more games than generalized hit points have.

[Destraex]

I think it would go a long way if they tied the mission system into the admiralty. I don't feel like I'm a British captain. Maybe an option to become a naval officer..a career path. You get steady income, prize money and access to better ships, free crew and free repairs. But upon leavimg, you don't get the ship. You receive missions and orders from the admiralty. Or you can do the old way and privateer.

Basically something structural so I don't feel like I'm playing Elite

They kind of have in the latest build but I am not grinding enough to find out at the moment.
I would love some kind of coop campaign, unfortunately they are a small team so they have to prioritise features they can complete in a reasonable timeframe.