Gamer.no: What happens if you die in Pirates of the Burning Sea? What penalties are applied to your character upon death? And can you lose your ship to other players, and what happens if such a horrid thing should actually occur?
TD: You can most definitely lose your ship, either to sinking or because another player captures it and takes it for his own. But you can always get a new ship, even if you're broke. It's likely to be a small vessel, according to your reputation and the circumstances in which you lost your last one, and you'll have to perform various missions to pay for it. But we never leave you stranded.
Your character does not die. When your ship sinks, you respawn at a friendly port. We do not penalize your skills or stats -- only your reputation suffers, along with whatever money and items you might have lost with your ship.
Gamer.no: Please astonish us with technical nerd-speak. Seriously though, please tell us something about the graphics engine you are utilizing, how easy it is expand on the game, what kind of impressive effects the engine can deliver, and anything else that's on your mind.
TD: We are using the Alchemy engine. In our tests, we've had more than a million lit and shaded polygons on screen at once with acceptable frame rates -- this is a very powerful engine.
Our game is very much targeted at the latest video cards. We are making use of DirectX 9.0 and PixelShader 2.0 to make our oceans look better than any you've ever seen in a game. At present, we expect our minimum specs to be a 1gHz CPU, 512MB of RAM, and a GeForce 3 video card -- but our game will take as much hardware as you can throw at it and give you better and better visuals as a result.
Gamer.no: Except for the obvious pirate setting, what do you think will make Pirates of the Burning Sea different from other online games on the market? And what is it about the game that is going to keep players glued to their screen month after month?
TD: Our approach to PvP combat is very fun and very different. Many players have expectations that all PvP means griefing gankfests, and that's not what we want. Realtime tactical ship-to-ship combat is not the same as combat you've seen in other games, and it makes PvP really exciting and a challenge for everyone involved.
History and sailing buffs are going to be thrilled. Our ship models are more detailed than anything you've ever seen, with some ships having as many as a quarter of a million polygons. The ships are beautiful and they sail great.
Most importantly, we believe our approach to characters is going to win converts. No classes and no levels means there's no need to start over with a new character every time you want to try something new. You can keep your character, shift your skill development, change professions, and keep building your reputation. You're going to build your own legend, one sun-soaked Caribbean day at a time.
And finishing off with those dreamy words, we say thanks to Taylor Daynes for the interview, and wish him and the rest of the team good luck on Pirates of the Burning Sea, and all future endavours.
