Henry d'Esterre Darby

You fell athwart my hawse when you made the negative statement about their customer service, along with an expectation that they exceed the schedule they have posted everywhere. Perhaps the better phrase might have been "I hope they release keys faster than Friday again this week" rather than "I'm starting to get concerned about their customer support if they are unable to provide keys to players who have actually purchased the game with in a few days.".

You might want to brush up on your reading comprehension before complaining sir. It is clearly stated in multiple places, including in the thread you just posted within, that keys are sent out every Friday. This is an Alpha build, and processes such as key assignment are likely a manual process, needing one person on a very small team of developers to sit down and actually create the user accounts, etc manually. If you're expecting immediate customer service, and lightning fast responses, instead of waiting for a key you'll want to wait for a later stage of development. We'd love to have you help us test, but your pre-order wasn't for access to the game immediately, it was for access to the game at a later stage of development, before it is offered to the public at large. That they're granting you access to the alpha Sea Trials build is a bonus. Expect bugs, down time, and issues. If you're expecting a polished product with a 24 hour customer service department, you're in the wrong place. Understand, I'm not trying to be rude, nor to drive you off, but it is vital that everyone who is running the game at this time understand the exact point in development - which is extremely early and unfinished - before they develop expectations that are unreasonable.

You're also assuming "chase" meant tearing along at 12kts - it might have been far slower in light air. If we can find that incident, I would love to read about it!

Good afternoon Mr. Ruffin. While no game is immune from "those" kinds of players online, we do try to keep a fairly mature and friendly community feel. Please, both here and at the helm, ask questions and if you're confused, sing out! We'll be happy to help you learn the ropes. Welcome!

You didn't automatically lose the anchor if you cut the cable - you could always buoy the end for later retrieval.

Do you have a hardware or software firewall? How are you connecting to the internet?

I think clubhauling was mainly an emergency maneuver, and only done at very slow speeds to ensure the ship made stays when being blown onto a lee shore. To do so at full sail or a high speed would likely cause the cable to part and loss of the anchor.

Bearing in mind that the initial Open World prototype will be, much like Sea Trials, a rudimentary implementation to test travel times, etc. I'm sure the more advanced concepts of ownership of property and such will not be seen until the future.

Other media can "handle" it because, if you'll notice, none of those movies, books, cartoons, etc. generally have the "good guys" slaving. The good guy is always the one helping slaves to escape, or make it onto the railroad, or is liberating them in his man of war. Books, generally the same. You don't see a mainstream book where the lead character is out slaving. Gaming is different, and the news is looking for an angle. Let's imagine this article stinger: "Meet Bob. Bob is your average person, living in an apartment in New York. What you might not know about this paper salesman who grew up in Toledo is that he makes a profit by owning and trading African slaves." Main Article: "Bob plays a game called Naval Action, in which, trading in chained African slaves is a lucrative profession. "Sure, you lose a bunch on the crossing, and that cuts into profits" Bob tells us, "but the ones you have left, the ones that aren't too sick at least, more than make up for the cost of the journey. Oh look, here's the Caribbean Mansion I bought with the profits! I can even use the slaves to reduce the cost of the sugarcane I grow to sell to other players...." It's bad. It's just bad all the way around. It's ripe for players to abuse with racist and derogatory names, clan names, etc. It allows a tiny company like Naval Action to open themselves up to retaliatory lawsuits by various "rights" organizations, protests, boycotts, and even hacking and DDOS attacks by "socially conscious" hacker groups. While a huge company like Sony just makes a call over to the legal department to have lawyers respond to frivolous lawsuits and other legal actions, a group of folks like Game Labs doesn't have that luxury, nor the extra money around to spend hundreds of thousands defending themselves in court. It's not about forgetting history, or covering things up, it's about profits in a litigious and racially charged political environment. Slavery is a huge can of worms, it is not a core feature necessary for a game about the age of sail to succeed. If you want to make a mission "stop the slave ship", or "bombard the slave trading towns to get them to stop", great. That's a heroic action that nobody can find fault with. If you want to make slaves a trading commodity, let's just stop right there and say no, it's not worth the crap-storm that such things will land on NA's doorstep.

From what we understand, there will be two game modes - an instant battle, similar to what we have now, just hop in and play a PvP match, and an Open World, which will handle much more like an MMO with a persistant, player influenced world. Details are still a little sketchy, but take a few minutes to look at new posts by "Admin" and you can rapidly see some of the "how things might work" threads that have been posted.

Well, I said was complete.

That feature will come when they work on the character creation features. For now, it's set unfortunately.

This one is pretty complete: http://www.photographers1.com/Sailing/NauticalTerms&Nomenclature.html

Sorry Jak, no amount of begging can make the next batch of keys from Valve be delivered any faster - the developers have to wait for them too. We all hope they come in soon.

The only remaining thing I can think of is a missing font, but it will take a developer to tell you what that is. Please press F11 in game while you're seeing the issue, fill out the form, and submit it so that GL can take a look.

As far as I'm concerned, Madam Andropedia's LaCroix's clothing is quite tasteful and "period" enough. It is indeed far more revealing than your genteel London Lady prefer, but I believe it looks to be of far more utility aboard ship than a ballgown.

http://navalaction.pl/index.php/Main_Page I believe Mr. Prezesoi already has one running. Try creating an account and knock yourself out.

Is that wind riffles by design? Looks like little riffles on the surface from the wind. If not, thanks for the screens, they will be quite valuable for the developers. Also, hit F11 while you're seeing that and fill out the resulting report so the devs can see all relevant settings and information for troubleshooting.

Which console? There are three. One is the main command console - ~ to open and close. One is the sound log - K to open and close. One is the shot/damage log - L to open and close. If it's not one of those, please to describe it so we can help you.

Excellent. If it is not a problem with your Paypal account, post again here and let Naval Action know so that further troubleshooting can occur.

That's a new one. Please try reinstalling the game from scratch, see if that helps.

Please contact Paypal support. The error might be Paypal related.

The redirect apparently isn't working, but if you got your receipt from PayPal you're in the queue.

I think we can be historical without including slavery. Yes, it happened, however, such a bleak spot in human history doesn't need to be placed in a game that is meant to be fun in my opinion. Much like excluding women as ship captains, it's just an unnecessary bow to history.

In my opinion, pirate towns should buy cheap and sell high. If you come in with a big cargo to sell, they're not going to be able to sell most of that locally, it'll have to be fenced or otherwise given proper stamps and false papers to be taken and sold in a "legitimate" port elsewhere (what are the locals going to do with a few tons of cotton, or whatnot???). So you should get rock bottom dollar when you sell, and have to pay extra for the same problems for goods that you purchase. Piracy and freeports, while they don't involve Crown Taxes, do involve paying off the local warlords and fences, as well as covering "protection" money, etc. to keep the local legitimate governments off of your back. It's not like everyone in the area won't know what and where a pirate port is - the key is in nobody legitimate in the area deciding to get a few SOLs and wiping it off of the map. To do that takes tons of bribes and other gratuities to keep the authorities looking the wrong direction. This reduction in income and higher price structure will keep piracy a less attractive option, which it should be.