Rutger Van Hoorn

I'm leaning towards having a list to choose from, possibly supplemented by a pay-for-custom (in-game or real moneys tbd) as some have suggested. Available names could include: ***Major city, province/state, sea and land area names of the era per nation (including current and historical colonies), plus city derived names in their language (Wappen of Hamburg for example, with Wappen being German for crest I believe. Others could be "shield", "sword", "protector", ...) ***Historical national figures of the past eras, per nation. (National heroes, former statesmen, figures of legend) ***"Motivational" and "boastful" names (couldn't come up with a better term...) such as "Spirit", "Defiance", "Usurper", ... ***Mythological names/creatures. Greek, Roman, Norse and other mythological names such as "Odin", "Neptune"/"Poseidon", "Ragnarok", "Zoroaster", "Bellerophon", "Leviathan", "Baba Yaga", "Incubus", "Metatron"... →Each name could have parameters to allow availability depending on nations/factions/careers. Another database person could have a lot of fun setting this up PS Take note that as with other MMOs, there will be an international multicultural community at play: Some names might be offensive to some people, completely obscure to others because of language/cultural differences. Plus this is a historical leaning MMO, so anything that is out of character would take away from the game. Please no 1337-speak names! Just my 2 cents of course.

I can't argue with that one! All aboard! (or more accurately.. all under the table...) I guess as Flemish we could be exporting beer. After all, Stella Artois dates back to 1366 Attempting a few French ones (it's a bit rusty so please feel free to correct, dear francophiles!): La Mouette Fou (The crazy seagull) Le Poissson (word play on fish=poisson and poison=poisson) La Sirène Laide (the ugly mermaid) La Fantôme de l'épave (the ghost of the sunken ship) I'll leave others to actual French speakers

Doesn't have to be all Ingles-ish right? Just throwing some potential Dutch tavern names around: De Zeven Zonden (The Seven sins) De Zeerover (The "sea-robber" ~= casual word for pirate) Het Groot Genot (literally "the large enjoyment") De Hoorn des Overvloeds (The Horn of Plenty / Cornucopia) De Vliegvis (the flying fish) Moeders mooiste ("mommy's prettiest...") De Dronken Draak (The Drunk Dragon)

Not sure how you could play out being "neutral" while being for example a French captain in English waters while both are at war with each other. This could be done in so many different ways. Just throwing some thoughts around: *Large ports could stick more with the national line and automatically fire at patrons of the wrong nation, while smaller ports could be more lenient. *Merchants could get an exempt from certain ports/nations to allow them to trade. (you'd need a special contact in your own nations ports) *With reputation: if you have a good rep with for example England as a French captain, but then those nations declare war. You could still be respected while being an enemy, allowing you more freedom in trading/visiting at ports of warring nations. ***Question on this: did flying under false colors occur often (or ever) when trying to sail into an enemy port, for whatever reason? As for if nations should be cosmetic or not. I can imagine some nations have certain pluses and minuses. English naval training was known to be superior to most, while the Dutch have always had a knack for trading/merchandising. Those differences don't have to be big, but "near-cosmetic"/nuanced, for say "flavoring". (As a negative, the English would have warm beer, and the Dutch can only buy wooden shoes... just kidding!)

It could be put in place in form of, once you issue the command to fire, the fire command stays "active" for a few seconds, meaning in this case you would fire all guns that are currently bearing, and those that will bear in the next seconds as you sail past.

Logging off should be pretty straight forward rules. No activity or interactions pending means you can log off. If you're in the middle of something, you can't. It's logging back in that is the question. Always where you left off since you furl your sails and tell the crew "I'm going somewhere, please wait a few weeks in this very boring spot!"? Or will it be more elaborate than that, that is closer to realism? I'm fully aware this is one of the disconnection points (pardon the pun) of any MMO. At some point you have to exit the virtual world and have it move on by itself. Most MMOs treat this as "logged off = you're virtually dead to the world, and you will respawn out of thin air at the exact same point of virtual death"

Mixed feelings about this. As others pointed out, could be incentive for the wrong thing (post count spams, arguments) but I guess those could be policed out just like any other bad apples. Personally, I'd settle for "Royal PITA" (royal pain-in-the-@ss)

Saying it like that wants to make me buy a 3D printer, hook it up and whenever I sink someone, have it print a bottle of rum! (Note: 3D printers can't do that... yet... and I'd be waiting for that bottle for a looong time before ready LOL)

That ties in a bit with the long travel times that some have been dreading. I'm all for a system that allows you to sail your ship to a far away port while offline, but that opens so many loopholes as in avoiding PvP and all that. Aside from that, I don't see how there would be much of a difference between logging into the game and coming back onto the open sea from an instance. But you should only get that minute of invisibility if you were offline long enough (longer than a few seconds/minutes as to avoid abuse)

My impression (as a non-native English speaker) is more that while the Queen's English might be taught in foreign schools, it's Americanized English that makes it to the actual conversation on the streets, due to popular media. Just listen to any English vocals music, even coming out of Britain; The accent always seems more "American". I do agree on the imperial measurement system. But I'd dread the day of changing over something like that in a country the size of the US!

I'm hoping for: 3. Historical Gaming -- I want the game to be as realistic as possible, while fun and balanced, so that in some (obvious) situations some ships have no chance against others, but so that skilled players can win in unbalanced match setup as was historically sometimes the case.

I voted officers. Hoping for a Xenonauts (or UFO: Enemy unknown) styled management system, or better!

Best imagined with a thick overly done British accent a-la John Cleese / Monty Python.

Indiamen, other large armed merchantmen.