The World Is Up. The Ships are there... kinda.

Three new pages now! Each one breaks the world down (we call them cupcakes, because that makes it sound enjoyable, who doesn't like a cupcake after all?).

We have:

• The World
• The Fleet
• The People

The World is loosely based on the Spanish Main, a series of islands to explore, find loot, fight bad guys, make friends (and probably die horribly at one point), and discover new harbours and towns. The starting point of every great adventure is usually some run down place, and we are no different. Welcome to Rope's End. It has a deep harbour for the ships that trade goods (or, take others' goods), a tavern, and ummn... not a lot else we will disclose yet. Surrounding Rope's End are the seas from which the game gets its name "Iron Latitudes".

The People is an introduction to the initial cast of characters (10 so far), some good, some bad, some have to decide if they like you or not...

And lastly, the Fleet, 10 classes of ships we are revealing today from the one you hope doesn't sink crossing the cove, to a floating fortress.

The World · The People · The Fleet

What year is it?

So, while the game is founded in historical fact; things like the ships, treasure fleets, pirate names and characters, however... the setting, like all good games, has no real set date. There is no "What year is it?" to really be answered. We set the game in the "Golden Age of Piracy", which is roughly 1550 to 1720.

But whhhhyyyyyy?

It was too restrictive to be blunt. Depending on when we started the game by year, some epic ports would not be there to use, some ships no longer in service, etc... So, we decided to keep it "squishy" so that we could get kind of crazy with the ships available to you all, the ports you can visit, and the characters you will bump into. Like, you can't bump into Henry Morgan AND Blackbeard if we kept the timelines locked down.

...boo!

So, please pardon our liberal misuse of historical timelines. 😉

Ships!

So, we all know this is like... 85% of why anyone wants to play a pirate game... the ships. We might have gone overboard (HA! Dad joke... I'll see myself out). We have a few of them that you will be able to use depending on what career and skills you want to use and how you want to run your fleet.

We are still deep in the weeds of balancing the ships themselves and deciding who goes into the Closed Alpha, the closed Beta, and then Early Access.

However... without further procrastinating... a few that you will find in the game.

What to expect (I mean, unless you clicked the "The Fleet" link above, in which case, this is all just pretty words.)

The Spicy Little Guy: Sloop

A dozen guns on a ship drawing eight feet of water and it could turn on a dime (piece of eight?), and she could still run past twelve knots. A far more utilitarian and powerful ship than her size gives away.

The U-Haul of the Golden Age: Fluyt

You aren't going to win any races in this thing, and you probably should avoid picking a fight. She's not meant to run or fight, she's meant to haul goodies and do so with the smallest crew that could be managed. Great to plunder, great to haul plunder away in, but she will need an escort, else you are just as good as pickin's as she was when you plundered it from the last guy.

The Chonkie Boy: Galleon

The Manila galleons crossed the Pacific for two hundred and fifty years as the most tempting prize afloat, and in all that time only four of them were ever taken at sea. So... big, freaky fast in the right wind, and full of pokey bits. If you can take one, the rewards are worth it, but, make sure your insurance is paid up first.

You let me know how that turns out: Ships of the Line

Basically speaks for itself, they are in the game, pretty much only ever fielded by nation-states and approach at your own risk. Can you capture one? Sure. Will you probably need to replace the boat you attacked it with and most of your crew, also true. Can you get them without finding out what it feels like to wrestle an enraged gorilla in a phonebooth... maaaaaybbbbeeeee.

To see the rest of them, we have set up the Fleet page with a bit more details.

Where are the pictures?!

...working on it! Turns out migrating an asset incorrectly in Unreal Editor is... a bad idea (more on that lesson soon!)

Pictures (AND a video or two) to follow soon.