Revisiting Naval Action

[MengJiao]

  And here's the Pandora (with hammocks I can have the right crew for this ship):

  Nabbed a British Brig-load of rare Italian museum-quality couch-sized rare Italian wood, for over a million reales (really!) during the rare, rare Italian wood-week-end in Naval Action!

  (see below...  Pandora in the shallows spearing grouper when this brig came up to spoil our fishing):

[MengJiao]

   Not sure what's going on here.  I think this is the 12-pdr frigate L'Hermione under battle sails...but with some minor sail damage.

[Destraex]

Well Since Star Citizen 4.0 is taking some time I jumped back into Naval Action and it has me in it's clutches again. I only really want two things improved. 1. Rudder Increment keys 2. Boarding in 3D.

It's been a blast so far. XP no longer resets upon wipes either. So whatever work I do XP wise sticks. With my DLC ships that means all I need to do is buy canon upon a wipe I would say. Have to experience it to be sure though.

The other thing anybody that wants to jump back in will need to know is that the server to join is the left hand one of the three. That one is the only one new players can join no apparently and has so many safe zones it's like a PVE server rather than a PVP server. There are about 300 players on during peak. So not even many players to attack you. The game at it's peak way back was about 6000 concurrent players iirc.

The server to join


All that green is where PVP cannot happen. Generally it feels like international waters are everywhere.

[Destraex]

This kinda rocked my world. The devs have announced that they, I assume, are buying naval action. Very excited about this because it means they leave the clutches of whom ever purchased their parent games labs. The game now has an even chance of being revived to a reasonable playerbase again. Not that I am not currently enjoying it.

"Admiralty Speaker — Today at 1:57 AM
Big News Captains!

Starting VERY soon Naval Action its development and support will taken over by me from Game Labs.  Big changes and the promised patch will come after acquisition the game will be evolving and improving. I cant yet share all details but parts of the details will be posted next week."

[Destraex]

Huge changes seem to be afoot at games labs (owned by stillfront).

Naval Action - under new management soon
Sea Legends - under new management soon, presumably the same team that is taking over naval action.
Ultimate General series - seems to be losing at least one major staff member just after release. I guess this makes sense but these days you expect devs to stay on and refine a game for years to come.

[Pete Dero]

In today's video I (The Historical Gamer) discuss the news of Game-Labs two most well known devs leaving and one of their upcoming games (Sea Legends) being sold/offloaded.

[Destraex]

Yeah I saw this. A great shame he does not credit Naval Action enough in it.
Naval Action was in Alpha\Beta for many years before his stated release date on steam. A little like MWO. Many years of popular gameplay before final release. To me Naval Action IS game labs core.

[Old TImer]

If they ever made a single player version of this, it would fulfill a long standing dream.  A  proper age of sail game.  It wouldn't even need a campaign (though that would be pretty cool)....  Just give me the ships and a proper mission builder so I can make historical battles.  I can't believe such a game doesn't exist since Privateers Bounty Age of Sail.  With today's graphics my gosh what could be....

EDIT:  So this company is dead or dying.   It figures.  Oh Microprose???

[Destraex]

I would not say it's dead yet. I think the Devs want to continue and the IP does seem to be moving over to them for the UG and NA games. But we will have to see.

[Destraex]

No more wipes ever they say. Patch is out.

I have seen 1200 people on personally. But generally it's around 800.

Lots of interesting new mechanics that people are misunderstanding or the devs are not communicating, thus a lot of complaining from the playerbase.

We will see how long this population lasts.

Gunpowder and shot as consumables are particularly unpopular with the pvp crowd.

 A lack of trading goods profits beyond player driven economics has spme people upset about having to find their own human niche to supply in order to make real money.

Another interesting thing seems to be that once ports are taken their are generally only that factions AI shipping around. This means people have to venture beyond their own factions borders to get some action even against the A.I. .

You also have the "in ballast" mechanic that makes your ship slower of you are carrying no cargo or too much.

[Destraex]

Well. I am finding that the main server is pretty good for trading because combat is so expensive now. Not many people fighting because they have to pay for ball and powder.
Population is still holding at 500-1000 on at any one time during the day so far.