EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW ~ Pirates of the High Seas/Pirates Online Rewritten

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Shamus The Brute said:
And that's fine. There is nothing wrong with you or anyone else feeling this way - Jim. From the way in which you have worded your comment, odds are fairy likely that you are either a teen, young adult, or an adult. Not that this matters much in the scheme of everything but I am an adult as well (if you are too).

Look. The biggest problem that I am currently having with both POTHS and another remake is that there remains a (potential) demographic age of player that to the best of my knowledge...both POTHS and another remake are willing to focus upon yet. What demographic am I referring to? :confused: It's young kids (mere 'children' if you will)! As an adult and as a parent, I am probably overstepping my bounds in saying this but, for some reason, I feel that I have an OBLIGATION to do everything in my power to assure that these kids do not become "heartbroken" again, as you say.

Let's face it. We have all been through enough heartache and disappointment as a result of Disney not giving a rat's @#%$! about the player loyalty which came from the years of everyone playing POTCO! Now that the game is gone, both POTHS and another remake have come onto the scene but they have each come onto the scene so strongly that (I feel) they each are missing the whole entire point of what we have ALL been through (since Sept. 19th)! *Does this make sense to anyone :confused:???

(If I am by myself in this, someone please just let me know and I will gladly 'pipe it down' a notch).

Specifically, what bothers me the most about how things are developing for both POTHS and another remake include those things I will list below (note: the following are of my own opinion alone and do not reflect the opinion of others or any particular forums community):

POTHS -
  • A reliance upon a forums platform as opposed to a website of their own. (Relying upon a forums to promote the game's development, such a decision disrupts the potential traffic older, more established forums communities could receive that have actually been catering to the needs of such players for years, long before POTCO was mismanaged by Disney)
  • The recent decision to revert back to the reliance upon Kickstarter (as opposed to 'Indiegogo'). *This decision directly affects younger players whom donate via PayPal if the "fixed" option of Indiegogo is chosen (as there donations could be refunded back to them, along with everyone else, if funding is unsuccessful). In contrast, Kickstarter provides no such refund at all for such players whom often rely upon PayPal to donate as a result of not being of age to own or use a credit card
another remake -
  • An initial reliance upon a forums platform as opposed to working website of their own. (Relying upon a forums to promote the game's development, such a decision disrupts the potential traffic older, more established forums communities could receive that have actually been catering to the needs of such players for years, long before POTCO was mismanaged by Disney)
  • A lack of initiation and general unconcern towards any sort of "follow-up" to the email message initially received from Disney which gave another remake a green light. (Since the time of the email, Disney Interactive has been plagued by mass 'employment layoffs' and the odds are more than likely that the individual or his/her colleagues or upper management that had given another remake permission to proceed with the emulator did not notify or enlighten the proper individuals concerning such a matter if their own jobs were in fact, dismissed)
Anyway, I apologize to both projects (and their developers) but unfortunately, this is just how I feel. Hopefully soon (and I do mean this), I hope to be proven wrong with all of this skepticism I am currently feeling. Thank Ye ~ ;)
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I would say our target audience is more directed to the "young adults" age group, but since its very likely younger audiences will be playing as well, we are preserving the child friendliness of the game.

Savage Mongrel said:
WHEN IS another remake GOING TO OPEN?
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The Alpha Players will be selected and should be informed of their victory by May 5th. It has taken longer than expected to review the 1700+ accounts that signed up. What we are doing is removing the extra accounts that have the same IP Address. So if there are three accounts with the same IP, only one of those are entered into the competition. Just a couple more days mates!
 
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I feel like I back in the game already, goodnight Irene LOL

WE ARE NOT BLIND. Spare the caps. :mad:

Is there a sign up for Beta testers?
 
So if u were to create Trading in game(something that wasn't part of the original game when they closed it) had the swabbies pay .would that be O.k. just tryin to figure out how. ???!

Shamus The Brute said:
And that's fine. There is nothing wrong with you or anyone else feeling this way - Jim. From the way in which you have worded your comment, odds are fairy likely that you are either a teen, young adult, or an adult. Not that this matters much in the scheme of everything but I am an adult as well (if you are too).

Look. The biggest problem that I am currently having with both POTHS and another remake is that there remains a (potential) demographic age of player that to the best of my knowledge...both POTHS and another remake are willing to focus upon yet. What demographic am I referring to? :confused: It's young kids (mere 'children' if you will)! As an adult and as a parent, I am probably overstepping my bounds in saying this but, for some reason, I feel that I have an OBLIGATION to do everything in my power to assure that these kids do not become "heartbroken" again, as you say.

Let's face it. We have all been through enough heartache and disappointment as a result of Disney not giving a rat's @#%$! about the player loyalty which came from the years of everyone playing POTCO! Now that the game is gone, both POTHS and another remake have come onto the scene but they have each come onto the scene so strongly that (I feel) they each are missing the whole entire point of what we have ALL been through (since Sept. 19th)! *Does this make sense to anyone :confused:???

(If I am by myself in this, someone please just let me know and I will gladly 'pipe it down' a notch).

Specifically, what bothers me the most about how things are developing for both POTHS and another remake include those things I will list below (note: the following are of my own opinion alone and do not reflect the opinion of others or any particular forums community):

POTHS -
  • A reliance upon a forums platform as opposed to a website of their own. (Relying upon a forums to promote the game's development, such a decision disrupts the potential traffic older, more established forums communities could receive that have actually been catering to the needs of such players for years, long before POTCO was mismanaged by Disney)
  • The recent decision to revert back to the reliance upon Kickstarter (as opposed to 'Indiegogo'). *This decision directly affects younger players whom donate via PayPal if the "fixed" option of Indiegogo is chosen (as there donations could be refunded back to them, along with everyone else, if funding is unsuccessful). In contrast, Kickstarter provides no such refund at all for such players whom often rely upon PayPal to donate as a result of not being of age to own or use a credit card
another remake -
  • An initial reliance upon a forums platform as opposed to working website of their own. (Relying upon a forums to promote the game's development, such a decision disrupts the potential traffic older, more established forums communities could receive that have actually been catering to the needs of such players for years, long before POTCO was mismanaged by Disney)
  • A lack of initiation and general unconcern towards any sort of "follow-up" to the email message initially received from Disney which gave another remake a green light. (Since the time of the email, Disney Interactive has been plagued by mass 'employment layoffs' and the odds are more than likely that the individual or his/her colleagues or upper management that had given another remake permission to proceed with the emulator did not notify or enlighten the proper individuals concerning such a matter if their own jobs were in fact, dismissed)
Anyway, I apologize to both projects (and their developers) but unfortunately, this is just how I feel. Hopefully soon (and I do mean this), I hope to be proven wrong with all of this skepticism I am currently feeling. Thank Ye ~ ;)
Click to expand...


Lol as old as the original Pirate ride in Anaheim.. and if i offended anyone i apologize , i want nothing more than to sail again. My account just ran out on swtor and i feel that game is way to expensive to play. After all the work Jack and everyone is doing i just don't want it to be in vain is all . i miss the game so much . and there isn't another online like it
 
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Jim Cannonhawk said:
Lol as old as the original Pirate ride in Anaheim.. and if i offended anyone i apologize , i want nothing more than to sail again. My account just ran out on swtor and i feel that game is way to expensive to play. After all the work Jack and everyone is doing i just don't want it to be in vain is all . i miss the game so much . and there isn't another online like it
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What I said above was not directed at you, Jim. Forgive me if it seemed that way, mate. :) Anyway, perhaps I have said too much already so going to do my best to not comment too much anymore about another remake or POTHS.

What I can't shake though (and also what I do find as 'ironic') is that in all of the time that the Revive POTCO petition had made an attempt to contact Disney and to gain in return a direct response from them, none was ever given by anyone currently employed within the company. Then, out of the blue, someone associated with Disney/Disney Interactive is giving not only another remake but also ToonTown Rewritten permission for them to do as they please with their respective emulators. idk. The whole thing does puzzle me some. *Anyway, what happens will happen I guess and, I am not going to worry about it anymore. ;)
 
Your Right to question this Shamus! i wonder if contacting the family somehow might help and telling them that there no reply at all and a dedicated fan base would like to know why??? baffles the brain mate..... and i don't understand it either.
 
POTHS Update:

- According to recent news posted on the POTHS forums, the once 3 person development team with active (fourth person CEO) is no more. :sad1: (Both Austin and Sam POTHS developers have been relieved from their duties due to inactivity).

An individual referred to on the POTHS forums as "Miranda" (aka Elizabeth Sunlegend) however has been promoted as game developer along with Zachary himself and Apez CEO. This is just a guess but, this Miranda is likely a close friend or family member to Zach himself. @Zachary - would I be incorrect in saying this is so? :confused:

Also @Zachary, why did it take so long for Apez to make this change due to POTHS struggling so much lately to churn out developmental updates?

Shamus ~
 
It is official. Pirates of the High Seas has closed.


I dont know if JDP will want to reply or any one else who worked on POTHS.

Here is the official statement from Zachary:
highseas.png
 
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And for people who need more info you can check out this post made by John Hexskull in the FB page. After some hours they shut down everything. At the same time William Sea Morgan was talking to Zachary in the chat, telling all the truth in front of many people. I guess he cracked after.

To APEZ, and any supporters of Pirates of the High Seas,

Pirates of the High Seas is full of scam and lies. APEZ (company running POTHS) doesn't care about their community or staff members. Me and a friend of mine recently tried to contract Zachary Coulter and Miranda "Sunlegend" of APEZ. However, Zachary did not care to even show up for three days, when he had a contract to sign. Not only that, but it led to more issues. Just a few minutes ago, I was IP banned from the Pirates of the High Seas forums... and that is why I am writing this.

Firstly, I am a former graphical developer for Pirates of the High Seas. My role was to create the islands using the Unity3d game engine and send them to Zachary. The deal was that I charge $10.00 USD per hour worked on the islands and that would be paid FULLY within the first month of the game's release. However, he refused to sign the contract. Let's take a step backward for a bit.

About a week and a half ago, I made a thread on the Pirates of the High Seas forums. It was deleted immediately by Zachary and I was IP banned from the forums (this is silencing my right to speak.) It exposed all of the problems behind APEZ and Pirates of the High Seas that Zachary has not addressed to the community. Here's a small briefing on those:

- He lied to the community and said he built the ocean for the game when instead it can be simply downloaded with a PREMADE scene (which he used and indirectly called it his own.) Search "Ocean Renderer for Unity" to find the ocean.

- It took him over two months to CHANGE THE COLOR of the ocean. It can be done simply with a color slider within seconds in Unity for even the most basic user.

- It takes him about three times the amount of time it takes me to create an island, to create a little barrel 3D model.

- He fired two staff members to hire someone named Miranda Sunlegend. Why? Because she's his girlfriend. That is the ONLY reason. His priorities are way out of order. She is recognized as a Developer when she doesn't have any knowledge of the programs she uses. She has yet to show ANYTHING she has made so far.

- The Pirates of the High Seas logo closely resembles the Pirate Bay logo. This could cause copyright issues.

- The APEZ logo closely resembles the Amsterdam coat of arms. This could cause copyright issues.

- It's been more than half a year and we, the community, have seen not but a barrel, half of a ship, half of a body that was made using a YouTube tutorial, some grass and a VERY basic sword.

So as you see, Zachary Coulter of APEZ have been hiding quite a lot. There's also rumor, yes, RUMOR that he has spent community money to buy himself a new computer. While this is most likely not true, this is a serious issue, if true. I cannot say anything else of this because there is no proof.

Back to that ocean, I have downloaded the exact same ocean and understand it fully, how it works. Apparently Zachary thinks he can fool the community, and me, that he created that. It was created by Eric Bruneton, a game asset designer. Taking credit for things you didn't make now, huh? Yeah, I'm not going to sit here and watch that happen.

While trying to issue the contract to Zachary, he tried to change a few things. Most notably, he tried to change it so that all work sent to him is owned by APEZ and can be reused by APEZ, thus allowing more profit to be gained. I was specifically developing for Pirates of the High Seas. Him being able to reuse the things that I was going to send to him allows him to make double, triple, quadruple the amount of profit. So basically he tried to scam me out of the deal.

So as you can see, Pirates of the High Seas is a very shady project. Do not, and yes, I mean DO NOT count on seeing a game released by APEZ under the name of Pirates of the High Seas. He is over a year behind schedule, has almost NOTHING to show, does terrible business, has 1500 supporters, and overall does not seem to have much knowledge of what he's doing. I leave you to either continue to support the project or move on.

Thank you for reading.

- John Hexskull, former island developer and private contractor.

And there's many more John didn't mention but I could... anyways.
 
Kate Goldwalker said:
It is official. Pirates of the High Seas has closed.


I dont know if JDP will want to reply or any one else who worked on POTHS.

Here is the official statement from Zachary:
View attachment 60647
Click to expand...

I am for some reason laughing but at the same time just shaking my head going "Wow". I would like to post the following: Sad revelations of the project and there are only two reasons that matter for reading it...
  1. To avoid Apez as they said "This is not the last of us".
  2. To make sure you know the person that took your money if you invested and do not get back.
To APEZ, and any supporters of Pirates of the High Seas,

Pirates of the High Seas is full of scam and lies. APEZ (company running POTHS) doesn't care about their community or staff members. Me and a friend of mine recently tried to contract Zachary and Miranda "Sunlegend" of APEZ. However, Zachary did not care to even show up for three days, when he had a contract to sign. Not only that, but it led to more issues. Just a few minutes ago, I was IP banned from the Pirates of the High Seas forums... and that is why I am writing this.

Firstly, I am a former graphical developer for Pirates of the High Seas. My role was to create the islands using the Unity3d game engine and send them to Zachary. The deal was that I charge $10.00 USD per hour worked on the islands and that would be paid FULLY within the first month of the game's release. However, he refused to sign the contract. Let's take a step backward for a bit.

About a week and a half ago, I made a thread on the Pirates of the High Seas forums. It was deleted immediately by Zachary and I was IP banned from the forums (this is silencing my right to speak.) It exposed all of the problems behind APEZ and Pirates of the High Seas that Zachary has not addressed to the community. Here's a small briefing on those:

- He lied to the community and said he built the ocean for the game when instead it can be simply downloaded with a PREMADE scene (which he used and indirectly called it his own.) Search "Ocean Renderer for Unity" to find the ocean.

- It took him over two months to CHANGE THE COLOR of the ocean. It can be done simply with a color slider within seconds in Unity for even the most basic user.

- It takes him about three times the amount of time it takes me to create an island, to create a little barrel 3D model.

- He fired two staff members to hire someone named Miranda Sunlegend. Why? Because she's his girlfriend. That is the ONLY reason. His priorities are way out of order. She is recognized as a Developer when she doesn't have any knowledge of the programs she uses. She has yet to show ANYTHING she has made so far.

- The Pirates of the High Seas logo closely resembles the Pirate Bay logo. This could cause copyright issues.

- The APEZ logo closely resembles the Amsterdam coat of arms. This could cause copyright issues.

- It's been more than half a year and we, the community, have seen not but a barrel, half of a ship, half of a body that was made using a YouTube tutorial, some grass and a VERY basic sword.

So as you see, Zachary of APEZ have been hiding quite a lot. There's also rumor, yes, RUMOR that he has spent community money to buy himself a new computer. While this is most likely not true, this is a serious issue, if true. I cannot say anything else of this because there is no proof.

Back to that ocean, I have downloaded the exact same ocean and understand it fully, how it works. Apparently Zachary thinks he can fool the community, and me, that he created that. It was created by Eric Bruneton, a game asset designer. Taking credit for things you didn't make now, huh? Yeah, I'm not going to sit here and watch that happen.

While trying to issue the contract to Zachary, he tried to change a few things. Most notably, he tried to change it so that all work sent to him is owned by APEZ and can be reused by APEZ, thus allowing more profit to be gained. I was specifically developing for Pirates of the High Seas. Him being able to reuse the things that I was going to send to him allows him to make double, triple, quadruple the amount of profit. So basically he tried to scam me out of the deal.

So as you can see, Pirates of the High Seas is a very shady project. Do not, and yes, I mean DO NOT count on seeing a game released by APEZ under the name of Pirates of the High Seas. He is over a year behind schedule, has almost NOTHING to show, does terrible business, has 1500 supporters, and overall does not seem to have much knowledge of what he's doing. I leave you to either continue to support the project or move on.

Thank you for reading.

- John Hexskull, former island developer and private contractor
Click to expand...

APEZ and POTHS never had the intention of creating an honest to goodness game. They could have used various assets given to them but instead polled for attention. As a former "Dev" to some extent, I have to say the above isn't fake. I was on their graphics team and to add on to the above, some of their staff were of a too young of age to have had moderation experience and also administrative skills. The fact they closed down was not a shocker and if they make off with the dough I tell you that is a major problem.
 
Remy said:
I knew this was coming for many months now, but I Really feel bad for all those supporters.. Being led to Have faith in nothing.. Being let down. It just makes me so mad that someone would do that.
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Only reason I feel bad for them is that they actually donated and big amounts of money too. They would trashtalk us and lie in order to cover themselves. Talking about the Staff mainly now. I do feel sorry for the regular people/supporters too, which is one more reason that led me to do this. I don't like people being fooled.
 
Remy said:
I knew this was coming for many months now, but I Really feel bad for all those supporters.. Being led to Have faith in nothing.. Being let down. It just makes me so mad that someone would do that.
Click to expand...
There are sick people and I feel for those who did not nor wanted not to listen to the critics of the POTHS Project. It wasn't a sound game to look forward to in the future. The people who supported it probably didn't get refunded as the funds probably went somewhere and the Staff have nothing to show for considering many of the actually "mature" (mature in the sense that they did have possible experience and weren't 12 years old) Staff members that had very inconsiderate attitudes and rude ones towards those with their opinions on the game. It saddens me some are devastated by the loss and will have a hit in their finances and expectations. It only shows that this is the real world and its not some joke what is said on TV.
 
I am not at all surprised... I wanted to donate when I first saw their website churning out stuff for their game, but decided against it because I knew the game would never come to fruition. I always had my doubts from the start and while it is a shame some people were tricked into donating this is yet another wake up call about the dangers of the internet. After all the hacking that went down in POTCO did anyone really not expect someone would try to do something like this? How could you blankly give away money on no promises and expect nothing to happen? I'm glad that I don't have to choose between games, however, and hope another remake does wonders and brings a true pirates game back to the table.
 
Bartholomew Bladespinner said:
Never trusted them in the fist placed i trust another remake right away mainly cause it was free
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While I do not exactly like another remake in the sense that the way they manage and how they are developing, I have stow my criticism for it away (for the moment) and agree with that. It is something you can trust as it is free and nothing you can worry losing your pennies over.
 
I'm not sure what to believe now. PotHS was the first pirate site I joined after potco, so it always meant a lot to me. I'm kind of disappointed about how everything ended this way, but everyone kind of expected this to happen, though.
Zach can actually be sued for fraud. He should at least open up and explain more to the topic. Just shutting down the site with a paragraph of saying sorry doesn't cut it. I was his friend for months, but he won't return anything I sent him on Skype or Instagram.
 
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