Forum discussions are now taking place on Discord. For all account questions and concerns, please continue to contact Customer Support directly.

Keep updated on Pirate101 on Twitter @Pirate101, Facebook, Discord, and @KI_Alerts!

No Catbeard

AuthorMessage
Petty Officer
Oct 29, 2011
95
Catbeard will not appear for me when I have to talk to him for upgrading my ratbeard to a rat captain. I am a little late to do the quest but I can't actually complete it because if I remember correctly, catbeard is gone from his ship at the point of the story I am in and I don't know what to do.

Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
frostednutella on Oct 22, 2017 wrote:
Catbeard will not appear for me when I have to talk to him for upgrading my ratbeard to a rat captain. I am a little late to do the quest but I can't actually complete it because if I remember correctly, catbeard is gone from his ship at the point of the story I am in and I don't know what to do.
You must continue through Marleybone and free Catbeard from prison - then you can promote Ratbeard.

Lieutenant
Oct 28, 2012
145
You must complete Marlybone to get him to return. If i remember correctly, Boochbeard should have said a tutorial tip when you walk over to where Catbeard should be explaining this.

Captain
Jan 17, 2012
672
Chances are, Catbeard is in Marleybone prison. You will have to complete Marleybone before you can find him on his ship in Port Royale again.

This is why you never, ever, postpone a promotion.

Admiral
May 30, 2010
1221
Keep slogging through until you get to the end of Marleybone and all will be well. Hard cheese for Ratbeard, of course, but he's probably used to it when you consider all the pirates that did exactly what you did (which you have to do, of course, but it's still annoying).

Lieutenant
Jul 18, 2016
159
frostednutella on Oct 22, 2017 wrote:
Catbeard will not appear for me when I have to talk to him for upgrading my ratbeard to a rat captain. I am a little late to do the quest but I can't actually complete it because if I remember correctly, catbeard is gone from his ship at the point of the story I am in and I don't know what to do.
Lol it's not a glitch at all. If you started Marleybone (which I'm sure you did) Catbeard will not be in his usual hideout in the Catspaw. Remember what happened to him? He got arrested for causing a war in Marleybone and he's currently in jail awaiting trial. The best thing you can do is to either finish Marleybone and bust Catbeard out of jail or send Kingsisle a support ticket and ask them to skip the talk to Catbeard portions of the promotion you're doing. I suggest option one of completing Marleybone, since Marleybone is a rather short world and is full of fun. I hope this helped and best of luck in the spiral!

Sincerely,
Stormy Elijah Silver (Max Swashbuckler)
Corrupt Zane Silver (Max Privateer)
Dark Blaze Sharp (Max Witchdoctor)
Sly Brady Silver (Level 39 Musketeer-in-Training)
Merciless Toby Silver (Level 21 Buccaneer-in-Training)

Petty Officer
Oct 29, 2011
95
Max DeGroot on Oct 23, 2017 wrote:
Chances are, Catbeard is in Marleybone prison. You will have to complete Marleybone before you can find him on his ship in Port Royale again.

This is why you never, ever, postpone a promotion.
I think it's fine to postpone a promotion, pirate101 should take every option into consideration. He should always be available because of this quest or there should at least be another way to promote it. Promotions are not main quests therefore it is techinically not really a requirement to promote them right away.

Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
frostednutella on Oct 25, 2017 wrote:
I think it's fine to postpone a promotion, pirate101 should take every option into consideration. He should always be available because of this quest or there should at least be another way to promote it. Promotions are not main quests therefore it is techinically not really a requirement to promote them right away.
When KI wrote these quests ( notice that most are from the first or second year of P101? ) they never thought players would neglect to promote such valuable companions like Ratbeard, Bonnie Anne or Barnabus. I see posts asking why Barnabus can't be promoted because a buccaneer player delays his first ( level 15 ) promotion, until that pirate reaches the part of the story to go to Port Regal ( around level 30 for the pirate ).
I predict that going forward, there will be no more "time valued" promotion quests.
Still, it's best that you don't delay story promotions for your companions as promotions make them more effective & gives them more Powers/Talents.

Admiral
May 30, 2010
1221
frostednutella on Oct 25, 2017 wrote:
I think it's fine to postpone a promotion, pirate101 should take every option into consideration. He should always be available because of this quest or there should at least be another way to promote it. Promotions are not main quests therefore it is techinically not really a requirement to promote them right away.
Nope. You make the decision to delay promotion; you live with the consequences. Life does go on even when we're not ready for it yet, after all.

Petty Officer
Oct 29, 2011
95
Fiorenza Rosanante... on Oct 26, 2017 wrote:
Nope. You make the decision to delay promotion; you live with the consequences. Life does go on even when we're not ready for it yet, after all.
First of all I'd like to say that I actually did not delay the promotion, I didn't level up the ship mates because I was not using them. When I realized that I might need them for moo manchu, I then decided to level them up. Second, pirate needs to accompany to all needs and situations. For example, in wizard101 someone was asking for an option that forces a wizard to play a card after all rounds yet what if the wizard has no cards in deck? In what way does me not being able to promote my ship mates affect you in anyway what so ever? Also, how does promoting ship mates have to do with "life going on" and "not being ready for it" and such. That just came off as a little unnecessary and not relative to the topic.

Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
frostednutella on Oct 27, 2017 wrote:
First of all I'd like to say that I actually did not delay the promotion, I didn't level up the ship mates because I was not using them. When I realized that I might need them for moo manchu, I then decided to level them up. Second, pirate needs to accompany to all needs and situations. For example, in wizard101 someone was asking for an option that forces a wizard to play a card after all rounds yet what if the wizard has no cards in deck? In what way does me not being able to promote my ship mates affect you in anyway what so ever? Also, how does promoting ship mates have to do with "life going on" and "not being ready for it" and such. That just came off as a little unnecessary and not relative to the topic.
As Fiorenza pointed out; you made the choice that has led you to this situation. Whether you delayed promotion or leveling is beside the point. I don't understand how any player would neglect such a powerful companion like Ratbeard.
Why should P101 accommodate players in all situations, when we're told through the tutorial that leveling and promoting our companions is important?
These companions are main quest line companions, they give input throughout the game, it is part of the main quest line to promote them in a timely manner, or you'll find out that some quests become difficult to finish and may even require you to write a ticket to Support to continue ( as for Barnabus ).
In any case, all of us have answered your question on what to do for this situation, you need no further information but to proceed with the quest line and get Catbeard out of prison; then you can promote Ratbeard.
Good Luck in the future!

Admiral
May 30, 2010
1221
frostednutella on Oct 27, 2017 wrote:
First of all I'd like to say that I actually did not delay the promotion, I didn't level up the ship mates because I was not using them. When I realized that I might need them for moo manchu, I then decided to level them up. Second, pirate needs to accompany to all needs and situations. For example, in wizard101 someone was asking for an option that forces a wizard to play a card after all rounds yet what if the wizard has no cards in deck? In what way does me not being able to promote my ship mates affect you in anyway what so ever? Also, how does promoting ship mates have to do with "life going on" and "not being ready for it" and such. That just came off as a little unnecessary and not relative to the topic.
Think of it this way, then. While you were off doing other things, Catbeard was also doing stuff that led to his being arrested and charged with treason ("life goes on"). Because you didn't decide (or decided not) to level up your shipmates as soon as possible, there is now an issue for Ratbeard, in that the person he needs to talk to is stuck in gaol. Catbeard's timeline is not affected by your activity. He's still going to be arrested at X point in the storyline. If you haven't promoted Ratbeard before you hit that point, Catbeard is unavailable. Your desire not to spend time doing Ratbeard's promotion before X point was the "we're not ready" part.

Why does KI need to accommodate all needs and situations?

Petty Officer
Oct 29, 2011
95
Because I was questing through my witchdoctor, I never used ratbeard. In fact, it totally slipped my mind to level him because he was proved useless at the time. It came to me later on that I should level him if I were to use him in Moo Manchu. I don't remember the promotion quests when I have done them previously so I did not expect something like that to happen. Also, KI most certainly does need to accomadate to all situations, their purpose isn't to just have stuff like this happen and then be annoying about it. I understand how important it is to level companions but be honest with me, when do you use every single companion? I am always getting companions on characters that are very useless. There was also never a reminder to remind me to level my main story characters. Also, I would not place promotions into the storyline quest catagory.

Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
frostednutella on Oct 30, 2017 wrote:
Because I was questing through my witchdoctor, I never used ratbeard. In fact, it totally slipped my mind to level him because he was proved useless at the time. It came to me later on that I should level him if I were to use him in Moo Manchu. I don't remember the promotion quests when I have done them previously so I did not expect something like that to happen. Also, KI most certainly does need to accomadate to all situations, their purpose isn't to just have stuff like this happen and then be annoying about it. I understand how important it is to level companions but be honest with me, when do you use every single companion? I am always getting companions on characters that are very useless. There was also never a reminder to remind me to level my main story characters. Also, I would not place promotions into the storyline quest catagory.
Since we answered your question on what to do in your current situation, I feel further conversation may lead to more ill feelings.

Dread Pirate
May 27, 2009
2131
frostednutella on Oct 30, 2017 wrote:
Because I was questing through my witchdoctor, I never used ratbeard. In fact, it totally slipped my mind to level him because he was proved useless at the time. It came to me later on that I should level him if I were to use him in Moo Manchu. I don't remember the promotion quests when I have done them previously so I did not expect something like that to happen. Also, KI most certainly does need to accomadate to all situations, their purpose isn't to just have stuff like this happen and then be annoying about it. I understand how important it is to level companions but be honest with me, when do you use every single companion? I am always getting companions on characters that are very useless. There was also never a reminder to remind me to level my main story characters. Also, I would not place promotions into the storyline quest catagory.
There are many players who enjoy a randomized crew and use all of their companions. None of them are "very useless" because at the least they can do a Companion Task like Sailing to be getting Nautical experience, etc. Companions do better at their tasks when they've been trained up, so a smart players keeps their companions as near their own level as they can. My witchdoctor uses Ratbeard a lot - he's an awesome buccaneer.

Kingsisle created their game with certain features, they cannot help that some players play it in a radically different way from how it was designed. If you aren't following the normal course of game progression, then you encounter issues. It's not their fault. It's like saying you don't want to pay to upgrade your ship. Well, you are free to choose to play that way, but then, you're going to have problems later on.


Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
frostednutella on Oct 30, 2017 wrote:
Because I was questing through my witchdoctor, I never used ratbeard. In fact, it totally slipped my mind to level him because he was proved useless at the time. It came to me later on that I should level him if I were to use him in Moo Manchu. I don't remember the promotion quests when I have done them previously so I did not expect something like that to happen. Also, KI most certainly does need to accomadate to all situations, their purpose isn't to just have stuff like this happen and then be annoying about it. I understand how important it is to level companions but be honest with me, when do you use every single companion? I am always getting companions on characters that are very useless. There was also never a reminder to remind me to level my main story characters. Also, I would not place promotions into the storyline quest catagory.
No one is suggesting that you use "every single companion"; just that you take into consideration that you do need to level and do those quest promotions for your main story line companion.
As to "reminding you" to promote your companions, is KI your Mother?
Actually, KI has taken a way to accommodate your situation - they've provided a work around; it's not as if you'll never get to promote Ratbeard. Just do as we've suggested and you'll soon have Ratbeard promoted.

Admiral
May 30, 2010
1221
frostednutella on Oct 30, 2017 wrote:
Because I was questing through my witchdoctor, I never used ratbeard. In fact, it totally slipped my mind to level him because he was proved useless at the time. It came to me later on that I should level him if I were to use him in Moo Manchu. I don't remember the promotion quests when I have done them previously so I did not expect something like that to happen. Also, KI most certainly does need to accomadate to all situations, their purpose isn't to just have stuff like this happen and then be annoying about it. I understand how important it is to level companions but be honest with me, when do you use every single companion? I am always getting companions on characters that are very useless. There was also never a reminder to remind me to level my main story characters. Also, I would not place promotions into the storyline quest catagory.
Actually, all my pirates run on full random for their crew, even my very low levels, who are just now getting to Ratbeard in the first place. It makes it more challenging that way, and I have to really consider my strategy in some fights when I come with all witchdoctors or nuttin' but swashies.

Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
I think, as we've already answered the OP's question of what to do in this situation, that this post ought to be closed as it's no longer constructive.