Lordofwinter35 on Jul 30, 2014 wrote:

Hello pirates!

I'm back from a very protracted absence on the message boards and I have a few ideas about one of the more recent additions to the spiral: fishing!

Ever since Wizard101 got fishing, everyone has been talking about when Pirate will be getting that feature too. Check out some very informative posts on Swordroll's blog as well as many others if you want to hear more about the speculation over fishing in Pirate. However, I believe that fishing is not something that Pirate101 needs. Fishing already has a large presence in Pirate101 (Jonah Town for example) as well as many quests that require pirates to get fish, scallops, etc. from the skyways. That's why instead of fishing, I think what the skyways really need is... sky monsters! Inspired by a long tradition of historical pirates hunting "sea monsters" (whales and such) in the seas of the Caribbean and elsewhere, I think that pirates should be able to fight large sky monsters using your ships! It should be similar to the battle with Scylla, except rewards would be more similar to fishing in Wizard101. Maybe if crafting is ever introduced to Pirate101, hunting sky monsters could be a possible source of reagents as well.

Comment with your thoughts about testing your ship against sky beasties!

A battle? Fishing in Wizard101 is amazing, and I think it should be brought over instead.

*begins playing Jaws theme on a cello* This sounds like it could be fun! But KI would probably have to readjust some of the locations of search-and-collect items, and the paths of enemy ships and Skyway enemies (as in Harpies and Flying Turtles).

Now, these Sky Beasties shouldn't be too hard otherwise no one would want to attack them. They should be simple, but each should have a certain weakness. For example, say that one Sky Beastie is a smallish Water Dragon (Like a Chinese Dragon). Its weakness would be a glowing spot on its head. So it would try to protect that, but to attack your ship it needs to be facing it. So when it turns to face you, your ship blasts away!

I think that an additional button could be added. When you approach a Sky Beastie, this button pops up. It allows you to control when your ship fires its regular cannons. But there is a reset timer on it, just like the other 4. This function can only be used against Sky Beasties, and it disappears when you go out of range. A keyboard shortcut could be 5, since it's pretty easy to switch between 4 and 5.

I was sort of imagining that when you encountered them, you had a choice of whether or not to engage (like a sigil for a dungeon). That way, if you came across a sky beastie by accident, you could choose whether or not you wished to battle it, particularly if you felt your level (or nautical level) wasn't up to it.

If you chose to engage, perhaps the battle would commence something like the ones we experience in the skyway tempests, with our ship firing upon the creature, and it responding aggressively. Like a ship to ship battle, it could come to the creature wrestling with our ship itself, and (like being boarded) we must go and battle the creature face to face (or more like humongous tentacle to sword, stinging nematocysts to spells, that sort of thing). But this, after all, mere imaginative speculation.

Oh, getting something from battle? I hadn't thought that far... I was just thinking of the beasties! But let me see, what about:

Pets! Some poor little creature of the skies could have been on the dinner menu of the monster and we save it from a terrible fate! Naturally, the little creature is full of love and devotion for its rescuer...

New weapons/armaments of various sorts! Sure, they aren't carrying them about (most likely), but:

Gracie: Captain, I wonder if the stings, the nematocysts, from that Man-o-War cnidarian we just defeated couldn't be used with a charge in a spark gun? That might well deter enemies.

You: Good idea, Gracie, though... ugh... all that slimy stuff to get through. And we'd better be careful so as not to trigger the stings when we harvest them.
**
Or:

Ratbeard: Look at this thick hide and scales on this monster! That'd be some fine armor made up for ye, Cap'n!

You: Eeew!

Ratbeard: Or we could just sell it. Might be a bit heavy for ye, after all, come to think of it.
**
Or (an idea from my book Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps):

Bonnie Anne: Captain, now that we finished battling the ziphius, I dinna ken what we should do about that huge sharp sword-thing on its back, but it looks... useful, somehow.

You: I was thinking of taking it to a shipwright, and having them add it to the ships' armor. Ha! Let those Vulture Pirates attack us now! They'll be sorry...
**

Kind of interesting in this book, too, that a lot of the sea monsters illustrated fly too. Hmm...