Pirate Attacks

by **MannyJabrielle** Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:04 am

Was about to post this topic in the bug reports forum... luckily I had my sound up (for once) and I heard the pirates/silvermoon sailor respawn...

The pirate attacks are quite fun... dangerous (the one group nearly killed my 40th level paladin/PDK/Champ!!) and the pirates drop a very nice amount of gold...

But it really sucks when the silvermoon sailor dies. But as I mentioned he DOES respawn (along with one of the three groups of pirates).

For a player who isn't patient, or doesn't KNOW that the sailor will respawn... the first thought that comes to mind is "I'm screwed, log out until reset".

So... my suggestion would be either make the sailor immortal... it's a little more believable to have a very tough lil gnome manning the decks than one that dies, but suddenly comes back to life out of no where.

OR...

Put a transition to "go below decks".

I would favor the below decks route for two reasons... for lowbies, the pirate attacks can be quite fatal, and it'd be nice for them to be able to run from the battle somewhat. Second... you could put another NPC silvermoon sailor down there to continue the journey after the battle above deck is over. If the player doesn't help out... it'll be a long wait, with a pirate or two making their way below decks too to give a bit of danger and challenge still (just not a whole horde of them... ).

The "below decks" could also be 'decked out' a bit with a slot machine, a drunken sailor selling grog... could pull out the actual trip time too (currently a sailing trip is what? 30 seconds? Span it out to say, two minutes and it'd be a more believable "ocean voyage", and all sorts of other neat stuff could be done.... Trips where you see maybe some sea creature passing by, or a water favorable dragon. Have a 'sea sick' NPC that clerics or PCs with some sort of healing ability could help out, have another sailor NPC who tells tall tales about things he's seen in his voyages (some in-game hints about fun places to go adventure)....

Could even expand on the concept further and have the silvermoon caption give a small quest to the player (for some gold, go gather up some lucrative cargo for the ship at the next port)