Talk:Sid Meier's Pirates!
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[edit] Game name
This used to be called "Pirates game". Putting Sid's name in front makes it identical to the forthcoming (2004) game. I suggest we either
- accept the new name to cover both and give the article two or three main headings accordingly; or
- rename this one "Pirates! (computer game)" in the current style.
Robin Patterson 20:32, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Down with IP!
I don't like the term intellectual property (its ok when lawyers use it but it glosses over problems and encourages a particular point-of-view in the rest of us). Exactly what is held by Firaxis Games? The trademark of "Pirates!"? copyright of the original game? Surely the game doesn't have any software patents!?. I suggest we change it to "Trademarks associated with the game are held|owned|whatever by Firaxis Games..." (I don't know much about these laws so I don't know if one holds, owns or licenses a Trademark.)
cbm 20:30, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- I'm sorry you don't like the term, but that's what it's called and there really is no better way to refer to it. In a nutshell, the IP means that they own the creative license associated with the earlier game. This means they can extend or alter the storyline of the earlier game, use ideas or technology from the early game, etc. It's sort of like a trademark, but encompasses much more.
- This is a big deal. Earlier, Meier lost the IP for Civilization for a while and other developers got to use the name for their games, totally screwing up the lineage of the games. — Frecklefoot | Talk 20:44, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Princess Bride?
I don't think that's a reference to the movie, as the other pirates say the same thing ("fear the dread pirate William Kidd!"). That one is probably a coincidence. Dehumanizer 08:39, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Sun sighting?
The Pirates Gold (1993) section mentions something called "Sun sighting." What the heck was that? Is it in the 2004 version? — Frecklefoot | Talk 21:39, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
- It's an old sea navigation process, something to do with a sextant, probably. It was in the 1987 version, apparently, but it's not in any version since. --Alexwcovington 21:44, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- In the 1987 version of Pirates, in order to locate your position at sea it was necessary to use "sun sighting", a subgame in which you would have to line up a sextant with an animated moving sun and take the reading at the sun's peak (noon) which would provide your latitude and longditude for you to look up on the paper map provided with the game. Anonymous 10:35, 10 Jul 2006 (GMT)
- Even better, the "sun sighting" feature provided JUST your latitude. As an accurate simulation of the era, you had to rely on dead-reckoning for longitude. Unlike both it's descendants, the original 1987 game had NO online map showing your position. So it was great fun to set a course from Santiago to Cumana and pat yourself on the back by making landfall in just the right place, just from experience. And adjusting the sextant was not as simple as it sounds; it was sometimes hard to make out the sun's zenith as passing clouds would sometimes partially obscure your view. -Anonymous 130.156.3.34 23:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Open ended
The article currently says, "Pirates! was a groundbreaking game in its era, widely considered the first open-ended game (i.e., one in which there is no specific goal, such as rescuing a princess, or defeating a gorilla)." I'm not at all sure that is accurate. Elite was released in 1984 and is probably more widely considered as the first open-ended game. There may very well be others. I'd like to edit this section of the article, therefore. Any comments?
Sorry, I forgot to sign my name. Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'll maybe make the changes after life calms down a bit. But of course, this subject is still open for debate until then. --Yamla 06:11, 2004 Dec 25 (UTC)
Okay, I've made a change. I tried to keep much of the initial paragraph intact. It isn't quite as clean as I wanted to make it so I absolutely welcome other changes. Please feel free to totally rewrite the paragraph if you think you can say it better. Pirates was certainly not the first open-ended game but definitely influenced very many games since. --Yamla 15:50, 2004 Dec 25 (UTC)
[edit] Split
I propose that this be split into an article for each game, with this article being about the series as a whole. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 23:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
- You're suggesting that we create Sid Meier's Pirates! (1987 game), Sid Meier's Pirates! Gold Edition and Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004 game) as new articles? Should be easy enough. Likely, it is possible that people would write more about each game. --14:06, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
- I support this suggestion. — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:24, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
- I disagree. The three games are fundamentally the same game and not different members of a series. Breaking them out would be like, say, making a new page for every version of Final Fantasy IV that currently exists (the SNES version, the PSX port, and the GBA remake.)
-- Rothenberger, 17 May 2006, 17:33
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- Perhaps the Gold Edition and the original 1987 game could stay in the same article, but the 2004 game did bring a lot of changes, like new features and a storyline (I do not recall a storyline in the original game). So I think the new game deservs its own article. Which was what I would have expected when I originally came to see this article. Besides, we rarely consider "ports" into different versions. Pirates! in 2004 was completely rewritten, and thus NOT a port, but a new and different game. --Svippong 22:39, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
--(McDonis) 5/23/2006
- I agree with Rothensburger If the game is split perhaps only the 2004 version should be split off
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- I definetly think a split for the 2004 game is in order here. Unlike different versions of Final Fantasy IV, which was the same game ported to different consoles with minor tweaks, the 2004 Pirates game was entirely new for the most part. I think it's a little insulting to the developers who worked hundreds, even thousands of man hours on this game to be added as a foot note to the bottom of the 1987 game.
-BBUCK July 2006
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- I have played the Sid Meier's Pirates! 2004 edition and talking to many of the Pirates! fans who know the Gold Edition and the older ones, each one has the same theme behind it, but the mechanics and things are different in each. So in essence they are a bunch of seperate games, not just remakes. That's just my thoughts. :D - Lucky Foot - 7/28/06
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- I agree. Besides, look at other pages for remakes. They don't share a page, do they?
SuperCooper 7/30/06
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- I vote to keep it as one article. I happened upon this page looking for information on the newer version of the game and was pleasantly surprised to be able to easily read about the game's roots. --MikeBC 17:06, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
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- I vote to keep it as one article, because I prefer to read one medium-sized article than 5 stubs. It's neat to see the evolution side-by-side without having to click on anything. If there were more information, I would agree with a split. MisterSheik 11:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
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- I vote to split it based on the same reasoning as what Lucky Foot had stated above. 66.215.215.202 20:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] "Seventeenth Century"
I played the 1987 version of the game for the Apple II as a kid. At the beginning of the game, you chose which historical time period you wished to play in. Many of these were in the seventeenth century, as the article states, but several (including the default scenario) were in the eighteenth and there were a couple sixteenth century century as well. I've made a minor alteration to this effect.
Overall, it's a solid article for an old favorite of mine. 67.165.49.173 00:34, 14 September 2006 (UTC)Tom Miller
[edit] Link to Pirates Gold!
The external link at the bottom of the page to download Pirates Gold! for Windows links to Pictionary. It cannot be corrected because it says the link it blacklisted, however. Tha*Lunat!k 04:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
- Don't know what you're talking about (blacklisted?). The link took me to the correct article. — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oops, you mean the external link to download Pirates! Gold. Yeah, the URL was for Pictionary. I just removed it, since it's illegal. — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Pirates! been inspired by Seven Cities of Gold and Heart of Africa?
My memory might be fooling me but I seem to recall that there were similarities in the gameplay of Ozark Softscape's classics Seven Cities of Gold and Heart of Africa, e.g. the land map play. Now I read in the article on Ozark that Ozark did business with Microprose. Is there any evidence that would speak in favour of my conjecture? --Marc van Woerkom 02:37, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
- Well, unless you can find a reference, it is just that, conjecture. And original research is banned in Wikipedia articles... — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:29, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] St. Augustine's origins
From what I've seen, all versions of the Pirates! game claim quite casually that St. Augustine was originally founded by the French. Even the most recent (2004) release describes it in the manual with: "Originally a French colony, in 1565 Spain captures St. Augustine, massacring the Frenchmen and establishing their own fortress and garrison in its place." Is this worth mentioning in the article as an enduring game error? Or, is every credible source I've looked through actually incorrect in asserting that St. Augustine was built by the Spanish in 1565, over the site of a Native American village, with no prior French presence? -BaronGrackle (69.149.179.197 14:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC))
