City of Abandoned Ships Interview

RPGVault has an interview up for an upcoming Russian RPG called City of Abandoned Ships. With a system called “P.I.R.A.T.E.S” (Power, Impression, Reaction, Authority, Talent, Endurance and Success), which sounds oddly familiar, this pirate title seems to take its RPG nature seriously, if art director Yury Rohach is to be believed.

Jonric: What will distinguish your game from the two you named and others with the pirate theme that might appear similar at first glance?

Yury Rohach: Well, when distinguishing the game from other seemingly similar titles of the same genre, I would pick out these key elements that make City of Abandoned Ships stand out:

– The character’s adventures on land are very interesting and challenging. Land is not only the place where you can recruit your crew members and replenish your ship’s hold, but also a venue to experience romantic adventures, search for treasures and loot, and get deeply involved in political conspiracies.

– We tried to escape plunging the gamer into a single plot or storyline; instead, we give him complete freedom in making his choices, and also immerse him in a number of separate storylines within the gameworld.

– There are a lot randomly selected stories and events, so the game will be interesting to replay. Every time you choose a different way of solving a problem or completing a task, you might find very different consequences, adventures, and whole stories!
(…)
Jonric: What kind of advancement system are you implementing? What are the primary attributes, and are there many skills and abilities to develop?

Yury Rohach: The game is based on the P.I.R.A.T.E.S role-playing system – Power, Impression, Reaction, Authority, Talent, Endurance and Success. These stats affect the development rate of the character’s 14 skills, which skills are divided into personal (authority, light, medium, and heavy weapons, guns, luck and stealth) and seafaring (navigation, accuracy, arsenal of weapons, boarding, defense, ship recovery, trade).

Every skill gets its own development path depending on the way the player gets through the game. For example, shopping increases the Trade skill, and its development will finally decrease and block the Boarding skills. If you fire guns, you develop your Gun skill only, becoming more accurate and fatal to enemies. Sea battles develop Accuracy and Arsenal of Weapons skills, etc.

As the game proceeds, the player receives various personal or ship ability points – perks. They can be assigned to any or all of the 55 different abilities. The way abilities are arranged affect whether it is easier either to trade and settle conflicts among nations, or wage wars with merchants and colonies. Such is the life of an adventurous pirate.

Jonric: What form will combat take when it occurs on land, and what will the player want to focus on to emerge victorious?

Yury Rohach: Fencing is divided into three categories: rapier (light), cavalry sword (medium), and swords, and axes (heavy). The hero can become an expert in those weapons he wields most. It’s also possible to use guns. It’s also important to know that in battles, there will besides, there will be officers the main character has recruited – up to five. The most valuable of them is a musketeer who wields a very powerful weapon. Thus a large part of the game’s battle system is comprised of the battle tactics since there are various ways of enticing enemies into traps and ambushes.

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