Blackwake is now free to keep!

We've done some cleanup work for a few areas of the game over the past few weeks:

• Tutorial has been given a much needed facelift in many areas
  
• All in game medals are now Steam Achievements
  
• Elite players can now level past 1000
  
• Bot shove timer reduced by half
  
• Bots can no longer friendly fire with cannons
  
• Added medals for the remaining ship types
  
• Options menu visuals updated
  
• CTB chest island trees/rocks collision fixed
  
• Fixed issue that would cause bots to idle
  
• Fixed issue that would cause bots to lock up objects in use
  
• Siege flag capture rate slowed 25%
  
• Fixed exploit allowing you to get over siege wall

Ahoy there!

Today we have finally fully released our game Blackwake! After three years in early access we are happy with the current state of the game. It has gone above and beyond the base game standard we initially had. It’s been a long journey with many ups and downs, we made mistakes, learned from our failures and pushed forward to bring Blackwake where it is today.

We have permanently dropped the price to $9.99USD

We have pushed out a small patch for the game as well.
- Addressed tortuga colliders that may have been causing memory leaks
- Removed some unused assets from scene to free up memory
- Small update to make vote screen clearer
- Bots will now only occupy cannons loaded with normal shot
- Handmortar/grenades damage radius halved
- Permanent double XP for all

Blackwake started as an idea by Dakota in 2013. There was a lack of proper naval warfare games that existed at the time. Mods like Pirate Ship Wars and Battlefield Pirates were some inspiration in the initial journey in developing the game. Tyler saw Dakota’s small demos on an online forum, and offered to help push Dakota’s small idea into something much larger.

We failed a Kickstarter in 2014, with the game catering to a more realistic naval sim audience, even though we threw in a sea monster at the end of the pitch trailer. It was far too serious, and overambitious to garner any attention. While we were disheartened at the fact of this failure we tried to see if more people were interested in the concept. A few youtubers, DarkLiberator and SMii7y tried out our game with their friends, to our surprise their time playing the game was full of laughter. We realised at that point that we took our game far too seriously.

2014 Kickstarter Pitch


So in 2015, we attempted another Kickstarter, but this time with the aim for a more casual approach. That is when the comedic voice acting was born, we realized the game would be a hit. Many Twitch streamers took part in promoting the Kickstarter, we couldn’t have done it without Ngotie, evilBunny and Bikeman. The Kickstarter was a success raising $170k AUD. Over two years we developed the game, hired out the necessary artists, animators and voice actors to push an early access version. Our Kickstarter backers were a huge help in continuous play testing each weekend, finding bugs and suggesting features.

2015 Kickstarter Pitch


We tried to be as realistic as possible on the player base and sales for the game. Comparing ourselves to other games in similar scope and price range, we expected around 300 concurrent players at launch and selling around 30,000 copies after a MONTH.

In 2017 we finally released the game. We had some stroke of luck, the PUBG beta servers were down, the streamers waiting at the time needed something to play so they picked up Blackwake. This led to a HUGE influx of players, our servers filled up so fast we couldn’t spin up new ones in time.

After 3 years of being in early access we have sold over 1.2 million copies! We never expected the game to get as big as it did. If anyone remembers the launch we only had two ships in the game at the time, the Galleon and the Hoy. We had only planned to possibly add more ships and polish the game off, but due to the positivity of the community we continued to develop the game further.

Over the course of early access we added and removed a lot of things due to community feedback. Some things worked, some did not. Pioneering the naval genre at the time took a lot of experimenting.

Capture the Booty mode
Teams would fight over a treasure chest to bring back to their base. First to 2 points wins.


Seige Mode
A faction would attack a fort with their ships, push a cart of explosives to a gate, then capture a flag to win.


Update 3.0 was a huge undertaking, we wanted to give players the ability to choose which ship they fought with. So we introduced ship building from docks. We had combined TDM with Siege mode to bring a mode called Conquest, which attempted to give more variance per match by letting players choose if they wanted to win by naval combat, or capturing the fort. Unfortunately this was not received well for the players that purely liked naval combat, so eventually it was scrapped.



We also implemented a new cannon aiming system. After much demand from crewman for more importance, experimenting with different methods we settled on the “grenade launcher” approach to cannon aiming. You can also turn the cannons too, which you couldn’t before. You also needed the range of ships by using the spyglass which we implemented as an item.


Small crew vessels

Junk Ship
Tanky ship with 4 cannons a side and one front cannon


Schooner
Fast moving ship with 5 cannons a side


Cutter
Sort of an agile anti-boarding ship with 2 rear guns and 4 guns a side


Bomb Vessel
3 Cannons a side, 2 rear guns and a Mortar


Gunboat
Smallest most agile ship in the game with 2 cannons a side, and 2 front guns.


Carrack
The tankiest small vessel in the game with 5 guns a side and multiple decks


Large Vessels
The Bomb Vessel, 7 guns a side, 2 front and with 2 mortars


Xebec
The fastest large ship in the game, with 9 guns a side, 2 rear and 2 anti sails per side


The Cruizer
The tankiest large ship in the game with 10 guns a side


New Shot types
Initially we only had cannonballs, grapeshot and grapples in the game. We decided to expand the mechanics of it during the massive 3.0 update.

Barshot demasted ships



Chainshot was an anti sail


Heated shot caught ships on fire. No more RNG fire from cannonballs, it had to be planned for.

We wanted a bit more variance to TDM matches so we added maps that had certain environmental settings.
A volcano map which when erupted, the entire environment would turn red with ash and ships would get damaged if they were close to the volcano


An iceberg arena, with ice patches which would slow down your ship and cause holes if sailed through.


Waterspouts
These would pick up ships and kill the crew if they were not aware of their surroundings and raised their sails.


Tortuga map arena with new islands


A ranking/prestige system, we wanted to reward players with long playtime. This worked together with unlocking of cosmetic items. The longer you played the cooler you could make your character look.



Ingame stats for those wanting to achieve some interesting things



We added crew bots to extend the life of the game. Players will replace them as they join the game.



The ability to vote and choose mode. At launch we only had TDM available, so during the 3.0 update allowed players to vote for a mode at the end of the round.


We added the ability for friends to stay together for the following rounds, by setting an ingame tag.


A new team selects a screen. Initially you didn’t even know who was on what ship until you selected it, leading to very frustrating moments trying to group with friends or balance team.

A new win screen to show players outfits and their achievements through stats and leaderboards.


A lot of new cosmetics for both factions were also added!



We also had over 500+ bug fixes and quality of life changes over the course of early access. We are quite happy with what we achieved as a two man dev team, who hired some help along the way. Seeing people enjoy the game and the happiness it brought you was the main driving factor for us to push as far as we did. Blackwake was truly driven by the community and we are proud of what we have achieved.

Thank you all for the support you have given over the years! For now we see the game as complete. Dakota plans to do a few more small fixes in the meantime.

See you on the seven seas!

Tyler & Dakota

To the people still enjoying Blackwake here's a patch for you!

- Tortuga map should now properly load in
- Melee blocking has had its time limit removed due to popular request
- Damaging bots should show a hitmarker
- Joining late should no longer display dead bots as frozen
- Bots should now die from fires started by fire shot
- Bot auto-death on a grapple attach should no longer cost tickets
- Bots killed by FF should not cost tickets
- Score rewarded for killing enemy bots
- Bots should properly spawn in with just 1 player min.
- Bot deaths should no longer bug CTB capture counter
- CTB now has a cfg setting for no time limit for private competitive matches 'compCTB'
- Joining a server that has bots disabled should no longer show frozen in mid ship
- "Someone is using this" should now properly stop you from using cannons
- cfg for siege is now 'allowFortModes'
- Fixed ships sticking to new islands map

We have some upcoming news about Blackwake which will be revealed soon. For now see you on the seven seas!

Dakota & Tyler

- Bots are not intended to replace players, but help maintain the ship while a server seeds
- The initial bot patch was just a starting point, not final at all
- We were aware they were OP and got in the way, leaving little for anyone to do
- Bots will be able to be fully disabled once they are balanced. Currently they can be disabled with useBots=0 and having a password set.

- Hotfix to bot LOD/animation syncing

- Bots now have random skill that affects responsiveness and cannon ability
- Bots no longer move at incorrect speeds on large ships
- Bots can now die to swivels

- Bots now count towards ticket loss
- Bot cannon shots do less damage to players
- Bots now have a 25% chance to miss (should not affect ranges < 300m as with normal unaimed shots)
- You can now shove bots off cannons using E, they will not touch the cannon again for 30 seconds. Shove has a cooldown of 15 seconds.
- Bots now take different amounts of time to load cannons based on their randomized skill level
- Overall bots have been drastically nerfed in speed towards every task
- Tweaks made to LOD to try and solve some animation T pose issues


After bots are balanced in their "autopilot" mode we will begin making them follow actual orders.


Following this, we will be bringing the new siege fort into the game that will not suffer from the same verticality combat issues as the current one.

3.87 - Bots


Bots fighting eachother


In an effort to resolve the frustration and boredom brought on by attempting to crew a nearly empty ship (often causing servers to die), we have added bots. This will help ensure there is an adequate amount of action taking place in Blackwake at any time.


- Load cannons
- Fire cannons
- Use the pump
- Repair holes when the ship reaches a certain level of damage
- Die/respawn

They are meant to supplement playercounts while a server grows, not replace players.

- Captain
- Participate in boarding
- Consume ship resources
- Contribute to kill statistics
- Repair nose/mast


This is only the first live iteration of bots and we plan to improve their function with time.

Blackwake has long since leaned on a heavy player requirement to feel the action that the game is supposed to give you with a full crew.

This design did not come without consequences, though. By requiring so many players per faction it started to become clear how torturous it was to simply man an under crewed ship while waiting for players to join.

Working closely with our testing community on the discord we've been implementing bots. We were trying to beat the sale, but rest assured they will be coming very soon. Gone will be the days of 3 players trying to run a galleon - a scenario so frustrating it could cause a server to stall at the 15-30 player mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJibvn5D6GI

We look forward to playing with our new overlords!

We have a new patch ready as we continue with our phase of bug fixing & polishing:

• Melee blocks can no longer be held and must be timed (will be hotfixed to be shorter next patch)
  
• CTB base icons display if chest is dropped on ships as well
  
• Hand mortar now always explodes on impact and no longer uses an RNG spread to apply damage
  
• Tutorial volume default reduced to 60%
  
• Can no longer equip tomahawk once empty
  
• Fixed some LOD issues with bomb vessel causing you to fall through
  
• Fixed issue where supply crates were difficult to grab on bombketch
  
• Chest/Base icons now stay on screen in CTB but should snap to edge
  
• Fixed text issue with fresh spawned chest
  
• Chest 90 second respawn is now counted down in 15 second increments in chat
  
• Tweaked some settings to help alleviate the (Clone) killing bug
  
• Position on pump is now locked in the event of another ships nose touching you
  
• Obvious UI box displayed on tutorial to explain how to skip it and that it is not finished
  
• Drowning no longer pulls your camera to pitch black
  
• Game SFX audio slider added, not all sounds may be organized yet
  
• Fixed new issue where joining a match with the same name as someone else would break your connection

Ahoy lads, a new patch will be pushed today. It will contain some balance changes to bring the side arms in line and some needed bug fixes.

EDIT:

• Fixed an exploit where you could instantly release grapples
  
• Fixed a bug where some hits of dagger and rapier would not register
  
• Healing and repairing progress bar resetting when sprinting

• Fixed a bug with cannon ramming/firing not working
  
• Standard pistol damage increased to 80 from 50
  
• Standard pistol now has 100% chance to bleed from 0%
  
• Standard pistol now has 30% bleed rate increase over default
  
• Annely revolver now has 100% chance to bleed from 20%
  
• Annely revolver now has 30% bleed rate increase over default
  
• Matchlock revolver now has 0% chance to bleed from 100%
  
• Short pistol now has 100% chance to bleed from 75%

• Short pistol fixed to 100dmg within 3 meters, 50dmg further
  
• Short pistol reload time increased by 2 seconds
  
• Annley now has 20% chance to bleed per shot from 0%
  
• Annley now increased bleed rate of 50% from 0%
  
• Annley reload anim sped up by 150%
  
• Annley shoot anim sped up by 150%
  
• Matchlock revolver now 100% chance to bleed from 0%
  
• Axe swing speed increased by 20%
  
• Standard pistol reduced to 50dmg per shot

• Fixed bug where demasted large ships to respawn demasted
  
• Fixed bug where crew sometimes spawned in ocean after their ship had sunk
  
• Fixed bug where Galleon top mast's to be unclimbable
  
• Fixed bug where changing teams caused damaged ship status UI to stick
  
• Fixed bug where changing teams caused grappled ship status UI to stick
  
• Fixed bug where undamaged ships would have calm ocean clip through the deck
  
• Fixed bug where Win Screen would not display correct CTB team win info
  
• Made hitting meleeing legs through rigging more responsive

• Added SFX to indicate cannon turning
  
• Raised ship info to not obscure captain view while sailing
  
• Joining while win screen up now has a wait timer for next round
  
• Added the final section of boarding to the ingame tutorial

Weapon balance is not final, we will continue to tweak these. We definitely have some more bugs and polishing to do before we release the game. We are also going to be actively looking into the siege overhaul and two new island maps before our 4.0 Release.

See you on the seas!
Tyler & Dakota

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjrfECo7MNc&feature=youtu.be
(made by Paren Iz Cursi, captain of RF)

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We're looking for an American-timezone caster that can cast the matches on the 6th of April and co-cast on the 13th of April, if you are interested to cast for potentially up to 100 concurrent viewers (last time we got around ~80) refer to the contact information at the bottom of this post.

​


The tournament will be played over 2 weekends, the 6th of April and the 13th of April. There will be 2 seperate regions that will play on the 6th of april. Depending on your region the start time is UTC 02:00 (For NA/Oceania) and UTC 20:00 (For EU/Russia).

The times on the 13th of April will depend on the results on the 6th of April.

The exact fixtures and match details for the 6th of April will be released one week before the 6th of April when we know exactly which teams will show up, the start time that is mentioned above will not change however.

​


2vs2 small ships CTB.
No Barshot
No game breaking exploits
- Hiding in inaccessible parts of the ship
- Sprinting with the booty/having a weapon out with it
- Glitching the booty over the side of the tower
- Glitching through ceilings/roofs
- Intentionally having less players to speed up tasks
- Abusing team switching
- Intentionally teleporting the booty (staying on the rope/sails while ship is sinking)
- Insta releasing grapples

Small exploits allowed (Instaheal with rum/tea)
Third party crosshair allowed (It's impossible to check who uses it so we go tour de france style)
Unique ships (you can’t pick 2 of the same ships)
No Ice or water spout map unless both teams are okay with it
​


On the 6th of April the teams will play a round robin (everyone plays everyone once) to determine the bracket placements for the second weekend on the 13th of April.

The bracket for the 13th of April will look like this:



Here is a draft of the NA/Oceania league and the EU/Russia league for the 6th of april https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xHGg1HnxGf3nlZyNQP8Cuqd5USuofArqtkH4FQv5SSk/edit

​

How to join

Generally we play these kinds of tournaments with blackwake communities that are known to be able to field teams and show up. Communities that might be participating are:

RF (Russian fleet) https://discord.gg/RU7zW6p

GT (Great Tortuga) https://discord.gg/XrSgx6N

Ahoy (UK Ahoy) https://discord.gg/YhkQwGC

CC (Candlelight Cove) https://discord.gg/QpsAYf2

VME (VME Community) https://discord.gg/75UzXug

AF (Anzac's Finest)

SMS (The Sea Monsters) https://discord.gg/dPvdpFZ

Other communities or groups of 14 players are welcome to sign up. Contact info can be found at the bottom of this post.


You'll simply need to go to the #individual-signup channel and post your information and you'll either get picked up by a team or form your own team if there's enough people!

​



The tournament will be casted live with spectating mode and multiple casters here: https://www.twitch.tv/stackwake
You can also watch the VOD of the previous tournamentwake here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKpi0p1oIMOLFjojO6HpJxg

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If you want your Twitch link added, your community or yourself to sign up for the tournament or if you have any questions about this tournament in general you can ask them here: https://discord.gg/S7cR8Aw

See you on the Seas!
- Tyler & Dakota