Avast mateys!

Currently Capture the booty mode is still in closed testing. It's near it's final testing cycles and should be ready soon.

We have around 10 tasks remaining to polish it off and we unfortunately do have 2 game breaking blockers. Once those are solved it should be ready to push onto public PTS or patched live with the polishes put in slightly after.

We also have 2 new ships being worked on (one is already completed, but not intergrated), which will be the replacement vessels for the 2v2 hoys in CTB.

This CTB 32p variation is actually going to be CTB1 with a single booty chest, and a CTB2 variation is planned to come straight after with 3v3 vessels, and one chest at each tower, with mortars for defense. You'll have to capture the booty at the enemy's base and bring it back to your own.

The release for CTB1 will be called Alpha v1, and subsequent modes/content to follow version names. This update has taken longer than intended but it shall be in the hands of yer' crew soon!

If you would like to join in on the closed testing of new content, and help us stomp some bugs, when testing starts it happens daily/bi-daily be sure to join our discord! https://discord.gg/0riQVXihqadCPcl6

See you on the Seven Seas,
Tyler & Dakota

Avast mateys!

Currently Capture the booty mode is still in closed testing. It's near it's final testing cycles and should be ready soon.

We have around 10 tasks remaining to polish it off and we unfortunately do have 2 game breaking blockers. Once those are solved it should be ready to push onto public PTS or patched live with the polishes put in slightly after.

We also have 2 new ships being worked on (one is already completed, but not intergrated), which will be the replacement vessels for the 2v2 hoys in CTB.

This CTB 32p variation is actually going to be CTB1 with a single booty chest, and a CTB2 variation is planned to come straight after with 3v3 vessels, and one chest at each tower, with mortars for defense. You'll have to capture the booty at the enemy's base and bring it back to your own.

The release for CTB1 will be called Alpha v1, and subsequent modes/content to follow version names. This update has taken longer than intended but it shall be in the hands of yer' crew soon!

If you would like to join in on the closed testing of new content, and help us stomp some bugs, when testing starts it happens daily/bi-daily be sure to join our discord! https://discord.gg/0riQVXihqadCPcl6

See you on the Seven Seas,
Tyler & Dakota

Today will begin our new patch notes schedule. Although we may do hotfixes during the week, our main patch notes/update posts will be about every two weeks. Of course, we may still do update posts in between when needed.

This patch will require all servers to be updated.

• Spyglass is now available as a special option. Note that for now it is only slightly beneficial, showing you enemy ship captains/locations. It is also missing 3rd person animations at this time and will appear as a pistol (expect a hotfix for this). In the near future it will also give you information about the current damage state of that ship. The ultimate goal of the spyglass is to require a spyglass to spot a ship before your crew can see it by pressing Q. You will not be able to tell friendly or enemy ships apart (aside from the flag) until someone spots the ship.
  
• Servers with friendly fire on will now have “FF ON” tagged to the end of the server name. Once we have more hardcore options we will classify FF under HC.
  
• 3 more voice actors added, two for pirates and one for navy. You are assigned a voice at random. Eventually you’ll be able to pick in the customize options.
  
• We now support an official globalized ban list read by both official and community servers.
  
• Admins can now do /endround to force a round reset.
  
• Attempted to fix an issue where some servers would fail to restart.
  
• The quit option should no longer register when the server list is active, since it is close to the refresh button and some would hit quit by mistake.
  
• Attempted a fix for those who experienced a stuck player customization screen when playing the game. We recommend those who had this issue to verify their game files.
  
• Loading screen should no longer run at a very high FPS.
  
• Fixed issue when joining a friends server while in a server already.
  
• Various anti-cheat measures improved throughout the week (these have not gone ignored)

We will be receiving a customized build from Unity shortly to update our transport layer. We hope this will show an improvement in connection issues for those who suffer them. If the issue is still not fixed we will continue working with them. We should have a test server up sometime soon for those of you experiencing these issues to try.

In other news we have a new gamemode in the works, capture the booty! If you are interested in taking part in the early stability/balance tests be sure to join our discord. Capture the booty focuses more on land battles and boarding, which we thought would be a great contrast to those of you who have been pouring hours into our TDM modes. Two teams of two hoys will fight for a chest of treasure located on an island between your bases. Do what it takes to claim your riches!



Blackwake discord! https://discord.gg/0riQVXihqadCPcl6

Double pistol
Boarding Pike
Harpoons (throwable)
Two Handed Axe (one hit swipes)
Matchlock Arquebus(can shoot forwards and backwards)

Third person reloading animations
Swimming animation
Server whitelists

Note: Melee will be worked on when we have time, for now we are focusing on important critical things to sustain the playerbase/longevity new content. Also weapon sounds are placeholder and will sound much better in the future.

Blackwake - The Beelzebub Pirates
https://youtu.be/KwbZAUDaU4c
Blackwake: Early Access done right
https://youtu.be/uEuf6SScd2s
Blackwake | Crewman Tutorial #3 - When to use each type of cannon munition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQPgxwv1Rhw

• 1v1 versus mode for 5 friend parties (cannot solo que, will not put you into multi-ship matches due to complexity and balance, only for 1v1 hoy)
  
• New game mode

http://www.strawpoll.me/12547124
We want to be sure our time is spent wisely while in early access. We would prefer to add what the majority of our community would like to see and feels would benefit the game in the long run.

Blackwake forums for clans/events: http://www.blackwakeforums.com/
Blackwake discord! https://discord.gg/0riQVXihqadCPcl6

See you on the seven seas!
Dakota & Tyler

Today will begin our new patch notes schedule. Although we may do hotfixes during the week, our main patch notes/update posts will be about every two weeks. Of course, we may still do update posts in between when needed.

This patch will require all servers to be updated.

• Spyglass is now available as a special option. Note that for now it is only slightly beneficial, showing you enemy ship captains/locations. It is also missing 3rd person animations at this time and will appear as a pistol (expect a hotfix for this). In the near future it will also give you information about the current damage state of that ship. The ultimate goal of the spyglass is to require a spyglass to spot a ship before your crew can see it by pressing Q. You will not be able to tell friendly or enemy ships apart (aside from the flag) until someone spots the ship.
  
• Servers with friendly fire on will now have “FF ON” tagged to the end of the server name. Once we have more hardcore options we will classify FF under HC.
  
• 3 more voice actors added, two for pirates and one for navy. You are assigned a voice at random. Eventually you’ll be able to pick in the customize options.
  
• We now support an official globalized ban list read by both official and community servers.
  
• Admins can now do /endround to force a round reset.
  
• Attempted to fix an issue where some servers would fail to restart.
  
• The quit option should no longer register when the server list is active, since it is close to the refresh button and some would hit quit by mistake.
  
• Attempted a fix for those who experienced a stuck player customization screen when playing the game. We recommend those who had this issue to verify their game files.
  
• Loading screen should no longer run at a very high FPS.
  
• Fixed issue when joining a friends server while in a server already.
  
• Various anti-cheat measures improved throughout the week (these have not gone ignored)

We will be receiving a customized build from Unity shortly to update our transport layer. We hope this will show an improvement in connection issues for those who suffer them. If the issue is still not fixed we will continue working with them. We should have a test server up sometime soon for those of you experiencing these issues to try.

In other news we have a new gamemode in the works, capture the booty! If you are interested in taking part in the early stability/balance tests be sure to join our discord. Capture the booty focuses more on land battles and boarding, which we thought would be a great contrast to those of you who have been pouring hours into our TDM modes. Two teams of two hoys will fight for a chest of treasure located on an island between your bases. Do what it takes to claim your riches!



Blackwake discord! https://discord.gg/0riQVXihqadCPcl6

Double pistol
Boarding Pike
Harpoons (throwable)
Two Handed Axe (one hit swipes)
Matchlock Arquebus(can shoot forwards and backwards)

Third person reloading animations
Swimming animation
Server whitelists

Note: Melee will be worked on when we have time, for now we are focusing on important critical things to sustain the playerbase/longevity new content. Also weapon sounds are placeholder and will sound much better in the future.

Blackwake - The Beelzebub Pirates
https://youtu.be/KwbZAUDaU4c
Blackwake: Early Access done right
https://youtu.be/uEuf6SScd2s
Blackwake | Crewman Tutorial #3 - When to use each type of cannon munition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQPgxwv1Rhw

• 1v1 versus mode for 5 friend parties (cannot solo que, will not put you into multi-ship matches due to complexity and balance, only for 1v1 hoy)
  
• New game mode

http://www.strawpoll.me/12547124
We want to be sure our time is spent wisely while in early access. We would prefer to add what the majority of our community would like to see and feels would benefit the game in the long run.

Blackwake forums for clans/events: http://www.blackwakeforums.com/
Blackwake discord! https://discord.gg/0riQVXihqadCPcl6

See you on the seven seas!
Dakota & Tyler

Hey guys, we have a small batch of fixes since we've spent a lot of this week experimenting with the connection issues mentioned in our last update and also laying the framework for our next gamemode.

This update will require servers to be updated. Server owners should restart their servers. Soon we will introduce an automated live version check so this is an easier process, but until then it will need to be done manually.

• Tickets should now properly display on 16:10
  
  
• A very small amount of you are experiencing a bug where the player customization menu stays up when you join a server, this is still being investigated but it should be fixed enough to allow you to join a server. If you still experience this, delete cc.set in the Blackwake root folder and then validate the game files through Steam.

More permanent low FPS on high end rig ingame fixes:
nVidia control panel
- Threaded optimization swith it to OFF
- Shader Cache switch it to OFF
- Vsync ingame to ON

Voip crashing the game on use or causing issues by turning you into a robot/garbling
- Try and uncheck the two exclusive mode ticked boxes down below in this menu http://i.imgur.com/OI84448.png


Blackwake now has forums for Clans and Events if you aren't a fan of Steam/Discord/Reddit.
Join here and challenge other clans to war!
http://www.blackwakeforums.com/

Hey guys, we have a small batch of fixes since we've spent a lot of this week experimenting with the connection issues mentioned in our last update and also laying the framework for our next gamemode.

This update will require servers to be updated. Server owners should restart their servers. Soon we will introduce an automated live version check so this is an easier process, but until then it will need to be done manually.

• Tickets should now properly display on 16:10
  
  
• A very small amount of you are experiencing a bug where the player customization menu stays up when you join a server, this is still being investigated but it should be fixed enough to allow you to join a server. If you still experience this, delete cc.set in the Blackwake root folder and then validate the game files through Steam.

More permanent low FPS on high end rig ingame fixes:
nVidia control panel
- Threaded optimization swith it to OFF
- Shader Cache switch it to OFF
- Vsync ingame to ON

Voip crashing the game on use or causing issues by turning you into a robot/garbling
- Try and uncheck the two exclusive mode ticked boxes down below in this menu http://i.imgur.com/OI84448.png


Blackwake now has forums for Clans and Events if you aren't a fan of Steam/Discord/Reddit.
Join here and challenge other clans to war!
http://www.blackwakeforums.com/

Hey guys, no patch notes for today :(. We've mostly been spending Saturday noting reports and sorting what we should update next. But we do have an update on one of our current issues.


Although the majority of you are playing fine, there is a very small subset of users experiencing some of the issues mentioned in this thread: http://steamcommunity.com/app/420290/discussions/2/133258092245256356/

We are not okay with this, and we are now in contact and working with a Unity developer on this issue. We will hopefully begin to see some progress soon. Blackwake uses WakeNet, a high level networking system we built above the UNet transport layer. We reached a point where errors from the transport layer were no longer giving us useful information, causing a stall on this issue. There is still no known workaround and we sincerely apologize for that.