Welcome to another edition of our Hearts of Oak progress articles!
Each week*, we will bring you a summary of the latest development news, including work-in-progress screenshots and in-game footage, along with a more in-depth look at featured content.
Today we're mainly focusing on music, but we've also got news on both engine and website development.
Engine Development
- Wwise non-commercial sound license
Following the upgrade to the CryEngine Engine-as-a-Service (EaaS), it's now necessary for us to use the Wwise sound system for the game.
The free version bundled with the engine has a limit of only 200 sounds, which would quickly become a problem for our game due to the scope we're aiming for.
Therefore, Captain Murphy has been in talks with Audiokinetic to negotiate a non-commercial license for Wwise, which will lift the 200 sound limit and allow us to pursue our non-profit goals for the game.
We are pleased to report that they have now granted us this license, so the main drawback with the EaaS has been addressed!
Website Development
- Brand new look for HoO site
In case you weren't aware, we have an official site for the game over at Heartsofoakgame.com which is constantly updated with the latest news, videos, images and more.
This site is meant as a companion for the PiratesAhoy! forums, and presents all the Hearts of Oak news and media in one place.
Some of you may have already visited the site, but until now it has only had a temporary design. That has now changed as we're redesigning it to look more professional and easier on the eyes.
The design is meant to be consistent with the minimalist aesthetic that we're planning to use for the game's interfaces, and which is already represented in the logo itself.
Below you can see a design concept by Ashinokami, upon which the new website is based, which demonstrates this aesthetic very well:
The website design is still a work in progress, so please do visit the site and let us know what you think!
Music
To give you a taste of what's to come, we're regularly showcasing an original track, produced by one of our talented composers.
This week we've got a brand new track from Flannery called "The Tale of the Gall-Gaidhel", which is a rough sketch at this stage.
You can listen to it below, and then check out his comments on the track:
The Tale of the Gall-Gaidhel sketch.mp3
Flannery wrote: The piece is a very Gaelic inspired piece, with some elements of Norse folk music - which is intentional - hence why it is called "The Tale of the Gall-Gaidhel".
The Vikings who settled down in Dublin (and western Scotland & the Isle of Man) - and who embraced the Gaelic language and culture - essentially became known as the "Gall-Gaidhel".
Translated it means Norse-Gaels or Foreign-Gaels (but only used on Gaelic speaking Norsemen).
These people (as so many others) are seafaring ancestors to many a soul who sought fortune in the Caribbean later on.Also, much of the more common music in America (folk music) from the colonial era has its origins in medieval Celtic music (Irish/Scottish/French).
(Not talking about the classical music here, as this was reserved only for the rich and privileged.)There will be a "tavern" version of this as well later on, without the orchestral parts in the background.
COPYRIGHTS
This music is the property of D'laymusic - Norway, and Christian "Flannery" Tornholm-Lehn. It is protected under copyright law, which if violated might lead to legal persecutions.
Stay tuned for more original music soon!
Vacancies
We still have a few high-priority vacancies that need to be filled to help us make further progress on the game:
- Character modellers (we still don't have any!)
- Other 3D artists
- User Interface artists
- Texture/shader artists
- Engine programmers/scripters
To apply to join the team, please head over to our Recruitment Forum and introduce yourself.
No formal qualifications are needed; you just need some free time and enthusiasm, though experience is helpful.
Please note: this project is non-commercial and so we are not offering payment to team members.
If you know someone else that might be able to help, please point them in our direction!
Remember, we're a volunteer community and we can't make this game happen without your help!
That's it for this week's progress; we'll have more updates for you soon!
Don't know what the Hearts of Oak project is? Take a look at our Frequently Asked Questions for more information.
*Please note that while we're aiming to post a new article each week, we can't always manage this, but we will post articles as regularly as we can!
This is my most anticipated game. Hopefully you guys grow a brain and decide to go commercial. You deserve the money! If you don't do it for yourselves, then do it for us. More money for you means a bigger... and better game.
The way the team is right now it would be really hard to go commercial just a bunch of people all throwing in things to help the project though some positions are more important all are needed. Also I don't think they would want to make people pay.
Throwing money into the mix is a dangerous thing. We have no intention of going commercial.
Maybe you can think of it as proving ground
Great name. There is an area in Ireland around Dublin called Fingal. Fingal is an anglicisation of, 'Fionn Gaill' - 'Fionn' meaning fair and 'Gall' meaning foreigner. This is where the Viklings first settled in Ireland.
Right now, the font used in the website is quite hard to read. The letters are very elongated and close one of another and it makes it unconfortable to read if the text is more than a few words long.
Other than that, everything looks fine. Keep up the good work, mates.
Pretty sure the font is a placeholder at the moment, but I've passed your comments on to the web design team anyway. Thanks for the feedback!
Quick question: which browser are you using to view the HoO site, and what size is your monitor/screen resolution?
I use Firefox at 1920x1080
What size of monitor? I have tried it in FF, Chrome, IE, and Safari and it looks nearly identical in all of them on my 15", 17", 22", and 24" monitors in Win7, 8, and 8.1.
22" Maybe it's just me not liking the font very much, and the fact that I'm not used to it. It looks good for titles but IMO the texts should go in a more standard font type. Most websites use Arial or similar fonts for a reason. They're plain and boring but easy on the eye. The font shouldn't distract you from the content.
It's just my opinion, I'm no web designer or anything but I spend a lot of time in the internet ;)
I appears that there was a mime type problem with the server and it was not sending the font files correctly. It should be resolved now and showing the appropriate ones. Give it another go and let me know what you think.
Definitely better now. I'd still go for a sans-serif font for the bulk of the text for it to look cleaner, though; as they say, serif is better for printed works and sans-serif is better for web.
The music is very cool. It sounds remotely familiar, not by the themes but by the overall feeling, in some way it reminds me of witcher 1 - the best of the series, by my thinking.
I'm graduating in the end of the july and if you need some stuff writers I think I could help. Although my native language isn't english - i really don't think it is such a problem :)
You will always be welcome to join us at Piratesahoy.net
Keep up the fantastic work! Good job with the music too! I do however have one question. One of the few things I liked about black flag was the ability for your crew to sing sea shanties is this something that could be implemented?
We could potentially look into shanties, so long as we don't copy AC4 directly.
That is indeed a pretty cool feature on AC4. Sailors singing shanties can't be copyrighted either. As long as we use unique music tracks and not the ones they used. Right?