firstly, Yarrmet, appologies in advance reguarding the spam suggestion, but we have occasionally had bots posting here. I've had a look at the game and at first glance it does seem possibly interesting (I do have a bit of a thing for pirates, especially sinse I've played one on stage complete with cutlass whirling).

anyway, I have a few questions about the game:

1: A news post on the main forum mentions a randomized map, can you say a litle more about the exploration features of the game?

2: from the news page the game seems to feature searching and random events. do these have any sort of plot? How are they described? actual text descriptions or just "You find x amount of gold", "You find X item" etc.

3: The game mentions attacking other pirates, is Pvp a major part of the game, or is it possible to have a good game experience without engaging in Pvp.

Sorry about all the questions, but I've checked out probably close to a hundred so called text rpg's, and most of them reduce tdown to a fairly standard model of stat grinding through repetitieve actions, simply so that you can stand a chance in a pvp, ---- with the pvp taking the form of yet more repetitive action and comparison of your stats.

I'm sorry if this sounds a litle scynical of the genre, but I am slightly starting to lose my patience with them.

Arjan, I'm fairly sure the above post isn't spam, ---- and suggesting it might not be precisely tactful. Sinse the game seems to have a rewards for reference system, I don't believe spam bots are allowed. Being as it was only an online text game (and I've updated the old antivirus and spyware defences), I've checked the link.

Nope, clicking it won't cause your computer to explode ----- or mine hasn't yet anyway!

It'll lead you to the home page of the game. At a cursery glance, the game looks accessible ---- one news post on the main page even mentions hotkeys, though the adds placed at the top of the page might be irritating if your impatient with skipping frames.

One miner issue I did notice is that the "how to play" section is contained in the forum. While this isn't exactly an accessibility thing, having all the information about who posted what when might slightly ruin the flow of the instructions for the game if using a continuous reading mode (as I usually do). As I haven't yet read the instructions, I'm not sure how reasonable they are for people who aren't looking at the screen. One game I tried was absolutely unplayable because the instructions kept referring only to images and not saying what things were called.

the fact that said game was extraordinarily complicated and had many unlabled "javascript" images wasn't too helpful either.

If I get around to trying this pirate game, I'll let everyone know what it's like.

Yep brian, the sign up certainly does require your actual address, and on the basis that I don't like giving out my address online if I can avoid it, I haven't signed up yet.

In the game's defence, they do seem to be making a big thing of advertising,---- there's even a direct link on the main page if you want to post your own add in the game. The news also mentioned perchiceable in game items, so the game might be generating cash this way.

As to the cash, apart from competitions and such, it seems that the game uses a conversion basis, ie, x amount of in game gold adds up to X dollars (they only mention dollars), so presumably the exchange rate will be favourable to the game's management, ---- in fact, they state in the how to play section that the more people put money into the game, through buying items, paying for add space or referring new players, the better the exchange rate.

I'm not sure what the exchange rate is, but I'd be willing to bet you'd have to play fairly extensively to actually make any real money at the game, outside of winning prises in lotteries etc of course.

The cash thing doesn't really interest me anyway though, it's what the game is like.

Having now read the "how to play" section, the good news is that it's quite readable and not eclectic with random people posting random advice as I slightly feared in a forum. the bad news is, that various features of the game appear to be graphical (such as coloured counters to indicate the strength of enemies), and I'm not certain what sort of counterpart these have.

also, reading the bit about the hotkeys, it seems that the arrow keys, space bar and number pad are actually used in the game,---- arrows to navigate for instance. While the instructions state that links are provided, sinse several screen readers use arrows, space and the numberpad regularly anyway, I wonder if this might cause trouble.

I know there are ways around these thingss with hal, sinse in hal I generally use the virtual focus in web pages, so Hal will be using the cursers, not the application, and Hal supervenes on any other applications as far as keys go anyway, so there shouldn't be numb pad issues, (though obviously there are some quick and easy ways to have keys go through to the application when there's a conflict).

I'm not sure how this works in jaws or Window eyes though, particularly with relation to the cursers, though I expect there are relatively easy work arounds. Stil, I thought I'd mention this point.

ah, I thought so, the corresponding key in Hal is ctrl 7, though you can also turn all hotkeys off (and stil have the voice and general program running), with ctrl 8, ctrl 0 for the voice.

I've never needed these on a website though, but they are rather handy for playing audio games.

Rob you? how would knowing your address help them to rob you. Creddit card fraud and avalanches of junk through the post are more likely imho, ----- though if they tried to air mail me junk from the Us, more fool them!

i can certainly confirm that the site homepage and "how to play" sections are free of viruses, spyware etc, but I'm slightly shy about giving my address as well.

Maybe I'll do what I usually do in these situations and give Dark Empathy's address instead:

firstname: dark.
Last name: Empathy.
Street address: The ivory tower, Desolation row.
city: the windmills of my mind.
Zip/postal code: 0000.

I just wish I could complete it by putting an interesting country of origin, ---- Fantasia maybe, or perhaps: "that strange country on the other side of Hell" (a J-strange reference), but annoyingly they usually have drop down lists.

btw, thanks for changing the topic title Senderman.

No thanks! Je suis moderateur for that....

Andy, I believe that the description "just reading blar blar and clicking buttons and links" applies to the vast majority of brouser based text games, methinks a bit more specificity is called for here.

Spam is bad, even spam that involves cheep pizza, even cheep pizza topped with spam! good spam filters are a must, and practicing wise E-mail opening policies is deffinately important if you want to stay virus free. I stil don't see however, how this qualifies as robbing you.

when I get around to testing the Pirate game, I'll let you know about it's spamiciousness or not, ---- though the provider of my public address does use some very good spam filters (I actually get more spam on my private address, which is weerd sinse I hardly ever use it).

as to interactive fiction, that's something i've played a lot of, and I'd certainly like a chat about it (I probably could make a few recommendations). However, it might be better to do that in a new topic rather than just changing tack in this one so quickly.

False email addresses would not be a good idea since they may need to send you a confirmation email, and at the very least you can check if an email address exists without sending a mail. On the other hand no harm in setting up a secondary address for these purposes.

Dark:
I was replying to andy smith's post where he suggested an email address that ended in @support.gov, whjich is probably not genuine. Sorry if it wasn't clear.