Hearts of Oak: Conquest of the Seas

[Bava]

The PiratesAhoy! Community, makers of the popular mods Pirates of the Caribbean: New Horizons and Age of Pirates 2: Gentlemen of Fortune, presents...

Hearts of Oak: Conquest of the Seas is a non-commercial PC game that is to become the historical seafaring game to end them all!
Fun, realistic gameplay on land and at sea, set during the Age of Sail, will provide extensive free play, exciting scripted storylines and intense multiplayer scenarios.
Our goal is to allow anyone interested in the era to be able to live their dream!

The gameplay will be similar in style to Akella's Storm Engine-based games that we are known for modifying, but we intend to take it further and offer more freedom, immersion and authenticity. The player will assume the role of a captain and have full command of their crew, being able to delegate tasks and give orders in the heat of battle. Dynamic hand-to-hand combat will make boarding enemy ships and capturing forts a fast paced, hectic experience. Whether you want to enlist in a navy, lead an honest merchant life, or resort to piracy, Hearts of Oak will offer many hours of gameplay.

Using the power of the CryEngine, and the knowledge and talent of our artists, the game will deliver stunning visuals worthy of tomorrow's PC hardware. You'll be able to explore a vast open world filled with highly detailed locations, ships and characters.

We are a team of volunteers, and due to the scale of this project, the game will take many months to develop. We will be releasing tech demos, alpha and beta versions over the coming months, but please be patient and have faith in our dev team. This is our dream game concept, and we are determined to make it a reality!
Help Wanted!

At this time, we are looking for more volunteers who could fulfil any of the following roles:

    Programmer: Able to work with CryEngine to help us test and evaluate their suitability for the project.
    GUI Developer: Prototypes user interfaces for the game, based on CryEngine.
    3D Artist: Able to model various 3D assets for the game; the type of asset is up to the individual, and can include weapons, buildings, characters and ships. Guidance will be provided for historical references.
    Musician: Creates original tracks for the game. A decent amount of experience is preferable.

If you're interested in joining our team, please visit our recruitment forum and introduce yourself: Piratesahoy.net
If you are unable to join our team, you can still help by spreading the word! If you know anyone with the skills we need, please do point them in our direction.

Screenshots and small video can be found on the HoO-moddb page: http://www.moddb.com/games/hearts-of-oak


Regards,
Bava

 

[rejenorst]

Looks pretty interesting.

 

[CryoNomad]

Never played any of these but I have played and love Pirates of the Burning Sea. You have any idea how realistic the combat tries to be in your game compared to that? Good PvP in this game?

 

[Bava]

As realistic as we can make without turning it into an full-blown age of sail simulator. Ships speed is going to calculated by the angle/surface of the individuals sails set to the wind, hull shape and displacement - making sailing manoeuvres like tacking possible - and they´ll carry the crew and armament they had historically. First featured time period will the Seven Years War, by the way.

The first milestone/proof of concept will be a working 1vs1 multiplayer ship combat, but that´s a couple of months down the road.

Currently, there are about a dozen people working on this game (including programmers/3d artists with professional background), but of course we´re still looking for volunteers, especially for texturers and people who enjoy working on scene props and characters.

The game is going to completly free and we have absolutely no intention to do a fundraising campaign, a thing often asked for on the moddb page 

 

[Ringwraith #5]

Oooh, this looks very nice! I've been pining for a good sailing game ever since The City of Abandoned Ships. This definitely looks like something to keep an eye on. Best of luck to you guys!

 

[Sir Prince]

Best of luck to you!

 

[Hengwulf]

Gentlemen of Fortune was a nice mod. This one could be really great. Good luck 

 

[Bava]

Thanks, gentlemen

I've been pining for a good sailing game ever since The City of Abandoned Ships.

Have a look at Naval Action, then. It´s a MMO, but it seems pretty promising, as far as I can tell.

Edit: I uploaded a couple of (early) WIP pics of my ship model on my personal moddb-page, so you can see what we´re aiming for in terms of detail for ships.
And here´s another one currently in our shipyard:

隐藏

 

[Biggus Dickus]

Beautiful. Do you have any idea how long it took you to make it to that stage? Is 100 hours enough?

 

[K-64]

You mentioned Storm Engine things in the OP, does that mean that it'll (in very simplified terms) be effectively a more refined and properly implemented Build mod? Because if you're going along those lines in terms of gameplay and such, then I'll be very eagerly awaiting this.

 

[Bava]

That depends on how many RPG elements we can implement in the CryEngine, but a 'modern' build mod with an emphasis on realistic sailing and more historical accuracy (including the 'official' storyline) would be the ultimate goal, yes. But don´t expect things like a Flying Dutchman or other fantasy stuff in the initial release; if other people want to mod them in, that´s fine with us, though.

Do you have any idea how long it took you to make it to that stage? Is 100 hours enough?

Didn´t count the hours, but they´re easily in the 100 + range in the case of my ship and it´s not even half-way done. Research is the main time sink, though, you really need a solid in-depth knowledge about period ships to model them accurately

By the way, it´s nice to see that there´s interest in an age-of-sail game (and that a couple of people still remember the build/GoF mods) 

 

[Bava]

Couple of new pics on the HoO-moddb page:

http://www.moddb.com/games/hearts-of-oak/images

And our hardworking programmer C. Murphy has uploaded some interesting behind-the-scenes videos on his youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1cjpMsVAgs&list=UUe6e4oTUPKJW3klzNc45fzw

 

[HoJu]

You guys are my heroes. Glad to hear this is coming along nicely.

 

[Ringwraith #5]

And our hardworking programmer C. Murphy has uploaded some interesting behind-the-scenes videos on his youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1cjpMsVAgs&list=UUe6e4oTUPKJW3klzNc45fzw

That's awesome!

 

[Bava]

Two new dev logs about wind impact and physical impulse on ships:

http://www.moddb.com/games/hearts-of-oak/news/latest-videos2

Most of us have been pretty busy with real life lately (that´s one of the drawbacks of having a modding crew with an average age close to 25 or, more probably, 30), but we get along

And a little behind-the-scenes from my side:

As one of the ship coordinators, it´s my job to compile lists of vessels which are suitable for our first storyline, the Seven Years War.
This requires quite a lot of research, it´s tedious as ****, but gives a solid starting base to our modellers if they´re searching of a new project. For example, here´s the list for unrated vessels and frigates:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AiA4zRpkPGZndG9URXp2bGtUNlFfQjdRNmJYMVNSSWc#gid=0

I´m also working on a ship model myself and it was pretty close to being finished, but I was contacted by a real expert on french shipbuilding of the time (who took great interest in our little project) and it seems I have to change a thing of two
I followed the plans as accurately as possible; problem is the contemporary plan is not entirely correct. But Thomas, the expert I mentioned above, was kind enough to redraw the whole draught in a CAD program (incoporating the original decorations drawing he got from the Navy Archive in Brest). Here´s the 'old' model with the new plan in yellow:

This may not be really interesting to the casual player, but I just wanted to give a little insight on what´s going on behind the scenes
If you want to have a look at our other ship WIPs, follow this link.

Best Regards,
Bava

 

[Ringwraith #5]

I don't get it. Okay, so the decorative back end of the ship is a little differently shaped. Does it really make that big of a difference? Does it actually impact the function or performance of the ship in any way, in real life?

 

[Duh]

It impacts the number of *****es you get, when you ride into town.

 

[HoJu]

Needs moar Spanish ships

Keep up the good work. The amount of detail you're aiming for is mind-blowing.

 

[Bava]

Needs moar Spanish ships

Give me some proper plans for spanish ships and I´ll put them on the list
I know two or three, they´re too 'young' for our first storyline, though.

I don't get it. Okay, so the decorative back end of the ship is a little differently shaped. Does it really make that big of a difference? Does it actually impact the function or performance of the ship in any way, in real life?

No, it doesn´t. But we try to recreate these vessels to the best of our knowledge and incorporating things like the contemporary drawing of the stern/head or new archaeological evidences is just part of this process.
The shape of the side galleries on the english draught always seemed a bit odd to me (like a Vickers Mk I turret on a PzKpfw III chassis), so I´m pretty happy that these new drawings appeared.
But as I said, things like these most probably won´t be noticed by 95% of the player base, but we want to make the remaining 5% happy, too

It impacts the number of *****es you get, when you ride into town.

MOAR.*****ES.
Especially proper Age-of-Sail *****es like this one:

隐藏

 

[HoJu]

Needs moar Spanish ships

Give me some proper plans for spanish ships and I´ll put them on the list
I know two or three, they´re too 'young' for our first storyline, though.

I found some low-quality images in the Spanish Navy website but they're little more than thmbnails. I could try to contact with the Naval Museum in Madrid wich is probably where the original plans are. I may get lucky.