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RPG Vault is now offering a post mortem article examining Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean Online, an online multiplayer link to the successful movie franchise. Written by Disney Online's Mike Goslin the article discusses the goals of the project, the development process, and fan reaction. In the game players engage in a variety of fantasy piratical activities including sword fighting, ship to ship battles, gambling, and voodoo.

High-Level Goals
In developing Pirates of the Caribbean Online we wanted first and foremost to make the game accessible to and fun for a broad audience. We focused on the elements that have made the movies so great, like epic ship battles, sword fights with undead pirates, exploration of vast and fantastic islands, voodoo curses, and treasure hunting. We really wanted to capture the same spirit of being a pirate and living in this fantastic world.
For us, the core experience is crewing up and setting sail, blasting away with cannons at everything in sight. We felt like we had delivered a really fun experience for our theme park attraction, and wanted to bring this to the online experience. We decided to include land combat as well, but wanted to make it active and fun, just like the on the sea.

Major Challenges
Overall, our biggest challenge was probably developing a truly authentic Pirates of the Caribbean experience and a virtual world that was detailed and rich while at the same time creating a game that will run on a wide range of hardware. Our incredibly talented artists were able to do a lot with a little, and our hard-working engineers spent endless months tuning the engine.

Looking Ahead
We have a lot of new content planned for the year already, with the focus on expanding both avatar and ship customization, extending the quest story lines, and adding more enemies and challenges. We expect to attract a diverse group of players, so the major challenges for us will involve creating new content for a range of different playing styles.

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Pirates of the Caribbean Online (add to watch list)

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