After much deliberation the finalists of the original comic creation category have been chosen. There were many high quality entries and it was a hard task for our team that chose the final ten. Each finalist will receive 1000 Star Pirates points each for making it into the poll. Now the community will vote on which is the best overall comic. The entries can be found below. The artist whose entry receives the most votes will win 5000 points, while the artist of the entry that receives the second most votes will receive 2000 points.

Note: A noble click embiggens the smallest comics

Entry 1

Entry 2

Entry 3

Entry 4

Entry 5

Entry 6

Entry 7

Entry 8

Entry 9

Entry 10

Right now we are in the selection process for finalists in our Star Pirates Comic Contest (click for a link to the contest in the game.) There are two types of entry currently: original comics and captioning for some comic templates.

One exciting thing about the contest is that we have some professional and semi-professional webcomic authors who have thrown their hat in the ring. I would love to give a shout out to these talented artists and their websites:

Legostar Galactica by D.M. Jeftinija, PhD (Dr. Legostar)
Galaxion by Tara Tallan (Aria)
The Volet by Ti-Phil (Ti-Phil)
Sailing the Orion Spur by Terry K. Riley (Sum Dum Ghai)

You can click on any of the above webcomic names to visit the site. You’ll be glad you did. I enjoyed some of these comics (a few of which I was seeing for the first time) very much!

We’ve got a lot of new players coming to Star Pirates from PvPonline.com where Scott Kurtz has kindly mentioned us. Check out the comic if you’ve never seen it. Here are some reactions we’ve received:

[FTW] Wreck
And Malk..It is a guarantee that this community here is the most helpful of any Online game out there. Having played most of them,this is without a doubt the best.

[PC] Gloucester
“I’m new. The game seems like a lot of fun and everyone’s really friendly! Even after they kill you!”

[PC] windle poons
“yeah, scott kurtz, the author of PvP, recommended it and he was right,the game is fun and the community is great”

Thanks for the nice words! We hope you’re enjoying the game.

We got Gooey.  No, not Gooey, I mean GUI — Graphic User Interface.

See when we started StarPirates a few years ago, the preferred game interface was text and minimal clicks.  And we went for it with all the links for the game spread over just two pages.  And that players first page, and second page, were these walls of links.   Since each link was the same size, new players didn’t have a clue of what to do or how to decode them.

So as time went on, we saw the shift in online casual games from text to graphics.  This was really led by the interface changes demanded by gaming in Facebook.  The standards of what people found intuitive have changed.  When we started it was games based upon the GRPG skeleton.  Now it’s the breadcrumbs and top status bars of Facebook.

We want to make sure existing players are happy and we spent 95% of our time on that.  But we do need to continue to add in new personalities into the community.  We have to make sure the system is welcoming new players as well.  And so the leap to this new Interface.

Want some shots?  Well here you go:

Space Dock

Cockpit View : From Ship

Station View

From time to time, you just have to gracefully accept that with some major game updates, no matter how prepared you think you are, it’s just not a real update until you bring down the house. Or in this case, briefly, the game.

In retrospect, we shouldn’t be surprised – after all, when Chaos and Order go head to head, there are bound to be some casualties. (Jupiter, and poor, frozen AAB for example.) Evidently 200+ war members was just too much excitement for the old CPU, causing some significant lag and connection issues for the players online during the war. In the end, it was with regret that we had to kill the war, and many thanks to Chaos for surrendering.

I doubt that most would call it a total waste, since every active player walked away from today with two extra Notorious days for their trouble, and the promise of another war, along with a handout of some Unfindable items to come. And really, this is what testing a new feature is all about: Free stuff.

I mean finding bugs.

So, it’s back to the drawing board, to find out which query caused the slowdown, and to find a way to fix that for next time (yes, there will be a next time, don’t think you can get out of it so easily, you orderly knaves).

As always, we’d like to thank you, the players, for your patience and understanding in the face of great frustration and disappointment. The support from the community was overwhelming and uplifting, and we’ll do our best to continue to live up to it.

In conclusion, let me just say that I hope our good AdminArrBilly has learned his lesson, and will think twice, the next time he tries to freeze a (mostly) innocent CSR on the side of Chaos.

The SHG cats are hungry? Nope, instead all NOMs are now findable in
StarPirates.net.

“Huh?”, you say?

NOMs are Nano-Optimisation Modules. They are used, along with some other ingame items, to upgrade weapons, shields, engines and other equipment. They can be used to push items up to Mark V, just about doubling their power.

Now they are findable, we expect to see a rash of debris searches for those NOMs. And the fun part is they make every rare or very rare item even more relevant. The hunt to upgrade, is a fun one, and there are a lot of fun knock on effects for many parts of the game — for power players, and those who just dabble as a Star Pirate.

Want to learn more? Try the
free social game, starpirates.net now!

Starpirates.net exists to give a chance to have fun, and forget about the cares of the world.   Sometimes though real life can’t be ignored.

On the weekend we had another great of the game pass: Angua von Uberwald.  She was ill when she joined us, but she didn’t complain about the many chunks of ill fortune life threw her way.  She proceeded to be so dominant that she ended as  one of the top dozen most powerful players.  She helped many new players achieve their goals in the game – whatever they were.  She was a leader.

We have elected to add her to the Halls of the Immortals.  Immortals are those players who have had a genuinely powerful influence on the community before passing in “Real Life”.  Only 2 other players have been enshrined before; she rests in glory with FourFingers (FF), and Geoffrey De Lysander (GDL).  I miss these friends, as I’ll miss Angua.

Rest in Peace.

Players often as us how to help promote the game.  Well one player got creative and created a video.  The video outlines the game basics.

You can find it here on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQE0hBAyD1Y

A lot of enhancements lately – some heavy behind-the-scenes work for speed improvements being one, the spying/disguise/online bonuses (including reduced energy costs) in Spy Battle: 2165 and a host of other subtle game improvements.

Probably the most exciting (and visible) improvement in the past while is upgradeable items. Rares, Rare+, Very Rare and Very Rare+ items in Spy Battle: 2165 and Star Pirates are now extendible. Not all items in these categories can be upgraded (yet) but more are being released on a bi-weekly basis.

Congratulations to the players of Spy Battle: 2165 on achieving HOSPITAL: 1000.

Star Pirates reached 430 players online – and Spy Battle 227. Wow! Thanks everyone for your continued support and being part of such a vibrant community!

Many thanks to Apt142 for organizing the very successful Star Pirates Lego Ship Contest:

1st place:
Dane Agathon’s Dreadnaught
Prize: 3000 points

2nd place:
DentedHead’s Frigate
Prize: 2000 points

We added a best virtual category since there was so many entries on that level.

Best Virtual – Barbo’s Warship
Prize: 500 points

And because there were so many great ones, the mod judges picked their favorites and awarded a little extra to them.

Mod Choice Awards: SirGir’s Admin Team, Naecht’s Dublo Dreadnaught, Bridgeburner’s Bar

(pics to follow)