Communicating with other Pirates

Puzzle Pirates gives the prose-prone pirate a number of ways to get their message across before they resort to cruel steel.

By default on land, any chat you type will be sent to the Speak channel, whereas at sea it will be sent to Vessel chat for your fellow shipmates to read. To chose a different mode of speech, simply click on the drop-down box to the left of the input bar. You can also use the appropriate / shortcut described below.

Chat Types

Speak

In most cases you will be talking to the other Pirates standing in your circle. Simply type your message, press return, and it should appear in a speech bubble near your Pirate's head.

Subsequent bubbles are placed underneath earlier ones, shuffling everything upwards. Older speech bubbles turn yellow and then fade away.

Outdoors, speech, emotes and thoughts can only be heard by Pirates standing in your circle. Indoors everyone can hear normal speech.

Emote

An emote adds your Pirate's name in front of the text, for example if you emote 'smiles.' then other players will see 'Sandra smiles.' in an appropriately shaped bubble near your Pirate (if you name happens to be Sandra, that is.)

Emotes are useful in role playing and for general expressions, for example 'Cleaver gives Sandra a knowing wink.' As you can see, Emotes are shown in a concave rectangular bubble.

You can emote anytime by typing /emote, e.g. '/emote gives Sandra a knowing wink.' to achieve the above.

Think

Pirates like to think, and what better way to let your thoughts be known than in an attractive bubbly balloon over your head? You can think anything you like by selecting it from the menu or by typing /think, for example '/think I wonder where I left my shoes?'

Remember that only those Pirates who are stood in your circle with hear you think.

Tell

Tell speaks directly to another player regardless of where they are in the world. You need to spell your correspondent's name out for the message to reach them. Tells appear as messages in the lower part of the screen.

Shout

Shouts can be used on a boat or inside a building to add emphasis to your speech.

Doubtless there is no need to remind polite Pirates that shouting a lot is considered bad form. Indeed, abusing shout will get you the blackspot or worse, so only use it in small doses when it's appropriate.

Crew

Crew chat speaks directly to your entire Crew, regardless of where they are in the world. This is very handy when you're attempting to co-ordinate a venture with your fellow Pirates.

Jobbing Crew

Jobbing Crew chat works just like Crew chat, but addresses the crew with which ye be Jobbing. It looks just like Crew chat.

Vessel

Vessel chat is a convenient way of communicating to all those Pirates who are currently on board your vessel.

Chat History

Along the bottom of the screen is the speech bar where you type new speech. The two right-hand icons allow you to bring up the overlay chat history and the full-screen chat history.

The left 'scroll' button brings up the overlay chat history in the lower section of the main view.

The right-hand icon brings up the full-screen chat history. This is handy for when you've missed a bunch of chat, or perhaps if you want to cut and paste some dialogue.

There are several other options available to you for chatting including filters for speech and saving chat logs to your computer for future reference in the 'options' section of your 'Ye' tab.

/ commands

Slash commands can be used from any speaking interface, simply preface the command with a / and then add any message text, for example:

/shout I'm loud!

You can type /help to get a list of all / commands:

/help /afk /away /back /clear /complain /crew /cwho /dnd /emote /fbroadcast /fofficer /fwho /jcrew /game /house /info /invite /job /me /msg /mute /officer /plank /royalty /say /shout /speak /tell /think /unmute /vessel /vwho /who

/who

Who provides ye with an idea of how many folks are currently playing Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates. The list appears in the Ahoy! window and is grouped according from top with those on your local island, then numbers on other islands in yer archipelago, then the numbers and commanding officers (in brackets) of the vessels at sea in yer archipelago.

Ye will note that Ocean Masters are listed at the top, along with, for new players, Greeters. Ocean Masters and Greeters are there to help you. If you have a question about the game, feel free to /tell them.

Other who's: /cwho, /fwho, /vwho

In addition to /who ye can also use:

/cwho lists the members of that Crew who are online.
/fwho lists the members of that Flag online.
/vwho lists the mateys on board a Vessel.

Ye can use a part of the crew or flag name in fwho and cwho.

/tell

A quick way to use the tell method of speaking directly, over distance, to another player. For example:

/tell Bob Hi there!

would send the message 'Hi there!' to Bob wherever he happens to be in the game, so long as he's online that is.

/shout, /think, /emote, /vessel, /crew

These all do what you'd expect by adding the text after the command, for example:

/crew You're all scurvy dogs!

lets your crewmates know exactly what you think of them.

/jcrew to speak to your jobbing crew

If you want to communicate with your Jobbing Crew, use /jcrew;

/jcrew Which ship are we boarding?

Other chat channels: /officer, /fofficer, /royalty, /fbroadcast

There are a few special modes for officers and above in crews and flags:

/officer (/o) speaks to officers and up in yer crew.
/fofficer (/fo) speaks to officers and up across yer flag.
/royalty (/ro) speaks to the royalty of yer flag only, if ye be royalty.
/fbroadcast (/fb) allows royalty to broadcast to the whole flag.

Ye don't need to worry too much about any o' these if yer just starting out.

Repeating the Same Action

Puzzle Pirates includes a handy feature that remembers your previous / commands and allows you to quickly recall them. Use the up and down arrows to scroll back into command history. This is particularly handy when talking to a few people using /tell, as when someone tells to you a response to /tell back will appear in your history automatically.

Identifying Player and Non-Player Pirates

As a new pirate, you may notice that your name is green. This lets everyone know to cut ye some slack and give ye some pointers. As ye play the game, yer name will gradually change to yellow, like other players.

Most other Pirates have yellow names, with exceptions being Greeters, who have pink names, and Ocean Masters, who have blue names. Both are here to help you, so feel free to approach them and ask questions.

Whilst wandering the Islands you will notice white-named Pirates in many scenes, and often they will seem a little uncommunicative. These are non-player pirates, or NPPs, who are computer-controlled. NPPs can be identified by their prefixed names, such as 'Kind Kathryn', displayed in white over their heads. Non-player Pirates don't have a lot to say for themselves, but they can be challenged to Sword fights and Drinking games. See the radial menu instructions following to learn more about interacting with NPPs.

Some very special 'interest' players have white names, they are here to run fun events or otherwise act out roles, as if they were non-player Pirates. Thus, their names are also white.

Official:Communications