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An ocean is the world and gaming environment in Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates. In more technical terms, an ocean is a game server. Puzzle Pirates currently has seven separate regular player servers and one testing server. A player account may have characters on each ocean; however, each ocean maintains a separate, independent, and unique environment with separate pirates, stats, inventories, and possessions. Currently, there are two different types of oceans: Subscriber oceans and Doubloon oceans. Both subscriber and doubloon oceans offer unlimited free play of the basic duty puzzles, and of carousing and crafting puzzles on specific days of the week. In order to have unlimited access to all puzzles all the time, the ability to achieve crew ranks higher than cabin person, and use better quality weapons and clothing, pirates must subscribe on the subscriber oceans, or buy appropriate badges with doubloons on the doubloon oceans. Each ocean has its own unique geography - except for Cobalt and Viridian, which are identical, and Opal and Hunter, which are also identical to each other - which encompasses islands divided into a number of different archipelagos. Each ocean has between three and eight archipelagos, and each archipelago contains anywhere from three to eighteen islands, with one of them designated as the capital island.
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The Midnight Ocean was the very first public ocean to open for Three Rings and was brought online on October 23, 2003. Midnight replaced the former testing ocean, Azure, as Puzzle Pirates transitioned from the closed Alpha development stage to the open Beta development stage. It's geography was mostly based on that of Azure's with a few minor tweaks to the locations and landscapes of certain islands.
From the first day, Midnight was a vibrant mix of pirates from all over the world, most of whom had participated in the earlier testing stages. Pirates broke new boundaries becoming the first to claim ultimates, own ships, and win familiars on this new frontier. With release 2004-04-28, blockades are introduced and a race begins to become the first flag to blockade and own an island.
Midnight, now almost in its fifth year, has had a constant struggle to keep up with the expansion of the game. Newer players are often turned off by the establishment of the Midnight political and social circles and the difficulty required to enter them. However, Midnight still retains many of the vibrant and multi-national characteristics that made it so exciting in the beginning and will continue to be home to many pirates for as long as it exists.
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Meridian, Emerald, Opal, Jade
Doubloon exchange
Quick explanation, links to billing FAQs
A Map of the Viridian Ocean including islands, archipelagos, and route difficulties. Click to enlarge image.
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The very first foreign language Puzzle Pirates server was called the Indigo Ocean and was hosted by Gamigo, a German company contracted by Three Rings to host the ocean. Indigo was not updated regularly to keep up with the main releases. It was shut down in December of 2007 when Three Rings terminated their contract with Gamigo. Three Rings then opened the Opal Ocean, a brand new German speaking ocean to replace Indigo.
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