Blackbeard was an accountant. I'm not kidding. This pirate-themed MMO has no truck with comedy voices, parrots, wooden legs, or curling your lip and growling "Yeargh!" at your guildmates.
In the virtual Caribbean of Pirates of the Burning Sea, you're more likely to talk about your new warehouse, a problematic 10% increase in your labour costs, or how the State is taxing your profits.
I worry that expectations of knockabout comedy with wooden legs might doom Pirates before it's had a chance to flourish. Because beyond an awful opening lies a fun and smart game of economic conflict - you just have to get past the horrific presentation, wooden animation, and sword combat that's as exciting as watching Windows install.
You've got two modes of play to 'enjoy'. The Galleon simulation we'll come to later. First, sword-fighting, which takes up about a third of your time. It features one of the worst combat engines I've ever seen in a game. The idea is similar to World of Warcraft and most other MMOs: you select attacks from a menu-bar and gradually whittle away your opponent's health.
However, it's slightly complicated: every player and enemy has 'balance' and 'initiative' bars. Balance equates to their chance to block incoming attacks - if it's been beaten down to zero, they'll be unable to dodge or parry a thrust. Initiative has to be built up through a sustained exchanges of blows. Once the bar is at least half-full, you can hit an enemy with very strong attacks. A swipe. A double stab. And a kick in the balls.
The problem: it boils down to 30 seconds of hammering the same move. Most scraps can be won by hitting the 'beat' button for 30 seconds - this drives down the initiative - before following up with a foot in the 'nads.
It's entirely at odds with the Errol Flynn school of swashbuckling: no using the furniture, no swinging off chandeliers, no snogging the princess between slicing goons. And no fun.
This wouldn't be too bad if you could avoid melees, but quests demand you confront enemies on land. Grin and bear it.
Now we get to the game's other dirty little secret. Piracy has a very small role in the overall scope of Burning Sea. The top end of play is a game of faction warfare between the British, French, and Spanish rather than a Jolly old player-versus-player Rogering. Each faction is trying to win 'Victory Points', by attacking and securing dozens of towns, looting enemy ships, and beating up passing merchants.
Eventually, one side will 'win' the game; they'll have a party, and grab treasure. Then the Caribbean will reset with some handicaps and head-starts to even up the playing field.
There's a pirate nation too, but by joining it you're unlikely to ever be in a position to win; you're just there to cause problems for everyone else.
Why are we fighting? For property and conquest rights. Owning towns means you can harvest their resources, needed to build top-of-the-line ships and their upgrades. The faction that owns the means of production will a) get rich and b) win.
Production is complicated. First, you'll need to buy a warehouse. And factories. And recipes for refined goods. And timber. And all the other materials needed to build the warehouses. And you'll need to pay for your upkeep and labour costs. And transport your refined goods to central markets where they'll fetch a good price.
Once you get going, it isn't long before you realise that you're playing Elite on the high-seas; trading with other players for the goods they need, and running a profit/loss spreadsheet in a separate window.
This is fundamentally fun. I'm pleased that Pirates does this. But there are basic flaws. Now the game is up and running, and not in beta (I'm reviewing this off a retail version, after the game has gone on sale) we can see how the developers' vision is playing out.
Firstly, player distribution in Europe has been mishandled. The developers have set up separate servers for the English, French, Spanish and German speaking players. Big mistake.
The game relies on players picking a nation to play as from the start, and once picked you're forever allied to it. There's no way of creating alternate characters of a different race without deleting existing characters or changing server. Without thinking, I picked the English, on the English-speaking server. But of course, so did every other Brit.
The English-speaking server is thus dominated by the British players, while the French and Spanish sides are seriously under-subscribed. Spain does seem to have attracted some hardcore PvP enthusiasts, but it's unable to compete with the sheer numbers on the English side. There's been some talk of the French and Spanish allying - but the game offers no real mechanics for a shared victory.
In fact, the mechanics for scrapping are oddly restrictive. You can't just waltz up to an enemy and fire broadsides: fighting is only allowed in narrowly defined zones. This highlights the other major problem. You can see the influence of the galactic war-splode of EVE Online in Pirates of the Burning Sea.
EVE has been in an almost constant state of war since it's launch; and the players involved are having the game of their life. This war has seen espionage, shifting allegiances, betrayal, celebration, hubris, invasion, repulsion, victory speeches and assassinations. The root of EVE's success: players are free to form alliances independent of in-game systems. Anyone can join with anyone else, lay claim to an area of space, then mine it for profit.
That means in EVE there are no enforced factions, no enforced allegiances, and no limit to the backstabbing. And there's no win state: empires crumble not because they're artificially handicapped by programmed feedback systems, but because empires always crumble.
That makes EVE a far better economic war game than Pirates; if you're interested in what Pirates offers then you should look, not to sea, but to space.
Other issues? Even if the sea-scapes are pretty enough, the towns and colonies you'll visit look outdated. The interface is awful. If you start the game as a Pirate, it won't even bother to assign your first skills on the taskbar, leaving you to figure out on your own how to even punch a man.
The opening quests and storylines are repeated between all factions, making members of each nation indistinguishable. There's too much reliance on instancing, making it an oddly unsociable game, especially in the early levels. And you can't select a wooden leg from the off from the (otherwise excellent) character customisation menu.
However. Pirates has one saving grace. And I've deliberately left it until last, to keep expectations low. It turns out piloting boats is all kinds of fun. I didn't think that, to begin with. In fact, I hated it at first.
My first sloop felt clumsy and unwieldy. I was just circling enemies, spamming the 'fire cannon' button until their sails crumpled and their hulls cracked. But then the intricacies began to become clear: the effect of wind, the management of fire arcs and reload times, and the influence of the different types of shot, and of armour plating.
The battles, particularly the massed fleet clashes that the group missions revolve around, are genuinely pleasing. I've started to perfect a technique of first peppering a boat from afar with heavy shot before turning to deliver a point-blank broadside of ball-shot that rips sails apart at the mast. I follow up with buckshot, raking the decks and killing the crew.
Within a few moments, I can cripple, grapple, and board a boat. (One catch: when you board a ship, you'll have to fight the enemy captain using the terrible sword-fighting engine.)
Pirates doesn't offer a perfect recreation of naval combat: you'll be miffed that ramming has no effect; there's not quite enough momentum to make it feel real, and I wish there was a way to wander around your own boat. But it's close. Close enough for me, anyway.
What I really like, though, is how these fights provide a context and impetus for your progress. Once you add good combat into the economic mix, you give yourself a great new reason to continue playing.
Just as Fight Club becomes a reason to cut your nails, Boat Club becomes a reason to purchase new cannons, to investigate new ship deeds, and to start your business empire. Guilds will love equipping their members with the 100 gun mega-galleons that are only available to the top-end players, and once the player-base matures, I'm certain we'll see regular 20 versus 20 fleet battles, adapting historic strategies and tactics.
I'd be mad to recommend Pirates of the Burning Sea to everyone; it's so fundamentally flawed that most gamers are going to simply bounce right off it. If you're going to try it out, be aware of its faults. I very nearly gave up after just a few hours. I'm very glad I didn't.
This was a horrible clunky and just plain boring game. The sea battles were long drawn out..circle and fire circle and fire..lag is horrible, nothing works as intended. I would just let this one die.
PotBS is without doubt an aquired taste. I fully agree that the game is severly lacking in fantastic graphics and is rediculously harsh to newcomers but the more you invest in its intricacies and understand its intent the more rewarding an experience will be had. Avatar combat at low levels is tedious and annoying but as you level up it stops being about bashing a single button and becomes more about crowd control and a tactical choice of your next move.
While I fully expect most people to feel alienated by PotBS' flaws I will continue to recommend it as a game worth investing the time into.
I just had to stop reading the review to post about this."The English-speaking server is thus dominated by the British players, while the French and Spanish sides are seriously under-subscribed. Spain does seem to have attracted some hardcore PvP enthusiasts, but it's unable to compete with the sheer numbers on the English side. There's been some talk of the French and Spanish allying - but the game offers no real mechanics for a shared victory."
I'm currently playing with Spanish on the exact server the reviewer is on i.e Roberts. While he is correct that the English have twice our numbers they are currently last place in the table and have become the whipping boys for the French and the Spanish. We (Spanish) have the lowest population and are coming first, the second being French with the second lowest population.
Also when the reviewer talked about spending a third of your time with melee combat is complete bs. In the endgame Melee isn't used except to finish off a port battle and its always a gankfest then. The only time the annoyances of melee combat come to play are the quests which are largely ignored. Everythingimportant you do is dictated by Open Sea combat.
Also about the Pirates merely being a class to "Disrupt". In the Us server Blackbeard, Pirates are currently the leaders. They get the same amount of points for winning a port battle as anybody else and with organization have as much a chance of winning as anybody.
My friends are all buying this, I havn't got the money. I'm sure it would be awesome with your mates, raiding towns and taking to the high seas. We are all Spanish/ are going to be in my case.
Well I am a pirate on Roberts, and while it is quiet when I normally play (10 am - 1pm), the weekends are bustling with yarrs and shiver me timbers'es. A fun game and I am only still working things out.
I think most people problem with the game, is their used to the linear experiences of WoW and Lotro, where the best way to level up is the boring 'kill 10 rabbit' type quests. Whereas Potbs is more like Eve and from what I here there are plans to implement even more player control into the world. (like giving the ability to run a town).
People always complain they want more freedom in games, and when you give it to them, their all like "this is boring, I have nothing to do". Too used to being told what to do by pixies with yellow question marks above their heads, thats whats wrong.
But, as we all know the PCG Staff are all Blizzard and Valve fanbois and anything just aint, well, cricket.
Pirates are a class to disrubt... The developers designed them to be a class to disrupt, just because they're winning doesn't change the fact they sail the open seas ganking and looting from the nations. There is a reason after all why Pirate PVP zones are much larger ... they exist to exploit the other nations.
The reviewer made it sound like if you want to get into a side that actually challenges the game then don't pick pirates which is completley untrue. Everyside ganks and loots other nations, thats why the Nations have Privateers. The sole reason for rolling a pirate isn't to "annoy other nations" its to win the thing.
But most folk who roll pirates do so because they want to just gank and so they don't stand a chance against the organized nations. But thats the publics fault and not a game design flaw.
PoTBS is a real slow burner of a game. As the reviewer states it seems oddly limited at the start, but once you start leveling, getting new skills, ships and ammo, ship battles suddenly becomes a lot more strategic, and as for swashbuckling - i'd recomend teaming up as it becomes a lot easier and a lot more fun with someone fighting by your side. Add to this the extremely deep player driven econemy and there's plenty to get your teeth into.
When you reach a high enough level you can also start serving your nation in a greater capacity by taking part in port battles which, on the Roberts at least, are a lot more frequent than the review suggests.
I'd recomend joinig a society earlier rather than later as they can give you a helping hand while learning the ropes which isn't as easy in other games as the info given by the game is hardly all-encompassing.
All in all I'm thoroughly enjoying PoTBS and find it a breath of fresh air in the stagnent MMOG market. And best of all, there's not an Orc or a Dwarf in sight!!
I gotta agree with DanDare there about needing advice when you start.
I understand the need to have a more freeform game, but for someone starting the game (apart from being shown the VERY basics) there is next to all direction. It took me bloody ages to figure out various things (like where the bloody capital is!!!) Thankfully, on Roberts, people are very very helpful and friendly. Can't say the same for Blackbeard theough. On the 3 hrs playing there all I say on the chat was one lot slagging of the other and vice versa. Oh and gold farming ads.
Wank game though. Especially for those running Vista who have to use a week of their trial to download the patch.
I've never previously played this game, nor have I heard of it. I was just browsing the site, found the review.
Beside the fact that I laughed myself to death over it, I found reading this review useful because I see that there is afterall some inclination to make games that try something different (although by the sound of it, I'm not so sure it worked out). Anyway, it'd be nice to find soemthing entirely different out there!
But, as we all know the PCG Staff are all Blizzard and Valve fanbois and anything just aint, well, cricket.
That's hardly relevant to the review, as one of the problems highlighted is that for a game with similar principles to EVE, it suffers in comparison. I see no "It's not as good as WoW" type comments in the review.
I might give PotBS a try, but I'm a long time EVE player and I don't see any reason to leave for a similar game with less player freedom.
I might give PotBS a try, but I'm a long time EVE player and I don't see any reason to leave for a similar game with less player freedom.
Lots of Eve players have now moved to PotBS for a change and lots have them are happy they did. Its a good game...and will be probably the only EvE-like mmo for a while.
I might give PotBS a try, but I'm a long time EVE player and I don't see any reason to leave for a similar game with less player freedom.
Lots of Eve players have now moved to PotBS for a change and lots have them are happy they did. Its a good game...and will be probably the only EvE-like mmo for a while.
What I've heard about PotBS from reviews and player comments just doesn't really appeal to me. It sounds too structured and restrictive for my liking, and while I'd like to see what the ship combat is like, I like spaceships more than water ships.
I really want to see how Darkfall turns out, it's promising to have EVE-style freedom and player run economy in a fantasy world, and the developers claim to be nearly ready for a public beta.
Well its structured in the sense that it divides itself into Nations, but thats as far as it goes. What I love about it (and is new to me since I never got into Eve) is that its fully player driven. For someone like me who has come from experience of WoW,EQ,DAoC etc this is fantastic.
Each server is different and no one knows what to expect. I've seen the British be the most dominent on one servers to the whipping boys on another. I've seen the Pirates unite to destroy the Ports and I've seen them dissolve into mercenary societies for the other Nations. I've seen a good leader win massive port battles due to brilliant tactics and I've seen a society of Freetraders dominate the market to become rich. I've experienced amazing escapes from Pirates or Privateers and I've experienced a well thought out plan come to fruition which reeks tremendous caualties for the opposition.
But most importantly I've seen the impact things have had on the forum. The closest WoW comes is completing a hard boss before another big guild or beating a premade group in the Bgs. Its nothing compared to the effect you have on other players in PotBS.
Maybe my opinion isn't as valid as others because im not coming off years of experience with EvE, but I like to think I know a good game when I see one, and with the Endgame as fully propelled by players rather then devs as this game is, I reckon it has an amazing future.
Just got the latest copy of PC Zone and it has their take on PotBS.
What a load of ****! No not this game, the review. Totally missing the point. I won't go into any details here but I am thinking that this Blizzard/Valve fanboi accusation extends to the PCZ staff!
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