Pirates of the Burning Sea: "We did it!"

Szark

The Pirates of the Burning Sea official site has been updated with a state of the game style article detailing the various milestones the development team has reached as the games launch date draws nearer.

You did . . . What?

So, here we are, looking at a future in which very soon we will be shipping Pirates of the Burning Sea. I've been super busy trying to get the game ready for that day, but I thought I'd take a moment to share with you a few of the things we in ConCo have accomplished and are continuing to work on as we march toward the glorious new piratical future.

Finished first pass at 1000 missions:

That's right. Against all odds, ConCo has in fact put over 1000 missions in the game - FOR EACH NATION. There is still some polishing to do, but the content is in the game and you can play from level 1 to level 50 (which many companies would call "content complete").

Damn it feels good to say that. In fact, right now, I'm going to stand up and give the writers and mission designers of ConCo fame a big round of applause. Excuse me for a moment.

Revamped all of the level 1 to 15 content:

The first content we made in the game was necessarily the low-level missions. We needed something to use to test the rest of the game against. But as we got better at making missions and other content, it became apparent that the missions we made several years ago paled in comparison to those we make today. We're just simply better at using our own tools.

As a result, we recently revisited our new-player content and did a complete revamp. This is a good strategy, and I'm glad we did it this way. But I have to admit that we made a mistake.

Not being one who likes to see work go to waste, I directed the mission designers to try to reuse as much of the previous content as possible. My thinking was that we could spruce up the missions we had in the game and supplement them with some sparkling new encounters. Sounded like a good plan at the time, but in truth, it was like putting a big square peg in a small round hole. It just didn't fit well.

Read the full article here.

defenestrate

Sweet ass! *looks at the calender* Woohoo almost the end of the month!

smartkidz

Originally posted by defenestrate

Sweet ass! *looks at the calender* Woohoo almost the end of the month!

They have a date up in there somewhere? Didn't see it.

defenestrate

A new wave of beta invites is going out at the end of the month/beginning of next month.

xxthecorexx

.. sweet..

bonanas814

Right on, I been waiting so long for this to come out

deplorable

Definately looking forward to it ! Just been reading the Ship Guide for levels 31-50, with the 104 guns, HMS Victory Ship of the Line style !

last pirate game i looked forward too was the "sid myers' pirates" remake, and the last Naval game i really enjoyed was a table top game "man o war" from Games workshop.

Come on release date, hurry up... hit Europe soooon

Mysk

<cynic alert!>

---

Fished first pass at 1000 missions:

That's right. Against all odds, ConCo has in fact put over 1000 missions in the game - FOR EACH NATION.

---

Any time that I see this kind of hype I think, "Oh, more Kill X Amount of Y tasks!".

Big numbers stopped impressing me a long time ago, and in fact they increase my doubt that the game will be worth playing. Why?

Developing a fun quest requires time, and time requires money. To see 1,000 missions (for EACH nation) only suggests to me that they took the usual route and whipped up a huge number that can be hyped in advertising. This means "Kill 10 Whoozits", "Collect 15 sabers", "Sink 8 ships and collect 15 canons", and so on.

This is a catch 22 of course. If they don't have a lot of missions to do in a game then people will think that their title is boring. So what can they do? I don't exactly have an answer to that, but a good start would be explaining what their missions are like any time that they announce that they have so many of them.

I don't mean to rain on the parade, I'm just trying to be realistic. Experience has shown me that these kind of announcements suggest tedious game play.

Best of luck to those who are looking forward to the title though; here's to hoping that I'll be wrong. :P

</cynic alert!>

0over0

Originally posted by Mysk


<cynic alert!>

Fished first pass at 1000 missions:
 
That's right. Against all odds, ConCo has in fact put over 1000 missions in the game - FOR EACH NATION.

 

Any time that I see this kind of hype I think, "Oh, more Kill X Amount of Y tasks!".

Big numbers stopped impressing me a long time ago, and in fact they increase my doubt that the game will be worth playing. Why?

Developing a fun quest requires time, and time requires money. To see 1,000 missions (for EACH nation) only suggests to me that they took the usual route and whipped up a huge number that can be hyped in advertising. This means "Kill 10 Whoozits", "Collect 15 sabers", "Sink 8 ships and collect 15 canons", and so on.

This is a catch 22 of course. If they don't have a lot of missions to do in a game then people will think that their title is boring. So what can they do? I don't exactly have an answer to that, but a good start would be explaining what their missions are like any time that they announce that they have so many of them.

I don't mean to rain on the parade, I'm just trying to be realistic. Experience has shown me that these kind of announcements suggest tedious game play.

Best of luck to those who are looking forward to the title though; here's to hoping that I'll be wrong. :P

</cynic alert!>

Actually, they've written in a dev log that though there are simple quests involving killing x of y, they are not counting those. Also, those are missions exclusive to each faction--that is, not the same quest with different names.

Of course, maybe they were lying--in the end, it comes down to trust. If you don't want to trust them, that's your call.

As a professional writer/editor, though, I can tell you that for a half-decent writer, it does not take long to come up with quests and such or even to write the dialogue. What takes time is bureacracy/management and putting in any sort of accompanying artwork/programming, etc. The time that takes depends on their company structure and what tools they use and how good they are at using them.

Alienovrlord

Nice to see the game is progessing along, this is one that I'm certainly going to check out.

observer

We are making the transition to our new webserver now, which means that www.burningsea.com, our forums and our User Content area will be unavailable for half-an-hour to an hour.

This new web server will spread joy and happiness across the land, with more speed and reliability for all. We will keep you posted throughout the day as we continue work on improving your web experience!

Make sure to tell your friends!

Best,

Aether

=========

rofl, looks like too much traffic from mmorpg.com 

daemon

This made my day alot better.  Im waiting for this game for a long time. Hoping for a beta spot   beta GOD have mercy on my soul.

Elikal

Wow, I have the greatest respect of companies who admit "hey this and that was a mistakte and we learned and made it better", rather then the "we are genius, we dont need to learn" aka Sigil.

willvas

Originally posted by Elikal


Wow, I have the greatest respect of companies who admit "hey this and that was a mistakte and we learned and made it better", rather then the "we are genius, we dont need to learn" aka Sigil.

you are new to gaming if you think Sigil is the only gaming company to ever do that

Elikal

Originally posted by willvas

Originally posted by Elikal


Wow, I have the greatest respect of companies who admit "hey this and that was a mistakte and we learned and made it better", rather then the "we are genius, we dont need to learn" aka Sigil.

you are new to gaming if you think Sigil is the only gaming company to ever do that

Löl, I was gaming when you were a twinkle in your parents eyes. But I focus on what is going on atm.

Otiz

So they did it too eh?   Same thing Vanguard did- let Sony handle part of the game

   http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=16172

Hopefully this outcome will be better.  Flying Lab is pretty solid and can stand on it's own so this may be a good thing.  We'll see how it turns out. 

 

Flummoxed

"But I will leave you with this tidbit: Life in the Burning Sea has never been so diverse, interactive, or colorful as it is now."

mermaids?  

willvas

Originally posted by Elikal

Originally posted by willvas

Originally posted by Elikal


Wow, I have the greatest respect of companies who admit "hey this and that was a mistakte and we learned and made it better", rather then the "we are genius, we dont need to learn" aka Sigil.

you are new to gaming if you think Sigil is the only gaming company to ever do that

Löl, I was gaming when you were a twinkle in your parents eyes. But I focus on what is going on atm.

really?  i said nothing about age... new to gaming means nothing about age... but since you mention it... im 36... so i guess you must really be old if  i was just a twinkle...

and if you were all wise and wonderful you wouldnt have made a commment like SIgil was only one to ever "lie" or "act like they dont need to learn".  Many online game companies do the same thing...

Dreneth

Originally posted by Otiz


So they did it too eh?   Same thing Vanguard did- let Sony handle part of the game
   http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=16172
Hopefully this outcome will be better.  Flying Lab is pretty solid and can stand on it's own so this may be a good thing.  We'll see how it turns out. 
 

Let's see how well you stand with a 400 pound gorrilla on your back pounding its chest and taking all your bananas.