Comic Con Demo

Tertiary

I played this at Comic Con and I had to check the PotBS website to be sure that it was actually this game I played.  It did not seem to be in the style of an MMO... more like a strategy game.  I only had about 30 minutes to play the game so I couldn't get too into it, and I didn't really have a chance to poke around...

I saw what seemed to be one of the devs for this game posting in this forum... did I miss something?  Also, I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to talk about it - I didn't sign any non-disclosure agreement, but maybe there was a sign somewhere I didn't see?  Dunno...  anyways, let me know.

I only played the ship to ship battle portion of the game, btw.  Not sure if the rest of it was at Comic Con or not...  Well, let me know.

tvalentine

Originally posted by Tertiary


I played this at Comic Con and I had to check the PotBS website to be sure that it was actually this game I played.  It did not seem to be in the style of an MMO... more like a strategy game.  I only had about 30 minutes to play the game so I couldn't get too into it, and I didn't really have a chance to poke around...
I saw what seemed to be one of the devs for this game posting in this forum... did I miss something?  Also, I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to talk about it - I didn't sign any non-disclosure agreement, but maybe there was a sign somewhere I didn't see?  Dunno...  anyways, let me know.
I only played the ship to ship battle portion of the game, btw.  Not sure if the rest of it was at Comic Con or not...  Well, let me know.

you can post everything you saw while playing the game at a public event. And like you said you didnt even sign an NDA so dont worry.

altairzq

Originally posted by Tertiary


I played this at Comic Con and I had to check the PotBS website to be sure that it was actually this game I played.  It did not seem to be in the style of an MMO... more like a strategy game.  I only had about 30 minutes to play the game so I couldn't get too into it, and I didn't really have a chance to poke around...

I foresaw this a month ago... check my messages... this is an strategy game with added avatars, nothing more, it was pretty obvious from that video they released and from some interviews. MMORPG genre is DEAD. Except for Second Life, Eve and Ultima.

sitheus

Originally posted by altairzq

Originally posted by Tertiary


I played this at Comic Con and I had to check the PotBS website to be sure that it was actually this game I played.  It did not seem to be in the style of an MMO... more like a strategy game.  I only had about 30 minutes to play the game so I couldn't get too into it, and I didn't really have a chance to poke around...

I foresaw this a month ago... check my messages... this is an strategy game with added avatars, nothing more, it was pretty obvious from that video they released and from some interviews. MMORPG genre is DEAD. Except for Second Life, Eve and Ultima.

POTBS is a sandbox like Eve but on water and historical not sci-fi. Eve is also a strategy game with elements of an RPG just as POTBS will be with differences in game mechanics and setting. POTBS economy will be completely player driven and it will be  production based instead of craft grinding. There will also be PvE and PvP with emphasis on conquest through port battles. I think it will be fun if it is ever released.

Wolfenpride

I got the chance to see someone play..this game really does not feel like an mmo if you ask me. All battles, whether in open sea or in a quest are instanced.  *which I should say now, almost all quests are instanced*

I find this disturbing because it almost reminds me of guild wars except not really..which is just freaky imo ;p

But yea..basically even in the open sea, all you really see is two ships circling each other with a "battle" title over them. Cant observe it, cant help from what ive come to understand.

I didnt get to play it that long though..but i thought id throw in what I got to see.

Tertiary

You can observe it - it's just like playing Warcraft or some other RTS.  You enter the chat area, choose or create a room, and then play the game.  You finish your skirmish and then go back to the chat area.  It seemed alot like a pirates game I played about five-ten years ago...  only without a lot of the strategy options that were in the game I played way back when...  I don't remember the title of that old one...

The game was obviously very simple for demo purposes (hate that - if you want me to get into the game why not add a bit of content so I have a fun time).  I created my own game and quickly had someone else join me (from a party that the devs were having at their place from what I was told).  I didn't play it long enough to see whether or not there was wind that affected your movement...  had a hard time getting the basics without looking for the extra stuff.  Movement is point/click, but it's hard to tell how much movement you have...  I suppose that's something you'd learn as you play the game.  Turning is realistic (you don't just do a 180 and move in that direction, you arc around as you would need to in real life.)  It was also difficult to figure out how to shoot your opponent, but after I figured it out it wasn't too difficult...  still a little clunky, but pretty simplistic in design.  You click on the gun, it shows your firing arc, and then you click on the ship or one of its masts.  You roll a dice, and I assume if you choose a mast it is harder to hit, then if you match some number I didn't see you hit.  The point of the game was to gather treasure from the surrounding islands.  You move to the island, dock with the island, then click to move all the treasure into your hold.  You then move back to your home island, dock with your home island, and offload the treasure.  I only needed to collect treasure from one island to win the game... which was horribly anticlimatic considering that I had only one of two ships left and one of three masts on that ship... and my opponent had both his ships almost fully armed still.

I'm still not sure this was the game I played at Con.  What I played looked like a RTS Pirate Sim..  someone tell me I missed something, please?    It looked like it could be really cool whether or not it was an MMO... but, I'd rather have it be an MMO.

tvalentine

Originally posted by Tertiary


You can observe it - it's just like playing Warcraft or some other RTS.  You enter the chat area, choose or create a room, and then play the game.  You finish your skirmish and then go back to the chat area.  It seemed alot like a pirates game I played about five-ten years ago...  only without a lot of the strategy options that were in the game I played way back when...  I don't remember the title of that old one...
The game was obviously very simple for demo purposes (hate that - if you want me to get into the game why not add a bit of content so I have a fun time).  I created my own game and quickly had someone else join me (from a party that the devs were having at their place from what I was told).  I didn't play it long enough to see whether or not there was wind that affected your movement...  had a hard time getting the basics without looking for the extra stuff.  Movement is point/click, but it's hard to tell how much movement you have...  I suppose that's something you'd learn as you play the game.  Turning is realistic (you don't just do a 180 and move in that direction, you arc around as you would need to in real life.)  It was also difficult to figure out how to shoot your opponent, but after I figured it out it wasn't too difficult...  still a little clunky, but pretty simplistic in design.  You click on the gun, it shows your firing arc, and then you click on the ship or one of its masts.  You roll a dice, and I assume if you choose a mast it is harder to hit, then if you match some number I didn't see you hit.  The point of the game was to gather treasure from the surrounding islands.  You move to the island, dock with the island, then click to move all the treasure into your hold.  You then move back to your home island, dock with your home island, and offload the treasure.  I only needed to collect treasure from one island to win the game... which was horribly anticlimatic considering that I had only one of two ships left and one of three masts on that ship... and my opponent had both his ships almost fully armed still.
I'm still not sure this was the game I played at Con.  What I played looked like a RTS Pirate Sim..  someone tell me I missed something, please?    It looked like it could be really cool whether or not it was an MMO... but, I'd rather have it be an MMO.

ROFL You played the wrong game..... you played the one next to POTBS ....... i didnt look at it since it wasnt a MMO but it IS NOT POTBS.

Tertiary

Thank god.  The one next to PotBS would have been a crappy MMO...  I was trying to be positive... but, I was having a real hard time, lol.

RickSaada

That doesn't sound like us at all   Check out our site and you'll see we're not at all like an RTS.    But to answer the initial question you are free to talk about anything you see at a fan faire, convention, trade show or whatever.  If we're showing it in public everything you see is public.  Only the beta testers who signed the NDA are forbidden from talking about the beta, and even they are allowed to talk about publicly displayed information.

Rick Saada - FLS Dev & EPFBM

Darksider25

At Comic Con, I played the sea battle portion of POTBS as well, it looked pretty cool to me, but I also have to admit that it felt like Sid Mierer's Pirates game on steriods. Granted they showed us nothing outside of the sea battles.  I agree with the poster that said this game feels much like EVE but in the Carribean.

Tertiary

Originally posted by Darksider25


At Comic Con, I played the sea battle portion of POTBS as well, it looked pretty cool to me, but I also have to admit that it felt like Sid Mierer's Pirates game on steriods. Granted they showed us nothing outside of the sea battles.  I agree with the poster that said this game feels much like EVE but in the Carribean.

Sid Mierer's Pirates, ya!  That's the game I felt like I was playing.  I miss that game...  I should go find it.  Anyways, can't wait till open beta... maybe I should go sign up now...  eh, maybe later, I'm really hungry.

Darksider25

Clearly that was the game that inspired POTBS. I just hope they make this game more multi dimensional than ship to ship battles and that the player based economy works out well.  One of the devs there told me that there is some bad ass quests too...

RickSaada

Originally posted by Tertiary


Thank god.  The one next to PotBS would have been a crappy MMO...  I was trying to be positive... but, I was having a real hard time, lol.

I checked.  It was the Wizkids Pirates Collectible Card Game Online Game (oof, that's a mouthful).

vajuras

i must admit im pretty pissed to read this topic had no idea PoTBS was at comic con. I walked around the floor all day saturday and never saw it WTH what day was the booth there couldnt havbe been saturday  

RickSaada

Originally posted by vajuras


i must admit im pretty pissed to read this topic had no idea PoTBS was at comic con. I walked around the floor all day saturday and never saw it WTH what day was the booth there couldnt havbe been saturday  

We were at the Sony Pictures booth throughout the show.  SOE is part of Sony Pictures, and as we're publishing through them they asked us to demo at their booth.

Orphes

Originally posted by altairzq



Originally posted by Tertiary


I played this at Comic Con and I had to check the PotBS website to be sure that it was actually this game I played.  It did not seem to be in the style of an MMO... more like a strategy game.  I only had about 30 minutes to play the game so I couldn't get too into it, and I didn't really have a chance to poke around...

I foresaw this a month ago... check my messages... this is an strategy game with added avatars, nothing more, it was pretty obvious from that video they released and from some interviews. MMORPG genre is DEAD. Except for Second Life, Eve and Ultima.

 

Yep... Still is an open question though. Don't jump to your guns to early now. Clearly the op was playing some other game.

So uhm wait with your 'told you so post' you can't possible post it all the time it wouldn't be of any effect in the end.

isildur

Originally posted by altairzq

 MMORPG genre is DEAD. Except for Second Life, Eve and Ultima.

Sorry, I can't resist:

"Seriously.  What was that one game, with the orcs and the humans and the night elves?  Boy did that ever bomb.  I hear they're down to just NINE MILLION PLAYERS these days."

kano71

Originally posted by isildur


 
Originally posted by altairzq

 MMORPG genre is DEAD. Except for Second Life, Eve and Ultima.

Sorry, I can't resist:

 

"Seriously.  What was that one game, with the orcs and the humans and the night elves?  Boy did that ever bomb.  I hear they're down to just NINE MILLION PLAYERS these days."

  great game 7 million chinese farmers feeding a falling population of  players from the us and europe with gold

RickSaada

Originally posted by kano71


  great game 7 million chinese farmers feeding a falling population of  players from the us and europe with gold

There's a very interesting article by Raph Koster over on his site about how MMO populations evolve:

http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/06/15/how-open-big-virtual-worlds-grow/

Churn and slow decline with a hopefully long tail is a fact of life for MMO's.   New people come, old people go, a core of big fans stay forever.   Expansions and updates can keep the game fresh, slowing the rate of churn and occasionally drawing back old gamers for a while, but they rarely bring in a large number of new players.  How many NEW people decided to play WoW because the BC expansion came out?  Probably not that many.   Gold farming issues aside, it's inevitable that WoW will slowly decline in numbers, but because they were so big to begin with, and have such a large core base of fans, they'll be a major force for as long as they choose to leave the servers on.

Eve, with it's slow growth and rise from a niche game to a more major force is a rare exception, and as I understand it they were largely able to accomplish this via government funding.  They just ran at a loss until they churned through enough players to build a base of devoted fans who pulled them into the black.  Most game companies don't have that luxury. 

Rick Saada - FLS Dev & EPFBM

Lobotomist

Originally posted by RickSaada


 
Originally posted by kano71


  great game 7 million chinese farmers feeding a falling population of  players from the us and europe with gold

There's a very interesting article by Raph Koster over on his site about how MMO populations evolve:

 

http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/06/15/how-open-big-virtual-worlds-grow/

Churn and slow decline with a hopefully long tail is a fact of life for MMO's.   New people come, old people go, a core of big fans stay forever.   Expansions and updates can keep the game fresh, slowing the rate of churn and occasionally drawing back old gamers for a while, but they rarely bring in a large number of new players.  How many NEW people decided to play WoW because the BC expansion came out?  Probably not that many.   Gold farming issues aside, it's inevitable that WoW will slowly decline in numbers, but because they were so big to begin with, and have such a large core base of fans, they'll be a major force for as long as they choose to leave the servers on.

Eve, with it's slow growth and rise from a niche game to a more major force is a rare exception, and as I understand it they were largely able to accomplish this via government funding.  They just ran at a loss until they churned through enough players to build a base of devoted fans who pulled them into the black.  Most game companies don't have that luxury. 

Rick Saada - FLS Dev & EPFBM

Well that happens when you live in the rich country that can fit its entire population in one football stadium ... hehe

p.s

If you ever want to piss of Islandic person , use this joke