Actually though, despite the giant letters and hard to read post, fucht made my point for me...
WoW=required grinding to level.
SWG=optional grinding if you wanted to be a jedi...which I didn't.
Smart gamemakers, IMO, will continue to limit the grind to an optional portion of the game, unlocking high end content for powergamers who need the grind...while still providing a fun game, sans grinding, for the casuals.
The economy with the stored labour system alone is innovative! No grind to fell trees and do the same stupid clicks to craft one sword after another! No disadvantage to the powergamer crafters...Instead, here You're a manager of (invisible) ai workers doing the grinding for You...so You just log in, collect and sell the stuff! Be free to trade with players or sail around doing missions.
Thats a first step in a new and innovative direction. They just need to add more of likely features and player-skill driven content.
Sea battles depend a lot on the player-skill...they are like mini sandboxes where the outcome of a battle is not determined before by player level alone. (if both use similiar ships).
You may like or not like it...but there is lots of innovation here.
----------------------------------- Life is too short to play bad games.
Actually, and in my opinion, PotBS has loads of potential. The biggest problem it has now isn't that it's "boring" and "repetitive" because, lets face it, all MMORPG's are very repetitive. What PotBS fails at is immersion.
When you leave a town that it's night time in and arrive on the open sea in broad daylight this breaks immersion... it doesn't feel... real....
When you enter a sea battle during daytime and the battle is at night this breaks immersion.
When you are sailing away from an opponent using your maneuverability and stern cannons to shred them from a distance and slam into an invisible wall... this breaks immersion.
When you are sent to a pirate camp and it's the same pirate camp that you went to 10 times before with the same npc's in the same locations with the same scenery... this breaks immersion.
When you go to a town halfway across the carribean and the town is built EXACTLY like ten other towns you've been to... this breaks immersion.
When you can see beautiful beaches but cannot get in the water... this breaks immersion (even PotCO allows pirates to swim in the water).
When you can't jump... this breaks immersion.
Yes, unfortunately, design decisions were done that make swimming and jumping sort of out of the question currently. But the other aspects of the game that impact immersion so negatively absolutely can be fixed, and should be given high priority. It's very immersion breaking when you sail along, have an encounter and you see "this is a night mission" (well duh, it's dark) but when you were at sea the open sea was broad daylight, is always broad daylight and ne'er a storm is in sight. And yet... you get stormy sea battles, night battles, etc.
The game has multiple SMALL issues that all add up to a total lack of immersion in the game environment. Which makes it that much harder to forgive even the slightest flaws in the mechanics (which are actually not all that bad). You will never watch a sunset, or a sunrise, over the burning seas... why? Because there is no day night cycle... there is day... and in some encounters and towns there is night. But there is no in between... there's no moving sun (even EQ1 had a day/night cycle that persisted across the game). You will never watch a storm come in over the horizon. You will never see rain at sea (except in some instances) etc....
PotBS has great mechanics in place for sea combat and decent mechanics in place for AVCombat. The big big huge problem it has is the total lack of realism in the environments. Also, while I understand why it was done, the open sea map needs to be about 100x larger in SCALE. It's absolutely ludicrous how fast you can get from point A to Point B. The open sea feels crowded, and it shouldn't. Like I said I know why it was done... but it makes the game feel surreal.
All these little things add up to why so many people love the game for the first week, two, maybe three then wind up never playing again.
"A ship-of-war is the best ambassador." - Oliver Cromwell
Actually, and in my opinion, PotBS has loads of potential. The biggest problem it has now isn't that it's "boring" and "repetitive" because, lets face it, all MMORPG's are very repetitive. What PotBS fails at is immersion.
When you leave a town that it's night time in and arrive on the open sea in broad daylight this breaks immersion... it doesn't feel... real.... When you enter a sea battle during daytime and the battle is at night this breaks immersion. When you are sailing away from an opponent using your maneuverability and stern cannons to shred them from a distance and slam into an invisible wall... this breaks immersion. When you are sent to a pirate camp and it's the same pirate camp that you went to 10 times before with the same npc's in the same locations with the same scenery... this breaks immersion. When you go to a town halfway across the carribean and the town is built EXACTLY like ten other towns you've been to... this breaks immersion. When you can see beautiful beaches but cannot get in the water... this breaks immersion (even PotCO allows pirates to swim in the water). When you can't jump... this breaks immersion.
Yes, unfortunately, design decisions were done that make swimming and jumping sort of out of the question currently. But the other aspects of the game that impact immersion so negatively absolutely can be fixed, and should be given high priority. It's very immersion breaking when you sail along, have an encounter and you see "this is a night mission" (well duh, it's dark) but when you were at sea the open sea was broad daylight, is always broad daylight and ne'er a storm is in sight. And yet... you get stormy sea battles, night battles, etc.
The game has multiple SMALL issues that all add up to a total lack of immersion in the game environment. Which makes it that much harder to forgive even the slightest flaws in the mechanics (which are actually not all that bad). You will never watch a sunset, or a sunrise, over the burning seas... why? Because there is no day night cycle... there is day... and in some encounters and towns there is night. But there is no in between... there's no moving sun (even EQ1 had a day/night cycle that persisted across the game). You will never watch a storm come in over the horizon. You will never see rain at sea (except in some instances) etc.... PotBS has great mechanics in place for sea combat and decent mechanics in place for AVCombat. The big big huge problem it has is the total lack of realism in the environments. Also, while I understand why it was done, the open sea map needs to be about 100x larger in SCALE. It's absolutely ludicrous how fast you can get from point A to Point B. The open sea feels crowded, and it shouldn't. Like I said I know why it was done... but it makes the game feel surreal. All these little things add up to why so many people love the game for the first week, two, maybe three then wind up never playing again.
I liked the Beta.. There's no other ship warfare game as good as it
Ok. I'm sorry but this cracked me up. Because the market is FLOODED with Ship Warfare MMOs? That is like saying Swinging Monkey Banana Eaters MMO...there is no other Swinging, Banana Eating game as good as it ...
Comments
Actually though, despite the giant letters and hard to read post, fucht made my point for me...
WoW=required grinding to level.
SWG=optional grinding if you wanted to be a jedi...which I didn't.
Smart gamemakers, IMO, will continue to limit the grind to an optional portion of the game, unlocking high end content for powergamers who need the grind...while still providing a fun game, sans grinding, for the casuals.
The economy with the stored labour system alone is innovative! No grind to fell trees and do the same stupid clicks to craft one sword after another! No disadvantage to the powergamer crafters...Instead, here You're a manager of (invisible) ai workers doing the grinding for You...so You just log in, collect and sell the stuff! Be free to trade with players or sail around doing missions.
Thats a first step in a new and innovative direction. They just need to add more of likely features and player-skill driven content.
Sea battles depend a lot on the player-skill...they are like mini sandboxes where the outcome of a battle is not determined before by player level alone. (if both use similiar ships).
You may like or not like it...but there is lots of innovation here.
-----------------------------------
Life is too short to play bad games.
Actually, and in my opinion, PotBS has loads of potential. The biggest problem it has now isn't that it's "boring" and "repetitive" because, lets face it, all MMORPG's are very repetitive. What PotBS fails at is immersion.
Yes, unfortunately, design decisions were done that make swimming and jumping sort of out of the question currently. But the other aspects of the game that impact immersion so negatively absolutely can be fixed, and should be given high priority. It's very immersion breaking when you sail along, have an encounter and you see "this is a night mission" (well duh, it's dark) but when you were at sea the open sea was broad daylight, is always broad daylight and ne'er a storm is in sight. And yet... you get stormy sea battles, night battles, etc.
The game has multiple SMALL issues that all add up to a total lack of immersion in the game environment. Which makes it that much harder to forgive even the slightest flaws in the mechanics (which are actually not all that bad). You will never watch a sunset, or a sunrise, over the burning seas... why? Because there is no day night cycle... there is day... and in some encounters and towns there is night. But there is no in between... there's no moving sun (even EQ1 had a day/night cycle that persisted across the game). You will never watch a storm come in over the horizon. You will never see rain at sea (except in some instances) etc....
PotBS has great mechanics in place for sea combat and decent mechanics in place for AVCombat. The big big huge problem it has is the total lack of realism in the environments. Also, while I understand why it was done, the open sea map needs to be about 100x larger in SCALE. It's absolutely ludicrous how fast you can get from point A to Point B. The open sea feels crowded, and it shouldn't. Like I said I know why it was done... but it makes the game feel surreal.
All these little things add up to why so many people love the game for the first week, two, maybe three then wind up never playing again.
"A ship-of-war is the best ambassador." - Oliver Cromwell
Ok. I'm sorry but this cracked me up. Because the market is FLOODED with Ship Warfare MMOs? That is like saying Swinging Monkey Banana Eaters MMO...there is no other Swinging, Banana Eating game as good as it ...