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What did PotBS do wrong?
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I turned down an invite for a position as a Darkfall beta tester I might try again.
Total Wars Empire is releasing soon
If anything, its the "Griefer's Welcome" attitude reflected in the gameplay.
Yes, in the real world, a frigate would spank a sloop, and its not fair. but if I had a dollar every time a FLS dev said "we're not trying to recreate reality" whenever they added an unrealistic feature to "serve gameplay", such as infitine round shot, I could retire yestarday.
The reason they'd like to think this is ok....we used to talk a lot in the forums about how character level wouldn't matter, that is a sloop and a frigate fought, a sloop could win if it played to its stregnths. So, when new players start in something like a swoop...and a lvl 50 player shows up with a Ship of the Line and kills you in one broadside...after a few dozen times...its not fun anymore, so they go play somewhere else.
Also, for me at least, it was a lack of exploration. water is water....no new environments to explore. at the end of hte day, its just "too little" I fear, at least for the average gamer.
I am a fan of the Age of Sail...so this game was to be right up my alley. However, i'd like it to have been more like the game "Age of Sail", as in more realistic and true to teh era. FLS made a lot of compromises to move the game away from this concept, in teh interest of winning over ordinary gamers....the ones who left because they ran out of new places to see and got tired of being ganked.
So, they didn't really please the gamers, and the Age of Sail fans we left hangin....so when you walk the middle line, do don't outright piss anyone off, but then you don't really make anyone giddy.
I watched this game for years, and I knew long before its launch that it was not going to be what I'd hoped (too arcade-ish and not sim-ish enough for me). But i did hope that the game woudl have been more successful then it has turned out to be, just for FLS's sake. I really like the folks of that company
Frank 'Spankybus' Mignone
www.spankybus.com
-3d Artist & Compositor
-Writer
-Professional Amature
What did it do wrong? Failed to create a open world to sail instead choosing the path of instancing, failed to create fun and involving combat system with poorly thought out PVP system.
I posted lots of in depth comments on where PotBS went wrong...mostly back on their forums before I left for good....but here is the bullet point summation:
- They tried to make a game that catered to every possible playstyle and because of the compromises that forced, ended up pleasing no one.
Some of the details? (in brief)
The economic system was and is totally borked, driving all the independent traders and those who wanted to be merchant princes out of the game. As a side effect, this ment a complete lack of juicy targets for the pirates/privateers. No market and no merchants excluded all but the "in-house" shipbuilders.
The roleplaying and questing elements sucked worse than EQ1, by a long shot. So again, most Rp'ers and quest hounds were very very disappointed. Again leading to fewer targets for the pirates.
Ship combat was far too arcade-like and frankly silly to appeal to the serious Age of Sail realism nuts. Skills that acted like magic, crew magically rejuvenating and "potion like" ship buffs and heals..along with a totally unrealistic ship building and upgrade system. Tiny details like all water being the same depth and running aground being meaningless hurt a *lot*.
Cartoonish sailing system, instanced maps and preset ports totally destroyed the game for the explorer types as well as making it a LOT less interesting for the pirates.
Very strange/silly "National War" System allowed far too much ganking for the "carebears" yet at the same was too artificially and restrictive for the "sandbox" and "wargamer" archetypes.
AV combat system was totally broken....no idea how the "new" fixes to it are...but it's too little and too late.
There's a complaint I rarely see people make about PotBS.
I agree that they've tried to cater to too many different crowds (read: PvPers AND PvEers) and that the compromises satisfy nobody. However, I honestly disagree with every other point of your post (except for the thing about exploration - there is no exploration for people who are into that). To each their own, I enjoy all of the elements you complained about.
You won't win on these forums Hav with your nice blue fancy text but keep trying.
Sometimes players have different expectations in a mmorpg & you should just accept it.
Why not start a "What did PotBS do right? thread & see how long it lasts.
Guess I could if someone paid me like you. lol
I might even support it but god knows why.
I'd love to have a prolonged point by point debate of PotBS failings...preferably over a few pints in a good pub, but it's purely academic now. That ship has sailed so to speak. The vast majority of the initial players agreed with one or more of those main sentiments strongly enough to leave the game.
If you want to talk about what they got right...well there are two big ones to me:
The ships are gorgegous - no mocking intended at all - the detailed 3d renderings and look/feel of the ships is awesome.
Signing with SOE - the fact that they are with some one big enough to tolerate low subscription rates might just keep them around long enough to recover and attract enough of some crowd to stay alive as a game. Had they been totally indy I suspect they would have been lights out as the creditors wheeled away the servers by now.
I have no issues with SOE but there are too many haters around that have contributed to the lack of populations, so I question the wisdom of going with them.
That's why I said "to each their own," see?
And I never used to use "fancy blue text" here. When MMORPG.com re-did their forum colors, I found it distracting to the eye to have the same color text in quotes and such, the blue is for the benefit of my own eyesight... and hopefully anyone else who finds it to be as much of an eye-ache as I did I experimented with other colors but found them all either too dark or too bright
That's why I said "to each their own," see?
And I never used to use "fancy blue text" here. When MMORPG.com re-did their forum colors, I found it distracting to the eye to have the same color text in quotes and such, the blue is for the benefit of my own eyesight... and hopefully anyone else who finds it to be as much of an eye-ache as I did I experimented with other colors but found them all either too dark or too bright
Fair enough, i'll think i'll join you then .
I'm just surprised that MMORPG.com is paying at all, after going out of their way to say that those are volunteer positions (apart from paying your subscription).
I'm just curious what the GB-VDD controversy was about. Probably nothing worth stirring up the past. I'm just sorry for GB that it had to end this way.
By the way: If I look at the PotBS member list, GB's name doesn't even appear there even though his 3,000-odd posts would make his name appear on the first page of names when listed by forum activity. In fact, here's the thing -- according to the "member list", GB doesn't even exist at all! Same thing, by the way, for me. Enter my name there (same as here), and you get no return whatsoever. It's like we never existed, even though our posts are still there.
At first I thought that it was because we no longer subscribed. But then, GB still is, theoretically, and the first name to top the list according to the number of posts -- Halod Crane -- stopped posting in September and to my knowledge stopped subscribing quite a while ago. Likewise, I see several other names in there of people whom I know had cancelled several months ago (including one who stopped posting in June). But GB and I don't show up on that list.
Also interestingly, my signature on those forums included both my in-game name ("Auguste Levasseur, the Friendly Frenchman", something like that) and that certain quote of Isildur's. Both are gone, as is my avatar. Those old posters who haven't subscribed in ages, they still have theirs -- signature and avatar.
And for GB, same thing. The Google cache of his latest posts over there show his avatar AND his standard signature (motto of Nelson). Look at the PotBS forums today, and you see neither of those. If GB didn't remove them himself in the meantime (cache is dated Feb. 2), that means FLS removed them, even though they in no way contravened any standards they might have had for the forums. I mean, Nelson's motto?
So what motivated them? I'm wondering whether this isn't some kind of "special treatment" for those of us who happen to be critical over here. (Ironically, Linna, aka Broom, is still listed, even though she was the one who faced a game ban.)
(I'm not sure about how the PotBS forums work exactly, but I do recall that the login part was broken and that you could continue posting there after your subscription had expired as long as you weren't careless enough to log out. At one point I just stopped checking for a few days in November, and I was automatically logged out. When I logged back in, I could still access my private messages, but the rest was barred.)
I'm just surprised that MMORPG.com is paying at all, after going out of their way to say that those are volunteer positions (apart from paying your subscription).
I'm just curious what the GB-VDD controversy was about. Probably nothing worth stirring up the past. I'm just sorry for GB that it had to end this way.
By the way: If I look at the PotBS member list, GB's name doesn't even appear there even though his 3,000-odd posts would make his name appear on the first page of names when listed by forum activity. In fact, here's the thing -- according to the "member list", GB doesn't even exist at all! Same thing, by the way, for me. Enter my name there (same as here), and you get no return whatsoever. It's like we never existed, even though our posts are still there.
At first I thought that it was because we no longer subscribed. But then, GB still is, theoretically, and the first name to top the list according to the number of posts -- Halod Crane -- stopped posting in September and to my knowledge stopped subscribing quite a while ago. Likewise, I see several other names in there of people whom I know had cancelled several months ago (including one who stopped posting in June). But GB and I don't show up on that list.
Also interestingly, my signature on those forums included both my in-game name ("Auguste Levasseur, the Friendly Frenchman", something like that) and that certain quote of Isildur's. Both are gone, as is my avatar. Those old posters who haven't subscribed in ages, they still have theirs -- signature and avatar.
And for GB, same thing. The Google cache of his latest posts over there show his avatar AND his standard signature (motto of Nelson). Look at the PotBS forums today, and you see neither of those. If GB didn't remove them himself in the meantime (cache is dated Feb. 2), that means FLS removed them, even though they in no way contravened any standards they might have had for the forums. I mean, Nelson's motto?
So what motivated them? I'm wondering whether this isn't some kind of "special treatment" for those of us who happen to be critical over here. (Ironically, Linna, aka Broom, is still listed, even though she was the one who faced a game ban.)
(I'm not sure about how the PotBS forums work exactly, but I do recall that the login part was broken and that you could continue posting there after your subscription had expired as long as you weren't careless enough to log out. At one point I just stopped checking for a few days in November, and I was automatically logged out. When I logged back in, I could still access my private messages, but the rest was barred.)
There were certain guys have had an axe to grind with FLS long before I joined Defiant with issues like not being listened to in Beta to current day like no transfers from Defiant & lack of advertising.
Basically what happened was this:
I transfered on to Defiant early January with the intention of helping Defiant to increase its populations.
The first thing I noticed on Defiant was all this negative posting on defiant's forum section nearly all from certain VDD members so I asked them to stop it so that populations could improve; this led to them attacking me & Danicia just let it happen.
As it was getting silly myself & my society leader wayne were invited onto VDD''s vent to sort it out.
It was agreed at the meeting that we should all stop this bickering & let it die, in any event it all happened before I joined Defiant so it had nothing to do with me.
They broke their promise & continued to harass me on the forums reporting many of my posts for no particular reason, I had become their scapegoat for all their problems with FLS to the point of coming back to defiant & setting up a recent port battle against the Brits at turtling bay.
All this nonsense led me to make a thread about how bad the forums were moderated & I got banned apparently for insulting Danicia.
Check out my profile & blog here - Is this a guy FLS should be banning?
I have now canceled my account but I'm pleased to say that populations on defiant have almost doubled during the period I was there & nobody is now saying its a failed server.
Banning me is only losing FLS one of its greatest fans as I have spent many hours on other forums like mmorpg.com telling people about the free trials & how Potbs is a good game.
That's not to say i have not given constructive criticism where its due.
Currently i feel unfairly treated to the point i no longer wish to subscribe so I hope FLS can be more impartial about who they ban in future & will take greater care in forum moderation.
The unfortunate thing about this whole affair is that FLS set the forum rules with high standards & then break their own rules to the detriment of their own paying customers.
What's even more worrying is that they pretend to be unaware of what's going on & do nothing about it even after i have recently put in a support ticket explaining it all, they appear more interested in themselves than the paying customers that they represent. FLS has become a closed club to fulfill Rusty's rich fantasies; not really interested in what any mmorpg.com members or the worlds mmorpg community have to say.
They have become more interested in protecting themselves than any one else.
The only way FLS will ever gain respect with its community is by telling the truth & the fact that they have failed to do this or hold on to the majority of its founder players speaks for itself.
Originally posted by olddaddy:
As "Pirates of the Burning Sea Correspondant" you never replied to the original point in my posts anyway. You went into defensive mod over the game. You are not truly independant of your topic.
Havohej is a paid correspondent & relative Potbs newbie (registered Sept 08) who by his own admissiion has broken the FLS forum rules by using bad language & calling others names.
He has recently been awarded the much estimed FLS community highlight spot for his better work but that also portrays to others that the moderators & FLS community staff are not at all unbiased.
Yes well observed Vetarnias i should be on that list.
@Vetarnias: That's exactly what the pay is - my subscription fee. Because there is some manner of compensation, I personally consider it as being "semi-volunteer".
The reason the names don't appear, I believe, is due to forum ban. Whether you were ever banned from the forum, I don't know. But you'll also see that Garbad_the_Weak's name no longer appears in the listing. Garbad_the_Weak doesn't post here on MMORPG.com at all that I know of.
@GB: As you just said, you called out VDD and they responded. You can't call someone out and expect for them to be the only ones chastised when they respond. As an outside observer, I saw numerous opportunities for you to "be the bigger man" and just let it go having made your point... but you didn't. Even after the a couple of French players tried to tell you "Look back through the history and you'll see what happened; stay out of it." If you all went on their Vent and were supposed to have sorted it out, I gotta say man, your best course of action would've been to contact Danicia yourself and discuss the situation with her. That probably would've resulted in the matter being sent up the chain, maybe even to Rhaegar himself. I can say from first hand experience that they take harassment issues very seriously but it's hard to cry harassment if you're participating in it. Was it enough for a permanent forum ban? No, I don't believe so. A temp ban? I've been temp banned for less on the EVE-O forum so I'd have to say yes. (Hi Mitnal, Garmon > You)
As to the "relative newbie" and "Sept. 08" comment, I'm not the one who was trying to campaign for civilian ships of the line or saying zerging and time griefing in port battles (as the attacker) are cool ideas*. :shrug: I think you spent enough time away from the game that you were pretty well out-of-touch with it after a while. Of course, that's just opinion. But it's an opinion based on OLD posts you made back in the day which still remain on the forum in which your ideas and advice to newer players ran along much, much different lines. That "old GB" peeked through once in a while and you'd make these wonderful and informative posts and I'd be like "Yeah, exactly, this guy should run for president!" but for some reason most of it was just really :ugh: lately.
Did your forum ban cite insulting Danicia (or staff in general) as the reason? I think it more likely that it would be for starting three different flamebait/troll threads at the end of a two or three-day straight run of you instigating more and more forum drama with VDD, but if they outright said it was for disrespect toward staff then that's different.. that particular thread WAS flamebait, but it wasn't directly disrespectful toward any individual staffer. Here's a new one for "What did PotBS do wrong?"
Answer: They delete posts and entire threads found to be in violation of their rules, which of course means that afterward anyone who catches a forum ban from their forum PvP can claim innocence and any argument to the contrary is nothing more than a fruitless game of he-said/she-said
Better to just lock the threads but leave the evidence there for future reference in my opinion.
*To be fair, you did later say the time griefing post was a bad idea, /tiphat for that.
I've put over my viewpoint so let the community decide, there is no point In trying to twist the facts as that is trying to make out we are idiots.
Sorry Hav its not my job to moderate forums & letting players belittle me is not my cup of tea, I would rather be banned than to let you & others get away with your lies.
I've put over my viewpoint so let the community decide, there is no point In trying to twist the facts as that is trying to make out we are idiots.
Sorry Hav its not my job to moderate forums & letting players belittle me is not my cup of tea, I would rather be banned than to let you & others get away with your lies.
lol Like I said, when all the posts/threads have been deleted, it's all he-said/she-said anyway. So there's really nothing of substance left there for the community to "decide" on
Garbad's case completely escaped me, but you're right, his name didn't appear there either.
I remember him stating at one point that his involvement with PotBS was drawing to a close, but if they've forum-banned him, they should definitely look up the word GRATITUDE in the dictionary.
And to my knowledge, I never was banned. Don't you receive some kind of message to this effect when you are?
@Vetarnias: Supposed to, yes. To be honest, that was just a guess on my part... That forum runs on vBulletin I think and I've never admin'd a vB forum... let alone one linked up to external controls like the SOE login.
My best guess would be if these players whose accounts have disappeared from the member list were to re-sub or be un-banned, their info would re-appear. I say that because all those posts in the forum itself still have the posters' user info, profile, signature... it's all still "there" if I'm making any sense, just not displaying them as members because for whatever reason they're currently not?
idk. I never saw anything by FLS confirming or even suggesting confirmation that Garbad had been banned. I certainly didn't see him do anything banworthy; it was all player speculation on the part of his forum enemies saying he got banned. I personally think he cancelled his SOE thing entirely when he went to play EVE which might explain his no longer showing up in the list, but only he could tell us for sure. I was just using his example to tinfoilhat the suggesting that FLS is banning people from their forum who post negatively here in addition to your example of Linna is all
Either way mate there are a lot of experienced players leaving, sooner or later both you & FLS will realize why & do what is right.
<Mod edit>
IMO, PotBS failed in the infancy of its design.
I think it could have been a great PvP/RvR MMO or it could have been a great PvE MMO. The way that they blended it together, however, left an emptiness for both sides.
As a member of <Fail> there were two primary reasons why we left.
1) Lack of finding good fights. There started being days between times we could 6v6 verses ATF, Fated, GDM. Too many evenings we would spend in the middle of the red while groups of six would sit just outside the red waiting until we left. At the end we would have to set up fights via PM and many times we would agree to not sink as long as they pulled off the line at low HP.
After reflecting on the 'why' for a long time I have to agree with what an earlier poster said about true skill prevailing ala Garbad_the_
, Halod Crane, Torantio, Johnny Rebel, Axl, etc. Once you figured out how to set up your ships and fight as a team you could dominate. Unfortunately, there was few groups that seemed to figure this out. The result of this was that those who couldnt quite figure this out would quit or complain instead of trying something new out that might work better.
2) Lack of ability to 'win' the map for pirates. Even though we were dominating the port battles the math came to an amazing amount of ports to own before we could win. Our toughest competition Spain (Linna, Brig, Garbad_the_
, Brei, etc) figured out that the best defense was to not defend. (the points pirates needed was so great that spain would let us try to take a shitload of ports and not waste their ships) In other words, instead of having a fun port battle, win or lose, there was nothing.
I'll repeat that. "The Best Defense is NO DEFENSE" (sounds like a problem Warhammer is having).
PotBS could have been a great MMO but the flaws in basic game design are pretty numerous. Much can be attributed by trying to appease both the pvp'rs and the pve'rs.
* Pvp'rs would like all red and Pve'rs would like all clear seas.. having both makes both camps unhappy. Of course, we always thought that the map should be red with safe areas around each port. folks wouldn't be ganked undocking and the risk would be in the actual sailing from port to port.
* Pvp'rs want to be able to stop shipment of goods (ala Jack Simple) while Pve'rs want safe passage to sell/manufacture their goods. Allowing goods to easily be shipped to deep harbour ports allowing 1st rates to be easily built to wage war on you is stupid. Maybe an Eve type system might have been better. Warships (like capital ships in Eve) only able to be built and floated in permanant pvp areas.
There are many other fundamental problems but the end result was the same.
The game wasnt Pvp enough for the Pvp folks and too Pvp for the PvE folks.
They both left.
Palazious <The Vindicators> Darkfall
Palazious r40, rr45 SW War
Palazious 50 Pirate PoTBS
Palazious 35 Sorcerer Vanguard
Palazious 75 wizard EQ
Paladori 50 Champion LOTRO
Poppa Reaver bugged at rank15
This is an interesting turn of events...
Surprising really, I hadn't expected you, DJXeon, to be forced to walk the plank.
Seems that online game companies have much to learn about customer service.
And that is why...
Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.
I will chime in my personal opinion.
Pirates of the Burning Sea had great ship combat. It was exquisite. Besides that, everything was crap.
That's just my personal opinion.
"Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know." William Saroyan
Oh, I totally agree. The ship combat was amazing, till they started having the 'uber-new-ship-of-the-month' and till everyone and his mother had a bundle boat. Then it started degenerating into gear dependency.
As to Garbad, I remember him posting from an alt account, saying his main account had been forum ganked due to too many infractions (and he got lots of those). He definitely pushed the edge a lot with his flame wars. But he is also one of the most game-savvy people in the game (been there since start of beta I think), always ready to help or seriously discuss things, and he has a true passion for the game. I don't know how bad his posts got before they were deleted, so I can't really say if he simply caused the mods too much work. I do think that maybe they could have handled this differently (maybe restrict the posting priviliges for his main forum account to the non-server forums). And I do think it's a bad thing if Garbad is truly giving up on the game.
Linna
Havojey, let's try to find some common ground here, Garbad was harassed on Antigua's forums to the point he no longer wanted to play, both you & I posted on that section to remind others of all the good work he had done including several stickies.
Guess what the same happened to me on Defiant.
There are certain "4 people" from a certain society that come onto Defiant from time to time that have issues with FLS, they know who they are & so does Danicia.
They usually only play on Antigua nowadays using the same griefing tactics there, their ultra egos & bad influence has now spread to 2 servers as they are not content to post on the one they play on, they think it is their right to post on Defiant & upset players because of all the time they spent on it before they quit.
I'm pretty sure many players there don't want them to come back.
The problems go right back to beta where they blame FLS for not listening to them up to today for not providing another transfer for characters stuck on Defiant or lack of advertising.
They have no respect for the fact that FLS has spent a lot of money opening a server just for their region, a server that they no longer play on or give a damn about unless it effects their reputation.
These guys thought I was related to FLS because of my blog here so I became their immediate target for harassment, only yesterday did they realize I'm just a normal player because of your post explaining your correspondent position.
They have nothing good to contribute & in some extreme cases want to see Defiant fail or at the least create a bad atmosphere. It's obvious they have an axe to grind with FLS, you may even be their next target or try to influence you now they know.
Many moaning posts were made by them blaming FLS for their own player actions & failures - lots threads have been deleted & they spent all their time reporting posts disrupting the forums to the point i got banned.
It is difficult to say how many have quit or have been intimidated because of the bad community atmosphere they create but it's a lot! Danicia has not helped as it could of been avoided.
I know it's not me as I have played many mmorpgs & never come across it to this extent before, I have never been banned from any forums before now.
If FLS get rid of the "bad stuff" so that it's played in the spirit it was intended populations will return because it's a damn good game.
So there you have it you now know what's going on.
/tiphat
One of the interesting things with FLS is that the strategic decisions rest with Rusty.
My Mother always used to say "people find their own level".
Well, Rusty chose to sign with SOE and then with Telstra (Australia). Both companies subsequently let him down badly and neither conducted their business properly.
So, what does that say about Rusty?
Well, it says a couple of things IMHO:
It says he does not have the business acumen to ensure contracts will protect him and his company properly.
It also suggests to me that the people he spoke to were 'his sort of people'.
(This is not a new opinion BTW - I hinted at this pre release)
Now while the people who 'sold him' on those contracts were undoubtedly smooth taking marketing types - I would expect a person in his position to see past that?
As for Danicia and the Forum:
It was this way pre-release. I remember when Danicia arrived at FLS and she locked critical threads (always with good reason of course!) always turned a blind eye to Fanboi-ism and it was under her that the technique of Fanboi Flaming appeared as described in this thread
When the game went live there were more problems and accusations of bias... including in game.
Danicia is another example of Rusty 'finding his own level' IMHO. Danicia is not 'evil' or overtly bias. I don't even think her intention is bad. She probably considers herself fair and balanced?
But the reality is she is NOT the right person to be placed in charge of an MMO Community Forum.
Just FYI Havohej people were hounded out of PotBS from the very beginning via Meta Gaming both on the forums and in game. There is a thread or two on this forum IIRC.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.