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What did PotBS do wrong?
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I have actually went through and read all 11 pages of post here before responding. My biggest issues with this game were not mentioned so I'll share my 2cents.
First my game play style. I hate PVP. I believe in every mmo I've played - PVP just brings out the worst of players. I accept it as a part of the game and avoid it whenever possible. That being said I am not a player who totally fears PVP, if the reward is great enough I will risk a trip through a PVP zone when necessary, this is why I love playing in 0.0 space in EVE. Plenty of rewards for visiting PVP areas.
Some how when I read about this game in the POTBS forums a couple years before release I pictured a much better economy. POTBS talked about how the market would be a completely free, without regulation or restrictions, economy that players would set the prices on and control. Now seeing what they have offered it seems to me that the economy wasn't some well thought out and designed tool for us but instead just laziness on the part of the developers. What the heck is this reverse auction type thing. I put my item on the market without being able to see what price other items are selling for? I just hope people will pick the price I have it at? Why can't people place Buy Orders to be filled.
I also hate the concept of no shared warehouses? Why can't I transfer goods from one character to another. Well besides using another player to make the transfer. It seems silly to me that all my characters are forced to be totally seperate from each other. Oh except they must all be same faction as well so not really seperate.
Along those same lines - Why are their no shared society warehouses? The game forces societies to work together but requires all the players to be online at the exact same time. We started a guild on a server that had a pretty good start with a successful production line running. We had a few players who disappearing for a period of time. This shut down our ability to transfer goods. Several goods got lost on players who were missing. It was just a really bad design. We even had to use a players Alt account with shared passwords passed to store guild goods. No shared warehouses - come on.
I heard the no shared warehouses was to force players to use the markets, but did anyone actually believe they would work? All this did was force players to find work arounds and pull the entire economy off the market.
The level/quest system was messed up. Some of these quest were just mislabeled . You take on one quest at a level and find it extreamly hard - then you do a quest 2 levels higher and find it extreamly easy.
Killing servers and forcing all players to move - thereby destroying our society wasn't helpful either.
I am not exactly sure what everyones problem with SOE is. I have heard they destroyed SWG when they took it over. As I didn't play SWG preNGE - I really have no fair way to judge. I really enjoy SWG now, wish I had seen it prior to the changes.
I do enjoy Everquest 2, or at least use to, but I hate the idea of buying extra expansion packs every 3 - 6 months. I intend to return to the game in the future.
I didn't really like Vanguard, bought it, played it, but left really early in the game never to return.
Since I do have a stationpass account, I will probably always visit POTBS every once in a while. It makes me a subscriber which makes them look good on paper. But really the game provides me no value, and I provide no value to it. I'm just waiting for changes that will never come.
I was curious about this game but never tried it, because of two issues:
1. Everything I've read about this game, tells me this is a ganking game, not real PvP.
2. The devs/mods way to reply on the forums. They act like spoiled brats with no clue about customer support and service.
(Didn't read through this thread, only the OP.)
In this case it has NOTHING to do with SWG.
I will repeat that - just in case you missed it and this turns into a "U h8 SOE OMFG getz ovr it alredy SWG waz yerz ago..." thread.
It has NOTHING to do with SWG in this case.
SOE's (Platform Publishing) handling of the PotBS release was appaling.
They botched virtually everything they touched in this release and FLS had to step in to cover for them on several occasions.
If SOE had been a brand new company - with no history at all - based on the terrible job they did in relation to this game I would advise any developer to stay well clear.
I have dug up a couple of links for you - when reading them ignore all the Anti "OMG SOE!" crap spam posts and just read the facts in relation to PotBS and FLS.
Follow the links.
It's all there for you to see for yourself.
Don't believe me (or other posters) if you don't want to. Don't believe the fanbois and apologists either. Follow the links and you will find posts by the FLS Devs about all this.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/156251
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/170795
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/164227
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/164199
Oh - and if you can't get some of the older FLS links to work (or the link makes no sense) remember to check the archives;
So the link http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showpost.php?p=682335&postcount=142 is a bad link
but http://archive.burningsea.com/forums/showpost.php?p=682335&postcount=142 should work
I was also looking for the link here about the Spanish release which FLS was never able to confirm even happened at all.
Okay?
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
POTBS was a concept that fell through the broken glass of an already weakened company.
CURRENTLY PLAYING SHAIYA
A huge mistake they made was ignoring the effect of crew on a sailing ship. Crew skill determined the outcome of most fights, not how many guns you carried or the ship skills. Where is the crew development? I think they badly missed the boat in this game.
It's implied in the skills.
For example - the Naval Officer Career Skills include things like "Gunnery Drills" and "Reload Rate" skills which improve reload and accuracy. The implication is that you have 'drilled' your crew.
But, I agree, the way it is done is not very inspired.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
IMHO the Start of the problem was starting the game with 10 Fing servers and 4 factions.
After that gameplay comes in to play.
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude; greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Samuel Adams
It is sad to see that this game appears to be heading where alot of people predicted.
Personally there were a number of factors in my not even buying the game.
1. SOE. No matter how much some of you want to put your head in the sand, some of us simply wont buy a game associated with SOE. Call me a hater, flame me, but I dont beleive any of you can deny the simple fact this lost business. Might have only been a small amount of people like me, but it lost business all the same.
2. Seperating us Australians from the rest of the world was the deal breaker for me... I play MMO's to interact with people from around the world.
3. Partnering with Telstra / Bigpond. I don't know if they did any advertising for this game, I never saw any. But even if they did, FLS obviously did not do their homework here. If you could chose 2 of the most disliked companies in the world in their respective fields, FLS definately did a good job here with their selection of partners.
On top of those little mistakes, from what ive read they appear to have fallen short on the product they have delivered in alot of ways. I personally followed the development for a number of years before release and was very excited about it, as were alot of others, but after getting into beta and seeing the state of the game after such a long wait, added to the points above ive mentioned, I simply did not buy the game, as I am guessing many others didnt.
So if I was to put my finger on what went wrong, I would say based on my experience, an unpolished game in many aspects that came as a disapointment after so many years waiting, added to some very bad business decisions on who they partnered with, did not help PotBS at all.
Thats just my 2c
I played in beta, and in normal play got a FT to 50. Then quit.
- no exploration
- no scenery
- no crafting
- no safe place to PvE
- no weather
- bad melee combat
- gankfest all 'round, including the insta-port flipping
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2024: 47 years on the Net.
a lot of that has been fixed and a lot implemnted give it a shot at the free 14 day trial if u wana join up with SS we started not 2 long ago and im a 30 CT on pirate side on antigua
I can sum up the OP's question in one word or less...
Launched
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
When they reworked the classes, released a new pirate class, and then gave insurance to the losers. Insurance was the final nail in the coffin.
Mort Blanche
FFL, OMG
The combat is boring, and it is way over instanced.
What he said. If they'd gone the route of a big open seamless world with an Ocean to sail on it and ports to call in or attack it could have been far more popular. With international waters for warfare and attack at your own risk in other countries waters or be attacked by Npc Navy. Like Eve online does things.
I have to agree. I was REALLY looking forward to this game for years as I am a big fan of the "age of sail" and sailing ships in general. I joined the beta, hoping I would be able to help make this be the great game I had hoped it would be (and perhaps I had a bit too much hope, although their bungling sure did not help things).
At anyrate, once I saw that they were going to be going with SOE that was pretty much the deal breaker right there. As much as I wanted the game to succeed and to play it, I've simply had too much trouble with that company to make it worth my while; I'd rather play SeaDogs or some other single player sailing/pirate game.
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You can't win - if you strike me down I shall respawn more powerful than you could possibly imagine!
Pretty much, the argument can be made and was made that POTBS was unfinished product when released. Further more its performance showed that the game is badly designed on multiple levels. I just hope that some future age of sail themed MMO has a chance after this one.
PotBS was actually planned to be incomplete which is quite astonishing. A few years back I remember reading some of the dev posts about how they were going to push the game out, and then later they'd add in say, the weather effects, and then a bit later they'd patch in XXX and YYY. When I read that I was surprised they had actually CONSIDERED doing something of that nature. However, I believe a lot of the people who had been watching the game for a long time and really wanted a sailing MMO were fine with that. The problem with that is, the game was already seeming rather niche, and to then wittle down the player base further by shipping it incomplete and hoping people would stick around for you to finish it is rather stupid. It was a stupid idea to begin with, and just look at all the other MMOs out there that are getting roasted because people are saying they shipped without promised aspects.
Now, I should point out that the idea of shipping it incomplete was back before they got involved with SOE, so I'm not sure if they pressured them to add in stuff so that it wouldn't be as incomplete or what. Either way, shipping it half baked, or shipping it with the stuff shoddily and quickly added is just as bad if you ask me.
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You can't win - if you strike me down I shall respawn more powerful than you could possibly imagine!
I have sort of given up on PotBS, especially now that the only thing they can brag about is how they are tweaking the female avatars to make them more... well... feminine.
I wouldn't complain about redoing them if they looked like the East German Olympic swimming team, but even then it would have been a complete waste of resources. Okay, okay, I know that the graphic artists can't do heavy designing stuff, but I think the level of dissatisfaction with the game is such nowadays that the avatar tweaks would have been more palatable to what's left of the PotBS community if FLS hadn't published a lengthy devlog puff piece about it.
I still hope that the developers will be able to turn their game around, but at this stage I have to say that if PotBS can make it to next summer and outlast "Tabula Rasa", that will be quite an accomplishment in itself. Problem is, NCSoft has other properties to survive. FLS? Unless they have an ace up their sleeve, not so much. Their only other property is their 7-year-old "Rails Across America", which in itself isn't bad but was graphically outdated even in its days.
My guess is that if FLS makes an announcement, it will be in January, at the one-year mark.
Also a very interesting blog entry I came across recently: http://spiritofrevolution.com/mmorpg/pirates-of-the-empty-sea/ . So it would seem that even the apologists are backtracking these days.
In a way, this makes me sad for FLS. Early on, they were misled by a very rowdy part of their community, but after they realized their mistake, they never fully lived up to it.
I was recently convinced to try out WoW (but not the WotLK expansion, which I was told is completely useless before level 55), and in that game, I already know what are its strengths and weaknesses, and what Blizzard tried to do with their game, without reading a single line about it. PotBS, on the other hand, never lived up to its potential in the best areas (ship combat, atmosphere), while everything else was painfully deficient. The rest was the developers' own doing, with that "no crying in the red circle" stuff.
I'd try it out again, but I'm not sure that there is much to be returning to.
I never was an appologist, but I worked hard to try and keep my server alive. We begged them to help us, to do something, anything to improve the desperate situation low-pop nations were in, to keep the game fun and playable. We got nothing except promises. And you know how they thanked me for my efforts. I will never forgive them for the callous way they treated us, as a nation, and me personally.
Linna
Linna, don't take it personal as FLS has seldom been in touch with the true player perspective.
This is partly because their staff have too much involvement in their own specific areas to worry about the big picture or game balance issues.
The main designers have consistently underestimated how players do play Potbs as they designed the game to be played their way; until they get some more experience on how to design a game for their customers enjoyment instead of their own flawed ideology they will continue to lose them.
There needs to be some management changes & more dev recruitment to have any effect that will change their approach to implement much better balance into the existing systems & to implement more meaningful content into RvR.
Psh, pirates get wenches. when's the last time you saw a ninja? with a bunch of chicks hanging off his arm?
Fixed.
I had tons of fun in POTBS. I considered msyelf one of the best freetraders in the game. Then something went wrong... they listened to the whiners, implemented insurance, trashed the potential of the economy alienated the real hardcore players, allowed people to farm endless bugged missions, changed class skill sets, allowed duels with no loss other than ammo, list goes on and on. I think the boat has sailed on potbs. I used to promote it, now i wouldnt recomend it to anyone.
This is just my perspective and I'm not trying to go into great detail so its just some random things.
To me in a sense the game was advertised to be either UO or EvE with a different name. By that I mean a pvp game with a player based economy. UO had full loot on death (hell even pve mobs would loot you). This imho was part of what made crafters able to keep sustained long term sales. EvE has similar game mechanics which is again why the player market works. (aka you need items to leave the game world in order to have crafting be viable long term).
So I guess that was what I was looking for with this game.
One of the first things I noticed after setting up my "supply lines" was that all the products I could make were for sale.. cheaper than it would cost to make them.
Why? Because they dropped as loot... So not only were supply lines (for the most part) useless.. you were losing money to use them.
If you think "well it would be hard to get that many items considering the requirements for certain builds".
I think most people are aware of this but perhaps not. In PvE combat all you did was broadside an enemy. Why? They would rather quickly abandon their ship and leave loot for you. I wasn't taking part in this but I was hearing enough about it and I did know that it actually worked.
So that was "bad" imho especially after I had setup my supply lines and built my ship yard. Any ship builder who was basicly getting the vast majority of their sub-components for free could obviously undersell you.
I'm going to use the term "main stream" for pve players.. I don't really like carebear as a term and it probably applies to me.. altho I do like to pvp as well.
When the "main stream" players started to cancel due to the "red ring of doom" and various other exploits.. They were flamed off the boards etc (clarify: red ring of doom wasn't an exploit so that sentence I'm talking about more than one topic.. don't want any confusion).
Suddenly when the subscriber numbers dropped off sharply (hey I played UO at launch and in summer of 98 my guild of 300+ became a guild of 2 .. I played till 2002 so I didn't leave). So I had been through this before from my point of view..
FLS started to react to that.. which of course ended up in things that pissed off the pvp crowd.. and it was probably to late to retain the "main stream" crowd regardless.
I had been through this before as well.. except it was..
Murder System
Stat Loss
Trammel
instead of the names of changes you saw in PotBS.
Then of course there were the pvp exploits.. port flipping exploits... and what action was taken? none.
Hell the server I was on when Spain won the map and then an FLS poster was talking about an exploit they ended up apologizing to spain.. which was funny since they had used the port flipping exploit multiple times to "win" evne tho they claimed not to have.
I wasn't in the game to win a map.. it didn't affect me but I saw it happening.. so when the claim was made that "we didn't exploit to win" it came across as What?
no bans etc.. (I think especially in a pvp game.. exploitation has to have action taken against it or there is no reason as a non exploiting player to try to commit long term.. just my perspective tho).
*wrap up*
I think when you advertise a game as something... you support it as that thing.
All MMO's launch with bugs/issues and are incomplete.. that is either taken care of or it isn't.
The biggest failure of this game imho was advertising to a crowd that "old school UO' or "EvE" had.. then trying to retain players that would NOT have stuck around for either of those products.
So that not only did you lose the crowd that you didn't advertise to... you lost your core players as well.
EvE certainly seems to do well enough as a "niche" game. So imho the game could have had that same kind of market with its take on things.
They just chose to not do this and imho paid the price for not sticking with what they advertised.
this game sounds EXACTLY like tabula rasa, and look at where that is. NOWHERE! ahaha.... i made myself sad.
Checking back in after some months to see the servers still at the Light sections (the API). There was an Advertisement Push wasn't there with the Free Trial as part of it, did that have any impact?
Seeing how the future is, economically speaking, I'll have to agree that POTBS has a grim outlook. $15/mo is too high given its features and population count.
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.
The API is, and as far as I know always has been, bugged in that server populations have always read as Light via the API. Currently, two nations on Antigua are at Moderate (Pirate and British).
Invincible (the old Aussie) server has been replaced with Defiant, but not all the Aussies went to Defiant; many went to Antigua or Blackbeard. Rackham has seen an exodus of players to Antigua, Blackbeard and Defiant. Roberts remains active, Defiant seems to be starting off nicely (I know people who transferred from Antigua and Blackbeard to go to Defiant for the more PST-friendly Port Battle schedule).
The free trials have had an enormous impact, as has the winback program through which former players get a free 14-day "get to know us again" sort of trial to log into their old, previously levelled toons and see the changes that've taken place. In addition to this, an affiliate program is nearly ready, which'll encourage more people to post links/banners on their own sites (such as the marquis banner on my blog which has been there free for the last two months).
In short, the game is fine. Population is a lot higher than the API info (which is bugged) suggests, they've recently hired more devs and artists and have their larger development projects on a three-year timescale. FLS is NOT under Sony Online Entertainment's control and they're in it for the long haul. This is the best time to try PotBS for the first time so if you're not a player but the concept looks fun, give it a go; you'll be pleasantly surprised.