2. Position matter in Sid Myers, if you didn't want to get sunk you did your best not to get broadside and went for the aft or stern.
3. I should have not said "Exactly" the same but "very close"
4. I was assuming most would figure this is an MMO vs a single player game, so eh I look for the intellect of most posters to figure things out without writing every little example or difference, but what you say is a given in the difference.
5. While again I agree here, so did Sid, just change shot type and then you could knock out the sails and board the enemy.
6. There was more then chasing one ship, fort seizing was in Sid as well as others. So this is a nil point
7. Sid was a single player game yours is an MMO, another point I figured someone with a brain would realize. No insult intended just making a point about not pointing out all the obvious
We both could take the points about allot of things that this game and another can be compared, you can do the same thing with daoc vs forgotten realms or other comparisons to other titles. My bad for using the word EXACTLY in my statement. I should have said, DARN CLOSE. Sense you know I was in your stress test I can tell you that I enjoyed it very much and look forward to your game coming out. However I still believe the ship combat while fun, is missing something, got me what that something is, but to me it feels to much like SMP in allot of ways, does not make that a bad thing as SMP was a blast and heck your details and animations are top notch in the ship area, but still it feels pretty much the same, took me 1 min to figure out the mechanics.
Finally I hate to hear this when I did, but many said, “Oh you just need a bigger ship and play more so when you get there you will see a big difference and it won’t feel so arcade-ish. It was done this way so the learning curve wouldn’t be so harsh for a new player”. While I appreciate that you’re making the start simple for the starting player. The part I dread is the “well play more and it will be better”. I seen this same statement when LOTRO came out, all the fans go, “just play it longer it gets better”. Why does it seem now there is a trend to make games so easy at the start that we don’t see the “real” game till later in play? I think this is becoming a horrible trend, but alas I am not the developer of these games and it is, in the end my opinion. In LOTRO I played passed the supposed “low” point in the game were it gets better. It did to some degrees but in others it was what the start of the game was. While I believe different ships will show a better physics in your game along with the talents a player builds up, I still think it will be the same cat and mouse play in the end. Nothing wrong with it, I still found the starting of the game fun, but still I think it’s mechanics are the same in the end when comparing the two games. NOT EXACTLY BUT DARN CLOSE
The problem is that when you go and say EXACTLY in all caps, people think that's what you mean . But I'll admit that to some extent you do have a valid point. A lot of things in PotBS and SMP are similar, because they're both ship combat kinds of games. You have to turn and you have to fire at the enemy. But lets look at this a little more carefully.
In SMP, you can dodge the cannonballs! If you spin your ship out of the way as the animated canonballs fly through the air, you can make them miss you! In our game, whether or not you hit is a factor of:
The ship you are in and the type of canons you've got.
The kind of ammunition you have loaded.
The range between the two ships.
The relative speed of the two ships.
Passive skills your player may have taken while advancing, and toggle skills your player may activated.
How much damage you do is dependant on
What kind of ammunition you have loaded
What kind of armor planking the enemy has
What kind of passive and toggle skills each of you may have on
How much damage you've already done to that armor facing.
Position and stragey makes much more of a difference as you try and keep your weakened facings away from the enemy and target your fire to maximum effect on theirs.
SMP has little to none of this.
In multiplayer groups you can do much more with trapping ships in crossfires, crossing the T, shielding injured allied ships from fire while they repair, using skills that coordinate actions between ships (effectively buffing each other).
SMP has none of that at all. When you say the mechanics are the same and then ignore all the differences being an MMO with skills and a real sailing model and a real damage model make, it kind of weakens the point. If you strip out everything that's different, of course it's the same! And it's not fair to expect other readers to go "Oh, but it's an MMO so it has all these other differences even though he says it's the same."
That's the problem with your comment on point 7. You can't ignore the fact that this is an MMO when you're comparing it to a single player game. You can't ignore the differences grouping makes. That skills make. That a full mission structure makes.
Sure, I'm guilty of oversimplifying the missions in SMP (a little). But really, it had "go to the tavern in this port and fight this guy", "find the guy who kidnapped your family and get a map piece", "buy a map piece in the tavern and go dig on land for it when you've found enough" and not much else. So it's not really a nil point.
Don't get me wrong, I played quite a bit of SMP when it came out and enjoyed it quite a bit. But our game is not an arcade game, you can't dodge canonballs, and to ignore all the differences in service of calling it EXACTLY the same doesn't really give us a fair shake.
PotBS has a westerm control scheme(click to sailt my ship? go shoot yourself). Graphics aren't that much better than VCO(water sux tbh in PotBS). And the thing that i really don't like about PotBS is the sea fights, they are 1:1 with Sid Meier's Pirates! (the remake), aka ARCADE style.
The bit about the water is absurd. The combat is nothing like Sid Meier's pirates. I have to wonder if you've ever played it.
Actually the combat is EXACTLY like Sid Meier's Pirates and that question would be thrown back at you. There is no differance between the two except one thing, the top down view vs the isometric view. Graphics etc are different but the mechanics of wind and controls of the ship are exactly the same. So while I still like POTBS, the first post was correct. Why you would argue this is beyond me.
Personally when I played Sid Meiers Pirates that came out in 2004, I thought to myself that if anyone would make that into an MMO, I would be there first hand, and for a long time.
Hell, I hope they include flirting with governer's daughters as PVE missions and dancing and all those parts of the game in Potbs .
Heh, that'd probably get us sued My daughters would love that too. They were always annoyed that I couldn't keep doing the dancing minigame when they were watching me play. Once you got past that hurdle with a given governer's daughter you had to go romance a new one to play again!
The problem is that when you go and say EXACTLY in all caps, ((((edited to keep this small))))
You are right and it was my bad for saying EXACTLY as I have admitted, I was just countering ofcourse the other poster who said there is no compairision when in the end there really is. While your game has a vast more to offer in the end as we agree it is after all a ship combat game much as Sid's was. Personally I prefer the easier controls that you do have in your game. Thou the one thing ( I know I read about something being worked on this) I would have liked to see was more variations in weather/wind and having an effect on my ship a bit more. I think the combat speed (the speed of shots and movement) are pretty good but seem sometimes a bit fast.
How can I put this to make sense, basicly I think it is really good as is, but there is something missing that would make it supurb and I can't just put my finger on it atm. Wish I could , but alas I can't. I will have to wait for the game to release to say anything on this as this point. No I am not in beta nor at this point do I want to be.. (IE been in to many betas and it would be nice to be suprised, even thou I Stress tested, I have seen enough to get a taste) But as I have posted elswhere I will be pre-ordering and you have another fan. I can't wait to see what the final release brings.
PS. Sorry about the late reply, been busy like yourselves.
"The monster created isn't by the company that makes the game, it's by the fans that make it something it never was"
Well if you figure it out, drop us a line. It's not like MMO's are ever really done, and while we're locked down featurewise for release, we've got pages of stuff we want to add for future updates.
VCO is fun - for a while - the "engrish" gets old quickly and their quest system is pretty bad. The thing that I really hated tho was that after a while most of your gameplay is spent afk - need to raise weapon skills? afk bears in Seville, Need to raise mining? afk mine, etc.
Failure rates on cartable items are way too high (especially tailor items)
Comments
The problem is that when you go and say EXACTLY in all caps, people think that's what you mean
. But I'll admit that to some extent you do have a valid point. A lot of things in PotBS and SMP are similar, because they're both ship combat kinds of games. You have to turn and you have to fire at the enemy. But lets look at this a little more carefully.
In SMP, you can dodge the cannonballs! If you spin your ship out of the way as the animated canonballs fly through the air, you can make them miss you! In our game, whether or not you hit is a factor of:
The ship you are in and the type of canons you've got.
The kind of ammunition you have loaded.
The range between the two ships.
The relative speed of the two ships.
Passive skills your player may have taken while advancing, and toggle skills your player may activated.
How much damage you do is dependant on
What kind of ammunition you have loaded
What kind of armor planking the enemy has
What kind of passive and toggle skills each of you may have on
How much damage you've already done to that armor facing.
Position and stragey makes much more of a difference as you try and keep your weakened facings away from the enemy and target your fire to maximum effect on theirs.
SMP has little to none of this.
In multiplayer groups you can do much more with trapping ships in crossfires, crossing the T, shielding injured allied ships from fire while they repair, using skills that coordinate actions between ships (effectively buffing each other).
SMP has none of that at all. When you say the mechanics are the same and then ignore all the differences being an MMO with skills and a real sailing model and a real damage model make, it kind of weakens the point. If you strip out everything that's different, of course it's the same! And it's not fair to expect other readers to go "Oh, but it's an MMO so it has all these other differences even though he says it's the same."
That's the problem with your comment on point 7. You can't ignore the fact that this is an MMO when you're comparing it to a single player game. You can't ignore the differences grouping makes. That skills make. That a full mission structure makes.
Sure, I'm guilty of oversimplifying the missions in SMP (a little). But really, it had "go to the tavern in this port and fight this guy", "find the guy who kidnapped your family and get a map piece", "buy a map piece in the tavern and go dig on land for it when you've found enough" and not much else. So it's not really a nil point.
Don't get me wrong, I played quite a bit of SMP when it came out and enjoyed it quite a bit. But our game is not an arcade game, you can't dodge canonballs, and to ignore all the differences in service of calling it EXACTLY the same doesn't really give us a fair shake.
Rick Saada - FLS Dev & EPFBM
The bit about the water is absurd. The combat is nothing like Sid Meier's pirates. I have to wonder if you've ever played it.
Actually the combat is EXACTLY like Sid Meier's Pirates and that question would be thrown back at you. There is no differance between the two except one thing, the top down view vs the isometric view. Graphics etc are different but the mechanics of wind and controls of the ship are exactly the same. So while I still like POTBS, the first post was correct. Why you would argue this is beyond me.
Personally when I played Sid Meiers Pirates that came out in 2004, I thought to myself that if anyone would make that into an MMO, I would be there first hand, and for a long time.
Hell, I hope they include flirting with governer's daughters as PVE missions and dancing and all those parts of the game in Potbs
.
Heh, that'd probably get us sued
My daughters would love that too. They were always annoyed that I couldn't keep doing the dancing minigame when they were watching me play. Once you got past that hurdle with a given governer's daughter you had to go romance a new one to play again!
Rick Saada - FLS Dev & EPFBM
I disliked the dancing thing, but wooing a gov's daughter was always fun.
I disliked it, because I was horrible at it. My guy was always tripping over something
How can I put this to make sense, basicly I think it is really good as is, but there is something missing that would make it supurb and I can't just put my finger on it atm. Wish I could , but alas I can't. I will have to wait for the game to release to say anything on this as this point. No I am not in beta nor at this point do I want to be.. (IE been in to many betas and it would be nice to be suprised, even thou I Stress tested, I have seen enough to get a taste) But as I have posted elswhere I will be pre-ordering and you have another fan. I can't wait to see what the final release brings.
PS. Sorry about the late reply, been busy like yourselves.
"The monster created isn't by the company that makes the game, it's by the fans that make it something it never was"
Well if you figure it out, drop us a line. It's not like MMO's are ever really done, and while we're locked down featurewise for release, we've got pages of stuff we want to add for future updates.
Rick
Rick Saada - FLS Dev & EPFBM
VCO is fun - for a while - the "engrish" gets old quickly and their quest system is pretty bad. The thing that I really hated tho was that after a while most of your gameplay is spent afk - need to raise weapon skills? afk bears in Seville, Need to raise mining? afk mine, etc.
Failure rates on cartable items are way too high (especially tailor items)
Inflation is horrible in VCO as well