Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
MMO VET, Been around the BLOCK ***REVIEW***
darkblight
Member UncommonPosts: 55
resume: ( UO, DaOC, ShadowBane, Asherons Call, Subspace/Continuum, Infantry, Diablo I/II, Everquest 1, 2 , SWG, LoTRo, Tabula Rasa, Guild Wars, WoW, Lineage 1. )
When i was a child i used to go to something most people who inhabit this online world may not experience anymore, a ARCADE. I used to wish that in the arcade they had one huge game, that everyone who came into the arcade would play together, and compete in for better or worse. When the Internet arrived to me in the early 90's , soon after came online gaming in the form of Doom/ Duke Nukem 3D. This was followed by UO, not technically the first, but the first major success where people would actually PAY money per month to play a video game on the internet, something thought of as the absolute NERDIEST thing one could do, has now become much more main stream, and much to my satisfaction not only could i particapte in the multi user arcade, but I could also do it from the comfort of my own home.
Needless to say I have beeen around the block, I have seen the T2A's and the NGE's. I have seen the wow Nazi's steal my genre and the Second LIfes try to turn it into cyber sex, and before PotBS i was in a rutt, playing Tabula Rasa with some friends on a nightly basis. Then for some reason, a friend of mines former guild I had learned was not raiding in WoW anymore, and had lost 90% of their members to this game... that was enough to get me interested. I really dont mind taking the inital plunge like alot of children on these forums might, 50$ isnt that big of a deal to me, if it is to you i suggest a better job.
I will divide this review into several sections in order to make it easier to follow:
Graphics: Not what i really care about, but well done. The cities are a little laggy right now, like most MMO's, but the "Avatar" Instances run very well, and the bulk of the game is played on the ocean which runs very smoothly due to mainly having to deal with rendering water. The graphics feel like a pirate game, as they should, and the characters are easily customizable. Good color palet to choose from, black is black, red is red. etc...
Sound: Who really cares? good enough. Music isnt too annoying, swords clank, cannons fire.
Game Play Avatar mode: A diversion at best. Some exp, some gold, nothing too exciting. Shooting the guns are cool, and the scenarios are very quick.
Ship Mode: VERY fun. Very addictive. Strategic combat, feels fresh. not just clicking 1-2-3-4-5 over and over, does not feel like a grind, loot is exciting because of player based economy. GREAT potential for pvp. Will not compare to EVE because it is not alien and disorienting like EVE, not as much of a learning curve, and more of a payoff in the end.
Player Run Economy: Bravo! Any game with a player run economy will do well. People do not always want to fight, and the crafters fuel the pvp in a game, believe it or not. When their are recsources to fight for in order for players to get their gear/upgrades, things become interesting. Love the crafting, factories/farms etc.. feels like SWG crafting minus actually having the factories take up chunks of "real world land".
NO CLASSES: well very few. You are not going to be the tank while im the healer and we have the DPS'er int he corner. This is what makes this game shine. You pick a realm ( britian, spanish french or Pirate) and from there the choice is do you want to craft, swashbuckle, or blow things up with guns on your ship. The actuall combat comes down to mastery of sailing your ship, mixed with getting player crafted items to have better guns, better hulls sails etc.
The no classes part is what has me excited the most about this game, which has ALOT of people playing it right now due to word of mouth.
You say you are waiting for War Hammer and Conan? Why?
WoW Hammer online = DAOC+WOW. Instanced PvP same old classes. Do you wana heal, tank or do DPS.
Havnt you done that all before? how many times can you heal a tank or dps a mob before it gets old?
Stop supporting this un creative MMO ideas. They are simply trying to sucker you into playing things like wow has done. Very little player control, very littler interaction. You step on the train to level 50, or 70 or whatever it is, and get off once you realize that very little changes, only the faces of the goblins and orcs.
This game actually incourages you to play with others, it rewards you for grouping up with many to hunt the powerfull, and isnt social interaction in a video game why we play MMO's in the first place?
PoTBS is making a change. It is given choice and control back to the players, and i think this is a good thing. Play it. Yes it may have some bugs, all MMO's, ALL SOFTWARE IN GENERAL DOES.
But we are not asking for perfection, we are asking to have fun. We are asking for a risk to the reward. We are here, on these forums trying to get AWAY from the cookie cuter wow games, AWAY FROM THE golden ? of slavery.
WHY ELSE WOULD YOU BE HERE READING THIS IF YOU WANTED MORE OF THE SAME?
I HIGHLY recomend this game. Give it a try and maybe together we can get MMO's back on the right track... the track that steers us as far away from wow as possible.
Comments
Wow, great review! This part particularly -
Ship Mode: VERY fun. Very addictive. Strategic combat, feels fresh. not just clicking 1-2-3-4-5 over and over, does not feel like a grind, loot is exciting because of player based economy. GREAT potential for pvp. Will not compare to EVE because it is not alien and disorienting like EVE, not as much of a learning curve, and more of a payoff in the end.
Is very encouraging!
You know, you really had me hooked up until it started to sound like a commercial or a recruiter there at the end.
I will totally agree with the top portion of your statement, this game is different which is why I think over time as people give it a shot it will succeed. I say this and I do not even play the game, however I have played it.
I have been on the fence ever since I tried it out, some days I am gonna get it then other days I tell myself to wait a bit just to see what happens.
I have a feeling though I will be getting it, the problem is I dont know when.
P.S. By the way, very well written. I did enjoy the read very much
Out of every 100 men, 10 should not be there,
80 are nothing but targets, 9 are the real fighters.
Ah, but one, ONE of them is a warrior,
and he will bring the others home.
-Heraclitus 500BC
Liked the review. I've heard some unencouraging stuff about it, but I might just investigate a little further now. Also I have a very cynical friend who has been waiting for this game, I know I can count on his review.
<modedit>
I would of liked POTBS to be a sandbox style game, akin to SWG or say EVE with a more persistant world feel.
-It was fun for a while in Beta, but honestly the huge emphasis on Instancing and the style of quests just made it feel too much like a single player game to me... as well there is 0 exploration and I really wanted to see a high seas adventure (going from port to port isnt exactly like "wow!!! incredible!!!, look at what its in this world")
so I passed on this one.
I agree with everything the OP said. The ship combat is a nice change but the Avatar combat could use some work.
Another note, I like the instanced battles. Reminds me of old skool RPGs (mainly the Final Fantasy series). IMO all they need is a swirling battle screen instead of the static loading screen (like Final Fantasy 7-10).
This is the first time sence I picked up Final Fantasy XI 5 years ago that I have enjoyed every moment of a MMOG.
MMORPG's are similar to women in many ways. After being stuck with a crappy one, the same one for too long, or no woman at all for an extended period... Your standards drop and you end up taking the fatty home.
I'm happy you make so much money that you can piss away $50.00 so easily. Good for you.
You started off great with your experiences and your past memories and childhood and then you dove off the deep end and ended up criticizing the members like 3/4s of the population does here. I got a couple things to say...
1st) I'm glad you found your cup of tea MMO it's really hard to find one these days that you either fall in love with or you find tolerable.
2nd) What's your cup of tea is not everyone's cup of tea, so going on about the rant at the bottom really didn't help you persuade me to check out the game as it was rather edgy and thrown together with thought-less remarks and insecure visions.
3rd) It's not that someone needs a better job if they can't spend $50 on a game, it's their situation. If your a family man now you got more expenses to deal with so buying that game could put a wild ride on your finances. Now if your a college student odds are you are barely making it by, from my own experiences while going through college I have a good understanding of this. You need to now think is the game worth not buying food for x amount of days or buying this game, I just won't go out for x amount of weeks, you have to barter with yourself and ask yourself if it really is worth the burden of not having food in your fridge or very little where you'd have to ration portions of it.
Lastly, I wouldn't call this a review, more of a one sided tip toward the anchor of PotBS.
AMEN HASHBRICK
AMEN
True. POTBS is not about PvE exploration and discovery, it is not about PvE NPC questing. POTBS is about PvP, and the combat, economic model, and basis of the game either leads upto getting a player experience for PvP, or is centered around PvP. Frankly, if you do not like PvP you will not like POTBS, as everything centers around PvP. If this bothers you, you should probably not spend your money on POTBS, but rather seek out a game more in line with your interests.
I have heard people criticise the economy. Every item produced in the game is ultimately used to support PvP. A player cannot produce any item alone, and must rely on others to contribute to a supply chain to produce components. Market participation is a must to really accumulate cash for PvP. Go after those merchants and grab their cargo, put it up on the auction house, and somebody will buy it to use as a component in their finished product. Price it too high and your ultimate consumer will get it from someone else. Hunting NPC rats (pirates) is not the quick way to riches. You need to sieze cargo, any cargo will do.
This game plays alot like EVE. You are going to have to figure out your niche, like blocker, tackler merchant, manufacturer, and think about how to outfit your ship, and to use it, to successfully fulfill your role.
The above poster is absolutely correct, no game is for everyone. If you like PvP, and the things I have described, you may wish to give POTBS a shot. If you don't like these things you will very likely not like POTBS. Just to give those of you on the fence something to consider in reaching your decision....
Except that this isn't the case in PotBS. Everyone has access to the more or less the same resources, other than a handful, and a Freetrader character can still produce these resources in hostile ports while mitigating much of the tax disadvantage through a skill. So unlike EVE, which is very much a fight about resources and access to resources (resources which are in the hands of a few alliances, and therefore "scarce", which both prompts player conflict and fuels a market demand), in PotBS, everyone can make everything if they have economies of scale large enough to do so. It's more about having a big society where you can have full production lines than it is about not having access to scarce resources.
As a result of this, the people making money in the economy now are people who have had a lot of cash stockpiled from the pre-order period and who have used that working capital to scale the production tree to the middle and top tier input items -- because the newcomers haven't caught up yet, these people are producing items that are low in supply for the time being and hence commanding nice prices. The newcomers will catch up, however, once they have their own cash to fund that kind of operation, because there are no real barriers to entry as there are in EVE, for example. Once that happens, it will be the same for the entire "economy" as it is now for the low and mid-level economy -- namely a situation where anyone can make anything and the market exists primarily for those who don't have sufficient scale or interest to make things themselves (ie folks who are willing to get exploited by the market), rather than a true market based on scarcity of resources.
True. POTBS is not about PvE exploration and discovery, it is not about PvE NPC questing. POTBS is about PvP, and the combat, economic model, and basis of the game either leads upto getting a player experience for PvP, or is centered around PvP. Frankly, if you do not like PvP you will not like POTBS, as everything centers around PvP. If this bothers you, you should probably not spend your money on POTBS, but rather seek out a game more in line with your interests.
I have heard people criticise the economy. Every item produced in the game is ultimately used to support PvP. A player cannot produce any item alone, and must rely on others to contribute to a supply chain to produce components. Market participation is a must to really accumulate cash for PvP. Go after those merchants and grab their cargo, put it up on the auction house, and somebody will buy it to use as a component in their finished product. Price it too high and your ultimate consumer will get it from someone else. Hunting NPC rats (pirates) is not the quick way to riches. You need to sieze cargo, any cargo will do.
This game plays alot like EVE. You are going to have to figure out your niche, like blocker, tackler merchant, manufacturer, and think about how to outfit your ship, and to use it, to successfully fulfill your role.
The above poster is absolutely correct, no game is for everyone. If you like PvP, and the things I have described, you may wish to give POTBS a shot. If you don't like these things you will very likely not like POTBS. Just to give those of you on the fence something to consider in reaching your decision....
Now THAT is a review. Unbiased and hitting right to the heart of the gameplay.
Thank you, now I know PotBS is not my kind of game and I won't be picking it up.
Grogg
"Will work for Ale"
I tried the beta but was disappointed when there was no "landgame" and the fighting with your avatar was a real mess.
Nice review and happy sailing in the Caribbean
This game plays alot like EVE. You are going to have to figure out your niche, like blocker, tackler merchant, manufacturer, and think about how to outfit your ship, and to use it, to successfully fulfill your role.
Yeah, I'm thinking the OP's entire post could have been replaced with....
"I r experienced MMO vet, its just like EVE, but with ships on water instead of space. Doesn't suck like WOW, be different."
There, much easier read.
But I'm thinking of playing this game, sounds interesting.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon