The Pirates have won their first RvR server victory on Blackbeard. FLS have dropped "The no crying in the red circle" slogan. Most of the players that shouted down others in beta have left or gone quiet. There are generous insurance refunds that will make PvP much cheaper & less grind. We need more Nationals on BB & producers!
So all you players that got pushed out it's time to come back, get off your backsides & come play Potbs.
I for one have decided to call it quits. I have little time these days, and not much more money, and I am spending both on Age of Conan these days. I have serious reservations about that game too, but at least I haven't reached the boredom stage that now characterizes my relationship with PotBS. And if anything, the reasons you mention all but indicate that things have gone downhill for the game to such an extent that it is questionable whether it will be able to recover.
Pirates, for starters, have very little chance of winning the map under ideal circumstances -- usually, they will finish second or third. Now let's see the particulars of Blackbeard: entire French faction minus one society left for Rackham in April, and the French never recovered; Spanish usually had transfers from other servers, then after a while the Blackbeard Spanish either transferred away or stopped playing, and the expected Spanish win never materialized; most of the British armada transferred to Rackham, leaving a core of good players but inexperienced Brits outside of that. The Pirates had all the elements they needed to win a map, provided they put enough dedication into it to flip enough ports to win. With the Spanish and, especially, the French, putting in little to no resistance, it was all a matter of time -- so easy apparently that even the notorious Ginger Magician, self-proclaimed pirate king of Blackbeard, transferred to Roberts after the win.
Finally, the devs have dropped the "No crying in the red circle" slogan. I knew that would come sooner or later, and the isildur devlog on "ambush gameplay" all but heralded its end. But I suspect the devs have known for quite a while that something was wrong with that slogan. Remember how infamous that DrewC quote about "not making it fair in your favor" became in a matter of days? Then there was that earlier Isildur quote on another blog about the "next big failure" with specific mention made of Shadowbane's "Play to Crush". And finally, there was the brief "War of Aether's Avatar" where my unfortunate quip about how Aether should drop his avatar (a large red circle with an eye and a teardrop in it) caused a few people to say exactly the same thing about what that avatar meant. Perhaps that was what finally opened their eyes. Aether and I had an exchange of messages afterwards, where even he admitted that the way the slogan was being used by a segment of the community was "crass". He also said in a board post that it was meant tongue-in-cheek to poke fun at the hardcore, so he was not exactly backing down on his beliefs when he took it down. But I'm pretty sure some of the "hardcore" must have seen that as caving in to carebear pressure.
Now that quote seems to have disappeared from everywhere -- DrewC's signature, Aether's avatar (a while ago), but even on external sites such as Joe Ludwig's blog. This makes me suspect the existence of a company directive on this. The only places where the quote endures? In the signatures of Ranker-type "hardcore" players.
The fanbois might have gone quiet, but we're stuck with their mess. If anything, let's hope FLS survives this debacle to make another game, and that it will have learned how to deal with such people. Or at least consider the Worst Case Scenario when taking down their advice, which seems to have unfortunately been ignored.
Insurance? Good idea, but look how the "hardcore" scream to the top of their lungs how that is going to "carebear" the game. It's perhaps the only case in personal history where I'm glad the bean-counter has won the day. Not to mention it's probably the only option possible where you make player loss less incapacitating while not killing off the economy in the process. Nonetheless, I predict this will lead to inflation for anyone who does not produce ships in-society. Let's hope insurance payouts are based on a fixed percentage of purchase price and not cost, possibility of abuse be damned. That's small potatoes compared to what has been done already.
Having more nationals is probably going to be impossible to achieve unless they have something distinctive about them. Not to mention the challenge then becomes how to convince people NOT to roll British. As for producers... I think it's another failing of this game. Economic players have been driven away from the game by the "hardcore" who could find no salvation outside of PvP and who consider all PvE and economic players as their inferiors. Being forced to pay for the PvP of others while being treated in contempt by the beneficiaries is a shortcut to sailing in the proverbial sunset.
Besides, consider this: The "hardcore" don't need you. They produce what they need, they grind for their money, then they go PvP and if any good at it, they earn more money that way. They will gladly take you in port battles if they're short a few ships, but will greet you with a barrage of "please pass" if they are full. At no point do they come knocking on your door because they want to include you in the larger national objective. Either they are desperate and will take anyone, or they will come in and bark orders. The French, unfortunately, had and still have the tendency of working like that. It gets tiresome after a while.
All in all, this patch will not change anything. Besides, what is making me leave is not the ganking (I was ganked maybe twice in expendable ships, including a fallback on one glorious occasion), but because there is nothing beyond the PvP. Port governance is the thing I am waiting for, but I'm pretty sure it will be quickly taken over by the usual suspects (among other problems this will raise regarding existing game mechanics, such as the quasi-certainty of needing to PvP your own side because those nations don't exactly behave like a monolith when it comes to policy). So I will keep on reading about new developments made to the game, and I hope it survives, but my own return to it is doubtful.
Pirates, for starters, have very little chance of winning the map under ideal circumstances -- usually, they will finish second or third. Now let's see the particulars of Blackbeard: entire French faction minus one society left for Rackham in April, and the French never recovered; Spanish usually had transfers from other servers, then after a while the Blackbeard Spanish either transferred away or stopped playing, and the expected Spanish win never materialized; most of the British armada transferred to Rackham, leaving a core of good players but inexperienced Brits outside of that. The Pirates had all the elements they needed to win a map, provided they put enough dedication into it to flip enough ports to win. With the Spanish and, especially, the French, putting in little to no resistance, it was all a matter of time -- so easy apparently that even the notorious Ginger Magician, self-proclaimed pirate king of Blackbeard, transferred to Roberts after the win. Finally, the devs have dropped the "No crying in the red circle" slogan. I knew that would come sooner or later, and the isildur devlog on "ambush gameplay" all but heralded its end. But I suspect the devs have known for quite a while that something was wrong with that slogan. Remember how infamous that DrewC quote about "not making it fair in your favor" became in a matter of days? Then there was that earlier Isildur quote on another blog about the "next big failure" with specific mention made of Shadowbane's "Play to Crush". And finally, there was the brief "War of Aether's Avatar" where my unfortunate quip about how Aether should drop his avatar (a large red circle with an eye and a teardrop in it) caused a few people to say exactly the same thing about what that avatar meant. Perhaps that was what finally opened their eyes. Aether and I had an exchange of messages afterwards, where even he admitted that the way the slogan was being used by a segment of the community was "crass". He also said in a board post that it was meant tongue-in-cheek to poke fun at the hardcore, so he was not exactly backing down on his beliefs when he took it down. But I'm pretty sure some of the "hardcore" must have seen that as caving in to carebear pressure. Now that quote seems to have disappeared from everywhere -- DrewC's signature, Aether's avatar (a while ago), but even on external sites such as Joe Ludwig's blog. This makes me suspect the existence of a company directive on this. The only places where the quote endures? In the signatures of Ranker-type "hardcore" players. The fanbois might have gone quiet, but we're stuck with their mess. If anything, let's hope FLS survives this debacle to make another game, and that it will have learned how to deal with such people. Or at least consider the Worst Case Scenario when taking down their advice, which seems to have unfortunately been ignored. Insurance? Good idea, but look how the "hardcore" scream to the top of their lungs how that is going to "carebear" the game. It's perhaps the only case in personal history where I'm glad the bean-counter has won the day. Not to mention it's probably the only option possible where you make player loss less incapacitating while not killing off the economy in the process. Nonetheless, I predict this will lead to inflation for anyone who does not produce ships in-society. Let's hope insurance payouts are based on a fixed percentage of purchase price and not cost, possibility of abuse be damned. That's small potatoes compared to what has been done already. Having more nationals is probably going to be impossible to achieve unless they have something distinctive about them. Not to mention the challenge then becomes how to convince people NOT to roll British. As for producers... I think it's another failing of this game. Economic players have been driven away from the game by the "hardcore" who could find no salvation outside of PvP and who consider all PvE and economic players as their inferiors. Being forced to pay for the PvP of others while being treated in contempt by the beneficiaries is a shortcut to sailing in the proverbial sunset. Besides, consider this: The "hardcore" don't need you. They produce what they need, they grind for their money, then they go PvP and if any good at it, they earn more money that way. They will gladly take you in port battles if they're short a few ships, but will greet you with a barrage of "please pass" if they are full. At no point do they come knocking on your door because they want to include you in the larger national objective. Either they are desperate and will take anyone, or they will come in and bark orders. The French, unfortunately, had and still have the tendency of working like that. It gets tiresome after a while. All in all, this patch will not change anything. Besides, what is making me leave is not the ganking (I was ganked maybe twice in expendable ships, including a fallback on one glorious occasion), but because there is nothing beyond the PvP. Port governance is the thing I am waiting for, but I'm pretty sure it will be quickly taken over by the usual suspects (among other problems this will raise regarding existing game mechanics, such as the quasi-certainty of needing to PvP your own side because those nations don't exactly behave like a monolith when it comes to policy). So I will keep on reading about new developments made to the game, and I hope it survives, but my own return to it is doubtful.
Good post & your points taken.
However i would like to add the following:
Pirates are already dominating on Blackbeard & R1.5 will increase their chance of map wins on all servers as they are increasing the pirates points for a port win.
If the hard-core societies need me or not they had better get used to it cause i'm going no-where.
[quote=Rusty;401233]
We're working on incentives for experienced players so that they actively recruit newbies to play with them.[/quote]
I think Insurance is probably the biggest change to come to PotBS pretty much since launch. Apparantly values are set at about 90% of the value of the ship - so losses won't be anywhere near as great as before.
That, along with the fact that they're making quite a few tweaks to RvR - admittedly mainly to set things to more sane values after the new unrest system threw things a bit out of whack in 1.4 - as well as beginning to increase the points that Pirates get for pillaging a port (by a single point so far but apparantly that's just cause they're being conservative and don't want to turn it up so far they have to reduce it later - the main feature is that now they can alter the value).
Plus they're altering the special outfitting so that it makes more sense across the board and making the rare outfitting craftable which will go some way towards reducing the 'Phat Lewt' side of the combat that's always irked me so much.
Regarding the 'intent to remove ganking' - I'm pretty certain that any and all dev teams would love to be able to implement a change as soon as they state the intent to make that change. I for one welcome the announcement as what it was - a statement of intent to no longer actively support the ambush style gameplay that ganking is a part of.
And they're also going to be doing a major marketing push just as soon as they're ready - I hope that works and am cautiously optimistic. Why? Well, I know it might not seem that way to some but the vast majority of the gaming market's opinion of Pirates of the Burning Sea is "Oh, What's that? I've never heard of it.." Sony really dropped the ball when it came to the marketing but to be honest I think that might play in Flying Lab's favour, because it's meant that the vast majority of players haven't been here for these first few rocky months.
I hate the posts that say "Why are they focusing on X, they should be focusing on Y". FLS, like the majority of gaming companies, is split into teams. ArtCo, DevCo, ConCo, etc. Each one works in their area only, obviously. So when someone says "Why are they wasting their time on visual upgrades to the towns when they should be fixing PvP", that just doesn't make sense. Are we expecting artists to switch over and work on the coding of PvP? Of course not. Just keep that in mind.
Wow the carebear force is strong within this thread. I had to read it twice but the force is still there.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
I actually agree with SirXaph and DJXEON. With the improvements coming in patch 1.5 I think this game is really going to bloom. Insurance is going to allow people to pvp without losing thier ass in the process and create a ton of competition.
Only time will tell but the game has definatly shown a lot of improvement.
In future patches fair PvP is planned for the crowds that are not into unfair ganking & shallow PVP areas for newbies.
"Future patches"? This should be priority number one for FLS. I think most of the people left because of their support for griefing and ganking.
i don't understand the complaint of ganking, havn't you played wow or any other open pvp mmo before? if your in the pvp zone then how the ---- are you going to complain about being engaged in pvp combat?
I was a freetrader and all my riggings were for speed, i never once had a problem with getting away from pirates. The problem with pvp is the huge risk factor which limits the amount of people willing to pvp, they already added more reward to it and now it looks like they are taking some risk away with giving 50%++ money back when you sink. Things are definitly better than they were back in feburary
This is from someone who likes PvP but HATES gank squads. The problem with FLS was not that ganking occured in their game. That happens anytime there is PvP. The problem was the mechanics favored it, and the devs applauded ganking, saying it was desirable. Rule number one: ganking is NEVER desireable, but at times a trade-off in a pvp game. To those who complained, the devs simply said stfu and die.
The Pirates have won their first RvR server victory on Blackbeard. FLS have dropped "The no crying in the red circle" slogan. Most of the players that shouted down others in beta have left or gone quiet. There are generous insurance refunds that will make PvP much cheaper & less grind. We need more Nationals on BB & producers!
So all you players that got pushed out it's time to come back, get off your backsides & come play Potbs.
I for one have decided to call it quits. I have little time these days, and not much more money, and I am spending both on Age of Conan these days. I have serious reservations about that game too, but at least I haven't reached the boredom stage that now characterizes my relationship with PotBS. And if anything, the reasons you mention all but indicate that things have gone downhill for the game to such an extent that it is questionable whether it will be able to recover.
Pirates, for starters, have very little chance of winning the map under ideal circumstances -- usually, they will finish second or third. Now let's see the particulars of Blackbeard: entire French faction minus one society left for Rackham in April, and the French never recovered; Spanish usually had transfers from other servers, then after a while the Blackbeard Spanish either transferred away or stopped playing, and the expected Spanish win never materialized; most of the British armada transferred to Rackham, leaving a core of good players but inexperienced Brits outside of that. The Pirates had all the elements they needed to win a map, provided they put enough dedication into it to flip enough ports to win. With the Spanish and, especially, the French, putting in little to no resistance, it was all a matter of time -- so easy apparently that even the notorious Ginger Magician, self-proclaimed pirate king of Blackbeard, transferred to Roberts after the win.
Finally, the devs have dropped the "No crying in the red circle" slogan. I knew that would come sooner or later, and the isildur devlog on "ambush gameplay" all but heralded its end. But I suspect the devs have known for quite a while that something was wrong with that slogan. Remember how infamous that DrewC quote about "not making it fair in your favor" became in a matter of days? Then there was that earlier Isildur quote on another blog about the "next big failure" with specific mention made of Shadowbane's "Play to Crush". And finally, there was the brief "War of Aether's Avatar" where my unfortunate quip about how Aether should drop his avatar (a large red circle with an eye and a teardrop in it) caused a few people to say exactly the same thing about what that avatar meant. Perhaps that was what finally opened their eyes. Aether and I had an exchange of messages afterwards, where even he admitted that the way the slogan was being used by a segment of the community was "crass". He also said in a board post that it was meant tongue-in-cheek to poke fun at the hardcore, so he was not exactly backing down on his beliefs when he took it down. But I'm pretty sure some of the "hardcore" must have seen that as caving in to carebear pressure.
Now that quote seems to have disappeared from everywhere -- DrewC's signature, Aether's avatar (a while ago), but even on external sites such as Joe Ludwig's blog. This makes me suspect the existence of a company directive on this. The only places where the quote endures? In the signatures of Ranker-type "hardcore" players.
The fanbois might have gone quiet, but we're stuck with their mess. If anything, let's hope FLS survives this debacle to make another game, and that it will have learned how to deal with such people. Or at least consider the Worst Case Scenario when taking down their advice, which seems to have unfortunately been ignored.
Insurance? Good idea, but look how the "hardcore" scream to the top of their lungs how that is going to "carebear" the game. It's perhaps the only case in personal history where I'm glad the bean-counter has won the day. Not to mention it's probably the only option possible where you make player loss less incapacitating while not killing off the economy in the process. Nonetheless, I predict this will lead to inflation for anyone who does not produce ships in-society. Let's hope insurance payouts are based on a fixed percentage of purchase price and not cost, possibility of abuse be damned. That's small potatoes compared to what has been done already.
Having more nationals is probably going to be impossible to achieve unless they have something distinctive about them. Not to mention the challenge then becomes how to convince people NOT to roll British. As for producers... I think it's another failing of this game. Economic players have been driven away from the game by the "hardcore" who could find no salvation outside of PvP and who consider all PvE and economic players as their inferiors. Being forced to pay for the PvP of others while being treated in contempt by the beneficiaries is a shortcut to sailing in the proverbial sunset.
Besides, consider this: The "hardcore" don't need you. They produce what they need, they grind for their money, then they go PvP and if any good at it, they earn more money that way. They will gladly take you in port battles if they're short a few ships, but will greet you with a barrage of "please pass" if they are full. At no point do they come knocking on your door because they want to include you in the larger national objective. Either they are desperate and will take anyone, or they will come in and bark orders. The French, unfortunately, had and still have the tendency of working like that. It gets tiresome after a while.
All in all, this patch will not change anything. Besides, what is making me leave is not the ganking (I was ganked maybe twice in expendable ships, including a fallback on one glorious occasion), but because there is nothing beyond the PvP. Port governance is the thing I am waiting for, but I'm pretty sure it will be quickly taken over by the usual suspects (among other problems this will raise regarding existing game mechanics, such as the quasi-certainty of needing to PvP your own side because those nations don't exactly behave like a monolith when it comes to policy). So I will keep on reading about new developments made to the game, and I hope it survives, but my own return to it is doubtful.
Wait..... Ginger's gone? ROFL
Who is the person who gets killed all the time now? I would say Blondy, but Blondy was nice and could actually PvP. Same with Bootytrap to. So who is the one who is the current public enemy number one?
I was a freetrader and all my riggings were for speed, i never once had a problem with getting away from pirates. The problem with pvp is the huge risk factor which limits the amount of people willing to pvp, they already added more reward to it and now it looks like they are taking some risk away with giving 50%++ money back when you sink. Things are definitly better than they were back in feburaryi don't understand the complaint of ganking, havn't you played wow or any other open pvp mmo before? if your in the pvp zone then how the ---- are you going to complain about being engaged in pvp combat?
This is from someone who likes PvP but HATES gank squads. The problem with FLS was not that ganking occured in their game. That happens anytime there is PvP. The problem was the mechanics favored it, and the devs applauded ganking, saying it was desirable. Rule number one: ganking is NEVER desireable, but at times a trade-off in a pvp game. To those who complained, the devs simply said stfu and die.
Thankfully they've seen the light, as it were, and are going to be tweaking mechanics to reduce ganking.
And PvP is getting cheaper with the insurance, so you don't loose your ass when you get ganked in the first place. Oh the new epic mission is pretty cool too. It needs the bugs worked out still but it's pretty cool and the loot drops are amazing.
I really enjoyed the beta for this game and consider myself a fan of the game and genre. Unfortunately they could make PotBS the very best mmo ever created and I will still not play it as it is published by SOE. I would wager that I am not alone in this regard and FLS shot themselves in the foot by partnering with those *cough* people.
Thankfully they've seen the light, as it were, and are going to be tweaking mechanics to reduce ganking.
Which is a meaningless statement until they provide some specifics of how they are going to accomplish that. From what I'm reading on the official forums I'm not hopeful they will be successful.
Thankfully they've seen the light, as it were, and are going to be tweaking mechanics to reduce ganking.
Which is a meaningless statement until they provide some specifics of how they are going to accomplish that. From what I'm reading on the official forums I'm not hopeful they will be successful.
Even with the most innovative and clever system, I'm not hopeful they can ever be successful.
And how do we know if they've "seen the light"? Maybe FLS is just paying lip service to the so-called carebears because they know the game can't be financially viable without them.
For all the united front FLS has always presented to the community as to its vision, I think there was and perhaps still is a major rift in the company between the anything-to-win pro-hardcore no-crying-in-the-red-circle mentality -- DrewC most famously, but also Rusty (" Read Sun Tzu's Art of War. It should be called the Art of the Gank.") and maybe a few other developers, perhaps Joe Ludwig (who will always have a special place in my mind for his cop-out approach to the Great Blackbeard Exploit Caper) -- and the balanced-PvP or more laid back approach (if honest about the "next big failure" quote, Isildur would be here, and I would add Aether's name too, and probably Snap as well, who is a newcomer to FLS but was the one who worked on insurance and seemed to demonstrate a clear understanding of gaming mentality in his few forum posts).
In the early months, the first side was prevailing, but now I am not so sure. Saving the game is probably a greater imperative than sticking to a vision which led to dwindling subscriptions.
1. Automatic cash back with Ship Insurance, nationals PvP will at last be affordable expendable fun. 2. Pirates pillage will transform the game for Pirates by adding the first two towns loaded with fun. 3. Pirates are getting the new Buccaneer class in R1.4, a very powerful evil Freetrader! 4. Pirates chances of winning the map will greatly increase by increasing the number of points that the Pirates earn to more than 3/port. 5. Girl-Play! new faces and some new hairdos for female characters. 6. Upgrade for the conquest UI. UChat support which enables cross-server messages as well as messages to and from all SOE games. 7. New end-game content Epic Mission. Fortaleza da Luz is a level 50 environment along the line of Bey’s Retreat. In future patches fair PvP is planned for the crowds that are not into unfair ganking & shallow PVP areas for newbies. R1.5 is sheduled for testbed in only two weeks. Aye, The future looks bright, the future is Potbs me hearties!
is there going to be a post like this every time a new patch is deployed?
let me know when the game is fun.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
1. Automatic cash back with Ship Insurance, nationals PvP will at last be affordable expendable fun. 2. Pirates pillage will transform the game for Pirates by adding the first two towns loaded with fun. 3. Pirates are getting the new Buccaneer class in R1.4, a very powerful evil Freetrader! 4. Pirates chances of winning the map will greatly increase by increasing the number of points that the Pirates earn to more than 3/port. 5. Girl-Play! new faces and some new hairdos for female characters. 6. Upgrade for the conquest UI. UChat support which enables cross-server messages as well as messages to and from all SOE games. 7. New end-game content Epic Mission. Fortaleza da Luz is a level 50 environment along the line of Bey’s Retreat. In future patches fair PvP is planned for the crowds that are not into unfair ganking & shallow PVP areas for newbies. R1.5 is sheduled for testbed in only two weeks. Aye, The future looks bright, the future is Potbs me hearties!
is there going to be a post like this every time a new patch is deployed?
let me know when the game is fun.
For many it wasn't fun because of the boring PvE grind to replace lost ships.
Ship insurance now makes PvP more affordable as a temporary stop-gap until they get higher populations with the planned 14-day trial & add the planned extra game sinks.
If players want to PvP they now have the funding to do it,
If players don't want to they don't need to - simple as that.
Oh and i forgot to mention you now get 250 warehouse capacity
I really enjoyed the beta for this game and consider myself a fan of the game and genre. Unfortunately they could make PotBS the very best mmo ever created and I will still not play it as it is published by SOE. I would wager that I am not alone in this regard and FLS shot themselves in the foot by partnering with those *cough* people.
I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous. This is mindless vitriol. PotBS is marketed by SOE... that's it. The development team is all still (for the present, at least) employed by FLS. I understand your ire, but this is just taking it too far. If you don't want to play the game, fine... but arm yourself with some real justification for not doing so before posting here again. It's like you just leapt into an arena wielding a wooden spoon.
I really enjoyed the beta for this game and consider myself a fan of the game and genre. Unfortunately they could make PotBS the very best mmo ever created and I will still not play it as it is published by SOE. I would wager that I am not alone in this regard and FLS shot themselves in the foot by partnering with those *cough* people.
I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous. This is mindless vitriol. PotBS is marketed by SOE... that's it. The development team is all still (for the present, at least) employed by FLS. I understand your ire, but this is just taking it too far. If you don't want to play the game, fine... but arm yourself with some real justification for not doing so before posting here again. It's like you just leapt into an arena wielding a wooden spoon.
I'm sorry, but your response to severius is what's ridiculous. He didn't say anything that isn't true, namely that SOE publishes (not develops) PotBS. SOE is supposed to be in charge of distribution, advertising and patching/account maintenance through their launcher.
Also, people who hate SOE wouldn't want to play a game where any portion of their subscription fee goes to SOE which is exactly the situation PotBS subscribers are in.
This was simply another game that promised an lot and didn't live up to the hype. I played the beta and then played the last weeks on a friend's acct that got fed up and quit.
This game being published by SOE certainly didn't help things, but aside from the activation code problems and no boxes in the stores for the first several weeks, Pirates of the BS failed on it's own demerits, with no help from SOE.
I just have to laugh, that in a game called "Pirates of the..." pirates were the worst combat centered class, so almost no one played them. How did that happen?
Anyway, this game has proved its irrelevancy in the MMO and larger gaming world, so there is really nothing left to get angry about.
For the people that continue to play, enjoy.
For the rest of us, there are more games coming out on the horizon....
It's a funny one. I tried it for a while and REALLY enjoyed the ship combat. I mean REALLY. It's effing brilliantly done, and really absorbing and immersive.
Funnily enough, I also enjoyed the avatar combat too - I think in terms of my knowledge of martial arts, it's just about the most realistic combat system of its kind in any game actually. But that means: it's not like the films (which of course have choreographed combat) so people piss and moan. *shrugs*
But something about the overall feel of the game is lacking - the way the "open sea" is distinct from instanced combat, which is distinct from instanced land-based missions, just gives the whole thing a disjointed feeling somehow. And yet it's difficult to see how else they could have designed it - it is in fact quite clevelry designed in that regard.
I dunno, I think ultimately a pirate game would have to really have a continuous feel. The ultimate pirate MMO would have ship combat pretty much like PoTBS (I can't emphasise how much fun it is actually, everybody should give it a go just to experience it), but would somehow have a smoother transition between open sea/ship to ship/land. But this would probably require a level of technology not yet available.
I often find myself hankering for PoTBS again though. I will definitely revisit it at some point.
Your exactly right, you just really cant do it any other way, you have to instance some of it off at some point, you cant make this type of game with it's great combat system streamless.
I dunoo the SOE haters make me LOL @ them as well. They are all hung up over some insult done to them 10 years ago in EQ.
The SWG fiasco was all on Lucas IMO.
So LucasArts coded and develped arguably the WORST game in MMO history secretly behind that backs of the paying customers? Yeah right...
SOE deserves every bad inch of reputation they get. They lost their market share because they lack quality, leadership, and innovation. It's mindboggling that John Smedley still has a job in this industry, let alone is STILL running SOE. He must have some pictures that somebody doesn't want the public to see.
Comments
I for one have decided to call it quits. I have little time these days, and not much more money, and I am spending both on Age of Conan these days. I have serious reservations about that game too, but at least I haven't reached the boredom stage that now characterizes my relationship with PotBS. And if anything, the reasons you mention all but indicate that things have gone downhill for the game to such an extent that it is questionable whether it will be able to recover.
Pirates, for starters, have very little chance of winning the map under ideal circumstances -- usually, they will finish second or third. Now let's see the particulars of Blackbeard: entire French faction minus one society left for Rackham in April, and the French never recovered; Spanish usually had transfers from other servers, then after a while the Blackbeard Spanish either transferred away or stopped playing, and the expected Spanish win never materialized; most of the British armada transferred to Rackham, leaving a core of good players but inexperienced Brits outside of that. The Pirates had all the elements they needed to win a map, provided they put enough dedication into it to flip enough ports to win. With the Spanish and, especially, the French, putting in little to no resistance, it was all a matter of time -- so easy apparently that even the notorious Ginger Magician, self-proclaimed pirate king of Blackbeard, transferred to Roberts after the win.
Finally, the devs have dropped the "No crying in the red circle" slogan. I knew that would come sooner or later, and the isildur devlog on "ambush gameplay" all but heralded its end. But I suspect the devs have known for quite a while that something was wrong with that slogan. Remember how infamous that DrewC quote about "not making it fair in your favor" became in a matter of days? Then there was that earlier Isildur quote on another blog about the "next big failure" with specific mention made of Shadowbane's "Play to Crush". And finally, there was the brief "War of Aether's Avatar" where my unfortunate quip about how Aether should drop his avatar (a large red circle with an eye and a teardrop in it) caused a few people to say exactly the same thing about what that avatar meant. Perhaps that was what finally opened their eyes. Aether and I had an exchange of messages afterwards, where even he admitted that the way the slogan was being used by a segment of the community was "crass". He also said in a board post that it was meant tongue-in-cheek to poke fun at the hardcore, so he was not exactly backing down on his beliefs when he took it down. But I'm pretty sure some of the "hardcore" must have seen that as caving in to carebear pressure.
Now that quote seems to have disappeared from everywhere -- DrewC's signature, Aether's avatar (a while ago), but even on external sites such as Joe Ludwig's blog. This makes me suspect the existence of a company directive on this. The only places where the quote endures? In the signatures of Ranker-type "hardcore" players.
The fanbois might have gone quiet, but we're stuck with their mess. If anything, let's hope FLS survives this debacle to make another game, and that it will have learned how to deal with such people. Or at least consider the Worst Case Scenario when taking down their advice, which seems to have unfortunately been ignored.
Insurance? Good idea, but look how the "hardcore" scream to the top of their lungs how that is going to "carebear" the game. It's perhaps the only case in personal history where I'm glad the bean-counter has won the day. Not to mention it's probably the only option possible where you make player loss less incapacitating while not killing off the economy in the process. Nonetheless, I predict this will lead to inflation for anyone who does not produce ships in-society. Let's hope insurance payouts are based on a fixed percentage of purchase price and not cost, possibility of abuse be damned. That's small potatoes compared to what has been done already.
Having more nationals is probably going to be impossible to achieve unless they have something distinctive about them. Not to mention the challenge then becomes how to convince people NOT to roll British. As for producers... I think it's another failing of this game. Economic players have been driven away from the game by the "hardcore" who could find no salvation outside of PvP and who consider all PvE and economic players as their inferiors. Being forced to pay for the PvP of others while being treated in contempt by the beneficiaries is a shortcut to sailing in the proverbial sunset.
Besides, consider this: The "hardcore" don't need you. They produce what they need, they grind for their money, then they go PvP and if any good at it, they earn more money that way. They will gladly take you in port battles if they're short a few ships, but will greet you with a barrage of "please pass" if they are full. At no point do they come knocking on your door because they want to include you in the larger national objective. Either they are desperate and will take anyone, or they will come in and bark orders. The French, unfortunately, had and still have the tendency of working like that. It gets tiresome after a while.
All in all, this patch will not change anything. Besides, what is making me leave is not the ganking (I was ganked maybe twice in expendable ships, including a fallback on one glorious occasion), but because there is nothing beyond the PvP. Port governance is the thing I am waiting for, but I'm pretty sure it will be quickly taken over by the usual suspects (among other problems this will raise regarding existing game mechanics, such as the quasi-certainty of needing to PvP your own side because those nations don't exactly behave like a monolith when it comes to policy). So I will keep on reading about new developments made to the game, and I hope it survives, but my own return to it is doubtful.
Good post & your points taken.
However i would like to add the following:
Pirates are already dominating on Blackbeard & R1.5 will increase their chance of map wins on all servers as they are increasing the pirates points for a port win.
If the hard-core societies need me or not they had better get used to it cause i'm going no-where.
[quote=Rusty;401233]
We're working on incentives for experienced players so that they actively recruit newbies to play with them.[/quote]
test server patch notes
support.flyinglab.com/cgi-bin/flyinglab.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php
EQ2 fan sites
I think Insurance is probably the biggest change to come to PotBS pretty much since launch. Apparantly values are set at about 90% of the value of the ship - so losses won't be anywhere near as great as before.
That, along with the fact that they're making quite a few tweaks to RvR - admittedly mainly to set things to more sane values after the new unrest system threw things a bit out of whack in 1.4 - as well as beginning to increase the points that Pirates get for pillaging a port (by a single point so far but apparantly that's just cause they're being conservative and don't want to turn it up so far they have to reduce it later - the main feature is that now they can alter the value).
Plus they're altering the special outfitting so that it makes more sense across the board and making the rare outfitting craftable which will go some way towards reducing the 'Phat Lewt' side of the combat that's always irked me so much.
Regarding the 'intent to remove ganking' - I'm pretty certain that any and all dev teams would love to be able to implement a change as soon as they state the intent to make that change. I for one welcome the announcement as what it was - a statement of intent to no longer actively support the ambush style gameplay that ganking is a part of.
And they're also going to be doing a major marketing push just as soon as they're ready - I hope that works and am cautiously optimistic. Why? Well, I know it might not seem that way to some but the vast majority of the gaming market's opinion of Pirates of the Burning Sea is "Oh, What's that? I've never heard of it.." Sony really dropped the ball when it came to the marketing but to be honest I think that might play in Flying Lab's favour, because it's meant that the vast majority of players haven't been here for these first few rocky months.
I hate the posts that say "Why are they focusing on X, they should be focusing on Y". FLS, like the majority of gaming companies, is split into teams. ArtCo, DevCo, ConCo, etc. Each one works in their area only, obviously. So when someone says "Why are they wasting their time on visual upgrades to the towns when they should be fixing PvP", that just doesn't make sense. Are we expecting artists to switch over and work on the coding of PvP? Of course not. Just keep that in mind.
Wow the carebear force is strong within this thread. I had to read it twice but the force is still there.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
Haha , well i suppose you could put it that way. Remember though one man's carebear is another man's paying customer.
The way I see it is that it's more fun to fight with people who have had a chance to practise and are more willing to risk things.
I actually agree with SirXaph and DJXEON. With the improvements coming in patch 1.5 I think this game is really going to bloom. Insurance is going to allow people to pvp without losing thier ass in the process and create a ton of competition.
Only time will tell but the game has definatly shown a lot of improvement.
Well they tried catering to the gankers and griefers and the game failed miserably. What would you have them do? Continue with a losing strategy?
"Future patches"? This should be priority number one for FLS. I think most of the people left because of their support for griefing and ganking.
i don't understand the complaint of ganking, havn't you played wow or any other open pvp mmo before? if your in the pvp zone then how the --
-- are you going to complain about being engaged in pvp combat?
I was a freetrader and all my riggings were for speed, i never once had a problem with getting away from pirates. The problem with pvp is the huge risk factor which limits the amount of people willing to pvp, they already added more reward to it and now it looks like they are taking some risk away with giving 50%++ money back when you sink. Things are definitly better than they were back in feburary
This is from someone who likes PvP but HATES gank squads. The problem with FLS was not that ganking occured in their game. That happens anytime there is PvP. The problem was the mechanics favored it, and the devs applauded ganking, saying it was desirable. Rule number one: ganking is NEVER desireable, but at times a trade-off in a pvp game. To those who complained, the devs simply said stfu and die.
I for one have decided to call it quits. I have little time these days, and not much more money, and I am spending both on Age of Conan these days. I have serious reservations about that game too, but at least I haven't reached the boredom stage that now characterizes my relationship with PotBS. And if anything, the reasons you mention all but indicate that things have gone downhill for the game to such an extent that it is questionable whether it will be able to recover.
Pirates, for starters, have very little chance of winning the map under ideal circumstances -- usually, they will finish second or third. Now let's see the particulars of Blackbeard: entire French faction minus one society left for Rackham in April, and the French never recovered; Spanish usually had transfers from other servers, then after a while the Blackbeard Spanish either transferred away or stopped playing, and the expected Spanish win never materialized; most of the British armada transferred to Rackham, leaving a core of good players but inexperienced Brits outside of that. The Pirates had all the elements they needed to win a map, provided they put enough dedication into it to flip enough ports to win. With the Spanish and, especially, the French, putting in little to no resistance, it was all a matter of time -- so easy apparently that even the notorious Ginger Magician, self-proclaimed pirate king of Blackbeard, transferred to Roberts after the win.
Finally, the devs have dropped the "No crying in the red circle" slogan. I knew that would come sooner or later, and the isildur devlog on "ambush gameplay" all but heralded its end. But I suspect the devs have known for quite a while that something was wrong with that slogan. Remember how infamous that DrewC quote about "not making it fair in your favor" became in a matter of days? Then there was that earlier Isildur quote on another blog about the "next big failure" with specific mention made of Shadowbane's "Play to Crush". And finally, there was the brief "War of Aether's Avatar" where my unfortunate quip about how Aether should drop his avatar (a large red circle with an eye and a teardrop in it) caused a few people to say exactly the same thing about what that avatar meant. Perhaps that was what finally opened their eyes. Aether and I had an exchange of messages afterwards, where even he admitted that the way the slogan was being used by a segment of the community was "crass". He also said in a board post that it was meant tongue-in-cheek to poke fun at the hardcore, so he was not exactly backing down on his beliefs when he took it down. But I'm pretty sure some of the "hardcore" must have seen that as caving in to carebear pressure.
Now that quote seems to have disappeared from everywhere -- DrewC's signature, Aether's avatar (a while ago), but even on external sites such as Joe Ludwig's blog. This makes me suspect the existence of a company directive on this. The only places where the quote endures? In the signatures of Ranker-type "hardcore" players.
The fanbois might have gone quiet, but we're stuck with their mess. If anything, let's hope FLS survives this debacle to make another game, and that it will have learned how to deal with such people. Or at least consider the Worst Case Scenario when taking down their advice, which seems to have unfortunately been ignored.
Insurance? Good idea, but look how the "hardcore" scream to the top of their lungs how that is going to "carebear" the game. It's perhaps the only case in personal history where I'm glad the bean-counter has won the day. Not to mention it's probably the only option possible where you make player loss less incapacitating while not killing off the economy in the process. Nonetheless, I predict this will lead to inflation for anyone who does not produce ships in-society. Let's hope insurance payouts are based on a fixed percentage of purchase price and not cost, possibility of abuse be damned. That's small potatoes compared to what has been done already.
Having more nationals is probably going to be impossible to achieve unless they have something distinctive about them. Not to mention the challenge then becomes how to convince people NOT to roll British. As for producers... I think it's another failing of this game. Economic players have been driven away from the game by the "hardcore" who could find no salvation outside of PvP and who consider all PvE and economic players as their inferiors. Being forced to pay for the PvP of others while being treated in contempt by the beneficiaries is a shortcut to sailing in the proverbial sunset.
Besides, consider this: The "hardcore" don't need you. They produce what they need, they grind for their money, then they go PvP and if any good at it, they earn more money that way. They will gladly take you in port battles if they're short a few ships, but will greet you with a barrage of "please pass" if they are full. At no point do they come knocking on your door because they want to include you in the larger national objective. Either they are desperate and will take anyone, or they will come in and bark orders. The French, unfortunately, had and still have the tendency of working like that. It gets tiresome after a while.
All in all, this patch will not change anything. Besides, what is making me leave is not the ganking (I was ganked maybe twice in expendable ships, including a fallback on one glorious occasion), but because there is nothing beyond the PvP. Port governance is the thing I am waiting for, but I'm pretty sure it will be quickly taken over by the usual suspects (among other problems this will raise regarding existing game mechanics, such as the quasi-certainty of needing to PvP your own side because those nations don't exactly behave like a monolith when it comes to policy). So I will keep on reading about new developments made to the game, and I hope it survives, but my own return to it is doubtful.
Wait..... Ginger's gone? ROFL
Who is the person who gets killed all the time now? I would say Blondy, but Blondy was nice and could actually PvP. Same with Bootytrap to. So who is the one who is the current public enemy number one?
This is from someone who likes PvP but HATES gank squads. The problem with FLS was not that ganking occured in their game. That happens anytime there is PvP. The problem was the mechanics favored it, and the devs applauded ganking, saying it was desirable. Rule number one: ganking is NEVER desireable, but at times a trade-off in a pvp game. To those who complained, the devs simply said stfu and die.
Thankfully they've seen the light, as it were, and are going to be tweaking mechanics to reduce ganking.
And PvP is getting cheaper with the insurance, so you don't loose your ass when you get ganked in the first place. Oh the new epic mission is pretty cool too. It needs the bugs worked out still but it's pretty cool and the loot drops are amazing.
I really enjoyed the beta for this game and consider myself a fan of the game and genre. Unfortunately they could make PotBS the very best mmo ever created and I will still not play it as it is published by SOE. I would wager that I am not alone in this regard and FLS shot themselves in the foot by partnering with those *cough* people.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
Which is a meaningless statement until they provide some specifics of how they are going to accomplish that. From what I'm reading on the official forums I'm not hopeful they will be successful.
Which is a meaningless statement until they provide some specifics of how they are going to accomplish that. From what I'm reading on the official forums I'm not hopeful they will be successful.
Even with the most innovative and clever system, I'm not hopeful they can ever be successful.
And how do we know if they've "seen the light"? Maybe FLS is just paying lip service to the so-called carebears because they know the game can't be financially viable without them.
For all the united front FLS has always presented to the community as to its vision, I think there was and perhaps still is a major rift in the company between the anything-to-win pro-hardcore no-crying-in-the-red-circle mentality -- DrewC most famously, but also Rusty (" Read Sun Tzu's Art of War. It should be called the Art of the Gank.") and maybe a few other developers, perhaps Joe Ludwig (who will always have a special place in my mind for his cop-out approach to the Great Blackbeard Exploit Caper) -- and the balanced-PvP or more laid back approach (if honest about the "next big failure" quote, Isildur would be here, and I would add Aether's name too, and probably Snap as well, who is a newcomer to FLS but was the one who worked on insurance and seemed to demonstrate a clear understanding of gaming mentality in his few forum posts).
In the early months, the first side was prevailing, but now I am not so sure. Saving the game is probably a greater imperative than sticking to a vision which led to dwindling subscriptions.
is there going to be a post like this every time a new patch is deployed?
let me know when the game is fun.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
is there going to be a post like this every time a new patch is deployed?
let me know when the game is fun.
For many it wasn't fun because of the boring PvE grind to replace lost ships.
Ship insurance now makes PvP more affordable as a temporary stop-gap until they get higher populations with the planned 14-day trial & add the planned extra game sinks.
If players want to PvP they now have the funding to do it,
If players don't want to they don't need to - simple as that.
Oh and i forgot to mention you now get 250 warehouse capacity
I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous. This is mindless vitriol. PotBS is marketed by SOE... that's it. The development team is all still (for the present, at least) employed by FLS. I understand your ire, but this is just taking it too far. If you don't want to play the game, fine... but arm yourself with some real justification for not doing so before posting here again. It's like you just leapt into an arena wielding a wooden spoon.
I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous. This is mindless vitriol. PotBS is marketed by SOE... that's it. The development team is all still (for the present, at least) employed by FLS. I understand your ire, but this is just taking it too far. If you don't want to play the game, fine... but arm yourself with some real justification for not doing so before posting here again. It's like you just leapt into an arena wielding a wooden spoon.
I'm sorry, but your response to severius is what's ridiculous. He didn't say anything that isn't true, namely that SOE publishes (not develops) PotBS. SOE is supposed to be in charge of distribution, advertising and patching/account maintenance through their launcher.
Also, people who hate SOE wouldn't want to play a game where any portion of their subscription fee goes to SOE which is exactly the situation PotBS subscribers are in.
I dunoo the SOE haters make me LOL @ them as well. They are all hung up over some insult done to them 10 years ago in EQ.
The SWG fiasco was all on Lucas IMO.
This was simply another game that promised an lot and didn't live up to the hype. I played the beta and then played the last weeks on a friend's acct that got fed up and quit.
This game being published by SOE certainly didn't help things, but aside from the activation code problems and no boxes in the stores for the first several weeks, Pirates of the BS failed on it's own demerits, with no help from SOE.
I just have to laugh, that in a game called "Pirates of the..." pirates were the worst combat centered class, so almost no one played them. How did that happen?
Anyway, this game has proved its irrelevancy in the MMO and larger gaming world, so there is really nothing left to get angry about.
For the people that continue to play, enjoy.
For the rest of us, there are more games coming out on the horizon....
It's a funny one. I tried it for a while and REALLY enjoyed the ship combat. I mean REALLY. It's effing brilliantly done, and really absorbing and immersive.
Funnily enough, I also enjoyed the avatar combat too - I think in terms of my knowledge of martial arts, it's just about the most realistic combat system of its kind in any game actually. But that means: it's not like the films (which of course have choreographed combat) so people piss and moan. *shrugs*
But something about the overall feel of the game is lacking - the way the "open sea" is distinct from instanced combat, which is distinct from instanced land-based missions, just gives the whole thing a disjointed feeling somehow. And yet it's difficult to see how else they could have designed it - it is in fact quite clevelry designed in that regard.
I dunno, I think ultimately a pirate game would have to really have a continuous feel. The ultimate pirate MMO would have ship combat pretty much like PoTBS (I can't emphasise how much fun it is actually, everybody should give it a go just to experience it), but would somehow have a smoother transition between open sea/ship to ship/land. But this would probably require a level of technology not yet available.
I often find myself hankering for PoTBS again though. I will definitely revisit it at some point.
Your exactly right, you just really cant do it any other way, you have to instance some of it off at some point, you cant make this type of game with it's great combat system streamless.
Currently restarting World of Warcraft
So LucasArts coded and develped arguably the WORST game in MMO history secretly behind that backs of the paying customers? Yeah right...
SOE deserves every bad inch of reputation they get. They lost their market share because they lack quality, leadership, and innovation. It's mindboggling that John Smedley still has a job in this industry, let alone is STILL running SOE. He must have some pictures that somebody doesn't want the public to see.