Quenta Silmarillion

14 years of MMOs... and the addiction continues.

Author: phreack

The Realm

Meridian 59

UA

EQ

DAOC

SWG

GW

Archlord

Fury

Vanguard

WoW

etc...

I have been involved playing MMOs since the begging. From leveling to 1000 in The Realm, to level 50 and RR10 in DAOC, to TK and SSC in WoW. I have been there. I hope to impart my impressions of Pirates of the Burning Sea.

Digitally downloaded from station.com. No problems. Took a few hours to download, no biggie.

Update didn't take to long, about 20mins.

Joined Morgan server, British side (seems everyone likes being a pirate these days... silly people thinking they are all Captain Kidd or Edward Teach or Jack Sparrow... nubs!)

Tutorial is short, sweet and gets you a handle on the game mechanics right away. From ground combat to ship combat, they integrate part of a story into this, which is neat. Imersion FTW.

Ground combat is definately not the strong point of this game, its fun, but not as "polished" as some MMOers would like.

Ship combat... zomg... fricken amazing... I mean, the detail is nutzor. Yes, using 133t speech for this. Your ship says it has 10 guns on the Port and Starboard sides? Yup, zoom in, you can see them, 1,2,3,etc 10 guns. Want to watch your men loading canons and shooting them? Zoom in. Detail is fricken amazing for an MMO. The water is gorgeous. The cannon blasts, falling masts, cannon ball ridden hulls, looks and plays awesome. If I had 50 thumbs, they would all be up.

Economy.

This might be a drawback for some folks. Its SEEMS confusing at first, but its really not. Its a lot of running around and making sure you have enough space in your ship. Suffice it to say, the Economy Tutorial explains it very very well. Plus, you get XP and phat lewts for doing it. DONT SKIP THE ECONOMY TUTORIAL.

Word of advice, get yourself into a society (POTBS's name for a guild). You can totally stream line production between players to make all the cool stuff. Think socialism on a fun and working scale. There is truly nothing more exciting than a group of 8 escorting goods from a port, then be assaulted by an opposing fleet... its epic. Think DAOC with ships in a smaller area on crack. It's the shiznit.

PVP

zee oo eem gee

its fricken spectacular

In a nutshell

CONS: Lack luster ground combat, sometimes confusing. Traveling from place to place is a bit slow, depending on your ship and the wind direction. Economy is great, but takes a while to understand what you are doing. The game almost MAKES you be part of a society in order to succeed. Funky chat window.

PROS: Awesome ship combat. A level 21 can take out a level 32 or higher. Skill matters most of the time. Did I mention the pvp? Sacking ports, 50 player battle royal to take a port (there are lots of ports). I would suggest you give this game a shot.

If you are into naval combat, this game is for you. If you are into swords and spells, go look somewhere else. There is no summoning the "Mystic Buckler of the Monkey" to aid you from being attacked. The pvp is excellent and I can see this game becoming a favorite of mine, based on the PvP end game focus. Its gonna rock.

Long time visitor of mmorpg.com, first time writer. Hello and I hope this message finds you well.

I remember my first graphical MMO, The Realm. It was Christmas of 1996 and I recieved Lords of the Realm II as a present. On the CD was a "trial" for a new game Sierra came out with called, "The Realm". Curious title, never heard of it. Installed the game only to find out it required an internet connection. Being all of 14 at the time and new to internet gaming, I wondered what I was getting myself into. I had, really, no idea what I was getting myself into ;-p From the first sound of the login screen, to the character creation, I was hooked. This was something I had never done before. I don't know if it was the sensation of playing online with other people, or what, but the sensation gripped me. It could have been the "connection establishing" or  "you have been connected to The Realm, you are number X out of 24 in que for The Realm." The count down was killer.

This game had it all, things that were brand new to computer games. Item drops on death, house robbing, player trade scamming, pking, over zealous GMs, awful level grinding, etc. I miss those days, when it was WORTH something to become max level. No raids, no special items. Just the basic for every player. Even though I miss those days, I don't miss the old complexities that accompanied those first generation MMOs.

I do miss Gimli. Gimli was the first person I every leveld with and parted with. He found himself in the same situation as me, Christmas gift, The Realm trial and fun times. We played together for about a week, semi-role playing and having a hell of a good time learning the game. It was like meeting a brother you never knew.

Fast foward a few years and 15 some MMOs later, I still think of Gimli.

Even though The Realm is old now, and only 250+ players remain, I still have an active account. So Gimli, if you are out there, Stickky (ya, stupid name) is still out there and I am sure there are some Wasps and Ratlings we have yet to tame.