Flying Lab Software has announced that they have lifted the NDA for the Pirates of the Burning Sea beta, allowing beta testers to freely talk about their experiences on the high seas.

Waiting is never easy, and we’d like to take this time to thank everyone for their patience during this time. Below you will find the latest information on the Pirates of the Burning Sea Open Beta plan, information on the status of the NDA and the status of EU/AU PotBS pre-orders. We’ll update this thread with more information and any potential adjustments to the following plan just as soon as we know more.

Read on for all the details!

PotBS Open Beta:
The first four days of the Pirates of the Burning Sea open beta will be reserved for our invited beta testers and members of the FilePlanet Founders Club. Open Beta is scheduled to begin worldwide on Friday, December 7th, 2007, at which point FilePlanet subscribers can get in. After that it’ll be open for everyone within a week.

Read more here.

Nice

If you are looking for a game that's even remotely "sandbox" in execution, stay as far away from this title as possible.

Yar, pirates be l33t pk's

http://www.privateerdragons.com/caseys_shiphold1a.html    

Fifteen men of the whole ship's list
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

Dead and be damned and the rest gone whist!
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

The skipper lay with his nob in gore
Where the scullion's axe his cheek had shore
And the scullion he was stabbed times four
And there they lay, and the soggy skies
Dripped down in up-staring eyes
In murk sunset and foul sunrise
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

I love this game!  I've been in beta since last January and am having a great time playing. I plan on getting the game upon release.  But, as others have said, there are a few things that need to be mentioned.

This is NOT Eve Online with pirate ships.  Though it is more of a sandbox game than most other MMO's out right now (mainly because of the great, player driven economy).  It is however, something unique.  I don't know exactly what it is that the game does for me, maybe it's the setting, but it's unlike anything I've ever played.

Originally posted by Sinuous

If you are looking for a game that's even remotely "sandbox" in execution, stay as far away from this title as possible.

 

Really? I don't know much about it but i was reading a little earlier and read something about it being skill based. But I didnt see anything about player housing :(

All missions on land and at sea are completely instanced as well as every port, resulting in the game playing like a single player console game.

There is no player housing.

Originally posted by Keogh

 

 

All missions on land and at sea are completely instanced as well as every port, resulting in the game playing like a single player console game.

There is no player housing.

ports are not instanced at all... Missions ARE instanced, BUT, when u are traveling in open sea, you can see everyone (not instanced) and engage into battle openly (in pvp battles). Once u engage, you switch into your own instance.

While the ship to ship combat is the best representation of naval warfare thus far to be recreated in a game, and the economy is completely player driven with a form of 'decay' (the best option for a sustainable economy), every other aspect of the game seems like it was copied from some 8-bit pirate game on the original nintendo console.  I've been beta testing since the beginning, and I WILL NOT be buying this game.

If you're looking for something different, it is that.

Puzzle Pirates is also different but I am not interested, so enough with the "different" hype.

This game has way too much instancing period. It was a mistake to instance all the missions. The port land areas which are open space are very small. It feels like a single box game with multiplayer option. We are seeing way too much of this cheap design aspect in "supposed" MMOGs these days. Seamless persistent world is where it's at, say it, repeat it, memorize it.

Add to that the dummy down aspect of unrealistic floating icons over NPCs heads, like twirling ships LOL, and instaporting cheapening the game world experience, and you have Carebears of the Burning Sea.

Yo HO HO and a bottle of YooHoo.

You know, Samuraisword, at least they actually are going to release their game within a month. Something that a certain game that your avatar and sig are promoting is incapable of.

I'd accept much criticism from a random gamer. The person clearly involved into production of a game smelling of vapourware - sorry, too biased to my tastes.

Originally posted by Alrick

You know, Samuraisword, at least they actually are going to release their game within a month. Something that a certain game that your avatar and sig are promoting is incapable of.

I'd accept much criticism from a random gamer. The person clearly involved into production of a game smelling of vapourware - sorry, too biased to my tastes.

Yeah because we all know that all the released MMO's in the past have rocked socks. What does releasing within a month have to do with jack? I'd rather have them postpone it a YEAR and have it not all instanced. The whole Massive Multiplayer and social aspect to me is as follows: you're out questing in a certain area, you notice one or more other people doing the same so...

"Hey what’s up you working on X,Y,Z?"

" Yep!"

"Cool me too would you like to group up?"

"Sure"

"Hey here's some buff food"

"Sweet thanks here's some potions"

So you group for awhile, knock out some quests, talk about whatever, maybe tackle a few "elite" quests, etc etc etc. That is how all the people that are on my MMO friends list get on there. Now take an all instanced except towns "MMO". Sit around town spamming LFG for X,Y,Z maybe some people join up, more than likely people tell you to stuff and stop spamming. Make the choice to sit there until you get a group or just head out for solo only content. All instanced =  glorified chat room and a single player, sometimes multiplayer but never really MASSIVELY multiplayer to be honest.  Massively Multichatrrom with pretty graphics, single to maybe 5 people game when you leave said chat room (town). /rant                             

Upon entering or leaving a port you'll see a loading screen, and when I said that the ports were instanced, I was refering to the fact that although multiple players can be in a port at the same time (hub like GW), they are EXTREAMLY small with invisable walls that prevent you from leaving the port by any other means but by your ship.

The ports are all based on the same exact half dozen or so builds as well, making many of the ports look exactly like many of the others. You can't do simple things like walk out of a port (town) into the jungle or along the beach because of invisable barriers just like in single player fps video games.

Tested the game and found it wanting.

 Bugs are ok for a beta, ofc. But: gameplay is a mix of Guild Wars, Everquest II and Sid Meyers' "Pirates!" with the use of the weaker aspects of both games. Loading Screen soon becomes your first mate. Avatar combat is same as in all them lametasy games out there. Naval combat soon beomes boring as well.

 Economy and crafting is nice, though.

 Unfortunately NOT some original title, but EQII with guns and grappling hooks. For those who like that, it will be great. I'm staying with EVE.

 Edit: thanks, Allrick, for reminding me to include the instances as another reason why i won't touch PotBS. And edited the games to compare.

2fatpanda

So I suppose you like the alternatives better, right?

Kill-steals - ever tried to do quests in BC within tow weeks of launch? I'm not even talking about EQ which is infamous for its camps.

Lag - EVE is non-instanced, ever tried PvP of any significant scale there? Ever attented AQ opening in WoW?

ALL QUESTS in PotBS have a scaling option. ALL OF THEM can be done either in the party or solo. You don't need to spam 'LFG quest X' - just find someone through the LFG tool and set sail. Yeah, you CAN solo the levelling - but so you can in WoW.

Also remember that other players affect economy (nealy everything can't be vendor-bought) and RvR. It's a MMO all right.

Im not a PotBS fanboi.

But its nice to see something different from WoW beeing relesed. Ok! Different doesnt automaticly mean its good.

But as Flying Lab always have said....this is a MMO for a kind if gameplay. Not for everyone.

Realtime naval combat is difficult to master. And there is a real death panalty in PotBS, wich many new MMO players never have experienced.

And there is no real classes either. You have to use player skill and learn.

So its more challencing then a average static MMO.

Simply put, PotBS plays like a SINGLE PLAYER game with an online arena option. If you like soloing or single player games, you might like this. You just better not have a problem with getting ganked if you wander to close to a PvP zone and lose everything.

A lot has been said of the economy as well, and that might confuse those that like crafting. This is not a crafting economy, its a comodities/manufacturing economy. You won't be crafting anything, your factories will produce items.

Isn't this a SOE game?

That's more then enough to keep me from ever trying it.

I am confused about this game. Is it strictly a PVP game? CAn I survive and thrive NOT participating in PVP?

I guess the question is: is it more ak,in to Warcraft,which makes PVP totally optional or akin to Eve,which makes PVP very hard to avoid?

Originally posted by taxguy

I am confused about this game. Is it strictly a PVP game? CAn I survive and thrive NOT participating in PVP?

I guess the question is: is it more ak,in to Warcraft,which makes PVP totally optional or akin to Eve,which makes PVP very hard to avoid?

You can play from 1-50 without any PvP whatsoever.  You'll have to be careful in the open sea, though.

Once you get to 50, if you aren't "flipping ports" (PvP) or crafting/trading, you've got nothing really to do.