Pirates of the Burning Sea

Ok so I have being waiting for this game to come out for awhile now.  I had some issues in beta with my vista ultimate 64 and the game but since then I went back to xp pro and no issues.  Anyways I will admit that I have only played this game in retail for about 20 minutes so far.  Yes I know alot of people are going to think that is not enough time to form an opinion, but I disagree, but I do admit I will be playing it more this weekend to give it a fair shot.

Graphics in this game right from the start are fair, they are not the best.  I can't really say they are great I think they are just below WOW, and I don't consider wow to be the best of the best either.

Gameplay, hmmm this is a hard one, I think that movement is pretty normal, sword combat I found well drab, and uninteresting.  Ship combat I found even more uninteresting, I mean I was expecting ship combat like what you see in sid myers pirates, not "get them into a fireing arc and hit the space bar, you automatically shoot the cannons directly at there ship."  So I am quite dissapointed in this part of the game play, also the questing in the game seems very drab as well.  Mind you I haven't done alot yet just the starter things but so far it doesn't impress me that much.

Over all so far based on my 20 minutes of gameplay so far the game has lost my interest already.  HOWEVER I am a glutton for punishment and I will give the game a chance minimum 20 hours of game play in this first month.  I really hope that my first impressions are wrong and that the game gets better shortly.

Originally posted by zantax

Ship combat I found even more uninteresting, I mean I was expecting ship combat like what you see in sid myers pirates, not "get them into a fireing arc and hit the space bar, you automatically shoot the cannons directly at there ship."  So I am quite dissapointed in this part of the game play, also the questing in the game seems very drab as well.  Mind you I haven't done alot yet just the starter things but so far it doesn't impress me that much.

I think we should be quite lucky that we don't see same type of cannon handling as in Sid Meyer's Pirates.

If not only for one thing, turn and outrun cannonballs? No, I'm sure that youre not meaning that exactly likes SMP. It could have been fire at will like SMP(just made that abreviation up) but that would have in the end meant to much quasihandling of the guns?

I think there is reason to argument that this system do have it flaws and have it's positives. But still I think it's a fair tradeoff to get playability.

Well, firstly I'm glad to hear that you'll be spending more time giving it a chance. 

As for the rest, you missed one option in your poll which was: You thought it wasn't a half bad game but it's just too PvP/RvR for your tastes.  :)

The one thing about PotBS that, even though it was clearly written and I read it multiple times I just could not get my head around until I actually played it was the fact that it is *VERY* PvP-centric.  To the point of really not being able to do much of anything else besides PvP.  I mean yes, there's an economy but the economy exists to drive RvR and PvP forward.  You might be a peaceful merchant and make a boatload (literally  lol) of money but it doesn't serve a purpose unless you're heavily PvP'ing and needing to replace lost ships.  Sitting on a mountain of dubloons doesn't "win" you anything unfortunately.  There's no housing to buy, no expanded economy options..  nothing to spend it on other than more ships.

So if you enjoy PvP (and the ship to ship PvP can be excellent when you find a fair fight but it's hard to do) then this game will wow you because it really is good and strategic (imo).  And if you don't enjoy PvP then..  well...  yeah

Originally posted by Arremess

Well, firstly I'm glad to hear that you'll be spending more time giving it a chance. 

 

As for the rest, you missed one option in your poll which was: You thought it wasn't a half bad game but it's just too PvP/RvR for your tastes.  :)

 

The one thing about PotBS that, even though it was clearly written and I read it multiple times I just could not get my head around until I actually played it was the fact that it is *VERY* PvP-centric.  To the point of really not being able to do much of anything else besides PvP.  I mean yes, there's an economy but the economy exists to drive RvR and PvP forward.  You might be a peaceful merchant and make a boatload (literally  lol) of money but it doesn't serve a purpose unless you're heavily PvP'ing and needing to replace lost ships.  Sitting on a mountain of dubloons doesn't "win" you anything unfortunately.  There's no housing to buy, no expanded economy options..  nothing to spend it on other than more ships.

So if you enjoy PvP (and the ship to ship PvP can be excellent when you find a fair fight but it's hard to do) then this game will wow you because it really is good and strategic (imo).  And if you don't enjoy PvP then..  well...  yeah

Well actually I didn't miss that in my poll because I haven't experianced it yet.  In 20 minutes of gameplay you can't experiance everythign HOWEVER, this is why I will be giving it more time, maybe it will grow on me.

Originally posted by zantax 

Well actually I didn't miss that in my poll because I haven't experianced it yet.  In 20 minutes of gameplay you can't experiance everythign HOWEVER, this is why I will be giving it more time, maybe it will grow on me.

Yeah.  The thing about the game is as Arremess says it is extremely PvP focused.   The stuff you see in the beginning of the game is just the stuff for leveling your character, but it isn't the focus of the game.  The entire focus of the game is the RvR PvP.  You don't see this at the lowest levels, but people are now, highest, mid 20ish, and so you can get "in range" in a short period of time and then partake in some of the PvP, and then you'll see what makes the game enjoyable.  If the game were focused on the PvE aspects like towns, missions and PvE naval combat as you see in the early going, even fewer people would like the game.

Graphic wise is better then WoW, My laptop can run wow with top notch quality but potbs sunked my laptop right out.

Graphic is base on your PC performance anyway, if you got a "crysis" build system you should see better quality.

Meanwhile, this game isn;t about the fast hack and slash. You aren't here to win a battle within 5 sec. You are expecting to plan ahead and navigate your way to success.

The AI are SMART in this game, i give them that. They know when to reduce your sails and when to blow you up. They even give up when they know when to lose and run when they need recover.

While you have to aim specific area repeatly AI will reduce your chance into that and never allow you to board. Just be glad they don't board you yet, or you would be toast.

Ship game are strategy game, they call this RPG because you have to level. You would call Starcraft RPG if you have to level.

You can't compare this to other genre (with exception of Eve) so don't use your schemas on this game.... 20 min is NOT even ...not even for a fight.

You can't tell me you can win a map in starcraft within 20 min... can you? Unless you face a stupid AI.

Originally posted by wrongfeifong

Graphic wise is better then WoW, My laptop can run wow with top notch quality but potbs sunked my laptop right out.

Graphic is base on your PC performance anyway, if you got a "crysis" build system you should see better quality.

 

Meanwhile, this game isn;t about the fast hack and slash. You aren't here to win a battle within 5 sec. You are expecting to plan ahead and navigate your way to success.

The AI are SMART in this game, i give them that. They know when to reduce your sails and when to blow you up. They even give up when they know when to lose and run when they need recover.

While you have to aim specific area repeatly AI will reduce your chance into that and never allow you to board. Just be glad they don't board you yet, or you would be toast.

 

Ship game are strategy game, they call this RPG because you have to level. You would call Starcraft RPG if you have to level.

You can't compare this to other genre (with exception of Eve) so don't use your schemas on this game.... 20 min is NOT even ...not even for a fight.

You can't tell me you can win a map in starcraft within 20 min... can you? Unless you face a stupid AI.

I was just saying from a first glance point of view this game turned me off, my expectations were a bit higher I guess.  My computer can run this on high everything at 1280x1024 and it looks nice, but I still say wow looks better.  Now as for game play I still find it drab, I compared it to Syd Myers Pirates for the simple reason it is the only good pirate game out there in my opinion.  I will agree with a previous poster that dodging cannon balls by turning isn't realistic, but neither is "Just get them int a fireing arc then fire"  I was expecting you to put a target in the water somewhere and then hit the fire button.  Launching your cannon balls to that area so you would have to lead your target a bit.  Have some skill involved in the attacks.  I will agree again that 20 min isn't a long time but it is also the amount of time any game has to pull you into its story, or gameplay. 

An example of this are the games God of War, Heavenly Sword, Assasins Creed, Starcraft, World of Warcraft.  Starting to play any one of these games with out seeing them currently why would you continue to play them?  Lets face it God of War is dated along with Starcraft, however the story in God of War grips you from the begining, not to mention the ending moves, and Starcraft the story grabs you and pulls you in making you want to finish the next mission to see what happens.  Now Heavenly Sword is a Gorgeous game, but it is repetative, so what pulls you into playing it again it is the story, and it makes you want to keep playing to see it through, even though it is a short game and repetative the story made it great.  World of Warcraft the story and ease of play is what pulls you in right off the start and after you get to know the game the need to become the best or get x item makes you want to continue.  Assasins Creed is a perfect example of a game that IMO lost me in 20 minutes, the story gets in the way of the game, its beautiful but I got annoyed by the story always stopping the game, to me this game lost me in 20 minutes and just never did recover.

So this thread is mostly to see who felt the same as me, but also who hasn't liked it in the first 20 min is going to give it more time to see if it grows on them.  I know I will, like I said previously, I will invest probably 20 hrs game time in the next 30 days and if I like it after that then great if not, it was a waste of 20$.

I bought the game yesterday, and played it for a bit. Though I'm still trying to figure my way around, and can see some areas that need work, I kinda like it.

For example, this morning I woke up at 5AM, the wife beat me into the bathroom to get ready for work, so, rather then lay in bed I decided to log in a get a Fedex type quest out of the way. That's right, same type of quests as every other MMORPG, run down to a port and meet someone for some lazy assed NPC that doesn't think it's important enough to do themselves.

So, I hit open water, looking around and wondering if I should start making coffee while the ship  drifts AFK. I see a couple of merchants (yawn)....then, wait, WTF is that? There's a Spanish privateer chasing a merchant running for the safety of a port. Okay, it's 5 AM, double check that I'm really seeing what I'm seeing....yup....I'm a naval officer, charged with protecting my country's shipping......I give the order to beat to quarters, clear for action, bring her about (while pointing to the Spaniard 'cause I don't know jack about the course/heading), and I'm off to the races.

And a race it is. The Spaniard has the inside angle on the merchant, and may just get him before port, I have the wind though (their kinda heading into it), and the angle on both, so I have a shot at intercepting the Spaniard before he intercepts the merchant, unless the Spaniard breaks off. The merchant is focused on the port and the Spaniard, and the Spaniard is focused on the merchant, and it appears neither sees me........

Can I get to gunnery range and trigger a combat instance on the Spaniard before he triggers one on the merchant and locks me out? I probably hit gunnery range seconds ahead of the Spaniard/merchant, and locked the Spaniard only into a combat instance. Once in the combat instance he is indecisive about 10 seconds, probably looking for the merchant. I'm in full sail, closing with the wind, when he finally sees me. he turns to intercept, then realizes he is full into the wind as his spead drops. He turns to give me a broadside with ball shot at extreme range as I close, shots sending up splashes in the water. Great, thinks I, waste your shot, and reload time, so I can close more. His second broadside takes me in the bow and starboard side, but no worry, I have a reinforced bow. I am steering to cross the "T" on his stern, loaded with bar shot to take out his sails. As I have the wind I successfully cross his stern and unload, further reducing his speed. I reload with more bar shot, and as I pass his port side he unloads with ball, I take out more sails. Now I use my speed advantage to swing across his bow, once again reload