I've had my eye on this game for a long time, being something of an enthusiast for the Age of Sail. After a few play sessions I can say this.

Combat is not bad, it's not easy to outmanuver and overcome your advarsary but I would imagine that the combat engine has little in common with Port Royale and Sid Meier's pirates. I think there is potential for greatness there.

Avatar combat? Still wrapping my head around that. It does seem to have intriguing elements.

I signed up during the Christmas season, the caroling mission was quite frankly magical with the lovely christmas music and interesting traditions of different cultures.

But I have one glaring problem: WHERE IS EVERYBODY?!

I have sailed beyond my home port of Vera Cruz and when to Havana. I was going to go farther, but I then felt an inquiry here would be more productive.

Quite frankly it will be the community that decides whether I subscribe or not. It's frustrating to find absolutely no one in the game so far.

Should I switch to a different server, or where can i find people in Defiant?

At a final note, purusing these forums on several occasions I get the gist that many have some issues with the game. Well, I have seen any game breakers yet. Some things may or may not have been done beter but I strive to take a MMO on its own terms first before I start asking for improvements. But I would really like to start getting to know some people. That ultimately is the deciding factor on how good a MMO is.

God Bless

PegasusJF

ps...My previous MMO experience is 3 years on EVE Online, 1 or so on COx, AA, and I'm a current player (who isn't) of GW.

I was given free time on my account a few weeks ago, and in my experiences, Antigua is by far the most populated server.

Tons of chatter in Nation when I logged my old level 29 Naval Officer in, seemed to be alot of pvp happening at that time between the brits and the french, french had lost two 1st rates, a 2nd rate and two MC Hercs (an absolutely devastating loss).

Spies and counter-intel are now a commonly seen thing there, as such some players are leary of newer players until one can prove they are trustworthy, you never know who might actually be working for the other nation, sending them intel on ship locations, fleet movements, etc.. 

Seemed very active to me.

Yeah, I have noticed Antigua was more active. I didn't join it due to login server problems. Maybe I will now.

Defiant had problems in that the system for transferring Aussie accounts from the Bigpond server to the new Station server kept breaking (that's my understanding of it, anyway), so a lot of Aussies who wanted to go there couldn't do so. It didn't help that, when transfers WERE working, the lion's share of Australian players didn't go to Defiant (Which was created to replace the former Aussie server) but instead split up and went either to Antigua or Blackbeard (with some going to Roberts, Defiant, and - inexplicably - Rackham). So while it was supposed to have a built-in population to begin with (i.e.; the Australians), by making it so that anyone could transfer to any server (that is, not just moving the Invincible population to their new server), FLS took a risk that may or may not pay off - it's still too early to tell, imo.

Ok, joined Antigua, found a nice group of people and subbed.

All good now. Thanks all.

Originally posted by Darkened
....

Spies and counter-intel are now a commonly seen thing there, as such some players are leary of newer players until one can prove they are trustworthy, you never know who might actually be working for the other nation, sending them intel on ship locations, fleet movements, etc.. 

....

I sorry?  I LOLed at this... spying???  HOW?

That is a serious question.  I really want to know. What can you spy on in this game that has any consequence what so ever?  How do you do 'counter-intel'?

I am trying to imagine the chat?:
[SPY] "F Rench" has just shown up at Irish Point... he is a level 50 FT.
[NATION BUDDY] What type of ship is he sailing?
[SPY] I don't know... I was standing on the docks.
[NATION BUDDY] Does he have a warehouse there?
[SPY] I don't know...oh he just ran to the Auctioneer...
[NATION BUDDY] What is he doing there?  What is he buying and where?
[SPY] I don't know.
[NATION BUDDY] Can we attack him when he leaves?
[SPY] No.  No red circle.
[NATION BUDDY] Will he be attending the Port Battle at Bridgetown in two hours?
[SPY] I don't know.
[NATION BUDDY] If he does - what ship will he use?
[SPY] I don't know... his best one?
[NATION BUDDY] Tell him the British Fleet is sailing for Tampa!
[SPY]... did that... he LOLed and said he would see us all there in 30 mins!
[NATION BUDDY] ...hmmm... You know you're not getting paid for this...don't you?
...

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Originally posted by PegasusJF
Ok, joined Antigua, found a nice group of people and subbed.

All good now. Thanks all.

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Welcome to the game :)

@Gyrus: lol yeah, hard to imagine spying and such in PotBS

 Mostly to see where they are going to grind contention before hand so you can tell your nation that they are and stop it before it happens, or counter-grind one of their main ports. It's acually pretty effective.

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Originally posted by sanders01
Mostly to see where they are going to grind contention before hand so you can tell your nation that they are and stop it before it happens, or counter-grind one of their main ports. It's acually pretty effective.

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Just seems kinda unnecessary when you can set the map to show unrest rather than active PvP areas... all that information is pretty much given to you in realtime. With as long as it takes to grind 10k unrest and flip a port, unless the enemy's bringing 3 or 4 superheavy groups to ubergrind with, you'll have time to get a group or two to go counter.

Originally posted by Havohej

 

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Originally posted by sanders01
Mostly to see where they are going to grind contention before hand so you can tell your nation that they are and stop it before it happens, or counter-grind one of their main ports. It's acually pretty effective.

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Just seems kinda unnecessary when you can set the map to show unrest rather than active PvP areas... all that information is pretty much given to you in realtime. ...

Exactly.

IIRC isn't it given in tabular form by pressing one of the info buttons on the bottom right of the screen?
So, if you want to see which ports are being actively contended when you are on line - look at the table and five minutes later look at it again.

And you can see which ports have contention by clicking a check box on the map.

But sanders01, I have a small point to make here too...
IF the enemy grinding contention on one of your ports... and they are actively doing it while you are online... then it seems to me that you should be able to deal with them directly? (Rather than 'counter-grind')
The issue would be if there is no 'red circle' and they are not PvP flagged.
That to me suggests a design problem.

is rackham dead cause i've seen maybe two other players an nation chat is hardly a common.

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Originally posted by reid424
is rackham dead cause i've seen maybe two other players an nation chat is hardly a common.

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Unfortunately, yes. There are a few players on Rackham who insist otherwise, but I'm pretty sure it's the lowest populated of all the servers.

If you have a transfer available to you, I would suggest moving to Blackbeard or Antigua (IF the port battle time slots meet your needs, if not, give a look to Defiant or Roberts in my opinion).

In a strictly selfish sense, since the pirate population is way huge on Antigua and a lot of nats are afraid to come into the red because of it (except Spain) I'd prefer any new pirates from Rackham went to Blackbeard, but you'll be welcomed on Antigua anyway :D

blackbeard sounds like a good deal do they have a free transfer for our characters or do i have to dish out cash.

Originally posted by Havohej

 

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Originally posted by reid424
is rackham dead cause i've seen maybe two other players an nation chat is hardly a common.

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Unfortunately, yes. There are a few players on Rackham who insist otherwise, but I'm pretty sure it's the lowest populated of all the servers.

If you have a transfer available to you, I would suggest moving to Blackbeard or Antigua (IF the port battle time slots meet your needs, if not, give a look to Defiant or Roberts in my opinion).

In a strictly selfish sense, since the pirate population is way huge on Antigua and a lot of nats are afraid to come into the red because of it (except Spain) I'd prefer any new pirates from Rackham went to Blackbeard, but you'll be welcomed on Antigua anyway :D

Quite interesting, about Rackham and Blackbeard.  In May, after the first round of transfers, Blackbeard was considered dead after the French and British left, leaving behind the Spanish and mostly the Pirates, who won the map despite all the hurdles thrown their way.

Rackham then was the fashionable place to go (and it's where both the Blackbeard British and French went), and it was where the "hardcore PvP" crowd was supposed to be hanging out.

If anything, the fate of Rackham should speak volumes as to the "loyalty" of that particular subset of the gaming demographic.  Some left for the AoC beta, many for Warhammer, always the next shiny thing ahead.  FLS's mistake was to rely on them to build their own community in the early months -- a major mistake, as it turned out.

So now I'm hearing Blackbeard got its act together while Rackham is moribund?  That would be the latest irony in a long series of ironic moments surrounding this game.