And thank god they do. 

First you have to realise it's all about taste. Some prefer graphics over gameplay others just the opposite. But one thing is certain, you can play WOW on a computer from 2004 but the game looks like crap. 

You can also lower the settings on a game like rift and have it run as smoothly and look as crappy as wow but the PROBLEM IS, after you see what it can look like you curse having to run it at anything but the best whilst playing WOW you don't even complain, it's just part of the experience.

I think it was more lack of content. Where was the lore, the story, the quests, etc? That's why it looked like all you did was grind.

If anything I want to widen the offer :)

Also I think the highest danger is debatable.

2% of military personnel will be severely injured or killed during their military career.

10% of police officers will be severely injured or killed during their law enforcement career.

Source: Police academy training

I'm not that invested in the matter anyway, it's their game and they can do whatever they want with it, besides I'm only a casual pirates gamer now so, I'm on chill mode.

Hmm what's the message here?

Why are cops, fbi, cia, nsa, secret service, etc, not included? Common.... :)

Everyone will agree that pirates reinventing itself constantly isn't a good thing. I'm not saying that's what these changes are but I would also like to a little more information about the 'theme' remark.

Are this changes being made because the classes were not well balanced yet or is the intention to give each class a more specific direction? The theme seems to suggest that but they don't elaborate much.

I don't know about balance but I do know that there's a lot of overlap, everyone gets speed, def, this and that, they end up looking a lot like the same class.

I'm sorry Curate but I believe you are the wrong demographic for this game. I don't play moto driving games. If I were to try it I would find many things wrong simply because it's not for me.

Add to that the fact that you didn't play the game enough to have a formed opinion.

Don't get me wrong, you're welcomed to the debate, I enjoy debating with anyone I'm just saying your opinion lacks experience and because of that value. This is not derogatory, just stating a fact.

That said I'll take the opportunity to add that, FLS knew this going in, they knew they were not making a wow and because of that it will have a small community because many would just not like the genre. I tried to get several friends hooked and failed everytime. Sure they play mmo's and sure the pirates theme is always appealing but all of them come from wow's and other avatar based games and the idea of you being a ship and the slow pace of the game, it's not for most.

Still, the first say 3 months to 6 months i played the game, everything was so new, everyone was leveling, things were getting fixed and the servers were so full of life that people had loads of fun. I played on the Roberts server by the way. Then slowly many people left and it was obvious that this game doesn't work very well without a server full of people. It got a little better after the free trials but it's still not quite there. Work to be done in that area. They need to come up with ideas to solve such matters. I'm actually eagerly awaiting for the skirm and port governance to come so that after they can start working on the big issues and improving the fun factor. They can do it, they just need time.

I agree with you on the fact that probably FLS has no other choice than to keep at it, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's like a small town shop, they will never be big, they will always have small profit margins but it's a family business and they have been doing it for years and they care about it, unlike big projects like tabula that go bye bye just because it's not giving them tons of money (nice reply by the way, good debate skills you have there).

Of course there are always issues, like ganking or others that result from this or that decision. In all truth, if i put myself in their shoes, i can see how hard it is to fix it all and to please the whole community. I remember isildur saying once that the feedback given in the forums is just a small % of what the whole POTBS population thinks about matters and I agree with it. You often see the hardcore fans, that woud like something to actually change, writting in the forums and those are probably some 100 people.

Does FLS their game is perfect? Of course not. The postings from Isildur that you mention reveals that. Ship combat works great, everyone has fun, you barely need to make changes there. Avcom needed some changes so people could have fun with that as well but it will take some time to mature obviously and perhaps in the future it will be possible to add new areas, new content and new systems around that like having ports where you can actually fight at any given time, things like that.

Skirmish and port governance will be great additions and will make the game even better but that's all, there are things that need improving and my view on that matter is that it takes time.

I will stop cursing FLS when they come out and say "this is perfect and we're not changing anything" and then fans react and still they go "you are wrong this is perfect you are just too blind to see". That has never happened, things are not perfect because they haven't had time to do it yet and if something is not pleasing the majority (and not just a group of 10 out of thousands) then they have always been open to fixing. But things take time and most people are not willing to wait.

My biggest biff with the game right now is the endgame. People with high-level toons build stuff, sell stuff to have money to build more stuff but ultimately they want to buy/make stuff and that stuff is but one thing, ships. So the goal is to buy a ship to go and have fun. Now the fun comes  from the pvp on the open sea BUT this is not a FPS shooter where u log, kill some people, log off and its forgotten forever. NO, this is supposed to be an MMO with a permanent world that's why you pay a subscription. But it's not, it's just a big arena for you to log kill some enemies log off and does doesnt produce a good mmorpg where you aim to level your character, to get better gear and to explore new places and experience new adventures either be it by killing some new things or doing some epic quests. Instead with POTBS you have the ports, and you need X to win the round. It's just not enough to produce immersion, it's just like a round of battlefield 2, you get flags (ports) and you win and then a new round starts. Where's the character progression? The adventures? You just need a world to have an mmorpg and potbs is lacking a bit in that respect. But it's still fun to do some economy and to fight in your ship either be it OS pvp or the big port battles and that's what keeps people going, ship combat. Ultimately it is just one more fight instead of a new thing and people leave. As long as you are leveling up it's fine, after that you won't last long.

So in my opinion that's the biggest problem POTBS faces, they can get new players that will reach top level in a month, enjoy the 2nd month up there doing some battles and then slowly play less and less till they cancel because to them it feels they are never going to get anything new cept one more battle. To fix this they need something that is seriously interesting to do at top level and they need it fast.

PS: I assume i missed your earlier post indeed :) must have been a fun one

Although I agree with your opinions I don't agree with your "posture".

Let's think about it this way, is the game better now than 1 year ago? Yes, immensely. Coming from beta I saw many, many bugs get fixed. I saw mechanics that were not working get fixed. Many missions that had problems got fixed. Many skills and ships got rebalanced. Lots and lots of fixing really improved the game.

Then we had a lot of content added, new ships, new eq, new clothes, new missions. We also now have new UI's and new systems like duels and insurance.

Now more recently a whole new avcom system. Is it better now? My opinion is yes, really better than the simplistic old and people having to learn something new (which most people just hate especially if they were good with the old system and now, not so good) is not an excuse to say it sucks.

Also we can still look on the horizon and see more content being added like missions, ships, eq and clothes but also two new systems in the form of skirmish and port governance and maybe some economy improvements.

What all of this shows to me is that FLS is still eagerly behind it's baby and working to improve it. That is very important.

So to come back to my initial remark, i don't agree with your posture. You would be right to be angry and disappointed if the game was dead, if they were not fixing it. So look at the year past, has the game improved? Yes. Look at the future, does it seem like that new stuff is going to improve it further? Yes. Then you should be optimist as should they as should anyone writting a review. Instead, in this WOW world, anything but perfect instantly gets spitted on and it's that behaviour that is really stopping the wow-killers from showing up and nothing else.

PS: In fact I bet most of you are employed by blizzard just to spread bad things about other MMO's to keep their game at the top LOL. I jest, but I wonder if that is really true and they do employ people for that purpose hmmm

A game is a game. It had probs with i'ts launch (which game doesn't) but now after a year the server and client run great and as for the game itself they are fixing everything making it a fun game to play.

Actually, as time goes by you expect the game to be better and better. That's not what happens with others like warcraft. As time goes by they add new content. New places with new mobs with new quests.

Well with potbs that is not the case. They have added new content true in the form of quests and equipment and clothes and ships but they also added new stuff like this new avatar system, port governance that is coming, skirmish system, duels, etc.

I would say that after all of that is in, this will be a complete game and after that they'll only have to worry about new content.

All in all it's quite a fun game to play and who cares about the millions warcraft has, I would settle with 50k, it would be good for them and perfect for the players, the servers would always have enough people in them and they would get enough money to keep going.

Mori

Well, technically, this game is available for some countries and all via internet. How can this be done? Only one way, to block outside IPS either be it at the account creation time and the login time or even both.

So it's easy to understand that if all your connections to the site/game itself  are made like you are a computer residing in one of those countries (i.e. via proxy) it has no way of knowing where you're coming from and it will not block you.

Of course companies often had to their ip block list, many known proxies and most proxies won't let traffic go through via a certain port that you might need to play the game.

All in all, it's all a little complicated and to be honest a little patience till they bring the game to the rest of the world should be a better solution :)

Mori

Those idiotic people, they should know better :)

Trial would be a better fit that's all I'm saying.

Let's forget this case for a moment. Let's just debate the following:

If a company puts a banner up saying "Free2Play come have fun now" announcing their game, and then when you click you go to a page to download the client and it explains "This game is free to play till level 2, basically you get to enter the world and stand there and check out the graphics and menus and who knows chat to others, but not all chats, you can only use the local because you are lowlevel...let's just say there are limitations but hey you can enter :)"

Ok a little irony there in the message but point being, wouldn't say the free2play tag does not apply and is in fact just there for you to click on the banner?

Now, there is no great harm done, you were fooled into making a mouse click boohoo, who cares, but I'm just debating the fact that the tag doesn't apply, it is misleading you. You don't agree?

Mori

:) You folks seem to be on the defensive a lot, I don't get why that is, are you part of the development team perhaps and this is your baby?

I'm not bashing the game at all. This whole debate came from the fact that I agreed with other users that they should have used trial instead of the free2play tag, making it clear would help them and us.

But I guess I'll admit I might have bashed the game when I mentioned the graphics? That's all I've seen of the game, screenshots and some youtube videos of gameplay and such, they didn't seem that great to me but again not that bad either, like you said they had to compromise a bit.

I do apologise for the comparison, even the mention, with archlord. That was uncalled for lol No game deserves that.

But tell you what, when the game becomes available here I'll download the client and try it out so I can provide the best opinion.

Now calm down please (and by saying this I'll probably enrage you more...it's a test you see ;))

Mori

Originally posted by Greek_Matt

Originally posted by Moriwenne

Originally posted by icyred

I LOVE PPL THAT CANT READ

 

lol now that i have your attention... READ... cause it says RIGHT ON THE SITE when you log on that the Free To Play client is "ill post it EXACLY WHAT IT SAYS" so for those who are complaining about the free 2 play... you need too learn too read ENGLISH...

 

The Spellborn game client will be completly free to download and install, and will feature the special free to play zone with NO TIME RESTRICTIONS. (ONLY LEVEL LIMIT) Level 7

 

which means its so PPL CAN TEST THE GAME AND DECIDE IF THEY WISH TOO PURCHASE THE GAME. wow lol 3 pages of ppl complaining and all you had too do was READ lol... 

 

You are wrong. I get what you're saying but you miss the point.

In this situation, the user is being deceived and that is just wrong. Associating the free to play tag with a game that let's you play till level 7 is just wrong. If they want to say anything about it then they should ONLY use the TRIAL tag because that is what it is.

Furthermore, download and install the client FOR FREE! There is no such thing. HAs anyone ever paid to download a client? No. You pay for a key (or let's say the game) and then you get to download a client. Has anyone ever paid for a game then paid again to download a client? No. Point being you do nothing with the client, it's not free if you can't use it. Again, deceiving the user.

I would also like to add that this is an MMORPG, it will have a fee that = all the other mmorpgs out there. Now, after all that deceivement they still expect users to pay the same for their game as they do for other TOP quality games like warcraft, warhammer, conan, eve. That's just pure nonsense. There are even games like guild wars that are top notch quality with no fee.

A game of this quality that is free to play might get a good fan base of players and might make it in some way but hoping to succeed in a market with top quality products with such a weak one is folly. Why buy a ripoff 'Ronex' for 500$ if for the same price you can have the real deal and buy yourself a true 'rolex'?

I never get these companies and this extra deceivement just pisses me off.

 

Whether or not you perceive TCoS as being of equal value to other current MMOs is beside the point. There has never been any conscious attempt to mislead potential players into believing that this is an entirely F2P item-mall MMO (nor is Guild Wars an MMO, it's just a mutiplayer game with a GUI lobby), and arguing over the pedantics of the cost of the client download is pointless. The game is offering a free trial of part of their game, nothing more, and to be honest even if your reading skills aren't of a high enough standard to realise this at some point during the download and registration procedure, the fact remains that at the end of it you won't have actually lost anything (except perhaps time).

Perhaps your moral outrage would be better directed at all of the actual shady and deceptive practices in the MMO market today.

Quote Mania!!!

Well, first of all, leave my reading skills alone, why do people get the need to attack eachother is beyond me. I'm arguing the issue, you can do the same but leave me out of it please.

My moral outrage hmmm I don't think I have that feeling inside me right now and I hardly ever do.

Let me tell, I think you are naive in thinking that they don't do it on purpose, the way they use the free etc. Are they the big evil monster? No, of course not. It's standard business practice and a very mild tactic even. In fact it's all so mild that all this debating is very pointless at this point. My main issue is with the fact that they failed to put a banner up saying TRIAL - Download the client and test the game up to lvl 7 before you buy it. Th'at what it is, that's how it should be sold, the end. All the use of the tag free2play and download the client for free, it's considerably different from the trial tag. But it does not take long for people to realise what's going on.

Let me tell you about my own experience with this whole thing. I got the mmorpg.com newsletter. I read the article about spellborn, I saw the tag free2play. I then googled the game and went to the main page to look at screenshots or gameplay videos as I usually do. After doing that i came to the conclusion, this is not a top quality product in terms of graphics. So after that I decided to download the client to play a little because even though It didn't look fantastic, I could still have fun with it if the gameplay was fun and a nice community followed the game, again, as I usually do. So I looked around the website and in about a minute it became clear this was not free2play so I didn't download the client.

So in conclusion, my decision came down to this, I value my money and more than that I value my time. If it were free i would give it a try, might enjoy it. Not being free, there are a lot of top quality products out there for the same price why waste my time, of which I don't have that much for gaming, on this? As I many will do the same.

There's this game, Archlord that started as a fee mmorpg but didn't take long to go free2play, how could a game of that quality make it in this market? It was madness. In like 2 months there were some 100 players left on it. It went free2play and now it has thousands and thousands. It's still a bad game in many ways but it's free so no complains.

This is my view on the subject, feel free to add to the debate, agree or disagree. I like debating the issues, but just don't go answering just for the sake of arguing, everyone can put up a fight if they want to, I'm more interested in real opinions.

Mori

Originally posted by icyred

I LOVE PPL THAT CANT READ

 

lol now that i have your attention... READ... cause it says RIGHT ON THE SITE when you log on that the Free To Play client is "ill post it EXACLY WHAT IT SAYS" so for those who are complaining about the free 2 play... you need too learn too read ENGLISH...

 

The Spellborn game client will be completly free to download and install, and will feature the special free to play zone with NO TIME RESTRICTIONS. (ONLY LEVEL LIMIT) Level 7

 

which means its so PPL CAN TEST THE GAME AND DECIDE IF THEY WISH TOO PURCHASE THE GAME. wow lol 3 pages of ppl complaining and all you had too do was READ lol... 

You are wrong. I get what you're saying but you miss the point.

In this situation, the user is being deceived and that is just wrong. Associating the free to play tag with a game that let's you play till level 7 is just wrong. If they want to say anything about it then they should ONLY use the TRIAL tag because that is what it is.

Furthermore, download and install the client FOR FREE! There is no such thing. HAs anyone ever paid to download a client? No. You pay for a key (or let's say the game) and then you get to download a client. Has anyone ever paid for a game then paid again to download a client? No. Point being you do nothing with the client, it's not free if you can't use it. Again, deceiving the user.

I would also like to add that this is an MMORPG, it will have a fee that = all the other mmorpgs out there. Now, after all that deceivement they still expect users to pay the same for their game as they do for other TOP quality games like warcraft, warhammer, conan, eve. That's just pure nonsense. There are even games like guild wars that are top notch quality with no fee.

A game of this quality that is free to play might get a good fan base of players and might make it in some way but hoping to succeed in a market with top quality products with such a weak one is folly. Why buy a ripoff 'Ronex' for 500$ if for the same price you can have the real deal and buy yourself a true 'rolex'?

I never get these companies and this extra deceivement just pisses me off.

Well actually, this has been "free to play forever" for a long time now (6months+?). I'm guessing the difference now is that it will also be free to buy (it already cost some 20$ so it's not that big of a savings deal).

That being said (which is already a lot) I'd like to add that, the game had a feeling of neglect straight after beta (they soon after got rid of most of the team and there wasn't even a gameMaster on at all times, in fact at a point they were on for like 10 hours of the day and if you got stuck which happened a lot, you would have to stop playing and come back later hoping that a GM was on...most annoying).

The lack of content drove people mad with a game that was mainly focused on the grind. Only the hardcore "mine is bigger than yours" player kept going.

Some great content was to be added that would bring multiplayer siege to the game but it took them what, a year to put it in the game? Thus driving away what was left of the community.

On top of all of this, the game had a huge cheating problem with bots even outnumbering the real players at times and there were all kinds of those, bots that represented people that wanted to lvl but not play and bots that just gathered stuff to sell for real money. They could not stop them or just didn't care. So now they are just giving keys away....i can imagine the amount of botness!

I had a blast playing the beta. The game seemed simple and fun with lots to do up to lvl 20 and back then there were so many playing that you lvled, quested, grouped, killed ppl and monsters alike, had fun! Those days are gone and they are not coming back.

In conclusion I would just like to say that, right now, more valuable than my money is my time and I can't Waste any with this game anymore and neither should you. There are so many games out there that you shouldn't even give this one a 2nd thought. Hell!! Not even a 1st!!

This is a no brainer really. Why not do it? Why not offer this? For it to pay off you have to play a game for over 2 years. Who the hell knows what they'll be playing in 2 years time? This could be a bad move for WOW only and even with that game, i don't know. Oh and they can keep making money from expansion packs which you will have to buy anyway. Who the hell spends 290$ + 50$ and commits to playing a game for 2 years? The best move was the low monthly fee but the american version was much better than the european version because codemasters screwed us over. My previous xp with them and archlord showed me that too.

This will only appeal to the biggest of fans no one else. Personally I know how mmorpgs take you away from your real life that's why I commit to playing and having fun for 3-6months and then move on. Two years, good god.

PS: "Here you go, 340$ so I can play your game, thank you for this opportunity Mrs Turbine and Codemasters."

Some new threads on a forum, that's what Archlord players have to hope for? That game is so dead. Maybe the coming new content will make it interesting again for a week or so, who knows. At least the game is free now so hurrey.