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Pirates of the Burning Sea Review: Pirates of the Burning Sea Re-Review - Edit
7
| Pros |
  
|
 Addictive PvP Engaging sea combat Fully player-driven economy Port contention |
| Cons |
 
|
 Poor avatar combat Travel as a timesink |
Pirates of the Burning Sea launched to somewhat little fanfare just over two years ago. From indie developer Flying Lab Software, the game might not be a titan of the industry, and while it’s consolidating down to just two servers PotBS still has a vibrant and enthusiastic audience and the game has seen many additions and improvements since its launch in 2008. Still the crux of the game is about the economy and the controlling of the game world’s many ports, and while many little things have changed in two years’ time the big picture remains the same. But for those players who have never tried FLS’ seafaring MMO or those who left and haven’t checked back in a while, is there any reason to give this title another look? The answer is a resounding “it depends”.
The Visuals
Some folks simply don’t care about graphics in their games all that much. If you’re one of these people, that’s a good thing. It’s not that PotBS’ visuals are bad, they’re just dated. Perhaps as a side effect of a relatively lengthy development cycle, the avatar models and animations are blocky and stunted. And while they’re appropriately stylized and garbed in the clothing of the time period, I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching plastic action figures move about while in port. On the other hand the visuals of naval combat are quite well done with sails being filled with wind according to the direction your ship is facing, your crew maneuvering about when you give them orders via the keyboard, and a rather pretty depiction of the ocean to boot.
On a brighter note about the land-based visuals, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how appropriately FLS has captured the look and feel of both dirty shanty towns and the more pompous nature of nations’ capitals. While many ports are alike, there’s no mistaking a pirate owned harbor for one of Britain’s and vice versa. The NPCs milling about, the wenches slung over some salty dog’s shoulder, and the hobbling cripple that shuffles along the alleys all day are all nice touches that add to the game’s nautical atmosphere.
The Audio
While I wouldn’t count the music heard in many of the ports among my favorite tunes, they are appropriate for the era, and the more broad orchestral tracks heard while out on the open sea or during battle are very reminiscent of the Pirates of the Caribbean films… and I mean that in a good way. The music is quite well done and very thematically appropriate. The sound ships make as they turn and shift, the blast of cannon fire, the shouts of your crew; it’s all very well done and really helps to put you in a pirating mood. My fiancée didn’t find it entertaining when I was jumped up on the couch after one session shouting orders for her to obey and calling her a wench, but to each their own. The sound of swords and swipes during the swashbuckling segments are also top notch, even if that portion of the game is still a little lacking.
Swashbuckling
Swashbuckling is the name given to the avatar-based portion of the game. A lot of missions involve hand-to-hand combat, and one of the many methods for defeating enemies at sea is to board them and take them out with your crew’s swords and guns. Swashbuckling certainly isn’t an afterthought, and yet even after a revamping of the system it still feels lacking when compared to PotBS’ rather well done naval combat. Maybe it’s because of the stilted animations and visuals of the avatars, or maybe it’s because the action on foot basically amounts to pressing one of a few main attacks with little need for strategy, but swashbuckling simply feels over-simplified and too hectic to make sense of. Thus the action winds up more about button mashing than the careful back and forth a battle with rapiers would be expected to entail.
)
Perhaps my memory’s just foggy, but I have trouble discerning any of the differences the game’s website claims it has made to swashbuckling over the past two years. It feels roughly the same as it did in beta, and while I appreciate it being a part of the game to break up the action, it’s clear to me that it still needs some attention. What should be a rewarding and heroic-feeling experience when you board an enemy’s ship and force its captain to surrender winds up feeling not altogether unlike watching a movie on double-speed. You know something happened. You know the outcome. But you’re not quite sure how you got there. Luckily, the other half of the game’s combat system does not come off feeling as underdeveloped.
/sigh
This is not exactly a re-review, and it doesn't even go into any depth about the current game and changes since launch? It seems more like a person re-wrote a previous review, or read about the game and wrote this instead of playing..
It's also is riddled with almost as many errors as the "First look" a couple of weeks back and from the description of combat it doesn't even appear the person writing this had reached mid levels. I also feel that if the reviewer doesn't know what changed in avatar combat, why is he writing this?
This one especially made me upset:
This game released in January 2008
It really would benefit your site if you actually had people reviewing (or writing about) games who actually knew something about them.
Looks like that was a typo -- the first paragraph mentions the game's 2008 launch. Thanks for catching it though, will fix it! :)
I find it a shame that they produced a sandbox historical game that does a lot to capture the flavor of the period, and yet when I tried it out, I didn't find any kind of rp/community.
This mostly depends on when you tried the game.
For the first two months, there was quite a lively population, and many different rp groups I can recall.. but this of course didn't last because of the hardcore PvP nature of the game.
The game had incredible promise at launch. I played open beta/pre launch and was in the leadership of the largest French guild on our server. We had quite an impressive showing, but honestly imo the devs killed this game. At launch there was no guild storage (among many other factors lacking). When the devs were notified about what we the players would like, they basically said it was their game and they would do it how they want and deal with the consequences. The consequences were that they made poor design choices and the game died from what it used to be. I don't fault them on running a game the way they want, but it is their fault it died more than the pvp nature would ever be.
7 for this game?
This is a niche game like Darkfall, and Darkfall has also naval battle in it but a lot more to do than PoTBS...................but it got a 6
I really don't understand MMORPG.com scoring system (if there is one)
My experience mirrors yours onceloving, excepting I was a leader of a Spanish society.
The game had a slight bit of it's old luster during the free play time (Where they closed the beta servers! /gasp) and now I don't really see anything stopping the sinking.
This article is what I'd expect after a game's 2 year lifespan.
I love the old sailing ships and historical aspect of the game. But if your ship sinks you lose it permanently? I just don't have that kind of time to invest in a game anymore.
You can be sunk, but will only lose your ship if it's out of durability. Ships have "durability points" and usually most lower level ships have 3-5 of these points (higher level ones 2-3). You don't lose the ship until you are down to one durability and are sunk.
no real comment about the review just a question about the game
is this an open pvp game or can players choose not to be pvp active ?
as it sounds interesting but i tend to avoid open pvp games so i would like to know
Players can attack ports, and that creates a PvP zone around that port. You cannot escape PvP in a zone. If you want to ship good in or out of that port, you have to run for it.
Think of it as kind of like Star Trek Online, except you build your own ships, there is meaningful PvP, there is a persistent world, and there is good crafting.
The PvP system is not an "open PvP" type, where anyone can attack anyone, anywhere...
Ships battle for control of ports, and if for example the Spanish are attacking an English port, that port becomes surrounded by a red PvP circle as the contention increases (contention pts are awarded for both sinking NPCs and Players). The opposing Nation can also reduce these points in the same way.
The PvP circle begins when 3k pts are accumulated, and begins with "Pirate PvP" where Pirates or Privateers can attack anyone entering this circle. When contention reaches 6k it becomes full PvP, and then at 10k it goes into a countdown to port battles (24 vs 24 PvP).
There also is a PvP flag you can enable, that does allow your character to be attacked anywhere.
The red circles on the Caribbean map are true dangers for non PvPers, but considering how close some ports are to one another the PvP circle can overlap a significant distance.
The Wiki and the PotBS main page have more details, but best advice is to look at the map at that other network site or even try the free trial.
I also can't believe neither article mentioned the free trial was 14 days.
i'm sorry, but you didn't look hard enough.
there are several RP societies in the game. one that comes to mind is the st. george squadron a british society, involved in all aspects of the game and they are quite big : http://www.st-george-squadron.co.uk/board/index.php
additionally, one of the new content introduced over the past few months is a RP quest chain which covers several levels and its particularly fun to do (it starts at the lower levels).
pvp? potbs has it
rvr? potbs has it
player run economy? potbs has it
loads of single and group missions, as well as mission chains? potbs has it
"epic" end-game group dungeons? potbs has it
what does darkfall have more?
and you can't compare the naval battles of darkfall to potbs! heck even the avcom in darkfall is limited to swinging a sword and back again as clumsy as it gets.
there is loads of pve content, even "epic missions" which are somewhat like raids but in small groups (of 6 people) where you get good loot and defeat bosses.
however, pvp is always present. you can avoid it because its limited to the contention zones but it will affect your gameplay one way or another.
if you want to avoid pvp at all costs i suggest trying a freetrader which has speed buffs and other stuff which will help you spot pvpers and make your way in and out of contended ports quicker - but there is never a guarantee.
i'm sorry, but you didn't look hard enough.
there are several RP societies in the game. one that comes to mind is the st. george squadron a british society, involved in all aspects of the game and they are quite big : http://www.st-george-squadron.co.uk/board/index.php
additionally, one of the new content introduced over the past few months is a RP quest chain which covers several levels and its particularly fun to do (it starts at the lower levels).
Yea, well, you should not NEED to even have to look "hard enough" to find the community in the first place.
Anyway, my issue with this game is all the instancing , it just do not feel like an open world. In a tiny little port , every single door is a load screen, every little event seems to come with some sort of load screen. And i would even say this alone gives the impression that you won't see other players easily, since what's the odds they'll pop up in the same little instance as you?
So while the game have its merits, it's not worth a subscription. If they want to revive this game, they must follow Turbine's move with DDO and make it F2P .
How can the writer be critical of lacklustre av-com in a "Age of sail" ship combat game or only give a 7 score when Eve won mmorpg.com game of the year award with no av-com or characterisation whatsoever!?
It seems to me that he didn't get into Potbs at all & that he made the fatal mistake of comparing it with most of the traditional hack/slash land combat mmos out there.
FLS has created a unique pirates of the Burning Seas game experience for those looking for something different & it succeeds very well imo.
Actually, the real reason why there is limited RP today is because they deleted the RP server after about 3 months. Since everyone had the ability to transfer wherever they wanted, they spread out to the remaining servers instead of consolidating, and the RP community just couldn't survive so spread out.
RP in those early days was actually really good. Or at least, it was a lot better. However, there was an issue with port battles and peoples' egos getting in the way (which had nothing to do with how good they were at RP). It was this that really caused people to spread out when the server deletion came, because various groups of people didn't want to associate with each other and specifically chose their new servers accordingly.
It would probably have gotten a better score if it had no av-com. A badly implemented feature is not better than not having the feature at all.
Thing is av-com is not a major part of Potbs & was never intended to be, tbh it's not that bad either.
The game had incredible promise at launch. I played open beta/pre launch and was in the leadership of the largest French guild on our server. We had quite an impressive showing, but honestly imo the devs killed this game. At launch there was no guild storage (among many other factors lacking). When the devs were notified about what we the players would like, they basically said it was their game and they would do it how they want and deal with the consequences. The consequences were that they made poor design choices and the game died from what it used to be. I don't fault them on running a game the way they want, but it is their fault it died more than the pvp nature would ever be.
I agree, there was so much potential for this game having beta tested it, that something in the way of game play got lost between beta and release.
Here is what I wrote in a comment on a PotBS article on this site, more than a year ago:
"What I will say, however, is that there is an "official" tone to the article that in its worst iteration in journalism consists of rewrites of press releases, with perhaps a rebuttal from the "official" opposition tacked on to the end (if as much). It's not as bad as that here. However, what annoyed me was that the writer seemed to have based his review on a blend of FLS devlogs and patch notes, and maybe the occasional interview or article here and there. That in itself is fine, but there's something missing -- and what exactly? Pretty much any sense of what you could call the "oral history" of the game, and this you get from player blog entries (there are a few) and forum posts (whether at FLS or here). And this is what is galling: There is a subforum on POTBS on this very website, and the author gives no indication of ever having bothered checking it out and reading a few of the threads."
How nicely it also applies here. If you're going to wait 2 years before doing a "re-review", at least could you take your time? Level up to 50, take part in port battles, those sorts of things? Instead, we get the usual remarks on how AvCom, that sacrificial lamb that is mentioned every time you need to throw naysayers a bone, is really awful. I can't speak for myself about this new AvCom, because I don't think I've played after this was brought in.
If a game that launched two years ago rapidly went from 11 servers to 5 (including the Australian server) to 2, I'd be concerned about the viability of the game; but to do that overtly would be to embark on a vicious circle where everyone pulls out because they think the game is dying. Still, do we know what is FLS's commitment to their game? I, for one, am glad you didn't mention the "expansion" that they're promising to bring in (of which we haven't really seen much, but, a testament to the rampant hype of the gaming world, already an award winner, ladies and gents!), as it didn't really belong in a "review".
Still, if you're going to write a review after two years, while displaying (or pretending to display) at least some knowledge of the history of the game, could you include more perspective? Has it really changed since the days of "no crying in the red circle"? Is the endgame still a dead-end? And so on.
But I am increasingly coming to believe that the problem is not so much with the writers here as with the role they are expected to play on this site: cogs in a hype-and-dismiss perpetual-motion machine. I guess it still bodes well for PotBS, as that means it's seen as not dead enough to safely poke with a stick. But it could be dead anyway; it's just that you don't like taking chances.
unless you flag yoruself pvp then pvp is only in the red circles around ports that are in contention. Now since this is the carribean there are coke points and if i port is in contention near one the red circle could block off that route causing you to sail way around an island to get someplace if you want to stay out of the red. Let alone if the port you want to sail into is red. Also the port battles are voluntary ( 24v24) battles for final control of a port.
What should be a rewarding and heroic-feeling experience when you board an enemy’s ship and force its captain to surrender winds up feeling not altogether unlike watching a movie on double-speed. You know something happened. You know the outcome. But you’re not quite sure how you got there. - W Murphy
That is exactly how I feel about the current land combat system.
Thing is av-com is not a major part of Potbs & was never intended to be, tbh it's not that bad either.
It is clunky and far from intuitive. IMO, the current version of av-com in PotBS is, by far, the worst implementation of avatar combat to be released in the past four years. Yes... even worse than some of the MMOs that have come and gone during that span.
So not like Star Trek Online at all then.
It is clunky and far from intuitive. IMO, the current version of av-com in PotBS is, by far, the worst implementation of avatar combat to be released in the past four years. Yes... even worse than some of the MMOs that have come and gone during that span.
the avcom is far from perfect but i wouldn't describe it as "the worst implementation of avatar combat".
i can sympathise with the reviewer and new players when they say its odd and difficult to understand - but its not beyond mastering and learning the tricks - and when you do you will forget the first impressions you probably had.
i disagree with the reviewer that there is no tactics to it - there is. you need to know when to fire a gun in boarding combat, for instance, and the reviewer obviously missed the fact that firing certain specials in a particular order will trigger debuffs etc.
i too wish it would improve but as i say it can be fun and very much engaging once you spend enough time learning it.
unless you flag yoruself pvp then pvp is only in the red circles around ports that are in contention. Now since this is the carribean there are coke points and if i port is in contention near one the red circle could block off that route causing you to sail way around an island to get someplace if you want to stay out of the red. Let alone if the port you want to sail into is red. Also the port battles are voluntary ( 24v24) battles for final control of a port.
In theory the game has consensual PvP. In practice 2-3 red PvP circles will make the middle of the map into one big PvP zone. You are left with the ports on the periphery which tend to be low level ports and the empty sea where nothing happens. If you want to do higher level missions or higher level crafting you will most likely have to sail into the red and thus become PvP flagged.
How bad this gets depends on how easy the devs make a port gain contention points and how quickly a port goes into the red and stays there. Shortly after release ports might be inaccessible to non-PvPers about once a week which suited most casual players just fine. In order to increase the PvP, contention gain was spiked and contention decay nerfed into oblivion and red circles stayed around for longer. Soon the casual non-PvPer was stuck in a port with only a few subpar options where to go without entering a PvP zone.
PS
The reviewer failed to mention the closed society production lines that have reduced the economy to a shadow of what it started as. When players realized that the only reason to produce something is to make ships for PvP, they also discovered that the best way to do it was to do it all in-house since that gave them access to most ships and thus allowed them to PvP more.
7 = average?
5 = average
:\
Just so.
This game had its shot and failed to deliver. Too many game mechanics that take away from the game, instead of make it better.
Economy is trashed, PvP is both too constrained by red circles and combat lockouts, and not open enough to allow gankers to be countered. In the end, this game failed to deliver the experience people wanted, and it tanked, hard.
Maybe the next Pirate game will be better. This is just another "zombie" game on the SOE barge of the undying called Station Pass.
pvp? potbs has it
rvr? potbs has it
player run economy? potbs has it
loads of single and group missions, as well as mission chains? potbs has it
"epic" end-game group dungeons? potbs has it
what does darkfall have more?
and you can't compare the naval battles of darkfall to potbs! heck even the avcom in darkfall is limited to swinging a sword and back again as clumsy as it gets.
Sieges for example (both by foot and by boat)
A world that people can explore and fight for.................on their feet (or mount).
PoTBS has a very limited avatar function.
The naval battles in DF can be as good as PoTBS, for your info.
The only thing is better in PoTBS is the way the ships move, they are much more realistic, and it takes a little bit more skills to turn the ship the right way, but that is pretty much it.
Naval combat make only 25% of content/activity in Darkfall
In DF naval content is just one of the options, while in PoTBS is the main event.
Sieges for example (both by foot and by boat)
A world that people can explore and fight for.................on their feet (or mount).
PoTBS has a very limited avatar function.
The naval battles in DF can be as good as PoTBS, for your info.
The only thing is better in PoTBS is the way the ships move, they are much more realistic, and it takes a little bit more skills to turn the ship the right way, but that is pretty much it.
Naval combat make only 25% of content/activity in Darkfall
In DF naval content is just one of the options, while in PoTBS is the main event.
uh, well port battles are similar to sieges.
24 vs 24 and you need to either destroy all the enemy ships or capture the defending port; with avcom.
or you can blockade a port in pvp to rise contention if that suits your idea of a siege best.
Yes I know, but DF has that too..............but it has the normal sieges too (the best of any PvP MMORPG).
My popint is that what PoTBS does, constitutes just a portion of what DF can offer.
Sure the naval battles are more challenging in PoTBS, but then again, that's the main attraction of the game.
But DF naval combat is not too far behind.
Also do not get me wrong, I am not saying that PoTBS is a bad game or that it doesn't do the job right.
I am all for promoting niche games.
This was more a critic on the way MMORPG.com gives the score in their reviews.
DF was marked down, because apparently was too niche to attract mainstream players (which anyway I believe is wrong in principle).
Then you have a naval MMORPG which is as niche as you can get and it gets 7, even if DF can offer more features and a more "complete" experience (or more options) than PoTBS, which is mainly limited to the sea and naval battles.
Only noticeable thing is that PoTBS is published by SoE, while DF is developed and self-published by an unknown developer.
But I am sure there is a better explanation to judge so differently 2 niche games, when DF of the 2 is the one that should get a sligtly higher score than the other.
So not like Star Trek Online at all then.
i belive the STO reference was how you have to manuver your ships to bring your guns to bare or to turn your damaged hull away from an enemy .
I can only assume the author didn't go past level twenty as he would of know "button mashing" only brings a quick death. You must use tactics with your selections or you will never master the ground combat. It may be somewhat clunky, but it is one of the few MMO ground combats that do utilize tactics.
I thought the reason it didn't catch on better was the flaw of how one got replacement ships. Most causual players won't risk ships to PvP when they have trouble replacing them due to cost or availablity. Had ships been easier to obtain, I think more people would of attempted PvP more and kept the society interested in the end game. Insurance didn't seem to make a bit of difference in bringing new players to the PvP part of the game.
Yes I know, but DF has that too..............but it has the normal sieges too (the best of any PvP MMORPG).
My popint is that what PoTBS does, constitutes just a portion of what DF can offer.
Sure the naval battles are more challenging in PoTBS, but then again, that's the main attraction of the game.
But DF naval combat is not too far behind.
Also do not get me wrong, I am not saying that PoTBS is a bad game or that it doesn't do the job right.
I am all for promoting niche games.
This was more a critic on the way MMORPG.com gives the score in their reviews.
DF was marked down, because apparently was too niche to attract mainstream players (which anyway I believe is wrong in principle).
Then you have a naval MMORPG which is as niche as you can get and it gets 7, even if DF can offer more features and a more "complete" experience (or more options) than PoTBS, which is mainly limited to the sea and naval battles.
Only noticeable thing is that PoTBS is published by SoE, while DF is developed and self-published by an unknown developer.
But I am sure there is a better explanation to judge so differently 2 niche games, when DF of the 2 is the one that should get a sligtly higher score than the other.
this was a re-review; and darkfall is only months old.
at launch, i would have given potbs a 5; but after two years there is no denying that much content and some polish was added to the game (albeit with some undeniable mistakes along the way). surely darkfall can polish the game in the future and get a better grade as a result.
It is clunky and far from intuitive. IMO, the current version of av-com in PotBS is, by far, the worst implementation of avatar combat to be released in the past four years. Yes... even worse than some of the MMOs that have come and gone during that span.
the avcom is far from perfect but i wouldn't describe it as "the worst implementation of avatar combat".
Of the MMOs released in the past four years, which MMO do you feel had worse av-com than what PotBS currently uses?
Just hopping in to say I DO like the game, and WILL be playing it for the foreseeable future. :)
What does that have to do with anything? So what SOE 'published' PotBS in that they pressed the CD's, folded the boxes etc.... the same as Gamearena in Aus did and another company in Russia did and what SOE will do for one of the other new games recently in the news (can't remember the name now) here on MMORPG. Sony is a vast corporation that I'm sure has it's fingers in a number of games one way or another.
PotBS was developed by and is 100% totally managed by Flying Labs Software (FLS). FLS did contract with SOE to handling it's billing and allows SOE to put it on it's Station Pass program, but other than that SOE has NO say in PotBS's development.
So scratch that excuse for why DF and PotBS were scored different.
And since you weren't sure about DF:
Developer(s) Aventurine SA
Publisher(s) Audiovisual Enterprises SA
the avcom is far from perfect but i wouldn't describe it as "the worst implementation of avatar combat".
Of the MMOs released in the past four years, which MMO do you feel had worse av-com than what PotBS currently uses?
You should have asked which mmo has av-com that would work well in Potbs as swashbuckling combat for boarding ship..
You are making the same mistake as the writer by comparing it with land combat av-com. It's different in Potbs & too hectic for most people to comprehend but given time there are tactics that can be learned.
Of the MMO that have ever been released, which MMO do you feel has worse ship combat that Potbs currently uses?
ANSWER: ALL The Potbs ship PVP is far superior & more interesting than ANY hack/slash game!
Yea, well, you should not NEED to even have to look "hard enough" to find the community in the first place.
Anyway, my issue with this game is all the instancing , it just do not feel like an open world. In a tiny little port , every single door is a load screen, every little event seems to come with some sort of load screen. And i would even say this alone gives the impression that you won't see other players easily, since what's the odds they'll pop up in the same little instance as you?
So while the game have its merits, it's not worth a subscription. If they want to revive this game, they must follow Turbine's move with DDO and make it F2P .
Basically what I was going to say. If I have to look hard for it, then its not nearly robust enough, especially taking into account the wonderful environment provided.
I love this game,
BUT I would NEVER play it without AV - combat.
Why?
Because than i would not feel like the captain of a ship,, rather i would feel like i am the ship itself, and it might be minor for some, but being able to step out of my ship and slice some pirate dices makes a HUUGE difference for me and adds incredibly much to the fun factor.
Just my two cents.
Always been interested in this game.the avatars tho an combat from what i read are its week points.Newegg has it on sale might try it yet.
the avcom is far from perfect but i wouldn't describe it as "the worst implementation of avatar combat".
Of the MMOs released in the past four years, which MMO do you feel had worse av-com than what PotBS currently uses?
You should have asked which mmo has av-com that would work well in Potbs as swashbuckling combat for boarding ship..
You are making the same mistake as the writer by comparing it with land combat av-com. It's different in Potbs & too hectic for most people to comprehend but given time there are tactics that can be learned.
Of the MMO that have ever been released, which MMO do you feel has worse ship combat that Potbs currently uses?
ANSWER: ALL The Potbs ship PVP is far superior & more interesting than ANY hack/slash game!
Why should I have asked that when that has nothing to do with the conversation? I'm glad that you enjoy the ship PvP. I used to enjoy it, too. Had Troneas or I been referring to that then your random interjection would have some level of relevance. I stated that the Av Com was the worst in the past 4 years of releases and he said it wasn't. Since he contested that, I am curious what MMO he feels was released in the past four years with worse Avatar Combat.
I have to disagree with the review about avatar combat. In fact, I think avatar combat is the part I enjoy most about the game. Avatar combat is shallow compare to other games and it doesn't work well for end game pve raids and massive pvp, because of the lack of mechanism for co-operation aside from buffs and debuffs.
BUT despite all its flaws it does capture the feel of the age of sail very well. Normal pve feel satisfying with your avatar taking down multiple enemies at once with smooth and realistic sword play animations. Small scale pvp such as boarding combat, duels and skirmish are fun too.
Ship pvp on the other hand, although I can see the depth, I never really "get" it and so did not enjoy it much.
As much as I would like to agree I shall not as I think this game is great even though it may be "Dated"but just so was Super Mario 64.
Now who DIDN'T like that game?
<Halp>
I have been playing PotBS since the closed beta. It had a rough start and everything, but now it is a blast. You don't get a game like this anywhere.
made a new 'trailer' last night for it too, just showing off some of the ship combat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8FkEcXPH3I
I would encourage everyone to give it a shot again or for the first times, its a blast.
The new Power & Prestige expansion launches on August August 24th, 2010
More details here .