Profile: iceman00
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• • Why not just copy EVE?

  • How about because Eve can get INSANELY boring?  let me travel around hours to get to where I need to be, sometimes even longer than that.  Lets play a game where a dev is in the pocketbook of players!  Sign me up!  There's also the fact that, deserved or not, EvE players are known as the snobs of the MMO world.  Some of that is deserving, some isn't.

    The same with the "wait for skills" concept.  In theory, its nice.  It doesn't reward power-grinding and you can't really "powerlevel."  Yet at the same time there isn't a terrible amount of effort put in to advancing your guy.  Just click a skill, wait a few days.  Sometimes you might want something a little sooner, but really don't have an option for that.

    I played EvE for two months and got bored out of my mind.  Now EvE does things that work, no doubt about that.  They are also a lot more polished than a game like POTBS.  What I attribute that to is the guts of CCP to stick to their vision despite the constant whining and complaining of some players.  You knew where EvE was going, you knew it was "hardcore", etc.  Eventually that built a very loyal customer base.  It ain't a game for carebears.  Now when people play that game, they know what they are getting into.  FLS wasn't sure what they wanted to do with POTBS.  They are trying to make changes midway through the game that are fundamentally related to what their vision (if they even have one!) is.

     

  • Posted: 10/03/08 8:52 PM
    Pirates of the Burning Sea
• • What I believe could save PotBS - and bring people back....

  • Here is what did SWG in and what does in a lot of MMO's:

     

    THEY ARE TOO BUSY ADDING "NEW" THINGS THE MAJORITY DOESN'T WANT RATHER THAN FIXING PROBLEMS OR WORKING ON WHAT THEY SAID WOULD BE THERE.

     

    i.e whatever happened to fixing the borked economy?  What happened to player governance of ports?  These sorta things were in the pipeline long before the "new face of pvp" which has been overwhelmingly rejected by the playerbase.  They then want to implement an even bigger change with the 5 sided battles, which will simply turn into an even bigger gank and drive people away.  (Not to mention drive down the amount of bubbles, which they state isn't what they want.)

    Meanwhile outside of JOMT for the Brits, there are precious little ways to make real money.  However since the farming is on such a wide scale (since people don't want to PvP right now) inflation is getting even worse.  Fix the problems you have before creating new ones, solidify the base before "branching out."

  • Posted: 9/03/08 8:14 PM
    Pirates of the Burning Sea
• • gankfest on steroids.....

  • Is what the new proposed changes are imo.  Basically they want pvp instances where all nations are fighting each other in one gigantic free for all death match.

    The problems with such a concept?

    If you thought 9 on 6 was bad, just wait til you see 3 factions with 18 ships total gank the other faction with only 6 players.  If the outnumbered mechanic stays on, it can become a 21 on 6.

    Given such incentives, you really think heavy ships will come out?  I've got a dauntless getting ready to be made.  Bad as 9 on 6 is, I can probably survive that and get away.  A potential 21 on 6 or 18 on 6?  Yeah right.  While there's not a huge chance such would happen, it's all about the appearance of such.  And the simple fact if it does happen you are screwed.  Expect PvP to once again be nothing but light ships.  (Which being a freetrader would make me god, but still not a great idea lol.)

    How about contention?  With reinforcements, and this new mechanic, flipping ports will literally take forever with an immense risk, and not really much reward. 

    I see almost no incentives in the new system, and an incredible amount of drawbacks.  If your a ganker of course, this is a wet dream.  What about everybody else?

  • Posted: 9/03/08 4:26 AM
    Pirates of the Burning Sea
• • FLS are fighting back R1.5 will be a turning point!

  • Originally posted by Vetarnias
    

    Originally posted by DJXeon
    

     Hot update: Release 1.5 is live on testbed.

    • The Pirates have won their first  RvR server victory on Blackbeard.
    • FLS have dropped "The no crying in the red circle" slogan.
    • Most of the players that shouted down others in beta have left or gone quiet.
    • There are generous insurance refunds that will make PvP much cheaper & less grind.
    • We need more Nationals on BB & producers!

    So all you players that got pushed out it's time to come back, get off your backsides & come play Potbs.

     

    I for one have decided to call it quits.  I have little time these days, and not much more money, and I am spending both on Age of Conan these days.  I have serious reservations about that game too, but at least I haven't reached the boredom stage that now characterizes my relationship with PotBS.  And if anything, the reasons you mention all but indicate that things have gone downhill for the game to such an extent that it is questionable whether it will be able to recover.

    Pirates, for starters, have very little chance of winning the map under ideal circumstances -- usually, they will finish second or third.  Now let's see the particulars of Blackbeard: entire French faction minus one society left for Rackham in April, and the French never recovered; Spanish usually had transfers from other servers, then after a while the Blackbeard Spanish either transferred away or stopped playing, and the expected Spanish win never materialized; most of the British armada transferred to Rackham, leaving a core of good players but inexperienced Brits outside of that.  The Pirates had all the elements they needed to win a map, provided they put enough dedication into it to flip enough ports to win.  With the Spanish and, especially, the French, putting in little to no resistance, it was all a matter of time -- so easy apparently that even the notorious Ginger Magician, self-proclaimed pirate king of Blackbeard, transferred to Roberts after the win.

    Finally, the devs have dropped the "No crying in the red circle" slogan.  I knew that would come sooner or later, and the isildur devlog on "ambush gameplay" all but heralded its end.  But I suspect the devs have known for quite a while that something was wrong with that slogan.  Remember how infamous that DrewC quote about "not making it fair in your favor" became in a matter of days?  Then there was that earlier Isildur quote on another blog about the "next big failure" with specific mention made of Shadowbane's "Play to Crush".  And finally, there was the brief "War of Aether's Avatar" where my unfortunate quip about how Aether should drop his avatar (a large red circle with an eye and a teardrop in it) caused a few people to say exactly the same thing about what that avatar meant.  Perhaps that was what finally opened their eyes. Aether and I had an exchange of messages afterwards, where even he admitted that the way the slogan was being used by a segment of the community was "crass".  He also said in a board post that it was meant tongue-in-cheek to poke fun at the hardcore, so he was not exactly backing down on his beliefs when he took it down.  But I'm pretty sure some of the "hardcore" must have seen that as caving in to carebear pressure.

    Now that quote seems to have disappeared from everywhere -- DrewC's signature, Aether's avatar (a while ago), but even on external sites such as Joe Ludwig's blog.  This makes me suspect the existence of a company directive on this.  The only places where the quote endures?  In the signatures of Ranker-type "hardcore" players.

    The fanbois might have gone quiet, but we're stuck with their mess.  If anything, let's hope FLS survives this debacle to make another game, and that it will have learned how to deal with such people.  Or at least consider the Worst Case Scenario when taking down their advice, which seems to have unfortunately been ignored.

    Insurance?  Good idea, but look how the "hardcore" scream to the top of their lungs how that is going to "carebear" the game.  It's perhaps the only case in personal history where I'm glad the bean-counter has won the day.  Not to mention it's probably the only option possible where you make player loss less incapacitating while not killing off the economy in the process.  Nonetheless, I predict this will lead to inflation for anyone who does not produce ships in-society.  Let's hope insurance payouts are based on a fixed percentage of purchase price and not cost, possibility of abuse be damned.  That's small potatoes compared to what has been done already.

    Having more nationals is probably going to be impossible to achieve unless they have something distinctive about them.  Not to mention the challenge then becomes how to convince people NOT to roll British.  As for producers... I think it's another failing of this game.  Economic players have been driven away from the game by the "hardcore" who could find no salvation outside of PvP and who consider all PvE and economic players as their inferiors.  Being forced to pay for the PvP of others while being treated in contempt by the beneficiaries is a shortcut to sailing in the proverbial sunset. 

    Besides, consider this: The "hardcore" don't need you.  They produce what they need, they grind for their money, then they go PvP and if any good at it, they earn more money that way.  They will gladly take you in port battles if they're short a few ships, but will greet you with a barrage of "please pass" if they are full. At no point do they come knocking on your door because they want to include you in the larger national objective.  Either they are desperate and will take anyone, or they will come in and bark orders.  The French, unfortunately, had and still have the tendency of working like that.  It gets tiresome after a while.

    All in all, this patch will not change anything.  Besides, what is making me leave is not the ganking (I was ganked maybe twice in expendable ships, including a fallback on one glorious occasion), but because there is nothing beyond the PvP.  Port governance is the thing I am waiting for, but I'm pretty sure it will be quickly taken over by the usual suspects (among other problems this will raise regarding existing game mechanics, such as the quasi-certainty of needing to PvP your own side because those nations don't exactly behave like a monolith when it comes to policy).  So I will keep on reading about new developments made to the game, and I hope it survives, but my own return to it is doubtful.

    
     

    Wait..... Ginger's gone?  ROFL

    Who is the person who gets killed all the time now?  I would say Blondy, but Blondy was nice and could actually PvP.  Same with Bootytrap to.  So who is the one who is the current public enemy number one?

  • Posted: 7/01/08 8:10 PM
    Pirates of the Burning Sea
• • FLS are fighting back R1.5 will be a turning point!

  • Originally posted by MasterPain55
    

    Originally posted by vet-in-exile
    

    Originally posted by DJXeon
    

    In future patches fair PvP is planned for the crowds that are not into unfair ganking & shallow PVP areas for newbies.

     

    "Future patches"? This should be priority number one for FLS. I think most of the people left because of their support for griefing and ganking.

    i don't understand the complaint of ganking, havn't you played wow or any other open pvp mmo before? if your in the pvp zone then how the ---- are you going to complain about being engaged in pvp combat?

    I was a freetrader and all my riggings were for speed, i never once had a problem with getting away from pirates. The problem with pvp is the huge risk factor which limits the amount of people willing to pvp, they already added more reward to it and now it looks like they are taking some risk away with giving 50%++ money back when you sink. Things are definitly better than they were back in feburary

    
     

    This is from someone who likes PvP but HATES gank squads.  The problem with FLS was not that ganking occured in their game.  That happens anytime there is PvP.  The problem was the mechanics favored it, and the devs applauded ganking, saying it was desirable.  Rule number one:  ganking is NEVER desireable, but at times a trade-off in a pvp game.  To those who complained, the devs simply said stfu and die.

  • Posted: 7/01/08 8:03 PM
    Pirates of the Burning Sea