f13.net

http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/article&article_id=10753


Heh... I love the name of the article. 'Character Transfers are now Live!'

'Transfers'.

I'm shocked that a game that was released incomplete has proven to be less successful than planned.  Shocked I say!  :roll:

All mmo's are released incomplete. Especially when compared to another ones that been out for years.

Pirates was more incomplete than most.  That ground combat system was made out of bailing wire and paper maché.

I'm glad I did not hitch my wagon to that star.

I have stalled out at level 38. The PvE grind is ballbreaking, and you need to get through it in order to PvP effectively. Arrrgh.

Phew, dodged that bullet.  :awesome_for_real:

Don't you mean Yaarrrrr?

I wanted to love this game in beta, but there were so many aspects of it that showed red flags.  I love the concept.  I love the novelty.  Sadly, the implementation just didn't quite harness "teh fun".

It was the swashbuckling parts that just killed it for me. The quest system was fine, but the actual gameplay involved in doing the foot quests was just bad. I could see the germ of a good idea in there somewhere, but the implementation was just assy.

How bad are the mangers of the teams that develop these games?
Every single one is release late
Every single one is release unfinished

The only exception I've seen in the past few years was LOTRO... but that game lacked depth.

Consider this like any project.  Most come in later than anticipated and over budget.  Any project completed on time and at or below budget immediately creates a concern of "what corners did they cut to make this happen?"

Unexpected stuff comes up in the course of any complex task.  I know... I'm a researcher. 

I was shocked that they launched as many servers as they did. I really liked this game but there was too much grind. Conceptually I loved the swashbuckling concept but the execution lacked, well, everything. Still love the pvp system and the ship combat though. And, hey, at least it wasn't elves and dwarves all over again.

Yeah, i agree. But i do know that the entire avatar (and all things related) system was added late late late in development. I figure at some point it will get a complete overhaul.

The good news is the that dev team is active and listening to the players. Their timeline for changes is pretty long, but I think it will be far more playable down the line. Merging the servers is a good thing- folks were too spread out even the week of launch. The fun part of the game (PvP) requires a higher density of players. This should help the economy (another form of PvP) as well.

  I expect that they'll lose some folks over this since the established guilds on the merged servers are going to have to start out more or less at square one from a server politics point of view which will probably result in a fair number of folks just exiting the game.

Fortunately for me, I only got to level 12 before I figured this out.

My "I agree" exit review: I think the ship-to-ship combat (and the ocean-going travel) were marvelous and fun. I wish the whole game was that well done.
But, they blew it with the land based stuff. The swashbuckling system was different, and actually interesting, but the animations were lackluster. The "feel" of hand-to-hand combat just didn't work for me. Even the simple action of walking around in the towns put me off. You could easily see that they put a ton of effort into the ship combat, and then tacked on the rest of it. And you spend *too much* time in the land-based/swashbuckling parts of the game.

I played in beta, preordered this, received it, and yet it still sits unopened on my desk.

The swashbuckling should just be trashed.  Either start over or dump it completely.

I was disappointed in the economic system as well.  I really wanted to be a trader too, but it didn't work out for me.

No you must grind through pure hell in order to PVP!!! Accept your fate!

I figure everything about this game can be fixed in time except for the "has levels" part.  Otherwise I'm good.  For now.

A big finger to those of you who gave me shit for saying the same thing as the above when I partook in the open beta.

As to the consolidation; hey, at least they're not closing.

Beta was when it was A) still free and B) we had hopes they might change things up. To be honest, the level grind doesn't really set in until about level 37- there is a hell level there that just stands out. As you get higher level, the Open Sea grind groups become less effective (since the XP is based on the level of your boat vs the level of the boats you are killing, and most folks sail the highest level ship they can).

Poor PotBS - I had high hopes for them even though I have no interest in a pirate game.  Usually server merges hit when the game is dying.

Since I know little about the game in it's current state, I can't comment on if it is good or bad, but I wish it better luck then oh, say, Vanguard?

On a side note..

SOE better leave my EQ 1 alone..

Or I'll get stabby.

Another game that's fallen victim to slapped-on avatars.

I still think it's a solid enough experience. I just think it missed it's potential by backing away from being Eve on the High Seas. Maybe not million-subscriber material, but better to focus on that UI while fleshing out economy and uniserver than spreading resources across two completely different game experiences.

I got through about the second mission of the tutorial part, and got to my home port, when I saw how ugly and clunky the "off ship" animation was, it just killed it for me.

I dunno, I am still enjoying it, and doing my best to keep positive about things. It's got a fun little combat engine I can play every once in a while, and that's why I like it. I'm leveling, but slowly because I'm barely playing, and I'm still at 45.


This is part of the trick WAP, you take a lower level ship out versus the higher level ships in a group. Powerleveling basically works the same way. The grind of the levels isn't half as bad as the money, and the economy is very bad. I hope the server merges help, and honestly, I can say I still not regretting a subscription because it was less than two crappy movies in a theater last month.

The problem is that only having 4 slots for ships makes it tough to use lower level ones all the time- I have most of mine situated for transporting between ports rather than actual sailing. It is just easier to use whatever my latest ship is.

Like I said though- i think they will get there. I am just biding my time and trying not to totally burn out.

Four ships isn't enough, I agree.

As evidence of the game's decline, I saw it with a red sticker on it in Target last night. That's the clearance sticker. It was $24.98, and despite the free month, it was still more than I wanted to pay for it.

Patch Notes (http://support.flyinglab.com/cgi-bin/flyinglab.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=828) for the upcoming patch have some interesting new stuff. I like the Open Sea Fleets idea a lot.

It wouldn't surprise me to leanr that MMOG companies are becoming more comfortable with "launch it and fix it" as opposed to "fix, fix, fix, launch". Eve shows that a MMOG can grow subs steadily over years.

Or Pirates is just another nail in the "PvP is, and always will, be niche" coffin. WAR and Conan are the next tests.

It's a great strategy if one likes starting at tens of thousands of subscribers.

Launch, then fix it (and pray), has been the SOP for every MMO I've ever played, first pioneered by SOE.

Prior :-) The theory is that these worlds are fluid, so therefore never done, so therefore shouldn't be forced into specific milestones of completeness that are by nature impossible to hit.

WoW blew the noise off that part too.

As an aside, pretty much every semi-successful MMO has grown after launch for a time, peaked then declined then flattened out. The only ones that didn't were the ones we all knew in our hearts weren't long for this world (AA, AC2) or those that were kept open despite declines after launch, like CoH and PS.