Pirates of the Burning Sea- OPEN BETA!

[Modern Angel]

I've always been curious about how popular pirate / sailing MMOs would be with the MMO player. It's not like there's a huge stack of pirate games or large numbers of pirate simulations that exist. It's always seemed to me to be a very, very niche genre, especially compared to the genres of fantasy, sci-fi and modern.

... unless someone based expected player demand for pirate games by googling "pirate +game" and just looking at the number of listings that were available.

How well did the Sid Meier's Pirates! remake fare, commercially and critically? That's your answer.

[Morat20]

How well did the Sid Meier's Pirates! remake fare, commercially and critically? That's your answer.

How did it? I'm curious. :) I loved that game when I was 13. (The original, yes).

[Nija]

How well did the Sid Meier's Pirates! remake fare, commercially and critically? That's your answer.

Didn't it release about 2 weeks after WOW?

Yeah...

[Modern Angel]

How well did the Sid Meier's Pirates! remake fare, commercially and critically? That's your answer.

Didn't it release about 2 weeks after WOW?

Yeah...

Survey says you're wrong as fuck. WoW was 11/04, Pirates! was summer 05. And include Xbox sales. Critically, it also received numerous rewards. While I couldn't find precise sales numbers anecdotally I remember it being in the top ten for a few months.

[schild]

Top 10 PC games isn't really impressive. Considering the top 10 PC games unless it's something huge (WoW, GH3, Unreal, Half-Life, Etc) is tens of thousands instead of hundreds of thousands like PC.

[Modern Angel]

That's still not precisely 'niche' in the same way an obscure turn based strategy game is. Basically I'm saying that if there's stuff to complain about the game then wait for the game. "There obviously aren't enough people playing it!" is a huge, huge stretch when flying blind.

[UnSub]

I've always been curious about how popular pirate / sailing MMOs would be with the MMO player. It's not like there's a huge stack of pirate games or large numbers of pirate simulations that exist. It's always seemed to me to be a very, very niche genre, especially compared to the genres of fantasy, sci-fi and modern.

... unless someone based expected player demand for pirate games by googling "pirate +game" and just looking at the number of listings that were available.

Actually if you look around...there are more and more everyday. And Im not just talking about the new russian pirate sim that came out. There's like 3 asian f2p pirate mmos. It's really weird.

I think you agree with my original point: that pirate MMOs are a bit of an odd sub-genre for people to be developing so many games for. Perhaps it's being able to do something like fantasy without doing fantasy. And that those Johnny Depp movies were very popular and people had pirates on the brain.

I did think of Pirates! when I wrote about pirate MMOs, but that's one game. One game does not a genre make, especially on something that is old enough that most modern gamers would never have played it. It's like saying that the MMO market is ripe for a Ninja MMO (or four) because The Last Ninja was really popular and really good.

[DarkSign]

The pirate game that I thought of after playing PotBS was Privateer!Bounty. I mean the combat is nearly dead-on for naval battles...including the wind gui and cannon attacks.

It's weird, but then its not so weird when you realize that asian f2p mmo development houses just determine what they think is hawt/new and crank out a million of whatever that is.

BTW...I'd love to see a Dynasty Warriors MMO...with classes like healer, ninja, politician, wizard, kung-fu monk...etc.

[Nija]

Survey says you're wrong as fuck. WoW was 11/04, Pirates! was summer 05.

Hey, you're a douchebag.

Released
Nov 22, 2004

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/sid-meiers-pirates-

Also, you're wrong as fuck. DISMISSED!

[Nerf]

I saw the preorder box for this up at frys earlier, and the graphics looked absolutely fucking horrible.  Are there any current screenshots out there? I demand teh shiny in all my games.

Also, can I be a ninja? Pirates are lame, everyone knows ninjas would totally rock their faces.

[Oban]

[Modern Angel]

Survey says you're wrong as fuck. WoW was 11/04, Pirates! was summer 05.

Hey, you're a douchebag.

Released
Nov 22, 2004

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/sid-meiers-pirates-

Also, you're wrong as fuck. DISMISSED!

Not so much of a douchebag that I don't know when I stand corrected. Maybe I snagged the Xbox release date.

[Modern Angel]

I saw the preorder box for this up at frys earlier, and the graphics looked absolutely fucking horrible.  Are there any current screenshots out there? I demand teh shiny in all my games.

Also, can I be a ninja? Pirates are lame, everyone knows ninjas would totally rock their faces.

Some of the graphics are completely and totally amazing. Some are subpar.  Just drop this motherfucker already. I can categorically state that while this may not be everyone's cup of tea there's nothing in here gamebreaking like most late NDA lifts.

[Phred]

I'm reading on Wikipedia that you can hit "rank 50" in about 2 months of casual play.  Does that seem anywhere near accurate?

Maybe in beta but I challeneg anyone to name a game that didn't nerf the exp gain before going live. In almost every instance that pre-live exp nerf was later reversed in some way. Only CoH held firm and they nerfed exp not once, but twice: pre-live and then post-live ("purple nerf").

I think three times, dont forget the enhancement normalizing nerf.

[Nija]

Not so much of a douchebag that I don't know when I stand corrected. Maybe I snagged the Xbox release date.

Before you toss around stuff like that you want to be damn sure you're right. I was just going by memory, as I didn't even know the new pirates existed until late '06, as I was playing WOW with everyone else on the planet when it came out. I wasn't even sure of the release date. That's why I asked.

For the records, I'm a big pirates! fan. A huge Sid-games-in-general fan. Not that that matters.

[WayAbvPar]

That's how hard up they are for people actually playing their game.

Or it might just be that we ran the stress test and the servers held up great so we're bringing in more people.  One of the two.

Regarding the NDA: believe me I want it dropped as much or more than any of you do.  Like or hate our game I want to hear people's opinions unfiltered by the fact that it's a private beta forum. 

Gotta say I was impressed and encouraged by the latter.

[JoeTF]

Graphics kinda suck because they picked the engine circa 2003 and boasted how it can output 500,000 triangles in one scene. Now in 2007 (soon to be 2008) when everyone forgot wtf a triangle is and when you can use mapping techniques to create amazing things like EVE Online: Trinity for MMOs and every single player game is all about effects and shaders, HDRs, motion blurs, blooms and even more shaders and even, even more effects, PotBS tries to look awesome by throwing 500,000 triangles at us. It fails horribly because noone really notices that ceiling is actually made of fine mesh of wooden planks (especially when proper mapping would look much better), but everyone will notice that hook you can wear is actually rectangular (check on screenies).

[Murgos]

Graphics kinda suck because they picked the engine circa 2003 and boasted how it can output 500,000 triangles in one scene. Now in 2007 (soon to be 2008) when everyone forgot wtf a triangle is and when you can use mapping techniques to create amazing things like EVE Online: Trinity for MMOs and every single player game is all about effects and shaders, HDRs, motion blurs, blooms and even more shaders and even, even more effects, PotBS tries to look awesome by throwing 500,000 triangles at us. It fails horribly because noone really notices that ceiling is actually made of fine mesh of wooden planks (especially when proper mapping would look much better), but everyone will notice that hook you can wear is actually rectangular (check on screenies).

Textures and polygons are two different things, there are still polygons under all those shaders, HDR lights and normal maps and etc...  500,000 polygons hasn't been a lot for years though.

[Chenghiz]

Textures and polygons are two different things, there are still polygons under all those shaders, HDR lights and normal maps and etc...  500,000 polygons hasn't been a lot for years though.

Yeah but with good textures and good normal mapping you can make a few polygons go a long way. At least I think that's what he was driving at.

[Yegolev]

I think that the age of any screenshots are important.  I might be able to demonstrate after the but let's say that it might be noticable.

[Mrbloodworth]

Textures and polygons are two different things, there are still polygons under all those shaders, HDR lights and normal maps and etc...  500,000 polygons hasn't been a lot for years though.

Yeah but with good textures and good normal mapping you can make a few polygons go a long way. At least I think that's what he was driving at.

Good thing they use both a?

[Chenghiz]

Textures and polygons are two different things, there are still polygons under all those shaders, HDR lights and normal maps and etc...  500,000 polygons hasn't been a lot for years though.

Yeah but with good textures and good normal mapping you can make a few polygons go a long way. At least I think that's what he was driving at.

Good thing they use both a?

I guess. I won't pretend to know what they used, having not played it on a computer newer than five years old.

[WayAbvPar]

Closed beta is ending this weekend; should be open beta on Monday AFAIK. Come one, come all.

[taolurker]

Closed beta is ending this weekend; should be open beta on Monday AFAIK. Come one, come all.

There's been no official announcement of this yet?!? Are you sure?

Seeing as this isn't detailed anywhere I've seen, are you spreading rumors or breaking the NDA? Which is it?

[Signe]

Uh oh.  WAP is in SO MUCH TROUBLE!  I bet he gets yelled at.

[WayAbvPar]

There are people talking about it on the GD forum. I don't think the time is set in stone yet, but I do know that closed beta is over after today. Apologies if that stretches the NDA too much!

Uh oh.  WAP is in SO MUCH TROUBLE!  I bet he gets yelled at.

My wife doesn't work for them! 

[Signe]

If she did, I bet you would be SO smacked on the back of the head!

[DrewC]

http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/article&article_id=10483

No more NDA.

[Tige]

http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/article&article_id=10483

No more NDA.

Couple of quick things during beta that squashed my desire to play.

The fugliest, most convoluted and overall non-useful GUI ever.

Ship combat quickly distills down to spinning around and around unless you lay your squadron alongside the invisible combat zone which is too small.  SoL exploit ahoy!

I fear map resets due to catass guilds at an alarming rate.  I dare say you'll regret making the entire Caribbean small enough to be traversed in one session.

[Mrbloodworth]

http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/article&article_id=10483

No more NDA.

!!!

[Venkman]

Fun, not very polished, but very playable and a good alternative to DIKU if you're a veteran. Like SWG, it tries to do a lot more things than a standard EQ1 clone, but manages merely to pull them all off "pretty-good". The sorta game Smedley was talking about when he said virtual worlds don't sell.

[SnakeCharmer]

Decently fun ship combat, though it tires quickly.  Speed (both ship and cannon refire = win).
Horrible avatar combat.  Should have taken advantage of SOE's mo-cap studios.
Horrid UI.  Worst.  Ever.
Fun economic metagame.
Needs work in avatar graphics, ship graphics, land graphics.  Water sure is purty though.
A water based EvE.

Lots of potential mantra.  Could have been should have been but isn't.

[Nevermore]

Ok, then I'll offer up some quick impressions of the game.  Caveat: I only played in the two stress tests and didn't really have time to play much in the closed beta after the second stress.  This isn't in any particular order so forgive the jumping around.

Ship combat seems very accurate, and looks great.  Wind and position are very important and it's refreshing to see a game that uses a positional damage system.  Ships seem based on their historical counterparts (at least to a landlubber like myself) and again, everything looks amazing right down to your sails getting more tattered as you take sail damage all the way to possibly losing masts.  You can even zoom up close enough to your ship that you can see you captain (you) and your crew doing their crewly duties.

What I didn't like is it didn't seem like the ships were very customizable.  You had a few generic slots you could put some items that give you some bonuses, but where's the option to switch out the long cannons for shorter range but harder hitting carronades (I may be a landlubber, but I did read me some Patrick O'Brian on my breaks back when I used to work at Borders)?  Where's the fancy brass cannons?  How about some crew upgrades?  Maybe the ships get more customizable later on in the game, but it sure didn't seem that way up to level 15 or so.  In Eve, you get a basic hull and everything else you load out yourself.  Here it seemed like if you've seen one xebec, you've seen them all.

The other problem is combat felt slow.  Now that's not really a problem with the design of the game; that's just the genre.  You can't really have 'fast' naval combat.  Ships seemed to move pretty much how you'd expect them to.  It's just that after playing fast and furious games like CoX, Guild Wars or even Eve to a certain degree, PotBS just feels sluggish.  Nothing they can really do about that, but it seemed noteworthy.

As for your character, avatars certainly look pretty (though I was very disappointed how much they dulled down the colors of the avatars between stress I and stress II), and as I'm a hopeless clothes whore I had a lot of fun with all kinds of different looks.  That's about the only good thing I can say about it though.  If ships sometimes felt slow, avatar movement felt glacial.  Swashbuckling blew chunks.  Slow movement plus global cooldown timers on your swashbuckling skills = YAWN.  I can see what they were trying to do with the balance and initiative meters and if they had devoted as much time to swashbuckling as they did with sea combat, it might have turned out pretty well.  However, you can tell the system that's actually in the game was cobbled together with the electronic equivalent of bubblegum, a ball point pen and a paper clip.

Skills are gained using the typical leveling system; in this case the levels range from 1 to 50.  You get one skill point every time you level (at least you do from levels 1-15) but the type of skill point you get alternates between a ship skill and a swashbuckling skill.  Those two types of skill points are not interchangeable.  You also automatically get some skills at certain level thresholds, but that likely only happens at the lower levels for basic skills.  The skills you can buy are arranged in what I like to think of as 'picket fence' style, as opposed to a WoW skill 'tree'.  PotBS skill sets are all arranged in linear groupings of five skills each; buying the first skill in a group allows you to then purchase the second and so on.  There are about 10 such groupings for sea combat, most of which are useful from what I could tell, and another 10 or so groupings for swashbuckling, which are all largely useless (I was able to win any swashbuckling fight I was in with simple button mashing, unless I was outnumbered by at least 4 to 1).  Each of the four career types (Naval Officer, Privateer, Merchant or Pirate) has it's own skill sets, as well as each of the three schools of swordfighting.  The system they have isn't awful, but this is a game that practically begs for a level-free skill-based system.  Wasn't this game supposed to be modeled on Eve?

Finally, PvP.  I didn't get to do it much so I can't really comment too much about it, other than the game doesn't really tell you much about it.  Where can I PvP?  Who can I PvP?  When can I do it?  The game didn't offer up any answers to those questions.  Looking at the map, it seemed like the 4 factions could compete over most of the ports around the caribbean.  That's great but how do you do it?  What happens when a faction takes over a port?  There's probably some some excellent answers to those questions, but I wasn't able to figure them out from inside the game in my time there.  Tutorial please?

Overall, I have to stick with my original opinion of the game.  It's moderately entertaining at times, but it doesn't feel like the kind of game I'd be willing to shell out a big upfront purchase + monthly fee for.  A free download + moderate monthly fee?  Possibly.  A onetime purchase + free online play, a la Guild Wars?  Maybe.  But in its current state I can't really justify a purchase if it goes with the 'traditional' MMO pricing.  It doesn't help that because of the sad state of avatar combat, the game feels incomplete.  Maybe one day someone will realize that one of the reasons WoW has done so well is the game felt finished when it was released.

[Modern Angel]

I'll be the resident fanboy, then.

-I love the graphics. All of them. The water is great if a little bit glassy when there are no waves. Most of the rest of it is a bit stylized and cartoony but not to the level WoW is. Feels like a pirate movie, lookswise. On the lower settings it is sort of assy; the game does not look good at the lower levels and the difference is noticeable.

-Ship combat is a blast but not everyone's cup of tea. It does involve circling a lot. Picture 'Pirates!' with some special abilities and you have a pretty good idea. I'm not precisely sure what people were expecting; it's been done before but rather than that being a detriment I think it's a plus.

-The swashbuckling combat needs some work. There's some definite nuance to it which isn't apparent at first blush. Where it fails, however, is in the animations. The animations are choppy, turning is slow and targeting can be problematic. With polish it could get pretty darned interesting but it's going to require more work than is easy I'm afraid.

-Economy's not really my bag but is interesting. It's a mini-game which is engrossing yet hands off at the same time. There's a LOT of depth there: I can make a fortune on iron but to set up my iron mine I'll need to regularly sail through Spanish waters (or whoever), there are a zillion different buildings to invest in yet it never seemed forced to me and the interplay between the various goods and manufacturing will make any crafting nerd cream his pants.

-I, too, fear for the zerg guilds running everyone out and that's going to need to be addressed. It's a big enough world to have fun in but once the 500 person guilds get together it gets small in a big hurry. It should be noted that this never happened in closed beta that I saw but I also haven't played in two weeks due to a rash of real life stuff. There's no mechanic in place that I can see to balance the sides which is liable to make the French sink (HAW!) real fast each server reset. I'm also worried about nationalistic passions taking the normal pvp flame wars to a whole new level of insanity we've not seen before. I hope they have some GM's and CM's with a low bullshit tolerance to nip it in the bud.

-Yes, it's EVE-esque but I think they've hit just the right balance of risk vs. punishment which EVE, for me, skewed the wrong way on. If they did indeed say that they wanted EVE without quite as much time investment or heartache when you lose they hit it absolutely perfectly.

To sum up, this game is not perfect but it's the first MMO to capture my imagination since WoW hit three years ago. When I play it I'm absolutely enrapt. It's not going to be for everyone but I don't think it's trying to be. I'm going to preorder it and I can see this being a game I can play for awhile which the upcoming slate of MMOs probably won't be.

[Venkman]

The big difference from Eve in my mind is a lack of a uniserver. The world on each server isn't big enough to prevent per-server uber guilds from dominating. That forced them to put in the contrived server reset mechanism. I honestly haven't kept up with it in a month or so though (too many other time draws), so I don't know what they've patched in or announced about that.

I don't like the server reset system (which iirc was basically each port reverting ownership to its default monthly). That rips away a bit piece of the immersive "world" feel. I'd have preferred they tried to go uniserver with it where the sheer quantity of players is sort of a self-correcting mechanism. Sure, a few ubers own a good chunk of the universe there, but the number of corps they have in each alliance is much larger than most of the people in most DIKU guilds.

That was my one big disappointment, though admittedly it's mostly an abstract. Day-to-day, it is a fun game to play.