Super Penguin NET

I bought Pirates of the Burning Sea a while back when it first released. I can’t remember why I quit it initially but I did. I probably just felt like playing something else or life just got to busy. The other day I found out that PotBS went Free to play (F2P). I figured I would give it another shot.

Players that originally bought the game automatically get a Premium account according to the FAQs and my experience from the game. If you have just the free account it’s a little limited like you are only allowed to characters, 2 ships in dock etc… Trust me you need more than 2 ships in dock. They also have an account type that is paid which is called Captains Club which costs about $15/month. After one month of captains club you can cancel and will automatically have the Premium account which is free from that point on. The only real thing that seems different about the Captains Club and the Premium is you get all “epic” missions is how I believe they described it which I assume isn’t even needed until cap. You can get these missions on the Premium buy paying for them individually also as far as I know. Other then that you get all the same stuff. Can have 100 ships or something like that. For details on the account differences Click Here.

Now on to the game itself… I am actually really enjoying this game now. It’s been a while since I have said that about any MMO. The combination of ground fighting and ship to ship combat is fun. I love taking down a ship then boarding it for some reason. Of course I can just sink the bastard. The game has plenty of PvP for those who enjoy that. The PvP of the game is like a conquest type thing. Conquer ports etc… Yes you can conquer a port and even become the mayor of ports. Which of course has it’s own corruptible perks. I have had a couple issues with the game and from my reading they seem to be caused from the F2P. Zone loading some times can be slow at peak. I also got impatient (as many of you know I can be very impatient) and closed the game while in one of these loading states which got my character stuck and could not connect to the server. I opened a ticket and they had me fixed in 15 minutes which I was surprised about. I wasn’t expecting a solution till the next day.

The missions are fun and unique. I haven’t found any missions yet that seem repetitive. They may be by nature but the lore and such that goes along with them is fun. All the combat is instanced. When in the open seas you can engage basically anyone you want. I play as a pirate so that makes things a bit more interesting. Speaking of being a pirate there is 4 factions… French (who would want to play as the French?), Spanish, British, and of course Pirate (my choice). British and Pirate seem to be the popular ones. You are only allowed characters on one faction at a time until it resets. It resets when a faction reaches 300 points and then you have 24hours to switch if you choose to.

There are plenty classes of ships that appear different. As far as your character, you customize it to you liking and thats it. Armor and other items really don’t show up. Not saying nothing shows up… For example I got a rat from a quest that shows up on my shoulder. You are also allowed to change your looks after the fact… Like my girlfriend changed hers to be in what appears to be a school girl outfit .

I am not high level at all yet but I do find some of the missions can be difficult but fun at the same time. The game is definitely worth trying out in my opinion. I’ll post an update when I have played it some more.

There have been a number of MMO’s released recently. Aion, Star Trek Online, Champions Online, and the list goes on. Ever since World of Warcraft released in my opinion MMORPG’s quality have gone down. My experience of MMO’s is huge. I’ve played Eve-online , Everquest , Everquest II, WoW, Neocron, Aion, STO, and many more. WoW has ruined the games, it’s made them want to compete with an overall easy game with little basis on content. When I play an MMO I am in it for the social playing and content. The game needs to feel like a real world with many adventures to do.

Companies like Blizzard and SOE are all in it for the money and don’t care about the players. A lot of people play the games still because they have nothing to do and won’t give up something they have spent so much time on. WoW got it’s player base from an series called Diablo by Blizzard, once WoW released all the players from Diablo flocked over to WoW. The general culture of Diablo was 14-16 year olds, not saying anything is wrong with this age they just aren’t that mature. So you get these players who all they care about is getting to max level and getting the best gear as fast as possible. They don’t care about lore, role playing (You know the R in MMORPG), or content. This brings me to my next point.

Games just have no creativity anymore. If you have played any MMO from WoW or newer there just isn’t anything new. They are all button mashing, getting the same type of quests done over and over, no real AI, and majority of the NPCs are the same just higher level with more points. If you want to have a PvP based MMORPG that is fine, but you better have the content to support it. When Neocron was going before Dome of York (DoY) it was a fun game to play with in a clan (Neocron’s version of Guilds). All the area’s were unique. All the NPC’s were unique. You could really work together to accomplish goals. It had a real faction system, with all the player ran clans in it. To me the game was fun and had a lot of potential of the company making it could ever get their act together and make it stable.

Eve online is a decent MMO. It’s been around for a while and really has a culture behind it. The AI is retarded in the game but they make up for that with the PvP and market systems. The game definetly isn’t for everyone. It’s a very complex game. Everquest was another great game until SOE took over. Once SOE took over they did the whole mentality of making the game easier to play, which gets rid of any challenge and it becomes just a grind. Same thing happened with Everquest II. The game was great until they decided to compete with WoW. They made the game far to solo friendly and it became all about grinding. There are some games I am looking forward to like SWTOR but we will have to wait and see. As for me I will never buy another MMO without the ability to try it at least for 2 weeks prior to paying for it. I have paid for far to many MMO’s and quit them within a week.

If a new MMO wants to come out and really compete with a game like WoW or Eve-Online which have such huge player basis will have to do a lot. Player controlled area’s with real PvP is always a plus. Real content for PvE that relies on Guild/Clan’s to work together to accomplish. The game needs real goals instead of just Max Level and gear. I don’t work for or own a multi-million(Billion?) dollar company so I obviously can’t come up with everything. But with some complexity that actually makes sense and in a way makes it understandable, smarter AI, and a lot to do for every type of player you may actually have a decent game.