I've been slacking on posts, but I have completed my trial on PotBS and have started a 2 week trial on a f2p called Monato Esprit and when that review comes so will my screenshots as I took no screens of my times on the burning sea. Here's my review of PotBS.
Now this is a very good and great to look at MMORPG, I love pirates and no I've never was into the whole pirates vs ninjas bullshit or anything like that. However, if I was around during the Golden Age of Piracy you best believe I would have been a pirate and a damn good one at that. I got to pick my faction and I choose the Brits, not because I wish I called my friends mate and ciggerrettes fags, but because the Brits seemed liek the under dogs compared to the ruthless pirates. I created my character and he resembled Jack Sparrow - not gunna lie. I picked my server and off I was into the tutorial. I learned how to fight and the basics of the game. I soon found myself doing a ship tutorial and I was off into the game world. Though the game is very pretty and it is an interesting take on a MMORPG that doesn't take the fantasy setting of orcs and elves, like the millions of others. I do have some gripes. I should start calling this blog a review shit that bitches but let's be honest, In any game there is always something to bitch about so I'll bitch and than give the good points.
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OKay first gripe. Quests, sure you get the quest you read what the NPC has to say and than you go to complete it. ALl fine and dandy but could you give me a hint of where to find these stones statues I have to collect. I mean really, the NPC tells me to go to each shop and collect these statues and bring it back to him, the Junk Merchant. Okay sure no problem, but there's only about 5 doors I can walk into from the town and I've chatted with everyone and I couldn't find any of these statues. I'm not asking for a quest helper, a la WoW and I'm not asking for a game to hold my hand but come one now. A little more direction such as go to this shop and find this person would help. Not just giving me a list of the statues and saying go get them from each shop. Like I said there we're about 5 doors and about 6 stone statues, maybe I'm retarded.
Gripe number 2. Ship battles. I love this idea there's a few f2p that also offer this feature in a pirate setting but none of them can make it fun. I've played Eve Online and let me tell you fighting anything in that game is BORING. Ship battles are almost excatly like that. however you gotta be mindful of the wind, which is a bitch when you have 3 enemy ships coming at you and you have to turn against the wind to get to them. The wind seems to be hitting you on the one side you need to turn. ON top of that unlike eve where you can shoot your enemy from every side regardless of your position, my cannons would only work if i was facing the enemy ship with them and I had to be basically on top of the enemy to have your cannon button glow to let you know you can fire them. So to sum it up it's a pain in the ass for me at least than fun.
Final gripe, this game gives me an every-thing-is-instances game. the town just doesn't feel like a town more or less a set of buildings set up so you can only enter a few and it was set up almost what felt like a pathway fromt he dock to the "town hall." No matter where you went it was instanced, the quest I was given in the beginning to go defend the city from pirates, i was wiscked away to a instanced zone of the town where everything was destroyed, cool yes but immerson killer, very Age of Connan-ish. no matter where you went there was a loading screen.
I liked the pirate theme and I like the crack the devs took to make an innovated game with an interesting theme, but there is a reason why it doesn't have a large population. And within 2 days you can see why. Sure this might be a short review with nothing but bitching but when a player isn't interested in playing because of his gripes with the game than the player isn't going to want to continue playing. I stuck out my 14 days and I played everyday for about 3-4 hrs.
There are some good points to point out. 1. the graphics are B E A U TI FUL, but it doesn't make up for the lack of depth and gameplay. PvP is a nightmare if your not level cap, 50 and even still I've read on forums than it can still be quite unfair. I like the step into something other than fantasy because really that shit gets so tiring once you've played a large chunk of games that include fantasy one way or another. The sea adventures and the ship battles are yes innovative but boring, sure how fast pace could you make it though, and the wind tho being real is just a pain in the arse sometimes, and boarding enemy towns is also a pain. You need to first clear out a big chunk of the enemies, how do you do this? You sail from side to side making sure you cannon buttons are light up and than you rinse and repeat. I did this side to side shooting for a good 6-7mins before I was told by the game I could now board the base. Only to find out than you basically need to be standing still and be sideways to get your little boarding button to light up. This could have been a bug, but I won't ever know. This review might be short and maybe not so thought out, but as I don't have a lot of time as I must go meet friends to discuss what we are recording tonight. I will rewrite a full and better understanding and organized review tonight once I'm done recording my new song tonight with a few friends of mine.
Anyway, my reviews is IMO, and to truley get a full understanding of the game you must experience it yourself. Bottom line is for a subscription triple A MMO, it's not worth the money for me. Sure my money won't make a difference to them but I also don't like Sony as they seem to just run all their games into the ground for the sake of money.
