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Sophisticated and Addicting Game that Needs Some Polish

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 25 / 26
Date: January 23, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Pros:
Naval Combat
Music
Character Creation
Economy

Cons:
Steep Learning Curve
Character Combat
Buggy Quests
Sporadic Technical Issues

As a proud owner of Sid Meir's Pirates! and also of Bethesda's title Sea Dogs, any game the offers me the opportunity to set sail on the high seas puts a piratical gleam in my eye. While some Pirate games are hit or miss (Pirates of the Caribbean anyone?), Pirates of the Burning Sea generally creates more clangs than empty swooshes.

The highlight of the game, and any pirate game in my mind, is the ability to fit out a ship and do battle on the high seas. Pirates of the Burning Sea does not disappoint, as the naval combat, while tedious at first, is actually quite fun. Sea battles also happen to be quite breathtaking, which adds to the overall immersion into the game.

Character creation is also a plus. There are many different ways to customize your character to add your own special touches. The ability to create a truly unique character gives one more pride of their avatars, and again, adds to the immersion in the game. This is a major difference from the popular World of Warcraft, where characters of the same race and gender generally look pretty similar.

One downside is the character combat system which is a little unwieldy in the beginning. Unfortunately, like many of the areas of this game that seem weak, the character combat could have used another few months of polish because it is mostly repetitive and hard to learn.

The economy model is probably the most well conceived part of the game. In Pirates of the Burning Sea, the players really do drive the economy. If you want to buy timber, someone has to sell it to you. Even more cool, certain ships can only be built by other players, and require a vast amount of diverse resources to bring into action. This creates opportunities very similar to reality by requiring the integration of various people and professions cooperating to make a large project happen. The economic structure in this game is so well conceived, it is not at all hard to imagine many players playing the game simply to test their trading skills.

The game is not without its share of problems. A couple of times, technical glitches occurred that caused the program to crash entirely. Also, there are numerous spelling errors and quests that simply do not work. One problem I have noticed more than once is that sometimes deaths during a quest will make it impossible to complete. These annoying technical problems and areas where the game lacks polish actually do a pretty significant job of detracting from what would otherwise be a stellar game. However, since this is a MMO, hopefully many of the technical issues and problems can be addressed in future patches.

In all, if you love Pirate games, you will want to give Pirates of the Burning Sea a try. Hopefully, this game will continue to be polished and improved in the months ahead and could eventually become a truly spectacular game.

Unless you celebrate "Talk Like a Pirate Day", pass

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 25 / 35
Date: January 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I pre-ordered this game and participated in the beta and have also been playing since launch. I really wanted to like this game, having loved Sid Meier's Pirates, both on the old Nintendo & the re-release that came out for the Xbox/PC etc only a few years ago.

The combat is not fun - it becomes tedious very quickly. There is no sense in sinking an enemy ship because the various professions/classes get bonuses by capturing ships (usually in the form of a pennant). You also don't get to salvage as much if you sink the enemy ship. What this means is that you'll find yourself boarding enemy ships EVERY TIME and this involves fighting the same unnaturally-fast-moving crew & captain over and over and over again. The combat system is limited to just pressing 2 over and over (assuming that's your primary attack) because you're guaranteed to win and there's no sense prolonging the fight by using defensive moves, etc. The ship battles themselves are sometimes fun when fought in groups, but when fighting alone they quickly become cookie-cutter fight sequences where you chase the enemy ship down, board, defeat the captain, and collect a minimal reward, all for 5 minutes of your life - if you're lucky & the battle doesn't go long because of unfavorable winds.

The economy is hyped by Flying Lab Software as being deep and entirely player controlled - it didn't impress me either. In general the ports that are nearest the starting point for each nationality are full - i.e., any resource that can be gathered already has dozens of dozens of people creating and selling that resource. In Bartica for example there are regularly 20 people standing around in the room praying somebody buys their wares. In order to make any money/combine resources into more valuable units you have to do some sailing to a distant port w/ alternate resources - and this sailing takes a very long time, you can spend 15 minutes just getting to the next port all the while dreading an enemy encounter (as it would suck up more time you could spend making money).

I always liked playing French in Sid Meier's, so tried that out for a while. Nation chat was filled with French (and I don't speak French), so that didn't last long. I didn't last long as a Pirate because I don't speak "lulz we g4nk3d that f00l". The Spanish chat was better because I speak Spanish, but I found myself far more comfortable playing British and I have a feeling that as POTBS grows it will always be skewed toward British/Pirate because of language & cultural barriers - this was already the case on the Blackbeard server where the British/Pirate populations were moderate whereas the Spanish/French were light.

Other annoyances include a poor chat system, duplicate quests, annoying load times between the town and buildings within the town (the economy tutorial forces you to suffer this load time over a dozen times, which is asinine), and character customization. They did do a decent job allowing you to customize your character w/ various colors and clothes - as long as you like being a human the same height as everybody else.

Anyway, as I said in my title - unless you celebrate "Talk Like a Pirate Day" and can't live w/o a game like this, I suggest that you pass - there are plenty of better games (especially MMORPGs) out there.

Setting Sail too Early

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 12
Date: January 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I wanted to like this game, I really did. I loved Pirates! and I think that it makes a great setting for a game. However, after playing the beta I have decided that I have to pass on the game for now. There are just too many things which still need polishing and I think some of the game mechanics like the economy and the end game need some sorting out in the "real world".
So, I will wait and see how it shakes out during its maiden voyage (first year) before revisiting my decision.

Good ideas...some poor execution

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 9
Date: January 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I was really excited for this game. Sounds amazing on paper. There are pros and cons....

PROS
1. Ship to Ship combat...excellent. Agree its "better" for you to board, but I just sink everyone
2. PvP
3. Idea of the economy

CONS
1. Avatar (sword) combat is stupid. I agree, lots of pushing "2". No strategy. They should eliminate it.
2. Steep Steep learning curve, with minimal guidance esp re the economy. This will leave a lot of MMORG newbies quick to bail. I would go with a better tutorial.

Creative New MMO

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 13
Date: January 26, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I picked up the pre-order after playing in Beta. The game is like cyber-crack for me. The graphics are beautiful and make me feel like I'm on a vacation in the Caribbean. It has wonderful lighting and color; I can feel the sun on my face - everytime I play it's like an escape.

The sea battles rock! I get to captain my own tall ship, how cool is that? With a wind direction factor {effecting your speed and manouverability}, skills, and different types of shot, the battles are strategic and gripping. I like to play with my camera down on deck which makes the battles even more hectic and immersive.

I don't find the avatar combat to be all that much less interesting than WOW's, but people are pretty down on it anyway. It's not as fun as the sea battles, but it's a nice contrast to them (and I do find it fun).

The story arch missions are fantastic. The writing is the best I've ever seen in a game, really.

Also, the music is phenominally good.

The camera could use some love, as could the UI. Improving these would make the the immersion factor stronger.

Not much new here, needs a LOT of polish.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 17
Date: January 26, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Seems to be a clone of Sid Meier's 2005 Pirates except with online play. But it lacks the things that make online play fun.

Pros:
-Colorful world, sounds are nicely done and sound authentic.
-Player toons look great, large selection of cool colorful period outfits.
-Sunsets over the ocean look great.

Cons:
-World has a cartoony look. Everything looks a bit too clean for an 18th century pirate world.
-Steep learning curve.
-The quests are nearly identical. Same jungle maze layout you loadscreen to.
-You can't explore the world. Can't walk or swim in the ocean, jump off the dock or even cross the rivers except via one bridge. Cannot see your ship from the seaport and walk onto it, must wait through load screen to get on. Very gamey feel. Seaports all look the same.
-LOTS of load screens throughout.
-I have a recently built system (C2D 2.67, 680i mb, 8800gt 512mb gpu, 4gb ram, updated drivers) but the ocean artifacted so badly, flickering between green and blue, could not play more that 30 min without getting a headache. E-mailed customer support, no reply.
-Games years older, like 2005 Pirates! and Sea Dogs are more fun than this.

Conclusion:
Really wanted to like this, pre-ordered and all. Still awaiting a good pirate mmo.

Pirates, ships, guns and swords....what more could you want?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: January 26, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Reading the above comments, I can pretty clearly see that the majority of reviewers likely come from a world of warcraft or everquest experience. This game is meant to be different from the get go. The economy has more depth than the two combined and you get to start it from lvl 1 if you so choose. Which other game does that (aside from maybe EVE online)?

Ship combat is very cool, its beautiful, fun, and full of danger. Most games with PvP are kind of care bare, in that if you die, you only lose a small amount of experience, or maybe damage your armor. In this game, you have a reason to try as hard as you can to not be sunk. In PotBS, you actually care about your gear.

There are 4 nations to choose from, and quite a few classes to choose from. Many of the skills have overlap, but this helps for player balance. The swashbuckling combat is kind of odd. The players do move too quickly and it quickly becomes a big cluster of similar looking characters, though I'm sure this will all change in time.

This game has more depth by FAR than most MMO's out there, is certainly less care bare, and has a much cooler PvP system. All in all, I feel its quite good and can only get better with time! Try to remember, most MMOs ,even the ones people consider "perfect", were far from it at launch!

Good luck on the Burning Seas!

Really great

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 12
Date: January 26, 2008
Author: Amazon User

In a world full of orcs and elves, Pirates of the Burning Sea is a breath of fresh air. The game shines on Ship Combat. It's taking a lot of criticism for it's avatar combat, but I think it's really different from other MMO's. You have to think. You have to be intelligent. Flying Lab has added "balance" to typical MMO combat and the difference doesn't really show through until you are past level 10. Knocking your opponent off balance and gaining initiative are really important here. PLUS!!!!! there are no rats to kill. No inferior rat pelts, and semi inferior rat pelts or ratty warthog pelts. Give it a try. I defy you to not get hooked!! Vive Le France!

Avast!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 28 / 32
Date: January 28, 2008
Author: Amazon User

(update)
Frankly, this is the best PvP game I've seen in years. If you are looking for a good PvP game, just buy this now. If you want a fun game to play alone and sail ships around the map by yourself, get Sea Dogs instead. Not that this game can't be fun solo, but the meat and potatoes comes from fleet vs fleet action and you're not going to be a fleet of 1. Join up, bring some friends / find some friends and you'll have a blast.

I'll stand by my 4-star rating as opposed to 5-star because frankly the first 10 levels are a bore and the avatar combat (swashbuckling) needs serious technical work before it will be any good, but the ship-to-ship combat is great fun and makes for the best player vs player action you can get today in an MMO, and I've played everything from UO to EVE to WW2O to Planetside to WOW and a bunch in between.

Also, don't think, "Meh, I'd be joining it too long after release. I don't want to have to grind XP in the newbie zones before I can have fun." This game isn't like that. At level 43 I have no problem inviting level 7 guildmates to my groups, both for PvP and PvE. They get a lot of XP by helping me sink level 40 opponents, I don't lose that much XP per ship and they're actually quite helpful, allowing me to kill faster and ultimately level faster and safer myself. Even a level 7 in a small ship can damage sails, distract the enemy and, if ignored, do some nasty stuff like sailing up to rake the enemy decks with grapeshot. A level 7 isn't going to take down a level 40 player in PvP but he's far from useless in battle.

There are 4 factions: Pirate, English, French and Spanish. They are involved in a 4-way war for control of the Caribbean. The game may be called "Pirates of the Burning Sea" but more accurate might be "International War in the Caribbean (Also Has Pirates)". The three major nations are all worth playing and actually have some completely different game mechanics than the pirates, so if you wanted to be a pirate OR if you wanted to be a British fleet officer facing pirates, this game is for you.

The game basically has 3 distinct sections:

* Open Sea
In the open sea, you basically have a toy ship which you drive around over the ocean between ports and look for other ships to attack. This is a simple but nice looking part of the game for navigating on the open sea without actually taking 4 real-time months to get places.

* Sea Combat
This is the real meat and potatoes for this game and I think they've done well with it. It's not a total "sea battle simulator" as Sea Dogs was. You don't have to manually aim your guns or time your firing with the sea swells, but you do have to deal with wind direction as well as managing your sails, maneuvering to keep targets within the general firing arc of your guns, the type of ammo you want to use (cannon balls vs armor, chains vs sails, grape vs crew, etc) and bleeding ship speed during hard turns. There are various skills and expendable items you can use during combat to help repair emergency damage to sails, hull, etc. There are also skills for increasing ship speed or weapon reload time at the expense of something else. You'll have plenty of things to manage without worrying about the sea swells.

Ramming works -- although it does no damage, you can block an enemy ship, force him to turn by ramming him and generally set him up to be boarded. You can also protect an ally by getting between him and whoever is shooting at him. Really, this is some impressive ship to ship combat. If you played EVE, I can tell you that POTBS ship combat is better than EVE ship combat.

* On foot
There is a "you" in this game. You aren't just a ship. You can dock with ports and run around but there's also a melee component to the game.

Hand to hand battles come into play during some missions given to you by the NPCs but it's also part of ship to ship boarding. If you pull alongside an enemy ship, you can attempt to board it and fight the enemy captain and NPC crew using your character and your own NPC crew.

This part of the game is not overly well fleshed out. You will be disappointed if you come expecting a full blown World of Warcraft type battle experience. It's more like a fun little meta-game they threw in, and it's not bad. It reminds me a lot of combat in City of Heroes, actually.

Back to ports, though -- ports are where you'll find another large aspect of the game: crafting. I was surprised with the depth and thought they've put into crafting, but I suppose it makes sense. What good is a ship if you don't have something to carry? Because what good is being a pirate if other people aren't carrying things you can steal from them? So even if you're a full blown PvP pirate, you have to appreciate the crafting game simply because it gives you something to take from other people. (Arrr, booty.)

To get started with crafting, you go to a port and create a Warehouse. Once you have a warehouse you can create resource structures depending on what resources are available at the port. If there's "Fertile Soil" you can grow crops (such a hemp, used in making rope, or maize, used in making cheese or growing livestock). If there's "Oak", you can set up a lumber yard for farming oak. Etc. These farms supply resources based on a real-time clock. So the person who plays 16 hours a day is not able to bring in more resources from a farm than someone who plays 1 hour a day because the farm is basically working 24 hours a day whether you're there or not. You just need to swing by periodically and collect your resources.

From this, you have the basis for an overwhelmingly player-driven economy. From the start, the game encourages you to use the auction house to look for player-made goods rather than the NPC store, which sells only very basic things and sells them at much higher prices than players are likely to charge for the same things. Don't buy your ammo from the NPC "Fence" until you've checked the Auction House for player-made ammo which is cheaper.

I do think they can do a bit more with NPC AI, melee battles and PvP, but I think they picked a good time to release and the game is pretty good once you get into the swing of things. Give it a day or two to get used to the interface and get yourself to level 10 or so and don't be afraid to group up with others and I think you'll be surprised at how much fun this game is.

Mixed feelings, technical nightmare, beautiful, easy, fun, game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: January 30, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game is great! So far that I have only been able to play it for 20 minutes. I loved the tutorial and the graphics are amazing. So far I actually really enjoy the interface... though I question... was "Age of Pirates" a pre-liminary release of this game??? The symbols, the graphics, the key-board controls, pretty much everything is identical in the UI. Voices are pretty good, I was actually disappointed in the ship-ship combat graphics, and if I can ever get back in, i might play with the preferences to make that nicer. The background graphics are phenom and I can't wait to go sailing around.

Early "learning" quests are semi-guided and it seems it is easy to get what you want when you go places as there are always many options when talking to a "store" or "quest" npc. Makes the learning curve not so bad. I am ready to start figuring out what I need to set sail or start some business ventures before I go.

However, before you even install it, you should go to AEGIS and download their PhysX software drivers (free). If you don't you likely won't be able to run the game anyway.

Plan on downloading updates for at least 45 minutes after you install as well. I have wireless-n with 75k/s actual throughput.

Now that it's installed, it ran, once. Now I can't get it to run again. In fact, I can't end the process either once it freezes. I have to soft-boot. There is almost no information on their support site.

C2D 2.33ghz CPU, 4x1gb 800mhz gskills RAM, pny 8800gts 640mb GPU, encore wireless-n WIFI, EVGA 680i-LT mobo, cooler7pro CPUfan, 3xDVD r/rw, 4x160gb HD, Antec 650w SLI PSU. Windows XPsp2-32bit.

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