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So should i bother trying this game?

T

Toony

Guest
So im highly interested in getting this game but i've heard it's basically a PVP game. I've never been a fan of PVP and generally avoid it, i've no desire to PVP and prefer to stick to PVE. My question is if i played this game am i gonna be forced into PVP? Will i effectively be able to avoid PVP and just do PVE or will i have to PVP/is it basically forced on me?
 
K

kungtotte

Guest
POTBS is very much focused on PvP, and the Nation vs. Nation warring. The PvE content is somewhat lacking in terms of quests, but you can still travel in the gameworld and hunt NPCs should you like that (and ship combat is where POTBS shines), and there is always the possibility of working the economy.

The economy in the game is player driven, which means that everything you would need to keep PvPing or PvEing is produced by players. Ships, ammunition, ship modifications and so on.

Now, the PvP in POTBS is available through three major areas. First, you may enable your PvP Flag. This makes it possible for any player of another nation to attack you anywhere you sail. Second, you may engage in loss-free duels. You can duel any player you want, including those of the same nation as you, and if you should sink you do not lose your ship. The third and main mode of PvP is through the so called red circles. When a port is under attack by another nation, a PvP area forms around it, in which it is free for all PvP. Traveling within that circle is tantamount to enabling your PvP Flag.

Here is where it gets tricky. The natural resources required for producing various items in the economy is spread out around ports, many of which can be found in hotly contested areas. So in order to be able to produce any number of items, you will have to brave the circle and try to sneak through it. Many times you will also be producing goods in one port, only to move them to another port where you sell them on the auction house, which will entail smuggling the goods through a circle.

So to summarize:
It is entirely possible to focus only on PvE, but be warned that the quest-content is (currently) quite lacking in the long term, and sometimes you will find quests are blocked off by PvP-areas.
If you engage in the economy, you are almost certainly going to have to dip your toe in PvP waters, but you may still avoid the actual PvP by sailing a fast and stealthy ship.
PvP and NvN is the current end-game, but player housing and port governance is on the horizon to offer other alternatives, and work is progressing on adding more quest-content.
 
T

Toony

Guest
Thats too bad. I'd really love a pirate MMO and it looked fun but if all there is to do is PVP, i've no desire to play it. I simply dislike PVP.
 
S

Sid Tama

Guest
Have you taken a look at Pirates of the Caribbean online?
http://apps.pirates.go.com/pirates/v3/

You can play the first few levels for free. If you enjoy it and sign up to pay to play you'll get all levels, weapons and ad free full screen play. I enjoyed it but was looking for something more PVP oriented.
 
T

Toony

Guest
Tried it, not too fun due to disney gestapoing it. Im dissapointed though, as i'd like a PVE Pirate MMO that didn't have the risk of getting ganked. In all honesty, if this game had a trial i'd try it but i can't justify spending 50 or so bucks to try a game i have a good hunch i'll dislike. Thanks for the help though.
 

Kayhynn

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Campaign Supporter
It does have a 14 day trial. And I'm pretty sure I still have my trial codes if you wish one.
 
T

Toony

Guest
Reading the forums/looking around the site for POTBS, it seems they have a trial planned (there is one for australian players but requires an australian IP to get, im an american player so that wouldn't work for me). As for a buddy code, i'd really appreciate it if you have one to spare as i really wanna try this game for myself.
 
C

CanIhaveYourStuf

Guest
I got suckered into this game the first month it was out, thanks to all the hype and the usual "YOU GOTTA GET THIS GAME!!!!eleven!!!" kind of reviews various game magazines were giving it (Like "Suck Up", "Silicon Valley Sycophants", and "Da Hype"). The green parrot toy for buying the game the day it came out was fun for about an hour, after which point it was like "ok, so I'm running around town dressed as a stereotypical pirate with a parrot to boot...how do I change to something fresh...oh yeah, this isn't Second Life, I'm stuck with my look).

The quests involve too much running around swashbuckling. If I wanted a sword game, I'd go play Guild Wars, WoW, or even Runescape lol

Although I never once did any PvP, the ship combat was kind of neat (but it got repetitive after a while). Plus if you wanted to capture a ship, or do any real damage, you needed to board the enemy and engage in a sword fight. Which was tedious due to not being able to hit anyone if you're facing the wrong way (my main beef with WoW...see City of Heroes, Guild Wars, or even Runescape lol for a better system...just click the monster and your dude starts hacking or shooting away). Plus just because you'd clicked on the bad guy, didn't mean your dude was gonna keep hitting the monster. Nope, you had to keep clicking the darn swing sword button. At least that's what I remember, I could be wrong, I only played for a month lol Maybe they changed it.

Never did figure out the economy, so I never got to sell a single bit of booty.

The graphics, however, are some of the best water I've ever seen, and I almost paid the subscription fee just to keep playing for that reason alone. But that's a lot to shell out for pretty graphics, when there's not much of a game underneath.

And I'm not the only one who feels this way, considering that the game did so poorly they've already moved everyone to just four servers (or is it one at this point? Like I said, I don't follow it anymore. So much potential, not enough delivery...)
 
K

kungtotte

Guest
You can change your appearance at the Tailor, available in your starting town and at your nation's capital. Admittedly it's not a freeform character designer, it's the same selection of pre-made pieces that you saw when you created your character initially. Leveling up and doing quests unlocks some extra pieces of clothing and so on.

As for the prevalence of swashbuckling quests... I don't have any objective measure of exactly how many quests there are of each type, but my guess and experience is that it's about 60/40 in favour of ship-quests. If you don't like swashbuckling then there's really nothing else to say, in that case even one quest would be one too many. I happen to like swashbuckling though, even if many quests get too repetitive by taking place in the exact same instance. They are alleviating that by introducing new instances.

Ship combat against NPCs can tend to get repetitive, but in recent versions they have vastly improved on the AI, particularly in quests, which makes it an actual challenge sometimes.

As far as being forced to board, I would say you did not play the game long enough to learn the truth of that. Boarding is only the best option until you become level 21 and get access to the Postillionen Frigate, after that it is faster to shoot the NPCs until they surrender. PvP is a different beast all together. There are few comparisons that can be made between PvP and PvE, and it's a sufficiently complicated subject that it cannot be covered here. In my opinion, it is Way More Fun(tm) than PvE.

The economy as a system is good and has unmatched potential, unfortunately circumstances have made closed production-chains the norm with people trading player-to-player and not going near the Auction Houses, which means that in practice the economy is stagnant and unrewarding.

There are still four servers (six if you count the Australian server, Invincible, and Testbed), and the reason they went down to four was that they overestimated the initial number of subscribers, underestimated how many people a server needed to function, and underestimated how well their servers could cope with the load.

I won't lie, there are serious population-problems plaguing this game right now, but free trials (coming Soon(tm)) and a small trickle of new subscribers seem to be turning the negative trend into a positive one. From where I stand, I see a higher influx of new players than I see an exodus of old ones, which of course is very good for the servers.

The one sentence summary of how I see POTBS: Strong potential, some problems as it stands right now, it will weather the storm and come out the other side a survivor.
 
T

Toony

Guest
Im sorta surprised it doesn't have a trial yet considering how poorly it's been doing. I'd potentially buy it but not without trying it.
 
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