Pirates Of The Burning Sea (mmo)

[Wolfie]

I thought i'd write a quick review for those of us who enjoy playing MMO's

Name: Pirates of the Burning Sea

Publisher: Flying Labs Software

Genere: MMO - Heavy RvR/PvP

Website: http://www.burningsea.com/

Overview

PotBS is set sometime around the 1720's, in the Caribbean. Its got a "Pirates of the Caribbean" flavour to it all, probably inspired by the films.

Four Nations battle it out for the control of the map (by controlling ports/towns) these are; British, French, Spanish, Pirate.

Each Nation controls a set number of ports to begin with, most ports have different types of resources that the player can harvest and use to build things (such as ships, ammo & weapons) Players can capture other nations ports reducing the resources available to the other nations. This is mainly done through PvE, attacking NPC ships within a certain radius of the port creating 'unrest' in that town, once enough unrest is generated the port goes into 'contention' and becomes a general PvP area, where Players can attack other players, these battles generate 'contention points' that are used later. Once a port has been in contention for 48hrs (i think, they keep changing the actual number) a Port Battle will happen, and those with contention points are given the opportunity to join in the battle. The battle determines which nation controls the port after the battle, the attacker or defender. All Nations can go through this cycle, except Pirates can only hold an opposing players town for 3 days before it reverts back to the original nation (also, Pirates ports can only be held for 3 days).

Each Nation (British, French, Spanish) have three 'classes' or professions available to them, Naval Officer, Privateer, Freetrader. Each class has certain strengths and weaknesses (broken down, roughly, as follows)

Naval Officer

These are players in service to the King, They are skilled in naval combat and get powerful 'Ships of the Line' NO's rely on their powerful ships and combat skills to aid them in combat.

Privateer

Basically, Pirates with the blessing of the King. They are able to attack other nations ships and engage in Pirate PvP. Privateers rely on speed and agility to take down their opponents in combat.

Freetrader

Traders who have the ability to see all Auction houses, get access to better cargo ships and advanced buildings and can buff the groups abilities. Whilst Freetraders have access to the same ships as NO's and Privateers (except class specific ones) they dont get a great deal of combat orientated skills to help them in combat.

Economy

The whole economy is player driven, except for quest rewards, a few sub-standard ships and some over priced consumables (such as Ammo and Hull Patches) everything bought has been made by players. Every player, regardless of class, is able to harvest and manufacture, but obviously FreeTraders have a few economy specific skills and abilities to give them the advantage and some fat cargo ships for moving things around. Players can make ships, cannons, weapons, consumables, ammo and ship fittings and everything is sold through Auction houses. Players are given 10 'Spaces' that can be used to harvest resources at a given port or build manufacturing structures (such as shipyards, forges and weaponsmiths etc) and can also build warehouses to store goods in. To control the flow of goods and stop people flooding the market, each account is allowed 10 buildings per server, so whilst you are able to have multiple characters on one server, they have to share the 10 spaces between them.

RvR (Realm verses Realm)

The game is predominately a RvR game, so taking and holding Ports is a major aspect of the game. Nations battle it out for control of the map. There are victory conditions in place to prevent one Nation taking over the whole map and making it unplayable for other Nations, once these victory conditions are met, the server will reset (only ports, not characters) and everything starts again. To take over a Port, players create unrest in the surrounding areas, once a certain amount of unrest is generated, then a Pirate PvP area is created where Pirate nation and Privateers (with the right skills) can begin to attack other players, once the port has enough unrest it goes into contention, where as the pirate PvP zone opens to general PvP allowing all players to attack other players. The port flips into contention at this point and the defending and attacking nations can begin to earn contention points. These contention points have two purposes, firstly these contention points add things to the port battle, such as more NPC's defending/attacking etc. Also the players with contention points are added to a 'lottery' where they can be selected to participate in the Port Battle (you can refuse if you don't want to) The more contention points you have, the more likely you will be selected for the port battle. After 48hrs of contention the Port battle begins and players battle it out with other players to defend or attack the port and the end result is either repell the attackers or defeat the port and gain control.

Once an enemy has taken control of the port, they get access to the resources there and the auction house there. Opposing nations players can still use their resource structures, but have to pay a large percentage of tax to the nation who currently holds the port, this can be very damaging to the nations economy.

Ships

Ships are generally player made, it is possible to buy 'Civilian' ships, but they are generally lower quality to those made by players. Ships have a stat called 'Durability' each time your ship is sunk, it looses one point of durability. Once durability is zero the ship is destroyed and you loose it. Civilian ships have 1 point of durability, ships given by quests generally have 2 or 3 whilst ships made by players have 4 or 5. There are three categories of ships, Warships, Scout Ships and Merchant Ships. Warships are generally slower, less agile ships with lots of armour and lots of cannons, scout ships are smaller, faster more agile ships with less armour and less weapons. Merchant ships are big ships (usually with lots of speed, but bad acceleration) with large cargo holds. Each ship has upgrade slots (called fittings) to improve an area of the ship by a small amount. These slots are, 3 general outfitting, 2 hull modifications, 2 rigging/sail modifications and 2 cannon modifications. So its possible to equip a warship with more speed and maneuverability or to equip a scout ship with heavier armour and weapons. Whilst this is possible, the upgrade will be small so you wont be able to rig out a scout ship to go head to head with a warship or get a warship to move like a scout ship etc. Ships durability can be increased, by sacrificing another ship deed (of exactly the same type) which increases the durability by the durability of the ship in the deed.

Pirates

The pirate nation has some subtle differences to the other nationals, firstly their ports cannot be controlled, only taken over for 3 days. They also cannot control other nations ports, just take them over for 3 days. This adds a different flavour to the whole PvP/RvR scene for them. Also Pirates are able to capture other ships, lessening the need for them to build their own. These captured ships only have a durability of 1, but can be improved though the normal upgrade route. Pirates can also scavenge derelict ships for building materials and other goodies

My Experiences

The game has some bugs, its brand new (released Jan 22nd 2008). I played Beta and it was quite buggy and had some stability issues, a lot of these have been fixed recently, and its now quite playable from SEA (hence I'm writing this review). Network issues (packet loss and ping times) do effect you in Thailand, but usually don't cause too many problems. If you've got a bad connection there is nothing you can do except log out and whinge and moan about CAT

The game is good fun, its a lot slower paced than the likes of WoW and LotRO etc. For me its more economy based as I haven't really been around for the major Port battles. PvP is still an option within the 'red zones' and ship battles can be a lot of fun. So far i have only grouped with one other player and its been great fun! The game is pretty much solo able, so not being in large groups night after night isnt an issue. There are two styles of combat, Ship Combat and Swashbuckling (called AvCom or Avatar Combat) It is possible to board other ships and kill the crew. I have found that AvCom can be very laggy and sometimes difficult to control because of this, although things have improved with recent patches and the dev team have said its something they are going to look at again. Ship combat is great fun, and very tactical, its not fast paced button mashing like WoW. Missions are very much the same, usually having a very similar format and map, all missions are 'instance' based so you can level in peace without having to worry about getting ganked by a full group of lvl50 players every time you poke your head up. An alternative to grinding though hundreds of 'feel the same' missions you can battle ships on the open seas, here however it is possible for enemy players to jump you. Again combat is instances, so once your locked in combat you are relatively safe from enemy players (unless they are the ones attacking you!) - and you can 'send a flare' which will allow friendly players to join the battle instance to help you.

Overall, the game is a lot of fun, and whilst its still got some bugs, holes and weak spots, the dev team are very good at keeping in touch with players and getting stuff fixed (so far) if your looking for a fast paced Counter Strike speed game then this is not for you, if your looking for an enjoyable tactical game with a little arcade action then this game is exactly what your looking for! If i were to rate this game out of 10, i would give it somewhere between 7 and 8/10

Feel free to PM me or post here if there's anything else you wanna know about the game.

Regards

Captin Lee Higgs, NO of the Spanish Navy