PBlade wrote:

OK. So the End of BETA is tomorrow (Sunday) and preparation is beginning tonight (Auction Houses getting XP and ships etc stocked cheap). My point, however, is that tomorrow, during the End of BETA event, I want to be flying the Jolly Roger alongside some MxO Brethren.

So if there any of you playing now, and are Pirates, give Drake Blackguard (That's me) a shout, I'm on Blackbeard, and we'll sink some British Dogs together.

- PBlade

Edit: Even if you're not Pirates, give us a shout, and we'll see if we can't organise a big stand-off. " width="15" height="15" />

Oh you're so on PBlade! Brits rule

I have to say playing PotBS is sort of playing two different games.

On one end of the table, you're playing a crappy Runescape-esque game, where you're walking through a town that's very small and you can't really manuever or jump anywhere. It's very instanced and there isn't much to do except talk, get groups together, and do the occasional land-quest. The graphics could be a little more detailed, but it's alright...

On the other end of the table, you've got a game that's never been done before. You've got customizable 1700's ships with cannons and different types of shots. All of your attacks are calculated on their engine and it's quite fun. The ships take damage realistically, I even got all my masts shot up to the point where I was just a boat with no sails, lol. Crew takes damage as they continuously disappear. I also found it kind of cool as to how your crew members would climb up and down the ropes all piratey like. You can either blow an enemy ship out of the water, or board it and kill the Captain to take the ship as your own or claim it. I never really had a ship durable enough to take out boats from a distance, so I'd just board ships. Boarding ships is quite hard, but once you board you're pretty much guaranteed to win. Just make sure you shoot up their crew members before boarding so they don't have extra waves. The graphic detail in the ship battles is outstanding for a MMORPG. It's probably got the best looking water next to LOTRO and that's saying a lot. The ships act realistically in the environment, and it's always entertaining do that Red Tide mission with a bunch of friends. Planning out your attacks and helping each other.. it's almost like a RTS-ish MMO which is a pretty cool idea.

So yeah, I hate the towns, but love the missions. Would I get this game? Probably no, because I don't have a station pass and I'd only want to play it with friends, but if you're into a kick *CENSORED* pirate ship-to-ship battle game, go ahead.

I have to say playing PotBS is sort of playing two different games.

On one end of the table, you're playing a crappy Runescape-esque game, where you're walking through a town that's very small and you can't really manuever or jump anywhere. It's very instanced and there isn't much to do except talk, get groups together, and do the occasional land-quest. The graphics could be a little more detailed, but it's alright...

On the other end of the table, you've got a game that's never been done before. You've got customizable 1700's ships with cannons and different types of shots. All of your attacks are calculated on their engine and it's quite fun. The ships take damage realistically, I even got all my masts shot up to the point where I was just a boat with no sails, lol. Crew takes damage as they continuously disappear. I also found it kind of cool as to how your crew members would climb up and down the ropes all piratey like. You can either blow an enemy ship out of the water, or board it and kill the Captain to take the ship as your own or claim it. I never really had a ship durable enough to take out boats from a distance, so I'd just board ships. Boarding ships is quite hard, but once you board you're pretty much guaranteed to win. Just make sure you shoot up their crew members before boarding so they don't have extra waves. The graphic detail in the ship battles is outstanding for a MMORPG. It's probably got the best looking water next to LOTRO and that's saying a lot. The ships act realistically in the environment, and it's always entertaining do that Red Tide mission with a bunch of friends. Planning out your attacks and helping each other.. it's almost like a RTS-ish MMO which is a pretty cool idea.

So yeah, I hate the towns, but love the missions. Would I get this game? Probably no, because I don't have a station pass and I'd only want to play it with friends, but if you're into a kick *CENSORED* pirate ship-to-ship battle game, go ahead.

This is basically exactly what I thought (apart from the water thing, MGS2 still gets me, but PotBS is better )

Its like they were working on the ship battle engine and stuff and then:

"Hang on... Closed Beta starts in a few weeks and we haven't finished any on the none ship stuff!"

Although I only ended up doing beta testing on this effectively late on, I was following the game for quite a while (which is why it's getting mega <3 from me) so I'd like to hope I know a fair amount of how the game has been developed.

As many people have stated, the game seems very obviously split into very different sections. This initially wasn't the intention from the beginning, yet the beginning was very different with this game...

Jump back in time 2 years. A small team called Flying Labs Software wanted to make an online game based in 1720  where you went around sailing old fashioned ships.

That was it. Nothing in terms of human avatars existed. No graphics, no swashbuckling...

It was around 6 months into the closed beta when FLS decided to scrap that idea, in part. The players from back then were asked about the game content and the general concensus was that the game was certainly lacking something. For the sake of comparison, the ship combat system was basically (apart from minor adjustments) is the same now as it was then. The ship-to-ship combat was in place (although no boarding) and you could do the big PvE part of the game which was the whole port contention thing.

So, 6 months into a game design, FLS scrapped the original release timescale and went right back to the drawing board. More things were thought up, the human avatars and then everything linking to that were all thought up, coded, graphics designed in the existing system and then let loose.

I'm not saying that in anyway to defend how it is right now, as even FLS have stated that the first thing to be improved will be to work on the swashbuckling side of things. However, they're happy to go ahead with what they've got now rather than take even more time on an already lengthly pre-release production period of 2 years.

Equally, the port designs are ALL going through a level of massive development. Again, all of this had to be added. Only recently, Tortuga was reworked into a much larger and realistic envirnoment.

Oh yes, and then the economy system too, which all had to be created as part of this...

I could go on but I think you see the point.

Yes, the game is still going through massive changes. In the time when I've been actively taking part in Pirates beta testing (only the best parts of 3 months) I've lost track of the number of updates that have been done to the game. Even now, many of their staff are working on updates, hell there was a patch only days before the end of beta yesterday (containing a LOT of stuff)

So yeah, there's lots still to do before the game would be 100% finished. That being said, when was the last time any mmo went online 100% ready and it was never changed for any reason after launch?

Awww, look like I came too late, they're all out of Beta Keys.  " />

did they have an end of beta event?

Mercio wrote:

did they have an end of beta event?

Apparently so, but I didnt make it.

did they have an end of beta event?

Havocide wrote:

Mercio wrote:

did they have an end of beta event?

Apparently so, but I didnt make it.

I told you to go, havo, but you wouldnt listen to meh >_<