Only had time to read the conclusion as I'm currently playing the game, but I completely agree. It's rough around the edges, like all MMOs the quests do get a bit repetitive, but I think PotBS is a lot better than WoW in that respect.
I'm loving it so far though and very glad SoE are only dealing with distribution and can't screw around with the game like they do with so many others.
I also like how you can be effective in PvP at almost every level, once you hit around level 15 or so (which doesn't take very long at all) you can captain the good small ships which can still be very good against big ships if you use them properly. During the pre-boarding party (15 days of playing before release with a level cap of 21 for people who pre-ordered) we had a group of sloops and cutters that slaughtered an equally sized group of frigates in PvP.
EDIT: Out of interest Joe, will you be reviewing Sins of a Solar Empire?
grats to the dev's that had the guts to make a mmorpg thats something else than yet another middleage fantasy theme thing.
will i play it? nah... changing to another mmorpg is a bad thing, sucks to give up everything you've done in another one without knowing if the other will be good enough to keep you addicted for years.
Originally Posted by Veles Out of interest Joe, will you be reviewing Sins of a Solar Empire?
I've never even heard of it, tbh.
You call yourself a games journalist :p
It's a space RTS on a massive scale and plays similarly to a TBS on the large scale, think supreme commander in space but you can zoom out really, really far. It's not like the total war series where the pseudoTBS and RTS segments are distinctly separate, it apparently flows together really well.
Coming out next monday, made by Ironclad and published by Stardock, same guys behind GalCiv II.
Is it £25 a lo Guild Wars or £25 plus £x/mo a la WoW and others?
I loved the original Pirates by Sid Meier (C64), but not been too fond of any subsequent versions I've tried. But a Pirates MMO, might be right up my street.
hmmm i doubt this will get a break through like WoW did.. i dont play WoW tho.. i prefer the "free" counterpart Guild Wars
don't see the point in paying for a "subscription" every month and exactly that is the reason i believe that PotB will somehow "Stall".
sure there are probably TONS of peeps out there waiting for JUST this kind of game (If yer into Pirates and stuff that is)..
Nice idea too.. not always these Elves n Dwarfs that bash Fairys n Trolls
but isn't the market like over-saturated with (please do excuse me) crappy games coming out of every dark hole? not saying PotB is,..
How long will the Servers be up and running? I mean.. ya pay the game... ya play a little... then ya end up with like 90+ Quid a year to continue playing? no offense.. NO GAME is that Good.. and simply ... not everybody can actually afford it...
so.. to those that can and will play 'n pay.. i wish ya all fun and good games etc.
im def. not one of em
PS: will see if there is some trial thingy tho / Ya can't judge what ya haven't tested yerself....
Well I picked this one up.. never played an MMO before other than trying EVE and getting thoroughly confused and giving up due to the worst intro tutorial ever, and am not that into the Pirates concept really. The game however is very good. Easy to get into for a beginner, and the quests are easily accessible (unlike Eve). As a 'noob' at MMO stuff I really wanted something easy to get into, but had complex enough depth to keep my interest. This one has ticked the boxes. Especially the economy / crafting side of the game. Very accessible.
Plus its not WOW! Which is a bonus in its own right. I always though that admitting you play WOW to the general public left them feeling sorry for you in some way - like they though you were an addicted teenager stuck in fantasy land. No such feeling admitting you playing Pirates of the burning sea. (Ive seen peoples reactions when my mates tell them they are WOW players)
Interestingly enough.. many WOW players in my friends guild have already switched to Pirates.. Looks like its popular, as they have been evaluating others like Tabula Rasa and rejected those.
The learning curve is actually quite difficult for this game, not quite as bad as EVE though. But then again, it's not that bad, only takes about a week to really learn it, whereas WoW is quite simplistic really.
Originally Posted by Veles We've covered this debate before, and it ended up being MMOs are actually very good value for money.
What a crock!
I dunno who you have had this debate with but they must have been crackers. MMOs are not good value for money, you buy the game and then you rent the game. Fools and their money are soon parted.
The only case for a monthly charge is for the upkeep of servers - but there is no way it costs £9/mo per person. At £1/mo the companies would be making a tidy profit; at this price, they are making a killing.
CoD4 = £25 + £1/mo per slot on a privately rented server = £37 for 1st year
MMOs = £25 = £9/mo = £133 for 1st year
I dunno who you have had this debate with but they must have been crackers. MMOs are not good value for money, you buy the game and then you rent the game. Fools and their money are soon parted.
The only case for a monthly charge is for the upkeep of servers - but there is no way it costs £9/mo per person. At £1/mo the companies would be making a tidy profit; at this price, they are making a killing.
CoD4 = £25 + £1/mo per slot on a privately rented server = £37 for 1st year
MMOs = £25 = £9/mo = £133 for 1st year
Cracking value, wouldn't you agree?
I was gonna write a lengthy post but you shoot yourself in the foot with your first comment. How on Earth can you compare an MMO to COD4?:)
One thing I would say, is I prefer the Guildwars model over World Of War craft. Then again GW is not a MMORPG in the strictest sense of the word so meh.
Originally Posted by Bungle I was gonna write a lengthy post but you shoot yourself in the foot with your first comment. How on Earth can you compare an MMO to COD4?:)
One thing I would say, is I prefer the Guildwars model over World Of War craft. Then again GW is not a MMORPG in the strictest sense of the word so meh.
WTF? I would have preferred you hanged yourself with a longer post.
How can I compare CoD4 with WoW? Easy, by price just as I did.
OK, CoD4 is a MO-FPS, and WoW is an MMORPG, but they key thing is the that they are both online... The business model is virtually the same for CoD4 and GW and Company of Heroes and Need For Speed and... ad nauseum. Different games, but pay once, play many.
But the key reason for comparing with CoD4 (and not GW) is that playing CoD4 online is not really free. The majority of the servers are privately rented and the remainder are provided by games magazines/stores/etc. *Somebody* has to pay for them. OK, if the guy from Clan X is not using his £5 a month slot, you can use it - but somebody is paying per month for you and I to play.
The key thing here is that the server rental companies are making a healthy profit by charging £1 per slot per month (approx). WoW et al are all charging £6-£10 per month per user to provide the servers. If you aren't using it, you can't let the next guy use your space. So they are raking it in...
When I experienced POTBS it didn't have voiced conversations between npc's, but rather one voiced conversation between two npc's, repeated ad nauseum (and beyond) in every trading post in every port, I swear I don't often want to murder characters in games, but those two .. !
Its quite a niche game, they know it and are aiming the development at the niche in particular, I wish them well in the future, but its not my choice of niche (or wasn't at the time anyhow)
Can you get upwards of 1000 people on a single server on CoD4? No, you can't. You're comparing apples to oranges and you're doing it very badly too.
One thing you seem to have forgotten is the fact MMOs are constantly being updated, not just with bug fixes like any normal game, but with content patches. Compare WoW now to what it was like when it began. Even without the expansion packs they have added almost the entire game again in content patches. Which is quite a feat seeing as the entire game was over twice the size of the majority of games to begin with.
Also, when people play MMOs, they usually play them a lot, usually it's the game the play most, and not many other games get a look in. I know when I played WoW I didn't buy many other games. So £70 odd for the year, that's 2 xbox 360/PS3 games, and I get a lot more play time out of a MMO than I do 2 360 games.
When I pay my £8 a month I'm not "renting" the game. I'm paying for all the hard work that has gone into the game before it, because MMOs have a hell of a lot more content than most regular game to begin with. I pay for my slots on the servers, which are very expensive to maintain such high capacity servers, and I pay for the constant influx of new content.
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I'm loving it so far though and very glad SoE are only dealing with distribution and can't screw around with the game like they do with so many others.
I also like how you can be effective in PvP at almost every level, once you hit around level 15 or so (which doesn't take very long at all) you can captain the good small ships which can still be very good against big ships if you use them properly. During the pre-boarding party (15 days of playing before release with a level cap of 21 for people who pre-ordered) we had a group of sloops and cutters that slaughtered an equally sized group of frigates in PvP.
EDIT: Out of interest Joe, will you be reviewing Sins of a Solar Empire?
Yarrr matey!
Avast ye scurvey dog!
I've never even heard of it, tbh.
Andy
will i play it? nah... changing to another mmorpg is a bad thing, sucks to give up everything you've done in another one without knowing if the other will be good enough to keep you addicted for years.
You call yourself a games journalist :p
It's a space RTS on a massive scale and plays similarly to a TBS on the large scale, think supreme commander in space but you can zoom out really, really far. It's not like the total war series where the pseudoTBS and RTS segments are distinctly separate, it apparently flows together really well.
Coming out next monday, made by Ironclad and published by Stardock, same guys behind GalCiv II.
I loved the original Pirates by Sid Meier (C64), but not been too fond of any subsequent versions I've tried. But a Pirates MMO, might be right up my street.
don't see the point in paying for a "subscription" every month and exactly that is the reason i believe that PotB will somehow "Stall".
sure there are probably TONS of peeps out there waiting for JUST this kind of game (If yer into Pirates and stuff that is)..
Nice idea too.. not always these Elves n Dwarfs that bash Fairys n Trolls
but isn't the market like over-saturated with (please do excuse me) crappy games coming out of every dark hole? not saying PotB is,..
How long will the Servers be up and running? I mean.. ya pay the game... ya play a little... then ya end up with like 90+ Quid a year to continue playing? no offense.. NO GAME is that Good.. and simply ... not everybody can actually afford it...
so.. to those that can and will play 'n pay.. i wish ya all fun and good games etc.
im def. not one of em
PS: will see if there is some trial thingy tho / Ya can't judge what ya haven't tested yerself....
Also, it's not trying to be as big as WoW, WoW is massive, it still has a very healthy user base even though it's only been released a week or so.
Plus its not WOW! Which is a bonus in its own right. I always though that admitting you play WOW to the general public left them feeling sorry for you in some way - like they though you were an addicted teenager stuck in fantasy land. No such feeling admitting you playing Pirates of the burning sea. (Ive seen peoples reactions when my mates tell them they are WOW players)
Interestingly enough.. many WOW players in my friends guild have already switched to Pirates.. Looks like its popular, as they have been evaluating others like Tabula Rasa and rejected those.
What about: Guy Brushthreep Wood or Mahnkoam Zeapgood?
Then again I have an MMO character called "Owkud Iceink [Solo]" (Solo is the guild name)
What a crock!
I dunno who you have had this debate with but they must have been crackers. MMOs are not good value for money, you buy the game and then you rent the game. Fools and their money are soon parted.
The only case for a monthly charge is for the upkeep of servers - but there is no way it costs £9/mo per person. At £1/mo the companies would be making a tidy profit; at this price, they are making a killing.
CoD4 = £25 + £1/mo per slot on a privately rented server = £37 for 1st year
MMOs = £25 = £9/mo = £133 for 1st year
Cracking value, wouldn't you agree?
One thing I would say, is I prefer the Guildwars model over World Of War craft. Then again GW is not a MMORPG in the strictest sense of the word so meh.
WTF? I would have preferred you hanged yourself with a longer post.
How can I compare CoD4 with WoW? Easy, by price just as I did.
OK, CoD4 is a MO-FPS, and WoW is an MMORPG, but they key thing is the that they are both online... The business model is virtually the same for CoD4 and GW and Company of Heroes and Need For Speed and... ad nauseum. Different games, but pay once, play many.
But the key reason for comparing with CoD4 (and not GW) is that playing CoD4 online is not really free. The majority of the servers are privately rented and the remainder are provided by games magazines/stores/etc. *Somebody* has to pay for them. OK, if the guy from Clan X is not using his £5 a month slot, you can use it - but somebody is paying per month for you and I to play.
The key thing here is that the server rental companies are making a healthy profit by charging £1 per slot per month (approx). WoW et al are all charging £6-£10 per month per user to provide the servers. If you aren't using it, you can't let the next guy use your space. So they are raking it in...
Its quite a niche game, they know it and are aiming the development at the niche in particular, I wish them well in the future, but its not my choice of niche (or wasn't at the time anyhow)
One thing you seem to have forgotten is the fact MMOs are constantly being updated, not just with bug fixes like any normal game, but with content patches. Compare WoW now to what it was like when it began. Even without the expansion packs they have added almost the entire game again in content patches. Which is quite a feat seeing as the entire game was over twice the size of the majority of games to begin with.
Also, when people play MMOs, they usually play them a lot, usually it's the game the play most, and not many other games get a look in. I know when I played WoW I didn't buy many other games. So £70 odd for the year, that's 2 xbox 360/PS3 games, and I get a lot more play time out of a MMO than I do 2 360 games.
When I pay my £8 a month I'm not "renting" the game. I'm paying for all the hard work that has gone into the game before it, because MMOs have a hell of a lot more content than most regular game to begin with. I pay for my slots on the servers, which are very expensive to maintain such high capacity servers, and I pay for the constant influx of new content.
Have you tried a proper MMO BTW?