Cal
821
ouch, shutting down 7 servers? thats a lot :(
I was hoping this game would still be around when i get my new Pc that can play it on decent settings.
Me, too! Ended up returning our Alienware m15x laptop (too many design issues with that laptop atm) in favor of a desktop PC I’ll be building in the coming weeks.
Kareem
823
Just FYI, there’s now a free 14-day trial if you were thinking of giving the game a spin.
http://www.burningsea.com/pages/trialKeys/
I’m planning on trying it in a few days since we have a college break at the end of next week. Anyone still playing?
Not I, although I’m curious to see how the game has progressed since spring.
My guild all quit about 2 weeks before the server merge due to population inactivity, which of course shot back up again after the merge. By that time though I’d lost interest in levelling by myself, and I wasn’t about to start over on a new server. I may get back into it in November when I have a bit more spare time.
I’m mostly curious about the mechanism for setting up fair battles, rather than random open sea PvP or port battles. I spent far more time than I care to repeat in PotBS looking for PvP battles where one side didn’t just immediately run away.
I quit this in may or so. I really liked the 6 v 6 battles, but you just spent too much time getting a group together and finding 6 other players that actually wanted to fight. More often you would get fast little boats trying to split your group of 6 into something smaller based on how the open sea mechanics work. With a small, fast boat, there was little chance of being caught, so you spent another 5-10 minutes chasing. Try doing that 4 or 5 times before getting into a “fun” fight, and you quickly burn out.
The port battles were a blast if you could get into them, which was difficult during prime time. The crafting was pretty cool too, but the best items were rare drops from PvE and there was, generally speaking, a glut of production.
I’ve been keeping up with the updates they’ve been making to the game, and like what I’ve read regarding the changes to ad hoc battles that went live in 1.7. I only played the initial free month with purchase on Day 1, but will likely go back some time, since I’m a sucker for the theme. Also, I haven’t played it on this new rig; it wasn’t fun playing it on the old fossil.
That was spot on Deadbuffalo. I’ve only played Warhammer online for a couple of hours, and the PvP battles are already far more entertaining, despite the actual battle mechanics being no where near as interesting as PotB’s.
I’ve been playing this steadily for the last two months or so and I have to say that, although it’s difficult to “arrange” an even fight, when good fights DO happen they are extremely exciting, more so than any other game except EVE.
PvE can actually be quite fun too, especially tackling those big 12 ship fleets with just 2 or 3 players… however PvE is predictable and so does not have the same excitement element.
Overall POTBS is a surprisingly fun game, sort of EVE-lite. Ultimately the population imabalance will kill the game though.
That was the main problem on our server, mostly with port battles. About 12 disorganised pirates versus 30 regimented spanish. Not much fun. But the few that were more balanced were some of the best pvp I ever played.
One of the few games where I actually did well in PvP, once I figured out boarding and duelling at least. But the PvP was too common. Unlike Eve there was no real Hi Sec where one could drop out to and work on rebuilding assets. Everything was interconnected with different ports generating goods needed for production and even raiding other ships for loot often led you into dangeous waters. When your faction was down it stayed down. Unlike Eve, just breaking up and looking for a new corporation was no cure because you can’t pick your friends. Pure realm v. realm and the realm with the numbers almost always won in the long term.
I had a great time before I burned out though. Just wish they’d taken a more balanced, slower paced, approach to the strategic game rather than making it so easy to put ports into contention. I like some PvP but I also like having other options. Our RP guild eventually became consumed by the war effort and it sucked the air out of anything else we wanted to do. Burnout ensued. Most of us left.
wisefool
833
I was with Brian on the outnumbered plucky Spaniards. POTBS burned me out so badly, I decided no more PVP MMO for a decade or so. I decided there’s inherently no monthly-fee PVP game that will work.
I figure that an appeal of MMO addiction is socialization, so they need to encourage people to spend lots of time on it. They do this with PVE farming for consumables and gear.
The second way could be PVP gear, but that again rewards people who play more. (students mostly).
The formula would be inherently unfair - if you removed all those elements, it would become an RTS or shooting game so erm, why do I want to play it. I switched to Team Fortress.
Skipper
834
wisefool we are waiting for you to join us in Warhammer. Hurry up man.
wisefool
835
Get thee behind me, tempter!
I can see how it’s easy to burn out when you’re on the bad end of a beating, but I think your conclusion that “When your faction was down it stayed down” was demonstrably not true.
Playing on the same server, the Pirates were down worse than the Spaniards, and did bounce back (though after you’d stopped playing) – despite not even being able to build the biggest ships. A combination of grinding, perseverance, smart tactics, enough population, and diplomacy paid off. Looking at the situation from the other side, it was easy to see that the Bonny Spaniards really dropped the ball on diplomacy IMHO.
Economically, I ran my profitable Guns and Ammo business through red waters most of the time – including to Spanish Ports – and never once got caught with a ship full of goods, despite the Red Zone being twice as deep (four times as big!) for a pirate. As a pirate, I didn’t have to worry about losing my ports permanently, but when I did lose them I found the hit to my net profit wasn’t crippling, even without taking the skill to reduce maintenance costs in foreign ports – and also without a Free Traders economic boost.
Bonny Spain’s difficulty getting enough players for a port battle definitely left you holding the short straw, and I absolutely agree this one fact made things exceptionally difficult, but in the end it was addressed by the server merger.
I suppose a part of it is subjective. How much is too much PvP?
I had no PvP, not ever, when I was shipping goods – I think it’s pretty safe to unsubjectively say that wasn’t too much. ;-) Not only that, but I did my cargo runs PvP flagged for the extra speed – I never once got harassed on the open sea. From time to time I had to be sneaky as I darted into part, and I generally made good use of Stealth, Open Sea speed, and a few abilities that made me hard to catch.
Worst case you’d have multiple gank-squads lurking and be forced to wait until they were busy, or park nearby and go do something else. I only had this happen once or twice though, as generally you could predict when it was going to happen, and ship at other hours, or bring a Bermuda Sloop rigged for speed and stealth rather than the usual Galleon.
But you were a pirate, dude. I was in friggin’ Sparta…Spain. All the time, all the chatter was about what was going under seige. Who had what assets where. Are we going to throw a port over there into contention or run seige supplies to stave off an attempt somewhere else. I’ve never played Planetside but I have to imagine the single-minded concentration on the strategic game that came out of being the underdog on Bonny was the same deal.
Most of us just burned out. Even the folks who strung themselves along for the server merge didn’t stick around. Most moved on to AoC and formed a new guild there.
You don’t think there was some kind of issue with PoTBS’s system? Where did all their subscribers go?
Aye, I was a pirate – selling to Spanish ports! My point is simply that the game itself didn’t require your to play the PvP angle 24/7. You could easily have ignored the PvP whenever it pleased you, just as I did.
I’ll grant you that it was awfully hard for the Spaniards to take a serious stab at winning. For the game to have real consequences, someone has to come out on the short end of the war…
Even despite that though, I think that Bonny Spain’s beatings primarily stemmed from failed Diplomacy. For example, the British bribed the Pirates to their side with Ships of the Line, not only giving them a freer hand to spank Spain, but actually enlisting Pirate aid – had Spain tried it could have made the same offer and preempted the whole thing – instead I saw Spaniards blockading Pirate ports. This change alone would have been enough to turn the tide, as was later seen when the Pirates switched sides and starting beating the British in battle, even without Spanish aid.
So in the end, no, I don’t see the issues you’ve brought up as key problems, as I’ve only heard them voiced by a few players. I think PotBS’s woes stem from other problems – i.e. that it’s largely Boring, despite the occasional flash of brilliance. Hmmm, then again, they should have seen the faction imbalance coming, and done something to address it; I don’t think anyone was surprised the Pirates and Brits attracted the most players.
Anyway, I don’t mean to pick on you, nor am I entirely convinced I’m right about this… I just find the idea of such an economic/PvP MMO fascinating, and so enjoy trying to figure out just where they went wrong.
