Run out of things to do in potco?

If so, committed Captains might want to check this out

Click link below


Pirates of the Burning sea


Looks pretty awesome and vaguely familiar, got a feeling its been developed by the same company as POTCO. Looks like POTCO fer grown ups.


Unfortunately I'm not sure its available to brits. So I might not be able to join yer tere if ye decide to check it out.

Pleasant Plunderin to yer all


Black Slater

I checked out the link. The beta registration is closed now but you can still check out the menu links. I think they are going to have some cool stuff. It costs more though. And I didn't see where they will offer a free trial. I will prolly buy a month to check it out when it opens. Thanks for the link Slater!

Aye Beta registration is closed but if you preorder you can download the game and start playing it before it officially goes live (20 jan) albeit in slightly stripped down way. Its a big download about 5.5gb.

The advantage of this is of you don't like it you can cancel yer order and therefore avoid forkin out the $49.00.

BTW the subscription is going to be $14 per month.

It is going to be available in Europe and the US.

I downloaded it over night but I'm not sure I'll have time to get it up and running to day.... Watch this space...

Well, I took a look at it eventually after an incredibly long installation process (About 3 hours) and....

I'm not sure about it yet.

Graphically it's a lot slicker and more polished than potco although this means you need a decent spec PC.

Pirate creation is pretty similar to Potco although all the pirates in this game are tall, slim and good looking. (Not that ye aren't all fine lookin lads and lasses me hearties.)

Its a lot less cartoony generally.

The ships are lovely and you can go below decks which is nice.

The only town I've been to so far is a kind of Port Royal type place but it feels a lot more realistic. Windy alleys and narrow streets open out into busy market squares. NPC's apear to be going about their daily business rather than just standing there like statues.

Played with the sound very low, but from what I could hear this game is a lot more atmospheric and lively.

In general gameplay appears a lot deeper than Potco too.

For example when sailing yer ship, you have very fine adjustment over yer sails and can vary your speed very precisely. Also wind direction is a factor.

On top of that you can fire your front and aft guns independently on both sides.

The downside of this extra complexity is...

Well, its more complex!

And... Therefore more difficult and less intuitive as a noob to work out what you're supposed to do. But I guess that would come with experience.

The other thing I haven't worked out yet (and this is a biggy), is if you can have other players crewin on yer ship. If not this would be a big, and not good, difference to Potco.

Fighting seems a little dull in this game. The animations don't have the panache and extravagant swashbuckling moves of Potco. Not so far anyway and I missed timing me swings with me sword. Instead you seem to have to tap away at the number keys to use different moves. (I think)

On the whole the game seems to take itself a bit more seriously than POTCO, it's Sony rather than Disney.

Think Playstation compared to Nintendo.

It's certainly not as cosy and friendly as Potco. "(Alhough I only played for an hour.) The learning curve seems fairly steep. Still not sure what I'm doing or how I'm doing it.

Its definitely more for the hardened gamer than I think most of us are and it lacks (so far) what I can only describe as thrills, Something which Potco was, and occasionally still is, very good at delivering.

Remember the first time ye sailed with a big crew mates

I guess also we all had some idea of the world we were entering when we started POTCO as we had probably all seen the films and Jack, Elizabeth and Will were there to give us a warm welcome.

This game world is completely unknown and consequently a bit bewildering

These are my initial impressions anyway.

I will give it a bit more time over the weekend and see if I start to like it any better. I've hardly scratched the surface of the game really and it obviously has a lot more to offer. My worry really is that it has too much to offer in the way of options, customisation, missions, economy etc. but nothing that's actually fun.

Anyway if you're thinking of giving it a try while its still free bear in mind that download is 5.5 gb (11 hours on my broadband) and that it takes about 2-3 hours to install and then download the patches.

If ye do get it running keep a weather eye out fer Black Slater (yes it let me use me name again) and his ship the Scallywag Queen.

So to sum up: Worth a look if ye have time but I wasn't immediately grabbed and hooked like I was with our game.

Wow Slater, thanks for all the info! You are awesome to share your experience with us. I actually am in these games for the fun and anything too serious is well...not fun anymore.. I am so busy with Toontown and Pirates that I really couldn't possible take on another online game and actually keep a family and household together... This is challenge enough for me.. I love these games and the people I have met are so nice and I feel I have made some really good friends. So if a bunch of you get to playing the other game I wish you well, but in the same turn hope to see you around regular pirates too. Take Care.

Ahoy mates

Played POTBS a little more now so here's me updated Cap'n's log.

I'm quite enjoying it now. It really does promise to be a very good game once I get the hang of it.

Still struggling slightly with getting my head around the myriad of possibilities options and routes through the game but it is slowy starting to make sense to me.

Because the game is so open, in that you can go anywhere more or less from the get go, you feel rather set adrift in a sea of possibilities when you start. I have realised however, that if you don't try to run before you can walk, the initial missions have a very shallow learning curve that gently ease you into the complexities of the various strands of gameplay.

And boy, are there a lot of missions. Virtually every NPC in the game seems to want you to run some piratey errand for them. I haven't even started the main story missions yet.

I also realised that, at the start this, is essentially a game that you play solo, at least untill you reach level 10 when group missions unlock. I am currently Level 8 so let you know how they work out when I get to them.

Even after that I guess there are still a lot of missions that you play alone.

As I suspected there is no crewing as such in this game although there is a guild system (called societies here) and also something called Groups which is possibly similar to crews. But whatever you can't crew on other peoples ships. The group missions involve you fleeting up with other players to destroy other fleets of ships.

There's so much I could say about this game but I won't as (A) not sure if anyone is really interested and (B) don't want to bore on.

Just to say finally that the game world is huge! Loads of beautifuly realised islands and towns that all have their own flavour design wise. (Tortuga currently my favourite as it looks like the whole place has been built from wrecked ships.)

Will post some pics when I get a chance and work ourt how to take screen grabs.

Also the game seems rock solid at the moment. No glitches or bugs have become apparent.

In fact I'm itching to play it right now. Certainly a lot more to do than in POTCO at the moment.

The only downside really is that none of me old mates are there.

Yours absently

Black

Aye Matey, sounds like a fine game but I like Suzie just don't have the time for it. Don't think I want to wait 3 hours for the dang thing to download, maybe if they have the game in stores to buy it would be easier that way. Also, I would miss all of me mates on pirates if I should switch to that game. I've been ignoring toontown for this reason b/c I do like me pirates.

Still I may give it a go to see what's up and try out the game if I could just drag myself away from the original. Would be nice if they came out with a Pirates game for the Wii.

Ahoy matey you talked me into getting the game. I'm hoping that you will be there to help me along because the owner's manual costs an additional $20. I should be getting the game sometime this week. I love me Disney Pirates because I have made a ton of friends there but it does get kind of old. It is good that I didn't reach the spot in the game that I would be playing The Burning Sea.

Really didn't wanna waste the time of downloading the game so I bought the CDs. The upgrades can come offline. Seems from previous experience that CD graphics are more awesome than the downloaded version. Also matey it will take 1/2 the time to get the game on my computer.

So bloke, pull up a chair let's share some grog and go after them navy fellows.

PHEW!! mini Jade De Menace has joind Slater took some doing lol (mini be a ditz on de ole puter) she be a whooppen lvl 3.Rest asured that Mini aint about ta leave her harties on the Carribean! Ahoy! ta all, Jade Blastmenace and Mini Jade De menace

Ahoy mates

Been playing burning sea for three weeks now (or is it four) So have a pretty good idea of by now and thought I'd share my thoughts in a last ditch attempt to try an persuade some of you to give it a try

First off. It is a great game. Dare I say?, yes I do, It beats POTCO in almost every way. But...

And its a big but...

If you don't like a challenge its not for you. No aspect of this game is easy to get your head around. From the game play to the understanding the interface to using the chat system.

Anything you have never done before at least twice in this game is a learning process choc full of potential errors, confusion, misunderstandings and downright frustration.

There are so many things you need to know to do even the simplest of tasks that especially at the start the whole thing just seems impossibly complicated and designed to make you feel like a complete dummy al the time you are playing.

Okay so if that's the case why would anyone want to play it?

Well....

And its a big Well...

If you can get your head around it all this complexity adds up to a really fantastic online gaming experience. After a while, once you have stopped wrestling with the system and have enough knowledge, you can set the game up to play exactly the way you would like to. Obviously this is a bit of a catch 22 as you don't know how you want to play it.... Unless you've been playing it. However the designers seem to have thougt of this and you can even redistribute your skill points (the POTBS equivalent of Dots in POTCO) at anytime you want (albeit at a cost of 1000 doubloons after you've done it once for free)

Its fairly easy to rectify any early mistakes you may have made.

So here's a brief (This is BRIEF?? - Ed.) decription of how the game works.

Whe you create a character you Join a Nation. (French, Spanish, British or Pirate.)

That character then lives on the server you chose for the rest of his life. (You can't move from server to server As in POTCO.)

Once you hit the server you are thrown into he middle of a huge virtual carribean. (It takes about 40 mins realtime to sail from one side to the other with a good wind. (Although you would be crazy to do such a thing..))

After the intital tutorials (during which you won't have a clue what you are doing or why) It becomes apparent that there is a story quest just like POTCO

In order to work your way through this you are going to need to increase your characters level in order to get better and better ships, weapons and skills in order to achieve them.

The first difference you notice to POtco is that very few of these missions take place in the open sea or in the towns that make up Burning sea. Instead they launch you into an "Instance" that is a specially designed level to do the mission in. A bit like boarding in POTCO. POTCO's BP boss level is like this too. I have to say that even the smallest of missions is better designed and more fun than the BP Boss mission was.

These Missions Might be land based or sea basd and can involve several parts to them. For instance:- Stop some ships attacking a fort. Land at the fort and raise reinforcements, then head back out to sea to attack the rest of the fleet.

The Story missions you must do alone. Hoewever there are hundreds, possibly, thousands of sub plots, mini storys and one off missions that you can do in a group of up to six.

All of these are equally challenging, surprising and frequently take place in levels you haven't seen before.

As well as these mission you are at liberty to prowl the open sea, sink ships, capture ships board ships and plunder their booty. When you capture a ship better than the one you are in, its yours to keep till you get to big for it or you sink it. Again you can group up into hunting packs to do this or just fly solo.

Also again once when you attack a ship on the open sea it takes you into a liitle area of your own to fight the battle.

You can also group up for PVP which is an integral part of Burning sea.(Althugh you can choose to opt in or out of it as you wish)

Every port in POTBS belongs to one of the four nations. But it is possible by concerted effort to destabilise another nation's port and capture it for your nation. (This is not something an individual player can do alone but requires a great deal of co-operation and efforts tend to be co-ordinated by loose groupings of guilds)

But why would you want to Capture anther nations Port?

Well this is where the Economic sytem kicks in.

Every thing in POTBS is either captured from NPC's (in small quantities) or player made (in bulk). From chopping down trees to make planks or masts, mining ore or saltpeter to make cannon balls and black powder, or ultimately to build and modify your own ships everthing you need has to be grown, dug up, refined and manufactured by the players themselves.

But only some ports have, for instance, the sulfer needed to make Black powder... Wait the French have one right next to you but they're charging you 50% tax on it making it prohibitively expensive to produce. Wouldn't it be better if that port was run by pirates?

And so the reason for PVP becomes clear. (I hope) Also its great fun if a little scary.

Any way Port de paix (Which has fertile soil) fell to the Pirates last night which means I can now start raising cattle, to produce leather, so my carpenter can make hull patches so...(stops for breath) When I'm getting my butt kicked in a battle I'll be able to make running repairs and hopefully prevail (Did I mention this game was complex?)

Well this post is already far too long so if any one has bothered to read thus far.... Apologies. I'm sure I've put anyone who was thinking of trying POTBS off by now

Finally I'd just like to reiterate the one thing this game doesn't have is all the lovely people I have met playing POTCO. Except for Jade of course who has been playing too. OH and the animation isn't as good despite the graphics being better overall.

Missing you guys and can't wait for POTCO to get its self up and running again.

Yours optimistically

Black Slater

Jut re read my last post and realised that as well as very long, its very poorly written as well.

Apologies for anyonewho tried to make any sense out of it.

I'll give it a serious edit tomorrow. (For my own benefit if no-one elses.)

Yeah I understand where you're coming from Sirene. It is a bit of an undertaking to get involved in yet another MMORPG.

Something gotta give

Yours

Mistypingly

Blick Salter

Aye Mate, was visiting the game and it is so overwhelming. Talk about bribery and such me little pirate finally hit lvl 3 and me hearty have not a clue on what I'm doing.

As far as telling us about the site, considering your a pirate and most pirates are illerate you did fine mate, that's why you be Captain. We can learn a lot from you. Most captains don't want to be bothered by the ship hands but you be there all the time.