Home Games Pirates Of The Burning Sea

Pirates

MMORPG
Releases: 01.21.08
Flying Lab Software
SOE
ESRB: Teen

Pirates Of The Burning Sea

Pirates take to the massive online seas. Arrrrr . . .

by FickityTwists

Like most MMORPGs, this game starts with character creation. From there you get the choice between 4 nations: Britain, Spain, France, and Pirate. Then you choose one of the 4 character classes, which are: Navy officer, privateer, freetrader, and pirate. Only players of the pirate nation can play the pirate character class, and that is the only class they have access to. If you play one of the other 3 nations, you get to choose between the other 3 character classes: Navy officer, Privateer and Freetrader.

Each class has its perks. Pirates are the only characters in the game that can capture ships for themselves. Navy officers are specialized in ship-to-ship combat with broadsides. Privateers are specialized in boarding combat. Freetraders aren’t very good in combat at all, but they have advantages when it comes to the economy, and can to some extent overcome their lesser combat skills by using more expensive ships, outfitting, and consumables.

The tutorial teaches you how to swashbuckle, upgrade your ship with things bought in auction and how to navigate and even board/take other ships. As you go through the game you will encounter many mythical aspects as well, since the game is set in 1720 or so. At the start of the game you are given a choice between ships sold by the NPCs at port. These “ Civilian” ships, as they are tagged, are not worth much. So, your goal is to level up by taking quests to up your swashbuckling or ship quests ( which include but are not limited to plundering and ship invasion.) This will allow you to gain supplies ( things to trade or sell in auction) and doubloons to buy better ships from the players in the game. The player-built ships are the best, but remember you can use the “ Civilian” ships until you have upgraded them enough to suite your needs and still be functional in the first part of the game. When you level up, you gain one skill point. Every even level is a swashbuckling skill point, in which you can invest in a skill that will shiver your timbers on the swashbuckling front. Every odd level you get a captain skill point to spend on upgrading your ship. Yet, if you are a free trader it is your economic skills you will improve instead.

The economy is very realistic in this game. You cannot simply just carry everything you wish to at all times. Each item has a weight and each ship can only carry so much. So, when taking items from one port (that you bought dirt cheap) and selling it in another, you have to keep in mind that you can only carry so much stuff with you. Each port also come equipped with natural resources like Iron and wood. You are able to purchase mining areas to hone in on the profits they may reap. You can only build a mine where the resources are though, and are able to build a forge to build items that will be useful to other characters and NPCs. When collecting your resources, you have to remember that each piece costs money and energy stored because of the workers that mine them. So, it is quite possible to have a negative balance if you have more workers than output. So please start small and build up. You can also manufacture items with your resources. It cost more and take more time, but it generally is more profitable.

Now for the down side of this, you cannot “raid” ports, you have to battle NPCs of that nation (Each nation has a color associated with them, so the ports that are controlled by that nation are shown in that color.) By battling the NPC you create a state of “ unrest” which is needed to create a Nation vs. pirate scenario. As the havoc builds inside the port, it will grow to become a full out nation vs. nation battle. To win, it is encouraged to capture as many ports as possible of the opposing nation.

Generally the point of the game is to become a feared party that is both good at battle tactics, PvP and the art of trade. Plus, you get to live the dream of being a pirate.

Well, over all I find this game to be very well done, but still lacking a bit in the command area. The chat feature seems to be very old fashioned and we all know that old fashioned is not always heartwarming like you remember it being. In this case the game's graphics are beautifully done, the game site is well done as well and the story line is awesome. The tutorial is very well done and very instructional.

Strategic combat, realistic economy, engaging storyline

Outdated chat, annoying real time mining/gathering

It's like EVE

I basically found this to be like EVE, but with worse combat and a slightly more fun economy. (It's more fun because I actually sort of grasped it.) One of these days we'll get a pirate MMO that's actually all about being badass and swashbuckling, not manufacturing masts and selling them for the highest profit. Playing through the first few dozen levels three or four times really put me off ever playing this again, though.

#1 - Brendon - 03/16/2008 - 10:31

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