Rivalwatch: Pirates of the Burning Sea

[JonnyG]

How could anyone not want to be a pirate? An interview was posted on Gamer.no (http://www.gamer.no[/url)Gamer.no: Is it true that Pirates of the Burning Sea will be entirely downloadable from the Internet? How will this work in practice? And will you still be able to offer retail packages for those not wanting to download an entire game?

TD: Yes. We have teamed up with Valve Software to use their Steam system for downloading, patching, and login. You'll subscribe online, and Steam will stream the game to your hard drive. Patches and new features will be streamed down in the background, then activated whenever they're ready. There won't be a retail box -- we require players to have a broadband connection, so the initial download shouldn't be too painful.
So the whole game will be downloadable. I wonder if this will be a new way to sell MMOG's? How will the retail stores react?

A couple other things that were good.One thing we've been dissatisfied with in other online games is what the early player experience is like. There's such a level treadmill, where you're highly vulnerable and spend your time beating up on chipmunks. Our gameplay style is very different. You start as the captain of your own ship, and a good captain in a starting vessel can still sail and fight very effectively.I don't remember too many chipmunks in games I've played, but I guess they didn't want to be the 100th game in a row to say that in other games you start out fighting rats.And combat in our game is very tactical. You don't select an enemy ship, press the attack button, and go make a sandwich. You're maneuvering, picking targets, changing ammunition loadouts, and delivering broadsides all in real time. It's not twitch gaming, and it's not fire-and-forget. It's white-knuckle decisions, planning ahead, and reacting to changes in the wind and in your enemy's tactics. This sounds really cool. I love good tactical battles. However I also know that sea battles can be long drawn out affairs, I'm not sure how well that would plain in a game.Our game's initial release is focused on ship-based gameplay -- there are no human avatars running around.This is really weird. Half of being a pirate is raiding and pillaging, chasing wenches, etc. But they say that they wanted to concentrate on the ship aspects and will bring the avatar later.

Another interview (http://www.edbis.com/interviews/piratesoftheburningsea_1.php) at EDBIS.com (http://www.edbis.com)

[Kalwin]

Sounds really cool and different. Going to keep an eye on that one, seems to be a good game if you like ships and stuff :cool:

[Lateralus]

Arr, I dont like pirate games, they tend to be very boring but if I see more video or pics I might reconsider

[Ostracized]

Sounds pretty much identicle to a single player i played recently..

Sea Dogs

without a true avatar it just didnt feel like i was actually in the game. To me i simply cant get into a Sim as well as if i had an avatar. And it sounds like its much more of a Sim MMOG then anything else.

Not for me, but thats just a personal thing

[JonnyG]

Since it's downloadable it looks like theirs no up front fee. I love that part.

I love sea battles between big ships so it might be interesting. Although as I mentioned above a lot of sea battles took hours and hours so I'm not sure how they'll get rid of the downtime and make it exciting. But I'm watching and reading on it to see. It's a different take on a MMRPG for sure.

I also don't like not having an avatar. I want the sword fighting, boarding scenes, the sneaking across the island and raiding town, etc.

[JonnyG]

An interesting Dev Diary (http://www.flyinglab.com/pirates/logs.php?log_select=381&log_month=2004-1) on tuning combat.John innocently logs into the game, and he and his little ketch appear at the port of his namesake, St. John’s. An auspicious beginning, but it won’t help, since I’m waiting for him outside the harbor with a 3rd rate ship of the line.

“Hold still, this won’t hurt a bit.”

I fire off an entire broadside: fourteen 36-pounders, fifteen 18-pounders and eight 8-pounders. I’ve aimed at his masts. If he fired at my masts, his shot would bounce right off, but his fragile spars will explode into sawdust if I manage to land a shot.

A black hail, and the sound like rumbling thunder herald John’s impending dismasting. The cloud of shot – looking like a swarm of locusts – streaks through the sky and straight through his spars. And nothing happens. I use a debug command to make my aim impossibly accurate and try again. And nothing happens.Pretty fun read, I love ship combat and it sounds like they're going to do it right. Can't wait to try it.

Hmm, Dev Diaries, why don't we get them with Mythica?

[Gatzby]

I'm with Ostracized on this one. I don't care for a game without a humanoid avatar. While possible, as per the shoe discussion, I find it hard to roleplay a ship. Ran into this problem with Earth and Beyond(beta, at least)... just totally cuts the immersion factor for me.