Pirates of the Burning Sea - First impressions/review

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

I got this MMO yesterday and has been playing it ever since only taking a break from it now(of course sleeping is counted into it) to write this little number.
However since the game is pretty big and alot to take in all at once, I feel that I haven't got a total grasp of all the features in the game hence why this is more of a first impression.
But let's get started.

Story:
The year is 1720, the new world is booming.
England, France, Spain and Pirates controls the sea in a ever-lasting battle for control.

General:
Well after the bothersome account creating, subscription nonsense and update downloading(which took almost 2 hours) only to find that all the servers except the test server were down because of a bug in the latest patch. Well off to a good start.
However since I wanted to play this game and see how it looks I went to the test server(but now I'm on a european server).
I had to create my character where the game offered me a nice variety of options to customise my character.
I also had to pick wether I wanted to be british, french, spanish or pirate.
Now if you pick a nation then you have 3 classes to pick from, Freetraders(the merchants), Privateers(semi-pirate with an home) and naval officer(pure military). While if you are a pirate then you have no classes.
Nations also have the ability to build new and powerful ships while pirates can build ships, they aren't very powerful. Instead they get an ability that enables them to capture ships and make them their own.
You can also capture ports(well most of them) for the glory of your nation.
You can upgrade your weapons and armor but nothing that will change your apperance(not sure if changing swords will tho) which is kinda sad.
Also there are taverns but you can't get drunk which I think is really sad .

Quests:
After you have created your character you get a tutorial(which you can't skip but it's useful since you get money and other items) which is simple. You learn how to fight melee(or as the game call it "avatar combat") and naval battles.
Then you are taken to a friendly port belonging to the nation you picked and get even more tutorial quests(optional) and other real quests.
The quests are pretty easy and usually involves you killing pirates(or if you are a pirate then you are killing rival pirates).
But overall they feel like the quests in Eve Online, pretty much just to get you started and when you are ready, you are suppose to start doing your own things.

Economy:
This part I still haven't totally understood yet so I can't go into too much detail.
The economy is pretty much like Eve Online as well meaning it's all player-based. There are vendors that will be able to sell you items but they are usually basic and the real stuff comes from players.
You can build warehouses,farms, quarries and other things so that you can produce things and sell in the auction houses.
You can build ships using ship deeds that you buy.
You can also sell ships that you capture(pirates) but in order to do so I need to get the deeds for the ship which I haven't totally understood yet.
This area is alot to take in and the reviewers over at IGN and other places seem to agree with me.

Combat:

Avatar combat is pretty basic. You got 3 different fighting styles which you invest points into that you get when you level.
You got your hotbar that contains the skills you select.
When you see an enemy you click on him and start using your hotbar. That's it. You got NPC commands like "follow me", "hold the line" and "attack" but that's about it and once they are on your hotbar. Luckily there is no magic involved in this game and all the styles in the game are realistic.

Naval combat is more complex but easy to learn if you have played games like Sea dogs and others before.
You got your ship(and sometimes allies), you have to account wind directions, amount of sails you deploy, ammo types etc.
Ships got frontal, rear and side armor that varies depending on upgrade and type of ships, sails, crew and morale.
If you wanna bring a ship down to the bottom of the ocean you just have to pound the hell out of it and if you wanna do it quick then focus all your firepower on one side of the ship.
You get skills that enables you to repair your ship but the AI never uses it so they are pretty simple as long as it's within your level.
However the game is made for PVP so I can imagine that human players won't be that easy to kill(if they know what they are doing).
Still the AI can put up quite a fight and behave pretty good.

Graphics:
The water looks very nice in the game and so does the ships.
Ports and other terrain also looks nice but not like the water.
Characters looks good too but nothing that will blow your mind. Same with their animations.

Sound:

Nothing to complain here.
Sound of cannons going off and hitting ships is all nice.

Overall:
So far I think this is a nice game.
The economy side is alot to take in but other then that it's pretty easy as long as you got something between your ears.
However things like changing your apperance and no ability to get drunk is sad since it removes some of the role-playing aspect that even WoW had.
But as a first impression I would give this game 4 out 5.
I can do more in the game and looking forward to learning how to do so I can rule the seas.
Yaarrrrgggghhhhh

**** out of *****

[CDMan477]

Story:
The year is 1720, the new world is booming.
England, France, Spain and Pirates controls the sea in a ever-lasting battle for control.

I perhaps missed it in your write-up but I assume the game takes place in the Caribbean? Are you saying that the Netherlands aren't included here, or perhaps even Portugal if the game includes parts of Brazil? Not a game breaker I suppose, but I would be disappointed non the less.

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

I perhaps missed it in your write-up but I assume the game takes place in the Caribbean?

Well I did state the new world since the maps has most of north america central america and south america(and all the islands in the middle).

Are you saying that the Netherlands aren't included here, or perhaps even Portugal if the game includes parts of Brazil? Not a game breaker I suppose, but I would be disappointed non the less.

The netherlands are in but not as a nation.
I have seen quite alot of Dutch East India trading company convoys and not quite sure if they got warships around as well.
The others are not in.

[MadBurgerMaker]

I was a beta tester for this. I'm giving it a year or so before I go back to give it another shot (mostly because I played the out of it for a long time, but also because of some problems I had with it). Good review TB.

I should mention that I was a ship producer most of the time, so if you have any questions about the economy, throw a PM my way, and I'll try to help you out (as much as I can..it's been a couple months at least now). There's money to be made there mang.

[Dracula]

Hey does the game have single player or it's only multi ?!

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

It's a MMO so it's multiplayer.

@Madburger: Sure thing.

[Giorgos]

Good review TB. Not into MMO's but heavily into pirate games, thus the reason i visited this thread.

[Darkragnar]

Could you talk more about the avatar combat , is it an unbalanced affair like most of the other mmo's out there or is it all spick and span and polished like wow's combat ?
oh an i read in gamespots review that we cant totally ignore h2h combat and live a life at sea and do the ship fighting thing , like you could do in pirates of the carribean (sea dog II ,i think)
oh oh and can u tell me wheter the sea combat is exactly like sea dogs , like u mention some of the things in ur review but seeing as u've played sea dogs , does it feel the same ? or a bit more polished?

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

Could you talk more about the avatar combat , is it an unbalanced affair like most of the other mmo's out there or is it all spick and span and polished like wow's combat ?

Overall I would say that it's pretty balanced. As I said. it's pretty simple combat.
One thing I learned recently is the importance of "balance". If you put it in game terms "balance" kinda equals a shield. Apperently if your balance meter goes to 0 you will have a higher chance of getting hit. Balance recharges by itself.

oh an i read in gamespots review that we cant totally ignore h2h combat and live a life at sea and do the ship fighting thing , like you could do in pirates of the carribean (sea dog II ,i think)

No you can't especially if you are a pirate. If you play as another nation you can't ignore it either since alot of quests requires you to fight h2h but as a pirate, the only way for you to get good ships is to capture them and you do that by boarding ships.

oh oh and can u tell me wheter the sea combat is exactly like sea dogs , like u mention some of the things in ur review but seeing as u've played sea dogs , does it feel the same ? or a bit more polished?

Overall I would say that it is pretty much the same.
There are minor differences like your ship heals itself slowly during combat(there are skills that enables you to repairs certain areas of the ship alot faster). You also got focus skills that tells your crew to focus on one thing like for example gunnery, enabling this makes you shoot more accurate,do more damage and reload faster but you move more poorly and lower defense.
But as I said, if you have played Sea Dogs, you will have no problem with the ship combat(which is kinda strange that no one has actually tried to do something more advanced then the Sea dogs combat style).

[CDMan477]

Well I did state the new world since the maps has most of north america central america and south america(and all the islands in the middle).
The netherlands are in but not as a nation.
I have seen quite alot of Dutch East India trading company convoys and not quite sure if they got warships around as well.
The others are not in.

My apologies, I missed that, although I'm glad to hear that the map is so extensive. Most pirate/18th century commerce games have taken place strictly in the Caribbean for as long as I can remember now. Including North and South America is great. Although, I'm still waiting for a true sequel to Uncharted Waters for anyone old enough to remember that little gem. Your review is good and the game sounds good. I may look into this in the future, If some more free time ever falls into my lap.

[Emperor Taizu]

I was planning on getting this until I found out that I'll have to pay at least $15 a month to play. That's a total rip off.