POTBS big waste of time

[priatnia]

I have bought it and forced myself to get through the first mission, well not mission but these things that you do in port. Did them, sailed at sea and quit. Then coming back saw I don't have any save and have to repeat it again. Plus the way you fire cannons and the camera a bit annoyed me, together with the fighting style, which is 2D gamish. At the prospect of no moddability at all and no save when you like it I have decided to go back to PotC and the AoPs. Plus if I remember correctly the player cannot quite controll the encounters, the game loads the map not when you like but when it decides you are done.

 

[Dark Shado]

This is my review of the game Pirates of the Burning Sea
("POTBS")

Basically this game is a waste of time and money and the game
should have died when Sony Online Entertainment ("SOE") said
that they had enough of this game.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/1...ng-sea-sails-away-from-sony-online-entertain/

The company that took over this game Portalus http://portalusgames.com/
does absolutely nothing to actually try and control what happens in
the game itself and the only thing that they seem to care about is
to try and soak the players for as much money as they can.

Even though they list it as "Free to play" they limit as to what you can do
in game such as the number of boat slots you have avaiable to only 2
and the number of economy slots to two slots as well.

There is also word that Portalus is going to bring back the Captain's Club
as well which was put in place by Sony Online Entertainment as well
where there is a subcription each month as well.

Once you get into the game you start to find all of this out and that you
have to purchase all of this if you truely want to be able to play
this game on Treasure Isle which is their online store.

Griefing a huge problem in this game as well as cross teaming where people
are making multiple accounts and playing in multiple nations and using information
from one nation to another to gain an advantage in the game. Again Portalus is
doing absolutely nothing to try and stop this and control any of this and make
this game actually fair.

The problem with the cross teaming even goes as far as using one account in one
nation to find out what another nation or indvidiaul is doing and then using
that information to attack and kill another player.

http://www.potbs.com/forums/showthread.php?s=7f76b82644e83950475d35d12827a4fa&t=92083

http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84016

http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/potbs-big-waste-of-time.11447/page-3


Once again Portalus has no staff in game and no one there to stop these kind of
things. Players get away with pretty much what ever they want in game. Portalus
can put what ever rules they want on their website but they have absolutely no one
in game to actually enforce the rules that they set so what good is really having
these rules.

Over all this game is horribly run by Portalus Games and should have died with
Sony. If this is how Portalus games is going to run this game then it probably
won't be around for too much longer.

http://syncaine.com/2008/04/17/understanding-failure-the-potbs-story/


All of these problems clearly show in game where the number of servers were cut from
11 to 4 and now they have cut that down further to just 2 servers. Roberts and Antigua

The economy on this game is extremely screwed up as well and is to the point where it
is just broken The Avatar combat system ("AVCOM") where players can fight each other
person to person is also extremely busted and doesn't work there have been multiple
complaints about the AVCOM system being busted in this game but yet Portalus still
has not fixed it.

The missions that you do in this game are nothing more than a repeat of the one before
you end up seeing the same mission with a very slight twist over and over using the same
areas for the missions as well. It gets very boring, very fast.

Yet another problem with this game currently is that every time you log into the game
you get a message popping up on your screen saying that it could not connect to port
7000-7100 UDP and that it is going to use TCP instead of UDP. Portalus has known
about this for a long time now and has done absolutely nothing to fix it.

It has nothing to do with the players end either everyone is getting that same message
it seems. Half-Hitch one of the staff claims they are "working on it" but there has
been absolutely no progress what so ever.

http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78866&page=2

"We're working on the problem."

The graphics on the game are medicore to lowend at best and really nothing special at all.
A lot better job could have been done with the graphics on this game.

Also another annoying problem with this game is after you have been playing it for a while
you get an error popping up saying "Out of memory" even if you have 4 Gig or 8 gig or RAM.
Again this is a problem with the game which has never been corrected. Your game crashes
back to your desktop and you disconnected from the game.

http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77800

Oh and you are probably saying to yourself why not submit a ticket to Portalus well
good luck with that I was informed by the Support person that there is only ONE
person currently doing support for this game and that is him. There is no one
else helping him.




http://tobolds.blogspot.ca/2008/04/pirates-sinking-fast.html



Over all Pirates of the Burning Sea ("POTBS") is a huge failure and should be avoided.
And Portalus if you are reading this please do everyone a favor and let this game die
in peace and put it to rest.

 

[Flannery]

I totally agree with Dark Shado on every aspect on what Potbs has become and what needs to be done with it.
I have myself followed that game since beta, and been very active most of the time it have been live over the years.
And regrettably also followed its demise...

However - to in general blame Portalus for how the game is right now, is somewhat unfair.
Sure!, they are absolutely out to earn money on it, so they will of course add objects to their store to earn money.
After all... they are business company They are not a charity club.
And the old sub system, and its limitations when the game went Free To Play - was not something Portalus implemented.

However - they have just now been able to start changing the game - due to the coding of the game showing to be allot messier than they first thought. Making it impossible for them to actually develop the game further before opening it again for those who still play it while they await Portalus to get their stuff sorted.
They are now slowly moving forward as they get more and more of their coding working.

They have announced they are bringing back the option to pay a sub, indeed. But they have also hinted that they will not make Free To Play as limited as it is now. The new Sub option will look nothing like the old one, and by far cheaper.
They have also already changed and lowered the prices on almost any object in their Store - as those old prices were the result of FLS and SOE, not Portalus.

The game has only now the last 4-5 weeks started to get smaller patches - which has mainly revolved around Portalus getting the coding sorted, and back-doors ready to start new development of the game, and to introduce 3rd parties - even though the game has been live again since February/March.

They have also added some minor new things - but these new ships, and other objects are very clearly a poor attempt to keep a very inpatient crowd busy, and to earn a quick buck. But somewhat understandably from my point of view.
Or it is the meager start of something to come that they have not yet elaborated on.

They have also just announced that they now have started on a new build that will involve more visible changes.
For now the smaller visible changes has been towards PvE, and it seems they will still be concentrating on that for a little while more, before one can expect any bigger changes to PvP and RvR.

The forums are a mess though - cluttered with dissatisfied old veterans, who cry for changes - which will not see the light of day for a long time still I fear - If they ever come at all.

Big "game-breaking" changes will probably not be seen for several months yet.

The player mass of Potbs are somewhat divided though - and the forums show this clearly:
- One part seems utterly sure that Portalus will follow FLS/SOE's footsteps and fail, and try to milk the game for some smaller cash. And that they seem oblivious to the player mass and what they advice/wish for the game and so on.

- The other part seems in trust of Portalus and feels it WAY to early to place a verdict, as changing the game - and turning the ship around will take allot more time, and waits patiently for what is to come.

I personally am one of the latter who waits patiently.

So.. My thoughts, and my conclusion...

YES - Potbs is a total waste of time, and a great mess right now, but if you give it a few months - it should at least be worth to check it out and see if Portalus have actually come further, and actually made the game better.
And if they manage to get the game up to the standards of some of their visions and ideas - well it might be worth it after all.

If not... Portalus will then surely not succeed, go bankrupt - them guys will loose their homes and everything it seems - and the game will die quite quickly.

The game will never go back to what it once was (and it had its great flaws even then) - but it might still evolve into something interesting still.

I personally do have some faith left in Portalus - and will give them the benefit of the doubt for now.

I guess only time will show

 

[Black "Sam" Bellamy]

i agree with the both of you. i understand your point of view dark shado because i play because of the word F2P bu then i saw the limitations and how they kinda put u in a situation and the ridiculous amount peeps want for 1 burning sea note.Ugh. and that tcp cannot connect is annoying however Flannery u have a point also they are understaffed that is a major problem that's like running NASA with only 2 people its not good. And all the blame cant really be on Portalus but its predecessor also has blame. I also understand the need for its ways of getting money but they need a balance and since they r unbalance since most of the people playing the game is F2P they need to figure out something that can attract people but not to limit the game to only paid players.I have played many"F2P" games and their downfall usually is the divison of the F2P and P2P aspects of the game. Like Pirate 101 i thought was going to be a great game but it destroys all hope for free players when u get so far and i gave them a great idea to help free players but they never posted back to me and its still the same. I hope POTBS will arise as a great game.

 

[Skyworm]

Cheers Gentlemen,

I realise this post is a bit old, but this struck me and I want to add a line or two.

Even though they list it as "Free to play" they limit as to what you can do
in game such as the number of boat slots you have avaiable to only 2
and the number of economy slots to two slots as well.

There is also word that Portalus is going to bring back the Captain's Club
as well which was put in place by Sony Online Entertainment as well
where there is a subcription each month as well.

Once you get into the game you start to find all of this out and that you
have to purchase all of this if you truely want to be able to play
this game on Treasure Isle which is their online store.

Well ... yes ... what did you expect?

"Free to play" simply does not mean a game is completely free. If it were, it would be called freeware.
You'll find a good definition here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-to-play

"Free to play" is a commercial system how paying for playing a game is done. Other than the usual MMOs "pay to play" where you pay on a monthly base to play a month with all features included, with "free to play" you'll get just a part of the game. You can play and test anyting, but to advance further, you'll hvae to pay for special things like ship slots, character slots, whatsoever.
I perfectly understand that this system has disadvantages, but complaining about having to pay in a free to play is sort of a misunderstanding. Well, obviously a very common one.

Just realize that people who create games (doing coding, modelling, designing, keep running, buying servers to keep running ....) want to be payed for their work. And if payment does not come from a monthly subcription, that it has to be come from somewhere else. Right?

A word about the captain's club and treasure isle.
Portalus can not remove these, for a very simple reason:
There are players in the game, who have paid money for that. If you now remove the captain's club, you'll also surely remove everony who has payed for that. Taking things away players have paid for is a very very bad idea for a publisher. To expect them doing this is really illusionary.

I agree with all of you the game is not good at the current state, and I hope it will become better. Maybe it will, but that's a difficult task I think. Since WoW showed all of us that MMO can attrakt masses of players, any publisher doing an MMO looks for masses. And more realism, deeper but harder to learn gameplay, and such things are not the sort of stuff that masses of players want. So it is only a faint hope that PotBS will be developed in that direction. But hope dies last. I'd like to see it happen - but I expect otherwise