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There's also some variations on the "Western fantasy" theme you may enjoy:

• "Sword of the New World" which is a Guild-Wars like alternate-universe takeoff on the early age of exploration of the Americas.
• I'm not sure if it took off very much, but Pirates of the Burning Seas had a great premise at least

I have this friend IRL right and he's so attached his education that his not living life. He sacrifices any bit of fun for it. He gets up around 9am, calls his mum in Denver, and then hits the books until about 3am only leaving his desk to put a piece of cheese on some bread and maybe take a shit. His desk is totally littered with empty energy drink bottles and sometimes he pisses in an empty instead of getting up to go to the bathroom. Once he accidentally drank a recycled one and just vomited in another.

There's this pirate game right, it's awesome! Swashbuckling and harrr! Open seas! Booty! Awesomez!!! and I've tried to bring it up with him every now and again but my suggestions are always met with derision and anger. "You're sleeping your future away with that crap!" he'll yell. He can't see that he's missing out on all this fun with his addiction to success.

I've tried using wake-on-LAN and changing his home page but it just won't work. What can I do to help him?

Pirates of the Burning Sea looks like it's the most innovative MMO coming out soon, unless Garriot puts his money where his mouth is and Tabula Rasa turns out amazing. PotBS mostly does away with the grind, has a completely player operated economy and a player-driven world, and it certainly gets away from the tired fantasy setting and all that stuff. Finally, the gameplay's totally different from almost every other MMO. Stuff like EVE and a Tale in the Desert or whatever also break the rules; he's really complaining more about the trend, rather than about everything.

User created content means more new content (which the developers don't have to spend time/money on) for the userbase to play. How can it not be a good thing to have?

And then there's games like the in-development Pirates of the Burning Sea which actually has an entire system set up for the creation of user created content, run mostly by the users themselves. There's a whole bunch of ships that the users have made that have been put in the official game. The whole idea of the playerbase being connected and involved with multiple aspects of the game is, in my opinion, an awesome idea.

Disclaimer: I am a self-admitted PotBS fan. This post may be slightly biased.

It's been in the works for a while now (longer than Spore!), it's called "Pirates of the Burning Sea". Maybe they will hurry up and release the game, if there is some pirate MMO competition. http://www.burningsea.com/

Pirates of the Burning sea looks like a very promising pirate themed MMORPG. Now all we need is a ninja themed MMORPG and see which beats which in sales to determine which would win.

It won't even be the next. Pirates of the Burning Sea will come out before this does.

And on top of that, PotBS will be a better game.

The ToonTown guys are working on PotC and obviously their design will be informed by lessons learned there. But the subject matter is a little... darker. I bet PotC will be targeted at T for teen, and marketed mainly to 12-17 year olds.

Pirates of the Burning Sea or this one.
I think I'm placing my bets on the former just because movie licenses don't tend to end well.

Hm, granted that aside from Toontown, Disney computer games (and movie computer games) generally suck, but perhaps this will light an unpleasant fire under the crew behind http://www.burningsea.com/ (Pirates of the Burning Sea) ANOTHER pirate MMOG that's been in development forever.

Ironic, how these things with multi-year development times all seem to come out at once....WW2 games (jillions of them), Space 4x games (nothing for a long time, then GalCiv and MOO3 like the same week), now pirate games.

Doesn't this kind of overlap with Pirates of the Burning Sea?

Pirates of the Burning Sea http://www.burningsea.com/ comes to my mind. It won't have magic though.

I understand all the concepts of user controlled economies, desire to play but not fight, etc. BUT I still don't know what any of this has to do with STAR WARS. If someone wants to roleplay being a farmer or an "image consultant" why not seek out a more appropriate venue.

I speak as an SWG player who has easily spent 90% of my time as a crafter and merchant. There isn't "a more appropriate venue", mostly. SWG has (had) one of the most extensive crafting systems of any MMOG. When the NGE came along I looked at what options I had for a new MMOG with the same depth of player crafting, since the NGE really has ruined the non-combat professions. I have yet to find a decent alternative to SWG. Some of us really have no interest in swords and sorcery type MMOGs and prefer more of a sci-fi universe.

So far the most promising alternatives for a non-combat experience don't quite exist yet, like Dark and Light (swords and sorcery, I know) or Pirates of the Burning Sea. As for the Star Wars universe, it's not the ideal sci-fi setting but it is rich and has depth. I'd much prefer a good cyberpunk or steampunk MMOG, though.

I've been playing SWG since the early days, and it has always had way too many bugs in-game. Instead of focusing on fixing bugs, SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) has spent its efforts throwing out expansions and revamps. While these are good additions to the game, they come with their own new sets of bugs. NGE was the absolute worst. Setting aside whether or not the changes were good, the number of bugs is unbearable. For weeks after NGE was pushed live none of the basic quests worked properly. Hell, Jabba's Palace (one of the major theme parks) was broken for weeks. NGE would have been a lot easier for the players to swallow if it worked. What we got was a radically different game that was barely beyond alpha quality.

The reason I like SWG and stick with it is because it's a unique MMOG. It's not fantasy and magic (which are fine). Before NGE it was also more like an empire-building game experience, where you were less focused on immediate mechanics and played for a greater goal such as strengthening your guild or creating a major commercial enterprise or organizing huge cantina song and dance events. The "sandbox" play let the players create things to do in-game, which seems a bit different from a lot of existing MMOGs.

With NGE I'm not as happy with SWG as I was. I can adjust to the play, but the changes to rigid, limited character classes and the loss of the player economy and social network has really damaged the appeal of the game to me and many others. I've been casting around for a new MMOG to go to but don't see anything out there that's more like SWG and less like WoW. City of Heroes/Villians is unique, and Pirates of the Burning Sea has potential (Star Wars on the water?), when it goes live. But most MMOGs seems to be WoW-like dragon magic settings, even the much-hyped Dark and Light.

Give me science fiction over fantasy, that's my preference. Oh what I wouldn't give for a decent cyberpunk (not Matrix Online) or even a steampunk MMOG.

Check out http://www.burningsea.com/