Pirates of the Burning Sea Starts Beta

An anonymous reader writes "Pirates of the Burning Sea is a fresh thinking MMORPG that is not based on the typical leveling treadmill like so many others. You can find a podcast interview with designer John 'Rev' Tynes at MMORadio. From the site: 'Britain, Spain, and France are carving up the Caribbean with the thunder of cannon. Fleets lay siege to ports bursting with wealth, eager to claim them for King and Country. The sea burns with the fires of glory. From the haze of battle emerges the Black Flag, and into the chaos plunge pirates, bold and resolute. This is your world now, a world of battle and intrigue, and you will captain your ship through the pages of legend!'" It's great to see one of these more niche games getting out into the wild like this.

Comments

I loved that game!

[isaac]

I loved that game... 2 years ago when it was called Puzzle Pirates.

Get a new idea, guys, this one's taken.

-Isaac

Re:I loved that game!

[Tyger]

By that standard, WoW is using an idea so old it should be on life support.

Get a clue, this one's taken.

Re:I loved that game!

[AuMatar]

No, there's no puzzles involved here. Think more Sid Meyer's Pirates!

Re:I loved that game!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you honestly think that what you have just written is not retarded, please kindly jump off of the nearest convenient building.

Re:I loved that game!

[Kazzahdrane]

So basically, you saw the word "Pirates" and that it was online, and thought "omfg it's Puzzle Pirates lol!" I know most ./ readers can't RTFA to save themselves, but I'd have thought you could at least saved replying about a game if you have absolutely no idea what the game is.

Re:I loved that game!

[Tyger]

If I wasn't commenting already about a lack of link to the news in the story, I would have used my last mod point to mark that post a troll.

Re:I loved that game!

[Kazzahdrane]

That's your perogative of course, though in my defense I don't think I was trolling, rather letting another user know he could have saved himself some riducule by actually thinking twice before posting. No, I wasn't particularly friendly about it, but then I live around gaming fanboys who love to slag off games they've never played so it becomes a sort of instant reaction.

Re:I loved that game!

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Firstly, I think the person you're responding to was referring to the post you initially responded to.

Second, that post in question was made by someone with a 4 digit Slashdot ID. Last time I moderated someone with that low an ID was the last time I had mod points (about 3 years ago). Somehow, I think those two events just MIGHT be related.

Re:I loved that game!

[Veloxi]

Entirely different game, pal, think more Pirates or Sea Dogs, not Puzzle Pirates. Did you actually LOOK at the game before you attempted to be witty? ;)

Re:I loved that game!

[Tyger]

Gojira was right. I was referring to the parent of your comment, agreeing with what you said.

Re:I loved that game!

[isaac]

Blah blah blah. Yes, I RTFA. I was aware of this game-under-development years ago, too.

No, it's not puzzle-based, but is substantially similar to Puzzle Pirates in that it

* claims to be skill-based ("no levelling treadmill")
* features sea combat with command strategy, ship damage, grappling, etc.
* has a"PvP conquerable world" & a commodity trading economy
* offers customizable avatars (i.e. colors, jewelry, bears, peg-legs, & so on)

Frankly, this sounds plenty like puzzle pirates to me. PP has these things plus some puzzles. PotBS has these things plus 3D graphics.

Hey, I like pirates. I like Sid Meier's Pirates. I liked Puzzle Pirates & I might even like this game. But it's clearly evolutionary, not revolutionary.

Sheesh, I didn't bend your wookiee.

-Isaac

Re:I loved that game!

[TychoCelchuuu]

Don't be silly. Lots of MMORPGs claim to be skill based: Guild Wars, Star Wars Galaxies: JTL, Planetside, etc. Sea combat with command strategy? What the heck do you EXPECT a pirate game to feature? Space combat with no command strategy? Is "pirate" suddenly reserved for Puzzle Pirates, and anything with sea combat and "ship damage" (how would combat work without damage?) is a ripoff of PP? A PVP conquerable world is something you find in Planetside, Star Wars: Galaxies, World of Warcraft (they claim), and lots of other MMOs. It's not the property of Puzzle Pirates. Customizable avatars are in every single MMO ever, at all, in the history of the universe.

I can't see how you can call this "evolutionary, not revolutionary" simply because it has pirates and features other MMOs do. Almost every MMO (excluding CoH, The Matrix Online, and Second Life and stuff like that) has the features you're describing along with a setting that is similar to another MMO that is already out. I played PotBS at PAX and it resembled Puzzle Pirates about as much as that BF1942 Pirates mod does.

Re:I loved that game!

[David Rolfe]

I can't see how you can call this "evolutionary, not revolutionary" simply because it has pirates and features other MMOs do. Almost every MMO (excluding CoH, The Matrix Online, and Second Life and stuff like that) has the features you're describing along with a setting that is similar to another MMO that is already out.

This comment is weirdly moderated. It's rated insightful when it doesn't display any insight at all (as usual for 'insightful' mods).

Shouldn't it be self-evident that if a game contains only features that other games already have (or have had) that it is evolutionary and not revolutionary? The second sentence of the quotation above makes the first meaningless by lending even more credence to this game's evolutionary nature.

I play YPP. I'm going to sign up for this beta. But, what's revolutionary about this game?

Re:I loved that game!

[TychoCelchuuu]

As far as I can tell, every MMO is evolutionary, not revolutionary, except maybe something like Second Life. Even stuff like Planetside sticks you on a sort of levelling treadmill. I took issue not with you calling PotBS evolutionary, but with your comparing it to Puzzle Pirates and then calling it evolutionary, as if PotBS was just taking stuff from PP and adding a bit of new stuff. I agree that PotBS is similar to other MMOs (EVE Online first and foremost) but the only thing it has SPECIFICALLY in common with PP is pirates. Other than that they only resemble each other to the same degree that all MMOs do.

Re:I loved that game!

[David Rolfe]

I didn't compare it to puzzle pirates, that was another poster... but anyhow. Puzzle Pirates doesn't have leveling either. There is no treadmill in Puzzle Pirates unless you count earning money (via pillaging or economy). You are rated in your skills against other players by how well you perform those skills.

Other than that they only resemble each other to the same degree that all MMOs do.

Well only if you mean to say "they only resemble each other to the same degree that all mmogs set in the Carribean golden age of piracy do" which currently is one game: Puzzle Pirates. With another now in beta: PotBS. Other mmogs don't feature sea-battling or pillaging or naval blockading at all.

I guess the similarity would only be obvious if you had actually spent any honest time playing Puzzle Pirates (i.e., participating in the navy, economy, politics, war, blockading islands, sea-battle with broadsides and sailing and gunning and repairing and bilging and grappling and melee, crafting, shipping, foraging, commanding a crew and vessel, building and owning a ship or ships, learning charts, customizing the appearance and dress of your pirate, injuries at sea for patches and pegs and hooks earned not chosen, furnishing your home(s) with player crafted goods, etc). You don't level though. You are bestowed a rank by other players and by the navy.

PotBS really does sound (from developer descriptions), as the other poster put it, like Y!PP but in 3D. Everything in their feature list is already in Y!PP except the DirectX requirement (Y!PP is multi-platform). When the beta is more open I'm sure plenty of posting will come out by players with extensive experience in both games.

I'll tell you what -- I've been playing Y!PP for like 2 years. Ask me about any feature that PotBS has and I'll explain how it works in Puzzle Pirates. That way we can determine what's revolutionary about PotBS.

I'll start off with one from the screenshots -- it seems that PotBS has day and night. In Puzzle Pirates it is always daylight on the high seas and it only night at an island when the undead walk. Night time lasts on the island until all of the skellies are defeated. The Developers of Puzzle Pirates axed day and night back in 2002 here and here from the feature list (it even sounds like if Puzzle Pirates was rendered in 3D and not pre-drawn sprites it would have day/night...). Pirates never sleep. :-D I'll expect that PotBS has accelerated time like in say, Zelda or GTA making the feature anything but revolutionary. Real-time day and night has already been featured in Animal Crossing (though that's probably not the first example).

We've been watching for the revolution for over a year now. The PotBS devs must have been reading the YPP forums, because nowadays they are touting their 'no level treadmill' just like puzzling pirates were saying a year and a half ago.

Source for start of beta news?

[Tyger]

Where is the source for the news that beta is started? The closest I can find is news that they are very close now, but the last report was that it had not actually started yet.

Re:Source for start of beta news?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.flyinglab.com/forums/showthread.php?s=& threadid=9487

Sorry forgot to put it in the article I submitted :)

Re:Source for start of beta news?

[Tyger]

I don't read that as saying beta has definately started. It says they have started taking beta applications. That could have a number of meanings. Face value would be that you could submit applications to beta. However that is unlikely since the post was 2 days ago and they have been accepting applications for awhile. It is also implied otherwise by their inclusion of the statement about not being ruled out. The second and IMO most likely interpretation is that they have selected everyone for the first round and accepted their application, but that they haven't necessarily started testing yet.

The only way to know fure sure if it had started would be an official announcement or someone who was accepted saying that they are now testing. The former is not a common practice in any company. The latter is unlikely at this point since the first round is only 23 people. Once it gets bigger leaks are inevitable, but when it's a very small group that are very avid fans, leaks are well controlled.

So I don't think it's fair to say that beta has started. Just that it may have started.

Re:Source for start of beta news?

[Xarius]

The poster is more than likely (like myself) someone who applied for the beta and passed, thus being notified by email.

Sure but...

[Bobdammit]

If the server breaks down, do the pirates eat the players?

Oh dear

[Sippan]

Good God!! Pimps at Sea lives!

Noooooo

[ClamIAm]

Does the lack of beta-invitation email in my inbox mean I didn't get into the beta? Oh well.

Re:Noooooo

[Tyger]

It means you don't get into the first round.

Which, considering it is only 23 people, wasn't very likely to begin with.

Will I get an eyepatch if I buy the pre-order box?

[heybiff]

A la COV, it's all about the extras!

Anyone else hoping...

[amrust]

...that the devs get the 'Raping and Pillaging' content finished in time for the final release?

ARRR!!!

I don't use iTMS

[Anonymous Coward]

I refuse to have to login to listen to a podcast. Could someone post a link to an mp3 or m3u file? If not, no biggie, I'm sure I can live without this :]