What I Didn’t Like About Pirates
I had a message from someone from Flying Labs Software, the developers of Pirates of the Burning Sea (PotBS), asking why I was disappointed in the game. They left a contact email and I’ve sent my reply, but I thought I’d write here about it also.
I would like to start by saying thanks for even caring what I think and for going to the trouble of asking. I’d just like to add that this is merely my opinion, plenty of people love PotBS. And I don’t think it’s a bad game at all, just mightily boring.
Unlike EVE Online, when you dock in a port you have an avatar with which to navigate the town and do business. This avatar is also used for swashbuckling combat. I didn’t find the combat particularly good or engaging, it’s more annoying than anything. It also didn’t support group dynamics, everyone is much the same. There are no specialist musketeers or fencers. No ranged expert or close combat specialist. Basically there was no need to group to do the swashbuckling missions, certainly no desire to.
Everything is instanced. The swashbuckling missions, the auction house, ship combat. There’s nothing wrong with instances per se but each one is accompanied by a load screen. And that’s probably the thing that drove me away from PotBS. I just seemed to spend too much time looking at load screens. If I wanted to check my sales on the Auction House I would load into it. If I wanted to grab a quest from the magistrate I would load into his office. Do a swashbuckling quest, load into an instance. Do a ship combat quest, load into an instance. Finish quest, load out. Load in, load out. Load in, load out.
Outside of combat the rest of the game isn’t very exciting. I certainly enjoyed the freetrader aspects of the game and derived some satisfaction from producing and selling goods, but it certainly wasn’t exciting. Add in a lot of load screens and the balance of excitement vs boredom strongly tips the way of the latter.
I haven’t discounted PotBS altogether. I’ve recently upgraded my Sony account to the Station Package, so I can play all of their games. I will try PotBS again. But whether it keeps me engaged for more than a few hours, only time will tell.
