Pirates of the Burning Sea is essentially what you’d expect from a cross between the mercurial Sid Meier’s Pirates and World of Warcraft, though we’re informed that City of Heroes played a major inspiration. Players usher themselves into the game by choosing from their allegiance and class. When picking from British, French and Spanish, players can choose careers as either Navy Officer, Privateer or Free Trader. Given the titular significance, if you choose to be a Pirate, that’s what you’re going to be.
We were told that the game not only has plenty of choice for the player, but regardless of their chosen role, will have some sort of impact on the world around them. As you’d expect, each player choice will have different advantages and disadvantages. For example, a Navy Officer will have access to the best ships and battle equipment but they will need to rely on the Free Traders, who are running the game’s economy. In turn, Free Traders rely on the Navy for protection from the Pirates or opposing Privateers (state sanctioned pirates). Each of the careers will have numerous different skills and ranks to attain, through the skill tree that is said to be very broad. It is a system that is meant to encourage players specialising in a few skills, so that there will end up being a lot of variety.
Thankfully, a good looking sea will accompany you through out the game.
We were told that Pirates of the Burning Sea will look to cater for as many players as possible, from the hardcore that play for many, many hours per day to the more casual player that may only play a couple of hours per week. One of the major selling points for the game is the amount of work that has gone into creating a balance between experienced players and newcomers. While a level 5 player will still have a heck of time trying to take down a level 20 player, it will certainly be possible in both ship and PVP combat, if you have the right tactics and particularly if you have team with you.
Pirates of the Burning Sea will have single player and multiplayer components. For those who want a break from the PVP grind, they will have access to numerous story-based missions. These will often play out like they would in any normal RPG. For example, instead of walking into a tavern filled with other players in the game, the tavern will be filled with NPC’s. Scripted sequences would follow, such as the town being involved in an all out attack. However, the town would remain unscathed in the multiplayer world. Such story missions would have implications on an individual’s experience. One example of such a mission was given to us, and related to how a player earned their love interest for the rest of the game. Apparently, there is a private island in the game for each player that will be unique for them based on who they met and what they did in the game. There are fascinating concepts such as the ‘National Story’ in the works as well.
It was explained to us that the game has three crucial aspects: ship battles, PVP missions and the game’s economy. Given the amount of time you will spend sailing across the Caribbean, ship combat will obviously play a crucial role. There seems to be a fine balance between the larger slower ships and the smaller faster ships. So while the large ships will be equipped with better guns, a faster ship may be able to outmanoeuvre it. The depth within the combat will come from each ship’s capability with the wind and the amount of ships against each other. Each ship has a ring around it, with segments indicating how well it will travel. Red indicates that you’re sailing into the wind, yellow indicates that the ship will travel slower than it can and green is the direction that it will travel best.
Each ship will have a different ring. Large ships will travel well with the wind and will be hard to turn, while another ship exists that sails very well into the wind. There were 22 ships initially available, though there are now 60 in the game, thanks to user created content. Combat works by choosing your ammo, pointing at your target, then getting the ship into position (indicated by a vision cone) and firing. While you can play one-on-one, the strategic implementation will primarily come into play when there are several ships battling. Best of all, it’s all done in real-time. It’s not incredibly complex, but certainly has a lot of potential depth.
Owned.
There are three different ways of battling: fencing, dirty style and two-handed. This will eventually be followed by the ‘hook’ style, and possibly more. Each style will have its own skills attached. For example, the dirty style will eventually earn a skill that has a player pulling a gun on a duelling opponent. The swashbuckling system is based on the concept of balance and initiative. Players need to knock their opponents off balance (indicated by a ring at the feet of the player) before they can actually damage them. Furthermore, initiative is the ability to pull off the skills related to each style, and is indicated by a meter. The developers have conceded that some aspects of combat needed improvement, such as transition animations, but we’re informed that they’re in the works.
The economy will have several implications on the game, particularly as it’s completely driven by the players in the game. Most of the jobs in the game will be held by the Free Traders. Players will, for example, be able to own a ship yard. However, their ability to actually build a ship will depend on the availability of resources, such as whether there is wood available at the location of your ship yard or whether it needs to be imported from another port. Still, players don’t have to directly participate in running the economy, but the economy plays a crucial role when it comes to who controls what in the game. Furthermore, players in the same nation will be able to create societies, which are similar to guilds.
Within the servers of the game, each nationality has the chance to ‘win’. They can do so by owning everything in the game. This is no mean task however, as there are 80 real life ports in the game, three competing nations and a bunch of pirates thrown into the mix. Pirates will be in the hunt to win as well, namely through conquest of the other nations. At the start, most ports will be filled with NPC’s and sometimes controlled by a particular nation. If a player or a collaboration of players (most likely pirates or highly skilled privateers) wanted to go out and grab control of it, the area becomes a Contention zone.
Pirates of the Burning Sea will have a unique way of pushing user-created content. Players will be able to create their own pirate emblems and what not, which can then be submitted for a review by other players. If they’re satisfied, it will then be passed through to the developers, who will then decide whether it will be included into the game. Furthermore, players will be able to submit their own ships to the game. These will take some time to create, and there will be a committee to give advice to people, to make sure that the ships are appropriate for the game. Of course, you want have any ships outside of the 1700’s.
OK, Tortuga was built out of ships but isn't this a bit far?
Pirates of the Burning Sea looks to have a healthy mix of the realistic, the historical, the romantic and the supernatural. History says that Tortuga was rebuilt by the Spanish general after he took it back from pirates, out of the ships in his fleet. The game has nicely exaggerated this with a town that is literally made out of considerable parts of ships. It has to be seen to be appreciated. Furthermore, Tortuga has a fighting ring located above a pit of lava. Aside from Tortuga, each of the ports tries to reflect its historical significance. On the other end of the spectrum, a completely absurd island exists where an Indonesian priest is bound there by a curse, so he lures sailors there, kills them, then reanimates them as zombies to continuously battle them. A nice aspect of the game comes through there, where you can customise your character to blend with the zombies, as you explore the island.
Overall, Pirates of the Burning Sea is definitely turning out to be something different. From what we have seen so far, the game’s economy is deep, the balance between nations, ships, careers and styles is excellent and the real time ship battles are quite awesome. Not to mention, the game is chock-full of content and much, much more is still on the way. There still are concerns, namely about the game’s initial learning curve and the longevity of the current combat system, as well as the inherent complexity that permeates these kinds of games. Australians also have a unique opportunity to access the game for free. Pirates of the Burning Sea may just have enough appeal to distract those who are bored with World of Warcraft or to appeal to those who aren’t into the whole fantasy or MMO thing. Heck, some might even start playing both.
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