Pirates of the Burning Sea open Beta.

[acrobat]

If you want to be in the open Beta for this MMORPG, you can be.

You have to register at Eurogamer and thats pretty much it.
News - Join Pirates of Burning sea beta! // PC /// Eurogamer

I started the download yesterday, and it only finished early this morning. It said something like "6 hours remaining" but it took longer than that. I refused to use Fileplanet though because I didn't want to pay, so I used a different link to get the Beta client installer I think, and then I got the rest from the patch servers. So maybe that wasn't as quick as it could have been. But overnight anyway, and now I have the beta. I haven't played it yet though, but I'm looking forward to it.

I've seen various opinions about the game, but one person said, "It's a lot like Eve, but more fun and without all the spreadsheet gameplay" (or something like that). Eve is really popular, and spreadsheets are boring so that comment makes it sound quite promising anyway.

[Steven W]

I'm on this....well as soon as it downloads.

[Gerrard]

I got the email last week. I haven't bothered to start downloading it until I go home to an unlimited broadband connection!

[MasterFlash]

Anyone playing this yet. Ive only just started, Lvl 6 British Navy. Sea combat is fun, havent tried PVP yet, need some more dosh to get me out of my starter ship

[acrobat]

I got bored after 2 days.

Fricken mmo's and their stupid little "quests". It's actually quite a good game in many ways though, I just don't know if I can be arsed with it all anymore. I got to 8 and then got bored. The melee combat goes like this:
tab 1,1,1, tab 1,1,1, tab 1,1,1, tab 1,1,1, tab 1,1,1,

Sometimes I press 4!.

The ship combat goes like this:
S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, S, (forwards)

Space Space Space Space Space Space Space Space Space Space Space (shoot!)

All the quests are instanced. So you get a quest to kill a bunch of nasty pirates, you go to an instanced island on your todd, you run around spamming 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, until they are all dead. Then you get a quest to kill a different bunch of nasty pirates, and you go to another island on your own, and rinse and repeat.

I found that although kinda lame, the ship combat managed to break up the questing and meleeing nonsense a bit. So that's why I lasted all the way to level 8

People on another forum tell me that, "Its all about the PVP baby!" and also that the bulk of the game is about joining guilds and fighting against other guilds, and controlling key areas and getting resources and stuff from it. That aspect is meant to be cool, and it does really appeal to me that. Unfortunately, I don't think you can do much of that until you reach a bit of a higher level, and I'm also not sure if most of that is available in beta at the moment. Either way, I'm not sure I could be bothered to level that high, mainly because like all the other MMO's it's a grind to get there. If I want to do ship vs ship combat, something like Silent Hunter 4 is ten times better. If I want to do melee combat by myself, I would rather just play The Witcher or something.

It is one of the best MMORPG's I've played though, but that's not saying much, because I think they are all rubbish and need a kick in the pants.

I havn't uninstalled it yet though, cause I am keen to find out more about this uber PVP and area control element. Perhaps if that is really amazing, I might try to stick with it. At the moment though, I gave up and I'm thinking I can just cross it off my list and look towards AoC and "WAR" instead.

[Veles]

You really need to get further into the game, pressing 1,1,1,tab really doesn't work in swashbucking, and if you're going to sit there pressing the space bar in ship combat you'll get torn to pieces. Like most MMOs the very start of the game is a bit misleading as to how it all pans out. Combat gets a lot more tactical later on. You can also group most instances, you definitely don't have to do it alone.

Right now I'm a level 19 british naval officer on Blackbeard and absolutely loving it.

[acrobat]

The trouble is, everyone said Vanguard required a leap of faith too, and would get better at later levels. I just ended up quitting at 38 instead of 8

I might give it another try over the weekend anyway.

[Veles]

Yeah you may as well try it now while it's free

If anyone wants to join up in game or anything for some grouping and stuff, my characters name is Jack Vintel

[acrobat]

Yeah definitely, it's a chance to try for free so I may as well take advantage.

Do you know if the PVP is fully working or what? I've seen people saying that some things aren't active in the open Beta. I think if there all kinds of cool stuff to look forward to, I might just grind like crazy over the weekend and see if I can have a play of it next week.

[Veles]

The red areas on the open sea map are PvP Pirate zones, there were 2 last time I logged in, if you go in there you can get attacked by pirates, which usually means ganked. It's best to stay out of them unless you're in a group and probably a very good idea to steer clear completely if you're still in a low level ship. I was quite happy when I got ganked strangely, I thought I fared well seeing as I was a single scout against four warships, almost managed to take one down with me. Apart from that I haven't managed to get any PvP experience. I found initially the game was a bit stale, but as soon as I started chatting in the nation channel and got some useful advice I was enjoying the game much more.

Although the game isn't as spreadsheety as EVE there is one very good one you should have if you want to buy a new ship as you can see which ones you can use and compare the stats easily. It's at the bottom of the first post: Ship Stats - Flying Lab Software Forums

What class/level/nation are you BTW? Quickest way to level is out on the OS (open sea), attacking NPC pirates, you don't get quite as much money as you do from mission running though, but if you're a naval officer or privateer with the grease the wheels skill you can get commendations from capturing abandoned ships which you can trade in for goods, exp or a ship (wouldn't bother with ships, by the time you get enough commendations for one there are much better ones available). I tend to stick to missions myself, so I had more than enough to buy my awesome Lancer Naval Cutter.

[acrobat]

Thanks for the info! I'm a pirate, level 8. I don't think I have a race. I never usually pick the most obvious, popular Kooool! classes in MMORPGs, but the pirates sounded fun, and I didn't want to be British or French etc

I got to level 8 almost purely by doing quests, and I got really bored. Someone told me the other day, that the quests are good for money, but if I just want to level up, I should head out and fight ships. I did that for a while but I got bored doing that too. Not sure if I'm doing it wrong, but I just seem to sail towards the other ship, get sideways, and then just fire my stuff at it. If theres just one, I usually use the longsomething to kill the men and I then I just board it and fight them all. And if there are a few ships, I use the heavy shot thing to just sink them. To me though, it seemed to be little more than sailing in circles and clicking fire whenever it becomes active. The only other thing was the occasional switching of crew focus to manoeuvre or speed or gun reloading.

I might try it again tonight though, cause I really want to see the PVP.

[Veles]

Yeah pirates are just their own faction, they're pretty awesome, you can steal ships so you don't have to buy them, which means it's a lot easier to upgrade to nicer ships than the other classes. The downside is the ships you capture only have 1 durability, once they sink they're gone (whereas bought ships have more durability).

Going against higher level enemies (only one at a time obviously) in bigger ships is good fun as you have to use pretty good tactics to win and you also get more xp and better rewards.

Although it basically is sailing around firing guns at a ship till it dies once you get into better ships it gets a bit better as it takes less time to take out the small fish. The devs are apparently working on a system so NPC ships surrender instead of getting them down to almost zero so they abandon ship which should make things a bit quicker.

As I said as well, it gets a bit more tactical, you have to take into account where the wind is, you really don't want to turn round then be facing the wind almost at a standstill when a warship has a broadside aimed at your little scout ship.

Since you're a pirate I think killing on the OS would be perfect as you don't have to worry too much about buying ships.

[acrobat]

I had a bit more fun with it last night. I ignored all the quests completely, and just concentrated on sailing around the open sea and killing stuff. I would find a pair of ships or just one lonely ship, and I'd get in there and fight them. I get good exp doing that, so got from 8 to almost 11 in a couple of hours. I also got myself a good ship (Bermuda Sloop).

I still found it quite boring, but I'm hoping that might change soon. The ship combat is more considered than it seemed at first, because I do have to be careful and fight well unless you are ganking a low level ship. But I still find it so repetitive and it's far too simple to be repetitive, atleast at this level. Maybe it gets better later on.

I really like the way the ocean works though, and the freedom of just whizzing around and picking off any ships you like the look of. Now that I'm over level 10 and I have a decent ship and filled it up with ammo, I'm going to have another go at the game, and see if I can group up and maybe try some PVP. I'm really hoping that will spice things up a bit.

[Veles]

Grouping is definitely the way to go, I joined up with a society (the PotBS equivalent of a guild) and they seem to be a good bunch. We went around hunting NPCs outside a french port to build up contention, was really cool, at one point three of us took on a 6 ship treasure convoy (they were all about level 45 I think), we all had frigates and we formed a line of battle and picked off stragglers, was a lot of fun working with other people in a group.

What I really like about this game is that even a level 10 player can be useful against a level 50, it's not like WoW where it's impossible to hit them, a level 10 player isn't going to be able to have a broadside battle with a level 50 in a heavy frigate, but they can be helpful, attacking the stern of the ship, keeping out of the deadly broadside and hitting it where it's armour is weak by using it's speed and agility while someone else...tanks it I suppose you could say. In most MMOs there is a huge gap between a mid level player and a max level player (some people even say a max level with good equipment is leaps and bounds above a player 1 level off the cap).

[dmuz]

I think you were right the first time Acro, I got to L23 before I quit and the missions don't get any less tedious. You get ships with more guns, but they're even slower and the enemy ships have more armour, so battles don't necessarily get quicker and you're still essentially just hammering the space bar. The swashbuckling is a total joke in this day and age, it's like playing a game from the eighties. I also started a different nationality/class and noticed the missions were all identical, the only thing that varied were the layout of the towns, the npc names and the flag on your ship!

[acrobat]

Thanks, and yeah I uninstalled it last night. I got to about level 12 and did some grouping. The ship combat bored my pants off, and I really doubted that it got much better at higher levels, or against real people. It's always just going to be sailing around in circles trying to get good angles and then spamming my ammo at them. Boring. And the quests and swashbuckling was even worse. I decided if I was going to do all that, there are other mmo's I'd rather do it in.