Pirates of the Burning Sea

Quests and Motives

Despite all the tactical excellence of the combat and the mildly-thrilling blend of whimsy and realism, it has to be said that there are a few weak points in the game. I’m talking about the quests.

Quests are a difficult thing to comment on in an MMO because they are forever being patched, tweaked, changed and so on. However, our own experience of the quests on offer in Pirates of the Burning Sea was that they did tend to be a little on the derivative side and they really started to give the impression that Pirates was just the same as any other MMO, but in different get-up.

Derivative and banal at worst, it may just be our own fault for wanting a little bit more from the game than the standard fetch-quests and orders from lazy-arsed quest givers who refuse to do anything for themselves but do insist that you read all their babbling text. I’d say that voice acting could be a luxury they didn’t have in those days, except at points I’d spent a few idle minutes listening to fully voiced conversations between some NPCs. It’s a contradiction I’m still trying to explain.

One of the more interesting features of the game though revolves around one of the more epic quest-types we’ve ever seen in a MMO. It’s called Battle Royale and it’s got nothing to do with James Bond.


I’ll explain. Every one of the 100 or so ports in the game is open to contention and can be ruled by any nation, with the aim of each nation or group being to rule the entire lot. The status of each port is tracked via unrest points that reflect how happy the inhabitants are with the current rulers. By completing certain quests groups can affect the level of unrest, pushing that port over into a state piracy and then, later, contention.

A state of piracy in a port means simply that the nations are now free to engage in PvP combat against pirates and vice versa. If the pirates are not quelled quickly then the ante is upped and the port enters a state of contention – PvP all round. The pirates can attack everyone, the nations can war and everyone can laugh at how easily the English whup the French. Players compete for victory points in a huge port battle and whoever wins claims the port, resetting the status and preventing any PvP for at least another 24 hours.

The result is a suitably epic, if somewhat clumsy sounding style of battle which serves as a great way to keep PvP interesting for those who want it by having constantly differing locations and clear victory conditions. At the same time, those of us not interested in PvP conflicts know where to steer clear from.

Conclusions

Pirates of the Burning Sea is an odd kettle of fish. It’s pretty ugly and mediocre to look at for the most part, but it does have a certain rugged appeal to the presentation. The control system and style of combat is difficult to get to grips with and poorly explained, but rewarding nonetheless and worth a look. The quests too are flawed, proving dull for the most part but thrillingly epic if you want to get into the spirit of it all.

So, with how many contradictions, how are we supposed to judge a game as massive and open as that of The Burning Sea. Reviewing an MMO is a challenge at the best of times and we’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s on offer on these high seas.

The final and ultimate test of any virtual world is the how populated it is and that’s something that is hard to judge too, confined as we are to the early days of this particular game. However, it has to be said that even to us the game looked like it had a good number of players onboard. Better, since everybody always wants an excuse to dress like a pirate, there were hardly any bright pink trolls running around calling each other n00bs.

If that’s not a sign of quality, I don’t know what is.

Pirates of the Burning Sea may be a little damaged by some flaws and contradictions in the game design, but the truth of the matter is that there’s a little piece of eight buried somewhere inside and if you take the time to uncover it then you may well find yourself an MMO worthy of your attention for at least a few months.