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Ahh the POTBS battles .. i loved the early game skirmishes, and end game red zone(these areas are pretty much PVP FFA between all 3 nations.) skirmishes... Thanks for reminding me about the good times in the game Merlin =D

It was loads of fun... I too was stumped by econ... i made a few mistakes getting my ammo production line started, until i linked up with a crew (Les Condamnes, in game) and we started a production line which in the made our French nation quiet powerful in the end.

I remember in the beggining i was called upon by The few active members of France (3 guys from TOG, and 3 guys from LC) to come to the defence of a red zoned port, because it was early game i think the best ships that were fielded were either Postilions or something like that, a small frigate or a frigate slightly stronger.. i had a corvette which was a weaker ship, battles were tight and hard fought because you didn't have all the WOW skills you do end game and alot of it was keeping cool, and teamwork.

End game I liked the fact that you not only had to supply your own ships by way of labour hours to build, but the fact if your nation or guild lost one of these ships it would hurt. In port battles i remember having a SOL above 4th rate was HUGE, because it meant weeks of hours spent gathering materials, and materials taken away from other ships even. We cherished these things we would never bring them to a battle we knew we couldn't win or succesful retreat them, usually mean we brought them to port battle defences.
Our open sea teams (the ones that protected our ports from dipping too far into red.) consisted of Balanced frigates, supported by 4th rates(which were relatively cheap to build) and a group of cutters/fast frigates to take down any ship that was left too far from their main fleet..


Ahh good times...


P.S. we won the first map, through forum/in game politics, and the fact that our players stuck it out... 2nd map was fail.. Winning mechanics meant that you were basically on defence most of the time. shame

P.P.S. Sorry for the rant.. i thought i'd go back through memory lane, POTBS game and the community in it is probably the reason why i enjoy reading everyones posts about historical naval engagements, the ships in them how the developed etc... Gaming communities i think make part of the game nowadays with all these forums for each game...
 
I played PotBS, from early beta until a few months into released game. Co-founder of the Les Chevaliers des Mers guild (French side).

Yes it all looked nice. Port battles were fun.
But I did not like all the warcrafs spells and skills. I think the sailing physics were poor. In battle I think it was silly to fire your broadside and only hit the ship you are firing at, while any friendlies or enemies next to it could just absorb your roundshot without any damage.... Actually I would not name PotBS a naval wargame (no I am not asking for a simulator).

Furthermore, though at one point I was owning the big ships too, but only after many weeks of play. That is the disadvantage of MMO. The player with the most time (and friends) gets the best ships and skills. Not too much fun in the long run. As a result that game is nearly dead.
 
I never played PotBS. I was a member of the forums pre-beta but saw which way the wind was blowing when the kiddies all kept asking for magic and such, so I left it then. I think I made the right decision.

I'm more of a simulator player and enjoy historical accuracy - or at least a nod towards history from a game developer - and anything too gamey puts me off.

I'm concerned that in the newest Gamespot review just linked to, admirals 'skills' are in the game (aka spells or powers in effect) *shudders*. Perhaps online we can agree not to use those?
 
Well it is unclear what kind of skills and how many.
If it is just crew related it could be okay.

In PotBS there were tens of skills, some pretty ridiculous. Like temporarily invulnerable or desperate broadside... or skills that could discourage enemy ships.. at times i felt like being in Warcraf or Guild Wars.

Personally I would rather have none of that. Its not that I totally detested PotBS. The main reason I left is the time you need to spend on it in order to get a better ship and better skils. Its just too time consuming. Online I like to do a few battles in an evening and than do a few more a couple of days later.
 
I don't have a problem with a tech tree kind of approach where you can pay to research flintlock cannon firing mechanisms or coppering or more advanced sail layouts or food and water storage to better combat scurvey or train your crew to be skilled in rapid fire or to fire better at the enemy's rigging... all that kind of stuff is well and reasonable, but the *skills* should be inherent in the crew. Its the idea of investing skills in the *admiral* - the example given in the review was a 'devastating broadside' - now that should be a factor of the crews' ability plus the players ability to place his ship in a superior tactical position, not the sudden ability of the admiral to yell in an encouraging way at his gunners.

It smacks of the same way countless WoW-influenced games have gone over the years down the 'hero' path rather than encouraging more tactical play by the player or resourcefulness in managing his faction and researching better equipment.

It's something I don't consider has a place in a game that claims to be based on a historical premise and it annoys me that game developers feel the need to pander to that market when they should have faith in their product as a game based on trading, politics and naval tactics.
 
I don't have a problem with a tech tree kind of approach where you can pay to research flintlock cannon firing mechanisms or coppering or more advanced sail layouts or food and water storage to better combat scurvey or train your crew to be skilled in rapid fire or to fire better at the enemy's rigging... all that kind of stuff is well and reasonable, but the *skills* should be inherent in the crew. . . . .
It's something I don't consider has a place in a game that claims to be based on a historical premise and it annoys me that game developers feel the need to pander to that market when they should have faith in their product as a game based on trading, politics and naval tactics.

I agree whole-heartedly. Adding WOW skills to even the playing field takes away the learning curve. Games that are simple to learn are also simply forgotten.

Sailing is all about the journey.
Greg.
 
Games that are simple to learn are also simply forgotten.

Well everybody still remembers Tetris, Pacman and other simple games like that. People like to play games for fun and to some games that are hard are not fun. In reality I sometimes like to play game that I don't need to do every minor thing myself.

hardness != fun
 
Ya I remember all that skills crap in Potbs, that was one of the downsides, and yes it really is true that whoever spends the most time on the game is most likely to be better, but not everyone is a nerd that playes 15 hours a day, so it really frustrats people how they spend a month on the game and still get their butts kicked in the game. It's too hard for new players to set foot, because it takes somewhat a month just to learn the basics, and once that $15 monthly fee comes in, if you don't absolutely love the game, it's really hard to keep playing. Yes it really is BS whenever someone presses a button in the game and their ship suddenly becomes invincible or speeds up like crazy, or even weaken the enemy ship without even touching it. And yes it sure is really time consuming if you want to be good, most people have lives, they gotta go to school, work, to the movies, the mall, or outta town sometimes, so there really aren't full days for you to play and get good instantly.
 
hardness != fun

Aye that be true. But neither does cheating. Mastering the skill of judging speed, distance and direction is cruicial to all motion based games. That is the purpose of off-line campaign play. I have heard so many newbees wining about getting shot down in online flight sims. Most of the time they have just finished installing the game and wonder why they are not king of the world. :) It is best to invest time learning the game skill set before playing with the other children, unless of course you are willing to take your lumps and try to learn from it.

By the way you forgot to mention golf. Another game that is wickidly simple to learn but difficult to master.

Practice make Permanent.
Greg.
 
Aye that be true. But neither does cheating. Mastering the skill of judging speed, distance and direction is cruicial to all motion based games. That is the purpose of off-line campaign play. I have heard so many newbees wining about getting shot down in online flight sims. Most of the time they have just finished installing the game and wonder why they are not king of the world. :) It is best to invest time learning the game skill set before playing with the other children, unless of course you are willing to take your lumps and try to learn from it.

By the way you forgot to mention golf. Another game that is wickidly simple to learn but difficult to master.

Practice make Permanent.
Greg.

Well I was not saying that skill is not something to be admired but I was saying that some people play just for their own amusement and that doesn't always mean that they want to be the best in the game or cheat. I for example like to play like I want to and so my tactics or way of playing would not be the best way to play the game usually. For example in EUIII I never really wanted to learn to play the game like some people say it should be played to be good and I know my playing tactic is nothing to brag about, but I also can use it efficiently. Also I usually don't play online as you so clearly said that there is those who are anoying in how they act there. Still I have been good in some multiplayer games but I rather play against AI than a human player. This also is not because I'm not good but as I just like single player more than playing on internet against someone.

I was just trying to say that not all people play the games to be "best" in it. This doesn't mean those that doesn't want to use time to learn the game. I'm talking about the people that like to play the game but doesn't want to be hardcore player that likes to be good in all aspects of the game as you can have fun time without being the "best" in everything. These so called "softcore" player are not there to annoy the hardcore players but should they be ignored because some people think that hardcore is the only way. In reality I'm happy that they will make three options on this that will let you choose if it will be "realistic", "arcade" or normal so people can choose what setting fits to them. It's not there to take anything away from the hardcore players, but to give something to the "softcore" players.
 
*nod* I agree wezqu

you can't please everyone in any game... its impossible.. impossible....

And like you i am very happy they chose to have 3 different realism/difficulty settings for this game. I'm not sure how big the market is for these kind of games are but if they just went one way i'm sure this game would flounder regardless of their hardcore fanbase and modder community, and if it were too easy people would probably not bother. So i am glad.

I respect hardcore players as long as they respect soft/medium core.
 
And like you i am very happy they chose to have 3 different realism/difficulty settings for this game. I'm not sure how big the market is for these kind of games are but if they just went one way i'm sure this game would flounder regardless of their hardcore fanbase and modder community, and if it were too easy people would probably not bother. So i am glad.

Well in the developers blogs Kim said that when they first time let some outsiders to test the game. Almost all of them said the game was too hard as they had hard time to pass the first scenarious. They were little suprised about that as they themself can play those easilly through. They had to made it little easier so new people would not feel overhelmed with the game as too hard game usually scares away players. Also most likely reason why those three options was added is that they want to sell as many game they can. Nitro Games Ltd. is not big company and it really needs every euro/dollar it gets from this game.
 
yeah very understandable... At the end of the day you need return for the time invested making the game... and you also want to be able to continue making games so you need to make enough...

They also had a poll on their website i believe about what people would prefer, Realistic, semi-realistic(or something like that), and arcade? and i believe the vote's came out pretty even. So with that and the Outsider response, they would have to alter the game otherwise they'd never sell enough to make a decent profit.

IMO a game like this can increase interest in this game type (naval trade type game) if they make it accessible enough in the beggining for new people, which alows them to nurture their interest in games of this sort. Rather than scare people off with sheer complexity. And in turn when the new people feel they know enough they can even increase the difficulty levels in game, or even look for an expansion or games similar to this. This can only be a good thing for this Genre.
 
Yes indeed it will be a good thing for the genre. In reality I would like to get a good scifi game of this same consept. In many scifi type games where there is trading they are either poorly made or are multiplayer games so they don't really interest me. This game seems to be closest to that type of playing and the history theme is something I like. So I'm quite frankly buying this game when it comes out. Also its nice bonus that I'm helping company that is from my own home country. This game in reality might be the best game that came out of finnish company after Max Payne series.
 
Wezqu, 'Privateer II The Darkening' was a superb sci-fi trading game made back in the dos days, I had it running on Windows 95. It was a real peach of a game with great space combat, a main plotline you could follow if you wanted to or a non-linear trading or piracy lifestyle if the main story didn't appeal.

I don't think it's been bettered.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/privateer-2-the-darkening
 
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Hello Wezqu & nodie,

I guess my response came off a little stronger than I meant. I agree with both of you that the game needs a mass appeal to be a commercial success. I think the various difficulty levels will go along way to allow users to ease their way up the learning curve. I just view skills than enable the user to bend the laws of physics to be cheating. I have played POTC for quite some time and it has some these and I refuse to use them. The skills are also the reason I was never interested in POTBS.

I come from mostly a Flight-Sim background. Mostly because sailing games were not that prevalent until recently. IL2 implements a multi-level approach to realism. The user can also enable/disable various realism factors. Rather than bending the laws of physics the users playing on the lower realism settings use a simplified model. Learning to use the Full Realism settings allows the user to push the edge of the envelope a little, but the aircraft also becomes more of a challenge to fly.

Greg.
 
just tagged this on to this subject ...

Ship management ? It was early screen of EIC that I saw cut aways of the ships and you could see the deck, each deck and compartment you placed I take it an officer to run that part of the ship. Stores and so on, not seen much of that for a while, unless I missed it. Or it as a different game.
 
I'm not completely sure what the advantage of commanding a ship from the first person view is either. It looks pretty and is more atmospheric but other than that...

In the RTS view you just click on the ocean and your ship goes there. Give them a follow in line astern order and they all go there.... Maybe they fire automatically? That seems odd. But in the first person view (or rather the 'taking direct control of one ship' view) you can turn the ship as and when you want and fire it exactly when you want.

But then with a bit of micromanagement aand some nify mouse-work I can't see it being too hard to command a squadron that way...

I guess in multi-player with one person per ship you would have a fun time as the deck level view introduces more fog of war but in the SP campaign I'm not sold on the merits of the system apart from the eye candy (and I hate it when games place eye candy higher up their priorities than a physics engine or a damage model).
 
just tagged this on to this subject ...

Ship management ? It was early screen of EIC that I saw cut aways of the ships and you could see the deck, each deck and compartment you placed I take it an officer to run that part of the ship. Stores and so on, not seen much of that for a while, unless I missed it. Or it as a different game.

I believe that screen shot was from an early incarnation of the game. The original game concept was a first person interface. The story line went something like a son was traveling on his father's ship. The ship was attacked, the son escapes then after years of learn to trade while sailing the son starts his own company and builds it to a point where he can revenge his father's death. The scope was likely a little to large. I have a feeling all the first person stuff is going into the next game "Cutthroat", about which there has been precious little information revealed.

Greg.