The State of the Game, December 2009

[Captain Del]

First off, I'd lik to point out Disney's biggest limitation: the age group the game is focused on. We all, including Disney, know that even though the age group for the game is 10+, there is a large population of pirates below that. Because it is a "childs game" the CAN'T make it completely complex, at least at a playing level. Can you imagine how much money they would lose if they made the game comp;ex to the point where you would actually have to use a thought process to play? Its Disney, people. They've built their company on fairy princesses and talking animals. Its not like they are going to create a huge, complex game that takes up 12 GB, with a working economy system and an action/reaction based playout right off the bat. No matter how you look at it, Disney is all about the money, and they always dive rght in to the best place to make money; the kids.

Now that I've stated what I want to get off my chest, lets continue on to the topics at hand:

New enemies??!! The only new enemy that we saw this year is the Thrall Captains. Not one other enemy is new. They are only different levels and names assigned to old enemies. A Stump is a stump, regardless if it is called Corrupt or not.

Agreed. As others have stated, you can't really consider the Thrall Captain "new" either, as its just a higher level Kelp, with a different name. The way I see it, is that a "new" enemy is an enemy with a different character model, with a new name, and a new level, in a different location. THATS a REAL "new" enemy.

I would also like to address the redesign of the islands. The old Port Royal, Tortuga and Padres were just as functional as these new ones, and in some ways were even better. The facelift the islands were given was interesting, but they did nothing to enhance or improve game play.

Although I DO miss the islands that my pirate grew up on and learned to love like home, that doesn't mean I don't like these islands. Remember one of the reasons we all brought up why the game was under-developed when it first came out? To beat POTBS, and of course, get more money (theres that magic word again!), in a quicker fashion. So in order to do this, they made under-developed, poorly constructed islands. For example, the old Port Royal. Basically, what they did is said "Hmm, ok, make a big flat plain with two hills. Put the mansion over here, the fort over here, and then just through in a bunch of random buildings in the middle." Now that the game has become bigger, they did what they wanted to do in the first place, and make more realistic islands. I know, I know about the palm trees and all that (off topic, but doesn't the whole palm tree thing remind you of the "Save the Trees!" movement?). But Port Royal ACTUALLY looks like a PORT now. Padres actually looks like a volcano island now. And Tortuga actually looks like a pirate, bilgewater town now! I know, the new islands did nothing to make the game run better, nor improve how we play the game. But it HAS brought, I don't know how to explain, and better "feel" to the Caribbean, aye?

Next, the caves. I really like the graphics improvements (level of detail) here. BUT, I feel that these new caves are almost completely a waste of developer time. The old Lava Gorge and Catacombs were truely caves. The new versions are nothing more than tunnels. The old versions were very functional and felt more like CAVES and CAVERNS, not just paths through a mountain.

To be honest, the old caves were unoriginal, to say the least. Almost every single cave was the same (aside from the Gorge, Catacombs, and Quarry,) just with different things added to them. I like the new caves now, as they have a better "undergroud" feel to them, unlike the other caves. Heck, at least these caves actually have roofs! The old caves had nothing but a big black spot hovering above. Sure, the old caves were functional. But who ever said that nature was supposed to be a cake-walk?

Next, the GM events and role-playing. These are aspects of the game that people either love, or else they hate them. I personally have attended exactly ONE GM event. It was a lagfest and I garnered exactly NO information from it. After it was over, I felt that I had just wasted 30 minutes of good game play time. I have not attended any since then.
I have heard and read all about the sightings of Constance the ghost, the meetings of Captain Walter, and other GM's at various times, the spontaneous running into of the Marceline Guild, but again, I have not attended any of these. Now they are closing the Constance and John chapter of the role playing. (See below comments)

In order to appreciate the GM events, you need to, in the whole sense, know how to act. Thats all role-playing is. As the game has truely intended, you have to pretend your an actual pirate, and that the events that go on in the game actually mean something. You know how Disney always puts emphasis on the imagination? Well, thats what role-playing is. Sure, information given is either very rare, or a lead that brings us to a dead-end. But still, its a nice break from your usual, everyday life, when you get to become a pirate like you used to do on Halloween.

Then there was the Captain Rott quests. These were released at the same time as the increase of the Notoriety and Weapons level caps. Since I had 4 level 40 pirates who I wasn't playing anymore, it was really good to see the level increases and that there was some quest rep to be earned again. I did the Cap'n Rott quests on all my pirates. It was fun to speculate on what the effect of doing these quests was going to be on the direction that the game was going to take. (See below comments.)

I also really liked the Rott quests. Great rep, great gold, and they were one of the first things that started this whole "storyline" that has unfolded over the past few months. What else can I say?

The increases in Notoriety and Weapons levels was, in my opinion, the best thing that Disney did for the game this past year. It gave many, many pirates something to do again. Even grinding weapons is better than doing nothing with those pirates that we all had worked so long and hard to get levelled up.

Amen!

Next the Invasions. I believe that the invasions are a method to help pirates reach those new level 50 marks. The rep earned during invasions is huge, and serves no purpose other than to pop your notoriety! The invasions themselves do relatively little for individual weapons levels, and does nothing toward any quests. Although it is fun to be able to say that we successfully defended our server, they can be monotonous after a while.

The invasions were created by Disney with the intention of 2 things: 1. Give pirates something fun to do while their devs work on more content. 2. To continue the "storyline" they've been working on, so they ca get out the content more quickly. But you do have a huge point. The invasions do skew the ranks, and often put pirates in the situation, just as before the increases, where you were a high level, with one really high level weapon, and the rest were low and hard to level. And, yes, while entertaining at first, after a while, we learn how to beat it, and get bored with it.

Comments in reference to the GM events and Captain Rott quests. One of my major problems with the GM role playing and the Captain Rott quests is that they are limited. Once the Rott quests were removed from the game, now there are an entire new generation of players and pirates who will never get the opportunity to do those quests. Same with the role playing. Once a role playing event happens, it is over. The role playing events are limited in scope, do not happen on all servers, with all players, even when they are prearranged, let alone when they are spurious. Other players will never get the opportunity to ever see these events. Now the entire segment about Constance Sorrow is coming to a close, and any player who may have just joined the game, or who may join the game in the future, will never know what this is all about. Role playing in a game such as this one is not truely viable, unless you can get the role playing to ALL the players. Not just all the current players, but to future generations of players. Having role playing events that can only be attended by some players, or events that leave the game, OR having quests that are limited in time, and then disappear:: These things are not good for the game.

Wait wait wait; so your saying, that even though we've been with the game since it started, we should give the new guy a chance to do everything we did? No, thats not how it works. We should take all of this temporary content, the invasions, the Rott quests, etc. as a REWARD from Disney, for staying loyal to the game. If they wanna go learn about what the heck if going on, then do what I did when I started watching WWE right in the middle of the summer of 2006; go on the site, and read past news, to see what in the world led up to whats going on now! POF archives the news articles, so why not go read them if your so concerned as to whats going on? Look, I'm not trying to bash the new kids on the block. But look at it this way: Disney releases their content in a storyline format. And the story develops, just like how events in life go on around us. They follow a storyline as to when they release their content. But, in real life, is it possible to rewind? No. Same goes for the game. Once and event happens, it gone. If you join too late, welp, sorry.

While many old players ARE leaving, haven't you noticed lately all of the new pirates that are joining POF? Sure, pirates are moving from POTCO to another game, but other games are moving to POTCO!

Now, on to my OWN points. I'm going to say this, for the LAST time, because my head is about to explode if I have to say it again. Do you know why Disney hasn't released the Kraken, the story chapter, or any of that stuff yet? THEY. FOLLOW. A. STORYLINE! What do you think all these invasions, these GM events are? Just random things? No! They are following a storyline, and sooner or later, this story will hit points were it gives Disney a chance to release the content! Of course, some will say "But why do they need a storyline to release content?" *Points back to paragraph #1* Its all about the kids. They can't just drop bombs of content on the game at random times. They need to keep not only the kiddies, but ALL pirates involved in whats going on. You really think a 7-year-old will be able to process by themselves why the Kraken was released for some random reason? Do you think he'll be able to understand when he (or his parents, at least) mails Disney, and they reply with a 7-page report on their economic theories? Yeah. You guys just have to be patient. Thats all I can really tell you.

I know Disney has made a lot of promises that they haven't kept, and I;m not going to defend them on that. But whats my opinion on that all: Oh well, better luck next year. Its not going to do any good if we complain about what we don't have, instead of not appreciating what we do have (insert "there are kids in blah blah blah that don't have blah blah" speech here.) Look at what all we got this year. Notoriety increases, weapon increases, new quests, invasions, different GM events, but best of all, new friends. Don't see POTCO as just a game, also see it as a place to meet new people, and make new friends. And THATS what we ALL should be thankful for, no matter what opinion we have on content.

So, in the end, heres my conclusion:

The games grade - B
Disney's grade, content-wise - C
Disney's grade, for giving me countless adventures, and keeping me captivated - A++