A Beta Testers review of POTCO

[Krickit2]

Since the new updates.. I have reach a staged with my main player that there is nothing to do but try to level up my weapons.

All my quests are bugged..For Wills dagger quest ..it won't give me the tongs..and I have defeated serveral Sargents. This is the only item left. But I would mostly just end up looking for an elusive ship anyway.

On the Quest for the crew members. I had completed the quest for Carver (John Pigley) and obtained him as a crew member...now he is gone and I have zero crew members. I was working through the Nil Offrill Quest and had completed everthing for Doc Grog and Andrew Bodash, now when I go see Nil all he says is "Glad your back, Now let's start over" then it does nothing. I can't drop any of these quest.

Just for reference:
notority lvl 13
cutlass 6
pistol 8
saliling 7
cannons 12

My cutlass must be bugged also, it is a level 6, but if I fight level 6 enemy I get 0 rep/cutlass point. And I can't defeat the higher levels unless I can stand back and shoot them for a bit first. Which leaves me mostly fighting the skeletons. I am not going to bother with anything lower than the weapon I plan to use, simply because it is not worth the time and effort for absolutly 0 points (they need to adjust this to at least get a couple of points for the levels under you)

All of this leaves me with the choice of sailing the sea, or fighting skeletons.

Sailing the sea, as everyone knows, has its own set of bugs. First we have land sailing enemy ships. Nothing in between islands (so it is a looong boring sail, easier to teleport first). Oh, and let's not forget the invisible enemy. The ones that just keep shooting up your ship, but that you can't fight! And really sailing is only fun if you have your mates on and can play as a crew. Unless you just want to level up your cannons.

Ok, so I am down to my one play alone option, defeat skeletons, Port Royal and Tortuga are out, since these enemies are mostly below my level. Off to the caves in Padres del Fuego. I have been visiting this island for many weeks now, and have noticed many changes. I can tell they are still building this island. Periodically I see new areas, people or visuals that weren't there before. I get a laugh everytime I enter the cave entrance by the gypsy cart on the left side of town. One of the Devs left a building shape out in the middle of the cave entrance. Anyone who plays Second Life will reconize it for what it is. Guess his mommy forgot to teach him to put his toys away!

Now the seletons here are very passive for raising your pistol level. You can stand back and shoot at level 1 - 19 skeltons till you get bored. I try to get at least one level up on my pistol every day or two. Now if you use your sword, be careful, if the higher level skeletons engage you, they don't quit (I swear, beside dead, these must also be possessed). You can shut the game down and come back and they will still target in on you again if you get anywhere near them. The only way to stop this is to kill them. After a high level rogue skeleton has been defeated, then the next one that takes it's place will again be passive, until someone engages it in close combat.

I really am trying to avoid deleting this player, even thought is has almost become unplayable. A lot of my friends are on this player's list (and it took me a while to get some). Also I have created (and deleted) so many players now that I have reached a point I am really sick of playing the first part of this game.

All in all though, I love this game and will be glad when they get all the bugs worked out. I think it would be a big mistake to release the game too early and thus give a bad impression to the general public.

[thebeez]

Funny, I just logged off the game thinking, well, for 3 weeks I missed it and so wanted to get back on, but now here I am and I can really make no more progress so, eh, what was I waiting for. I'm a level 9 (hair away from 10) also stuck, je-June refuses to give me anymore of her lost items, Carver has dropped off my list as well and while I have the tongs, the numerous EITC ships I have sunk are not giving up any silver bars and even when they do... I get no more credits for sinking ships below level 7 or so. Pistol and cutlass are at 8. What else to do? This is the second character I've gotten this far along so starting a new one doesn't seem to exciting. If those developers have anything sandbagged, I sure with they would go ahead and release it

[Dolnor]

You forgot a couple of things:

• When you defeat an enemy ship and they sink, if you sit there...they will continue shooting you FROM UNDERWATER!

• Player Ships also can sail overland but it is a bug/exploit and I won't tell how to do it. I replicated it, reported it, done with it.

I have discovered that your Sword should always be levelled much higher than your pistol. Some quests require that you fight with your sword for a quest item. If your pistol is a lot higher than your sword, it is very hard to level your sword skill.

I found that The Black Pearl > The List > quests are mostly all bugged. You can complete all the sub-quests for an individual crew member and turn them in for credit...expect for the last quest, which ends up not working. You can't advance for that crew member. You can only drop the whole quest line and try another crew member quest. I know, a lot of time involved would be gone. But we are testers...don't get attached to your characters! -)

In the mean time, practice using Broadsides from different distances and speeds.

DON'T sail to the edge of the map...you will just crash to the desktop.

Toodles,

Dolnor Numbwit
Eternal Newbie
aka Will/Billy Greasefish

[HaveAMagicalDay]

yes, there seems not much to do now because of not many quests out atm. but, think about it, the game is "open" yet. So, they won't have a lot out. Just enough to test the game. That's why we got a beta key, to TEST the game, not play it for fun all the times. They just want us to play and find bugs.

~Cpt.Sea

[Red Bull]

Yes you're not in a exclusive club, lots are in same situtation, your story sounds a lot like mine.

I stuck on all tasks, i can defeat higher navy and skeletons then my cutlass lvl6, with and without help of potions. But i prefer having specific tasks to do, rather then just defeating after defeating ect.

I just cant be bother to play much anymore, and just seem to waiting and watching, for either a release date, or someone who has past certain task im stuck on.

Hmmm. Yes we are testers, but i dont think any of us have got anywhere near end of first section of main game sections (at least i hope not, wont be very good if we have).

I would of thought they would want us to at least get to first boss stage, after all thats gonna be a big section and will have bugs, how they gonna know its good without letting some of us make it there. But it seems most of get stuck before we get anywhere.

Oh well....

'Keep it Kool '

[soeasilyamused]

Originally Posted by Captain_Sea

yes, there seems not much to do now because of not many quests out atm. but, think about it, the game is "open" yet. So, they won't have a lot out. Just enough to test the game. That's why we got a beta key, to TEST the game, not play it for fun all the times. They just want us to play and find bugs.

~Cpt.Sea

What's the point of testing the first part over... and over... and over? It only makes sense if they're going to then raise the quest cap to the next chapter and leave us for months... and then raise it and leave us... devoting an equal amount of time to each chapter.

Otherwise, why test the first bit and not the rest?

[Foul Weather Jake]

Originally Posted by soeasilyamused

What's the point of testing the first part over... and over... and over?

I suspect (and note that I am not in a position to have any concrete knowledge of the plans for PotCO) that later quest sections will not need as much time as has been devoted to the first, because the first is being tested at the same time as much of the basic code (where cannonballs go when they fire, how movement works, etc.). Once the basic stuff is working reliably, my guess is that testing of the later quests (which, after all, all use the same underpinnings, code-wise) should go much more quickly.

Software development can be like building a printing press. Once you've gotten the first page properly printed, the rest are relatively quick and easy. It's getting the first one right that's the time-consuming part.

[Krickit2]

I was not complaining when I wrote that...... just pointing out some major flaws in the game that I am sure many have encountered. And pointing out some playing tricks. In essence it was a review of how I see POTCO at this stage of the development.

The main flaw being their leveling up system, If the weapons leveling is the same as now, when it goes live. I think it will be a big down point of the game. The hype on the game was that you were supposed to be able to play it at any rate and direction you want to go. But with the present weapon leveling system. You must play it according to the direction they want you to play or your player becomes unsupportable.

I have created a new player and not allowed any skill level to get much higher than any other (especially my sword). This has allowed all of my weapons to continue to recieve points to level up.

For reference the new players skills are:
notority 13
cutlass 10
pistol 8
saliling 8
cannons 11

To do this has required many painful, boring hours spent in the swamps, forrests, and caves to keep my sword level up. This part of the the playing environment has not been fun. I realize there is a fine line between fun and challenging or grueling and frusterating, unfortunatly, right now it is the latter.

Hopefully this will be an area they apply some more attention to.

[HaveAMagicalDay]

i've tried on my other ppl and have the same bugs so annoying lol but hey, it's beta lol. I say it wont be ready by the end of this month maybe end of next month.

~Cpt.Sea

[soeasilyamused]

Originally Posted by Foul Weather Jake

Software development can be like building a printing press. Once you've gotten the first page properly printed, the rest are relatively quick and easy. It's getting the first one right that's the time-consuming part.

Ok, that makes sense, I guess. I didn't think of it that way, probably because I know next to nothing about programming.

Thanks for the explanation! :-)