While it has its shortcomings, it's a breath of fresh air in the MMO world and very deserving of more attention.
First off, do I like PotBS? Definitely. Are there problems and shortcomings? Of course.
Graphics - In truth these graphics are startlingly 4 years ago. They remind me exactly of the graphics in the PotC game. Those were, and still are to an extent, very pleasing graphics but for a 2008 MMO with a monthly fee you just expect more eye candy. Now the artwork isn't bad, the game is quite colorful and seemingly true to the time period and the water and reflections look pretty, even though I would have expected water more like is seen in Silent Hunter 4 for an ambition open sea pirate MMO. The overall texture work could be greatly improved, espically in towns. Nothing looks organic enough. However I guess my biggest gripe is more towards the models and geometry. Everything is squareish and the amount of clipping on player models is borderline ridiculous.
The player creation system is nice, not quite the amount of clothing options or faces/hair you'd expect, no height/build changes, but overall is better than most. It is not quite near to CoH/CoV's creation system despite all the comparisons you may have heard.
The sky is dissapointingly a skybox. The illusion of cloud movement is done through a line of puffy clouds that continuously moves from left to right across the horizon. It looks kind of cool and may be a way to represent the 'earth is flat' mentality from the time period but the clouds that make up this and the skybox are noticeably grainy.
Sound - The sound is very good and appropriate. Everything seems to fit very well for the setting and does a good job of projecting your actions. Voice acting is very good. Ambient sounds also do a great job of getting you into the setting. All the sound seem very authentic; nothing appears to be 'canned'. The music is good although there doesn't seem to be much of it.
Now onto gameplay.
Gameplay - There are basically 2 gameplay systems in this game. Swashbuckling (land based fighting) and Captain/Open Sea (ship battles). When you level you gain points that can be spent in Swashbuckling and Captain. You choose from a large list of different skill sets that are either passive or toggles.
For Swashbuckling you may choose things like pistol shooting, or 'dirty trick' styles like an elbow to the face or dust in the eyes. Later you can select from other fighting styles, Florentine or Fencing. Florentine being a 2 sword fighting style and Fencing being that more proper French-style sword fighting.
With Captain you select skills like Intimidation where it reduces the morale of your opponent ship or Target Weakness where the oppenent suffers a defense reduction.
As I've said there are many different skills sets to choose from but it can be hard at this point to know if you're choosing correctly or effeciently since there's no real guide in game. I would suggest if you're new to choose skills based on your class and play style, which is common sense anyway.
Now that I've covered a bit about the skill sets let's talk about actual gameply of the 2 systems.
Swashbuckling, again, is the land based fighting system that is basically your melee in the game. (It can also take place out to see when attempting to capture other ships during boarding sequences). SB seems tacked on for this game and the animation and overally combat is awkward and often downright ugly. There's much model clipping and the movement is too fast during battle and when you suffer defeat or experience victory there's this awful, awful sequence that involves you and all the other npcs engaging in a canned animation of either raising your arms in victory or pleading for your life. It's just terribly cheesy. I'm hoping that this is all possibly 'placeholder' type stuff and it eventually gets replaced by more professional content worthy of a premium $14.99 subscription MMO.
Captain/Open Sea - This is where the game shines. You can tell most of the development started here and would know this if you had been following the game for the past few years. It is very much like any of the single player games you may have played in the past. However in an MMO setting where there's PvP involved and on such a larger scale it is much more exciting. The navigation is quite simple. You raise/lower your sails with W and S and you steer with A and D. However the finesse comes in knowing when to do it and even further by using skills that enhance things like maneuvering or speed. Combat works by being withing certain distance and being aligned and basically pressing space bar. Again the finesse comes in which of the many types of shot you fire and how fast you can get them loaded. These of course can be modified further by the many number of skills you can acquire through leveling. What's great is that even at Level One you can sink other NPC ships if you play it right. I created a pirate and at level 1 went right into open sea and was sinking level 7 NPC ships. I could have easily been defeated but knowing how to sail and fight and using your skills wisely you can come out on top.
There is a much touted player-driven economy in the game and a Freetrader merchant class you can play. I haven't been engaged in the economy much at all but it conists of your typical gathering resource, crafting, and selling. There is a pretty good economy tutorial you can take at the beginning that does a good job of introduction and getting you out and about the Caribbean but it could use some further work. (A bit too much running back and forth, and needs more goods production examples.) One of the very cool features of the game comes when, as a trader, you need to transport goods from one port to the next and you need escort. The escort comes through player naval officers. Perhaps this is a good alternative to all those who hoped SOE would implement a true smuggling system in SWG. Speaking of smuggling, Pirates (and possibly privateers) can engage in smuggling. This basically involves you filling your ships with contraband and traversing the open sea trying to avoid attention (of which there are skills to allow/enhance this).
Good:
-Pirates!
-Open sea and ships to build, steal, destroy, acquire, enhance, and personalize.
-Ship battles are engaging and fun, especially in groups.
-Open sea is quite large and gives a good feeling of adventure.
-NPC AI is good in the Open Sea and offers a challenge more often than not in my experience.
-Port contention (Realm vs. Realm)
-An engaging PvP system that doesn't entirely include or exclude everyone. It's just part of the world you 'live' in. (No need for a FFA PvP server or a Non-PvP server)
-Lots of interesting and engaging skills to choose from.
-Promising player-driven economy.
-Great sound
-Great writing and lore.
-Better than most character creation
-Nice ship customization (player created content of flags and sails too)
-Developers active on the burningseas.com forums
-Content submission system for devs to consider including more player created content and ideas.
Bad
-Graphics appear very dated.
-Character animations are generally not smooth and most are clumsy looking
-Melee combat system needs much improvement
-World doesn't quite feel organic enough, texture and artwork need to be improved.
-Lag. There appears to be ineffienct game file/code structure or something going on as
there is lag seemingly independent of whatever hardware you're running or net connection you have.
-No day/night cycles. Day or night is set through whatever instance you load into. (Just like the Pirates of the Caribbean/Sea Dogs games). This may bother some and can affect your 'the world is alive' feeling.
-No local weather. Weather occurrs only on the sea, not on land.
-No free roaming/adventuring on land. Restricted to port towns.
-Too many loading screens. Every door leads to a loading screen.
-Clunky chat system.
Other things to note:
Open Sea is more of a top-down view of your ship on a slightly cartoonish looking map. However it does look nice and everything is animated including water and ship bobbing.
But if you're hoping for standing on the deck of your ship in first person and moving about, climbing your rigging, going below, or looking through a spy glass. Unfortunately there's none of that. Which if you further think upon can be very dissapointing for a Pirate/Ship themed RPG.
The Developers are active as well as on the official forums.
Patches seem timely, consistent, and best of all beneficial. As a matter of fact I believe a patch is out due today that addresses some of the lag I mentioned earlier as well as many (1000+ according to their site) that address minor bugs.
More content and enhancements on the way including chat and UI enhancements.
Players are encouraged and enabled to include their own content in the game.
The retail box contains a nice set consisting of a good, but basic manual.
Very nice folded poster/map of the game world.
A nice ship guidebook.
A glossy quick reference card.
14-day Buddy Key.
The game is on 2 DVDs and installs in about 15 min. Further downloading as of 1/28/2008 can take you about 20-30 more minutes.
So do I like PotBS. Yes and it is my new MMO home. I've played them all from EQ to this and everything in between. And while my biggest gripe is the graphics and animation this game is a breath of fresh air. It's got lots of potential, but really that can be said for most MMOs. However the bad of this game is primarily superficial but unfortuneately can easily undermine the lots of good many will find if they stick it out for just a little while.
Also, there aren't 10 million playing this game. You may even find some discussion that player population is grossly inadequate. If you judge a game by numbers then move along. For all that it is, PotBS is probably going to cater more towards the niche of folks who, like me, like the themes and settings and are tired of the fantasy genre in MMOs. However you will find on the many of the more populated servers plenty of folks to socialize with. And the numbers will likely increase as the game improves and word-of-mouth spreads. This is a good game, a breath of fresh air, and will do well because after all is said and done there is solid gameplay here.
Breakdown:
Graphics - 7
Sound - 9
Gameplay - 8.5
Story - 10
Overall - 8.5
Hope this review helps you if you're interested in trying Pirates of the Burning Sea.