Pirates Of The Burning Sea: A Sinking Ship
I saw over at Tobold’s, which links to the official site, that Pirates of the Burning Sea will be merging servers so that the total available will drop from eleven to four. That is sad news indeed, but I can’t say it wasn’t expected.
I hate to see any MMO struggle, but Pirates of the Burning Sea just doesn’t offer enough to keep players interested in the long term. For one thing, avatar combat is absolutely horrible and woefully inadequate. The end-game is also lacking in that you basically have only two options: port contention or PVP.
I played Pirates for only a very short time. While I loved the graphics, the gameplay did not pull me into the game in any way. I know of several other players who ended up in the same boat (pun intended).
So now Sony has several MMO’s that are struggling. Pirates, Vanguard, Planetside, and The Matrix are all hurting for subscribers. It makes me wonder just how many subscribers it takes to make these games worth the expense of keeping them running. Maybe it is much lower than we all think.
On the upside, Vanguard seems to be getting a second wind. More and more people are trying it out again. I will chronicle in upcoming posts about some things I have experienced with it lately, including a move to a different server. More to come on that later.
–Wolfen
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Vanguard: The Blighted Lands
The Riftseeker at Lotus Hold gives out many quests. They are designed to make you travel around using the Riftway system so that you can get experience with using it. I decided to try it out by starting the A Need For Heroes: Blighted Lands quest. Once I arrive in the Blighted Lands, I am to speak to Guard Eba.
Guard Eba has many quests to give the newly arrived adventurer. Next to him is Guard Na Cho who also has many quests available. The first quests had to deal with eliminating Ulvari Devourers which are nothing more than gremlins, and thin out an infestation of what turned out to be flying eyeballs. These creatures were just steps away from where you get the quests, so they were easy to complete.
The Ulvari Corruption: Ulvari Devourers quest resulted in me receiving 1 silver, 60 copper, and 3983 experience points. The Eye of the Ulvari gave 1 silver, 50 copper, and 3618 experience. The Eyes of Ulvari surround a colorful rock formation and are very easy to pull solo. The same goes for the gremlins. I also completed the Ulvari Pearls quest that had me find a pearl that the gremlins drop. It gave me 75 copper and 1921 experience and this quest is repeatable.
The next set of quests had to do with the Loamsworm Brotherhood. There is a stronghold of these brigands located just past the Ulvari area. They built their fortress inside some mountain walls.
There are several different kinds of these brigands and I had to go kill several of each as well as bring back some gems that they drop. It’s actually a neat area with fast spawns that can keep the solo player busy. A group could burn through it in minutes. I completed the quests Loamsworn Necklaces, Prophetic Action, The Rest of the Bunch, and Alluvian Gems. They all gave around a silver each along with 3618 experience points each.
I dinged level 17 and logged out for the night.
Read MoreLow-Level End Game Content
Name any massively multiplayer online game and you will find discussion after discussion about the “end game.” The end game, for those who have never reached it, is that mythical time when your character has reached the maximum level and doing normal adventuring and questing no longer advances you. To advance, or grow stronger, you and your guild must begin raiding the most difficult encounters in the game. Many times they include the toughest foes found in the game, which leads to you consuming huge amounts of hours to defeat them.
Many players consider the end game to be the place to aspire to. Once there, you defeat big and tough monsters and get rewarded very well with very powerful loot. The accomplishment felt at completing such an endeavor is great and it feels like you have really accomplished something big. The problem with this is that in many games you must be at or near maximum level to do these things. You may be required to have special gear or attributes before you are allowed to join others in attempting the raid. The end game can be extremely exclusionary.
Why can’t there be end game content at lower levels? In most games, if you reach the end of level 10, all there is to do is continue on the adventuring path. Instead, I would like to see a dungeon that requires a force of level 10 players to crawl down into the depths and slay a minor dragon. I’m not talking about single group content, I’m talking about a full-on raid of low-level players. Do this every 10 levels and you have one heck of an experience as you level up. It also prepares new players for raiding at higher levels.
Of course, you must make the dungeon encounter interesting, fun, and in the end, very rewarding. Make the loot the best of what they can acquire at that level range. Make the experience gained worth the effort expended. Instead of making a player wait until level 50 to experience the thrill of slaying a dragon, show them early on what it really means to raid a dungeon and come out victorious. All grand battle stories need not come from maximum level zones.
–Wolfen
Read MoreVanguard Screenshot
Here is a picture I snapped while running around Vanguard. Click the image for actual size.
