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.
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Here is a picture I snapped while running around Vanguard. Click the image for actual size.
Vanguard: Lotus Hold
I decided to head over to Lotus Hold, which is southeast of Nakai Dojo. Nao Tak said I should go there and find a man named Bautali. It seems they need some help over there. On the way over, I found a Pegasus Trainer just west of Lotus Hold who will rent you a flying pegasus at the rate of 25 copper for five minutes. I also found a Riftway right next to Lotus Hold.
I found Bautali inside the Hold and he had a bunch of quests to give. Standing next to him is Hai Tang who also has many quests to hand out. I picked a few from Bautali and got started on them. I had to go kill a bunch of tigers, ostra’s, varana’s, and others. The varana and ostra were easy to find, but just like back in the starting areas, the tigers were extremely rare. I got so tired of running around looking for the tigers that I put that one on hold and worked on some other quests.
Located on the beach which is down the hill from Lotus Hold is a bunch of burned out houses that the orcs have taken over. The quest Orc Assault: Martok Deadbringer wanted me to go kill a few of the Deadbringers, so down to the beach I went. The beach is crawling with orcs, so it was easy to quickly find what I needed. The quest netted me 1 silver, 40 copper, and 3220 experience points.
Back at Lotus Hold, I discovered that the stress and fear of constant orc attacks have caused some of the villagers to go crazy. Some guy named Mung decided to take a group of them away from Lotus Hold to find some other place to live. It seems that the crazed villagers took Tao’s Idol of Focus with them when they left and they didn’t ask permission to do so. I was tasked with getting the idol back.
The crazed villagers are found up on a high hill that is a ways south of the Nakai Dojo. They stand close to each other, so I had to use Nature’s Calm in order to pull a single. The very first one I pulled had the idol. Nice luck. Returning the idol to Tao resulted in me receiving 1 silver, 40 copper, and 3220 experience points.
I then started a quest that tasked me with retrieving some treasure boxes that the orcs had stolen from Lotus Hold. These boxes are located around the burned out houses down on the beach. I had to clear the way of orcs in order to get to some of them, but I also found that I could sneak in behind the houses and get to some of the treasure boxes with minimal combat. There is a wooden wall behind the houses that has gaps in it and I found a couple gaps that I could squeeze through.
I ran back to Lotus Hold and turned in the treasure box quest and the kill animals quests. They all gave about a silver each and 3220 experience points each. I dinged level 16 while doing these quests and here is a list of spells that my Druid received:
- Barbwood Talisman III: AC 60, HP 120, 17 damage shield
- Wild Growth I: 935 to 986 damage over 24 seconds
- Solar Flare II: 297 to 319 fire damage & 107 to 118 over 4 seconds
- Restore II: 503 point heal
- Summon Earth Elemental II: Summons a pet for 3 minutes
- Quelling Wind I: Lowers hate by 3%