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A booming economy (and a lack of PvP) in the PotBS beta
The Pirates of the Burning Sea NDA lifted the other day when the beta went open, and so lots of bloggers are posting their own impressions of the game (we at Massively got to post ours a while back, but hey, we're cool like that). Tobold, though, has an interesting post up about a favorite subject of mine in the game: the economy and crafting system. Once again, you can read my thoughts in the crafting writeup from a while back, but Tobold says something I hadn't considered-- that it is extremely easy to raise a fortune in PotBS.Or is it? Tobold says you can make a lot of money just by using your stored labor (which stores up in real-time-- my favorite innovation in the game), and right now, that's true. But having played the beta for a while, my prediction is that prices in starter and close-to-starter ports will drop pretty sharply after the game comes out. Right now, PvP is still in its infancy in the game (either because people are still learning how to do it, or because pirates haven't geared up yet to the point where they can really crush newbies). I was able to sail around the world to trade without any trouble at all. But in the live game, it'll become that much more dangerous to travel across the seas, and that will push the system to where FLS wants it: with PvP and the economy as two sides of the same paper.Right now, it's easy to make a ton of money because money is moving fast around the world. When the game comes out, and the real pirates make their way to the open seas, the economy will fall much more into the pattern that FLS is trying to get it in: goods at home will be bought and sold cheaply, and to make the real production and trading money, you'll have to travel through dangerous waters and survive to sell at the other side.
Massively's Pirates of the Burning Sea crafting hands-on
Yarr matey! Lift the gunwhales, lay out the plank, and shine yer cutlasses, there be... crafting to do? Sure, crafting and trading might not be the traditional pasttimes of choice for the pirates of lore, but we here at Massively have been sailing the seven seas (well, actually, just one of them) in the Pirates of the Burning Sea beta, and I am fascinated with the crafting system. Flying Labs has mixed some old ideas in with some new innovations, and put together a crafting and trading system that just might rival the fun of more traditional piratical activities.For a short walkthrough on what they've put together (and a look at the economy tutorial quest), hit the link below.%Gallery-11209%
Pirates of the Burning Sea economy preview
Female Gamer has posted an Flying Lab Software-approved look at the "player driven economy" in Pirates of the Burning Sea. It's got a number of different innovations, starting with the fact that players don't just craft items-- they actually create their own logging camps, mines, shipyards, or plantations, and those "structures" have to be put in a certain area (where the enemies aren't) on the map.Crafting with those structures is different, too-- instead of simply collecting mats and hitting craft, there's an ingredient of "stored labor" in those recipes, and that labor is generated by the player-created structures. So instead of clicking the button to craft something and then waiting, you must wait first, build up "stored labor," and then you can click at will to create whatever you want. There's also a charge in doubloons to create each item, and those charges can be raised or lowered depending on what you're creating and where.FLS also chose a blind bidding system (similar to FFXI apparently, which I haven't played), in which bidders guess at the minimum price rather than aim for the highest bid (as in WoW). Just like EVE, you've got to be where an item is to receive it. That's annoying, but it fits with the setting, since there aren't exactly magic mail systems around. And finally, an auction house only shows trades in the same region of the game, so there are "trader" possibilities, where players will be able to take goods from one section to another and try to buy low and sell high.All in all, it sounds really interesting-- a combination of new innovations in MMO trading, and a number of compromises made based on the setting. Pirates, we're told is scheduled to release around January 2008.[ via VW ]
