Glhlavka World

Pirates of the Burning Sea is an MMO with some fun twists. Instead of the standard orcs and elves, you can either be a pirate or a member of one of 3 nations (Britain, Spain, France). Instead of mages and warriors, there are naval officers and free traders.

There are two kinds of battles, swashbuckling and sea battles. Swashbuckling is fairly entertaining as far as button mashing combat goes. The real joys of combat are all in the sea battles. It is pretty cool to beat down another ship, board it, and win it as a prize. Victorious pirates can steal ships from NPCs and other players.

The most interesting part of the game to me is the economy. You can move goods from port to port, looking for the best place to sell. The production lines are complicated and often require cooperation between multiple players in order to produce the end product. Things are made even harder by the nation vs. nation battles happening around the ports. Control of the ports could switch into the hands of the enemy, leaving you paying outrageous taxes.

The game has a steep learning curve, and does very little to introduce new players to the intricacies of the game. You kind of have to figure it out on your own, which is a marked difference from WoW or even Everquest 2. Hopefully this will improve as they patch the game.

Visually, the game is very pretty. Some of the sea battles are breathtaking. The ports are pretty much all the same — someone commented to me that they were more like menus that you walk through, which is totally true. The games does not feed the sense of exploration you get from a typical RPG.

If you enjoy these types of simulations, Pirates is an interesting one and well worth a look.

Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)