Quest: Breaking and Entering???!!!???

[Rolliard]

Ok you told go to the warehouse in Vera Cruz. ?????
There is no warehouse in Vera Cruz you can enter, there is no quest by that name with the coxswain.

To be honest I'm really starting to think I made a mistake with my 50$. This game just seems so broken and incomplete in so many ways the frustration with trying to play is starting to look like it's not worth the effort.

[Dewar]

The minimap should have arrows pointing to any mission goals available to you at the moment. If the quest isn't showing up on any of the arrows, you might need to /support and report it as a bug.

[Rolliard]

I abandoned the quest and picked it up again and it finally showed.

[Nebless Clen]

First the warehouse, someone's home, office etc... isn't going to look any different from the outside than it has the last dozen of times you went past it. One of the things that's different about PoTBS is the use of instance areas (dungeons) so they can re-use the same "building" for other things. It also means you won't ever have to enter and then wait for the re-spawn, because someone else was just there.

What you need to look for on the mini-map (radar) is the cannonballs around the outside. If you float your cursor over it, it will say what quest it is for and if you click on it you'll get a waypoint showing where to go. Once you've clicked on it, you'll need to either do a slow 360 to find it or face in the general direction and pick it out that way. Either way you'll see a downward pointing arrow and a range. If the quest isn't in the same town you're in, the pointer will be to the coxswain.

You can do the same by opening up the local map (L) and looking for the highlighted door or star symbol that you need to go to. Click on it and it too will give you the waypoint.

Once at the door it will light up and sparkle when you cursor over it. That works the same for objects you have to find (like in the warehouse) you get into the habit of moving and then scanning to find things. You actually have to look which made me realize how lazy I'd become from other games! LOL

It's not so much that the game is broken, you just don't get alot of information on how to play it. The tutorial flys by, doesn't explain everything and the help page is just a picture of the keyboard. If you got a hardcopy of the game, you atleast get the instruction book which does help.

One of the pluses of the game is if you do get stuck you can go on your nation chat channel - point at the chat bar left click to see what channel you're talking on, right click to see all the channels you're listening on - and do a general help call and if someone is one they're usually pretty good about answering your question.

I've got my toon up to level 20 and I'd say I only have 85 - 90% of the game instructions down. Just learned about grouping and mission taking while in one last night.

Don't give up the ship quite yet.

[Rolliard]

Nebless

There is/was no indications on my maps.

I have the same problem again for the quests
- Physic - Zoque Path near Barilla (quest text)no indications AT ALL on any of the maps
nothing zero nada. I can not leave my ship anywhere near Barilla , you are aware of this feature, right?
- Casting the Net - Laguna de Terminos near Barilla(quest text) once again ZERO INDICATIONS ON ALL MAPS.

There's more and I'm sick and tired of it. Covering up lack of content by obscure and misleading directions combined with the inability to even go anywhere to search(invisible walls at all points) is not good game design.
Combine the idiotic points mentioned with constant lag, disconects and it's more an excersice in frustration, not a game.

edit - as for the "cannonball" explanation, Yes I was aware of this, yes it lists 6 quests in Barilla, 2 with the coxswain and 4 that have absolutely no indications whatsoever on any of the maps or any doors, "sparklies" or anything else.

[Nebless Clen]

Rolliard

Sorry bout that, thought you were a bit newer at this.

I know Physic launches from Barilla, don't have my notes so I'm not sure about Casting the Net but it does go through a coxswain. None of the missions at this point involve stopping along a beach to do a mission. The "Hacho Cove near Barilla" etc... blurbs are just window dressing. They'll all be instanced dungeons from either the coxswain or if coming in from sea from the click on the city box.

Someone else had a problem with their missions showing up too and they had to exit all the way out and come back into the game to get the system to update.

I know Monday I had a variation of the same problem. I could see the 2 NPC's I needed to talk to, but instead of the mission showing up on my quest list after talking to the 1st guy, it took awhile to catch up and show. I figured it was just my lag problem.

It is frustrating at times. I missed alot of the SWG initial bugs by starting the game 3 months after launch. Of course with SWG the bugs just kept coming....... so where did that really get me.

If it gets too frustrating put the game aside for a couple of months and then come back to it after the teething problems are (hopefully) gone.

As far as obscure or misleading directions. I'll give you obscure but is it that or is the game written from a discovery point of view? I've found that you have to read the conversation blurbs closely and then read the quest journel blurb to make sure you have a handle on what to do and yes it sometimes turns out different, but so far that seems to be a plot device, not a mistake on the writers/plot dev's fault. Not every friend is a friend and the information you get is only as good as the source it came from.

Haven't seen misleading yet so you'd have to help me with which one you're talking about for that.

[LawLessOne]

I have found the missions a little difficult to find at times. They sometimes dont show on your mini-map and some missions can not identify what town you need to be in to do the mission.

Moving around town or even turning will sometimes cause the mission to suddenly appear.

[Rolliard]

Neb
Seems to have been the "Someone else had a problem with their missions showing up too and they had to exit all the way out and come back into the game to get the system to update." problem for me as well. After exiting (in frustration, I might add) and doing other things then coming back to the game at a later time, the quests were there.

I think a lot of my frustration with the game is rooted in the fact I want it to be a good game and succeed but if I'm getting frustrated to the point of leaving (and I'm a stubborn old SOB) what about the people that just quietly leave and chalk up the $$ loss to experience.

[Nebless Clen]

Rolliard -

I hear what you're saying. I too really want the game to suceed. I like the period, the thought, the little story plots..... It's got a lot going for it. And if half of the wish idea's come true, it'll have even more to play with. It's really going to come down to how long do you keep wishing and face reality.

Already this one isn't doing so well at my house. Out of the 4 of us, my wife and youngest don't play because; the RP isn't advanced enough to do for my wife and there's no small low level NPC spawns for my youngest (9) to whoop on. Visiting cities and walking around is kind of fun, but Age of Myth & Empires let's him beat up things more. I'm doing OK and my other boy (13) is doing fair. Not like with SWG where there was a little of something for everyone.

All in all I don't think it's going to be a runaway success like some of the other MMO's. SWG had a huge fan base to draw on. Game ended up sucking bad but I was one of those that just kept hoping it would get better (3 1/2yrs), never did mind you, but I didn't give up hope. The Stargate and Star Trek game's if they ever come out will also have large fan bases to draw on. And while Pirates are always a fun idea, marketing wise this game would have seen more subscribers if it had come out after the first PoTC movie when the idea was HOT. Coming after the 3rd groaner wasn't the best idea. Now I understand the how's and why's of getting a game out and how they have to predict the future and all so even getting the game out is a major accomplishment.

I really see this game as a middle of the road achiever and if FLS is OK with the subscriber numbers never really going up, then they could pour money into fixing all the bugs, expanding as they said they want to, merging servers to balance pop. numbers and then letting us loyal players go to town. I would hate to see them pull the plug, just cuz it's not a gazillion $ money maker.

As far as the quest's go, I wasn't going to say it in mine cuz I thought I was nuts, but just like LawlessOne said, when my weren't showing up, if I moved they would then pop in.