My impressions, My ideas

[The Jackal]

I really do like this game but right now ATM, i do not feel that I will continue playing. I purchased the game and within a week I already feel it is not for me.


First, I had no problems with the game itself. There are significant ram leaks, but I have around 4 gigs of ram, so it is no problem to me, but after hours and hours of playing it becomes evident and the graphics tend to bug out, I simply restart my computer and continue playing.

Second, the thing that bugged me the most is the lack of diversity in the core gameplay. If I am a pirate, I should have some significant difference in starting missions than if i was a british naval officer. Which leaves me to my first suggestion: Please impliment different starting scenarios per class. If I am a pirate, I should have a beginning pirating mission, I should have a search for treasure and the act of some sort of piracy against a LEGIT nation. Not some "bilge rat". If I am a naval officer, I could start out at the graduation of a naval academy and the town gets attacked during the ceremony, something like that.

That simple change would go a long way, for people starting the game.

Third, classes are not what they seem. If i am a free trader, I should be a trader. Not a naval combatant. Missions should be focused on the class at hand; such as a free trader doing merchant runs / cargo runs and escaping pirates and other people out to get their cargo. A pirate should be focused on getting booty, and a free lancer should be hunting down specific pirate targets.

This is a great difference in what the game already is, but needs to be put in. It would require a lot of updates, but I hope this is what the game was currently aiming for. I want to be the class I choose, not a lower version of a fighter who trades on the side. I don't want to have my character doing the same thing a naval officer can do faster, but having a harder time.

Fourth, Trade systems. I do like the trade systems, but currently there is no limitations on the trade system and traders themselves are having cutthroat prices for cheap items. There is no limitations to their overpricing. While I agree, this is good to have a player economy, The game is too dependant on player economy. You NEED to have these items they are making and producing. But the problem is, I shouldn't. I should be able to do without, I should be able to purchase this amount of ammo from a merchant, not a player auction house.

This change, is neccessary for the game to continue. While the game currently is new, the prices will be high, but if this change is not implimented, the prices will continue to either spike radically or drop significantly with players undercutting themselves. I don't think this is good for a player economy. I think it should atleast be regulated to some degree; ie you can buy ammo from the NPC merchant but to get this other item you might need, you need to get it from a player or an auction house. such as ship deeds and certain character items.


Fifth and lastly; Smugglers. There needs to be the addition of the smuggler class. Someone who smuggles goods, transfers and trades from different nations with no penalty and can outrun pirates and other people out for their cargo. This would be PERFECT for this game. I see smuggler npc's in the game all the time, ships that are named 'smuggler'. Adding this class currently shouldn't be too hard. You can have the player's choices of class benefits range in the variety of ways to outrun oponents, to hide goods, to have surprises when being boarded and having a 'hit and run' setup with skills or something to that extent. I see various threads as to where players need to build ships just for cargo running, but really what would add AND balance the game is this class. Some way the community can rely on other players to move their goods.


this is a list of bugs I have noticed and should be fixed:
the auction house is currently in a way that I have to buy the items at the EXACT amount is it listed as, no more no less. I overbid and it says I cannot get the item because it is not listed as such and such price.

the beginning mission of clearing the town under attack by bilge rats there is a bug with the door to the tavern in which you have to enter it and kill the 6 bilge rats. I have to hit the X key and before i knew of the X key i was lost as to what to do. Also this would shy away newbies on the quality of the game.

combat- i find that combat is very dull, and ship boarding very dynamic and buggy. I would have an enemy with 1 person on their boat left that isn't dead, and I would go to board and it would fail boarding because the ship would move 1 cm away and the chances would suddenly go from 75% to 15% in less than the second it took to press the boarding button. Please make it more 'aloof' and smoother for transitioning to boarding combat.

Also on combat- I find the actual melee combat, really not that bad. It reminds me of the combat in Star Wars Galaxies before any of the major updates. Which I did like , a lot. The players and NPCs will jump around a lot, but that can be fixed with simple pathing updates.


Ship board captains - While boarding an enemy boat, I find that my character will end up killing the enemy captain too fast, and he would respawn, multiple times. Actually I had my enemies have just 1 crew left, and I wound up having to kill the enemy captain 4 times before it counted. And other times, the enemy could have 2 crews left and I kill the captain once and win instantly then. This is rather buggy and not consistant. I usually just have my guy order his men to gang up on the enemy captain and use my fencing to take down the enemy captain and i wind up taking over the ship in less than 20 seconds. Please fix this, what I have sometimes had is there will be 2 people left, and the captain. I would kill the enemy captain, then the rest of the enemy crew and the captain would still respawn and I would have to fight the captain AGAIN.

I have many more ideas, but this is the gist of it. The constant PVP situations is what keeps this game alive, grow on it, and it will sustain the game and let the community grow.

PS: I am writing this because I am a very experienced private beta tester for many companies and series of games, I usually suggest winning ideas to companies and they sometimes incorporate them. Maybe you would too, it might help.

Thanks for your time.