This was a day to remember in the history of the Rackham Server. I logged in on Day 3 of the Pirates of the Burning Sea launch and checked the PvP timer. The port conquest battle was scheduled to begin in less than 2 hours. Using what time I had left very carefully I decided to engage in a few little PvP skirmishes around Irish Point to build up my personal contention score. For about an hour and a half my group of three defeated three seperate groups of French and British players ranging from 2-3 players in each. It was a fantastic PvP experience. However, it was nothing compared to how this day would end.
With only a half hour left I decided it would be wise not to bring my Locust Mastercraft into the fight. We didn’t know what to expect and I had already outfitted my LMC with too many expensive rigs. I decided, along with my group, to bring a Stralsund Frigate to the fight and offer some heavy gunning. The Stralsund has a gun deck with 10 cannons on each side and a topdeck with an additional 4 cannons each side. The Stralsund also sports aft guns and swivels. It’s overall, in my opinion, the best level 30 large ship out there until it can be replaced by the Stralsund Mastercraft. I ran into one little problem though… I hadn’t even placed one upgrade on this thing yet. I immediately set sale from Terpitude (mexico) for Matthew Town where one of my groupies was waiting with some upgrades to sell me. Sadly it took me 17 minutes to get there and invites began exactly when I arrived. I wasn’t able to fit my ship with anything more than general upgrades. This wasn’t going to be pretty…
Invites for the port conquest battle at Irish Point had been sent out. I received an automated invite for contributing nearly 600 personal points. Several of my society friends had received invites as well as my entire group. Upon arriving in the planning room it was organized chaos at best. Several “assertive leader types” began barking orders and making sure that their voice was heard as the resident expert. Adding my voice to the chorus of epeens wasn’t going to make anything better so I just followed the instructions of the drill seargent who sounded like he was on the right track. Ultimately we broke in to two groups of twelve: one entering on the east and one entering on the west. The doors were unlocked at we filed in to the battle.
We were met with decent wind at our side which we decided was a tactical advantage should we decide to flank. The group to the east came in to view right as we were approaching the French army. When we rounded the corner we saw all 24 French waiting for us lined up in a defense perimeter around their town. It was a scary site to see them in line formation… oh how I loathe line formation… The group I was with on the West found that the French had left themselves wide open for us to sneak around behind them through a little island canal. We instructed the East group to push the French into the pincer trap. Instead though the East group took it upon themselves to make the biggest screw up tactical mistake in the history of PotBS. Instead of pushing towards us they turned and ran straight into a little inlet causing the French to have the wind at their backs enough to out run the West group. The French slaughtered the East group 24v12 as we tried desperately to catch up. By the time we reached them only a handful of East group survived. It was nothing more than a cleanup job for the French at this point as they took us down 24v12 in line formation. It was a blood bath and an unfortunate one at that.
The Pirate nation lost 24 good ships yesterday as well as our confidence. The French… supposedly the weakest of the nations… had crushed us and left us without any port contention on the map. We (pirates) are now in last place and struggling to keep up. It’s going to be tough but we learned something today. Never underestimate your opponent. So back to the grind I go. Level 31 now and needing to find myself a new large ship. This should be fun!
You can view a video recap of the battle in the video I posted yesterday. Most of it should make sense now. Someone on the Rackham server was kind enough to make a GIF animation of the fight which you can see on the right (pirate: red, French: green). It represents the battle really well.
Great post. I am really enjoying your PotBS posts! Sounds exciting. It also sounds like the kind of game you probably wouldn’t want to play casually.
The game itself is really at the core casual. I went from level 21 to 30 in 2 days of casual group fighting and wasting a ton of time PvPing and questing for money. The PvP side of things is a lot more casual for pirates since we can just capture any ship we want.
Where it departs from the casual side of things is the losses. If you die in a captured ship it’s gone forever (Unless you add durability with another deed). Regardless of durability all “permanent” upgrades are lost.
Right now at level 31 when a ship of mine sinks I lose anywhere between 5k-10k dubloons in outfittings. Considering I only have 28k Dubloons that’s a decent hit to my overall wealth.
I would say it’s more casual than EQ2 or even WoW. But that casual play comes with a few risks.
Enjoying posts as well keen, keep it up. My pirate is way down the lvl list, coming up on lvl 10 on rackham. I must admit it feels like a casual game and casual is what i like with my shcedule. Can see if you grind how can lvl quickly, going to hit up some grps this weekend and head out on the high seas guns a blazing …
Brutal! I love the after action reports.
Nice reports!
I don’t find the leveling nearly as fast as Keen, but then again I can only play for an hour at most in the evenings and so when I do play I can’t find groups because I can’t play long.
I’d still categorize it as very solo and casual friendly, especially as a pirate. I don’t use many or expensive specific fittings, so if I lose a ship I don’t really lose anything. I just use another ship a few levels lower until I run across another ship I want more.
These reports have made me more interested in trying it out but I really don’t want to commit any money till I’ve had a chance. Hopefully they offer a trial (even a short 3-day one like TR) soon. Keep it up I am almost living vicariously through them.
Those who bought the retail copy get buddy keys they can hand out. I digitally downloaded the game so I have no keys to give you guys. 🙁
if you want to pass on my email to curious i can send him my buddy key to try it out and if on rakham and late night est time player look me up. Pirate Mariet LaVoe in the good ship hex
Thanks Pixey (and the thought Keen) but I decided to just take the plunge. I am ordering it from Station.com as I type. In fact, downloading now. If you guys don’t mind I might contact you in-game sometime.
more than welcome curious iam a late night est gamer so usually anytime after 11 pm
Great stuff.
Mind you – it is entirely appropriate that a group of pirates would not be sufficiently organised to go toe to toe with a proper navy in the line of battle.