I’ve been spending a great deal of time in PotBS this past week mostly grinding faction with the Spanish Trade Union and working on my economy. I’ve moved in to the Brass Ship Fittings business and so far I’ve seen some decent success on the Spanish market. Supplying to my friends and other contacts has turned some decent profit and for the first time in two weeks I’ve been able to buy upgrades off the auction house for my ships.
I’ve finally hit level 40 and I say finally loosely because I’ve been pve’ing so casually it almost doesn’t count as effort. It’s a mixed bag of emotions, this whole easy leveling thing. On one side of the scale it’s nice to level quickly in a game about pvp. On the other side it’s nice to enjoy the journey. PotBS lacks all journey but does offer the rewards at the end. For its style of gameplay PotBS does leveling speed well.
On the PvP side of things it’s been slower than usual. The contention zones have remained on average about 1 area per day as the Spanish continue to use their turn-in tactics which immediately bump a port up to 10,000 points. The French and Spanish are actually the most active in PvP contention. One would think that Pirates might have the edge but as I have said all along the Spanish and other Nationals end up being the backbone of the servers and the Pirates more of the filler. An interesting note though, on Rackham the French have actually been holding their own against everyone. The French have fended off the Spanish two or three times at Irish Point and have contended the Spanish on more than one occasion.
For the most part I’ll be spending the remainder of the weekend and early part of next week flooding auction houses across the Caribbean with my goods. The Spanish are willing to pay much higher prices than the Pirates which means I sell more but spend more time traveling. In fact, I’m writing this as I sail between ports. Oops, I’m there.