By Rick Charbs, Onrpg writer

Pirates of the Burning Sea is an MMORPG set in the Caribbean, 1729, developed by Flying Lab Software. It introduces a tactical ship combat, in combination with an interesting swashbuckling combat? a relatively unique style. Being in development ever since 2002, one could recognize the long path they have come through to make the game what it is today. As such, Flying Lab Software doubled their staff during first two years of the production of this game, and the community began anticipating its release with impatience? which was expected, to say the least. The beta testing for the game began three years later, on December 14th 2005, and was finally drawn to a close the first of January 2008. Known as one of the largest beta tests in MMORPG history, this game sure has improved. Of course, this path was not meant for every developer. The official release of the game was on January 22nd, 2008.

General Gameplay

Pirates of the Burning Sea packs a lot of action and politics, in its essence, into the game. Many aspects of the game revolve around the player-driven economy, and the tactical ship combat and travel. It is easily assumed that the game would include a vast amount of pirate-inspired features and settings, as the main idea for the game was to create something unique that would appeal to followers of the pirate-craze of the time (not that it has diminished).
Firstly, when you create your character, you will be given the choice of a career. You will also be able to decide to play as a National or a Pirate. As a National, you can choose to be a naval officer, a privateer, or a freetrader, and as a Pirate, you can choose to be a cutthroat, or a buccaneer. Every career has special advantages and disadvantages, and they each carry their own skill arsenal, with a total of 45 skills per career. Be weary, as you cannot change your career once you have chosen. Players can create up to 6 characters per server, which is more than enough to try every career, so go ahead!
Swashbuckling, otherwise known as land-combat, is your average click to attack combat style; however is more of a hidden-turn-based style. There is little skill involved, though there are many different skill combos you can use to take down an enemy very quickly. The actual combat mode is a little complicated, involving ones “parrying skill” and “attacking skill” in the form of a balance meter. Each player has a balance meter located on their interface that determines how capable they are versus an opponent. I will not explain this any further, but I will justify that the learning curve for this method of combat is very small. Lastly, there are three modes of combat one can choose from whilst swashbuckling: dirty fighting, fencing, or Florentine. Dirty fighting is fighting with the use of a cutlass, fencing is fighting with the use of a rapier, and Florentine is fighting with the use of a short sword.
PvP is a very concentrated aspect in Pirates of the Burning Sea. With various modes such as the Pirate PvP Zone (a concentrated area allocated for PvP battles), the Open PvP zone (a vast area open for players to hunt other players without barriers), Contention (an event that happens when a port is taken under control by an enemy nation), and Ship battles (tactical battles at sea), a player who enjoys fighting others will undoubtedly be interested in this title! Patience is needed to fully enjoy the game’s PvP aspect, though.
The last aspect of the gameplay I will address is highly considered the most important one. Ships are an incredibly large aspect of this game, as everything revolves around how the nations get along and go to war, by means of the sea. What better use of a cannon-ready ship than to bring it to war with a vast amount off pirates at your disposal? Currently, there is an approximate 55 ships that players can choose to sail. Some are used for economic purposes (merchant ships), and some, for combat (battle ships). Players can disperse their shops throughout the game by carrying them out on ship. Considering the game’s economy is player-driven, many ships set sail with the goal of making profit. With very realistic measures, the larger your ship is, the harder it will be to manoeuvre. A player can own up to 5 ships at a time, and every ship has a specific amount of durability that will determine how long it will be of use to you. Don’t worry, ever since an earlier patch to the game, you can buy insurance for your ships!

Graphics and Sound

With Pirate of the Burning Sea withstanding so many years in constant development, graphics and sound were aspects whom were given a great deal of attention. The graphics do, however, seem a tiny bit out-dated in comparison with the new gen MMORPGS, but the reason for that is the engine used for the game was developed before 2002, and the graphics are generally pretty old as well. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t any quality involved. I was amazed by most of the textures (especially the water). The settings and characters very well represent the pirate theme this game conveys to the MMORPG community; the historic value is present. The sound is an aspect I was actually very pleased about. Many hours of original game sounds and music was created by artists employed by the company. There are even a few live musician tracks, but the majority of the games music was digitally composed. I enjoyed the music enough not to change it with my windows media player? that’s a lot to say! It really immerses you into the game.

Personal Recommendation

First of all, I would have to say I was very surprised with this MMO. I was honestly not expecting a game of this style, and I had absolutely no idea it was in development for so long. I must have been living under a rock. One can really tell that countless effort has been put into the game so far, and it keeps growing. The pirate style was genuine and flawlessly followed what I had known of the real historical aspects pertaining to piracy. Set in the 1700s, the game’s background was truly interesting in my eyes, and should most-likely be of interest to anyone who enjoys history and, of course, pirates! The customization value of the game was mediocre, however, but it wasn’t that bad. I would have liked to see even more uniqueness in terms of character development, but there isn’t much to complain about. The game did lag for me, as my computer isn’t very powerful, but any decent machine should run it very well at a great frame rate. The combat didn’t appeal to me at first, but it grew on my gradually.

Furthermore, the tactical ship aspect of this game is very elaborate and is a must try for strategy game players. This pirate-themed MMO should definitely keep you entertained! It is a must try for anyone who loves pirates and is able to pay for the monthly subscription, or simply give the 14-day trial a try!

Pros
– unique
– appeals to many types of gamers
– great sounds and graphics
– Uhm… pirates! Need I say more?
– Great community

Cons
– Monthly subscription
– Somewhat complex combat system

by Chris Scarbrough, Onrpg writer

I recently sat down to play Talisman Online, one of the lesser-known free MMORPGs around. Is this game worth playing? Let’s find out.

Storyline and Lost Plots

The storyline of Talisman Online does not run very deep, and is mostly linked to the quests you complete in the game. After the first few quests, (the ones that give you a general idea of your reason for being there and explain the status of the world) the following quests do not really tie to any grand story. While some games will take this route for an intriguing and compelling storyline, Talisman Online doesn’t really manage to pull it off.

Firstly, you will log in and start your first quest. This quest consists killing a monster and returning to an NPC with its drops. Chances are, every time you log into this game you’ll be doing the same thing: starting quests and completing them. That makes it a casual MMO, but might not inspire deeply rooted RPG gamers for long.

Point and Click Gameplay

In terms of characters, you have five class choices: tamer, monk, assassin, fairy, and wizard. These classes range from melee solo classes to avid magic casters ?according to the game at least. The difference between the classes in this game is not as clear-cut as some other MMOs. The most revealing difference between jobs was the class was either a damage dealing class, or a mage. This reflects in the PvP as well, as there is not much difference between the classes.
Playing any class of your choice, you’ll end up with the same battle system, that consists of left-clicking a mob and watching your character having a go. You will have access to hot keys that give you quick access to potions or whatever else you’ve assigned to them. The development team could have made the combat system a bit more complex and challenging for me.

Talisman Online contains a large number of simple quests that require a lot of grinding ?the chore we all hate more than mowing the lawn. However, in Talisman Online, this is particularly tedious.

Most of the time I spent playing this game, I felt as if I was not actually playing it? I was only pushing a single button once every minute or two, and my character was doing everything on its own. This allowed some more room for discovery, but it made the game seem plain as well. Although you have the option of manually finding the NPCs, the way the game is designed makes this nearly impossible, unless you know every nook and cranny of the area that you are in. So, there is an adventure after all! Once you have completed your quest, you will gain experience points and, sometimes, items. Though, it takes a while until the good gear starts coming.

Customization in Talisman

The character customization in Talisman Online is rather limited as you only have about twenty-five possibilities in total. That means you may log in with your newly designed characters and see others looking exactly like you! If a personalized look is your thing, then this game might disappoint you. That is part of the free MMO scene we all know and love!

The end-game content, however, could use some more individuality and customization. Sometimes a game can take five classes and give you endless possibilities. This is definitely not the case with Talisman Online. At the highest levels in the game, most characters of the same class will be exactly the same. Perhaps some expansions might bring some changes for that in the future.

Interface

The camera will not move directly behind you. It will only move up/down at a strange angle. This sometimes makes it hard to see where you are intending to go. You point the mouse to the place you want to go and click to move in any direction. If you hold down the button for three seconds, your character will continue to move in that specific direction. This provides some difficulty in enclosed areas, such as caves or tunnels, and it takes a bit of practice in open spaces, too. After a few hours at a time, it can become rather troublesome to focus on moving around so much.

The menus and the NPC texts are often poorly translated. In some situations, I had a hard time understanding what was being said. Luckily, it is fairly easy to communicate with anyone in Talisman. The chat log and systems used to communicate between characters are simple and easy to master. The biggest problem here is the Real Money Traders (RMT). These RMT will create accounts, log in, and spam your chat log advertising their websites in order to sell their gold. All games have them of course; the sad part is that no action is taken against them in this game.

Graphics and Sound

While the backgrounds and details to the environments you can explore look great, the character models are designed in a very simple fashion. This is a shame, because the design of the characters does not seem to fit in the environment at all. Turning up the graphic options in the menu does not improve the situation. It only creates some lag. One’s amount of lag is kindly displayed at the bottom left of your screen, which is funny in that regard.

The music in Talisman Online is alright, but not very special. It has a tendency to disappear suddenly, and after a few minutes of silence, it will startle you by starting up suddenly!

Pros
– Easy to use communication system
– Enjoyable (though oddly timed) music

Cons
– Storyline falls apart instead of coming together
– Limited character customization
– Poor translations, making quests difficult to read