Bounty Bay Online: A Pirates Life For Me
By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor), OnRPG Journalist
Have you ever chosen Pirates over Ninja’s and did you ever feel like roaming the seven seas as Captain Jack Sparrow? Bounty Bay Online makes this a reality like few games can! Do you want to be a Pirate, Trader or Royal Guardian? You can choose between different classes to roam the seas and seek treasure. In this article I will be giving Bounty Bay Online an updated look at what has improved over the last few years.
History
Bounty Bay Online is set in the 16th century and there are different paths to take. Your first choice of customization is your character’s backstory, which can set you off down one of various paths in the game. Whether you choose to be a pirate or sail of as a rich trader you have a different story behind you, but all lead you on a mission of world peace.
I set sail as Captain Jack Arrow, a female pirate dedicated to getting as much booty as possible. The first thing I had to do was to choose a profession; there are currently five classes to choose from which are the following:
The Royal Military Officer is a High ranked member of the military who is talented with rifles and swords. Alongside their strengths in land battle they are also rather deft with cannons in sea battles. The Royal Military Officer is strong in Gunnery in Sea Battles and its Land Battle Strength is a Sword.
The Emperor Guardian is the elite from the imperial’s army who is good with the falchion, the axe, and the sword to name but a few. Although melee is his main strength; he can defeat enemies by using grappling tactics during sea battles too.
Roaming around the Caribbean, the Caribbean Pirate considers killing to be his hobby. He is very good at melee battles, and has many attack tactics such as grappling, ramming and short cannon attacks to defeat enemies during sea battles.
The Treasure Hunter has the passion to explore every corner of the world to find treasure. But he also excels at long distance cannons attacks, mines, and ramming tactics. Even on the ground he prefers to keep his distance, specializing in rifles.
The Armed Businessman is great at one thing, defending his bountiful supplies. In addition, his main strength lies in repairing and enhancing ships, and healing sailors. On the ground, he is good at healing, buffing allies, and shooting.
Since I created my character to be a pirate and roam the seven seas in search for more booty, I obviously chose the Caribbean Pirate profession since to reach my goals. As you level up you can obtain various profession skills to further improve your mastery of your combat style.
Throughout the game it is possible to acquire Reputation and Noble titles. There are many ways to obtain reputation such as authenticating rumors of treasure, discovering lands and questing. To earn Titles you require a certain amount of reputation and coins. Titles shouldn’t be overlooked in this game as they have amplifying status effects that have a major impact on your character late game. Almost every piece of armor or weapon requires some noble title as a prerequisite to equip.
Gameplay
First off you start off doing quests for the local NPC’s in the town you’re at. You will be helping the local farmers, miners and lumberjacks with their gathering of resources. You will also hunt down a few monsters with your sword and gather the needed items for several quests. This will teach you the basics in Bounty Bay Online. In every quest log you will find out which mob you will need to hunt or which NPC you need to talk. It is possible to click on the NPC’s green underlined name to automatically walk to the destination where this item or NPC is. As the game world is incredibly huge, this will be a big plus since remembering a single NPC location is nearly impossible.
After a few of these menial tasks you will earn the right to set sail as captain of your own vessel. However to sail out you will need sailors that will help you in your future quests; every ship has a maximum number of sailors that can sail along with you on your journey. The first quest lets you hire 50 sailors that will help you with whatever you desire; you will also need to buy food for the sailors so they don’t starve to death. After you have finally sailed out of the docks you can do whatever you want. You can do quests or just simply engage every ship you come across. This sandboxy feel is what really attracted me to the game.
Graphics
The graphics aren’t terrible but won’t be turning in heads in 2012. Bounty Bay Online has been out for 4 years now and so the requirements to run this game properly are really low. As long as you have a Pentium 3 processor along with a video card plugged in you are able to run this game. If you have no idea whatsoever about what kind of rig you’re running, just ask yourself if you’ve played an MMO before. If so then your rig can certainly handle this game.
Conclusion
Bounty Bay Online offers a wide variety of gameplay features for anyone looking for an MMO with real freedom. I chose to play as a pirate but there are a lot more of options you can choose from. The only downside I experienced while playing were a few annoying bugs but nothing so much as to detract from the overall experience. The game creates its own unique style that works out pretty well and certainly sets it apart from the majority of F2P MMOs on the market. If you have always liked Pirates over Ninjas and you have been a huge fan of Pirate movies you should try out Bounty Bay Online because it is a really fun game to play!
