Review Pirates of the Caribbean middle roaded by Armchair

Tags: Pirates of the Carribean

Those groovy guys over at <A href="http://www.armchairempire.com/">Armchair Empire</a> have just sent word they've <A href="http://www.armchairempire.com/Reviews/PC%20Games/pirates-caribbean.htm">reviewed</a> that trading CRPG, <A href="http://pirates.bethsoft.com/main.html">Pirates of the Caribbean</a>, giving it a <b>7.7/10</b>. Here's the bit about trading being a shallow experience:
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<blockquote>Pirates is by no means entirely dedicated to naval warfare, though. As mentioned already, there's plenty of colonial powers to deal with in the game, and of course that means trade abounds for those so inclined. Each outpost has items they have a surplus of and a shortage of others. As such players can go by the "Buy low sell high" philosophy of trade, loading up their ship with goods on the cheap at one colony, then sell them for a tidy profit at another colony who greatly needs it. It's a fast way to make some money, but ultimately shallow as the trade values stay the same at all times. No markets ever saturate causing the values of goods to fluctuate, they simply buy and sell at a constant rate.</blockquote>
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Well, this all depends on the reality of the sense of scale, doesn't it? Given the time it takes to get goods from one port to the other, it could be used up by the demand for it and demand could be near constant by this rate of usage. It'd hard to imagine one ship making a huge dent in the demand of an item for even the smallest port.
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Thanks for the word, <b>Jeff Nash</b>!
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I dunno - that is one of the things I really disliked about Freelancer. Whatever the rate of travel, if there is a merket for a good I assume that I am not the only trader who might tap into it.
It just sucks me right out of the world and makes me realize *I am playing a hard-coded game*.

edit: spelling

 

I didn't like this game so much, as I felt the campaign was much too linear. It's a bit like GTA 3 and up where you have a set string of missions, but you can take your time in between these missions to do as you please, so the critics/press call it non-linear.

 

Its the same formula as Morrowind, just not implemented nearly as well. My problem was that the sailing and land lubbing were so intimately connected that it kind of broke my heart that one was so poorly implemented. PotC has the wost melee and firearm combat I have ever seen in a game hands down. And making someone do too much of it is not a very nice thing to do.

 

This was done in Hardwar, actually. The other traders in moths actually trade around as well. When they find a good trade route, they hit it and keep hitting it. But Hardwar also has a sense of scale that's much smaller. Instead of trading with ports of call, you're trading with factories and things within a city. A few trade routes in Hardwar can impact a shop, much like five coke trucks showing up at Krogers and dropping off their product would probably make Krogers drop the price on that item to get rid of it.

 

If the trading was dynamic my interest in PotC would be significantly increased despite the shortcomings it apparently has.
There have been several games that had this feature and as a result playing a trader or a pirate was much more fun.
About the closest Freelancer got to something like this was smuggling illegal goods; the best time I had playing Freelancer was smuggling drugs/artifacts across several systems to get to the Outlaw borderworlds with the military and police after my ass. It really felt like smuggling.