Ranma4699
03-15-2008, 07:58 PM
http://www.disneyfrontier.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/pirates_of_the_caribbean_online_logo.jpg
Yo ho, Yo ho! It's a pirate's life for me as we go hands-on with Disney's swashbuckling MMO.
Game Synopsis
Set sail on the vast blue waters of the Caribbean in search of adventure, fortune, and fame in the world of the infamous Jack Sparrow and the evil Davy Jones. Create and customize your own pirate, build and outfit your own ship, and assemble a crew of your fellow rogues. Set your own course, your own adventure, and truly live the Legend!
In Pirates of the Caribbean Online, a massively-multiplayer online game for the PC and Mac platforms, you, alongside thousands of other players, will be able to fully experience the adventure of the films and explore beyond these boundaries to discover new myths and untold stories. Forge alliances, hunt for buried treasure, battle evil undead forces, and use cunning and strategy to outwit your foes - all to become the most legendary pirate on the high seas.
Rating:???
The Good:
Fun ship and land combat, Cartoony art style, PvP and parlor games
The Bad:
Randomized quests need fleshing out; graphics are a bit rough.
Mike Goslin, the Vice-President of Virtual Reality Studios, is under no illusions about how Pirates of the Caribbean Online is perceived among hardcore gamers. "We're definitely operating at a disadvantage," he says as we sit in a conference room at the Walt Disney Studios Internet Group. I've come to the House of Mouse in north Hollywood to check out Pirates of the Caribbean Online, a full-featured MMO launching concurrently with the third film of the popular franchise in summer 2007. Goslin and several of his designers and animators are practically vibrating in their chairs as they try to communicate what they believe makes their MMO special.
"There's the history of bad movie tie-ins," Goslin continues, pointing out the obvious. This is also an MMO from Disney. A company known for kids' properties and family entertainment is not exactly the kind of developer that immediately turns the head of the average World of Warcraft or Warhammer Online player. This is a game aimed straight at the kind of mass-audience that can be expected to flock to At World's End, the final movie in the trilogy, this summer. Goslin smiles when he talks about Pirates' secret weapons: significant others, children and the company's own experience with its hit Toontown Online.
Mentioning Toontown Online sets off a small discussion about how much I love playing that game with my four-year old daughter. "Exactly!" Goslin says. "As MMO gamers get older, get married and have children, they want to share their passions with their families. We got our start designing attractions for theme parks and theme parks need to be fun for everyone. Pirates of the Caribbean is a deeper, more complex experience than Toontown, but it's still one built around the idea of having fun, easily understandable activities available for all different kinds of people to do."
http://www.gamingtarget.com/images/media/games/PlayStation3/Pirates_of_the_Caribbean_At_Worlds_End/001.jpg
My hands-on demonstration of the game begins with the opening sequence. As in any other MMO, I begin by creating my virtual avatar and find myself surprised by the depth of the character customization system. Pirates of the Caribbean Online players can adjust dozens of sliders changing everything from ear size to eye angle to chin prominence to what type of body shape their virtual buccaneer will sport. "We found that people really only wanted two kinds of pirates, incredibly gorgeous or as twisted as we could make them," Goslin says. I briefly toy with the idea of being a pear-shaped pirate with an "S"-shaped nose, jug ears, beady eyes and gigantic feet. In the end I revert to form and make an attractive Spanish-looking female pirate named Elizabeth Sharkshot who reminds me a bit of my lovely wife.
Once finished, the next thing I see is a digitized recreation of Johnny Depp. I'm surprised a bit at the game's graphics. Poly counts are fairly low and the world has a squared-off, blocky look that seems designed to keep the game's system requirements low. From an art design point of view, though, Pirates of the Caribbean Online has an appealing, cartoony look that I eventually got used to, although I wonder how the game will appeal to players used to more elaborate graphics, or even casual fans of the movies looking for a realistic representation of the world they've come to know from the films.
Captain Jack Sparrow is speaking to my character Elizabeth. The two are stuck inside a small jail and outside my window I can hear the sound of cannon-fire. Captain Jack informs me that the island is under attack by Jolly Roger. Roger is a skull-faced pirate king who's got a grudge against Jack, honest pirates, the British Empire, the Dutch East India Company and pretty much anything else with a pulse. According to Goslin, Roger is unique to the game but is actually based on the narrator that speaks to guests during the original theme park ride. Yup, he's the guy who tells you to keep your hands and arms inside the car at all times and that flash photography is not allowed.
http://news.filefront.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/solshzkezf.jpg
Once Jack and I break out of jail, the game directs me to a tavern where I receive a sea chest that opens to reveal my quest journal, social tabs and a variety of other game controls along with a few more instructions on playing the game. Jack, as he's wont to do, would be disappearing into the jungle leaving me (quite literally) holding the bag. After giving me my sea chest, the proprietor announced that he'd be shutting the tavern down for the foreseeable future, as being in the same geographic region as Roger was known to be bad for one's health. He directed me down to the dock where I could secure passage on a boat to Port Royale. As it turns out, I was too late. When I got onto the boat, manned the cannons and took a few practice shots at a nearby shipwreck, we were already in Roger's sights. He killed the captain and only left me alive to deliver a message to Jack -- he'd be coming for both of us.
After the initial segment, I appeared on the island of Port Royale, the British port where much of the movies take place and a central quest hub for players. A quick stop in Orlando Bloom's blacksmith shop gave me the basics of combat. Unlike the previous generation of MMOs, Pirates of the Caribbean Online's combat is real-time and based on timed clicks of the mouse. A left-click begins a combat sequence and clicking again at the proper moment moves the player's avatar into the next phase of the sequence. A right-click allows the player to select a special move with a longer cooldown period. As players train with their weapons, they'll get points that they can place into various skills, making them more powerful or adding new moves to chain combos. "We wanted to make combat more dynamic," Goslin said. "Being a pirate is all about action, so we didn't just want people just watching the interface during combat."
http://img.hexus.net/v2/gaming/screenshots/potc/pirates_large_1.jpg
I practice my cutlass moves for a few minutes on practice dummies, then move outside to try my skills on some undead pirates and hostile alligators. As I defeat opponents, my skill with the cutlass increases, as does my "notoriety level." I note in my interface that there are dozens of different skills a player can increase. "We wanted to avoid putting in 'classes'," Goslin said. "Instead we allow players to increase their skills in whatever appeals to them." In addition to cutlass skills, I can also learn other types of sword and blunt weapon skills, get good with long-range weapons like pistols, area-of-effect weapons such as explosives and primitive grenades, and even become a "support" character using the game's voodoo (magic) system.
According to Goslin, this system also simplifies grouping up. While the game does have raid and group encounters, allowing players to specialize in multiple skills means that players never have to worry about being locked into bad choices before they understand what's going on. If a group needs a voodoo healer, odds are there will be one around to fill the role. "We don't allow players to learn everything on one character, but we do want players to have a broad array of choices." he said. That even includes non-combat roles. Pirates of the Caribbean Online boasts quite a few parlor games like poker and blackjack. Players who never leave the tavern can earn gambling skills that actually benefit them at the table. Poker players, for example, can cheat and their avatars display "tells" when they get a good hand. As their gambling skill rises, they have a better chance of slipping an extra ace in the deck without being caught, or hiding the fact that they just got dealt a fourth king.
After practicing with the sword for a while, Joe Shochet, the game's project lead, logs on to show me a bit about naval combat. Player ships range from small sloops that house a couple of players to massive vessels that require a whole guild to crew. As with everything else in the game, ship combat is skill-based and players can get better at sailing or using the cannons. Higher skill levels means more accurate shots and access to specialized forms of shot like chain or grape shot or voodoo-enchanted shot that sets enemy ships on fire or slows them down. "The thing about ship combat is that we wanted to eliminate everything that wasn't fun." Goslin said. As a result, ships steer like cars and it doesn't take terribly long to reload a cannon. There's no worrying about furling sails or wind direction, players just need to line up and shoot. Ship decks are also very wide to better accommodate the large 20-40 avatar sword battles that are expected to take place during boarding actions.
http://www.just-rpg.com/upload/pics/dir41/piratescarilegsparps2891.jpg
"The best thing about pirates is that they're just a natural for role-playing," Goslin says as I fire flaming cannonballs at an enemy vessel. "You don't have to know anything about Caribbean or colonial history in the 17th century. All you have to know is eye-patches, parrots, cannon fire and crossed swords." According to Goslin, the design goal of the game is to offer people the chance to experience the world of Pirates of the Caribbean from a variety of perspectives. For those who want to adventure in the world of Captain Jack (the team reckons this is the largest group), there's a main story-based quest line where players will be able to go on epic adventures, dig up buried treasure, tackle mighty enemies and in general increase their pirate notoriety.
For those looking for a more freeform experience, there's "mercenary work." These are smaller quests with easier (mostly solo) goals. The ones in the game right now are fairly crude -- mostly of the "fetch 10 crab shells" variety. Social players can build guilds, get big ships and spend a lot of time fighting on the high seas or just spend all their time in taverns gambling and entering various tournaments. Failing, that, there's always PvP.
http://www.reviewbusters.net/images/game/pirates_of_the_caribbean_at_worlds_end_001.jpg
Goslin's last statement took me back. PvP? In a Disney game? Goslin laughs. "What's the first thing people do when they play pirates? Pick up pretend swords and start whacking on each other. Of course we have Pirate vs. Pirate." According to Goslin, the secret is in the presentation. "The solution came straight out of the first movie - simply have Captain Barbossa toss a player a piece of cursed Aztec gold and temporarily turn them undead the way Jack did during the film's finale." He pops me into one of the five available PvP maps that will be available at launch. It's a straight-up PvP battle in which the first player to reach a certain number of kills wins. I start out using my cutlass, but then discover it's much more fun to use a voodoo power that allows me to run up, touch another player and then set them on fire from a distance.
According to Goslin, the most important thing to keep in mind is that while PvP is a segregated section of the game, it's certainly not an afterthought. "We've got some pretty big plans for Pirate vs. Pirate after the launch," he said. They include possible tournament and arena ladders and special skills and prizes available only to PvP players. "PvP should be as viable a way to play the game as any other," Goslin said. "We just want to make sure that those players' fun doesn't impact the fun of people who play differently."
I came away from my trip to Disney's studios fairly impressed with the level of passion and commitment the Pirates of the Caribbean Online team is putting into its new MMO. While hardly a heavy-duty massively multiplayer game, there's certainly depth to be found within and the light, airy experience and small time footprint appeals to a gamer like me who has to fit game time between a job, kids and a mortgage. "You'd be surprised at the positive reactions we're getting from gamers like you," Goslin concludes. "They consider it a nice vacation from hardcore MMOs. They can log on, do stuff for 15 minutes and log off feeling that they've made progress." I just think about my wife and a few non-gamer friends -- two in particular who are huge pirate and Disney fanatics. If I can get them to join me in Port Royale, I'll certainly be putting some significant time into Pirates of the Caribbean Online.
http://www.disneyfrontier.com/pirates_online/Jolly_Roger.jpg
Signup download and play the game [ Click here (https://apps.pirates.go.com/pirates/v3/index?pageId=createAccount) ]
Yo ho, Yo ho! It's a pirate's life for me as we go hands-on with Disney's swashbuckling MMO.
Game Synopsis
Set sail on the vast blue waters of the Caribbean in search of adventure, fortune, and fame in the world of the infamous Jack Sparrow and the evil Davy Jones. Create and customize your own pirate, build and outfit your own ship, and assemble a crew of your fellow rogues. Set your own course, your own adventure, and truly live the Legend!
In Pirates of the Caribbean Online, a massively-multiplayer online game for the PC and Mac platforms, you, alongside thousands of other players, will be able to fully experience the adventure of the films and explore beyond these boundaries to discover new myths and untold stories. Forge alliances, hunt for buried treasure, battle evil undead forces, and use cunning and strategy to outwit your foes - all to become the most legendary pirate on the high seas.
Rating:???
The Good:
Fun ship and land combat, Cartoony art style, PvP and parlor games
The Bad:
Randomized quests need fleshing out; graphics are a bit rough.
Mike Goslin, the Vice-President of Virtual Reality Studios, is under no illusions about how Pirates of the Caribbean Online is perceived among hardcore gamers. "We're definitely operating at a disadvantage," he says as we sit in a conference room at the Walt Disney Studios Internet Group. I've come to the House of Mouse in north Hollywood to check out Pirates of the Caribbean Online, a full-featured MMO launching concurrently with the third film of the popular franchise in summer 2007. Goslin and several of his designers and animators are practically vibrating in their chairs as they try to communicate what they believe makes their MMO special.
"There's the history of bad movie tie-ins," Goslin continues, pointing out the obvious. This is also an MMO from Disney. A company known for kids' properties and family entertainment is not exactly the kind of developer that immediately turns the head of the average World of Warcraft or Warhammer Online player. This is a game aimed straight at the kind of mass-audience that can be expected to flock to At World's End, the final movie in the trilogy, this summer. Goslin smiles when he talks about Pirates' secret weapons: significant others, children and the company's own experience with its hit Toontown Online.
Mentioning Toontown Online sets off a small discussion about how much I love playing that game with my four-year old daughter. "Exactly!" Goslin says. "As MMO gamers get older, get married and have children, they want to share their passions with their families. We got our start designing attractions for theme parks and theme parks need to be fun for everyone. Pirates of the Caribbean is a deeper, more complex experience than Toontown, but it's still one built around the idea of having fun, easily understandable activities available for all different kinds of people to do."
http://www.gamingtarget.com/images/media/games/PlayStation3/Pirates_of_the_Caribbean_At_Worlds_End/001.jpg
My hands-on demonstration of the game begins with the opening sequence. As in any other MMO, I begin by creating my virtual avatar and find myself surprised by the depth of the character customization system. Pirates of the Caribbean Online players can adjust dozens of sliders changing everything from ear size to eye angle to chin prominence to what type of body shape their virtual buccaneer will sport. "We found that people really only wanted two kinds of pirates, incredibly gorgeous or as twisted as we could make them," Goslin says. I briefly toy with the idea of being a pear-shaped pirate with an "S"-shaped nose, jug ears, beady eyes and gigantic feet. In the end I revert to form and make an attractive Spanish-looking female pirate named Elizabeth Sharkshot who reminds me a bit of my lovely wife.
Once finished, the next thing I see is a digitized recreation of Johnny Depp. I'm surprised a bit at the game's graphics. Poly counts are fairly low and the world has a squared-off, blocky look that seems designed to keep the game's system requirements low. From an art design point of view, though, Pirates of the Caribbean Online has an appealing, cartoony look that I eventually got used to, although I wonder how the game will appeal to players used to more elaborate graphics, or even casual fans of the movies looking for a realistic representation of the world they've come to know from the films.
Captain Jack Sparrow is speaking to my character Elizabeth. The two are stuck inside a small jail and outside my window I can hear the sound of cannon-fire. Captain Jack informs me that the island is under attack by Jolly Roger. Roger is a skull-faced pirate king who's got a grudge against Jack, honest pirates, the British Empire, the Dutch East India Company and pretty much anything else with a pulse. According to Goslin, Roger is unique to the game but is actually based on the narrator that speaks to guests during the original theme park ride. Yup, he's the guy who tells you to keep your hands and arms inside the car at all times and that flash photography is not allowed.
http://news.filefront.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/solshzkezf.jpg
Once Jack and I break out of jail, the game directs me to a tavern where I receive a sea chest that opens to reveal my quest journal, social tabs and a variety of other game controls along with a few more instructions on playing the game. Jack, as he's wont to do, would be disappearing into the jungle leaving me (quite literally) holding the bag. After giving me my sea chest, the proprietor announced that he'd be shutting the tavern down for the foreseeable future, as being in the same geographic region as Roger was known to be bad for one's health. He directed me down to the dock where I could secure passage on a boat to Port Royale. As it turns out, I was too late. When I got onto the boat, manned the cannons and took a few practice shots at a nearby shipwreck, we were already in Roger's sights. He killed the captain and only left me alive to deliver a message to Jack -- he'd be coming for both of us.
After the initial segment, I appeared on the island of Port Royale, the British port where much of the movies take place and a central quest hub for players. A quick stop in Orlando Bloom's blacksmith shop gave me the basics of combat. Unlike the previous generation of MMOs, Pirates of the Caribbean Online's combat is real-time and based on timed clicks of the mouse. A left-click begins a combat sequence and clicking again at the proper moment moves the player's avatar into the next phase of the sequence. A right-click allows the player to select a special move with a longer cooldown period. As players train with their weapons, they'll get points that they can place into various skills, making them more powerful or adding new moves to chain combos. "We wanted to make combat more dynamic," Goslin said. "Being a pirate is all about action, so we didn't just want people just watching the interface during combat."
http://img.hexus.net/v2/gaming/screenshots/potc/pirates_large_1.jpg
I practice my cutlass moves for a few minutes on practice dummies, then move outside to try my skills on some undead pirates and hostile alligators. As I defeat opponents, my skill with the cutlass increases, as does my "notoriety level." I note in my interface that there are dozens of different skills a player can increase. "We wanted to avoid putting in 'classes'," Goslin said. "Instead we allow players to increase their skills in whatever appeals to them." In addition to cutlass skills, I can also learn other types of sword and blunt weapon skills, get good with long-range weapons like pistols, area-of-effect weapons such as explosives and primitive grenades, and even become a "support" character using the game's voodoo (magic) system.
According to Goslin, this system also simplifies grouping up. While the game does have raid and group encounters, allowing players to specialize in multiple skills means that players never have to worry about being locked into bad choices before they understand what's going on. If a group needs a voodoo healer, odds are there will be one around to fill the role. "We don't allow players to learn everything on one character, but we do want players to have a broad array of choices." he said. That even includes non-combat roles. Pirates of the Caribbean Online boasts quite a few parlor games like poker and blackjack. Players who never leave the tavern can earn gambling skills that actually benefit them at the table. Poker players, for example, can cheat and their avatars display "tells" when they get a good hand. As their gambling skill rises, they have a better chance of slipping an extra ace in the deck without being caught, or hiding the fact that they just got dealt a fourth king.
After practicing with the sword for a while, Joe Shochet, the game's project lead, logs on to show me a bit about naval combat. Player ships range from small sloops that house a couple of players to massive vessels that require a whole guild to crew. As with everything else in the game, ship combat is skill-based and players can get better at sailing or using the cannons. Higher skill levels means more accurate shots and access to specialized forms of shot like chain or grape shot or voodoo-enchanted shot that sets enemy ships on fire or slows them down. "The thing about ship combat is that we wanted to eliminate everything that wasn't fun." Goslin said. As a result, ships steer like cars and it doesn't take terribly long to reload a cannon. There's no worrying about furling sails or wind direction, players just need to line up and shoot. Ship decks are also very wide to better accommodate the large 20-40 avatar sword battles that are expected to take place during boarding actions.
http://www.just-rpg.com/upload/pics/dir41/piratescarilegsparps2891.jpg
"The best thing about pirates is that they're just a natural for role-playing," Goslin says as I fire flaming cannonballs at an enemy vessel. "You don't have to know anything about Caribbean or colonial history in the 17th century. All you have to know is eye-patches, parrots, cannon fire and crossed swords." According to Goslin, the design goal of the game is to offer people the chance to experience the world of Pirates of the Caribbean from a variety of perspectives. For those who want to adventure in the world of Captain Jack (the team reckons this is the largest group), there's a main story-based quest line where players will be able to go on epic adventures, dig up buried treasure, tackle mighty enemies and in general increase their pirate notoriety.
For those looking for a more freeform experience, there's "mercenary work." These are smaller quests with easier (mostly solo) goals. The ones in the game right now are fairly crude -- mostly of the "fetch 10 crab shells" variety. Social players can build guilds, get big ships and spend a lot of time fighting on the high seas or just spend all their time in taverns gambling and entering various tournaments. Failing, that, there's always PvP.
http://www.reviewbusters.net/images/game/pirates_of_the_caribbean_at_worlds_end_001.jpg
Goslin's last statement took me back. PvP? In a Disney game? Goslin laughs. "What's the first thing people do when they play pirates? Pick up pretend swords and start whacking on each other. Of course we have Pirate vs. Pirate." According to Goslin, the secret is in the presentation. "The solution came straight out of the first movie - simply have Captain Barbossa toss a player a piece of cursed Aztec gold and temporarily turn them undead the way Jack did during the film's finale." He pops me into one of the five available PvP maps that will be available at launch. It's a straight-up PvP battle in which the first player to reach a certain number of kills wins. I start out using my cutlass, but then discover it's much more fun to use a voodoo power that allows me to run up, touch another player and then set them on fire from a distance.
According to Goslin, the most important thing to keep in mind is that while PvP is a segregated section of the game, it's certainly not an afterthought. "We've got some pretty big plans for Pirate vs. Pirate after the launch," he said. They include possible tournament and arena ladders and special skills and prizes available only to PvP players. "PvP should be as viable a way to play the game as any other," Goslin said. "We just want to make sure that those players' fun doesn't impact the fun of people who play differently."
I came away from my trip to Disney's studios fairly impressed with the level of passion and commitment the Pirates of the Caribbean Online team is putting into its new MMO. While hardly a heavy-duty massively multiplayer game, there's certainly depth to be found within and the light, airy experience and small time footprint appeals to a gamer like me who has to fit game time between a job, kids and a mortgage. "You'd be surprised at the positive reactions we're getting from gamers like you," Goslin concludes. "They consider it a nice vacation from hardcore MMOs. They can log on, do stuff for 15 minutes and log off feeling that they've made progress." I just think about my wife and a few non-gamer friends -- two in particular who are huge pirate and Disney fanatics. If I can get them to join me in Port Royale, I'll certainly be putting some significant time into Pirates of the Caribbean Online.
http://www.disneyfrontier.com/pirates_online/Jolly_Roger.jpg
Signup download and play the game [ Click here (https://apps.pirates.go.com/pirates/v3/index?pageId=createAccount) ]