2 Million Pirates Shanghai'd 45
The Escapist's news feed reports that 2 Million characters have been made in Puzzle Pirates since the launch of the game. From the article: "Three Rings' CEO Daniel James sees 2 million users as confirmation of the micro-currency model. 'We believe that this model represents the future for online entertainment. Our inspiration continues to be the Korean market, where 'free to play, pay for item' is the ubiquitous business model for online games. As the US market matures to meet Korea, we intend to keep leading the way.' In addition, the company recently released the beta version of a new game, Bang! Howdy, a multiplayer online tactical strategy game for the PC, which uses the same payment structure and online distribution model."
Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
But at least it's free (sort of). Congratulations, you have Runescape and Anarchy Online quality gaming awaiting you.
You're not approaching it right... (Score:5, Interesting)
It has a multi-tiered economy -- and we're not even talking about micropayments, yet. It has the most fiendishly sophisticated chat filter I've ever seen -- it doesn't just convert profanity, it actively attacks acronyms, net slang, and inappropriate use of Caps Lock. You log on to Puzzle Pirates, and the world is instantly literate. Try "a/s/l"ing sometime and see what happens.
It has unlimited PvP... but you risk a terrible penalty if you attack a weaker vessel.
And those old, tired puzzles -- you know why they're tired? Because they're friggin' classics of the genre, that's why. Dr. Mario? Puzzle Fighter? A demented two-fisted version of Snood? And when you do them, you aren't playing a puzzle, you are chasing down a merchant frigate or frantically repairing combat damage or meticulously decanting strange and wonderful elixirs.
It's a silly idea, crafted with loving attention to detail and populated by rum-swilling fiends. It might not be for everyone, and no, of course that's not two million active accounts, but it's a milestone none the less.
Oh. Sorry, I almost forgot.
Arrrrrr!
Re:You're not approaching it right... (Score:2, Funny)
Well, isn't that kinda the whole idea of, like. .
KFG
Re:You're not approaching it right... (Score:5, Insightful)
To repeat, you can attack ships who are your equals or you can attack stronger ships with stronger crews. If you whoop a weakling who was dumb enough to attack a stronger crew, then you do get to take all there stuff and you aren't a bully.
Re:You're not approaching it right... (Score:2)
Korean MMO model works well (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe someday I'll prove that the model works by buying something...
Re:Korean MMO model works well (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Korean MMO model works well (Score:2)
Re:Korean MMO model works well (Score:3, Informative)
It's like an earlier version of worms, but with vehicles and items.
The catch? Money is a pain to earn, but with enough time you can get pretty much anything you want. It's unfortunately a bit slanted once you have been given some experience and go against the more well equipped players.
That said, players used to be able to earn pretty much their way through out the game without paying a dime, but last time
Re:Korean MMO model works well (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Korean MMO model works well (Score:2)
Re:Korean MMO model works well (Score:1)
Re:Korean MMO model works well (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Korean MMO model works well (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Korean MMO model works well (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Korean MMO model works well (Score:1)
Mod up the AC!
Re:Korean MMO model works well (Score:1)
Re:Korean MMO model works well (Score:3, Interesting)
So you aren't playing Puzzle Pirates why??
You can play Puzzle Pirates for free, join a Doubloon server (or ocean, get it? servers are oceans).
Yes people can buy Doubloons, but you dont have to and infact people can only "BUY" Doubloons, they can't buy pieces of eight, so there is a flucuating exchange rate on Doubloons to Pieces of Eight. (usually 750-800 POE/Doubloon). (actually you can even make POE by
Misleading title (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Misleading title (Score:1)
Re:Misleading title (Score:4, Informative)
They forgot to mention... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They forgot to mention... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.threerings.net/code/narya/ [threerings.net]
(GPL)
Re:They forgot to mention... (Score:2)
They also host Game Gardens [gamegardens.com] where people can experiment with making their own games.
I like these guys more all the time.
Re:They forgot to mention... (Score:1)
Characters is different from real people behind (Score:5, Informative)
But also, you can create (and discard later or not) any amount of accounts, sometimes enables you to get some economic (in game) advantage, sometimes gives you more possibilities, sometimes it could be used as a way of cheating, and all of this is valid specially in the oceans that use micropayments,
2 millon characters is a big number. But is pretty far from the number of real people that actually plays the game (my estimation is below 50k, maybe less than 20k even)
Re:Characters is different from real people behind (Score:1)
Re:Characters is different from real people behind (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, 2 million characters is a flawed number; and a figure of 50k when compared to games like WoW is pretty small. It's still by far the most social game I've seen - and that with easily the largest ratio of girls to guys. I'd guess it as around 50:50, probably ± 5-10%.
Re:Characters is different from real people behind (Score:1)
Experience in Puzzle Pirates (Score:2)
It makes accounts eBay proof too. I've never seen a gold farmer in PP.
Gold Farming on YPP (Score:2)
I'm not sure how hard it would be to design a decompiler that could, say, play navy puzzles all day long and just harvest gold from duty puzzling, but I can't imagine it being fiendishly difficult, or would prevent a farmer from just playing the tournaments to sell off trinkets and other items in that manner.
The main abuse of the game is the use of 'able' alternative accounts to disguise the actual skill level of a player, which I doubt has
Re:Gold Farming on YPP (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure if you know what a decompiler does.
Re:Gold Farming on YPP (Score:2)
While there isn't a fix for PvP puzzles, the duty and shop puzzles have scalling dificulty now. As an able pirate, you won't get the boards you need to score increadables. You'll get sailing boards with just one or two target platforms, your gunnery peices will move at a crawl, you'll only have four diferent pieces in blige, and all of the alchemestry bottles will only require one primary color to fill.
Of course, you can still sit arround the docks with a Scimitar and slice and dice greenies till your ra
As a pirate, I should say... (Score:1)
The other kind, which I would expect to be more popular among Slashdotters, is dubloon pay. Dubloon oceans require pirates to purchase dubloons, a second currency, in order to gain upper-tier features. The key thing is that dubloons can either be bought with cash, or with the primary c
Yet another sensionalist article (Score:1)
A few major examples
Lineage : pay per month
Lineage II : pay per month
RF Online : pay per month/30days of play
So, describing the 'free to play' as ubiquitous is either misleading or wishful thinking.
A valid business model ? In asia, surely.
Ubiquitous ? hardly
Oh, and Korean pay twice as much per month than their US/Europe peers for the sam
Re:Yet another sensionalist article (Score:1)
I played one game that hadn't "launched" yet (the "item mall" wasn't open) called Goonzu. It was actually pretty good for a free game, and a lot of the item mall things could be acquired in game (like a bag to double your storage capacity, for example). The games you listed have one thing in common: They are all sold at retail in the US. That's ignoring su
Re:Yet another sensionalist article (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yet another sensionalist article (Score:1)
Its not worth the click (Score:3, Interesting)
Virtual FSM? (Score:1)
Kart World? (Score:3, Funny)