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Jamski
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lol ED&D is officially full PvP LOL
May 2002
time: 05:34
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quote:
January 12, 2004 - Few games break the mold these days. Games that claim innovation usually leave the player asking "What was so special about this one? It was just like that one." This is even truer in the massively multiplayer genre than any other. Most take one piece from game x and one from game y and add in their own unique twist z, but after playing it for some time, it starts to feel just like every other on the market. 3 Rings Software, however, not only breaks the mold, but smashes it to pieces. Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates takes puzzle games and puts them smack dab in the middle of a persistent state world with a player driven economy. Not only that, but you get to be a pirate, complete with cleaver and hat (if you so choose). How could you not love that?
The meat of this game is the puzzles. Some have a distinctly Tetris feel to them and others remind one of that family favorite, Othello. Each puzzle has rankings and levels associated with it, although both are very abstract - using words like Ultimate and Weighty to give a general idea of your adeptness. The top ten players in each puzzle are viewable though, so you can see and strive to be #1. As you play a game, your experience level increases constantly, whereas the ranking level changes dynamically over time, similar to how chess rankings work.
One of the more interesting features of Puzzle Pirates is its fully player-driven economy. Player labor is responsible for all items in the game, from ships to swords. Governors of islands issue deeds to players to have shops built, which are then constructed, again, by player labor. Unfortunately right now only one of the shops - the distillery - has a labor puzzle associated with it. The distilling puzzle is quite fun, but in order to play the puzzle, you must find a distillery that is hiring. The player owners of the shops decide whether they want to hire or not and set wages. Players who take jobs in shops will affect the speed with which goods are produced. Some things, like wood and iron, are foraged off deserted islands and sold to the player shops (or they can be bought from markets). The player shops then turn those things into something usable and sell them to players or other shops. While the distillery puzzle allows players to take a more active role in the process, as of right now most are passive - they are created when enough time passes. Puzzles for the other shops are in the works but it may be some time before we see new ones added.
The majority of time will be spent on a ship, be it as part of a crew or just jobbing. Jobbing is taking a position with a crew temporarily to earn a little money (pieces of eight aka PoE). Each crew is very different from the next, so as a new player it is a good idea to get to know several crews before choosing one to join. Almost every player will join a crew, because ships are very expensive and starting your own crew is pretty time consuming. Captains are typically the people with the most time on their hands, although I'm sure a few have broken the mold. However, even for achievers with not as much time on their hands as others, there is plenty to achieve in this game. You can collect PoE and try to win an island auction or try to get the most expensive outfits or swords. Most time spent on ships is spent doing the grinding tasks - Sailing and Carpentry. These tasks in Puzzle Pirates take the form of puzzles, of course. For example, the carpentry puzzle is a fill in the pieces game. Using fewer pieces to fill in the holes along with not overlapping will result in a greater rating. Two of the puzzles, Navigating and Gunnery, require players to be a ranked member of a crew, although there is the ability for the Officers to assign jobbing pirates to these tasks. Each puzzle is unique and interesting and addictive in the same nature that Tetris and Bejeweled are. |
I suck at these puzzle games 
-Jam
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vovan
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Just tried the game... It's pretty cool, I thought. The distillery puzzle was nice... One thing though, on the ships for n00bs, I had trouble finding other real people - mostly there were computer-controlled pirates on there... 
But I did manage to find some dude, and we did some fighting. That was great.  The last swordfight lasted half an hour, and was quite intense.  I finally lost though.
Although some puzzles I didn't like... Blige pumping's alright, but no matter how well I thought I was doing, it always kept saying I was doing merely "Fine" on the duty report, and also, the water level never did seem to go down any...
Also, the sailing one was kind of odd...
But the other puzzles and the idea is cool. Especially the swordfighting. Thanks for pointing the game out, Q^3. Maybe some Apolytoners should meet on a sheep one of these days and start a nice little brawl. 
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18-03-2004 02:05
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