Has anyone played this game yet? I've read reviews on it, and most are favorable, but only lukewarm. I finally have a powerful enough rig to run the game, but before I commit to buying a license for it, I figured I'd ask if it was even worth it. I missed out on the beta run because my machine at the time couldn't go any higher than Pixel Shader 1.1

What I actually meant was "has anyone from ATS/BTS/PTS" played the game yet. Of course there are people who have actually played the game out there somewhere, but I would rather hear about it from my fellow ATSers.

i was in the beta and ended up buying it. i don't play it currently because i got conned into trying lord of the rings (peer pressure) and i'm getting ready to try out age of conan.

pirates isn't a bad game. here's a rundown:

you create a character that can be aligned with france, spain, britain, or the pirates. there are also various classes: privateer, naval officer, etc.

the missions are picked up from people around the various ports that need things delivered, defended, sunk, etc. =)

you might go out into the sea for a mission or you might be going through a "dungeon" (raiding a mansion of an enemy magistrate, criminal's fortress, etc)

you start with a ship that you can add guns, hull reinforcements, etc to and of course you can quest or purchase to get better items and ships.

you have 2 seperate skill sets you need to maintain - 1 for your character and one for your ship. they level seperately and when you level up you can put points into the appropriate skill tree of your choice. for example, your character will have skills that let him interrupt, stun, or fire a gun during melee combat. but your ship skills can be something like yelling at your guys to make them sail faster while sacrificing firepower - things along that line.

pvp is supposed to be a lot of fun but i never got a chance to really try it. i'm under the impression that you can get a bunch of your countrymen together and take over ports.

overall i think they have a few bugs to work out - nothing show-stopping as they've fixed a LOT of things since release. they're currently tweaking some of the classes to balance it a little. i thought it was fun, but it's one of those games i kind of have to be in the mood to play. i'm a pretty fickle gamer anyway though. i've been known to play a game for a few hours and never touch it again. doesn't mean i don't like it, i just never really get around to playing anymore. =)

[edit on 16-5-2008 by an0maly33]

Thanks an0maly33,

Well, it looks like the wife is going to "surprise" me with the game after work today. It sounds like it'll be a fun game. Now to figure out what to be. I'm guessing most people choose "pirate".

I tried it with a free trial (a co worker plays) and I found that most are either Pirates or British.
Not a bad game, I messed around making a bunch of characters and going through the tutorials. The graphics look very nice but i've been playing WoW for the last 3 years so I guess that's to be expected.

I am looking for a new MMO, i'm just not yet sure if this one is it yet.