Pirates of the Burning Sea Dev Closing Down, But It May Not Be the End - MMORPG.com

SBFord · September 2018

Pirates of the Burning Sea Dev Closing Down, But It May Not Be the End - MMORPG.com

Portalus Games is the developer of Pirates of the Burning Sea, but has announced that the studio is closing down effective September 30th due to the departure of Hamled, "the only code writer associated with Portalus Games" and without him, no one else has the skills to write new code. As a result, the remaining developer wanted to give the community 30 days notice because they "believe the first possible replacement for Portalus Games as operator should be with the game community itself."

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JeffSpicoli · September 2018

I'm pretty sure it was either this game or Champions Online that seemed to kick off the MMO carousel I'v been riding ever since. Not sure which came first This or Champions but i remember both releasing sometime around WOW's wrath expansion. Ever since then i have consumed 1 MMO after another like a hungry locust .

SpottyGekko · September 2018

They actually employed a developer ? Who knew ?

Mind you, I guess somebody had to add the odd thing here and there to the cash shop...

Costanius · September 2018

I played the beta back in 2008 and a bit after release. Was a cool time, but the original devs didn't listen to the beta testers and community. Could have been a great game. And its part of my MMO history and memories. I wish the developers all the best!

Warzod · September 2018

They built a game centered around nations and trade and then did nothing to combat switching nations every map to the winner or running multiple accounts to flood the market. Unless some new devs decide to deal with these two this game with disappear again regardless of who saves it. That said it was a wonderful concept and I was very sorry when I docked my 1st rate for the last time.

Alverant · September 2018

Wait, the loss of one person causes it to shut down? Dang!

Xanzo · September 2018

Never got into the game, but I do have to say it's sad that one developer shuts down the game. I'm sure that's not the whole story. Maybe I should do some research. Meh, don't care.

Asheram · September 2018

Xanzo said:

Never got into the game, but I do have to say it's sad that one developer shuts down the game. I'm sure that's not the whole story. Maybe I should do some research. Meh, don't care.

It used to be under Sony, was even part of the pay one monthly fee play all these games thing. I dont remember if sony was going to drop it for poor performaance $$$ wise and Portalus kept it afloat or if Portalus just outright left sony.

Mowzer · September 2018

Asheram said:

Xanzo said:

Never got into the game, but I do have to say it's sad that one developer shuts down the game. I'm sure that's not the whole story. Maybe I should do some research. Meh, don't care.

It used to be under Sony, was even part of the pay one monthly fee play all these games thing. I dont remember if sony was going to drop it for poor performaance $$$ wise and Portalus kept it afloat or if Portalus just outright left sony.

The game was made and developed by Flying Labs Studio, which also made rails across america and was published by Sony.
FLS dropped the game and a couple of former devs of said studio bought it and created a new company Portalus then re-released the game in the F2P format.

As for the failure, initial and the one now, there will be a few opinions, some already mentioned theirs in this thread.
What I seen was a game that was built as a RvR/PvP game, but because of the lack of 17th century naval combat games, and quite a detailed one in that, it drew far more PVE players than they thought, outnumbering the pvp crowd by 5 to 1, and while the game could be played that way, the limitations brought about by the original game and map design meant that all but the extremely dedicated were driven off.
They seen this and tried to change tack, adding in dailies and group pve content, but this was far too late, and it didnt deal with the major problem of the red zones(pvp), which were far too big for the size of the map they made, as when you were initiating a RvR port takeover, the red zone covered in some cases 5 other ports and closed off access to several more, instead of just blockading the port you were attacking like it should be. If the map was much bigger, or just better designed, then a port takeover would of just been the single affected port instead of half the map.
Of course there were other issues, but every game has them and I dont think they were big enough to contribute to the overall failure of the game.
To sum it up in one sentence, Naivety of the devs thinking there would be enough people within the already niche they were creating to sustain a pure RvR/PvP game which in its very nature is cannibalistic.

evolgrinz · September 2018

I loved that game. The ship combat was great. But the land combat or the combat when entering a ship was just awful and ruined the game in the end for me.

kitarad · September 2018

Mowzer said:

Asheram said:

Xanzo said:

Never got into the game, but I do have to say it's sad that one developer shuts down the game. I'm sure that's not the whole story. Maybe I should do some research. Meh, don't care.

It used to be under Sony, was even part of the pay one monthly fee play all these games thing. I dont remember if sony was going to drop it for poor performaance $$$ wise and Portalus kept it afloat or if Portalus just outright left sony.

The game was made and developed by Flying Labs Studio, which also made rails across america and was published by Sony.
FLS dropped the game and a couple of former devs of said studio bought it and created a new company Portalus then re-released the game in the F2P format.

As for the failure, initial and the one now, there will be a few opinions, some already mentioned theirs in this thread.
What I seen was a game that was built as a RvR/PvP game, but because of the lack of 17th century naval combat games, and quite a detailed one in that, it drew far more PVE players than they thought, outnumbering the pvp crowd by 5 to 1, and while the game could be played that way, the limitations brought about by the original game and map design meant that all but the extremely dedicated were driven off.
They seen this and tried to change tack, adding in dailies and group pve content, but this was far too late, and it didnt deal with the major problem of the red zones(pvp), which were far too big for the size of the map they made, as when you were initiating a RvR port takeover, the red zone covered in some cases 5 other ports and closed off access to several more, instead of just blockading the port you were attacking like it should be. If the map was much bigger, or just better designed, then a port takeover would of just been the single affected port instead of half the map.
Of course there were other issues, but every game has them and I dont think they were big enough to contribute to the overall failure of the game.
To sum it up in one sentence, Naivety of the devs thinking there would be enough people within the already niche they were creating to sustain a pure RvR/PvP game which in its very nature is cannibalistic.

This is an interesting point of view because someone commented on another thread I had commented about optional PvP you should sail around the red areas that being the 'option'... that is not optional at all. PvE players don't like that they don't like having to avoid content they want all the areas open to them with the option to avoid PvP. They shouldn't have to and by not catering to the PvE players ultimately the game died.

Sorry to say but they misread their player base and failed to make adjustments which was stupid.

The reason I played BDO and loved it is because I was left alone and able to do what I wanted and I enjoyed trading and riding along roads or sailing seas to sell things in far off places.

Games needs to accommodate PvE where the game mechanics attract PvE players if it is a hardcore PvP game that does not ordinarily attract PvE players in large numbers than it can ignore them but that was not the case for this game to its ultimate failure which is a lesson in itself.

Whenever I come across a fantastic game with great PvE that forces the players to PvP I always wonder how much more successful it could be if it did not force the PvP.

TweFoju · September 2018

i used to play this game at one point for around a year, i never even remember this game still exist until this article, brings back the memories

Xirad · September 2018

They just announced the game will continue at least till the end of October. Hopefully that will allow enough time for the interested parties to secure the deal with the 3 IP owners.

KapnJack · October 2018

..& now, with new hardware, @ least thru November 2018

TheScavenger · October 2018

Sounds like a much better company than NCsoft which shut down games that are making money. While its still closing, NCsoft would have shut this down decades ago AND not given it back to the community and keep the IP and game to themselves and do nothing with it but insult its fans.