Pirates of the Burning Sea
 

I think it's apparent why Disney released a somewhat buggy game...they wanted to beat this to market:

http://www.burningsea.com/
_

10 Points for the man...

It will be nice to see how they match up.

exactly why they did it

.....
That game looks...a lot better.
Hmm..

I'll probably be switching over to that for a bit after I finish up here. Waste some time while waiting for the second story quest.

Meh, I disagree. Those two games are targeted at different audiences. PotCO's designed for "casual gamers" and the age-10-and-up crowd, while Burning Sea is designed for the more hardcore MMO players.

I think Disney released it now because they wanted it to be out before the DVD release of "At World's End", which happens on December 4th. I'll predict that inside the DVD package will be some sort of PotCO advertisement or coupon, so they needed to have the game available.

I've been hearing that PotBS is VERY laggy though.

lol have u played this game

Ok I have been playing this game for a little bit. And to compare PotBS to POTCO is like comparing silk to cotton. They each have their uses, but silk is oh so much smoother!

PotBS is more graphically intense, and makes no apoligies for it, so if your computer can't do POTCO, it will more than likely have a problem with PotBS. I did notice that even PotBS does have just a little lag for me but nothing on the level of POTCO. But the quality of the graphics is excellent.

Once you get the game downloaded and installed (and keyed, as it just went open beta on the 7th). It is time to create your player. POTCO seems to still have the market cornered on the avatar creation aspect. PotBS is more limited in clothing, face and body structure, but you have an option for jewelry or an eyepatch in PotBS. And I think PotBS is going to introduce parrots, monkeys, peg legs and such a bit later. (may be now and I just have not gotten that far in the game)
A big difference in PotBS is that this game is more complex in it's structure. You can choose to be a pirate, navy, privateer, merchant. You can be British, French, Spanish or a pirate, with an economic infostructure of merchants and banking that is player driven. Your ships can be customized from sails to cannons.

After you have chosen a nation, career and designed your avatar, you then go through a tutatoral mode which allows you to learn to control your player environment. Since I chose to be a British Privateer, my tut was a ship battle sequence. I am sure they will be different depending on what you choose to be.

One of the first things I notice, is that this game is a bit more graphic in nature, when you sword fight you see small blood splashes, nothing really gross but not quite as sanitized as POTCO. So I would say that is game is really for a little more mature audience than some of those playing POTCO.

Just like POTCO this game is quest based also, but unlike POTCO they seem to have their quests ready and in place. I read that the first 15 levels are ready to go. The chat system is also a bit more sophisticated. This is a pretty good game for the older players who are interested in a real pirate MMO but I would not recommend it for the whole family to play together. This game is more of a realistic pirate world, so if you want casual gaming with the kids stay with POTCO, but if you want a bit more adult level play try PotBS

You have to keep in mind that POTCO is designed for those who are fans of the movies and that PotBS is designed for pirate fans in general.