Side Effects Of The Last Few Months

[JM Ohara]

For those of you who have previously read this elsewhere, please forgive the repetition. For the rest of you, here's a few thoughts on recent months in the Caribbean.


In the more than a year since I started playing Pirates I've seen a lot of changes. The past year in particular has brought a ton of them. Short quests for high rep and a ton of gold. (Think Rott.) Higher level cap. New loot system. The insertion of (shudder) minigames. All this has had a huge effect on the way not only I, but I think everyone levels.

When I started, nay, when many of us started, there were no loot drops. We leveled out of sheer tedium and monotony. That's how I got Kat to 50. It took her to 40 to finish off her Pearl quest and all but maybe one or two small side quests. Kat's last 10 levels were from invasions (can we say a ton of rep for very little work?) which skewed her not level, and mind numbing copious amounts of time in Tormenta finishing her weapons.

Then came the weapons drops, and everything changed. JM is a 44 now, and is still only recruiting I think the third guy for his Pearl Quest. He has his weapons and tp quests done. Yet he's only otherwise done the PDF clothes quest all the way through. His weapons are all over 20, though even these are skewed due to invasions. JM's not level is way higher than his weapons levels alone should place him. I know I'm not the only one this has happened to.

As we all flooded Darkhart, Neban, Tim, and Tormenta, we finally got back on weapons again. But there are still those notoriety skewing invasions. Even Fen is way off. He's a 37, his weapons are only around the 20s, and like JM he hasn't touched any quests but weapons, tps, and the PDF clothes quest. He never even started the Pearl.

Then they add potions, and now fishing. It's just more rep for something that has nothing what so ever to do with the story of the Pearl Quest. It's another way for pirate notoriety to get totally out of sync to what the weapons and quests should be.

Now I know, we don't have to do any of this extra stuff. Except now potions and fishing are on the profile cards. (Still not happy on that one.) And lets face it, the weapons drops made a lot of people, myself included, much more inclined to grind weapons, since it brings the possibility of something new every time.

Is it just me or has D managed to create a potential generation of lightweights pirates? There are all these pirates with high notoriety, high attack weapons, and yet low weapons levels, doing as much damage as it took being mastered to do previously. I don't know much, but I do know this is one side effect of the last year I can do without!