POTCO Analysis/Critics

[leo]

In Pirates of the Caribbean Online, players create and customize their own pirate, captain their own ship, and assemble a crew of their fellow rogues in an effort to become the Caribbean's most legendary Pirate. Along the way, players will interact with characters made popular by the films, like Jack Sparrow, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, and will also encounter a host of new characters and enemies unique to the game. To become the most notorious pirate, players must forge alliances, hunt for buried treasure, battle evil undead forces, and use cunning and strategy to outwit their foes.

Release Date: October 31, 2007

Game Rankings: 73.14%
Overall Rank: 5074
PC Rank: 1300
2007 Games Rank: 350
2007 PC Rank: 83
Score based on 7 reviews

Publisher: Disney Internet Group
Developer: Disney Internet Group
Genre: MMORPG
Owner: The Walt Disney Company
Players: Online

Source(http://www.gamerankings.com)

Requirements:
PC:
Windows 2000, XP, Vista
800 MHz or faster processor
512 MB RAM
32 MB 3D graphics card
DirectX 9 or better
700 MB free disk space
Broadband Connection (recommended)

Mac:
OS 10.4.6 (Tiger)
PowerPC G4 or any Mac with any Intel processor
512 MB RAM
700 MB free disk space
Broadband Connection (recommended)
Two Button mouse (recommended)

Free to play however if players desire to get all abilities, items, quests, etc. They must upgrade/subscribe for 9.95 a month (or other sale prices for more months)

OFFICIAL INFORMATION
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PLAYER ANALYSIS/CRITICS

I just want to write a review of this game always considering the information above especially the fact that this is a PAY TO PLAY GAME, DEVELOPED BY DISNEY but fails to impress many game critics compared to other major MMORPG game...
(Game rank went from 83 in its pc rank in 2007 to 1300 today. I think POTCO being ranked 1300th is pretty negative because I believe it has the ability to be in the top 100s or at least in the top 1000)

POTCO is the only MMORPG game that i play and also Pay though i have tested other games. I like the game, i like the pirate idea in it, I like the content however recently the Hate of Bugs, Glitches, Lag and Delays in-game have been 'beating' my like towards the game. Bugs, Glitches, Lag and Delays are not something new to POTCO(or any game) but a player can take so much in especially cosidering that this is also a P2P game and they have existed since this game was released.

Technical Bugs:
*Runtime Error - Usually comes up after playing a certain amount of time depending on your computer and shuts down the game
*Lag - Every big event where players get together, Invasions, Fleets with many ship and SvS experience lag off charts as everything is skipping, jumping place to place, instead of smooth movement, etc. Sometimes i have see npc enemies and ships skipping and lagging.
*Delays - Skills appear and work seconds after they are pressed sometimes causing the death of a pirate, the sink of a pirate ship and loss of a battle in SvS
*Freezing - Game freezes while doing something with enormous amount of lag which sometimes result in a "Black-screen" or "Game Not Responding" or disconnection from servers.
*Numerous Server Shutdowns - We all have seen POTCO go down at least 10 times with no prior notifications in the past 6 months sometimes lasting for more than a full day if not 3 or more days...

Note:Some may have experienced these and some have not. I am running a quad core with ATI radeon HD 5 series with 30 mb/s internet speed and have experienced 'em all.

In-game Bugs and Glitches:
*Swift Foot Glitch/Potion Glitch- Pirates have the ability to drink many swift foot potions allowing them to run super fast and jump very high. Uncertain if this happens with other potions. In many cases this causes lag...
*Leadership bug - Leadership is totally useless ad puts the black pearl quest award completely to the garbage as it it only makes your skills fizzle instead of helping skills recharge faster.
*Enemies Disappear - If enemies are attacked with a doll, or or other long range weapons, they will follow you however sometimes they just disappear going inside walls, underground, etc.
*Boarding Permission fail - Boarding permission is a total failure as players can can TP to other players on a ship even if ship is closed to friends, guilds, etc.
*In-wall Movement - Players can find certain spots to go inside walls, isles for sometimes to level, go to places etc. I know a lot of players do like this however i believe that POTCO should be glitch free as the game it self would be better that way.
*Front cannon fail - In war sloops, the front cannon hits its own ship when moving forward and aiming at a enemy ship on the rear.
*Pirate ship bumping - It's simply annoying and sometimes even makes you quit sailing for the time. Pirate ships bump into other ships and push them sometimes far resulting in total mess(especially in svs). There should be some smooth movement when ships contact each other.
*Going through pirates - The developers removed the coin flip due to the fact that it was being used for inappropriate actions however i find that very invalid for an excuse because it was the developers who opened the door for pirates to do that when pirates could go through pirates resulting in many inappropriate actions.
*These are not all the glitches, bugs and technical issues*

POTCO is an amazing game based on the movies with additional fiction adventures yet the rating is low compared to many other MMORPG games based on numerous game reviews. Reading through many of the reviews, i saw that gameplay and in some, graphics had a negative impact towards the game rating.

My view of a solution:
FIX ALL BUGS, GLITCHES, AND TECHNICAL ISSUES INCLUDING THE MAJOR LAG PROBLEMS, DELAYS, ETC. BEFORE ADDING ANY NEW CONTENT. DEVELOPERS NEED TO WORK IN FIXING WHAT IS ALREADY THERE INSTEAD OF IGNORING THE PROBLEMS, ADDING NEW CONTENT AND THEN LEADING TO NEWER PROBLEMS...UPGRADE/UPDATE THEIR SERVERS OR CHANGE THE GAME TO A SOFTWARE GAME LIKE WoW AS THERE IS NO NEED FOR THE GAME TO BE BASED ON WINDOWS 2000. GAME REFORMS ARE NECESSARY IF THE POTCO STAFF WANTS TO EXPECT ANY ECONOMICAL GROWTH THEN AFTER GAME REFORMS COMES NEW CONTENT TO MAKE US HAPPY...PLAYERS NEED TO WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE THIS GAME BETTER BY REPORTING ALL GAME ISSUES AND ASKING FOR A BETTER GAMING ENVIRONMENT(with also better graphics, music, more npc, voice effects, etc.) INSTEAD OF I WANT THIS, I WANT THAT, WHEN ARE WE GONNA SEE THIS, WHEN ARE WE GONNA SEE THAT. SORRY IF THIS OFFENDED ANYONE HOWEVER THERE IS NO REASON THAT A DISNEY GAME, A PAY TO PLAY GAME, POTCO SHOULD HOLD SUCH A LOW RANKING COMPARED TO OTHER MAJOR MMO GAMES WHEN IT'S BASED ON SUCH GREAT MOVIES, HISTORY AND IMAGINATION.

A few unanswered questions i have that remain unanswered that i think have only made the game worse.
-Why was the ability to see other pirates in other ships removed?
-What effect does grape shot have now that you cant see pirates in other ship yet damage them?
-Why were the dead skeletons in front of ships removed when they only made ships better looking, realistic and had no negative effect?
-Why do we never get asked about voting in new content ideas by public polls in the POTCO website or pols sent to our email?
These are not all the questions...

Criticize POTCO, Criticize me, Share and explain bugs and ideas to make POTCO better, however at all times, please BE HONEST/TRUTHFUL BUT DO NOT DRAMATIZE.

[combatlizzy]

Great post, Leo.

[akamystic]

Well stated. Unfortunately....regardless of the game you will have your glitches (some more than others). I'm with you as many of your complaints are felt across the Caribbean. Many of your questions/complaints will probably never be answered. We just keep sailing and hope the winds come our way. Or you could write technical support and get a cookie cutter response.

[leo]

Originally Posted by akamystic

Well stated. Unfortunately....regardless of the game you will have your glitches (some more than others). I'm with you as many of your complaints are felt across the Caribbean. Many of your questions/complaints will probably never be answered. We just keep sailing and hope the winds come our way. Or you could write technical support and get a cookie cutter response.

This isn't a complaint mate. This is more of a call to action for us pirates to act to the benefit of this game. Nothing is perfect but everything has room for critics...We must criticize POTCO for the game it, the way it is and not just here but also by sending feedback. All pirate players need to work together to make POTCO better. I alone know for sure that my questions will not be answered alone...but if we all stand together in making the game better than hopefully the result will be positive.

[Ofury/ Tom]

Originally Posted by leo

This isn't a complaint mate. This is more of a call to action for us pirates to act to the benefit of this game. Nothing is perfect but everything has room for critics...We must criticize POTCO for the game it, the way it is and not just here but also by sending feedback. All pirate players need to work together to make POTCO better. I alone know for sure that my questions will not be answered alone...but if we all stand together in making the game better than hopefully the result will be positive.

If we all send in what you have written word for word, we may get an answer that is not... copied and pasted.

[leo]

I did a test to see which uses more CPU, WOW or POTCO. It was sad to see that POTCO uses about 10 more % of my cpu considering the requirements for WOW are 25 GB with more advanced graphics and processor than POTCO. POTCO has lower requirements but more technical issues in game play than WOW including way more lag, delays, etc.

POTCO took about 25 % of CPU



WOW took about 13 to 15 % of CPU


What does this say?
The way i see it is that POTCO needs to work on POTCO right now rather than working on new updates. Fix their servers to reduce failures, bugs, glitches, lag, delays and other technical issues or change the game to a modern software game.

Ps: I do not play WOW, I just opened it up for a test to compare and show why POTCO needs to be updated/upgraded or changed for modern pcs.

[akamystic]

Believe me.....I've sent in plenty of errors to technical support and provide feedback via test. In the immortal words of Body by Jake....

"Remember....don't quit!"

[leo]

Checked Panda3D on Wikipedia and found this:

Panda3D is a game engine which includes graphics, audio, I/O, collision detection, and other abilities relevant to the creation of 3D games.[1]
Panda3D is open source and, as of May 28, 2008, free software under the revised BSD license. Releases prior to May 28, 2008 are not considered Free Software due to certain errors in the design of the old Panda3D license. Despite this, these older releases of Panda3D can also be used for both free and commercial game development at no financial cost.

Is The POTCO staff even paying anything other than for the servers to run this game? Sorry but i am a little confused...

[tayseth]

Nice find there.

[leo]

Correction and me apologies for the confusion mates. Seems that Disney developed and owns Panda3D. Nevertheless, it still shows that The developers or Disney do not have to pay anything but for their servers.

[MacIronhawk]

The Panda3D engine has had an extremely bad memory leak for the past three years. Instead of fixing it, the developers have been forced to downgrade graphics so that every new update only creates a little bit more lag. That's why the islands are also closer together now than they were when the game first launched. Less ocean means less lag.

I don't know who updates the Panda3D engine but they need to fix the memory leak so that the developers don't have to continue downgrading things.

[Ancient Mariner]

After playing for 3 and a half years I have finally given up my membership and only come on once in a great while to see a couple old friends that haven't bailed yet. Most have all left for other games.

I feel this game is going down quickly and without any true next chapter or major update I'm afraid more and more pirates will start leaving the game as well. They could have made this game into a real winner but chose not to, using the Panda3D game engine may have been a big mistake and cost them in the long run.



"May your rum never run dry"

[ruisen2000]

Originally Posted by Ancient Mariner

After playing for 3 and a half years I have finally given up my membership and only come on once in a great while to see a couple old friends that haven't bailed yet. Most have all left for other games.

I feel this game is going down quickly and without any true next chapter or major update I'm afraid more and more pirates will start leaving the game as well. They could have made this game into a real winner but chose not to, using the Panda3D game engine may have been a big mistake and cost them in the long run.



"May your rum never run dry"

I think POTCO is actually making nice profits (relative to previous years). Logged on today during a usually quiet time, and first 2 servers were both Full, many of the remaining ones ideal. We didn't even get free unlimited weekend this July, which tells a lot about the amount of people paying.

[Captain Sharktooth]

I just wish I could go to Darkhart, Abassa on High Graphics. I hit a black screen every time once I hit him, and I'd need to shut down my computer. Of course I don't have to play in HG, but Low Graphics are atrocious. That being said, I'm still content with what POTCO has come to, and I'll keep paying for a while.

[Robert Ironcastle]

I play Smash HG with no lag.But Disney does need to start fixing the serious problems with Panda3D,among others.