The Ghost Ship

"the Pirates and the Brits is what's killing the game: grinding their way up to higher ranks and then simply showing up with so many numbers and so much weight that you can't fight them."

This thread has become ridiculous, with our British players now the subject of derision because what? We enjoy playing the game? We're now the bad guys for logging on, having a good time, and training up our lower ranks against AI fleets? You're all just desperately looking for a scapegoat, I don't think it's productive to frame more dedicated players as what's wrong with the game. Power imbalances are ubiquitous in MMOs until players hit the level cap, which will happen soon. I would have quit this game long ago if all there was to do was to gank traders/ lone noobs. Like I said in my previous post, we have no PVP around Jamaica -- the capturing of ports more distant to Jamaica is just an attempt to move a front line closer to the PVP. So what are the solutions proposed here? Gank our players then run and play dock games, or complain we brought too much force to bear on those harassing our forces? Stop fighting AI fleets (the only thing that gives our casual players reliable content when they long in)? Cool... Sounds like a lot of fun... The game needs mechanisms to provide good PVP content to players, I agree. Perhaps this could be achieved with instances popping up on the map. Something like 'Beached Treasure Ship [small]' to give the lower tier players something to fight over. Something like King of the Hill with a passive gold income for being inside the circle. One thing you don't need to worry about is Britain gong the way of the Pirates (many of whom didn't quit, but joined France and Sweden) we have a really solid base of players who are passionate about the game, the age of sail, and crushing other factions under our bootheel. Don't rely on those factors changing any time soon.

We're not sitting down with calculators thinking how to break port battles, we just say 'hey who wants to do a port battle, maybe we'll get some PVP' and everyone puts up their hand. We're starved for PVP around Jamaica. Spain isn't able to put up a fight, the Pirates have been in the Antilles for a month, and the American steamroller seems to have stopped (read: never really reached us). We've got nothing else to do except fight AI fleets and go on port cap expeditions. I get that it's frustrating to be outshipped, I felt the same way when we were defeated at Aves. But trust me that as time goes on your players will rank up and the ship difference will become less and less of an issue. I just don't see how our players can be blamed for loving the game, aggressively pursuing PVP, and organizing large groups. These are three attitudes that, as more people reach the endgame (level cap) will add a lot of content and excitement to the game. Looking forward to the future when we can all enjoy some large-scale fleet battles, it'll happen.

After a long expedition, forces from [sOB] following the flagship of the Notorious Lord Roberts attacked Piratical holdings in Somerset. A small band of Pirate captains bravely faced the onslaught, however their opposition was swept aside, and the port captured, within 23 minutes. During the battle, Captain Snowy's ship was lost with all hands. His bravery will always be remembered. Despite his loss, church bells ring across the country as --

I can't remember Roberts saying what appears in Lucifer's post...

The Ghost Ship, spookily checking in