Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

by Danny "Ralsu" Gourley

In the gaming industry, concepts seem to behave like fashion trends at times: a new idea comes onto the scene and everyone wants a part of it. In the case of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean Online, the game is based on their movie, which is based on their ride. Titles like Pirates of the Burning Sea, Bounty Bay Online, and Pirates of the Caribbean Online all reached my ears at about the same time. With the Pirates of the Caribbean films cashing in at over $2.7 billion, it made perfect sense for Disney Online's VR Studio to take advantage of the well-established intellectual property at its disposal.

But Pirates of the Caribbean Online (PiratesOnline) is quite a bit different from traditional massively-multiplayer online games (MMOGs) in some significant ways that are important for readers to grasp before reading the rest of this review. First and foremost, it is important to understand that PiratesOnline aims for a younger audience. The game is marketed as a great way for parents who play MMOGs to introduce their children of ages 10-13 to MMOGs, too. Secondly, the game is designed to reach the lowest common denominator of personal computers; in other words, it has shallow system requirements. Keeping these two facts in mind, I'll get down to the business of telling you whether or not the game is any good!

System Requirements

A little voodoo never hurt anyone!

It's important enough that it bears repeating; PiratesOnline is designed with low system requirements to reach a broad audience. The official minimum system requirements are listed below:
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
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

The low system requirements mean almost anybody with a computer can run this game. They also mean that parents who want to play with children don't have to think about buying a new computer for a ten year old. That old hand-me-down system is likely to work just fine.

Subscription Plan

The PiratesOnline client is free to download, and players have a couple of options for payment. The first option is a very attractive no-cost plan. Players need only to download the client, create a login, and build a pirate (free subscriptions get only two character slots). You'll see ads on your screen and may have to wait in a queue to get onto the server with the free subscription. This is how Disney supports the game as free-to-play. The other option is to pay $4.95 for the first month and $9.95 per month thereafter. The paid subscription allows access to more powerful weapons and gives players the ability to create a couple more pirates (up to 4). Paying subscribers do not see ads on their screens or have to wait in line to log in to play

Stability

In five weeks of playing PiratesOnline, my client never crashed once. My wife played some with me on a free account and never crashed either. Ten Ton Hammer's own Shayalyn played a bit and never crashed. She introduced her 13-year-old son to the game (he loves it, by the way), and he didn't crash. However, Shayalyn did report that after each session her son played on her computer, she'd have to manually shutdown her machine and power it back on to get it to behave correctly again (her computer fails to launch programs, open the Task Manager, or execute normal restart/shutdown procedures). This is second-hand information, but I trust the source. Manual shutdowns after a gaming session are minor annoyances for this gamer after weathering the instability of Vanguard for 9 months while Sony Online Entertainment got it tuned to run better.

Game Play

Game play begins by selecting the gender and look of your pirate. There are no racial choices or classes. Name selection involves using a pirate name generator that gives you names like Jade Callehawk (my wife's moniker) or John Blackdeck. Alternately, you can submit your own name for approval, but this causes a slight delay before you can play. Later on when you get a ship, you'll see the same naming rules apply.

Wasps are the least of your worries in PiratesOnline.

You fittingly began your life as a pirate in jail. None other than Cap'n Jack Sparrow will help you break out and give you the hook up with a connection to get a sword. From there, you'll transport to the starting area where you'll go through a pretty nice tutorial. You'll learn the arts of sword fighting, hone your skills on fighting with a  gun, gain insight on how to use voodoo magic, and even practice commanding a ship. The game does a good job of providing on-screen illustrations to accompany the instructions you'll receive.

While your first instinct may be to turn combat into a mouse-click spam marathon, it's actually a little deeper than that. The first basic special combat move you learn involves clicking once to start the attack and then clicking once again in the apex of the back swing to perform the special move. It took me a while to get down the timing for this little maneuver because I had to battle my assumption that the best way to fight was to constantly click the mouse until everything died (thanks Dungeons & Dragons Online!).

Once you've gotten the basics, you're ready to live the pirate's life to the fullest. On land, this involves conducting a series of quests, most of the kill x sphincter beetles variety. The enemies range from undead to henchmen of the East India Trading Company. All die without blood and gore, so it's very young person safe. At sea, you can fight with other ships. This is the area of the game that best lends itself to multiplayer, as one player navigates the ship while others attack the opponents.

Levels in Pirates Online are labeled as notoriety. The more monsters you slay, the more notorious you become. It fits the lore just fine. New levels of notoriety come with new combat skills, but the treadmill really slows down over level 10.

If you're tired of fighting, you can always join in some friendly games of cards. I didn't play around with this diversion, so I cannot honestly say how fun it is. If nothing else, it serves as a break in the action or a good way to kill a small amount of time on short playing sessions.