I received an e-mail from a reader who is worried about "missing the boat" (pun intended) because he didn't get into the pre-order period of Pirates of the Burning Sea. As I thought my answers might be interesting to other people, I'm posting his questions and my answers here:
Q: 1) Regarding the economy you mentioned the early stages as expected were very chaotic and enabled players to make some quick easy money. Is the level of money that can be earned by those in the pre-order stage large enough to give them a significant foothold in the market and dominate the economy in the mid-term or is it peanuts in comparison to what the economy that will develop into? How long will it take newcomers to get their own foothold into the economy?
A: The great majority of wealth in Pirates of the Burning Sea is produced in real time in the form of stored labor. In the beta it was perfectly possible even when the economy was stable to make about 100 doubloons per hour of labor stored. As you have 10 structures per account and 24 hours per day, you can thus make 24,000 doubloons per day. And for that you only need an investment in the order of magnitude of one day's profit. Spend 24,000 doubloons once, and make 24,000 doubloons every day. Even if in the retail game the economy turns out to be much more efficient and thus the value of one hour of labor lower, investment cost in Pirates of the Burning Sea is low compared to profits. So somebody starting new in the retail version, if he knows what he is doing, can make money with missions for a day or two, and then build up a production chain which produces exactly as much profit as that of somebody who has been in the preorder period.
Money is very easy to come by in Pirates of the Burning Sea. I currently have around 150k doubloons, and that is after demolishing one production chain and building up another. A level 21 frigate goes for around 30k, and a crate of typical cannon ammo with 100 shot costs just 120 doubloons. At the end of the closed beta I had 750k doubloons, and the main problem was that I didn't know what to spend it on. So sure, I might have a quarter of a million doubloons advantage over somebody starting the game only on the 22nd, but that isn't going to help me much.
Q: 2) With regards to the ability to reach level 20 before the official date, how significant is this. Will late comers be able to quickly catch up, or will those who got into pre-order continue to stay three weeks ahead of the levelling curve and dominate from a level persepective?
A: Pirates of the Burning Sea is not a hard game to level. I saw the first level 21 player on day two, and now after one week there are already a lot of level 21s. I'd expect late comers to catch up quickly, if they want. As with all MMORPGs, this is more a question of how many hours per week you are planning to play. I would guess a lot of hardcore players went for the pre-order, and will level to 50 very quickly after the cap is lifted and try to dominate the PvP game. But the pre-order period of two weeks is less advantage as it sounds, because you can get to the same level in much less than two weeks. And unlike WoW, where time spent in the end-game raiding will give you better gear necessary for even higher raid dungeons, the level cap of Pirates of the Burning Sea is much harder. It isn't so hard to get the best possible ship (although for Naval Officers that needs some farming of royal commendations), and then that's it. Only player skill and organization then makes a difference in PvP battles. You might get crushed by an enemy hardcore PvP guild, but not because they have "T6" ships, because those simply don't exist.
PvP in Pirates of the Burning Sea is dominated by hardcore guilds, especially in the coming months where the hardcore will already have reache level 50 and the casual not yet. Port contention participation is capped to 24 players per side, and the players who contributed the most to throwing the port into contention have the highest chance to be selected to the battle. Which means that guilds will "raid" enemy ports by throwing them into contention on one day, and fighting the contention battle on the next day, with little or no participation of solo players. The organization and out-of-game tools like voice chat will give a guild a big advantage over a random assembly of defenders. So if you want to kick ass in PvP, membership in a top PvP guild will be far more important than the two weeks of pre-order leveling.
In summary, as I said before, the people playing the pre-order game are more doing Flying Labs and the players coming later a favor than gaining an advantage for themselves. A retail player will have the option of buying a reasonably priced Bermuda sloop at level 8, or a Mediator cutter at level 12, while the pre-order players either had no player-built ships available at all, or had to sail to the other end of the world to buy an overpriced one. Retail players will also have access to cheap ship outfittings, ammo, and consumables from day one. The only lasting difference is that most of the pre-order players are already beta veterans, with lots of experience in how the game is played, while among the new players there will be many setting foot into the game for the very first time. Whether it is economy or PvP, experience is definitely an advantage.
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