Anticipation of Pirating Reaching a Fever-pitch

I'm playing and thoroughly enjoying my time with Golden Spoon in Everquest 2. I'm level 20, I'm a level 12 craftsman even. But then, tell me why I can't stop thinking about Pirates of the Burning Sea?

Keen brought up a good point about today's modern fantasy MMO. It's been done to death. Now, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see this, and the post was more about Keen's own burnout on the typical EQ-like MMO, than it was about the statement that most of us vets have known for a while now.

But I mention it because I think it's the reason I can't stop thinking about PotBS.

For once, outside of EvE Online and maybe a small handful of others, comes an MMORPG that isn't just a new take on the old games.

There's player-created (by this I mean 3D modeled) ships, player-created flags and sails. There's a robust character creation system that supposedly rivals City of Heroes' with a Piratey twist. There's the entire Carribean along with 80(!) ports to visit and get drunk at (or so I hope, it's not a pirate game if I can't drink rum). There are supposedly 1,000+ missions for each nation, 4,000 in total. They run the gamut from the mystical to the political, to the "I-just-lost-my-leg-and-now-walk-on-a-piece-of-wood".

Then there's the player-run economy. This isn't player-run like most games would sell you. Everything, and I mean everything, of any real value will come from you and your fellow players. But apparently, you won't be sitting in front of your PC watching a little action bar go by, clicking and repeating ad nauseum. You'll have access to a total of ten plots of land to make your own work-stations. You don't do the work, you're the manager. What kind of captain would you be, if you were doing all the grunt stuff? Materials and whatnot are supposed to gather in realtime, more like an RTS game than an MMO. And from these goods you can craft things as small as sabres for your avatar, or as large as frigates for your entire crew.

Last, but not least, there's the PvP. I can't do this one justice in my words. The guys at the site describe it the best. Go read some of the devlogs to get familiar with it all. In short, it's open PvP, but not without protection. As a player, you'll never have to PvP another player, but the world and its ports will forever be changing hands. Only 12 or 16 out of the 80 can be in contention at one time. So no worries if you're more of a PvE type. You'll always have at least 64 ports to play around in, run your economy, and do missions from.

Oh and one more thing... you're the Captain of your own ship, your own crew. Your own destiny. This ain't no amusement park. This is the Caribbean. And it's ripe for the picking.

I sure hope we get a release date soon, because my sea legs are getting restless.