Tales of Pirates

Tales of Pirates
Tales of Pirates Logo
Developer(s)	MOLI
Publisher(s)	I Got Games
Platform(s)	Windows (Windows NT/98/ME/2K/XP/Vista/W7)
Release date(s)	(Global) March 15, 2007(Closed Beta) (Global) March 30, 2007 (Open Beta)
Genre(s)	Fantasy Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game
Mode(s)	MMORPG

Tales of Pirates is a 3D Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game developed by the Chinese company MOLI. Tales of Pirates is published by IGG (I Got Games), who have also published four other games, Voyage Century Online, WonderLand Online, Myth War Online and 2029 Online. Several versions of the game are available for specific countries or regions such as an older version Pirate King Online.

Overview

Once an account is created, players are able to log in to a server and choose a character to begin the game. All characters start at level 1 and initially level up through very simple introductory quests designed to teach the player about the game. These quests take a few minutes to complete and will give a new player an idea of how to move, control their character and other simple concepts. At level 8 a character can make a party to invite 1-4 players and they all share EXP from individual kills. At level 9 a character can choose a specific first class related to the character they chose, they cannot however use class specific equipment until level 10. At level 10 you can first start talking in world chat with a variety of other players with a fee every time you do. A "Lance" character can become an Explorer, Hunter or Swordsman. A "Carsise" character can become a Swordsman. A "Phyllis" character can become a Hunter, Herbalist, Swordsman or Explorer (or Crusader in newest 2.0 version). An "Ami" character can become an Herbalist or Explorer.

Starting at level 15, a player may purchase a ship with which they may sail on the water. Certain elements of the game can only be accessed in this way (60% of accessible territory on water).^[1]

Introduction

The game is based on the adventures of Lance, a human raised by good, caring, loving people, Phyllis, a girl with a shortened lifespan (which does not affect gameplay), Ami, a young little girl that does not age, and Carsise, a big-buff good guy. The world they live in is made up of multiple continents and islands in which they travel by foot or by ship, killing monsters and other obstacles in their way with a wide variety of weapons.

The largest cities are all ports, although their climates are quite different, ranging from Shaitan's deserts to Icicle's frozen plains. It is in these cities in which newer characters slowly build up their skills and fighting prowess before adventuring into the unknown. Each fighting class does all of its class advancements in their corresponding city, e.g. swordsmen change classes in Argent, hunters in Icicle, herbalists in Shaitan, etc.

Skills

Players of different classes have different and unique skills that assist them in battle. There are two types of skills: passive and initiate. Passive skills increase the character's stats (attack, attack speed, defense, etc.) permanently, and affects his/ her performance all the time. Initiate skills, however, is temporary, so the initiate skills like Berserk, which tremendously increase the character's attack speed for about 10 seconds, wears away after a period of time, unlike passive skills like Concentration, which permanently increase the character's hit rate.^[2]

Naval System

Building A Ship

There will be a Ship Builder NPC station at the harbor of the 4 cities to provide players the option of building a new ship or upgrading an existing one. Different ships will be available at each harbor. During the building of the ship, player can customize the bow, engine, cannon and component to their preference. Different combination will have different effectiveness.^[3]

Vessel Deed

After the construction of a ship, players will obtain an item named "Vessel Deed." This is a certificate of ownership and is basically the ship, trading it will degrade the level and XP of a ship, also, no deed, no ship.^[4]

Setting Sail

A player may begin his journey by visiting the harbor operator at the city his ship is harbored in and choosing to set sail; They can also purchase fuel and repairs from the said NPC. Every city has a docking portal to dock and exit a ship.

Commerce And Economy

Each city harbor and island has a NPC that sell special products for commerce trade, some of which are unique. Only players who possess a ship may purchase and load these products onto it for trade at other harbors or islands. Players can also talk to the Freight NPC to load some of the wood or ores onto the ship for commerce trade.^[5]

Classes

Players can choose to be different classes, varying with their character. There are in total 10 classes, 4 belonging to the Primary Classes, which can be chosen at Level 9. Those classes include Swordsman (deals physical damage), Hunter (ranged class using bows), Explorer (deals powerful magical damage and has many bonuses on sailing), and herbalist (weak in offense but can heal other players and give them temporary bonuses on their stats- known as "buffing"). At Level 40, players can choose an advanced class depending on the character and the basic class. Those 6 classes include Crusader (a popular class, is very agile and deals melee damage), Champion (high defense with high HP, dealing high melee damage), Sharpshooter (high ranged damage, uses fireguns), Voyager (magical damage, even more bonuses for their boats), Cleric (more healing and supportive power), and Seal Master (similar to Cleric, but has more offense).^[6] In the newest 2.0 version of the game, however, Phyllis could also be a Swordsman, and will be able to advance to be a crusader.

Primary Classes

Those are the classes that can be chosen at Level 10. In the new V. 2.0, Phyllis can also be a Swordsman.

Swordsman

Swordsman is the melee class in the game; they rely on swords and shields and they are the damage-dealer in a party. Only a Lance or Carsise (and Phyllis in Version 2.0) can be trained to be a Swordsman. Lance swordsman can advance to crusaders which use two single handed swords and have incredibly high attack speed and high attack power. Carsise swordsman can become Champions which have the highest HP and defence in the game and use large two handed swords and act as the tank class in the game.

Explorer

Explorers deal magical damage using special weapons. They are relatively powerful since their magical damage neglects the target's defense, therefore the amount of damage done is always the same no matter how strong the opponent is. Explorers also have skills that temporarily increase their ships' defense and/ or speed. Explorers can only advance to voyagers. A Lance, Phyllis, or Ami can be an explorer.Explorer is pre-class of Voyager.

Hunter

Hunters use bows to deal ranged damage. Their damage is considerable but they are quite weak in terms of defense and HP. Hunters can advance to sharpshooters, which are very powerful using guns instead of bows. A Lance or Phyllis can be a hunter.

Herbalist

Herbalist is a magical class that uses stave's to deal magical damage. They can also heal and help other party members by increasing their abilities. Herbalist can advance to cleric or a seal master. Ami and Phyllis can become a herbalist

Advanced Classes

Those are the classes that can be chosen at Level 40. In V.2.0, The Crusader class is also available for the Phyllis character.

Crusaders

They are Lance (or Phyllis) characters that are armed with two swords. Crusaders generally are the fastest and most deft players, and are one of the strongest classes. Players have developed different "models" (or builds when stat points of a character are added specifically to make the player especially strong at a certain area) of the class, the most popular one being the "slasher" model. Slashers use the advantage of the skill "Illusion Slash", where remote and effective damage is dealt to a target.

The "slasher" Slashers are the current meta for all crusaders, and are the competition of all other classes. Slashers are famous for their ability to one-shot their opponents, falling short against Clerics, Champions, and occasionally constitution voyagers. Regardless of this, they still are, by far, the best damaging class, because they can stun their opponent to wait for their next slash. Their melee abilities are also amazing, although they do not have the highest basic attack damage, because they sacrifice some for attack speed. Crusaders can easily beat most classes with the exception of Champions.

Champions

Champions are Carcise characters that are the most defensive and perhaps most offensive players in the game too. They generally have high hit points, very high defense, and usually high offense. They use two-handed swords called Greatswords that deal a lot of damage, and are an important part of a PvP or maze team. There are several builds for champions; most players prefer whether very high health (so high that sometimes the healing speed is faster than the speed the player is getting attacked) or very high offense, while neither of these models have a high attack speed, but the damage made up for that, the basic stat to a champ is con to increase life.

Sharpshooters

At level 40, Hunters have the choice to become a sharpshooter. Sharpshooters are well known for their sealing skills and DPS (damage per second) attacks, such as cripple (decreases target movement speed and dodge rate) and enfeeble (prevents skills). Sharpshooters also have a self buff to enhance attack speed as well as an AoE (Area of effect) skill Magma Bullet. Sharpshooters tend to be welcomed by majority of the parties because of their high efficiency to locate, seal and damage deal.

During PvP matches, Sharpshooters generally have the upper hand against spell-casters (Seal masters, Clerics, and certain Voyagers) due to their sealing skills. However, with their low defense and physical resistance, they are easily defeated by melee types such as Crusaders and every so often Champions.

The stat builds for sharpshooters are generally easy to play around with. The damage dealt by sharpshooters are dependent on the amount of Accuracy the character has, whereas stats split between con (for defense and max health) and agi (for dodge rate and attack speed) are a good idea, as well.

Sharpshooters are open to players who have achieved Hunter as their first class and they are limited to only Lance and Phyllis characters.

Voyagers

Voyagers are the advancement of the primary class, explorer, and are known for their magic based damage, crowd control (tornado), and area of effect damage. Overall, they have high damage, and are one of the more annoying classes. Beyond their normal land combat, voyagers are undoubtedly the best sea combat class because they are the only class with sea oriented skills. Others may craft sea combat equipment, but will inevitably fall short of a voyager with the same gear.

In PvP matches, there are two popular ways to play a voyager. Generally, voyagers are either pure spirit or pure constitution, but hybrids are great as well. Voyagers barely benefit from any other stat. During a match, because of their long cooldowns, voyagers will generally use their tornado as a way to lock-down their opponent, similar to a crusader's shadow slash, or a seal masters seals. despite their high damage and AoE, they generally lose to "King" crusaders because of their high damage and stealth abilities. It usually isn't until later levels (65-95) that voyagers start to have a fighting chance against crusaders. Voyagers solely rely on their ability to defeat their opponent with their first rotation, and if they fail, they will normally lose. Voyagers are considered a counter to champions.

In PvE, voyagers are almost the best PvE class, because they can quickly take a large number of opponents at a time. Their disadvantage is the cost of their skills; every skill costs charges of corals which aren't that expensive, but add up over time. It can be very frustrating to deplete a coral during the time you need it most. Voyagers are still not better than crusaders even in PvE, because of crusaders naturally high evasion and stealth abilities.

Voyagers can be advanced from any explorer, which can originate from all races/character type but Carcise.

Seal Master

A herbalist can become a Seal Master or SM. SM's are very important and hated for their powerful seals. Their basic stats are constitution and spirit. Their two sealing skills are called seal of elder (which prevents skills) and shadow insignia (which prevents melee attacks). They can choose to have buffs like revive, harden (which increase defense), pr spiritual fire but since they are like 'evil' herbalists, most Seal masters do not. They also have heal (healing ability) and they have one attack skill, spiritual bolt (so do clerics). They also have a skill called True Sight (along with Clerics) that can detect stealthed characters (which is good for PVPing crusaders). That's why (and with the power of seals), unless they get 1-Shot, SM's beat Crusaders. This class is only available to female characters (Ami, Phyllis). They are generally stronger than Clerics.

Cleric

After becoming a herbalist, herbalists can become Cleric. Clerics are mostly a healing class and expert buffers which maintain the party. They have skills like angelic shield (increase the deff 30% at lv10) tornado swirl (increase critical rate) and they specialize in the energy shield that transfers the damage taken to SP. Clerics generally have less offensive abilities opposed to Seal Masters, but are more durable because their SP compensates for their low HP. The trade-off however, is that without SP they can't continue healing or buffing. Their spiritual Bolt can deal damage to HP directly neglecting PR and DEF.

Features

New V 2.0

The newest 2.0 version of the Singapore-based version of the game, Pirate King Online, was released on Dec. 15, 2009. It features a new map, new mazes, new monsters, and new items. As well, Phyllis is able to become a Swordsman and later a Crusader in the new version.^[7]

Fairy Pets

Upon character creation the player starts with a level zero pet, they can also be obtained from other players, or from the item mall. The pets are fairies of various appearances, and their uses include giving the character extra stat points and learning special skills to help their masters in battle. Fairies are also necessary for some life skills like manufacturing. Other skills such as possession can double the pets benefits however drains the stamina of the pet by intervals of X6(novice possession), X4(standard possession), X2(Expert possession).

Guilds

Guilds in Tales of Pirates are groups of players allied together to benefit everyone, similar to many other games. To create a guild a Lv40 character, a Stone of Oath item, and one hundred thousand gold are needed. To join a guild, the player must be at least Lv25 and he/ she can apply for the guild at specific NPCs, and wait for the approval from the guild leader.

Item Mall Points

Although Tales of Pirates is free it also has a second in game currency known as item mall points. You can only obtain points by charging your account with real money via a number of payment methods such as Paypal, Google Checkout, Wallie Card, Amazon Checkout or Western Union. Players can use the points to purchase a number of character bonuses, armour upgrades or apparel (to customize their characters appearance).

Mazes

The game also contains many dungeon-like areas called mazes. The three main mazes, Forsaken City, Dark Swamp and Demonic World open in rotations of 3 hours each, and each maze has its own ranged level requirements. Generally, despite that the levels of the monsters in the mazes are not difficult relative to the player level range, the monsters are much stronger than normal monsters. The mazes are also one of the few PvP areas in the game, enabling players to fight not only the monsters in the maze, but each other as well. Also, Chaos Argent enables players to make Argent City a player vs player zone and fight for the first 30 minutes until the portal closes. When 45 minutes are up the map closes and if there are less than three people inside they get rewarded for their courageousness.

References

External links

• Tales of Pirates Hungarian(magyar fórum)
• Tales of Pirates en Español
• Tales of Pirates Official Website
• Internet Gaming Gate (IGG) Official Website