Pirates MMORPG
There's a pirate MMORPG coming out! Actually, there's two! Any thoughts on which one will be better? So, which to write about? How about both? Here I present what little information I know about Pirates of the Burning Sea (www.burningsea.com)estimated release June 2007 and Pirates of the Caribbean: Online (www.pirateslegend.com) estimated release Spring 2007.
I think the first thing that will be most interesting is which game makes it out the starting gate first since they are projected to be released around the same time. I imagine the PotC version will have it's following of movie lovers, but one thing I noticed from first glance at the two...PotBS has a female pirate on the front page. That's the way to start it right, in my opinion. PotC does contain screenshots of female pirates, though, so they aren't totally out of the running.
Now let's look at game features:
Character Creation:
PotC - "millions of combinations to fully customize your character"
PotBS - "avatars are built with more than a dozen customizable slots"
Sounds like a draw to me. They both even comment on the ability to add peg legs and eye patches. 
Sail your own ship, check, check.
Adventures, treasure, glory, yup in both games.
Magic? - Ah ha! Here's a difference. PotC offers Voodoo Magic to "heal, travel, cheat in games, and cast curses on enemies." PotBS - "No. There are none of the spells, magic wands, +3 helmets, or any of that stuff you may have seen in other MMP."
One last comparison before I go. Game System Requirements:
PotC:
Windows 2000/XP
Pentium 3 800Mhz processor (P4 1Ghz rec.)
256 MB RAM (512 recommended)
400 MB disk space available
32MB graphics card (64 MB recommended)
DirectX 9 or better
Broadband internet connection
PotBS:
Windows Sytem XP/Vista
1.5 GHz or AMD Athlon 1.5 GHz
512 MB or more of RAM
128 MB 3D video card supporting Pixelshader 2.0
broadband connection
Let the duel begin.
eh oh!
Oh no, an mmorpg I might actually be interested in! I played a little WoW in December, but I didn't really get into it. I like pirates though, esp of the Carribean. I will definately check these out, thanks Sephera!
Saw Pirates of the Burning Sea last summer
I saw Pirates of the Burning Sea at GenCon 2006, and I have to say that it definitely looks really nice. It'll be interesting to see how the game place works out. It sounds like there will be large scale battles in which you pick a side and try to gain harbors and trade goods. Once there is a winner, the harbors all reset to the original owners so one faction won't control things forever. There are definitely female pirates in the screenshots they have, but I could not find much about the role-play aspect of the game. One screenshot appeared to have some players talking, but it didn't a sense of what the role-play environment will be like.