I recently made a new character to see how it is to be a new player in the game. There was no milking involved.
I'm going to talk about gold income exclusively because fame is irrelevant until you have a significant amount of it (which is ~100,000ish?).
As I understand it there are
4 ways to get gold as a new player: (in order of how fast they
could possibly make gold- no guarantees though)
1)
The VOODOO way: Use credits to buy voodoo (or get daily voodoo presents) and you could get a "Booty Master" voodoo card and steal thousands or millions of gold from your rich guildmate (or enemy if you don't fear retaliation). There are other cards that help you get gold fast through patrolling or Buried Treasure or Hidden Treasure. This tacic requires you to get lucky and get the right card(s) but if you acquire enough voodoo cards it's almost guaranteed.
2)
The PLUNDERING way: Find a helpless new player like yourself who shows up on the plunder screen and steal a fraction of his small amount of gold by attacking. You would probably need to have chosen the Sloop or Cutter for your first ship so you can beat the other player's Howker.
3a)
The DANGEROUS TRADING way: Set up a trade route between to port that have a short travel time (eg. Tortuga - Tzogos) and have your single ship trade as fast as it can between these 2 ports. Use your turns to "instant travel" between ports to make gold faster. Your Danger WILL increase and you WILL get plundered and lose some of your gold (~1,000 each time).
3b)
The SLOW TRADING way: Set up your trade route so it takes just over 1 hour to travel between each port. This way you will not gain danger and lose gold to plundering. The catch is you make gold slower than if you rush. Choosing a howker as your first ship is best for this. This is BY FAR the
most reliable way to get gold after you have multiple fleets. Spend your turns "Working as a Porter" which gives you 10-25 gold/turn used. There is nothing else useful to spend your turns on.
4)
The PATROLLING way: You MUST choose a sloop as your first ship and spend most (but NOT all) of your initial gold adding crew and cannons. Patrol for ships but only attack the Howkers and Fluyts. You can't succeed against any other ship type yet. It will take you multiple attacks so keep some gold for repairing your ship. After you spend all your turns, choose between 2) and 3) until you have more turns to patrol. Make sure to add more cannons.
The Enjoyment or lack thereof:1)
VOODOO: If you get lucky and get 1 million gold through "Booty Master" I would imagine you would love the game! I would want to buy more cards and try to get lucky again
Also, 1,000 or 10,000 gold from Buried Treasure or Hidden Treasure is very helpful early on in building your fleets.
2)
PLUNDERING: You will need to spend your money quickly on a new ship because you will gain danger and probably lose gold to other people using the same strategy. This is high-risk and high-reward. It's
very enjoyable except when you lose a lot of battles and end up with little gold.3a)
DANGEROUS TRADE: You will need to set up your trade route again because it gets canceled when you get plundered. I found my trade routes were always canceled overnight and I barely made any gold. This was frustrating but understandable because I chose the dangerous way, not the slow way. If I didn't understand danger rating I might think it's impossible to trade safely and want to leave.
3b)
SLOW TRADE: I recommend this WAY but it's VERY slow for the first week (until you have more ships) and there are not many interesting decisions. I got a little bored with this because I set up the trade route, spent all my turns on "working as a porter" and then all I could do was surf the forums and chat with the guild if I had one. It was exhilarating when I got my second howker though! Double the profit/hour! After about 2 weeks this would be WAY more fun. After 1 year of playing this is extremely rewarding.
4)
PATROLLING: Because sloops are so weak you will most likely make less gold than trading, Sometimes you end up paying much more in repairs than you gained from conquering the ship. Pirate Hunters are like a brick wall and require you to "instant travel" to another port to continue playing the game. If a level 1 sloop was able to combat more than the weakest merchant fleets this would be less of an annoyance.
Wish List:1) I could use more voodoo cards and I wish I was more lucky
2) I couldn't afford to fully equip my ship with cannons. After completing a tutorial on "How to Plunder" and "How to Patrol" I would like to be rewarded with some cannons or some gold for cannons.
3) It would be really exciting to complete a tutorial on "How to Trade" and get enough gold to construct a new ship! Then I could do the "How to Construct a Ship" tutorial and get even more cool rewards! Captain Jack already mentioned making a new player's warehouse fully stocked- that is also on the wish list so a new player doesn't need to figure out how to store resources before they even have a second ship.
4) Level 1 Sloops are very weak against the ships that you find patrolling. I would like to complete a tutorial that explains "How to Upgrade a Ship" and "How to Upgrade Ship Attributes". The reward for such a tutorial would make me strong enough to compete with some of those level 3 Cutters on the Patrol screen.
Conclusion: The beginning of the game is a bit slow and I wish I would start with more resources and abilities to make more gold for myself.
More gold = more fun decisions!
The tutorials don't hold the player's hand through navigating the menus which can be intimidating.
The game doesn't reward new players enough for their good decisions or for their growing understanding of the game.
I hope that helps... but I already know a lot about the game. I would like to also know how it is for someone learning the game for the first time.
Please feel free to disagree with my summary. Do you see any other ways to make gold as a new player? Do you have more problems to add or ideas on your wish list?
-Captain D
EDIT: I renamed 1) from "
The LUCKY way" to "
The VOODOO way" because using credits to get voodoo cards is a reliable way to get a moderate amount of gold with a chance to get VERY lucky and get thousands or millions.
Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2012 11:27 am
seriously, 10k? It should be cheaper for new players; most people won't stay if confronted with that obstacle 
