I never thought I’d say this … but is it possible there are *too many* pirate games coming out in the Massive genre? As with the soon to be crowded superhero MMOG niche, piratical theming is coming to the genre in the form of four distinct online games.

This occured to me today, because I’m subscribed to Alice’s del.icio.us feed. Alice (of Wonderland) is a very on-top-of-things lady, and so her tagging on Pirates! raised an eyebrow:

Pirates Constructible Strategy Game Online The Pirates of the Caribbean MMO seems to have turned into something else, unless I’m on the wrong page
tags: piratesofthecaribbean disney mmo

If a with-it observer of games like Alice can get mixed up by these properties, how is a casual onlooker going to know what’s what?

Here’s a quick guide to MMOG pirates, just in case you need it -

Pirates of the Burning Sea - The ‘real’ Pirate MMOG in the minds of lots of people. This is the one with the elaborate ship-to-ship combat, swordfighting, nation vs. nation PvP, the whole nine yards. While it’s certainly not a ’simulation’-style game, PotBS is definitely the most serious pirate MMOG in the works, and supports this with crafting, avatar customization, and other great buzzwords. In the works with an eye towards release sometime in 2007 (I believe). Stingy with Beta invites. ;P

Pirates of the Carribean Online - Disney’s offering, based on the park ride turned movie franchise. While I had somehow gotten the idea that this was aimed somewhat at kids, the language on the official site makes it seem very much a big boy’s toy. They’re aiming to incorporate some sort of magic system into the game world, something I imagine we’ll see more of in the third movie. They mention ‘curses’, which can be used to heal, harm, and … cheat at card games? There’s actually a surprising amount of discussion about gambling, considering Disney is backing this. No word about when the game’s coming out, but it would be a good bet it’ll be right around the next movie’s release date.

Uncharted Waters Online - The online version of a game that last saw the light on the Super Nintendo, there’s actually a lot to like in the few details they’ve put out. Really all I could find about it was a quickie preview from 2005 and some screenshots at Gamespot. The stale date of the preview (and the fact that there was no followup from E3 2006) worried me a bit, but some of the screens are from May of this year … so I guess it’s still in production? They’ve definitely got a different take on the genre; players will choose from three general classes and then specialize into a more advanced class over the course of gameplay. One has typical combat leanings, but the other two sound very different - one is a crafting/mercantile role, while the other sounds like it will focus on exploration and puzzle-solving. Hard to see how hitting the Bartle types directly could be a bad thing, but who knows if it will ever come out?

Pirates! Constructible Card Game Online - This is SOE’s new hotness, based on the Wizkids game with the little plastic constructible boats. A friend of mine summed this title up as “all the boring gameplay you’ve grown to hate, without any of the fun of playing with the actual little boats”. I’ve only had the chance to play the tabletop game once or twice (though I can’t say I was overly impressed) and I haven’t played the online version at all yet, so I can’t really speak to the piraticalness of Pirates! At least it’s already out. That’s good. Just the same, if they hewwed fairely closely to the original gameplay of the tabletop game, I can’t imagine it’s going to be a ton of fun over the long-term. I should check this out and get back to you.

SOE’s ‘Constructible’ title is obviously different than the other offerings, but once all three are out how is the savvy MMOGer going to choose between what seem to be awfully similar games? I’m personally rooting for PotBS to take the lead in the as-yet-untapped Pirate MMOG niche, but there are too many groups aiming for that spot on the map for it to be anything like a sure thing.

The bottom line is that niche fighting is good for us as gamers, so yay! Here’s hoping they all launch soon; I want to see how this one turns out.