So, I'll keep this simple for anyone interested in the game but doesn't want essay-length comments:
This game is a mixed bag for beginners. The starter quests quickly leave you wondering what to do, but thankfully there's a lot that you can do starting off -- however isn't explained fully.
The grind: Also a mixed bag. Researching new ships is easy, making new ships is not. Constructing materials for making them is not easy either. Best advice: Keep the crafting recipe for a new ship in mind (or write it down), and then just use the player-run market for buying all your crafting resources.
Some ships require microtransactions (through shop chests) to obtain, which highkey sucks. As a US Navy servicemember, I would really love for the new Bonhomme Richard (the sailing frigate, not the LHA) to be added in as a ship that we can obtain regularly in the tech tree at some point going forward. The Constitution being one we can regularly obtain is pretty frickin' sweet though.
The in-game events are... I dunno, I've only played the game for two days and the current one is a fishing event. It's kinda chill. There's also clan battles that occur frequently for control of ports and forts, and overall everyone seems to be fairly good sports about winning and losing.
PvP: Entirely optional outside of the center and the Endless Sea, with a few zones to avoid anyway if you don't wanna get bushwhacked. There's a good few clans dedicated to it that are highly enthusiastic about what they do.
PvE: Great for grinding mats. Especially if you harass the ships with the green flags. That's about it really, there's no profound faction interaction mechanics in play as of yet, aside from ship construction discounts depending on what port you're in and what ship you have.
Lore: There's a lot left to be desired here, even with a so-called "Encylopedia" that has "lore entries" scattered throughout it rather carelessly. It's no knock to the dev, this clearly wasn't a high priority on his list of ♥♥♥♥ to do for the game, but we absolutely need a lot of these gaps filled in at some point, there's a good *at least* three more NPC factions/nations that are entirely unexplained across the scattered entries.
Performance-wise? I'll attach my specs, but I've seen a good few reviews of people saying they can play it on an office potato, so unless you're trying to use a Mac or a notebook laptop, you should be able to run this game.
Overall, it's a decent MMO and one that finally scratches the itch I've had, in spite of its humble production value. I'll definitely be making this a regular game of mine going forward.
