I found my way to Pirate Isles last January (after Castlevania: Vampire's Kiss went under and never came back up), and I've been a steady player ever since.
It's still CEP 2.3, but word is that the admin may be moving the server up to CEP 2.4 sooner or later. I'll mirror the point that the Pirate Isles persistent world has really milked CEP for all it's worth; the environment is gorgeous all around, and every now and then I'll bump into some interesting feature which combines placeables in a way which makes me ask, "Why didn't anyone think of that before?".
And the scripting is top-of-the-line, too. Some features which, as far as I know, are unique to Pirate Isles:
• Underwater areas. Don't try to dive in without wearing a Ring of Water Breathing or you'll drown. If unarmored or lightly armored, your character will swim (which, while slower than walking on land, is faster than walking across the sea's floor), and a Ring of Swimming on your other hand will increase your swimming speed further. Piercing melee weapons like daggers, rapiers and tridents rule the roost in the sea's depths, as water resistance makes ranged, slashing and bludgeoning weapons all but useless.
• Customized summons for spells like Summon Creature and Animate Dead. For example, Summon Creature IV
might get you a Dire Ape, it
might get you a giant Bombardier Beetle or it
might get you a Dire Spider--each with their own pros and cons--and if you cast Summon Creature IV underwater, you'll get a giant Sea Snake instead.
Every Summon Creature spell is like that, except for Summon Creatures VII, VIII and IX; you'll still summon elementals of random types on land, but you'll
always get a water elemental if you cast the spell underwater. And though Animate Dead still gives you a Tyrantfog Zombie at lower Levels, Skeleton Warriors and Skeleton Chieftains have been replaced by Skeleton Pirates and Skeleton Captains, respectively; there are a few changes to their stats, and they fit the server's theme quite nicely!
• Scaling random encounters. A Level 5 character who swims through a certain part of the Sea of Fallen Stars might run into a wimpy Flesh-Eating Octopus and two Enraged Eels, while a Level 12 character passing through that same area might run into three deadly Goblin Sharks or a titanic Giant Crab. It's a great way to keep areas fresh and challenging for a broad range of character Levels.
• Rebuke Undead instead of Turn Undead, for Evil clerics. My Cleric of Umberlee has turned the tides of several battles against the undead through judicious use of Rebuke Undead, paralyzing the undead and often Commanding and dominating one of them, turning him against his comrades. Combine this with certain Cleric Domains (in my cleric's case, Water for Rebuking elementals and Evil for Rebuking outsiders) and Rebuke Undead becomes even handier at scaring up a strong, erstwhile ally in a pinch.
• Empowered holy symbols with deity-related spells, abilities, strengths and weaknesses. A holy symbol of Helm, a holy symbol of Moradin and a holy symbol of Umberlee are three different things with three different sets of powers and frailties. And the holy symbols accept only those who worship or pay fealty to that symbol's god; my Cleric of Umberlee tried to hold a holy symbol of Valkur once and immediately dropped it on the ground. I guess she's lucky that the holy symbol didn't burn her hand or something....
• A tiny chance of Divine Intervention where, instead of dying, your character immediately gets back up with full Hit Points, ready to jump back into the fight. This has only happened to my cleric twice in eight months, so yeah...the odds of that happening are pretty minute. But when it happens, there's no feeling like it.
I have played on plenty of PW servers, and Pirate Isles is at the top of a very short list of servers which I have
never regretted joining. The server world is very engaging, and the DM team is big enough and talented enough to make the server superb, yet is small enough to care about the players and involve them in the world of the Pirate Isles. You won't be a bystander unless you
want to be a bystander.
So if you're going to start playing on one of the Forgotten Realms servers, make it this one. Give Pirate Isles a chance and you won't be disappointed.
Modifié par Wids, 16 septembre 2011 - 10:44 .
