78 PCWorld FEBRUARY 2019REVIEWS ATL A S
Fortitude to keep ourselves from starving,
we’re no longer dying as much. It feels, yes,
almost fun.
But I haven’t forgotten the past ordeals. I
know I mainly feel that way because of the
resource boost.
By the time you read this, Atlas will likely be
back to the same tired, grindy slog, although
with fewer server crashes and better
performance. The game underneath still favors
huge companies of players who can gobble all
the land around them and build new ships with
an efficiency that’s simply unattainable by our
little three-man crew. Even then, judging from
chat, there’s the danger of unscrupulous recruits
stealing hard-won supplies from the storage
containers. So much for the pirate’s code. It’s agame you can sink hours into and have nothing
to show for it when a ghost ship plays peekaboo
with your sloop and suddenly leaves you with
nothing. There’s some realism in that, no doubt,
but maybe just a tad too much.
The ghost ships are still prowling. After all
this work, if we sail out tomorrow and once
again find our ship careening toward Davy
Jones’ locker even after all the work with the
cannons and stronger hull, I’m done. There is no
Penelope waiting at the end. There’s no longer
even a snake-infested pile of dirt for us to come
home to. Just when you start to have fun, it
knocks you back down. It’s pain without gain.
Eventually Atlas may be something great,
but for now, it’s a vessel that’s not ready to
leave port.At least we’ve got cool gear now.