Glad you are enjoying it!
I played Saturday. I find it awful to be honest. Started with facing the British fleet, found you could one shot those conspicuously placed red exploding boxes on the enemy ships deck using explosive cannon balls (which weren't invented until several hundred years later) fired from the ships guns like laser beams. Found it difficult to aim, shoot and sail at the same time so was ramming and being rammed by other ships with absolutely no detrimental effect - that's when I wasn't sailing out of bounds and being warned to return. Ship has a tiny turning circle so found it was easy to get behind enemy boats. Vanquished boats just explode - for a game that ONLY has ship combat, you'd think they would at least try to have some variety over ways to beat them.
The on land stuff is even worse. No gunfights and no sword fights. Its almost a complete waste of time. There is literally nothing to do except cook up a shark that I killed that was trying to eat my boat in a comical manner using an unlimited amount of pointy sticks I somehow had in my little wooden dingy. You can't even jump! Wandering around Sainte Anne was clunky and awkward. Graphics look last, last gen and the voice acting is atrocious - they all sound like the Ugandans in Book of Mormon, at least your own character doesn't have a bad voice. He doesn't have one at all, just nods and has odd looks on his face when responding to questions or statements. My mrs came in while I was exploring the island and she knows absolutely nothing about games and never comments on me playing, she said "What the hell is this, looks rubbish".
You can berth your ship by flying in towards the island at full speed and just press a button. Black screen then you are on the island. Getting off the island is even worse. Got to stand just at the right point to get get the prompt, shuffle forward a little - oops too far, shuffle back a bit, little to the left, button press, black screen, suddenly on the boat. The only thing that makes this somewhat bearable is laughing at other players trying to leave the island doing the same thing. It's like everyone is doing a farewell jig on the shore.
Check out the photo below. This is while exploring the ship wreck which you can get to again by sailing full speed ahead into it then it triggers that awful mini game to unlock it. Once on board there is nothing to do except shoot one of these three guns. Like someone mentioned above, your pirate walks past several treasure chests on the way. The guy in the photo was shooting (at nothing by the way, there is nothing to shoot despite there being loads of other players in the same game sailing around the wreck - they just aren't there!) but it looks like he's just standing still. The text at the bottom (which is difficult to read) tells me that.
I had lowered my expectations but this game sails under them. If this is what one of the worlds largest developers can churn out in 10 years with a $120m budget then the entire management structure need lined up and unlimited numbers of pointy sticks chucked at them. Absolute tripe. You can certainly see where they have borrowed from other games from their studio but they have seemed to have taken all the worst bits of them.
I am aware its a beta but lets not kid ourselves. It releases this week - the very same version of the game is already printed to disc and is sitting in a box at your local games shop awaiting the embargo to lift on Thursday morning.
I said earlier in the thread that Ubi releasing this as a free no obligation to pre-order beta is a very bold move given how bad it was rumoured to be and I am glad they did as I likely would have bought it day one. As it is though I wouldn't even take one for free if they offered it.
