Live up to its potential
Bounty Bay Online Coin is good and cheap, buying it will not spend you much money. Bounty Bay Online is taking much more to gamers. Plus it has all the trappings of a typical Far East grind-atom MMO, which never helps when it comes to the Western market.
For example, each port is much the same as any other, barring differences in architecture and NPC placement. It also has something of a cut down Civilization feel to it; it is more multiplayer strategy game than online RPG. There are three trades to choose from, explorer, merchant or warrior with a skill system that heavily favors those who spend days playing for less than a dollar in a Korean internet cafe.
Much of BBO problem comes down to presentation. It is a Western version of an Eastern game, Voyage Century Online, with the free-to-play model replaced by a more community inspiring subscription model.
Only without the ability to modify the UI code, the programmers are stuck trying to force Western language translations into areas designed for Chinese Hanzi characters. So everything looks like the gaming equivalent of a badly dubbed martial arts film, tiny text, bad English and not much sense. Not good when there is a far more accessible looking alternative bearing down on the port side.
The game is not bad per se, and there is fun to be had from the sailing mechanics and just exploring the open seas, battling pirates. But ultimately, BBO downfall is that you are always very much aware you are just playing a fancy resource/trading game with a smattering of other players online, and paying monthly for the privilege. POTBS, meanwhile, is promising a whole world to swashbuckler in.
We just hope it lives up to its potential; otherwise we will all have to stay in port a while longer waiting for a decent ship to raise our mugs to.