Funny pirate glitch and 10 reasons NOT to buy companion points

I said I wouldn't blog about Pirate101, but this is too good to pass up. I had just bought a new anchor for my shiny new frigate (the Silver Pegasus) and I left Puerto Mico to go try those pesky and tough House Guzman ships again. However, this is what I saw when I set sail:

My ship's invisible! See the tiny figures of me and Ratbeard down there?

And in player view:

At least it's a nice view of the skyway...

It was really funny. Now I need to figure out how to stop the glitch. When I do broadside combat, I want to be able to actually SEE my ship. Oh yeah, and I decided to finally do this: Note: this post was designed to counter Destiny's. For this to make the most sense, I suggest you read her post first.

10 REASONS NOT TO BUY COMPANION POINTS

1. Save gold! They're SO expensive. It's true that they're fairly cheap in the first few levels, but gold is so much harder to come by in Pirate101 that the ratio of price to the extremely low amount of gold you'd have makes them not worth it.

2. Make sinking easier! I've always preferred sinking to slashing mostly because it's much more time efficient. Also, in Valencia+, you NEED higher level ships. After that skiff from the Presidio, you don't get any more free ships until after Cool Ranch. When you buy a ship, it doesn't come with any gear, so you also need to buy ALL the gear, which is quite expensive. Face it; you need the money for ships.

3. If you train right, have good gear, and arrange your companions correctly, you should be fine. It's not necessary to level all your companions right up to your level, and it wastes points anyway. If you're choosing the right epics and talents for your crew and always sink rather than slash, you'll be okay.

4. If you spend your points sparingly, you'll have loads of excess anyway. When the difference between your level and the level of your companions becomes greater, it takes less points to level them. If you only train your companions when one point will level them or if it's absolutely needed, you should have about 10 at all times just sitting there. This makes the first few levels of the game very brutal, but perseverance, strategy, and a little luck will push you past that and it's smooth sailing from there.

5. It's even MORE convenient to not buy them! Not having to make side trips every few levels means you can spend more time questing and farming and less time running errands.

6. Speed-addition is now impossible (at least for me). There is no longer any "average damage this will deal" anymore. Once you reach the Tradewinds Skyway or so, enemies will dodge and block a lot, anyway. Just have everyone hit one enemy until it's dead. Repeat as necessary.

7. Training tomes become SO EXPENSIVE in the higher levels it's unbelievable and totally not worth it. Like I mentioned in #4, once you're that high a level you won't need them anyway and as a low level there's no way you can afford them without extra farming.

8. Why buy when you can find? Every once in a while, training tomes can be found and collected free just by pressing X, no charge.

9. Who doesn't like questing? It's the point of the game, after all. Like I mentioned in #5, time spent hanging around in a tavern is time NOT spent on doing fun piratey stuff like looting, dueling, and sailing.

10. In a nutshell, being frugal with spending on companion points is so this doesn't happen:

Tip for getting gold: Farm Fin. If you're level 10+, he is VERY easy, and his chest at the end drops 50+ gold each time. Best of luck to you in both sides of the spiral!

- Sophia E