@ Stormer
1. Every ship can be bought for free, it is perfectly possible to be the best in this game without spending in time. You will have to spend a lot of time to do it though.
2. 15 million gold takes a week to farm. Not forever.
@ Killakan
1. That is part of the game, we are pirates. Stop letting them steal your loot, it isn't hard.
2. You CAN get money without doing quests, maybe not at the very beginning, but once you buy some cannons and get a larger boat you will find that you will be getting MUCH more money then you spend. It also isn't necessarily smart to go to the higher level zones, stay in a zone where the enemies are easy for you to kill, better yet stay in a zone where you can one shot enemies with one volley from your cannons.
3. I've been playing this game for 2 weeks and have done nearly every quest. Every single one completed without problem. You are killing the wrong enemies.
Fantastic game. Just stick with it guys. The beginning can be really rough. Yah, people can steal your loot, but just don't give them the opportunity to do it. Also, everything can be bought with gold coins, you never need to spend a dollar to get a really good ship, BUT you may end up spending quite a bit of time. Its a great game with a great community, I just hope that one day I won't be the only one in the chat room playing it.
For those who don't know, you can challenge other people in your friends list to duels! You challenge them by pressing the green gun icon under their name. While the challenge isn't synchronized "both of you playing at the same time", it still is pretty fun seeing whether or not your friends can beat your time!
 "Pirate Storm")
 "Top Shot: The Game")