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Pirates of the Burning Sea dev blog details expansion graphical tweaks
Flying Lab Software is ramping up for the first expansion to its Pirates of the Burning Sea historical MMORPG, as the August launch of Power and Prestige is just around the corner. In a new blog on the official site, the developers talk about some of the graphical tweaks in store for ship captains everywhere, focusing in on the new avatar lighting system. The blog talks about the technical wizardry behind the new lighting system, as well as the decisions that went into creating the system itself. "The new lighting system had to be designed within several constraints. First, the new lighting system couldn't require much artist time, because ArtCo was busy with other expansion work. Second, the new system couldn't be much more resource-intensive than the old lighting system. Third, the new system couldn't add huge amounts of data to the game's size," the blog says. Check out the full article on the official website.
PotBS devs detail ship tuning, new expansion
Flying Lab Software, developers of the historical naval combat MMORPG known as Pirates of the Burning Sea, have released a new devblog detailing the ship-tuning options soon to be available in August's Power and Prestige expansion. The blog zeroes in on ship archetypes, including discussion about the considerable changes in store for scouts, warships, and merchants. Flying Lab are serious about leveling the playing field and bringing balance to the game's ship combat, but they're also taking into account historical and authenticity concerns. "Before everyone mentions warships going 35 knots, please remember this key fact: we've added stacking penalties on ship outfitting. We've tuned ships (and skills) with this in mind, as we expect ships to be outfitted more reasonably, and less to one extreme or another," the devblog states. The piece goes on to talk a bit about the desire for "vanilla" ships on the open sea as opposed to the relatively common high-end ships that most veterans possess. You can view the full article on the game's official website.
One Shots: A pirate's life fer me
Yarr, mateys! It be summer in the northern hemisphere, and that'll be meanin' that it's hotter than a freshly fired cannonball in a Spaniard's foredeck. But ha'e no fear, ya barnacle-laden landlubbers! If th' acrid winds a' summer be beatin' ye down, ye can always climb inte' ye fav'rite chair and set sail for the breezy seas in Flying Lab's Pirates of the Burning Sea like today's One Shots privateer, Cpt. Shadowind! Here's what th' salty dog had to say for 'imself and th' nice image 'e sent in te' us: "[It's] Cpt. Shadowind from Pirates of the Burning Sea sailing into summer -- hey there is no tax on wind!" If ye be readin' this site, then we know ye must be a tried an' true MMOer. If yer' readin this second paragraph, ye must be bleedin' bored! If yer' that bored, then ye should dig through yer screenshot folder, pick out a right tasty one for arr' right fair Massively crew, and send it o'er to oneshots AT massively DOT com along with yer name, th' name of th' game in yer screenshot, and a right fair tale about 'et. If 'ye do that, we promise 'te never make ye walk th' plank, matey. %Gallery-85937%
PotBS: Power & Prestige sails this summer
Flying Lab Software today announced the feature list for Power & Prestige, the upcoming expansion for their Pirates of the Burning Sea MMORPG. The expansion, the first for the historical high seas title that originally set sail in 2008, is due to be released this summer. Power & Prestige looks to build upon the game's Conquest system by allowing players to become Port Governors and wield significant strategic and economic influence over the game world. Additionally, the expansion will have over 60 new missions, four new Privateer factions, and a bevy of tweaks to combat gameplay. For starters, Avatar Combat skills are being overhauled by moving Brawling into its own fighting school. Additionally, every ship in the game is being revamped, including tweaks designed to offset outfitting stacking. Finally, each of the game's five career paths will receive some love in the form of new skills and additional tactical play options. Check out the official Pirates of the Burning Sea website for more details on the game, and be sure to sign up for the expansion beta, currently slated for Spring 2010.
Pirates of the Burning Sea celebrates 2nd anniversary
Can ye hornswagglin' scalawags believe it? It's been two years since Pirates of the Burning Sea cast off for the open oceans of MMO adventure. Since their initial launch two years ago, the team at Flying Lab have been busy refining the game, leading to an impressive bevy of changes from large to small. Now with their second anniversary looming, the Pirates of the Burning Sea crew have announced their intent to hold a rousing Second Anniversary party on January 23rd. Players who log in that day will be treated to PvP combat against the Flying Lab development team, as well as some choice anniversary finery for players to enjoy. If you've been considering checking out all the changes since launch, it sounds like a good time to weigh anchor and set sail for the PotBS site. They've got a 14-day trial for those who wouldn't mind fittin' in a little freebootin' adventure in their day-to-day.
One Shots: We think they have rum detectors
When it comes to holiday celebrations, nothing goes better with eggnog than rum. Of course, when you're playing a game like Pirates of the Burning Sea, breaking out the rum will inevitably bring around every stray pirate for hundreds of nautical miles. One such occasion happened recently on the EU server, Roberts, and was captured by today's One Shots contributor, Matt. We'll let him explain what went on: [Taken at] the recent Christmas event that was held. [Here's] a small part of the event description: "Nicholas Noël is known across the Burning Sea for his annual Junkanoo feast, however this year his rum shipments have drawn the attentions of De Zeetrekkers pirates, and he needs assistance!" Hope you like it. I thought it was great to see so many of the fantastic character designs in one spot.If you manage to catch a screenshot of a holiday event going on in your MMO of choice, why not mail it in to us! All you have to do is email them to us at oneshots [at] massively [dot] com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. We'll post it out here and give you the credit for sending it in. %Gallery-9798%
Flying Lab offers 6 months of Pirates of the Burning Sea to military personnel
Flying Lab Software announced this week that they're offering six months of free Pirates of the Burning Sea gameplay to military personnel and exclusive in-game items. In addition, the promotion waives the standard $19.99 purchase cost of the game. Sign-ups for the promotion require a military email address to qualify and will last through November 30, 2009. The promotion is open to all branches of the military. Current Pirates of the Burning Sea subscribers who are in active service are also eligible to get six months of free play time. Flying Lab Software CEO Russell Williams issued a statement about the Care Package, which was originally proposed by community members on the game's forums. Williams wrote: "One of our players posted about serving in Afghanistan, and it got us thinking about the challenges of trying to play an MMO in an unpredictable situation like active service. We feel a special gratitude towards the members of the armed forces who take the time to get involved and play our game, in the face of the very difficult job they have to do to keep us all safe." [Via Gamers Daily News]
Pirates of the Burning Sea announces "Power and Prestige" expansion, adds more staff
The guys from Flying Lab Software are busier than ever, as they have announced that they will be creating their very first expansion to Pirates of the Burning Sea and hiring to boot!Power and Prestige, the first expansion for PotBS, will focus on expanding the game's conquest system, allowing players to take on the role of Port Governor. Governors control how the port is built up, and can work towards building a bustling trade port or perhaps one that is more militaristic. Past that, the details list is being kept hush hush until the early part of 2010. Power and Prestige will be a downloaded expansion, freely offered to all players of the game.In the mean time, pirate enthusiasts have two things to look forward to. The first is that Flying Lab is hiring, and anyone interested in a job in the game industry should head on over to their careers page to see what they're looking for. The other is International Talk Like A Pirate Day, coming up on September 19th! Pull out your grog, your pirate hat, and set sail for a day of yarrrr!
Pirates of the Burning Sea to introduce 'Roleplay Rooms' in upcoming patch
Pirates of the Burning Sea is a bit of a departure from some of the other MMO titles on the market since its setting is rooted in history rather than built upon pure fantasy. Given this backdrop, it stands to reason that some players would enjoy logging in for some anachronistic 1700's-era roleplaying in Pirates of the Burning Sea as privateers and pirates. Flying Lab Software has decided to give PotBS's roleplayers a dedicated venue for their player-run events, "Roleplay Rooms", which is the subject of a devlog written by Xenobia. The devlog is all about the repurposing of old interiors; some altered color and texture here, a motif changed there, and you've got spaces ready to be used solely for RP events. It seems simple, but these changes proved to be tricky in some cases given the objects incorporated into such rooms, and Xenobia describes how the interior revamps were done, illustrated with before and after shots. Check out Xenobia's "Roleplay Rooms" devlog for more info about this feature that's coming to national capitals in patch 1.16.
Pirates of the Burning Sea introduces skirmish system and treasure hunts
By the time this post goes live, Pirates of the Burning Sea should be updated to build 1.15: "Black Bart's Gold", across the North American, European, and Australian servers. Black Bart's Gold (which introduces treasure hunting to the game) is a continuation of the Black Flags and Dread Saints story arc, which will also bring both new and altered game mechanics to PotBS. We've mentioned a few of the changes that are coming to Pirates of the Burning Sea, namely skirmish warfare and a sweeping change to loot drops. These are only a few highlights of what Black Bart's Gold will introduce to the game. The full patch notes give a much more complete picture of what build 1.15 brings, including two new ships -- the Poseidon (level 50) and the Alymer (level 1). Pirates of the Burning Sea community manager Rhaegar gives a timetable for the expected server downtime: "We will be upgrading our North American, European & Australian SOE live servers to build 1.15: Black Bart's Gold during the usual maintenance window (1:30am - 5:00am Pacific / 9:30am - 1:00 pm British Summer Time) on Wednesday, May 27th."Update: Rhaegar writes -- "We have unfortunately had to delay the patch until tomorrow. It will happen during the normal outage window of 1.30am-5.00am Pacific (9.30am-1.00pm BST). We apologize for any inconvenience caused."%Gallery-12977%
Pirates of the Burning Sea takes bold step to curb mission farming
The latest devlog for Pirates of the Burning Sea is written by Lum and focuses on improving the game's mission system, particularly fixing the problem of mission farming. Lum writes, "When we create big mission arcs, we design them to be a fun, engaging, and most importantly, a linear experience. We want players to get a sense of story and to do something interesting. We also want to reward players who accomplish the goals for those missions." He says that mission farming and the in-game monetary rewards aren't necessarily the problem, although it's not what the devs had in mind for players. Lum says that since people stop to repeat the most lucrative parts of a given mission arc, they're not experiencing the game as it was intended for the players. Even worse, some players make faction choices on the basis of how lucrative a certain mission with that faction is. Flying Lab Software wants to change missions in Pirates of the Burning Sea so that players are continually progressing through stories rather than motivated to remain in place to reap the gold harvest.%Gallery-12977%
Pirates to get more RvR love from Flying Lab Software
Pirates are always the underdogs in MMOs, aren't they? That seems to be the case in Pirates of the Burning Sea, where the Pirate nation has been at a disadvantage with the game's Conquest system. While their ports can't be controlled (permanently) by another nation, they're likewise unable to keep the ports they conquer. The latest devlog from Flying Lab's Lum is titled Pirates and Conquest and addresses this disparity between the Pirate nation and all other nations in the game. One solution they plan to implement is increasing the four points that Pirates gain by capturing a port to five. Lum explains, "Currently, Pirates get four points every time they Raid a port, while Nationals get 10. This means that for a Pirate to keep pace with Nationals, they have to win three port battles in order to get the same amount of points. Since every nation can only attack three ports at a time, this means that Pirates would always have to have their maximum amount of attacking ports at all times, and then they have to win all of those battles." Ouch. However, by increasing their capture points to five, Pirates will only have to win two battles and won't need to maintain constant port attacks to stay on par with other nations.
Skirmish warfare coming to Pirates of the Burning Sea
The Flying Lab Software developers working on Pirates of the Burning Sea have done a lot of writing about the avatar combat changes of late, but it's clear that they're still aiming to improve ship-based PvP on the high seas. Pirates of the Burning Sea is going to get a major new feature as of patch 1.4: skirmish warfare, which is essentially a PvP environment where players can experiment risk free with various setups and tactics. The latest developer log on PotBS is "Enter the Skirmish", which breaks down what this new feature is and what it will offer players: "PvP action is the hottest part of our game, but the difficulty of 'swimming with the sharks' in the open sea has made for a significant barrier to entry. Skirmish gives players the change to learn how to PvP without facing all the dangers involved with conquest. Societies and veterans can use the skirmish system to teach newer players the ropes in a risk-free environment, which means more people who'll be prepared for port conquest and open sea PvP." For more on this upcoming feature, you'll want to read the "Enter the Skirmish" developer log on the Pirates of the Burning Sea website.
Brawling changes hit Pirates of the Burning Sea
Pirates of the Burning Sea is a title that's been undergoing some major overhauls in terms of game mechanics. Flying Lab Software has been revamping the game's combat systems, both those of ship-based combat and avatar combat. We've mentioned a few of those changes in the past, such as the introduction of new NPC archetypes but the latest issue they've been tackling is how brawling works in PotBS.A developer log this week, from Isildur, explains the situation with skill lines (as well as optional skill lines) and what was involved with balancing them. The challenge was in creating a system where a given skill line wouldn't be mandatory, giving players choices in how they approach combat, yet keeping each skill line powerful enough that it can remain effective against other combat styles.
LOGIN 2009 online gaming conference speakers announced
Over the past few years, the online gaming conferences put together by Evergreen Events have been rather significant ones in the industry. Evergreen Events are the people who organized the ION Game Conference which we covered extensively last year, and the Online Game Development Conference in 2007. As we announced previously, ION has been renamed as LOGIN for 2009 and they're already announcing some of the conference's speakers. Among the many speakers slated for LOGIN this May are David Ryan Hunt, Senior Game Designer at Flying Lab Software, and Craig Alexander, Turbine's VP of Product Development. Alexander's session will be "Building Online Games for the Console Generation: Challenges and Opportunities" which could certainly prove to be interesting. We'll keep an eye on how the conference is shaping up as we get closer to the four-day event kicking off on May 11th.
Casual MMOs are next frontier for Pirates of Burning Sea dev
Pirates of the Burning Sea developer Flying Lab has hoisted the sails on a casual games division. GameDaily reports that Flying Lab Casual is working on making leisure MMO games, with the first project being a "family friendly" title in partnership with Upper Deck trading card company. An official announcement of the title should be made in the next couple weeks.Though Burning Sea has suffered a lack of subscribers post launch, at least it hasn't walked the plank, unlike some other MMOs released around the same time. Perhaps the company will have better success in the burgeoning North American casual MMO market.
Got PotBS questions? Ask Rusty!
Flying Lab Software's CEO Russell "Rusty" Williams has been fairly vocal about his company's game Pirates of the Burning Sea in the past, doing the rounds with media outlets and spreading the word. His latest project has just been announced on the PotBS official site, and will allow him to maintain his parlance with the game's community; a new podcast series called "Ask Rusty" will be featured on the site on a regular basis, and players will have the chance to do as the name would suggest and Ask Rusty questions about PotBS.For the first podcast, questions were taken from the old "Ask an FLS developer" forum, but in the future, the questions will come from submissions to community AT flyinglab DOT com (make sure to use "Ask Rusty!" as the subject line). Russell is joined by lead designer Kevin Maginn and producer Michelle Williams in this first installment. There is a direct link to the podcast for those looking to download it or listen in their browser, and there is also an RSS feed that can be subscribed to if you like what you hear.
Pirates of the Burning Sea celebrates its first birthday with style
It's been a whole year since Pirates of the Burning Sea left its dry dock and sailed out into the vast and sometimes-choppy waters of the ocean of MMOs. While it hasn't been a relatively safe year for adventurous new titles, Flying Lab Software's still got a lot to be happy with: Their game is solid, they're part of the SOE family and now they've got one year tucked under their belt.To celebrate the occasion, the team is gave all players a new and very stylish anniversary coat to wear. Plus there was an anniversary event yesterday that kicked off a new story arc for players to enjoy. All in all, while the game saw a slow start, Flying Lab has added a good deal of free content and new features that definitely make Pirates of the Burning Sea a title worth looking into for any lapsed or newly interested players. We're looking forward to seeing how the game progresses over the coming year, and wish the development team the best of luck.
A nearly complete list of MMO companies on Twitter
Not surprisingly, when a complete list of videogame companies and developers on Twitter is compiled, MMO devs and companies take up a large chunk of the list. We would expect nothing less from such online socially-orientated companies.The list -- created by Sam "QforQ" Houston, community manager GamerDNA -- is a great resource for anyone looking to keep up to date with companies like SOE, BioWare, NCsoft, 38 Studios, ArenaNet, Blizzard, Carbine Studios, FunCom, CCP Games, Flying Lab Software, Mythic Entertainment and many more. It's an impressive list, although being Massively meant we had to double-check it for missing links. As such, we found that there was no Cryptic Studios love in there. So, for the sake of completion, we've gone ahead and provided the link for any fans of Champions Online or Star Trek Online.
Pirates of the Burning Sea offers free trials
The MMO scene is absolutely dominated by fantasy titles. You may have noticed. Obviously this sits well with most MMO gamers who can't seem to get enough of the genre. But if you've ever wanted to try your hand at something different, something other than sci-fi, there's probably never been a better time to look at Pirates of the Burning Sea. In the past, to even try the game, you had to purchase it and hope it lived up to your expectations. Well, no longer. Flying Lab has announced that they're offering a public launch of 14-day trial keys. The prolonged absence of a trial was a barrier for some to checking out the game. There are a few conditions though: Only new Pirates of the Burning Sea accounts are eligible for the 14-day trial, existing accounts and Station Access accounts are excluded from the trial offer. If this caught your attention, be sure to check out the full details on their announcement page.
