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The peril and promise of interdependent MMO systems
The closure of many Pirates of the Burning Sea servers last week is regrettable, but not terribly surprising. In the Next Generation article exploring that event, CEO Russell Williams explains that the interdependence of their ambitious MMO's systems made them difficult to test. Veteran MMO developer Raph Koster picks up that thread and carries it forward in a blog post to his personal site. Using his experience on past titles (especially Star Wars Galaxies) Koster describes the enormous complexity of getting different systems in MMOs to work. The challenge is that while interdependent elements are complicated to test, they're also some of the most important pieces of any online game. Interwoven systems encourage player community and allow for overlapping groups to form. Independent (or 'silo'd') systems are also easy to cut, something he notes from the days of SWG's development. "This, for the SWG followers, is why stuff like vehicles, cities, and mounts, were more easily pushed off than dancing. Design interdependence. Vehicles improved the game, but they weren't required for it to function."It's a really interesting look behind the scenes at Star Wars Galaxies, and a peak behind the curtain of a current MMO's troubles. Something to think about as new Massive titles hit the marketplace this year.
Industry jobs: SOE and Flying Lab Software LFM
Looking to get a job in the MMO industry? Two developers have posted to their community sites in the last few days to say that they are looking for more to join their ranks, and perhaps one of these jobs has your name on it. Flying Lab Software, of Pirates of the Burning Sea fame, have advertised two positions for a Game Programmer and a Senior Graphics Programmer to work at their offices in Seattle. If this is up your alley, visit the jobs section of their website and go from there.On the other hand, if you want something a little more entry-level, Sony Online Entertainment are in need of some playtesters for EverQuest and/or EverQuest II. The job description asks that you have achieved a high level in the aforementioned games, among other things. It's well known that being a playtester is an excellent foot-in-the-door to get to where you really dream of being in a game developing company, so go chase that dream!
Flying Lab explains the 7-server shutdown
Flying Lab CEO Russell Williams has explained the reasoning behind the recent shutdown of 7 of the 11 servers that host Pirates of the Burning Sea. In an e-mail to news publication Next-Gen, Williams gives a number of factors that went into the decision to close down over half of their servers and consolidate the in-game population.Among the numerous reasons are the fact that they made some faulty assumptions concerning player balance and play style, based on the way their beta testers stressed the game more people showed up for the beta than stuck around after the official launch. Williams goes on to say " ... we have systems that require a minimum number of players to function correctly, such as our economy, and they break other systems if they're not working correctly (such as PvP). If we didn't have these kinds of interdependent systems, we wouldn't even be considering server merges."For the full list of reasons for the shutdown, read the entire article. What do you think, Learned Audience? Was this the right decision to make, based on the evidence?
Group conquest missions in Pirates of the Burning Sea
Pirates of the Burning Sea is built around taking and defending ports from pirates and hostile nations. Until now, building the unrest was a fairly deadly and expensive occupation -- since in PotBS, win or lose, you expend a lot of valuable resources in cannon shot, hull patches and sail repair kits for a victory, and much more than that if defeated. Flying Lab developer GavinIrby explains the new group conquest missions coming in patch 1.3. These are repeatable missions meant for three or more players where they can either aid in an attack against an NPC enemy fort, or defend a fort from NPC enemies.Attack missions will feature gunboats sent out from the fort to take on the players. Gunboats are small ships with a single, fixed cannon mounted on their bow. They are easy to sink, but will stalk the players without ever giving them an easy broadside. The defense missions add in cannons aimed at the beach; a player there can help the NPC defenders by firing the cannon to reduce the number of enemy swarming toward them. More options to help your nation take or defend ports is a good thing, and should go a fair amount toward making the PvP rewarding.
PotBS drops seven servers, four remain
Pirates of the Burning Sea has announced that they're shutting down seven of their servers and opening transfers for characters on the closing servers as of Tuesday, April 15th. Out of the 11 total servers PotBS was running with, it's now down to just four. The upshot of this news is that servers will be far more dense with players -- which is the main reason Flying Lab gives concerning the shutdowns. Another reason given us is that recent updates have allowed for more characters per server.
Q&A talks future for Pirates of the Burning Sea
In a very interesting Q&A session, the Pirates of the Burning Sea development team dropped some compelling details about upcoming game additions, improvements and balancing. The biggest improvements so far have been to the user interface, but the PvP system is starting to get some love as well. The design team says it was their goal to make PvP easily available for those who wanted to participate, but avoidable for those who didn't care to join in. Refreshingly, they admit that the current game doesn't allow for this and they're bringing the first changes in the 1.2 patch that's out right now.
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Isildur speaks out on the state of PVP and the PotBS economy
Pirates of the Burning Sea patch 1.3 has been making more than a few waves since its inception. In a recent post to the PotBS community, Flying Lab designer Isildur discusses his views on the state of the economy. The basis is that Isildur, who mentions the economy as his baby, is not performing to specifications it was originally designed for. Players are making more than enough doubloons as traders, but PvPers are increasingly left behind. As he states, "PvP is not sustainable without doing other non-PvP activities." The economy has fallen into the hands of the care-bear. That's not a bad thing, of course, since money is being made and doubloons are being generated. The problem lies in those warehouses so many folks in PotBS like to store things in. There are a lot of doubloons being generated into the hands of a few people and those coins aren't going anywhere. This leads to inflation which means PvPers, who don't necessarily make too much from PvP, are forced to partake in economic activities in order to stay afloat.
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Collecting your booty just got easier
Turning in badges for deeds of gallantry on the high seas was a confusing ordeal for some players in Pirates of the Burning Sea. The assortment of badges required players travel to the turn in area, accept a quest, and then complete the quest in order to receive their reward. The confusion and chaos that ensued from figuring out what to turn in, where, and what reward you could receive was causing more than a few people to catch a case cabin fever. Luckily, the latest PotBS patch had some new content to sink the frustration once and for all. Flying Lab decided to change some things and make what was deemed a "shopping experience that was certainly less than ideal" slightly easier on the community to understand. Technical content designer Anna Murchison explains to aspiring buccaneers that the new exchange shop reflects a blend of the auction house and shop interfaces players are used to interacting with. When players enter an exchange shop and speak with one of the shop attendants, a new list will appear on the interface. Displayed on the left hand side of the list is what you need to receive an item. On the right hand side of the list is what you receive for the exchange. Pull down lists, filters, and the removal of the mission turn in system should make life easier for experienced naval commanders and fledgling fish mongers alike.
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Land ho! Patch 1.3 is on the horizon
Ahoy land lovers and filthy bilge rats! Flying Lab recently announced that PotBS patch 1.3 will be hitting the test server on April 8th. The patch contains many changes to numerous aspects of the game, from the UI to the long awaited completion of Pointe-a-Pitre, the French colonial capital: Marks of victory will reap more rewards through an exchange shop Dueling allows players in port to immediately enter a private combat zone to defend their honor Contention of ports and the ensuing battles now require more group effort The UI has been improved Pointe-a-Pitre will be introduced The changes focusing on port contention are part of a larger effort extending through patch 1.4. Players on the conquerable Caribbean map now have the option to partake in group oriented missions in contestable ports. The design team also states that NPC vessel spawns on the open seas have been revamped. The most prominent feature of the PvP portion of the patch is the new exchange shop. PvP players should now be able to focus on combat and be able to replace their losses within the shop using Marks of Victory (like a badge of honor for you WoW folks). With the new character copy system for the test server, we should hear plenty of feedback once the patch is applied there. The updates don't end there. More broadsides are delivered with news of the upcoming 1.4 patch which producer Joe Ludwig seems quite happy about. "1.4 will include some big updates for pirates, a revamp of the contention system which I think will make a LOT of you very happy, and as always, more UI love from the UI Strike Team." Hoist the anchor, raise the sails, and be prepared for more exciting updates as 1.3 goes live and 1.4 continues to develop.
Character copy function introduced to PotBS' test server
The folks at Flying Lab Software have realized that they're probably not getting all the feedback that they could from their Pirates of the Burning Sea Testbed server, simply due to the fact that people have to level up a new character there. Testing out high level content from unreleased builds is left only to the most hardcore testers with this setup, so to remedy this, a "Character Copy" function has been implemented, allowing players to copy their live characters across to the Testbed. We are told that the tool will only be available for a limited time, so if you're likely to want a character copied to Test at any point, now's the time to act.To copy a character across, players need to log in to the official PotBS site, and then visit the character copy page. Auction listings, in-game mail sent while logged out, landmark unrest and society associations will not be copied over. As well as this, at the time of posting an issue has been identified that is causing live characters to have their auctions delisted when they are copied. A fix should be coming soon, and the items are able to be relisted again in the meantime.
Yarrr! There be treasure hidden in them thar data servers!
Have a need to embed Pirates of the Burning Sea information in your website, blog, or toolbar? Then you'll want to read Flying Lab's PotBS developer Brendan Weitzman's latest developer journal. There he talks about the special Crawler server. You can't play on this server -- Crawler's job is to go through all the data on the live servers, figure out what has changed, and copy the changes to itself so that the developers -- and the wider world -- can use this information. What sorts of information Crawler can give you, how much of it you can use and how often -- all these are answered within.Will this info change your life? Well, probably not. But isn't it a nice feeling to know if you did need this information, it would be there for you? See if your server is up without logging in -- or set up email alerts when your port gets thrown into contention. You can make those sorts of apps with this data. And maybe in the future, as they prepare ever more of their data for players to use, you could build something like WoW's Armory. We're just beginning to realize how games will be played in the future. They will be everywhere -- in your browser, on your cell phone, on your iPod.... This is how it starts, with a developer explaining how players can get at their data when they are not in the game.
Extended PotBS downtime yields player compensation
A recent period of extended downtime in Pirates of the Burning Sea, caused by an issue with the latest patch, has left a mob of very angry pirates to placate. Thankfully, most pirates will forget why they were angry if you can toss them a handful of doubloons, and so Flying Lab Software has dug up a few treasure chests in order to give compensation for the lost play time.Players will be receiving 6 Bonus Loot Books, which give a 20% chance to get double loot from enemies for two real-time hours, and 6 Bonus Experience Books, granting a 20% experience boost for two hours. These goodies will be put straight into player's inventories when they log in, after a small patch this Wednesday.
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Recruiting pirates throughout the seven seas
Flying Lab Software recently announced their course of action for making new markets ready for the release PotBS. In Australia, free bandwidth allotments to encourage play. In Russia, a pirate ship in a game show and a commercial in the works. In Asia, negotiations are going well for a possible release later in the year.Personally, I would like to see a real ship with PotBS themed sails floating into port complete with free handouts of chocolate gold coins, but a cameo appearance on a game show in Russia certainly will suffice. Despite the efforts being made to bring the ship-of-the-line to players around the world, players are assured that focus remains on continuing to improve the current market, North America and Europe, with updates and patches. 'We're doing pencils down for 1.3,' writes Flying Lab representative Rusty, 'then there's onto 1.4...which will have a lot of new content and improvements.' Yarr!
Buddy Key system now available for PotBS
The Pirates of the Burning Sea Buddy Key program we looked at the other day is now in place, and the official site has got the details on how to give your friends their free 14-day trial. Anyone with a paid SOE subscription for PotBS will be able to claim three keys to give away, with no expiration. You don't need to go and claim them now either, as they will be available indefinitely.To get your keys, you'll need to log in to the official site, and then visit the Buddy Keys page to retrieve the codes. After that, you can give the keys to friends, and then point them to the game client installer page where they can download their copy of the game. To help with any questions that might come up during this process, a thread has been made on the forums to discuss the program.
PotBS to introduce Buddy Key program
Enjoying Pirates of the Burning Sea, but can't convince your stingy friends to give it a try? Come Monday, a new Buddy Key program will launch that provides active account holders with three 14-day trials of the game to give to friends, so there'll be no excuses for them shunning your Caribbean exploits anymore.There won't be an expiry date on these keys, so if you don't have three people that you want to hook at the moment, hang on to them for later. Instructions on claiming the keys will be provided on Monday, and we'll bring you the news when it breaks.
Pirates of the Burning Sea gets its first major content patch
Flying Lab Software has issued a press release to say that Pirates of the Burning Sea will be receiving its first major content patch today, Tuesday the 18th of March. This will bring the game to build 1.2.67, and the press release includes a few of the highlights that are in the update. These include a new and challenging group mission called "Bey's Retreat", changes that makes it harder for nations to win the world PvP map back-to-back, and some UI improvements (the chat bubbles we featured earlier will be making it in).The press release also details some new community features available at the PotBS forums, and a link to a ginormous list of patch notes is provided. This list gives a few more notable changes: the introduction of a "/spam" command to report troublesome gold spammers, and the previously dicussed changes to Open Sea Battle placement. The whole press release is available after the jump.
Chat with the PotBS devs
So you've spent some time destroying ships and blockading ports. You've dutifully upgraded your ship, crafted and stockpiled your ammo and taken out the competition in your quest to go from bilge rat to buccaneer. What to do now? That's easy! For those of you who love nothing more than spending time in Pirates of the Burning Sea, Warcry has set up a chat this Thursday (March 20th) with several folks from Flying Lab. Have some burning questions about the Burning Sea? Here's your chance, mateys. Yarr!
Captain skills tuning for all classes in PotBS build 1.2
A recent devlog at the Pirates of the Burning Sea site talks about the changes that are coming to captain skills (your at-sea arsenal) with build 1.2. It looks like every single class will have changes of some sort coming. These will be in the form of global changes to certain types of skills, and changes specific to each class in the game. The global changes include: stopping speed buffs from stacking, reducing the morale cost of skills that cancel upon taking damage, and the addition of crew recovery rate increases and decreases to some existing skills.The remaining changes coming to skills in build 1.2 are too numerous to list here, but we'll go over some of the highlights.
PotBS officially launches in Australia and New Zealand -- free cockatoo!
Although it's been possible to purchase Pirates of the Burning Sea online since its release, the official launch for Australia and New Zealand means that the dedicated Oceanic server is up, and Bigpond's free game offer is in effect. There is also still time to apply for an Ambassador position to help new player's on the Oceanic server, and score a year's free playtime in return.But there is one other very important thing to note about this launch -- any character made on the Australia/NZ server within its first month of opening will get a cockatoo to show off on their shoulder. This is certainly pretty neat, but don't expect to be the coolest cat in the Caribbean, because everyone on the server will have one of these squawkers.
New PotBS devlog reveals chat bubbles
A new official developer log over on the Pirates of the Burning Sea website gives a nice look into the new UI improvements coming down the pipeline with the 1.2 patch. We're happy to see the team take serious steps towards improving their user interface, especially with the addition of (optional) chat bubbles -- a highly requested item among the community. The other visual improvement on the agenda happens to be chat related as well -- the chat window.Sporting a new, sleeker appearance, the chat window also takes strides to reduce game-generated spam from players' main chat window. Aside from this change, there's floating names, improved tabs, spam reporting options and social window improvements. With all these changes, it's safe to say Flying Lab Software is serious about improve upon their game's weak points.[via MMORPGDOT]
