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PotBS updated to build 1.1.69.0
We're all getting excited about the features planned for Pirates of the Burning Sea's build 1.2, but lower your sails for just a moment, because build 1.1.69.0 has now gone live. This patch contains some of the fixes that FLS wanted to get in before 1.2 is released, due to their nature.Some of the bigger changes were to do with port contention. Now, when a port is in Pirate PvP or higher, you will no longer be able to do unrest turn-ins. Also, PvP kills were generating too much unrest, and this has been lowered to the intended amount. There are also some new missions that teach each race how to use their Claim Prize/Capture Ship/Scavenge skills. Full notes for 1.1.69.0 can be found after the break.
PotBS devlog looks at Open Sea Battle placement in 1.2
The way things currently are when engaging in an open sea battle in Pirates of the Burning Sea, players can often be dumped miles away from each other inside the private battle instance, even if they were very close when going in. This is one of the problems that is going to be fixed in build 1.2, and a devlog on the official site has gone over the planned changes.Little fixes to the system never seemed to solve the problem satisfactorily, so an entire overhaul was necessary. The old system placed people relative to one point in the center, but in 1.2, a closer version of the positioning on the open sea will be seen inside the instance, due to new spawn point tracking. Additionally, the angle of attack will now only be measured upon the initial strike, and not for each new person entering, so that it won't be possible to have a circle of ships spawn on one unlucky victim. The system that decides how far back you will be placed when you join a battle late has been tweaked, to stop people being dumped in a random spot when the intended area would have been invalid, and there will also be a few more options you can set for auto-joining a battle. Read more about these new features for build 1.2 via the link below.
PotBS lag fix for Vista computers
So if you've been trying to pillage or blast some pirates out of the water in Pirates of the Burning Sea lately, but find yourself lagging in and out of reasonable levels, fear not as there seems to be salvation. It appears that plenty of players in PotBS have been experiencing similar troubles, which means a solution was inevitable. We're sure there was a small -- but vocal -- group of players sending death threats of some variety to the live team.Thusly, Flying Lab Software has taken notice and offered a fix of sorts. Well all right it's actually a work-around, which means players are going to have to do some tweaking on their own. At least there's a step-by-step guide on how to do everything, but it's definitely not a permanent fix to the problem. Hopefully we'll see a patch come down the line soon that will address the issue.
PotBS announces Australian Ambassador program, offering years free game time
More Pirates of the Burning Sea love has been sent Australia's way, with Flying Lab Software's announcement of the Australian Ambassador Program. Full details of the new program can be found here, however you may need to log in to view the page, so here's an excerpt : "We believe that the best way to introduce new players to a game is by introducing them to people who know it best: the fans. We want a cadre of experienced players to create new characters and get in on the ground floor with their fellow Australians. You won't be required to do anything more than play Pirates of the Burning Sea!"As an incentive for being involved in the program, the appointed "ambassadors" will have their subscriptions paid up for an entire year. Unlike the free account program for Australians, you will need to be specifically chosen after applying to get the years free subscription, and applications will close on the 7th of March. The requirements state that you must be a current subscriber, and reside in Australia (duh). If you meet the criteria, you may as well apply and see if you can score a year of free PotBS.
Devlog for PotBS looks at ship tuning and new ships in build 1.2
The Pirates of the Burning Sea site has published a new devlog to do with the upcoming build 1.2, and this time around we're treated to details on some of the ship tuning that can be expected with the patch. There will be some global changes to make scouts a bit faster than they are, and some ships that have light top-deck batteries will see these guns move up a weight class or two. Most warships will also have their deceleration and turning deceleration multipliers increased, as a fully outfitted warship has been more maneuverable than intended.Apart from the global changes, there are some changes to specific ships as well. You can visit the devlog to see what happens to each of these, but the ships being tuned in some way are: the Arcadia, the Mignone, the Oliphant, the Cerberus, the Mystique Polacre, the Raa, the Myrmidon, the Tigre, the Capricieux, the Corsair, the Hercules, the Deliverance and the Defiant. Phew! Finally, a bunch of brand new ships will be introduced with 1.2, including the first high-level ship that can run against the wind effectively. Check out the full details at the devlog.
PotBS devlog discusses the art of town creation
There's a lot more to building a town in a game than just plotting out the buildings and filling in key NPCs. You can leave it at that (and it's unfortunate when that's the case), but to stop it from feeling like a ghost town, certain steps can be taken to build up the ambiance of a locale. The latest devlog available at the Pirates of the Burning Sea website is penned by the game's technical artist Xenobia, and focuses on the process of breathing life into the many port towns in the Caribbean.Some of the curious little events you might notice in PotBS's towns could probably be attributed to Xenobia. A woman kicking and screaming while being taken away over the shoulder of a pirate, drunks in various stages of consciousness -- things like this are of no consequence and will keep going in the background regardless of whatever else is happening, yet they greatly enhance the feeling that you're in an actual town. Visit the devlog to see what goes on behind the scenes -- including how it all looks in the Maya software -- when bringing a game-town to life.
Port contention turn-ins in PotBS to be scaled down
Until now in Pirates of the Burning Sea, some clever folks have been able to cause a totally peaceful port to instantly become scheduled for a port battle, by saving up their contention turn-ins en masse and across characters, and handing them in all at once. Over at the official PotBS site, Isildur has drawn attention to the issue and said that changes are coming to prevent this from occurring in the future.You couldn't really call this tactic an exploit -- it's more just a smart use of the mechanics available in the game -- but it's obviously not how Flying Lab Software intended for the whole process to go down. The plan was to make the contention process a bit more steady so that the home nation could have a chance to defend and bring the unrest back down again, and possibly save a full-scale port battle from occurring, while also giving the traders a bigger role in defending their business interests. The first steps to prevent the current insta-port-battles should be introduced with build 1.2.
FLS CEO does the rounds at Aussie gaming sites
The CEO of Flying Lab Software, Russell Williams, has been busy promoting the fantastic deal that involves Aussies getting Pirates of the Burning Sea for free, and has stopped in at the Australian branches of both GameSpot and IGN to discuss the finer points of the game.Both online publications have worthwhile articles, but while IGN's is intended (and named) as a PotBS Primer, the GameSpot interview with Williams focuses on the game's launch in Australia. Williams says that there is no retail launch planned at all for the Australian market, and that PotBS will only be available as a digital download through the aforementioned deal. He also says that there will be Australian servers -- although they won't actually be located in Australia. Check out both of the articles from the links below.GameSpot: Flying Lab Software on Pirates of the Burning Sea down underIGN: A Pirates of the Burning Sea Primer
PotBS devlog discusses the gold-spammer issue
"Do you annoy not afford new ship?" Anyone that has played Pirates of the Burning Sea since launch will have received countless private messages similar to the above, soliciting the sale of in-game currency. The latest devlog from the official PotBS site talks about how they are working to combat the spamming -- well, they tell us what they can, because if we can read it, so can the spammers.Some extremely good news is that a new command is on the way that will make reporting spammers a breeze. Currently players have to leave the game or alt-tab out to condemn these nuisances, but those days will soon be over. The process for Flying Lab Software to actually receive and act on these reports is being streamlined as well. Behind the scenes, they say that they are looking at better ways to catch the spammers before they even get to spam, but as per the above reason, don't expect these methods to be made public. FLS has attemped to deal with this problem from the very start, and it looks like the beginning of round two is on the horizon.
One Shots: All aboard!
Yarr, mateys! Today we be bringin' yeh landlubbers another choice screen from the Flying Lab game, Pirates of the Burning Sea! These screens are "taken from the adventures of my Freetrader Jerold Quinn. (British, Morgan Server)" We can't tell if that's another player he's getting ready to board, if it's an NPC, or if he's just hanging out and keeping the waterways free of pirates, so we'll leave it up to your imagination! Do you have a cool screenshot of some of your adventures? Wanting to show the world how awesome your gear, build, raid, or just landscape is? If it's going on in your game, we'd love to see it. Just send your screens and stories to us here at oneshots@massively.com. Your screenshot and story may wind up being featured next! %Gallery-9798%
New details on the future of user content in PotBS emerge
Many people have wanted to get involved and enjoy Pirates of the Burning Sea's user-submitted content system, but as things currently work, the turnaround time between submitting a flag or sail design and actually being able to purchase it in game has left something to be desired. Thankfully, Flying Lab Software realized that this situation needs fixing, and have announced that User Content 2.0 is on the way.This re-haul of the user content submission process changes the way that player's designs are voted on and approved. Other players will be shown two different designs at a time, and will have to choose which one they think is better/more appropriate to the time. After a design receives a certain amount of winning votes, it goes off to be approved by FLS. To be able to submit more designs, players need to spend some time in the voting process, so there's incentive to do the sorting work. Some other changes to how you can show off your work in the forums are also detailed in the User Content 2.0 announcement.We haven't been told when exactly the new system will be in place, but for now the old process is still in use. Don't forget that if you're that little bit more adventurous, you can submit a 3D ship model as well, and if this intrigues you then check out the Shipwright Discussion forum -- you'll be in good company.
PotBS updated to build 1.1.54.0
Pirates of the Burning Sea has now been upgraded to build 1.1.54.0. The result is a patch that is a little bigger than the last few, but lots of changes have gone live. One update that I'm sure anyone who has been involved with the economy and spends plenty of time at the Auction House will love -- the auctioneer has been silenced! No more, "How many do you want? How many do you want?" when you aren't even buying anything.A more important fix is that Unrest supply bundles now work properly and can be handed in to raise unrest on an enemy port. Also, if you've done one of those bounty quests that require the killing of 1 or 2 rare pirate spawns, you'll know how annoying it was to actually find one sometimes -- the chance to find them in a group of NPCs has now been doubled. Looking at the Ships section of the notes, it appears that small/medium ships have had their defense reduced slightly, and large/huge/colossal ships have had a bit of damage reduction added. Perhaps that will help bigger ships bite back a little better in situations like these?Plenty more has gone into build 1.1.54.0 and the full patch notes are available after the break.
Pirates of the Burning Sea free in Australia
Here in the US playing the newly-launched age of sail title Pirates of the Burning Sea will set you back $49.99, plus the $14.95 monthly fee. If you're living in the land downunder, though, you'll be able to hit the seas for nothing more than a smile. Flying Lab is making the game available as a free download to every Australian gamer that wants it, via one of the largest local ISPs (BigPond). You'll still have to pay the monthly fee, of course, but the download comes with a seven day trial to start you off. Interested fans can pre-register now for a copy of the game, which launches in Australia on February 27th. If you act now you'll not only get downloading rights, but will secure one of 100,000 DVD copies of the game for yourself. It's a mighty generous offer, and one I hope we see repeated state-side soon.[Via Kotaku]%Gallery-12977%
Pirates of the Burning Sea's Kevin Maginn answers questions at GameSpot
GameSpot UK recently had an interview with Pirates of the Burning Sea lead designer Kevin Maginn, in which they fired off a series of questions that looked to flesh out the game's concept for anyone not yet familiar with it. As well as name-dropping the guys from Talk Like a Pirate Day, some of Maginn's answers reveal a lot of the reasoning behind some of the important design choices that make the game what it is today.One of these is the mainly solo-oriented mission structure in PotBS. In this case, it comes down to what Maginn himself preferred to have in an MMO -- he said that he enjoys group content, but wanted to have the ability to log on and achieve things on his own without needing to sink time into group setup. This brought about the system we see in PotBS now, with most missions aimed at a single player, but there are a few group missions that are much more elaborate than a regular quest and are repeatable, to satiate group cravings on a permanent basis.Maginn also says that, apart from updates on a roughly monthly basis, a major content update should hit every few months. One aspect of the game not mentioned in the interview is the interesting economy and crafting system, surely one of the game's big selling points. Check out the rest of the interview at GameSpot.
One Shots: Sailing off into the sunset
Today's gorgeous screenshot comes from Daggith Defoy of La Fédération on the Guadeloupe Server in Pirates of the Burning Sea. For those of you who haven't gotten to check this title out, the PvP in PotBS is done via ship battles, which makes for a gorgeous backdrop at the same time. Here's what he had to say:There have been a few screenshots of sunsets and water effects posted lately, so I thought I'd show you what it looks like in Pirates of the Burning Sea.We definitely love the seascapes there, ourselves. And hey, it's a game with pirates in it. You can't really beat that, either. If you'd like to show off some of the gorgeous water effects, sunsets, or PvP in your favorite game, drop us a screenshot and your story to oneshots@massively.com! You never know -- yours could be featured next for the rest of us to ooh and aah over.%Gallery-9798%
Speeding away from combat in PotBS: balanced?
Keen from Keen and Graev's Gaming Blog recently wrote about his experiences in Pirates of the Burning Sea with PvPing against small, quick ships. He said that most of the time, the quick ships with the right fittings can simply get away from his larger vessel, but what inspired him to actually write about it is that he believes some players may be using this ability to grief a slower ship. They would achieve this by getting into combat, bringing both players to an instance, and then simply looping around and tapping the other player every 2 minutes with a quick shot to keep them in combat and stuck inside. Others would just engage and then run away, with no apparent purpose other than wasting time, or possibly stopping him from attacking another target.Personally, I am not at the stage where I'm doing much PvP yet (although one of my ships, the MC Cutter, is mentioned in Keen's article as a prime offender for this tactic), so I haven't the experience to comment on whether this really is widespread behavior or not. A ship like mine, meant for mid-levels, becomes insanely fast if a level 40-50 uses it with the skills and fittings available by then. The question is, should it be possible for a player to initiate combat with another PC and then simply run off inside the instance? Before anything is done, it would be interesting to know if this sort of griefing has happened to other people too.
PotBS lead animator and art director interviewed
Although this interview was done a couple of weeks ago, possibly before Pirates of the Burning Sea launched, all the other news that has come out about the game recently prevented PotBS Vault from posting it sooner. The interview features Lead Animator Tom Tobey and Art Director Bruce Sharp fielding questions about their work on PotBS, and there are a few hints in this article of things that may not have been discovered yet, even now, a few weeks into release.There are things they mention that a lot of players will already have found, but some are probably still a mystery. The most interesting of these is the talk of an island that is not marked on the world map, with no clues given as to what might be waiting there. There are also some features that look to have been left out in the current build of the game, like the ability to change your body type at character creation (which sounds small, but I know people that have said they wished it was there). It does seem as though Tobey and Sharp have plenty of ideas still up their sleeves, and hopefully a lot more of their work will make it into the game in future patches.
PotBS devlog: the road to v1.1, ships and ship combat
A new devlog is up on the Pirates of the Burning Sea official site, explaining in detail a few of the changes and fixes that have gone into the next build of the game. The next major patch will bring the game to version 1.1, and is being deployed to the Testbed server this week and to live servers not too long after. Although there is much more that will come with v1.1, the devlog discusses NPC AI, outfitting, and ship fixes.The most interesting part of the devlog is the discussion of the NPC AI. Previously, enemy ships didn't really change targets that often, and specifically did not react to the person who was dealing the most damage to them like in other MMOs (aggro). This has been fixed in v1.1, ending the viability of a few cheap tactics. Also being fixed with NPC AI is the seemingly random-at-times surrendering of NPCs. It's true that quite often a ship would just surrender out of the blue, but this is being changed so that NPCs will only abandon ship shortly after being attacked, so that there's some logical reasoning behind it. Check out the full devlog for the rest of the discussions on v1.1.
Introducing the Crow's Nest, community news from the PotBS site
A new feature has just been launched at the Pirates of the Burning Sea official website. Called the Crow's Nest, the feature will periodically highlight the goings-on in the PotBS community: "Fans can expect player profiles, Society spotlights, behind the scenes discussion with Pirates of the Burning Sea development team members, interesting forum topics and much, much more."In this first installment, a Community Member of the Month is named, there is a news round-up from various different sources around the web (including a story of our own here at Massively about the Seattle launch party), some links are provided to interesting forum posts (like a new player FAQ and a production cost analysis thread) and a couple useful game resource sites are name-dropped. The two sites mentioned are The Merchants of the Burning Sea, and the PotBS Wiki, both of which are full of handy information. Overall, a good showing from the first Crow's Nest, and we look forward to the next edition.
The Digital Continuum: This year, PvPing is the new raiding
Ever since World of Warcraft hit the scene back in late 2004, it has experienced enormous success that even its creators hadn't foreseen -- with an estimated 2.5 million active player-base in the United States, 5.5 in Asia and around 2 in Europe. I think we can all agree that World of Warcraft's position as king of the hill isn't going to change anytime soon, because change takes time with all things. There is, however, a change that's been coming to a slow boil. For the past three years players have been leveling up in WoW, but when they get to the end most players have only two choices. They can either choose to focus on battlegrounds/arena PvP or they can partake in endgame raiding of various instances.These last few months I've been looking closely at the two hyped-up massively games 2008 has to offer; Age of Conan and Warhammer Online. It has become more and more apparent to me that this year is going to be the year of the PvP endgame focus. A lot of people have played or seen the raid game and found it to be something they had no interest in. Ideally, if a developer can make a PvP endgame experience that's easy to get into and fun for everyone involved they will have something different on their hands that could potentially grab tons of subscribers.
