Pirates of the Burning Sea

Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in!

I really thought you all would choose one of the nations to play in my last poll, but no, you clearly signaled that I should stick with playing a pirate! As a result, I fitted my ship and went out to sea as Arienne Sauvage, Woman of Wealth and Taste. (Although that's up for debate)

Read on for a recap of my week in Pirates of the Burning Sea, including ship combat, the community, and some pirate humor!

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Ahoy, mateys! Welcome to the start of my swashbuckling adventures on the high seas. The votes are in, the polls have closed, and the winner for Choose My Adventure is Pirates of the Burning Sea. It was the runner-up last time, so it's nice to see that it's finally the belle of the ball.

For my introductory column this week, I'll take a closer look at the poll results (which were extremely close!) and then set off on the dangerous seas. Read on for a look at my first moments in game, and then pick my path for next week!

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"Teach an avatar to fish," the saying goes, "and he'll flood the auction house with smelly seafood." These words were never so true nor relevant than they are today, as Flying Lab announced that the ancient art of angling is making its way into Pirates of the Burning Sea with patch 2.6.

Scallywags, landlubbers, and buccaneers will be invited to take up a rod and pull slimy gold out of the sea when this hobby hits the game. Designed as a fun way to pass the time, fishing will add a new challenge to PotBS. It makes sense, too, considering just how much, y'know, water is present in the Caribbean.

Expert anglers will need to know and master the different types of fishing lines and lures while criss-crossing the ocean in pursuit of rare and unique species. Haul up a good catch and the local fishmonger will be happy to exchange your chickens of the sea for practical goods. The studio even hinted at a grand prize -- the region-exclusive trophy fish -- but did not elaborate.

Players are welcome to give this time-treasured sport a try on the test server once 2.5 hits.

Paying for subscriptions with a credit card is definitely fast and easy, but if you're a regular Sony Online Entertainment game subscriber, you might want to consider switching to a game time card this month! As a way of rewarding players for picking up and paying with universal game cards, Sony Online Entertainment is giving players $10 worth of Station Cash (1,000 SC) just for redeeming a $15 universal game card. The nice thing about these cards? They can be redeemed for either a month's subscription to an SOE game or 1,500 Station Cash. However, to get the bonus cash, you'll have to redeem your card between 3:10 a.m. EDT (12:10 a.m. PDT) on March 17th and 2:59 a.m. on March 21st (11:59 p.m. PDT on March 20th).

Along with getting an extra Station Cash reward for using a universal game card during those days, players will be entered into SOE's Luck of the Irish sweepstakes, the details of which should be out sometime this week. We'd also note that SOE's disclaimer indicates that the promotion is only available to gamers in the United States/District of Columbia and excludes Puerto Rico and other outlying territories. Keep your eye on the forums or the SOE Facebook account for all the sweepstakes information and official rules.

Curious about how a subscription-based MMO makes the transition to a free-to-play model? It's not as easy as one might assume, and Pirates of the Burning Sea was no exception. In a recent devlog, PotBS's Misha takes us behind the stage to look at the logistical details and hurdles that had to be taken for this jump between business models.

While the team had been mulling over a microtransaction model from the beginning, it was only after a lot of discussion with SOE that the publisher showed the team a way this could be implemented. Following that, the team had to tackle several tricky issues, such as expired trial accounts, boxes still in the stores and all of the subscription types it had in place.

Next, the team ran the system through quite a bit of testing to iron out the snags. "Those who helped us test F2P in the early days will recall pets on their own little boats in the midst of battle, trying desperately to help out. You could zoom in and see a pig or chicken standing in a commanding position overlooking their hardworking crews. This bug is one of my favorite ever, and I'm still a little sad that we fixed it."

It wasn't just the software that needed to be tested but also the physical setup. At one point, Misha writes, "For whatever reason, we were suffering hardware failure after hardware failure."

While the F2P transition was slated for Thanksgiving 2010, it failed to hit the date. "We hit a major issue on our side and SOE hit a major snag on their side. So, no Thanksgiving F2P. On the one hand, we were really discouraged that we hadn't met our target. On the other hand, we were incredibly glad we had tackled these issues before we went live," she writes. Eventually Pirates of the Burning Sea "soldiered through it all" and made it to the live servers, much to the team's delight.

For a full rundown of this saga and the true tale of commanding pigs, head on over to Pirates of the Burning Sea.

How did you celebrate your third birthday party? We imagine that the Pirates of the Burning Sea developers celebrated it a lot like you might have: with pirates, talking birds and the occasional PvP fight. Of course, you probably didn't choose to participate in an interview with the best MMO website in existence, mainly because it more than likely didn't exist back then.

Our trusty eyepatches in place, we waylaid Russell "Rusty" Williams (Flying Lab's CEO) and Jason "Mr Nutty" Gettel (Lead Designer), who answered some of our "burning" questions. So sit back, put your bib on, blow out your candles, and click past the cut to see what they had to say on this special anniversary!

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Pirates of the Burning Sea just turned three years old, so we decided to take a look back at some of the history, controversy and changes that happened along the way. How do you sum up the history of an MMO, no matter how short? Do you simply make a timeline, establishing landmark events? What about the players -- how do they feel after sailing around the sea for all this time?

Well, we decided to do a little bit of each. What we found was a game that is still rich in its content, still varied in its playerbase, and still moving forward. The game has had its issues like any other, so on this anniversary we decided to showcase how the game has affected people with a series of mini-interviews with the players themselves.

Click past the cut to see what treasures we dug up!

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It's been a couple of months since Flying Lab Software opted to steer its Pirates of the Burning Sea MMO into free-to-play waters. In the interim, the seas have been smooth and things have been pretty quiet in terms of updates. Flying Lab hasn't been resting on its laurels however, and has just released extensive patch notes for the 2.2.83.0 update that ties in with the game's third anniversary.

First up is a new mission and series of minigames (and a new coat reward item) accessible from the Royal Society NPC in your nation's capital. Treasure Aisle, the game's item shop, also features time-limited extras in the form of a black cockatoo and a celebratory monkey (yes really).

In other patch-related news, San Juan has been given an extensive graphical overhaul, a new live event chat channel has been added, and a boat load of stability and performance fixes have been introduced. Read the rundown on these -- and many other -- tweaks, additions, and fixes at the official Pirates of the Burning Sea website.

The time has come for freewheeling free-to-play fun on the seas of adventure. Today marks the official relaunch of Pirates of the Burning Sea after a long period of bug fixing, tons of beta testing, and a series of upgrades to the game. If you're in the mood for some seafarin' scalawag scuffles, you risk nothing beyond a download and some gaming time. Definitely can't beat that pricetag for pirate goodness.

For those who haven't been keeping up on the news from Pirates of the Burning Sea, have no fear! We've gathered up a handful of articles behind the break that offer a look at dev blogs, interviews, and even our own super-secret tests of customer service. Click on the link, mateys, and get ta readin' while Flying Lab finishes patchin' the servers against Davy Jones' evil.

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We haven't heard much out of Flying Lab Software since its announcement of Pirates of the Burning Sea's impending free-to-play conversion. Early this morning, Flying Lab producer Michelle "Misha" Williams posted on the game's official forum, confirming that the transformation will be pushed back.

In an email originally sent in late October, PotBS account holders were informed that the F2P switcheroo would occur "on or around November 22." Williams relates that both SOE and Flying Lab determined that a delay was in everyone's best interest. "While some of us had visions of tons of new players spending their entire Thanksgiving weekend doing their Christmas shopping in Pirates of the Burning Sea's Treasure Aisle, we've had to measure that against the risk of putting out a build with too many bugs on a short week when many folks crucial to responding to potential problems aren't available to do so," she writes.

Williams goes on to outline a few of the reasons for the delay, including the account-level gymnastics that SOE will be performing apart from Flying Lab's game code. Check out the full report on the o-boards.

Unless you have a boulder for a roof, you know that the folks behind Pirates of the Burning Sea recently announced that the game is going down the free-to-play route. While that's very exciting, especially considering what free-to-play has done for games like Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online and EverQuest II, there were still some questions we wanted answered.

We reached out to Declan O'Connell, the head of the Design Department at Flying Lab, for answers to some quick queries.

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Yarr! Hmm, not really. YARRRRRRR! That's a little better. Ahoy, mateys. Talk Like a Pirate Day may be over, but that isn't stopping me from navigating the rough waters of Flying Lab Software's Pirates of the Burning Sea for this week's issue of Community Detective. The game's a fair bit of fun, and since it recently joined the F2P bandwagon that all the cool kids are jumping on these days, it's likely to become more popular in the near future.

As such, much like I did with Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online, I wanted to get a look at the game's community and customer service apparatus both before and after the payment model switcheroo. So how are the social aspects of the SOE-published title shaping up? Well, the customer service is pretty spot on. The community? Well, I'll be kind (for now) and simply say that it leaves a little something to be desired.

Sail past the cut to learn more.

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Flying Lab Software, makers of the Pirates of the Burning Sea historical naval MMORPG, recently decided it was time for the subscription-based business model to walk the plank. While Flying Lab CEO Russell Williams penned an introductory devlog breaking the news late last week, the piece was light on the details, setting the stage for a more in-depth look at the decision from a gameplay perspective.

Flying Lab game designer Jason "Mr. Nutty" Gettel checks in with another devlog designed to address introductory questions that current players and tire-kickers may have about the title. While there's nothing revolutionary about Flying Lab's take on RMT (it features the standard item shop, along with the equally standard no-game-breaking-items-for-sale mantra), it's good to see it spelled out after Williams' somewhat cryptic announcement.

One interesting wrinkle that bears watching is the way Flying Lab is implementing perks for Captain's Club members (the new name for monthly subscribers). Among other things, subbers will enjoy an experience bonus as well as increased loot and faction gain over their F2P brethren. Read the full article on the game's official website, and be sure to look for Massively's exclusive Flying Lab interview in the coming days.

Having just cranked out the shiny new expansion Power & Prestige for Pirates of the Burning Sea, the team at Flying Lab Software has opted to set a course for another uncharted destination -- the free-to-play waters! Indeed -- it appears that the company has been planning this move since the tail end of last year, and what's more, it has already coded in the free-to-play elements -- currently in testing. While no specific date has been given, the hope is to release this change in the fall along with their next expansion content pack.

Russell Williams, CEO of Flying Lab Software noted the change in a statement: "Since we launched Pirates of the Burning Sea in January 2008, players have been battling on the high seas to control the Caribbean. With Power & Prestige's Port Governance, we've added a whole new level of immersion to the struggle for power. Players also have access to a wealth of new content, and have a whole new fighting school to master. We're also excited to make Pirates of the Burning Sea even more accessible by making it free-to-play in the near future so that even more players can enjoy the amazing ship battles, in-depth missions, and the rich Caribbean setting."

More information regarding the decision can be found on the Pirates of the Burning Sea website, for those curious. In the meantime, good thing that Talk Like a Pirate Day is coming! We can get to practicin' on our piratin' talk before it be time to weigh anchor and set sail on the F2P sea, mateys.

Flying Lab Software has announced the new live date for Power & Prestige, the first expansion for their Pirates of the Burning Sea MMORPG. The update, originally scheduled to sail in August, is bringing quite a few new features to the high seas title, including ship revamps, port governance, and new mission content.

Community manager Tom "Rhaegar" Atkinson-Edwards checks in on the official website to give us the low-down on what to expect with the patch. Due to the expansion's extensive content and complexity, the folks at Flying Lab are estimating a 12-hour downtime tomorrow as they work their magic. You can view the full update notes for the expansion on the official Pirates of the Burning Sea support website.