Because FLS used a different distribution method in CanadiaLand to the one that has been delayed in the US of A, some lucky residents of Canadia have managed to get their claws (Canadiopolis is chiefly inhabited by lobsters) on copies of the Pirates of the Burning Sea preorder box! Click here to see the jubilant post.

but.. before you run to the stores, here's Rev's warning:

I think you got lucky! We don't expect most stores to have it yet. Before anyone gets excited and jumps in the car, call your local store first. We still don't expect the vast majority of stores to have it.

right top side keyboard controls for land ? + mouse controls ? seems to refer to ship battle.

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In the meeting that followed me looking at the pics in this thread, there was a 'wtf' silence, followed by: "... well, at least it's not the retail box."

A beta tester submitted an account of their first play session to FLS, and FLS have decided to release it for general consumption - a good read to find out what the first moments of the game are like, albeit written in a roleplaying style rather than a more objective gamer style. I like that though, and so might you.

Somewhere in the Caribbean, I suddenly wake up from my bed because of the loud bangs! “What in the world is happening?”, I am asking myself, and suddenly I recognize the sound… Cannonballs smashing into our ship! I rush outwards and in the corner of my eye, I can see a fellow crewman screaming and falling backwards because of a direct hit next to him. Simon Berri, one of the other officers on the ship, says to me: it’s the Bilge Rat pirates who are attacking us, just when the good captain was sailing towards a friendly ship to aid it. He says I need to get my arms and kill the pirates that have boarded us. So I move towards the door, and click on it to go to the deck.

there’s been a hold up in the pre-order process. It turns out that the release of the preorder box is being delayed while the retailers and SOE finish processing all of the returns of Gods & Heroes preorder boxes

To give the retailers and SOE time to finish processing those returns, the PotBS preorder box is being delayed until the week of November 13th.

Pirates of the Burning Sea was scheduled to be available for pre-order in the US - with a pre-order box - in stores yesterday - October 23rd; at least that's what the news releases implied.

Unfortunately I don't think anyone's been able to get hold of it yet; some retailers are suggesting the pre-order box will be available in the next day or two. The major fires in the San Diego area are currently preventing Flying Lab from contacting Sony about the distribution, but hang in there and all should be well soon.

Europe - I believe we've finalized the contract and should be announcing the distributor shortly. That should also mean that we'll finally get details about the European pre-order. I'll let you know more as soon as I get the info.

Australia - Still working on that deal. It progresses, I'm hoping to make an announcement within the next 2-3 weeks.

Kevin 'Isildur Cookiepants' Maginn (ask Aether) has posted a new devlog going into detail about the Final Battle mechanic that plays a vital role in the RvR part of Pirates of the Burning Sea!

I’m going to go through each of the final battle rooms, and briefly describe them. Keep in mind that while I’ve thought about how battles in each room are likely to flow, I’m not actually spending the many hours in these maps that the players will. The tactics I describe may have nothing to do with the actual tactics the players end up using, and are mostly just an insight into what I’m thinking as I lay out the starting positions and towns.

It's a really really good devlog, with maps and everything. Click here to read in full.

Jess Lebow has been interviewed Bobby Blackwolf on the Bobby Blackwolf Show; the podcast version is available here.
The podcast is quite long, so the following image shows where the interview portion starts.

The Warcry Network have interviewed Kevin Maginn, Lead Designer of Pirates of the Burning Sea as part of what will be a twice-monthly series of Q&A sessions. This session focuses on areas FLS plan to develop post-launch.

I'd like to focus on three areas post-launch:

• More difficult PvE content. I'd like to always have challenges available for PvE players that are just slightly harder than what they can currently manage.
• A PvP events system that will allow players to schedule and create their own major battles. Right now, we only support large group PvP in the final battles over ports -- but that doesn't help guilds that want to have organized PvP, and it doesn't particularly lure casual players into our PvP game.
• Player governance. I want to put the ports into the hands of players, along with a robust political system that will let players backstab and betray each other for control of a port's Governor's Mansion.

Click here to read in full

Joe has published a new devlog on the official site about how well the stress test event went:

We found about 6 major bugs (including the server directory slowness) and have put in fixes for every single one of them. By the end of the weekend we were able to keep up with the testers with no queues and no problems. We also learned a lot about exactly how high levels of stress affect the servers. We will use that knowledge to improve our automated testing to better simulate actual players and push the servers even further. That work is already underway this week and by next week, we expect to be running automated stress tests internally that will accurately recreate the conditions we had in the live stress test. That will let us bang on the servers a bunch more ourselves so we’ll be in even better shape before our next big public event.

click here to read in full. It's quite technical, but an interesting read.

Just like all the fans of Pirates of the Burning Sea we here at Coldfront were tantalized by the hints and suggestions that Aether and Theresa were dropping about that big super-secret community announcement that they taunted us with. When FLS dropped the whole Boarding Party announcement we were as excited as everyone else and rest assured submitted applications!

However, like all good Journalists we were not content to just sit there and let FLS make all the running! Oh Noes Sir! We want the best information for our community, and so armed with trusty notepad and IRC, I under took to dig up any more information that I could for you. Where is best to get that information? Straight from the horse's mouth, none other than the illustrious Community Director for FLS, the all powerful AETHER! That’s right I tracked him to his lair in IRC and ambushed him with some questions to see if I could extract a few nuggets of information for you.