Rev's posted another devlog about 1.1, this time about Ship Combat:
NPC ships had a hard time changing targets even when somebody was really pounding at them [...] We’ve made them smarter about who they should be angriest at, so now they’ll change targets in a way that better reflects where the real threat is.
[...] you could set up a Lancer Cutter to have a max range of 850y, which is just crazy. To address this, we slightly reduced how much outfitting can affect max range.
the Arcadia now has a gundeck of 11 9lb guns and a topdeck of 2 4lb guns[...] Many civilian ships were higher level than they really should have been and a couple were lower level[...] The Packet-Boat gained speed, cargo capacity, and target tracking bonuses, and also had its level increased. The Intrepid privateer refit gained two guns, since the refit isn’t supposed to have fewer guns than the base ship. And the Hellbrand West Indiaman got smaller guns, since we recently changed it from a large ship to a medium one.
Devlog: Customer Services, Post Launch
Written by Robert "Xaphod" Goforth
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Customer service is a very important thing when you're paying $15 a month for something. So Michelle "Misha" Williams' new devlog talking about how Flying Lab are going to be handling customer services after launch is quite interesting.<
But the biggest surprise, to me at least, was the gold sellers. We knew they would be there, but we didn’t foresee how cumbersome our reporting and banning systems would be for this purpose. Because the gold sellers have up to six characters per server on eleven servers, we get tons of reports from players that are essentially duplicates of each other. [....] We are definitely working to improve these tools and systems, both to make it easier for our players to file the reports and for us to process them.
Changes are A Coming
Written by Robert "Xaphod" Goforth
Tuesday, 29 January 2008
In what can only be seen as a response to many queries about the way port contention worked, Flying Lab have announced they are altering the way contention works by increasing the gains to contention and lengthening the time before the port battle. This means that ports will be easier to put into contention, and likely allows more players to gain points for potential participation in the final battle because it takes place a full day later. It seems that this will make it more likely for people who were not involved in putting the port into contention to get into the port battle; how societies that spend a lot of time participating in contention take this remainsto be seen.
Secondly, a new devlog talking about version 1.1 (promised next week) and the improvements promised for the open sea has been posted:
Verion 1.1 is here! This new version of Pirates of the Burning Sea is primarily a bug-fix build—but what a bug-fix build it is. I just ran a query on our bug database and found that this build includes the fixes for more than one thousand bugs. The vast majority of those are text and content bugs, most so small that they aren’t included in our patch notes or Misha’s head would explode when she writes them, but you’ll find small polish improvements throughout the game as well as stability and performance improvements.
Server Issues
Written by Robert "Xaphod" Goforth
Saturday, 26 January 2008
Flying lab are working on a fix for login issue that is preventing some people from seeing the server list right away. They urge those affected to wait for the server list to load, rather than quitting and retrying.
Game time cards available.
Written by Robert "Xaphod" Goforth
Friday, 25 January 2008
FLS have annoucend that game time cards are now available through the Sony Store, so folks without credit cards can play.
XPlay give PotBS four stars.
Written by Robert "Xaphod" Goforth
Friday, 25 January 2008
G4TV's XPlay have reviewed Pirates of the Burning Sea giving it a solid four stars.
Maxim Give PotBS 5 Stars
Written by Robert "Xaphod" Goforth
Friday, 25 January 2008
So we've found out why the rum's all gone. Maxim's Scott Jones drank it all..
Downtime for Update COMPLETE
Written by Robert "Xaphod" Goforth
Thursday, 24 January 2008
The PotBS servers are now live with 1.0.48.0, which was a patch to try and fix an issue with 8000 series nVidia cards. It doesn't do anything else.
Devlog: UI Strike Team
Written by Robert "Xaphod" Goforth
Thursday, 24 January 2008
In what is likely a response to Gamespot's critisicm of the game UI, Flying Lab have published a devlog by their usability specialist, Fraxl, explaining parts of the process involved with their UI development and improvement.
After reading countless forum posts and observing tons of playtests, one place we know needs some special attention is the user interface (or UI, for short). The UI includes all the buttons and boxes that let you control your ship and your avatar and all the things that let you communicate in game. Pretty much anything that lets you interact with the game world can be categorized as UI. It’s a system that has grown somewhat organically over the years as the other major game systems have been changed and improved. It’s still evolving, too.
GameSpy have published a preliminary review of PotBS and its principle critisism of the game is that of its tutorials and the effective learning curve:
The irony of the game's issues so far is that it's the difficulties with the UI and learning curve that may end up doing the most damage. The bugs will most probably get fixed and while the avatar combat is a serious flaw, it's certainly not a game-killer when the rest of the game is this much fun. The game's opaque nature, though, gives new players ample time to decide this isn't for them. In our own experience, our most advanced players describe a sort of "aha!" moment when after extensive play the shape of the game's design suddenly becomes clear and they really start having fun.
Aside from that though it's largely positive.
Launch Delay (now resolved)
Written by Robert "Xaphod" Goforth
Tuesday, 22 January 2008
The retail launch of PotBS has been pushed back to 10am (by one hour) PST due to an issue with launchpad being detected, and obviously they want to fix that first.
