10.04.07 by Aether

Many thanks for your patience as we work to remedy the challenges we are having with the authorization servers. You may experience some slowdowns and other anomalous behaviors as we continue to troubleshoot the problem.

In the meantime, feel free to visit the official Pirates of the Burning Sea IRC channel, which you can access at by visiting channel #burningsea on one of the following IRC servers, using your favorite IRC client:

storm.coldfront.net
ice.coldfront.net
subzero.coldfront.net

You can also access IRC using Coldfront’s Java client by visiting this link.

Best,
Aether

I'm pleased to share that the Pirates of the Burning Sea stress test event hosted by File Planet is now available to all File Planet subscribers, paid or otherwise.

That being said, there are a limited number of available slots for this event: first come, first served.

You can find more information by visiting this link:
http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/potbs/index.aspx

Best,
Aether

While I work on tuning in a variety of areas, ship tuning is my primary responsibility. Ship tuning covers ships, outfitting and ship combat in general. Skills have a major impact in ship combat, but I don’t work on those directly. Isildur does the skill tuning, and I’ll often give recommendations for things that should change.

Every year Gamestop (which includes EBGames these days) has a big convention for their retail store managers. It’s an interesting show, much smaller than the usual conventions, and the Gamestop people who attend are pretty cool. Not only are they gamers, but they think about the market in a more global sense, so talking to them is really interesting.

...

While we were there, we showed the game to a ton of people and we handed out special beta keys. How many we gave out to each individual isn’t very controlled, because a) it was a mad house there and b) we want to support them. For example, I was talking to one manager, and she said “I’ve got some customers who keep talking to me about this game every day, so I want to learn everything I can about the game to report back to them.” After I was done showing her the game, I gave her some extra beta keys to give out to her customers. These are the customers who come in every day just to shoot the breeze, and bringing them all over to our side is a huge win.

...

As we countdown to launch, we’ll be doing more of these programs ... So while your local Gamestop/EBGames may have a couple of beta keys to hand out, it’s quite likely that they don’t. If you get one, enjoy! If you don’t get one, we have a lot of great opportunities for you to try out in the game in the next few weeks.

Bruce "BSharp*" Sharp, Pirates of the Burning Sea art director blokey has posted a new developer log on the official site outlining processes involved in the creation of some new head assets for gruff pirates.

Quite a nice article, but nothing really new for people who know what's involved in game creation anyway, though it's always nice to see a new face.

*BSharp is his nickname? Oh come on people, we can do better than that. From now on his name should by: Spangles.

Boarding Party members might organize exclusive Pirates of the Burning Sea gatherings (we love a Party!), or help spread the word about new and interesting information about the game. Some Boarding Party members might even join Flying Lab Software staff at conventions and events, while other members will be selected to join special interest groups organized to provide direct feedback to our developers regarding Pirates of the Burning Sea game features, during the beta test, and beyond!

I'm the Community Guy. I'm not the Marketing Guy. Essentially, my job is to interface with people in an effort to build social constructs allowing for quick and easy communication between Flying Lab Software and the PotBS community.

So out of that philosophy, the idea for the Boarding Party was born.

Player Driven Special Interest Committees These groups would focus on specific PotBS features, advising the Design team on the effectiveness, fun and playability of their respective focus. These people would have a direct line with FLS Developers and Designers, providing feedback on new ideas and improvements to existing systems.

Roleplayers and Storytellers Individuals tapped to participate in this aspect of the Boarding Party might assist in creating a schedule of player-run, in-game events, or even advise the design and development teams in the creation of a suite of tools to help player-run events more enjoyable and easier to run.

PotBS Party Team This would be a group of folks who love talking to people, perhaps assisting in creating PotBS gatherings or joining the FLS team during the convention season.

Until we get our forums converted to using Station Authentication for logging in and some tweaks made to my Beta Invite tool, we have to hold off on inviting new testers. However, while we’ve been waiting, we’ve been stabilizing the build and the process of using Station Authentication so that the experience for the new folks when we do invite them will be easier than for earlier testers. We expect to convert our forums this week and hope to start inviting new testers again the week after. Wish us luck!