MMORPG.com's Carolyn Koh speaks with the folks from Flying Lab Software in this progress update that brings us information not only on the recent server merge but on the game's past issues and its future.

“What server merge?”  Russell Williams, CEO of Flying Lab Software deadpanned, comfortably seated in his office on top of Queen Anne hill in Seattle, WA.  “Didn’t you read the follow up announcement?  Our web servers were hacked.  Ha!  Gotcha!” 

Russell really wasn’t trying to pull one over me, but was simply joking, this sunny morning in the Pacific Northwest that I was visiting to talk to the team.  Take a temperature reading, find out the whys and wherefores of the server merge in Pirates of the Burning Sea and what they had planned for the future.  One thing I know about Russell, having interviewed him several times previously, is that he is candidly honest and would provide a wealth of information.  I lusted surreptitiously at the model of the Yamato (among other toys) he has in his office, pondering once again how I could tuck that under my coat when I left, then urged him to “tell all.” He did.  Starting with what went wrong.

Read more here.

Is a war.

A merge is a interesting thing in a way. sudenly.. tons of people are moved to a war zone, and change the old status..   on my server,  Roberts, the piracy is now a new real faction. The old pirates where tamed by the english, and server the english purposes, the new pirates are german people, that play seriusly and want to win, and imho, will win this map.  

This merge will make the game much more interesting for this map. A merge every month could be mandatory, hehehe ....    Eve online only have a single server!.   Maybe having different servers has ben a  lame idea. The game IS traducted to several langs, so german people can play the game in german, spanish  in spanish, etc.. having a different server could be unneded. So why?  maybe lag and architecture, maybe the game servers design can't handle that stress.. and that is sad, because a well populated server can make this game very interesting :DD

Does POTBS hold the record for fastest to server merge from release?

what does it matter?

they did the right thing, they learn from their mistakes and admit it by merging the servers

In case FLS has not noticed folks are leaving in droves. They had there shot, not sure if Sony will hire Rusty like the did Brad but the slow dance of death has started for the game.

wow server merge already?

Originally posted by Elsabolts

In case FLS has not noticed folks are leaving in droves. They had there shot, not sure if Sony will hire Rusty like the did Brad but the slow dance of death has started for the game.

PotBS is a great concept.  The only problem is that it is repetative.  I loved the game, loved the beta, but unfortunatly, gets kinda old. 

I think I am going to give it a shot and Conan at the same time... One for the gipper... especially since the new Pirate class is coming about.

Originally posted by WolfClaws

 

Originally posted by Elsabolts

In case FLS has not noticed folks are leaving in droves. They had there shot, not sure if Sony will hire Rusty like the did Brad but the slow dance of death has started for the game.

Dude, stop with the SoE hate.  Has nothing to do with them this time.

 

PotBS is a great concept.  The only problem is that it is repetative.  I loved the game, loved the beta, but unfortunatly, gets kinda old. 

I think I am going to give it a shot and Conan at the same time... One for the gipper... especially since the new Pirate class is coming about.

Well really, it does have somepart to do with SONY, he did say that the spanish has no boxes available, you cant find any boxes of the game. Ain't that SOE's job? Aren't they hired to put the games boxes on shelves? Looks like SOE didn't do what they were hired to do... hmmm, wonder why?

Originally posted by njdevi66

 

Originally posted by WolfClaws

 

Originally posted by Elsabolts

In case FLS has not noticed folks are leaving in droves. They had there shot, not sure if Sony will hire Rusty like the did Brad but the slow dance of death has started for the game.

Dude, stop with the SoE hate.  Has nothing to do with them this time.

 

PotBS is a great concept.  The only problem is that it is repetative.  I loved the game, loved the beta, but unfortunatly, gets kinda old. 

I think I am going to give it a shot and Conan at the same time... One for the gipper... especially since the new Pirate class is coming about.

 

 

Well really, it does have somepart to do with SONY, he did say that the spanish has no boxes available, you cant find any boxes of the game. Ain't that SOE's job? Aren't they hired to put the games boxes on shelves? Looks like SOE didn't do what they were hired to do... hmmm, wonder why?

Bleh, I am not a lover of SoE nor am I a supporter... if SoE was responsible for putting boxes in Spain, then yeah, they dropped the ball ,but I doubt sales would have been so over the top that it would have affected the decision of a server merge   : /

         Been hanging around this game for years now,Hoped it  would have launched a bit better.

 but it is what it is ,So Im willing to wait and see if it gets on a regular schedule of improvments

 before I throw in the towel yet.Just have to see if the game gets better before they run out of money

if so Ill be back on.Wish em nothing but the best.

       Indeavor to persevere

I have been wanting to give this game a try. I love the idea of it. I was a bit put off by the way avatar combat seemed to flop though. I would still like to give it a try but only once there is a 14-day free trial.

When they put this game in SOE's hands we tried to warn them. I beta tested this game starting in June of 06 and I tried to tell them. They had a product that could fill a niche and instead they sold out. People just don't seem to understand what SOE is doing to this genre.

Nothing what so ever to do with SOE guys. The blame lies purely with FLS and their handling of the situation. The only 'happy' players that Rusty speaks of are the Pirate players who have 2 more love patches lined up for them , Nationals now barely bothering with any side of the war be it the Port Battles or the Open Sea fighting.

fixing the interface? thats good i suppose why wasnt it done in beta lol. avatar combat sucked in beta as well maybe ill try this game in another year if its still around.

Single worst Idea for the game was making it casual freindly.

-Jive

MMORPGs don't recover from poor launches.  The only game that has done so is Eve, and the only reason they were able to do so is because nobody had heard of eve when it launched.  PotBS is too high profile to recover from their poor launch.

PotBS was released early and unfinished.  The developers have admitted as much on their own forums.  As consumers, we should not support products that are released with vague promise to improve at some later date, or the companies that have such disdain for their potential customers that they expect us to pay for buggy, unfinished products.

Ship a solid product and add features later.

I think they key will be how fast they can pump out new content.

If they do introduce the player run ports, full skirmish, new class, more mission types, less instancing in a timely manner then I have no doubt it will be fine.

The concept is great, the core ship combat is fantastic and I have always wanted to play a game where the economy was player run not NPC drop run.

Only time will tell. If you not already playing I say give it until patch 1.6 or so. by then we should have most of the promised content that should really have been in at launch. if by then we can see things all coming together then this game will grow and be a success.

Originally posted by WolfClaws

Originally posted by njdevi66

 

Originally posted by WolfClaws

 

Originally posted by Elsabolts

In case FLS has not noticed folks are leaving in droves. They had there shot, not sure if Sony will hire Rusty like the did Brad but the slow dance of death has started for the game.

Dude, stop with the SoE hate.  Has nothing to do with them this time.

 

PotBS is a great concept.  The only problem is that it is repetative.  I loved the game, loved the beta, but unfortunatly, gets kinda old. 

I think I am going to give it a shot and Conan at the same time... One for the gipper... especially since the new Pirate class is coming about.

 

 

Well really, it does have somepart to do with SONY, he did say that the spanish has no boxes available, you cant find any boxes of the game. Ain't that SOE's job? Aren't they hired to put the games boxes on shelves? Looks like SOE didn't do what they were hired to do... hmmm, wonder why?

Bleh, I am not a lover of SoE nor am I a supporter... if SoE was responsible for putting boxes in Spain, then yeah, they dropped the ball ,but I doubt sales would have been so over the top that it would have affected the decision of a server merge   : /

OK. SOE are responsible for 2 things:

1. Subscription payment for US and EU countries

2. Publishing of PotBS in USA

Read that over again and again. The EU publishing was handed over to another group, mainly as SOE stated to FLS that they didn't have recent experience with launching a game over in the EU (true, they've released many games in the past, yet FLS wanted large coverage with a current publisher who knew the market specifically in the EU).

As a result of that, the EU publishing was handed over to Koch Media GmbH, Austria. That was the choice of FLS and SOE were happy with that arrangement. SOE still provide the subscription service and the production and publication handed over to Koch Media. As to why it didn't launch in Spain, no-one's got a clue. The launches in all the other EU countries went great, yet something with Spain just didn't happen.

FLS are happy to admit that it went wrong, yet overall things are going great with them. They had their Australian launch to total success, that is going through a different company entirely, without SOE's involvement on the whole. BigPond's covering that over there for FLS.

..i heard pirates* is a pretty good game!!!can someone post here any more info(hardware req., game rules,etc)??thanks

not beating a dead horse. but a month and change after i quit (once my 30 free days and one paid month were up i couldnt stand the bs gameplay) i get a reply on a ticket for an unanswered problem, lol.

anyway, how can this ceo living in my state, lie to all still playing the game? he quotes the chatter in the forums as positive, whata crock. but as the reporter said "the ceo likes telling jokes"