MMORPG.com's Carolyn Koh recently visited Flying Lab Studios' new offices in Seattle to talk to the team about the upcoming Avatar Combat Revamp for their nautical MMORPG, Pirates of the Burning Sea.

The imminent launch of Pirates of the Burning Sea’s Avatar Combat Revamp seemed to me to be a good excuse to visit Flying Lab Software in their new digs in downtown Seattle. After a quick tour of the new offices with Community Manager Troy Hewitt and exchanging greetings with many familiar faces, I was seated in CEO Russell “Rusty” Williams’ corner office.

“You must be meeting goals,” I said to Rusty and Producer Misha Williams as I looked around the office. Rusty smiled and spread his hands. “What can I say? New digs, larger staff, new projects…” indeed, it speaks for itself.

“We’ve had wonderful retention numbers with the free trial,” he said. Pirates of the Burning Sea is Russell Williams’ first MMO and as such, some of the performance metrics expected of an MMOs of this scale are not familiar territory for him. “We asked SoE if we were doing alright and although I can’t mention numbers, it’s far better than SoE had expected.” The number of returning players was also far greater than expected.

Read the Avatar Combat Revamp Interview

It was said over and over again on the forums, here, their mains, and in beta....they tried to squeeze in an avatar system that was poorly designed, and buggy as hell.  It was done at a crucial time in the development process....the last year before launch, when the game should have been getting polished and cleaned for launch.  They had many, many clues as to the issue...heck, their own PRODUCER couldn't even play it correctly! 

Instead, too many issues with the main, originally intended, game got through, due to lack of attention....and within three months, the game was floundering.  They admitted back then that the av combat was "unfun".  They admitted it was "gimpy".  Did they admit its rushed inclusion helped bork the game?  No.  Are they planning to give any type of refund or credit to those subscribers who have been playing a game with a fundamental system that's "unfun", "gimped", "rushed" and "poorly designed", as per the creators?

Yeah....right.

But, hey, it's water under the bridge...or, filling the below decks as it were...The game's on life support, no matter how many non-numbered subscription statements they give.  I'm sure SoE's station pass numbers are helping inflate, so that FLS can scrounge around funs for a second attempt at an MMO (something that may just be over their heads). 

Heck...we may even have to thank SoE a bit on this one.  Had they not botched the publishing/distribution of the game as much as they did, more folks may have payed to play another waste of a disc.  Their producer incompetence actually SAVED people money. 

What an industry!

I followed the game for over two years.I never got a beta invite but finally got a pre-launch trial. I saw the world was very limited.I could not just sail where I wanted to and felt the game was more of a simulation than the kind of open game I wanted.So...saved from  buying this game.

Supernatural combat? I thought this was supposed to be a historical MMORPG, not fantasy.  In Pirates of the Caribbean its OK, because its a pirate fantasy.  Why are they changing their mind now? Seems really stupid if you ask me. Unless its explained as being superstition, not real. That I guess might work, maybe.

Oh come now, the game is not that bad.  Neither was the avatar combat.  Sure it needed some changes, but still a good game.  I really liked the ship combat, it is very realistic.

I just hope it can stay afloat.

I always thought this was a great game. I didn't play it beyond my release month - I don't know why. I think because I'm looking for a bit more sense of ownership in a MMORPG, and no MMORPG save for SWG, UO and EVE to some degree have offered me that. I hope that the game stays afloat and it will be able to offer something like that in the future.

Originally posted by purewitz

Supernatural combat? I thought this was supposed to be a historical MMORPG, not fantasy.  In Pirates of the Caribbean its OK, because its a pirate fantasy.  Why are they changing their mind now? Seems really stupid if you ask me. Unless its explained as being superstition, not real. That I guess might work, maybe.

t's optional content and it's always been there.

too little too late

Originally posted by Enigma

too little too late

   Agreed. My first reaction was , this game is like AoC in a different setting.  Same limited gameplay, heavily instanced.  The graphics were underwhelming also. 

 Its one of the worst games simply because they dont know the difference between PvP and ganking, but not only because of that... And the dev team support it... The avatar combat is a joke, I have seen MANY flash games beter than this... Changing it now doenst make any difference, since there is others aspects equally lousy in this horrible ´game´... As, for example, the instances, and the total lack of immersion (a high sea game where you are unable to explore). Avatar combat was the worst, but this game is so bad that  doesnt make difference ,since the people just ignored the avatar combat, and even so, the game was bad... 

Ah, wasnt the avatar ´good and working as planned´ a loong time ago, in the word of the devs? Good to hear that they understood now the most OBVIOUS flaw of this game, unfortunatelly its too late and there is too many things to fix before this thing became playable...

Sounds to me like another CU or NGE, dont fiix fix the core problems just make changes in hope that the people wont notice how broke things are. Smells like an SOE plan to me. I beta'd the game and saw then that it wasnt going to stay afloat, which is sad cause in theory this game sounded great. But they did so many things wrong that it amazed me, I had to keep playing into launch just to see how much they could screw up. Kinda like watching a car wreck, hard to to stare at the tragedy. These companies need to quit trying to breath life back into the dead and let things go.

I never played this game, but I'll say one thing:

HOT DAMN!!! for designers and creators who actually say "Hey, WE screwed up with this avatar" or "This wasn't fun and we needed to fix it" "We dropped the ball on this". I think this may be the first time I've seen a developer actually get right down to it and fess up in public. These guys are real men. (and ladies^^)worthy of praise for leveling with the customers.

Thank you for a very good interview and thank you for a breath of honesty.

If only the bigger companies like Mythic and Funcom would admit things instead of beating around the fairy bush, they might get some respect from the MMO community. Mythic has chosen to not admit any of its glaring mistakes and would rather let the rabid War fans savage the 10's of 1000's who quit by saying they played Warhammer 'wrong'. lol.. Funcom was just in denial (not the river in Egypt) wouldn't admit anything.

Again, refreshing for some developer honesty and not "Well, we think we can do better explaining the nuances of our game as fans don't get it fully". BS.

/bigclap PoTBS developers

I wish this game nothing but success as they move forward.

Originally posted by popinjay

I never played this game, but I'll say one thing:

HOT DAMN!!! for designers and creators who actually say "Hey, WE screwed up with this avatar" or "This wasn't fun and we needed to fix it" "We dropped the ball on this". I think this may be the first time I've seen a developer actually get right down to it and fess up in public. These guys are real men. (and ladies^^)worthy of praise for leveling with the customers.

Thank you for a very good interview and thank you for a breath of honesty.

If only the bigger companies like Mythic and Funcom would admit things instead of beating around the fairy bush, they might get some respect from the MMO community. Mythic has chosen to not admit any of its glaring mistakes and would rather let the rabid War fans savage the 10's of 1000's who quit by saying they played Warhammer 'wrong'. lol.. Funcom was just in denial (not the river in Egypt) wouldn't admit anything.

Again, refreshing for some developer honesty and not "Well, we think we can do better explaining the nuances of our game as fans don't get it fully". BS.

/bigclap PoTBS developers

I wish this game nothing but success as they move forward.

500'th post Gratz :P

And FLS was saying for a LONG time were right your wrong so Fuck off. there are threads about it on these fourms. The fact that they are FINALLY getting off their High Horse asses and starting to lissen is a good first step. But there is a LONG road to go and a LOT more pride that they will have to swallow before it gets to the point most will resub.

The game is not at all bad.

Ships RVR was good but unfortunately slow and seemed repetitive and lacked variety

What sucked big time was avatar gameplay but that can be  undrstood as i was not part of  origianl gameplay and was added later

Crafting was really good

I always wanted to test a trial once the avatar gameplay is fixed.Its good to know that Tabula rasa bowed down and these people didnt

Theya re a small team they can make it profitabl;e also Sony station pass helps a lot

I suggest people give it a trial after avatar gameplay is fixed

This is like putting the cork from the wine you just drank to plug up the big gapping hole in the side of your boat. To little to late. Maybe you should not have been steering your boat drunk? OMG

Originally posted by Bountytaker

It was said over and over again on the forums, here, their mains, and in beta....they tried to squeeze in an avatar system that was poorly designed, and buggy as hell.  It was done at a crucial time in the development process....the last year before launch, when the game should have been getting polished and cleaned for launch.  They had many, many clues as to the issue...heck, their own PRODUCER couldn't even play it correctly! 

 

Instead, too many issues with the main, originally intended, game got through, due to lack of attention....and within three months, the game was floundering.  They admitted back then that the av combat was "unfun".  They admitted it was "gimpy".  Did they admit its rushed inclusion helped bork the game?  No.  Are they planning to give any type of refund or credit to those subscribers who have been playing a game with a fundamental system that's "unfun", "gimped", "rushed" and "poorly designed", as per the creators?

Just out of interest...if the game is so "unfun," "gimpy" etc. and players know this, why are they still paying to play it? You can't exactly ask for credit for something you willingly payed for knowing all-too-well the implications.

Who knows maybe this will shape it up to a playable status, cause it sure the hell wasn't before.

Originally posted by Lydon

Originally posted by Bountytaker

It was said over and over again on the forums, here, their mains, and in beta....they tried to squeeze in an avatar system that was poorly designed, and buggy as hell.  It was done at a crucial time in the development process....the last year before launch, when the game should have been getting polished and cleaned for launch.  They had many, many clues as to the issue...heck, their own PRODUCER couldn't even play it correctly! 

 

Instead, too many issues with the main, originally intended, game got through, due to lack of attention....and within three months, the game was floundering.  They admitted back then that the av combat was "unfun".  They admitted it was "gimpy".  Did they admit its rushed inclusion helped bork the game?  No.  Are they planning to give any type of refund or credit to those subscribers who have been playing a game with a fundamental system that's "unfun", "gimped", "rushed" and "poorly designed", as per the creators?

Just out of interest...if the game is so "unfun," "gimpy" etc. and players know this, why are they still paying to play it? You can't exactly ask for credit for something you willingly payed for knowing all-too-well the implications.

To be fair, there is some truth to your statement.  I don't have a lot of sympathy for folks that have been willingly paying for a sub-par product, especially if they are fully aware of how sub-par it is.

However, I could argue two points in favor of SOME sort of refund/rebate:

1)  Not every player that's been in the game, playing and paying, is AWARE that the devs admitted to the inadequacies of the game.  It was mentioned early on, in a random interview or two, but not exactly shouted from the rooftops.  It wasn't, to my knowledge, ever posted on the main page....at least, not until the announcement of the revamp.  So, I'm confident that there were plenty of players who payed and played without being FULLY aware that the devs themselves considered a third of the game to be broken.

2) Some people may stay around because of the OTHER parts of the design that they do like....namely, the two-thirds that were working properly.  For them, the avatar combat might not be a game-breaker.  And so, yes, they probably don't NEED a rebate/refund.  BUT!!!!!!!!!  If we are talking about PRINCIPLE's here, and FLS likes to present themselves as being highly principled, then even if folks are enjoying other aspects of the game, they are PAYING full price (15 dollars per month) for a game that isn't, by dev admission, fully designed!  Should FLS ever have charged full price for the game, regardless of player reception, if the KNEW it was 1/3 incomplete?  I'd say that a sign of high principles would be to answer that question "no", and maybe give a few bucks back to the folks keeping them in business right now.

I fully admit, though, that this is how I see it, and that its VERY unlikely they would do anything of the sort.

Credit on a good comment/reply.  Thanks. :)

A lot of players have paid full price for a sub-par SOE subscription mmo.

Avcom was one example that should have been done before release, the re-vamp has diverted almost the complete FLS dev staff from other important in-game issues.

Not many original subcribers still play & are not going to easily forgive FLS for all its mistakes.