All Posts by GGordon27

Originally posted by Teala

Guys if you've been following the game, you'd know that FLS did what they could for now regarding the land avatar.  Trust me, this game has come a long way since they first announced it.   Even I was sceptical that FLS would stick with it considering the task they gave themselves.   All I can say is give this game time and I bet it'll be one of the funnest niche' games on the market.   ^_^

I agree 100% with that

I figure the NDA will be released during the open beta. I mean come on its open to the public now, anyone can download it and get a key. In fact I am downloading it right now, and am 27% complete with about an hour and 5 min remaining. I play Voyage Century Online and its not a bad game for being a free MMO, but I think PoTBS looks alot better and hoping that it will have alot more content than VCO. I am sure it will be raised soon.

Kinda hard to believe that LA and Bioware are making a joint title, considering EA just bought out Bioware.

Originally posted by seabass2003

 

e page.

 

Time for an update!!

06.25.07 by Rusty

First of all, the Contract is signed. A joint press release will be going out tomorrow morning, but it’s important to all of us here that our community hear it first and here it straight from us. So without further ado:

 Pirates of the Burning Sea will be published in partnership with Sony Online Entertainment’s Platform Publishing. This is an important deal for Flying Lab Software and we know how passionate our community is about this issue. So before you start posting your thoughts on our forums, let me share how this particular arrangement differs from publishing deals you may have read about in the past.

So what is “Platform Publishing”? It’s a partnership program in which SOE and an independent developer work together to release a game. It’s very different from SOE’s main publishing efforts, where they develop the games internally (i.e. Everquest 2, Star Wars: Galaxies). Instead the developer makes the game, SOE publishes it, and together we divvy up the various responsibilities.

Here is the breakdown:

 Flying Lab Software
• Game Development
• Community
• Customer Support
• Server Operations

 Sony Online Entertainment
• Billing
• Launcher
• Retail Distribution
• Localization
• Marketing

Here’s why we decided to work together.
First, we weren’t going to work with anybody unless we kept control of the game development and the community. That eliminated a lot of potential partners right off the bat. Let me tell you a few things that are different about working with SOE than with the other MMO publishers we talked with:

1) We keep complete ownership of Pirates of the Burning Sea.
2) We have no interference from SOE on the development/ideas of the game.
3) Because we financed Pirates ourselves, we keep most of the revenues so we stay strong and independent.
4) The contract they gave us actually says what we agreed to verbally.

Pretty basic stuff, I know, but we talked to maybe a dozen other development houses and MMO publishers, and many of them had one or more of the following in their relationships and contracts:

1) Publisher takes ownership of the intellectual property.
2) All sorts of verbal promises that never appeared in the contract.
3) Publisher approval over the game’s design.

All of this is why negotiating with SOE was such a breath of fresh air. I kept tensing at various points, expecting them to pull off the mask of humanity and say “Puny humans, our superior alien contract will take control of your game!” But thankfully for both us and all life on Earth, that never happened.

Here’s exactly what SOE brings to this that we want:

1) Strong distribution – We want Pirates of the Burning Sea to be in every retail store that carries games. SOE has that down cold.
2) Great localization process – We really want a simultaneous launch in Europe and the US because we think it could do as well over there as over here. Working with SOE gives us the best chance of making that happen.
3) Enthusiasm – I really can’t stress this enough. You can write a contract to say anything you want about how much work each party will do, but that’s nothing compared to having your partners genuinely excited to work with you, from the marketing people to the programmers to the executives. And boy, are they excited. (You would be, too, if a great game fell into your lap!)
4) Clockwork process – We want to launch Pirates this fall. The game is in great shape and we’re going into large-scale beta testing this week. To hit a fall launch date, we needed a partner who knows the entire process inside and out, someone who can just start turning the crank and making it happen.

We had two other paths to launching this fall: going it alone and working with another independent outfit we’ve been spending time with. Both of these were good options in general (especially the partnership approach, as we really like those guys). But for either of those approaches to work for a fall launch, everything would have to go right the first time and we’d still need some luck. By working with SOE we know it’ll just happen.

So now you know why we made the decision. But let’s talk about why you should love it:
Platform Publishing is a channel for independent developers to compete on the same level as a big publisher – without selling their soul.
If you’re looking for the next WoW, you probably don’t care about Platform Publishing. The industry’s got you covered. But if you want something off the beaten track, something that’s more of a labor of love than an entry on a spreadsheet, then you want independent developers to thrive. And Platform Publishing is exactly how they can thrive without either being ghettoized into download-only (though this becomes more legitimate every day) or having to sell out to a publisher.

And that’s what I want. You know me, I believe in off-beat, different content. I’ve put my money where my mouth is. And I want more developers to do the same. A big part of our business plan was the uncertainty of where download distribution would be when we shipped, and if we wanted to go retail, how we’d do it on our own. Platform Publishing lets the developer avoid all of that business overhead and focus on making their game. Which would be a good thing because frankly, I see a number of companies that are struggling to do both at the same time and run the risk of doing neither well.

So, now you know the broad strokes of what’s going on. I’m sure that we’ll be answering a lot of questions over the next few days, but let me get a jump start on them now.

 What will it cost to play?
We aren’t ready to announce that yet but it’ll be typical of recent MMOs. Pirates will be a subscription-based game just as it’s always been.

 Will Pirates be on Station Access Pass?
Yes. For one price you can play EQ, EQ2, Pirates, and everything else SOE has to offer.

 Can I pre-order?
There will be pre-order boxes in stores this summer.

 The changes SOE made to Star Wars: Galaxies have been really controversial. Aren’t you afraid that you’ll be next?
No. The design of the game is entirely in our control.

 Won’t Sony end up buying you out the way they did Vanguard?
The difficulties Sigil had with Vanguard have been pretty well publicized at this point. We’re in a very different situation financially and have no fear of shutting down. A lot of independent studios have just enough money to shove the game out the door and then go bankrupt if they don’t have their next project already financed. We are very, very fortunate to not be in that situation. We’re self-financed and beholden to no one. Flying Lab is in good shape. We made this decision because we wanted to, not because we had to.

 I hate SOE and I will never play your game.
That’s okay. I’m sure there will be people who play our game and then hate it anyway. We can’t make everyone happy but I can make you this promise: if Pirates isn’t good, if you don’t like how the game is designed, or how the servers are operated, or how we interact with our community, it’ll be our fault, not SOE’s. We own the game and the buck stops here.

 Will this affect your trade show schedule?
Yeah, it’s increasing! We’ll be at E3, at the SOE FanFaire, and at Leipzig, for example. And of course you’ll still see us at the Penny Arcade Expo and many other events.

 Will the Flying Lab forums continue, or will there be a new Sony Pirates forum?
We’ve gone to a lot of effort to build a thriving community here, and we have every intention of continuing it. We own community management, so our website forum will still be the place to go. You’ll need to create a free SOE account that links to our forums, because we’re using their servers for downloading the beta and other backend things, but Aether and the rest of us will still be here on the forums every day as usual.

 Hey, what about that expanded beta you’ve talked about recently? Does this affect it?
Nope. We’ll be releasing our big new build to the beta in the next 24 hours and after a couple weeks of shakedown time, we’ll be inviting 10,000 new beta testers in to try it out!

 What about open beta?
Stay tuned.

So there you have it folks. I know you will have additional questions, and we will be here to answer them directly. First, you can stop by this thread and share your thoughts, and second, you can attend our next IRC Devchat that we’ve scheduled for Tuesday, June 26th at 2:00p PST (GMT -8) in #potbs-devchat on the irc.coldfront.net server.

Flying Lab Software has always had a commitment to open communication, and our new partnership with SOE does not change that.

Finally, thank you for your patience during this process. I know you guys will have a lot of questions, so we’ll be around tonight to answer them.

Well I have to say this, at least they actually show us whats in the contract (or at least we hope thats what is in the contract). Secondly, I too was upset when I heard that SoE was going to be doing the co producing. I too am not a huge fan SoE especially after what they did to SWG. But you know, its time to move on, and accept the fact that most MMO's that are coming out are more than likely going to be going to SoE for co publishing or co-producing. Lets face it community, SoE is the leading horse when it comes to the online gaming world. Yes most of us are upset cause of this turn, but I am sure that Flying Lab Software knows what they are doing. I, for one am going to give this game a try, just because SoE's name is going to be on the packaging, doesn't mean SoE is going to have any part of controlling the game.

Originally posted by devilishlydo

Or as I've said before, it's part Eve Online, part Warhammer Online ... only in the Bahamas Caribbean in the 18th century.

Okay now that I fixed it, Caribbean in the 18th Century FTW

Currently in line to download at fileplanet 41 of 50 estimated wait time is 30 min.

Originally posted by daemon

Watched this game for a long time now... and I keep seeing uglyness everywhere.

Just saw the latest screenshots and I dont know if its me or the characters and npc models look totally ugly like a game 6 years old...

Sure the water looks nice the sky looks nice but I see some kind of choppiness and cubic unpolished bad models , textures and all that in every damn screenshot.

Ugly cubic edges and ugly clothing options just scream of really old game graphics.

What do you guys think?

Its in beta for goodness sakes. Most beta games are gonna look blocky and choppy. The game isn't even polished. Once the game is complete and is polished and is loaded with the correct graphics engine, then I am sure it will look a whole lot better. Besides I realy didnt think the screens didnt look all that bad. Personally I think its just you.

PoTBS looks alot better than Voyage Century. I mean don't get me wrong, VC for being a free MMO looks good, but it lacks content, and depth. PoTBS looks as if it going to be a anticipated game. I probably will be picking up this game.

I am hoping to join this chat. The game looks nice, and looks like it offers more than Voyage Century Online.

your not comprehending what I am saying. Usually the ones who beta test a game will more than likely become subscribers and part of the community, your wanting to start a flame fest, well I am not going to feed the trolls.

Qalia here as well, Khal perhaps you should make your way here, although you will be KoS to the guards, will have to get your faction up, but I have no problems grouping nor questing with a group here.

so am I. What continent are you on?

Originally posted by Wellkie

The game is not out so to talk about the player base when it is only beta tester seem very foolish to me.

So you could not get a group to form, so what, only games I know that groups jump out of the wood-work for you is COH/COV, it takes maybe a second to get a group as that game is set-up so that the more people you have the more mobs you have and groups get huge exp over solo because of that one reason.

As far as other games go like WoW I normally only group with people from my guild or people I knew by seeing them around and how they acted before grouping.

If you like to talk about how the group system makes you want to solo, or the group system is useless as people do not use it because of a bug or something like that is one thing.....but to talk about the people playing in the beta make less then zero sense....after all it is only beta testers

Good luck on your solo life and my God Bless you and yours.

every mmo is different, it has different play styles, different combat ect, so I personally dont mind if people come to me and explain to me what to do or give me some tips. I accept constructive critisism openly. I would do the same for any new person who came to me and asked what to do. As far as the group thing goes, sorry for you luck, perhaps your on the wrong server, I have no trouble finding a group nor mingling with the community.

The more people I see complaining about Vanguard are those less few that I have to worry about coming in and ruining my game expierence in Vanguard, and less WoW kids are better.

Originally posted by earthhawk

News flash: Gamers dont want depth. They want to game, kill things, look cool, and overall have fun. Why do you think WoW is so succesful? Trust me it's not the depth of the game that counts, it's the 'fun factor'.

I have to say, LOTRO disappointed me as well, the graphics are nice, but the world is small, the quests are soloable, no need for community, and when I did get in a group if I didnt have the rest of my quest done and 1 or 2 of the members from the group did, it disbanded, not very friendly or nice, also, what is the fun in going into everything being instanced, even going into building in the towns are instanced, its just you and the NPC's WOW loads of interractment, dungeons are instanced too, I mean come on, the only thing that is not instanced is the world itself, and if you want to stop and say high to someone, pfft forget about that happening, I tried to talk to other players, and it was like we are too good or to busy to talk to you. The community is totally rude, and obnoxious, I see this being more of a kids game than an adult.

it does have some performance issues, but its new, its going to. Thats why there are developers, and players, you see its like a circle of life

developers make game

players beta game

developers tweak game

game comes out

players play game

players tell developers what is happening with game

developers tweak game more

developers add content

players play

and so on and so forth. Vanguard will only get better over time, and as far as I am concerned, Vangaurd has hands down the best online community. Super friendly, helpfull, and just loads of fun to group with.

    your my new best friend, finally someone who has an open mind about new things.

Originally posted by dm22

Im from Holland, Europe and the game is only for sale here now about a week. I got tired of WOW and wanted to do another mmorpg..

i loved wow alot and played it for 2 years so im no hater of that game..just got tired of the same raid..so now Vanguard...Im playing the game with my son and as far as needing a high end pc i can not say that is the case..

One of the 2 pc's is now only a middle class, but it still give nice looking frames...i have 1 account and used the free 10 day for my son, so we play Vanguard on 1 internet account and have only encountered some minor ping problems..

al i have left to say is that 2 years ago when WOW started it had terrible lag and waiting lines...way more than Vanguard now...to say that it was released to soon...i dont know...what i do know is that blizzard had some starting probles as well..and they had so much more resources than Vanguard...

The crafting and total new (for me at least) diplomacy skills are a lot of fun...i say try it out, i give Vanguard a 7 point out of 10...and it wil only get better.

thank you and good gaming to you all.

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