Mardi Gras has officially arrived in Pirates of the Burning Sea. While the real world equivalent doesn't arrive until March 8th, PotBS players will have the opportunity to participate in the event and even score themselves a peacock pet as a reward. The full patch notes that include the Mardi Gras event have been released on the official site for those who like to know all the details!

Missions:

• Join the Mardi Gras celebration by entering Mardi Gras Bayou between Biloxi and New Orleans. You can visit the Mysterious Harlequin in starter towns and capitals for more information. :)
• Hollow Man: If you had a follow pet, you couldn’t complete this mission. Fixed.
• The Sea Dog Slayer (French): The mission sent you to the wrong guy for completion. Fixed.
• Empty Shadow: If you went chasing after Pierre before untying Nadine, you could end up stuck. Fixed.
• The Finer Things: Once you completed the mission, the place where you turned it in still said “The Finer Things” even though that mission is no longer available. Fixed. The place shows up on the map because there are still missions to be found there. This fix isn’t retroactive – if you’re like me and have already done the mission, you still see the old text on the map.

Read more here.

Misha over with Pirates of the Burning Sea has rewritten a new DevBlog on the process of taking the game F2P. Check out the article for more information!

We’ve been asked a few times about the process of moving Pirates of the Burning Sea from a subscription model to a free-to-play (F2P) model. Did everything go as planned? Did we encounter hurdles along the way? In this devlog, I’ll give you a look behind the curtain and talk about how the process went—from start to finish.

Read more here.

Pirates of the Burning Sea will be updated today to v2.2.83.0, aka the Anniversary Update. The update will prepare servers for the third anniversary celebration scheduled to begin on January 22nd. New content has been added, San Juan, Spain's capital city, has been updated, and new pets have been added to Treasure Aisle. In addition, bug fixes, enhancements and improvements have been included for deployment when the patch goes live later today.

Happy Anniversary to Pirates of the Burning Sea! We celebrate our 3rd Anniversary on 1/22/2011. This is quite an achievement and we’ve added some fun new content to celebrate. Look for the Royal Society representative in your starter town or nation’s capital for the mission / mini-games. Completing these will grant you a new coat. For a limited time only, a black cockatoo is available in Treasure Aisle as is a monkey dressed for celebration!

Read more here.

Pirates of the Burning Sea devs have announced that the annual Junkanoo Event has arrived on all servers. The event will be broken into two parts: Part One: Defend your Nation on the Open Sea and Fun and Games of Junkanoo. Devs have posted overviews of each event along with the schedule.

The first part of Noel’s plan is more risky than the second. Noel needs captains to defend their Nation’s special Junkanoo Freetraders. The Freetraders will set sail from different ports, and players can either defend the Freetraders or attack those of the other Nations.

The second part of the event is the infamous Junkanoo feast. Nicholas Noel has organized a few generous residents to supply food and drink. These residents will also be handing out flags and sails—each.

Be prepared though—each of the residents will give you a challenge or question before handing over these prizes.

Read more here.

Pirates of the Burning Sea is now officially free to play. All servers are back on line and players can check it out for free as of today, Tuesday, November 30th. Players can also choose to subscribe for $14.99 per month or purchase premium content through the in-game store.

Key Features

• Choose to be a Naval Officer, Privateer, Freetrader, Buccaneer or Cutthroat.
• Battle other players to control more than 80 conquerable ports in the Caribbean.
• Become an elected Port Governor and influence economy and defenses.
• Engage in tactical ship combat, firing broadsides and boarding the enemy using one of over 150 historical ships.
• Specialize in one of four different styles of land combat - formal Fencing, dual-wielding Florentine, treacherous Dirty Fighting or brutal Brawling.
• Explore the world and make a name for yourself in more than 1000 missions.
• Vie for power and wealth with the fully player-driven economy.
• Design your own personal flags and customized sail patterns.

Read more here.

Flying Lab and the Pirates of the Burning Sea team have delayed the free-to-play iteration of the game slightly and it is set to go live on Monday, November 29, 2010. Servers will be brought down between 4-9 a.m. PST that day though times are subject to change. When servers restart, POTBS will be free to play!

We plan to publish build 2.1 to our live servers on Monday, November 29th. Antigua and Roberts should be down between 4am and 9am PST*. This patch will take Pirates of the Burning Sea Free to Play!

The exact release time may change based on conversations we have with SOE later this week, and we plan to keep you up to date with any changes.

We invite you to hang out in the official Pirates of the Burning Sea chat channel while the servers are down.

Read more here.

Thanks, Cecropia!

Flying Lab recently announced that Pirates of the Burning Sea would be going free-to-play with the arrival of the next major patch cycle. The announcement generated a lot of questions and the team has taken time to answer some of them, though a lot of detail is still missing. It's a start and includes questions about what F2P means for the game, for individuals and what "Treasure Aisle" might encompass.

What I discussed above is what it means for PotBS to switch from a subscription-only to a free-to-play model, but I haven’t yet touched on why you should be looking forward to micro-transactions. Our in-game store is called Treasure Aisle and the main thing it will offer is availability.

No matter what port you are in, you now have goods available to you ranging from consumables and xp/loot/faction buffs to shoulder pets and clothing. We are even adding a number of new and unique items including follow pets and NPC allies for PvE content. We’ll be releasing more devlogs talking about some of these items in depth in the near future.

Read more here.

Following on the heels of the Everquest II and Lord of the Rings Online conversions from subcription to free to play, Flying Lab has announced that Pirates of the Burning Sea will be going free to play with the next update later this fall. The announcement was made on the official developer blog and came as a big surprise to subscribers and followers of the game.

We’re preparing to change the business model of Pirates of the Burning Sea from subscription to free-to-play (hence forth to be known as F2P). This is the culmination of a decision that was made back at the end of last year, and I’m thrilled to finally be able to announce it. It’s not a decision we’ve taken lightly, and we’ve put in a lot of planning and work to make this a seamless transition. We’re very excited about this direction for a number of reasons.

First, it reduces the barrier of entry for new players to come in and try the game. Experience has shown us that players who try the game tend to stick with the game, so we want to remove any impediment for a player to try the game. Free trials are great, but the knowledge that there’s a required subscription makes potential players think in terms of commitment—”do I want to be paying every month for the long term” rather than “will I have fun with it tonight?” The first question is hard for any product, but we feel really good about the answer to the second.

Read the full blog here.

Flying Lab has announced that the much anticipated Pirates of the Burning Sea expansion will arrive later today. Called "Power & Prestige", the expansion is bring lots of welcome changes including ship overhauls, new content and quests.

We are pleased to announce that we will be publishing Power & Prestige to our live servers on Wednesday, September 15th.

Because of the complexity of this upgrade, the downtime is currently scheduled to last 12 hours, between 1:30am and 1:30pm Pacific*. We invite you to hang out in the official Pirates of the Burning Sea chat channel while the servers are down.

 

Read more here. The full patch notes can be found here.

Flying Lab has announced that the Power and Prestige expansion for Pirates of the Burning Sea has been delayed to early September. The reason for the delay is the cryptically stated "logistical issues beyond our control".

We realize that there’s a lot of excitement in the community tied to the release of Power and Prestige and we’re working hard to get it out the door. However, due to some logistical issues beyond our control we have to move the release to early September. If you still haven’t given Power & Prestige a try, you will be able to participate in our Open Beta on the testbed server up until the day of release.

Participate in the fan discussion here.

Sony Online Entertainment and Flying Lab have announced that the free Power & Prestige expansion for Pirates of the Burning Sea will officially launch on August 24, 2010. Power & Prestige is currently in open beta on the public test server and will remain so until launch day. (Head here to find out how to make a PTS account)

We announced Power & Prestige, the first free expansion for Pirates of the Burning Sea, at the Penny Arcade Expo last year. We’ve spent almost all of our time since then working on new features and content for the expansion, which is due for release this summer. We’re now ready to talk about exactly what those features are, and today we’re going to give you a broad overview of what to expect.

Check out the boatload of changes in the Power & Prestige features list.

Flying Lab Software has announced that the expansion for Pirates of the Burning Sea has entered its open beta phase of development. Current players and those using a 14-day free trial are eligible to play Power & Prestige on the public test server.

The expansion is set to bring over sixty new quests, a brawling "school" and Port Governance. The development team is also planning to bring several new live events to the PTS during the open beta.

Power & Prestige expands upon the game’s real-time Port Conquest system, allowing players to not only capture ports on behalf of their parent nations, but to also become a Port Governor with great economic and strategic influence. It also contains over 60 new missions, a new “Brawling” fighting school, and much more.

Head to the PotBS site to learn more.

We reported back in April that Flying Lab Software had announced this Summer as a launch window for the upcoming "Power & Prestige" update for Pirates of the Burning Sea, but today we've got a more firm date for you.

Flying Lab Software announced today that "Power & Prestige" will be going live this August. The update will introduce over 60 new missions, four new factions, the expansive Port Governance system, and a new  "brawling" combat school, and tons more.

You can find out more about the update at the official Pirates of the Burning Sea website.

Also, be sure to check out the latest dev blog which focuses on the enhanced lighting system that will be coming to POTBS with the new update.

Flying Lab Software has announced that the upcoming Power & Prestige expansion will be setting sail this summer.

The standout feature of Power & Prestige is port governance, which just as it sounds, allows players to elect port governors, who can then manage and develop the port, which includes setting tax rates, improving the port's infrastructure, as well as bolstering the port's defenses.

Other features of Power & Prestige include over 60 new missions, a total overhaul of Avatar combat, improvements to the game's lighting, and of course the expected tweaks and fixes included in every update.

In addition to setting a release window for the expansion, Flying Lab Software has also announced beta signups, with the beta test to take place on a new testing server dubbed "Sandbox."

View the official announcement here for more information or to sign up for the beta! Keep in mind that signing up for the beta requires an active Pirates of the Burning Sea subscription.

MMORPG.com's Bill Murphy reports on his travels across the ocean blue in this re-review of Flying Lab Software's swashbucklin' MMOG.

Pirates of the Burning Sea launched to somewhat little fanfare just over two years ago. From indie developer Flying Lab Software, the game might not be a titan of the industry, and while it’s consolidating down to just two servers PotBS still has a vibrant and enthusiastic audience and the game has seen many additions and improvements since its launch in 2008. Still the crux of the game is about the economy and the controlling of the game world’s many ports, and while many little things have changed in two years’ time the big picture remains the same. But for those players who have never tried FLS’ seafaring MMO or those who left and haven’t checked back in a while, is there any reason to give this title another look? The answer is a resounding “it depends”.

Read our re-review here.

In preparation for his full blown review, MMORPG.com's Bill Murphy takes a look at, and gives us his impressions of, the early game for Flying Lab Software's Pirates of the Burning Sea.

When Pirates of the Burning Sea first launched, I can recall being really excited to get into it, start swinging my cutlass, and battening the hatches. I had dabbled in the beta and was eager to see the game at release. Then, for some reason or another I never actually got around to joining the fray. Maybe my thirst for the Johnny Depp movies had faded and my lust to play a pirate disappeared with it, or maybe this was one time when the hype of a new launch was actually resisted by this humble writer. In any case, I've recently begun playing the title which is now two years live, and I'm slowly starting to wonder why I waited so long.

Read Looking at the Early Game.

Former Pirates of the Burning Sea players (account must have been closed and inactive since January 22nd, 2008) have been invited back to the game for a free month, which kicked off on February 5th, and will end on March 5th at 11:59 PM PST.

Surely no coincidence, this latest offering comes hot on the heels of the launch of version 1.22 last week, which among other things, consolidated the playerbase into two remaining servers.

View the original announcement here.

Patch 1.2.2 will be deployed to Pirates of the Burning Seas this week according to an announcement made on the official POTBS website. The new patch will bring a number of new features to the game including Active Nation Selection and National Player Faction.

However, what is most notable about 1.2.2's imminent release is the fact that 1.2.2 will also merge the game's remaining servers, consolidating the playerbase onto the Roberts and Antigua servers.

The original announcement can be viewed here.

Come January 23rd, Flying Labs Studios will be celebrating Pirates of the Burning Sea's second anniversary since going live! The developers are inviting players to take part in the festivities by participating in PvP events against the devs themselves!

Visit the official Pirates of the Burning Sea website for more information on the game, including the 14 day free trial that is currently being offered!