by Linda "Brasse" Carlson

Wow, this was unexpected!
ok, ok, so it's not a shanghai, no mutiny, no ships were grappled, boarded or sank, but you can bet there is a lot of booty in the works!



Too late to change today's comic, but ohhhhh so much material here for Thursday:

We’ve recently posted some information to the website for our upcoming, massively-multiplayer, online video game Pirates of the Burning Sea that we think you will find interesting. Read below for more details:

Flying Lab Software CEO, Russell Williams, has just posted a lengthy Developer Log explaining the recently announced publishing contract with Pirates of the Burning Sea and Sony Online Entertainment. You can find Rusty’s Devlog by visiting this link: http://www.burningsea.com/pages/page.php?pageKey=news/article&article_id=10349

Pirates of the Burning Sea fans are encouraged to attend today’s Flying Lab Software Developer Chat at 2pm PST. This discussion will give everyone a chance to ask our team questions regarding the recent partnership announcement with SOE, as well as any other questions they may have about Pirates of the Burning Sea. A number of Flying Lab Software staff will be on hand to answer your questions in this moderated chat. This chat will be followed by a brief opportunity for some free-form conversation with Flying Lab Software staffers.

If available, please join us through IRC in #potbs-devchat on irc.coldfront.net. We look forward to seeing you there!


Troy 'Aether' Hewitt
Director, Community Relations

In this day and age, it makes all the sense in the world to partner with a large, stable, well-funded company like SoE (or Microsoft or EA) for the background and distribution work. The expense of trying to do it themselves would near bankrupt most companies.

I can see by the tone of the linked article that Flying Labs is trying to counter lingering (and extremely negative) feelings against SoE by people who swear up and down that they won't touch any game that has been "sullied" by the mega corporation. Too bad then, they may well be missing a great game.

As Flying Labs notes, there is a clear division of responsibilities in such an arrangement:

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

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



In the back of my mind is the thought that if the worst should happen (not that I'd mention Sigil again, but... doh, I just did!), SoE has recently proven that it is pretty darn good at picking up the pieces for players and keeping a game going.

I had a good giggle at the following excerpt:
"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."

There are side benefits to our global community in this plan as well. Localization - SoE are old hands at this, and they don't need no steenkin' segregation of Euro players.

Best of all:

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

Now you get ANOTHER solid game for your money! Whooooo!
For me at leat, Pirates of the Burning Sea just got a WHOLE lot more interesting.

Throw in your YARR or ARGH about this news on our forums.