Interview with Flying Labs CEO, Russell Williams

As you may well know, Pirates of the Burning Sea hit it's first launch anniversary in January and released a gigantic game update yesterday. Our very own Togikagi caught up with the CEO of Flying Labs, Russell Williams, to talk about game update v1.11, v1.12, and what players can expect from PotBS in 2009. Russell also makes mention of Flying Lab Software's second, soon to be announced MMO.

Togikagi : Pirates of the Burning Sea celebrated its one-year anniversary in January. Happy anniversary! How does it feel to hit that mark?

Russell : Great! The one year anniversary coincides with a switch in our development. The first year was essentially filled with tuning and revamping the game based on live feedback. It’s been extraordinarily useful watching the live game and seeing what players like and dislike, much of which is reflected in how we’ve evolved the game.

What’s exciting about the one year milestone is that our updates have now turned from polishing to new features and content. The recently released revamp of our sword fighting system was a gargantuan amount of work between all the teams, but now that it’s out, we’re turning our attention to big new features like Skirmish, Player Governed Ports, and the new mission storylines. We’re also doing the planning for our first expansion, which will take players out of the Caribbean into new parts of the world and introduce new features and content for those areas. In the meantime, we’ll still be adding new features on our regular update schedule.

Port Battle Timeslots for Servers Adjusted

According to the Pirates of the Burning Sea Web site , the Port Battle Timeslots for the Antigua and Rackham servers have been adjusted. This change comes after the developers collected feedback from players and evaluated their own data. They would still like more fan feedback, which can be given here .

Here's the battle schedule for each server:

Antigua: 7 a.m. - 9 p.m. PST (3 p.m. - 5 a.m. GMT)
Blackbeard: 9 a.m. - 9 p.m. PST (5 p.m. - 5 a.m. GMT)
Rackham: 7 a.m. - 9 p.m. PST (3 p.m. - 5 a.m. GMT)
Roberts: 3 a.m. - 3 p.m. PST (11 a.m. - 11 p.m. GMT)

Pirates of the Burning Sea Event!

From the PotBS team :

"Pirates of the Burning Sea is the official video game of International Talk Like A Pirate Day (September 19th ). Yarr, it be true. To commemorate this auspicious day, Flying Lab Software has created special missions and secret booty just for the occasion. Until September 26th 2008, players can log in to Pirates of the Burning Sea and party with the grog-swillin', booty-plundering founders of the day, Cap'n Slappy and Ol' Chumbucket. These rum-swiggin' salts will be taking their rightful place in the Burning Sea as they hand out missions and teach everyone a thing or two about getting booty.

Join the crew to party and talk piratical talk!

Quick Pirate Reference Guide:

To prepare you for the day, here is a quick reference guide of pirate terms and sayings.

Pirate Saying: Translation:

Arrrr! Interject as much as possible!

Ahoy! Hello!

Booty Treasure