09/19/2007    |    Devlog    |    Rusty    |    Discuss

As you know, today is “International Talk Like a Pirate Day” and, as you might expect, it’s a big day around here! To celebrate, we contacted Captain Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket, the creators of this glorious holiday, to talk about what we could do to commemorate the event. One thing led to another, and now Pirates of the Burning Sea is the official game of Talk Like a Pirate Day! Plus, we’ve immortalized the rum-swilling, booty-plundering Captain Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket into the game, so you’ll never know when you might turn a corner and meet up with them. My guess is Tortuga, in a dark alley with blades flashing, or an inn with elbows bending.

Today also marks the announcement of the pre-order. On October 23, youll see Pirates of the Burning Sea boxes at retailers everywhere! The pre-order has some great stuff:

Soundtrack – If you’ve been to the new marketing site, then you’ve heard some of the great music that our composers have made for us. It’s really gorgeous stuff, and weve put 60 minutes of it on a CD for you to listen to.

Parrot – Everyone who gets the pre-order box will get a parrot that they can equip. The parrot sits on your shoulder, and moves like a real parrot as you go about your business. One of our guys (who shall remain nameless) said about the idea “I dunno, it’s just a parrot.” Then he saw it and said “I have to have it!”

To put it simply, parrots rock!! Now that we’ve seen the parrot work out so well, we’re looking at other animals to put in. Maybe the Pets System will show up much earlier than expected!

Swords – We have master blades for each fighting school that you get at the start of the game. The swords help with both offensive moves and parry, so they’re pretty cool for the swashbuckling combat.

Finally, everyone who gets the pre-order will also be allowed into the game 15 days before the official launch (with a level cap of 20), so it’s a great head start. It also helps us out, because we can distribute the world population a little bit better so the launch goes better for everyone.

We haven’t announced the European distribution of the pre-order, but it will come. We’re simultaneously shipping both US and Europe, and we’re going to be localized in French, German, and Spanish.

The reason I called this log “The Clock is Ticking” is because it really is. Putting the pre-order out on shelves is a commitment to our launch time frame. We have a date in place that continues to firm out, and we’ll be announcing it very soon. All of this means that we’re running at 120% capacity.

New beta builds are still coming out a little slower than I would like (the build I showed in Leipzig is more recent than our current beta), due to extensive mission testing, but otherwise, we’re making great progress on polish, stability, and fun.

The major areas of focus are avatar combat (which has had a ton of polish, the results of which I get to see in a couple of days), hand crafted missions (once we finish the current mission polishing), an art revamp of Tortuga (the pirate capitol), and the usual improvements driven by our beta testers. We’re now starting to think about the first patch content.

With all that, though, we still want to celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day, so we’re having a party here in Seattle to celebrate!

The details on that event can be found by clicking this link, and if you come, you can check out the game, chat with us, go on tours with the Seafair Pirates, and generally have a good time.

Flying Lab Software staff really love meeting people from our community, so I hope you’ll come out and see us tonight!

Aether and Theresa have some additional Talk Like a Pirate Day information to share, so I’ll let them announce the rest of the good news with you shortly!

Yarrr!!

09/19/2007    |    Devlog    |    Rusty    |    Discuss