2008 has been a wild year for the MMO industry, seeing three highly-anticipated and competitive MMO releases meet with varying degrees success (Pirates of the Burning Sea, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Age of Conan), huge changes for old mainstays (particularly EQ/EQII) and the fall of one game that released with such high expectations after just one year (NCSoft's Tabula Rasa) citing a "failure to meet performance expectations."
Flying Lab Software has posted the release notes for build 1.11.51.0 for Pirates of the Burning Sea, which is scheduled to go live today. This milestone update completes most of our work on the Swashbuckling revamp. Avatar Combat is now flashier and more exciting-looking as well as easier to learn and more fun to play.
Avatar combat was always the stepchild system in Pirates of the Burning Sea. Where ship combat was polished, intense, and very different from your standard MMO combat fare, avatar combat just seemed plain weak and added in at the last moment. In fact, it was one of the last things added to the game, as lead designer Kevin "Isildur" Maginn tells us in his developer blog.
But as of today, with the new "Clash of Steel" patch, avatar combat has gotten a complete redesign.
MMORPG.com's Carolyn Koh recently visited Flying Lab Studios' new offices in Seattle to talk to the team about the upcoming Avatar Combat Revamp for their nautical MMORPG, Pirates of the Burning Sea.
This still can't be a good sign as to the number of subscribers. Have there been any press releases on the number of subscribers? Additionally, this story says they are keeping just 4 of there 11 servers. There's no way this MMO is having anywhere near 200k users. Even if we make the generous assumption that 10,000 players are on a single server, the company is planning for 40k players.
@deftangel, This article doesn't cover the actual reasons for the server merges. Because everything is player run (like eve online) Flying Lab Software made an estimation for the player density needed on each server. They were wrong and so have merged the servers for a higher density.
Pirates MMO to shut majority of servers
Flying Lab Software has announced that it is to shut down seven of its 11 servers for the MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea.
The developer credits the move to low server populations, a possible sign that the MMO has not done as well as predicted, and says they will be condensed for gameplay reasons.
"Providing our customers with the best gameplay experience is our first priority," explained the company via its website.
In a news item posted on the official site for the MMORPG Pirates of the Burning Sea, the "User Content Specialist” Marion vanGhent stated that not only were they going to continue supporting user created content such as ships and flags but they were also going to streamline the current submission system and actively help people making 3D assets.
While US users are buying the game for 49.99 Australian users are being offered the game free through one of Australia's largest ISPs - Bigpond. Users still have to pay the subsciption, but this offer should result in markedly increased populations the Pirates servers.
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