Pirates of the Burning Sea: Dev Chat Log

The fine folks from Flying Labs stopped by our chat room and answered questions from the community about Pirates of The Burning Sea.

<DelmarWynn> Welcome to WarCry’s War Council! Today we are pleased to have the developers of Pirates of the Burning Seas here to chat about
<DelmarWynn> sailing the high seas in the biggest MMO launch of 2008.! Remember that while the chat is going on you can join the general chat in
<DelmarWynn> #warcry.
<DelmarWynn> Questions can be submitted to [QT]Otters by double click on his name or typing /msg [QT]Otters or /q [QT]Otters . Also on questions
<DelmarWynn> sent to [QT]Otters will be put into the queue for answering by the devs. The chat log will be available shortly after the event at
<DelmarWynn> http://potbs.warcry.com.
<DelmarWynn> Now on to our honered guests to introduce themselves! Oh to help get this out of the way! I won the t-shirt! Just kidding 🙂
<[FLS]Aether> First, thanks to everyone for joining us today for the Pirates of the Burning Sea devchat, we are looking forward to your questions.
<[FLS]Aether> Now, for the introductions!
<[FLS]Aether> First up, we have Flying Lab Software CEO and Pirates of the Burning Sea Spokesmodel, Mr. Russell “You can call me Rusty” Williams.
<[FLS]Rusty> Hello!
<[FLS]Aether> Next, is our Lord High Admiral Joe Ludwig, the Producer for Pirates of the Burning Sea.
<[FLS]Joe> Hello!
<[FLS]Aether> David Taelorn hunt is a PotBS Designer, joining us today from high atop the ivory tower of the FLS design bunker.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Hi, and thanks… I think.
<[FLS]Aether> We’ve also got Community Specialist extraordinaire (and token Brit), Tom Atkinson-Edwards, or Rhaegar as we like to call him.
<[FLS]Rhaegar> Hi!
<[FLS]Rhaegar> !
<[FLS]Aether> !
<[FLS]Aether> And I’m Troy Aether Hewitt, Director of Community Relations. Let’s get started!
<DelmarWynn> Arkenor: Question: Limiting conquest chat to a single career has the effect of marginalising Privateers and Freetraders in the organisation of RvR, especially with regards to organising invites for Port Battles. Are there any plans to make Conquest a general skill (with a level requirement)?
<[FLS]Taelorn> Navy have conquest chat because it’s one of the benefits of their career, similar to how Privateers have Sanctioned Piracy.
<[FLS]Taelorn> We’re not currently planning to move it to a general skill, but it’s on the list of possibilities.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Also, the skill work in 1.4 is changing things to make it easier to access some of those abilities.
<DelmarWynn> Milkman: Are there any plans to make it easier to get around Tortuga? There are numerous quest lines there (including the daily one), and there aren’t very good ways to get to a lot of them. The existing “tunnels” just aren’t doing the job imo.
<[FLS]Rusty> We found the same problem in usability testing. Tortuga was an experiment to see what a large, epic city felt like. Practical answer: Too large and epic.
<[FLS]Rusty> We tried to improve this with Point e Pietre (coming in 1.3) but it suffers from it as well. The real answer is that we’re going back and rethinking how we build towns. The biggest changes will be size and zoning.
<[FLS]Rusty> Currently, we require a zone transition to enter any room. That makes sense for large, complicated rooms that you don’t frequently visit, but it’s not so good for simpler rooms that are often visited (such as the tavern).
<[FLS]Rusty> What we’re doing is going back and rebuilding some of the towns (such as the starting Spanish, British, and French ports) and redoing them in a new style that combines both seamless and zoning rooms.
<[FLS]Rusty> Once we get those built (they’re after 1.4, we’re waiting on some dev tools to make the art pipeline better for this) we’re going to go back and retrofit some of the other cities to take advantange of this approach.
<[FLS]Rusty> That’ll be the time when we go back to Tortuga and look at improving the navigation structure of it along with converting it to the new dual approach.
<DelmarWynn> Unforgiven[Antigua]: are land based pvp options coming other than port battles?
<[FLS]Taelorn> Our plans for the Skirmish system support both ship and land-based battles, using the settings of your choosing.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Once we see how that works out we’ll determine whether and how we want to add more land-based PvP battles.
<[FLS]Taelorn> However, we are primarily a ship combat game and that is where we focus most of our efforts. SO any land combat will be directed at complementing, not replacing, ship combat.
<DelmarWynn> Jethro[blackbeard]: Are there any plans to turn back on unrest decay?
<[FLS]Taelorn> We’re planning to do unrest decay through the economy.
<[FLS]Taelorn> The system uses turn-ins in a way that gradually depletes the unrest at a port, which prevents spikes and allows player-driven unrest decay.
<[FLS]Taelorn> That revision is currently in the works, and I believe it’s in 1.4.
<DelmarWynn> Milkman: Are there plans to allow us to eventually sell miscellaneous loot to a vendor???
<[FLS]Joe> Yes!
<[FLS]Joe> With 1.3 you can sell avatar items to any swashbuckling trainer.

<DelmarWynn> darkholm112: I would like to know if there were any plans for future add-ons involving the ability to walk around your own ship possibly even more customization of the inside
<[FLS]Rusty> Yes. The Captain’s Cabin feature is near and dear to my heart. The idea is you’ll be able to decorate your cabin with trophies, and people will come aboard before battles and see them.
<[FLS]Rusty> It’s a natural way of having a socialization space that fits into the game world, instead of trying to lure people over to see your house, which is kind of creepy. 🙂
<DelmarWynn> SwissMercenary: Are you going to round port battles to the nearest hour?
<[FLS]Taelorn> We’ve been discussing a lot of changes we’re interested in making to the port battle system, including scheduling and invites.
<[FLS]Taelorn> While I can’t say what we’ll do yet, rounding off port battle times is on our list. We’ve talked about a variety of rolling battle times.
<[FLS]Taelorn> So it’s a possibility.
<DelmarWynn> ArianaDeRoze-Blackbeard: Server Merges, Server Merges, Server Merges. What are your plans in regards to the population imbalance. Are there any plans to allow players to switch sides within their server without having to re-roll?
<[FLS]Rusty> It’s a real issue we’ve been working on. We made some mistakes both in analyzying beta play patterns along with what we thought our servers could handle, and came up with a number that spread the population too thin.
<[FLS]Rusty> We find that all of our systems work better with a highly concentrated player base, and that our servers can handle it.
<[FLS]Rusty> So we’ve been working on a solution for it. We’ll be talking about this in more detail on Monday.
<DelmarWynn> JackSimple: Are you guys generally happy with the number of PvP zones that are currently occuring on the server? Any plans on tweaks to make more zones or less zones?
<[FLS]Taelorn> It depends on the server and the population. On same servers, yes. On others, no. Any tweaks we make will be based on what we monitor for population and continued PvP zone creation.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Generally, the limitation of 12 PvP zones is there for a reason – because we expect highly active PvP servers to hit that number.
<[FLS]Taelorn> So, we’ll be making adjustments based on how things progress.
<DelmarWynn> Keline_Fraser: Are you planning on adding a second win condition for the defenders to prevent the attackers from tieing up the defending force for 2 hours just by sitting outside gun range in fast ships as seen in the Orleans Port Battle today on Roberts?
<[FLS]Taelorn> We don’t want attackers to drag out port battles with no intention of fighting. So, yes, we’re interested in adding additional conditions/restrictions to help prevent this scenario.
<DelmarWynn> TheMaster42: A question: Are you guys pretty satisfied with the way pirates compete/fight in port battles after 1.2? Or are the changes in 1.4 meant to change some aspect of that (port battles)? If so, could you drop any hints? ^_^
<[FLS]Taelorn> I think pirates are doing moderately well in 1.2, but our skill goals are really aimed at 1.4. That includes port battles as well as OS PvP. I’m going to be writing a long series of devlogs soon detailing a whole bunch of stuff about the skills. There will be a devlog covering our plans for each career and what you can expect to see.
<[FLS]Taelorn> As for hints? We’re cutting out a lot of the excess stuff and doing some reorganization to make more skill chains desirable. We want it to be tough to choose your skills because there are many interesting options.
<[FLS]Taelorn> We expect most careers will always have two required skill chains (such as repair), but other than that we like incenting different paths.
<DelmarWynn> Gibbons: Any plans on changes for the Herc pricing or stats?
<[FLS]Taelorn> There are some adjustments to the Herc variant stats in 1.3. They aren’t drastic, but they include tracking and speed.
<[FLS]Taelorn> High-end career ships may see some price adjustments, but most of the changes will be to the stats.
<[FLS]Taelorn> The Herc specifically is a delicate ship – if the stats get just a little too good, then it kills everything else in OS PvP without any recourse.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Depending on how the 1.3 adjustments play out, we may make more changes in 1.4 or 1.5.

<DelmarWynn> MrPirate[Rackham]: Has it been decided what type of social spaces will be include things such as a player owned houses, taverns, shops, etc..?
<[FLS]Joe> Player housing and social spaces are still a ways out, but we’ve got some early ideas about what spaces we’ll have.
<[FLS]Joe> As Rusty mentioned, your own Captain’s Cabin is a big one.
<[FLS]Joe> On top of that we’re looking at taverns, mansions, hotel rooms, offices, etc.
<[FLS]Joe> We aren’t aiming at spaces for your own personal house so much as spaces for you to hang out with other people.
<DelmarWynn> Maximilian: Will ship deeds ever be allowed to be carried via personal inventory since in fact it is a deed for a ship work order?
<[FLS]Taelorn> No, ship deeds will not move to personal inventory. They are the pinnacle of the economy, and such economic goods are vulnerable to piracy.
<DelmarWynn> Mike: Will there be the ability in the future to post orders of wanted items, to have them filled by players?
<[FLS]Joe> Yes, buy orders are something we’ve long wanted to add.
<[FLS]Joe> I don’t know exactly when they’ll get to the top of the list, but they are certainly on our list.
<DelmarWynn> Pyromedik: What are the short- and long-term plans for revision and expansion?
<[FLS]Rusty> I’m assuming you mean revision as in continual updates to the game vs. expansion which means buying a new box with additional content.
<[FLS]Rusty> We’re much more interested in continual expansion of the game rather a big paid expansion.
<[FLS]Rusty> We have a LOT of improvements we’re planning on making, and I want to focus our development efforts there so we have constant updates for you instead of going for six to twelve months with very little new to show, and then asking you to spend money on a new box.
<DelmarWynn> cknoos: Q: Will you be adding additional high-level (40+) spawns in other parts other game world, so as to relieve the pressure off of the Antilles?
<[FLS]Taelorn> Right now, our focus is on getting the appropriate density of spawns are ports and not changing the levels of spawns at a given port. The Antilles is supposed to be high-pressure, as most of the PvP focus is directed there.
<[FLS]Taelorn> That ranges from the spawns to the resources.
<[FLS]Taelorn> However, that doesn’t mean there won’t be high level spawns in other areas, but the person who’s working on the spawn system isn’t here to say for certain.
<DelmarWynn> Keline_Fraser: Since you made SOL less viable for OS combat, are you planning on giving NOs a superfrigate that can keep up with Hercules MC or Pirate?
<[FLS]Taelorn> No. Those frigates are the realm of Privateers and Pirates, not Navy. If I did that, the immediate follow-up would be asking for SOLs for Pirates/Privateers.
<[FLS]Taelorn> We are making skill changes that should help navy solo survivability without altering their current group role or displacing privateer soloability.
<DelmarWynn> TheMaster42: How do you pronounce ‘Capricieux’?
<[FLS]Taelorn> Capricieux.
<[FLS]Aether> Yeah, that sounds right.
<[FLS]Rhaegar> Yup thats how I say it.
<DelmarWynn> Gibbons: When are you going to change the Privateer career boarding buffs?
<[FLS]Taelorn> 1.4.
<[FLS]Aether> Which refers to our build. We are currently working to get build 1.3 to our testbed server, to give you a sense of timing.
<DelmarWynn> MrPirate[Rackham]: Are there any example you could give us on for abilities of the governor of a player governed port?
<[FLS]Joe> We don’t have anything like a final list of powers for governors, but the short list includes: Setting tax rates, investing in port improvements, and deciding how open the port is to players from other nations.
<DelmarWynn> Krull: will you be adding a better switch to ship function soon? I hate having to manually drag all my stuff over
<[FLS]Joe> it’s on the UI Strike Team’s list for when they get to inventory and economic systems.
<[FLS]Joe> That will likely be during the summer.
<DelmarWynn> ArianaDeRoze-Blackbeard: How can you adjust an NO so that he can PvP on the OS without having to get a 6v6 group? Currently I can never catch a pirate, with the amount of sail repairs they get, as well as the speed bonuses. As soon as you bring out more than 3 ships, all the PvPers scatter to the winds.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Speed is a hugely complicated issue. Basically, if you’re trying to catch a pirate with all speed skills on a navy then it’s not going to work. We’re going to be making changes to one navy career chain that will make them more viable solo, but it’s not going to mean they suddenly displace privateers.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Generally, catching another PvP’er in 1vs1 is hard because you’re both going to be rigged for speed.
<[FLS]Taelorn> When someone has abilities that help them get short-term boosts, or things like dump guns that are used for fleeing, then it creates a larger gap.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Navy solo viability won’t be aimed at catching speed-rigged ships.
<DelmarWynn> Swiss_Mercenary: Are we going to see other Port Battle, AvCom and instance maps?
<[FLS]Rusty> Yes, now that we’ve finished off the new French capital. The capitals are enormous projects and take up most of the team, so we’re turning our focus over the next few milestones to adding more rooms.
<[FLS]Rusty> There are some new AVcom rooms in 1.3, and we’re going to be adding a lot more (both AVcom and for ships) in 1.4 and 1.5.

<DelmarWynn> Tobias: A while ago I heard a rumour of you wanting to implement a player-governor system into the game one day. Is this a complete myth or do you hope to introduce it in the future?
<[FLS]Taelorn> We periodically do a poll in design to rank features… we look at how viable they are / how much time they take and how much each of us wants the feature.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Then we compile this gigantic list and sort it all.
<[FLS]Taelorn> We just finished a list recently, and Player Port Governance was the highest feature on the list by far.
<[FLS]Taelorn> And that’s even considering that it’s a huge amount of work, which means it gets a big negative weighting. So, yes: we want player port governance.
<DelmarWynn> skull: Pirates can not keep a port, thus accumulating enough points for a map conquest is next to impossible. What is going to be done to help the pirates?
<[FLS]Joe> For the pirates, map conquest works a little differently.
<[FLS]Joe> They don’t get to keep ports like the nationals, but unlike the nationals they get conquest points every time they take a port.
<[FLS]Joe> Where nationals only get those points the first time they capture a port after a map reset.
<[FLS]Joe> So pirates end up acting as the “timer” on the national’s attempts to conquer the map.
<[FLS]Joe> If the pirates keep capturing ports they will eventually win even though they don’t get to keep them.
<[FLS]Joe> (We are also looking at increasing the number of points that pirates get on a capture to speed up that timer by a bit.)
<DelmarWynn> <RaeshaBloodmoon> Can you ask if there will be a chance to duel others in PVP combat in towns, if a person from another nation is in your nation’s town?
<[FLS]Joe> Yes!
<[FLS]Joe> (That’s my favorite answer.)
<[FLS]Joe> Dueling is in 1.3, which is going to testbed as we speak and will be live in a couple weeks.
<[FLS]Joe> You can duel people of your own nation or another nation in either avatar or ship combat.
<DelmarWynn> Zano: We have heard much comments about how Economic Bombing isnt your vision for Port attacks. In what way do you want Economy to play a part in the offense against a Port?
<[FLS]Rusty> The problem with the economic bombing is that it’s a massive change all at once. Ports are going immediately from no unrest to PvP.
<[FLS]Rusty> We’re changing the system so that it’s a more extended process (so the defenders can react), and warns people (with a yellow contention state, for them’s whose yeller) when it’s about to tip over into PvP.
<[FLS]Rusty> We like how the economy plays into the NvN system, we just want it to work better.
<DelmarWynn> Maximilian: Any bountys being implemented for doubloon or item rewards from other players??
<[FLS]Taelorn> We have generic PvP bounty missions that have you target a specific number of players from hostile nations. Those are pretty minor, but we’re considering making them more important to go along with other PvP reward improvements.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Player-created bounties is on our list of features to consider, but it’s moderately low on that list.
<DelmarWynn> icardo: Any plans to prevent ships from using NPCs to avoid PvP in the “Red Circles”?
<[FLS]Taelorn> Yes, definitely. I’d have it done already if I could, but the right implementation is a lot of work.
<DelmarWynn> FMBOT2K: So far there is no ramming damage, though I can see that being abused, but what if it was a timed skill, for damage, grapple or speed debuff?
<[FLS]Rusty> We just had a quick discussion about it here. It’s probably still too vulnerable to exploits, but making it into a skill turns it into a discussion instead of an automatic no. We’ll keep thinking about it.
<DelmarWynn> <DJ_LoJo> The French get French mimes and a new capitol city, can Spain expect some Mariachi bands and a new capitol city design any time soon?
<[FLS]Joe> Point-a-Pitre (the French capital) was a project we actually started on back in November before the game launched.
<[FLS]Joe> It was a huge project that took the entire environment team about three months to finish.
<[FLS]Joe> We have other things we’d like to get from the environment team over the next few months so we are pushing back the Spanish capital (San Juan) and they are spending their time on SKirmish rooms and custom environments for Epic Missions instead.
<[FLS]Joe> At the same time we have some programming time going into improving the environment tools so that the next capital will be faster and to enable some of the new features Rusty mentioned earlier.
<DelmarWynn> RGLS]MenionLeah: aaand last one… How about Dump guns skill? How is it possible, that pirates are able to use that skill even tho they have no guns left?
<[FLS]Taelorn> They can’t. I believe that change to dump guns is in 1.3, for both pirates and FTs.
<[FLS]Aether> Which hits Testbed in the very near future.

<DelmarWynn> Zano: My question is about speedy ships. I’ve seen alot of people resort to using speedy ships to keep a less speedy group in combat for extended periods of time. No combat or anything, just sitting in the instance unable to leave. Is this a viable tactic?
<[FLS]Taelorn> I posted about this on our forums here: http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showpost.php?p=184575&postcount=101
<[FLS]Taelorn> It’s a pretty complicated issue. Using small ships against slow ships is a valid tactic, but there are cases when it can be taken to the extreme.
<[FLS]Taelorn> We have exit markers in battles so you can escape. If you think there’s a particularly bad use, then it’s probably best to take it up with support and it’ll go through the usual process to determine if we think the specific behavior case is an exploit.
<DelmarWynn> harv: when will the duel/skirmish feature be added to allow people to test skills and ship setups without risking ship loss everytime
<[FLS]Joe> Well dueling is in 1.3, so it’s coming out pretty much right away.
<[FLS]Joe> The Skirmish System itself is slated for 1.5, which will allow multiple players on a side (probably up to 12) without durability loss.
<[FLS]Joe> Skirmish and Duel work with both avatar combat and ship combat.
<DelmarWynn> Zano: What is your current ideas on exacly how a Port Governor will be selected and how he will maintain his position?
<[FLS]Taelorn> It uses an influence system. Players can earn, trade and buy influence through a variety of systems.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Then you can spend that influence and use it to try to become the governor of a port.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Isildur will probably talk about it in length once we get closer to adding the system.
<DelmarWynn> Emile: I think I remember mention of plans to impliment new fighting styles into the game (i.e. musketeers, brawlers, etc). Am I imagining things, are they still in the works, or can we expect to see them soon?
<[FLS]Rusty> We still plan to do them, but we’ve been focusing on getting the core PvP elements for ships fixed, and now we’re moving onto revamping avatar combat. Before we implement the new styles, we want to fix/polish/spruce up the old ones, which (tentatively) starts in 1.4 with a revision to the skills.
<[FLS]Rusty> We’ll continue iterating on AVcom until we’ve got it polished and feeling good, and then we’ll go back to adding the new combat styles.
<DelmarWynn> Brei: currently after a port is fully flipped it becomes a ghost town other then a few pirates here and there, is anything being done to keep
<DelmarWynn> people in the red zone until the PB occurs?
<[FLS]Taelorn> Yes. The basic problem is that the best way to play the Conquest system is to avoid PvP.
<[FLS]Taelorn> That’s something we have to address through incenting PvP and red circles in general. I have a long list of things I want to do here. That includes general benefits for being in the red zone and more stuff from ship combat in red zones.
<DelmarWynn> Brei: for almost a year now Rusty has talked about wanting to add a ranking system with a web interface for it, any updates on this?
<[FLS]Aether> Yes! As you may know, we’ve released the data sharing API for public consumption (check it out here: http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/article&article_id=10707).
<[FLS]Aether> The addition of this new resource opens up tons of opportunity for us to organize and share data, like the ranking system you mention, via our front page.
<[FLS]Aether> Expect to see some Devlogs in the near future introducing some ready-to-use widgets for installation on 3rd party and PotBS Society sites, with all kinds of features and options that will allow you to both tout and track the accomplishments of your society members and yourself.

<DelmarWynn> [Billy] Are there any plans to change the underdog tools in the near futur? If so, could you drop any clues?
<[FLS]Taelorn> Our plan for the underdog tools involves a complex series of calculations that work in a way that the system can’t be gamed. The problem with rank-based underdog tools is that players can attempt to achieve a low-rank.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Ideally, you must *really* be the underdog to get those underdog bonuses. That’s what we’re aiming for.
<[FLS]Aether> Aim high, that’s what I always say.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Aside from that, the rewards from conquest should incent players to win. Although, I’d also argue there’s not really much reason to try to earn last place.
<[FLS]Taelorn> What good do those bonuses do you if you have to avoid playing the game in order to get them? So far, lots of people have said they’re going to try to earn last place, but the data hasn’t shown any significant difference in activity.
<[FLS]Taelorn> If it does, then we’ll make adjustments so that it’s not as enticing to get last place.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Also, I should note that our plans will make the underdog dynamic, instead of fixed for a victory cycle.
<DelmarWynn> ArianaDeRoze-Blackbeard: In relationship to the Skirmishing question, how do you propose to make it to where OS PvP doesnt die the moment its put into effect? The pirates dont carry loot persay so there is no motivation to seek them out.
<[FLS]Joe> Well you can’t flip a port via the Skirmish system, so the only way OS PvP is going to die is if people stop trying to take over the Carribean.
<[FLS]Joe> We are working on the risks/reward ratio for PvP in 1.3 and 1.4, and think you’ll be happy with what you see. When you combine map conquest with the rewards of Open Sea PvP I think you’ll see MORE people in the OS, not fewer.
<[FLS]Joe> It’s something we’ll keep a close eye on though. This is definitely a major change to the game and we have to be careful with it.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Skirmish is aimed at being a fun diversion where you can control your battles.
<[FLS]Taelorn> For OS PvP, that’s where there’ll be more at stake, and where we’ll hook up our planned rewards.
<DelmarWynn> Zano: When you talk about changes to Avatarcombat. Will these revisions solely be about tweaking skills, or are we talking about a more spectacular change to this part of the game.
<[FLS]Rusty> We’re looking at it as a complete system, which ranges from skill tuning to revamps of how the animation system works. When AVcombat is working, it looks exciting, but there are issues (three on one fights) where the animation over writes itself and pops and generally looks stupid, so there will be changes coming for it.
<[FLS]Rusty> When we created ship combat, we built the system, tested it, rebuilt it, tested it, and kept on iterating at a fundamental level until we got it right. I think we’re farther along with AVCombat, but it still needs more iteration to get it to shine.
<[FLS]Joe> (and rebuilt it, and tested it, and rebuilt it, and tested it…)
<DelmarWynn> <RachelDarkfish> Are the any plans to expand advertising in order to bring in more players?
<[FLS]Rusty> Definitely. Pirates is a very different game than previous MMOs, and it
<[FLS]Rusty> is all about finding its audience. To get people to come in and try something that’s not another WoW-clone means we have to reach out to them, and make that barrier to trying it very easy. That means free trials and constant, low level advertising.
<[FLS]Rusty> We’re working on the support to enable free trials in 1.4, which lets us put them out without making them goldspammer tools, and after that we’ll look at ramping up advertising to support it.
<[FLS]Aether> You will also see us at Gen-Con Indy, PAX here in Seattle, and several other conventions throughout the country, throughout the Summer. We will be posting a schedule of our appearances to www.burningsea.com in short order. Make sure to come see us when we hit your neighborhood. 🙂
<DelmarWynn> <Eternil> Why prevent FT’s and Priates from using there Dump guns ability when thay nolonger have any to fire when it’s not about the guns that are useable but about lighting the ships load to alow faster movement. A non-useable gun still weights as much as a useable one in which case you’ll want to dump and extra weight usable cannon or non usable cannon.
<[FLS]Taelorn> It’s a skill, it’s there to serve a specific purpose in the game mechanics. If you want to get into those details, dumping guns wouldn’t even help your speed.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Ships are built and loaded to sail best at a specific weight. That’s why they carry ballast when they don’t have cargo. If you start dumping stuff, it’s not going to help you useless you want to be lighter because you’re springing leaks.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Thus, in gameplay terms, you can’t use the skill if you have no guns because that’s the penalty. It makes you lose guns, thus it shouldn’t be usable in a situation where you have no guns to lose.

<DelmarWynn> [Anon1116] Q for Rusty- This dev chat suggests the vast majority of dev efforts are on PvP and very little on PvE. Is this what PvE players could expect from PotBS?
<[FLS]Rusty> No, we’re still working on adding more PvE content (heck, I have an entire strike team for pillaging!) but until we build some of the other elder game systems, PvP is the core of our elder game, and has to work.
<[FLS]Rusty> It has a number of issues that are hurting it for the PvP guys, and the PvE (since it’s unreasonably hard for them to avoid) so the changes benefit both groups.
<[FLS]Rusty> We haven’t talked about PvE-specific improvements, but they’re coming, as well as a cool new epic mission of the supernatural.
<DelmarWynn> It is time we come to a close and let the devs get back to 1.3, 1.4 and beyond. But first one last question and the winner of the tshirt giveaway!
<DelmarWynn> TheMaster42: What is each dev’s favorite ship? =)
<[FLS]Aether> Picking one ship is too difficult. The Oliphant was a user created ship built by Marion, our User Content Specialist. It is both gorgeous, and tough.
<[FLS]Joe> The Raft!
<[FLS]Aether> Though I’m also a fan of Xaphod’s Bark, which is yet another UC masterpiece.
<[FLS]Aether> You can check those out, and more, by visiting http://www.burningsea.com/explore/library/ship-guide/
<[FLS]Rusty> The Turtle. I did a LOT of demo’ing with it in Asia, so I had it overgunned. Bwahahahahaa!!!!
<[FLS]Taelorn> I get this question all the time, especially at dinner. And… I never have an answer.
<[FLS]Aether> water hax.
<[FLS]Taelorn> I’ve spent so much time buried in ship data, setting thousands of values, that they all become giant messes of numbers.
<[FLS]Joe> Sorry, didn’t realize we were going wordy. I should have said, “The Raft! A user content ship made by our own environment artist Woody when he was still an intern.” 🙂
<[FLS]Aether> Use your words, Joe.
<[FLS]Taelorn> It’s almost like someone’s asking me, “Which of these formulas do you like best?”
<[FLS]Aether> You are a machine, Taelorn.
<[FLS]Taelorn> While I love our ships, I work with them on a level that’s completely impersonal and I never developed a favorite.
<[FLS]Rhaegar> which forumla DO you like best?
<[FLS]Rusty> Admit it, you have a favorite formula!! I’ve seen you at night with Excel!!!
<[FLS]Aether> haha
<[FLS]Joe> I like A^2 + B^2 = C^2 best.
<[FLS]Rusty> “crunch it baby”
<[FLS]Taelorn> Uhm… I don’t know.. the speed one? The size ones? The level?
<[FLS]Aether> Alright, we’ll leave it at that then 🙂
<[FLS]Aether> Let’s give out some prizes, no?
<[FLS]Taelorn> I guess I multi-task
<DelmarWynn> So who is the winner? Huh! Huh!
* [FLS]Aether pokes Rhaegar
<[FLS]Rhaegar> Right. As many of you are aware, we’re giving out prizes to four randomly selected people tonight. Each one will get a 30-day PotBS timecode, and one of our very sought after t-shirts.
<[FLS]Rhaegar> So without further ado, the four random winners are……. *drumroll*
<mattlow> me me, pick me!
<DelmarWynn> me! me!
<[FLS]Rhaegar> DeArkahm, Marat, Swiss_Mercenary, ejengstrom
<DelmarWynn> Woohoo! Congrats all!
<[FLS]Aether> Woot!
<[FLS]Rusty> I answered Swiss)Mercenary’s question. He was blessed!
<[FLS]Rhaegar> And, as a reward for asking an awesome question, we are also giving a bonus prize of a 30 day time code to Billy!
<DelmarWynn> With that! We want to thank the team from Flying Labs for taking time out of their busy schedule to chat with us!
<[FLS]Rusty> Thanks for coming everyone!
<[FLS]Rusty> bye!
<[FLS]Aether> Thanks folks, we will see you on the high seas!

Thanks to everyone for stopping by and asking questions, and a big thank you to the staff of Flying Labs, that took time out of their busy schedules to answer.