flying-lab-software posts

Earlier this year developer Flying Lab Software announced plans to take its nearly three years old MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea to the free-to-play business model. Today the game officially switched over to that new business model, allowing folks to play much of the game's content free of charge.

Folks who still want to stick with the monthly subscription model can still do so at the rate of $14.99 a month. Those players will get full access to the game's content. People who want to play the game for free can still purchase content and items via the in-game store named, appropriately enough, Treasure Aisle.

[Via Massively]

The monthly subscription business model for the massively multiplayer game genre is slowly losing its popularity among game developers. Today yet another established MMO with such a business model, Pirates of the Burning Sea, announced that it is switching over to a free-to-play version.

In a post on the game's official web site the game's developer's Flying Lab Software said the switch to free-to-play will have a number of positives for the title including making the game more accessible for new players and allowing players to play for as much or as little as they would like. There's no word yet on when the switch will take place although Flying Lab is "very close to starting the countdown." In related news the game's first major expansion pack, Power and Prestige, has officially launched.

Usually when a beta test for an MMO expansion pack is set up its only for the current players of the game. Developer Flying Labs Software is doing something a little different for the open beta of their upcoming expansion to its pirate MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea.

The expansion pack, Power and Prestige, is now available in open beta for subscribers to the main game. However, Flying Lab is letting people who download and play the game's 14 day free trial version to also play the open beta test for Power and Prestige. The free expansion, which lets players become port governors and adds 60 new missions, is scheduled to officially launch later this summer.

A few months ago, developer Flying Lab Software announced their plans for Power and Prestige, the first major content expansion for their pirate themed MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea. Today the developer revealed that the free expansion, first revealed back in September 2009, would be released sometime in early August.

People who subscribe to the game can now sign up to be a beta tester for the expansion. When its released it will add 60 new missions to the game along with four new pirate hunter factions, the ability to be a "port governor" in the game and lots more.

Direct2Drive isn't the only site with early week sales events. Steam is offering up its own deep discount on a title today. It's Pirates of the Burning Sea and from now until December 11 you can purchase and download the pirate-themed MMO title for just $5. That's a whopping 75 percent off its normal $19.99 Steam price. The Steam sale ends on December 11.

The game was launched in January 2008 by Seattle developer Flying Lab Software. The developer has recently announced plans for its first commercial expansion pack titled Power and Prestige that will add new content and features to the game.

Launched in January 2008, the pirate themed MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea has proven to be a solid hit for independent developer Flying Lab Software. So much so, in fact, that the developer is currently hiring new people to work on the game's first major content expansion, titled Power and Prestige.

The expansion will allow players in the game to not only conquer ports but to become the actual Port Governor of those captured locations. Port Governors will have ways to increase the port's defensive capabilities as well as setting its tax rates. Power and Prestige will be released for free to the game's subscribers in the second quarter of 2010.

Oh, and Flying Lab also has in-game plans for tomorrow which is, in case you didn't already know, Talk Like A Pirate Day.

Seattle-based Flying Lab Software has been running its pirate-themed MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea for a year now but the developer is looking to expand its reach into other areas. Our sister site GameDaily reports that Flying Lab will soon officially announce their plans for a casual MMO title.

The game will be developed by a new division of the company called, naturally, Flying Lab Casual, and has already gotten its first gig creating a game in a "family friendly universe" in collaboration with well known trading card company Upper Deck. Pirates of the Burning Sea isn't being forgotten; the developer also plans to revamp the title's sword-fighting system. Players can also expect "new skirmish and player-governed ports" to be put into the game.

Before the launches of Age of Conan and Warhammer Online, developer Flying Lab Software and distributor Sony Online launched Pirates of the Burning Sea in January. The pirate themed MMO got a lot of attention beforehand and even showed up on NPD's top 10 list for its debut week but since then the game hasn't gotten as much attention from the MMO community as the other two major MMO launches this year.

Flying Lab is hoping to bring in new players by launching a 14 day free trial version of the title where you can pick from one of four different "nations", explore the game's version of the 18th century Caribbean and not only engage in sea battles but fight in sword battles as well. Any characters made during the free trial can be carried over if you choose to purchase the full game and get a monthly subscription.

Flying Lab Software's recent MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea may not have pulled in the sales of, say, Age of Conan, but the development team seems to be in a comfortable place at the moment. However its been a few months since the titles's January release and now Flying Lab is getting ready to go into its second major marketing launch for the title.

Basically the company plans to get the word out on Burning Sea via not just new web banner ads but also a free 14 day trial version of the game. The trials, which are expected to go live in mid to late July, will allow players to upgrade to a full version when their trials are completed. A new 1.5 patch for the game is also due out soon which will add a new Epic Mission to the game along with other additions, changes and bug fixes.

After years of development and a number of release date delays, Flying Lab Software finally launched their highly anticipated MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea. The game took the current pirate popularity trend and infused it with both high powered ships battles combined with the more typical avatar combat, raids and other MMO conventions. The reviews of the game have pointed out its flaws but have mostly been positive.

However, about three months since the game's launch Flying Lab is making some major adjustments to Burning Sea's server allocation. On Tuesday the developer announced on the game's official web site that it was moving player characters out of seven servers and shutting those servers down " . . . until such time as there is a need for more servers". Those characters were moved to the game's four remaining servers. On the surface this might seem to be a bad sign; usually when a MMO consolidates its server population it means that the the game has not gotten as many subscribers as they would have liked.

While Flying Lab, like most MMO developers, have not yet commented on how many current subscribers they have for Pirates of the Burning Sea, they seemed optimistic that this new move would be a good one for the game and its players. The statement says that since the launch of the game, the dev team has discovered that " . . .key game features require populations of higher density in order to function at optimum levels." The statement added that Flying Lab has been able to improve their technology to allow more players per server than they originally planned.

All in all, this move is not necessarily a bad sign of things to come for the game; merely a way for the development team to streamline the title to move it forward in the future. Of course we will keep an eye out on the game's progress in the coming months.