[Dev Interview] Future of PoTBS

For those who havnt seen this yet it makes good reading, some great features look like they are on their way especialy the custom inter guild battles. Perhaps we could hold an inter guild pvp tournament when this goes live? Anyway, heres the link and the article quoted:

Ten Ton Hammer Dev Interview

Quote :

The high-class suites at the MGM Grand aren't typically the place where you'd find a pirate, but at 2008's Consumer Electronics Show there was definitely a salty scent in the air. Sony Online Entertainment (complete with a contingent of pirate swag and skullduggery) were the folks responsible for bringing the smell of the sea to the show. In full force at CES, the online game company was proudly displaying each of their respective games - including Pirates of the Burning Sea - in a suite that made the associated press feel like kings.

At CES 2008, we discussed player skirmishes and raiding with the PotBS developers.

Along for the ride were the developers at Flying Lab Software, and they certainly weren't going to allow a bunch of Ten Ton Hammer staffers to visit the SOE area without sitting us down and discussing the latest features being implemented into the game. With our cameras and laptops in tow, Ten Ton Hammer's Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and Cody "Micajah" Bye met with Jess Lebow and Rusty Williams to document our excursions into the Caribbean.

While many of the dramatic scenarios and events played out visually before our eyes (which we proceeded to capture with our high quality video camera - more videos to come!), there were a few important details that leaked into our conversation concerning the first few updates that would be coming into the game after the January 22, 2008, launch date.

To be precise, the two developers mainly focused on a pair of upcoming features for the game: the player skirmish and the raiding systems. Lebow was adamant in letting us know that these additions to the game would be going active in the game world just a few weeks after launch, so end-game pirates wouldn't have to wait an absurd amount of time before trying their hand at some of the nastier scenarios.

Players skirmishes will be organized, scheduled PvP events. If someone isn't invited, they can't join.

First on Lebow's docket was the player skirmish system, which focuses on scheduled fights with controlled variables. "It's going to be a system where you're essentially scheduling a battle against an opposing force," Lebow said. "You basically say, 'On this day, we're going to meet up and fight each other!' As an example of one of the objectives, you're going to be protecting this convoy that's moving from point A to point B, and your opponents are going to try and destroy it."

But what if you don't want particular players (or opponents) trying to enter the match? "You can password protect the whole thing, so only players that you designate can enter the match," Lebow added. So if your guild leader doesn't send you the password for a particular night's player skirmish, you know that it might be time to practice a bit more with that 52-gun ship and really lay down the law.

When asked to expand further on the whole concept, Lebow thought for a moment before answering. "Do you remember Goldeneye: 007? The old FPS for the N64?" he asked. "Do you remember how you could go in and set all the variables in the game before initiating the multiplayer sequence? That's what we're trying to do on a broader scale. Perhaps you want to set-up a fort battle where two guilds are battling it out. Or maybe you want to do a practice scenario where your guild fights itself in one of the skirmishes, because there may be consequences to losing these battles and you want to make sure your strategies are all sound before initiating the combat."

After you best your guildmates, make sure you lift their morale by buying them a drink in the tavern.

This brings up some interesting situations for the guilds found in Pirates of the Burning Sea. Rather than having to test your guildmates mettle in PvP combat on the open waters, instead you could set-up player skirmishes to get your players ready for the bigger battles. Perhaps you could hold try-outs for the "A" squad or the "B" squad, determining who gets on either team by seeing how they perform in the naval battles. Once the teams have been established, your guild can way-lay opponents on the elite and casual level alike!

Perhaps the most interesting portion of the game the PotBS developers discussed, however, was the end-game raiding content that they have been meticulously building for the post-launch period. The conversation initially started with a conversation we were having about the normal time it takes to defeat a combat scenario in Pirates of the Burning Sea. According to Jess, the average time it takes to go through ship versus ship combat is around 20 minutes, but he noted that the raid content they were putting in the game featured ship combat that was along the lines of two and a half hours in length.

"It's more involved and you will definitely need to be more organized," Lebow said. "You will need a guild of people to really take these enemies down."

Ship versus ship combat in the raid scenarios may take up to two and a half hours to complete.

When we asked Jess to elaborate on the situation - whether it was going to be one monstrous raid boss or something else entirely - his answer was very direct. "The players are going to enter a cove," Lebow said. "There's a pirate fleet inside and you - along with your friends - are charged with sailing in their and destroying this fleet."

"However, we've made this particular encounter tougher than anything else you'll face in the game," Lebow added. "We've tweaked the boss AI in this mission, so he'll fight harder than anything you've ever fought in the game. In the particular raid I'm talking about, you'll be taking on an incredibly nasty jailer because you need to free some important individuals he's holding prisoner. However, even though you will have him outnumbered, he has tons of different ways to bleed you and will direct area-of-effect attacks your way."

"But, the prisoners hate him, of course, because he's their jailer," Lebow continued. "So if you can drive the jailer back into the prisoners, they'll actually shiv, cut, and generally harm him in any way they can. We're trying to do a lot of this 'environmental' type of action to add a bit of flair to the experience."

One of the initial raid bosses is a jailer who probably didn't go through the criminal system to lock up his captives.

Even though the raid is certainly on its way down the pipe, the developers at Flying Lab wanted to insure that this scenario was done correctly. They're pulling out all the stops to make it a fun and challenging experience, including devoting a solid chunk of man hours to the design and implementation of the encounter. "This is literally taking a team of six people over two months to build," Lebow said. "We've never done this before, so we wanted to make sure it was done right. We haven't attempted this style of gameplay, but we wanted to add that one more dimension to Pirates for players at higher levels. Once this has gone into the game, you'll definitely be seeing more raids going live."

"That said," Lebow continued, "we're always pushing the limits on what we can do with our tools. The entry of the raids in the game will be slow at the beginning, but once we ramp up you'll begin seeing them all the time. After the first one or two raids are thoroughly played by our player base, we can judge what they like and dislike and begin implementing more and more of these encounters into the game."

Fear not, high level pirates! The developers at Flying Lab haven't forgotten about you! If you don't believe me, take the words straight from the developers mouth. Raids and player skirmishes are coming, and it won't be long before we'll be fighting for glory and booty alike!

*drools* Custom player skirmishes and "guild wars"? This is heaven come true for the mediocre PvPer, and will give everyone a chance to participate in the larger battles. Also will give us a chance to test/come up with formations! (as a history buff, i love this!)