With the launch of Pirates of the Burning Sea earlier this week, I thought it'd be a good time to check in with Jess Lebow, Content Director for PotBS. You'll recall we spoke with him in December 2007 regarding the upcoming release of this title, and so here he is after the event:

Maggie: As with any new title officially launching, there are bound to be issues.  You guys had one on the morning of the launch... which thankfully you were able to catch and correct before it got out of hand.  Do you see any potential issues that players might come across that could affect a smooth roll-out in the coming days?

Jess: The truth is you never see these things coming. The issue on the morning of our launch had to do with an update to the Sony launcher. It worked fine when we took the servers down to prepare them for the influx of new players. There was an update applied to it that was meant to improve performance, but something went wrong, and there was a fair amount of scrambling around to get it fixed. Fortunately Sony managed to get everything up and running in a timely fashion, so we rolled out only an hour late—which, in terms of launch catastrophes, was pretty mild.

Does that mean we're done with problems? Probably not. We did a lot of rigorous testing during open and closed beta, so we feel good about the game as it stands. But one thing I've learned about MMOs is that the best way to find something wrong with your game is to let 100,000 players bash on it for a few days.

To check out more of what's coming for all you pirates out there, read on!

That's right!  Here's the official statement:

SAN DIEGO, CA – Jan. 22, 2008 – Grab your parrot, raise the gang plank and ready the cannons with Pirates of the Burning Sea™ (PotBS), the hotly anticipated online PC game where players can clash on land and sea. This new title from Sony Online Entertainment LLC’s (SOE) Platform Publishing label, and Flying Lab Software LLC (FLS), is available today at participating retail outlets worldwide and as a digital download through http://www.station.com/ and http://www.direct2drive.com/ for a suggested retail price of US$49.99, with a monthly subscription fee of US$14.99 plus applicable taxes.

An interesting rumor of note suggests that captains on the Burning Sea will want to watch the Auction Houses at their respective home ports, as leaders of the four factions are said to be preparing for all out war.

Sources close to Auction House officials have hinted that large shipments of critical resources will be made available to Auction House customers as early as tomorrow, Saturday, December 29th!

Not only that, but the US and European server names have surfaced!  Not long now until launch!

We’ve been planning to end the Open Beta this Sunday the 23rd. But we’ve heard from so many players who want to play over the holidays that we’ve changed our minds.

The Pirates of the Burning Sea Open Beta will now run until the morning of January 1st, 2008! That gives everyone one more week to play the game, see what we’re doing, and check out the very latest improvements and changes.

Here's the whole article, which includes info on downloading the client and getting in

Ships of the Line (SOLs) are the rulers of the sea. They are a symbol of power and naval dominance. In Pirates of the Burning Sea, the presence of SOLs shapes the outcome of port battles and thus the conquest system. Groups of SOLs are very tough to defeat.

From the start, our goals have been for SOLs to be very rare, very hard to earn, and to be deployed only at port battles of great strategic importance to a nation. We havent met these goals very well. In the closed beta, SOLs were earned by getting a Writ, and the most efficient way to get a Writ was by mindlessly grinding high-level NPCs. Since grinding would get you an SOL, they were seen frequently at port battles where they utterly dominated. This meant that getting an SOL was a sucky single-player grind and that many players got them and used them in every battle they could.

If you haven't yet signed up for their open beta, do it now matey!

From our news wire: The Pirates of the Burning Sea folks are donating treasure to support the Child’s Play Charity at Penny Arcade’s charity dinner this year:

ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT Pirates of the Burning Sea Pre-Order Promotional Box Set sail up to 15 days prior to the commercial release of the game (Play before the release date of January 22, 2008!) Ability to keep your characters, equipment and skills after launch (Level cap of 20) Special In-Game Items Captains Best Friend – a blue and yellow parrot companion Mighty Blades – Swedish Rapier, Old World Cutlass or Musketeer’s Matching Blades Original Game Soundtrack Support Piracy Tshirt, Getting Booty Since 1720 Tshirt and a parrot with a shirt to match yours! Pirates of the Burning Sea Ship in a Bottle Talk Like a Pirate Day’s Pirattitude! Book Treasure Chest filled with even more goodies

Improve the lives of children with toys and games in 40 hospitals worldwide by supporting the Child’s Play Charity here:

http://childsplaycharity.com/

• Set sail up to 15 days prior to the commercial release of the game
• Leep your characters, equipment, and skils after launch (level cap of 20)

• Captain's Best Friend - a blue and yellow parrot companion
• Mighty Blades - Swedish Rapier, Old World Cutlass or Musketeer's Matching Blades

• 60 minutes of pirate flavored music

• Set sail up to 15 days prior to the commercial release of the game
• Leep your characters, equipment, and skils after launch (level cap of 20)