Pirates of the Burning Sea: Bi-Weekly Q&A Series

Jess Lebow is the Content Director of Pirates of the Burning Sea, but in this latest edition of our Q&A series, we talk to him about what inspires him and what made it into the game from history and reality. Lebow - who is also a novelist - gives us in-depth responses on all fronts.

WarCry: Sailing has been simplified for ease of gameplay. Is there anything there for the nautical purist to enjoy?

Jess Lebow: Oh sure.

Wind plays a huge factor in sailing and combat tactics. There are several different types of rigging in the game, and each changes the way a ship handles along with its angle of attack. Trying to sail close-hauled will reduce your effectiveness, as it would in a real ship. The sails will actually turn when you move through the point on the compass where the wind hits them in a different direction. And, among other things, our ships have been created using actual plans from sailing ships of our time period.

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Pirates of the Burning Sea Lead Designer Kevin Maginn gets our Q&A series running again with another set of questions and answers. This week we learn about population imbalance between the nations, the stress test and more.

WarCry: Your game lets people play as French, Spanish, English or Pirates. It seems likely that you'll face some population balance issues. Have you seen them so far in Beta and how do you plan to keep things fair after release?

Kevin Maginn: We're seeing the same population numbers consistently through every stage of the beta. 35% of the players choose Pirate; a similar number choose Britain. 15% choose Spanish, and 15% choose French. Obviously, those numbers aren't balanced, but they're not a failure state either. That said, we are working on some population balancing tools, with two goals: make the game more fair if your nation is underpopulated, and make underpopulated nations more appealing, particularly to large PvP guilds.

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Kevin Maginn is the Lead Designer of Flying Lab Software's Pirates of the Burning Sea and the subject of an interview series ran here on WarCry every other Monday. Today we get answers on mini-games, fan reaction, the story-arc and more.

WarCry: What has been the reaction from gamers at conventions who have never heard of the game before and are seeing it or playing it for the first time?

Kevin Maginn: Almost universally positive. We're aware of issues we still need to address in our game, but one thing that's always been true is that Pirates shows very well. I credit the amount of time we've spent polishing and re-polishing the ship combat experience; it's intuitive and easy to learn.

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Today we kick off a new series with the good folks at Flying Lab Software. In anticipation of their January 22nd launch, we bring you a twice-monthly Q&A series. The first five questions get their answers from Lead Designer Kevin Maginn.

WarCry: What are some of your favorite ship-to-ship tactics?

Kevin Maginn: You probably don't want to hear exploits that we've already fixed, do you? One thing that seems pervasive throughout ship combat is that players prefer to use outfitting and skills that increase the damage of their cannons. However, this doesn't do much for accuracy or reload rate, both of which are very important parts of the dps calculation. Load up a fast ship in accuracy and range-increasing gear, and you can tear a larger ship apart as it desperately tries to close to a range where its overloaded +damage gear will matter.

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