Pirates of the Burning Sea Interview, Part 1

As Pirates of the Burning Sea isn't that well known of a MMOG title, can you explain to us who you are, and what you do for Flying Lab Software?

I'm Taylor Daynes, the Lead Game Designer here at Flying Lab Software. My comrades here like to say that I'm 'Holder of the Vision; Keeper of the Flame', which I'm told means that I have the enviable job of designing how the game works, and getting everyone in the world - including my co-workers - as excited about our game as possible.

Was there a "Peanut Butter and Chocolate" incident that led you and the other fellows at Flying Labs to come up with the idea for a MMOG based on pirates, or was it something more common than that?

We were casting around for ideas for our next project, and Joe Ludwig (our lead developer) and I wanted to do a MMOG. But we didn't want to do the same boring fantasy world that everyone else was doing. We wanted a game world where everyone would immediately understand who the sides were, and why they were in conflict. We wanted a world where players would have a rich sense of place and meaning. We had batted around the idea of a pirate-themed MMP world a year or two earlier, and when it came up again in a brainstorming session it was shocking how obvious and natural it felt.

There have been many implementations of our society's fascination with the pirate in game form. What other pirate games have inspired you in your design of this particular version?

Ironically, I'd never played Sid Meier's Pirates! before we started working on the project. I'd heard about it, of course - you can't make a pirate game without hearing about it - but it was a month or two after we began before I managed to play it. One of the most inspiring things about Sid's games is the amount of research and authenticity that he puts into them. Pirates! was lavished with historical detail, and Gettysburg, one of the company favorites, is an amazing testament to reality and playability living in harmony.

I'd also played and loved Akella's original Sea Dogs, which was a great combination of fast-action naval combat and avatar-based role-playing. Of course, there have been a number of other games which have explored the genre, from the entertaining Monkey Island series, to lesser-known adventure games like Redjack.

Recent strategy games like Port Royale, Topico 2 and Tortuga make use of the pirate theme. They've offered many design lessons for our higher-level gameplay, which is often strategic in nature.

Why a Massive Multiplayer Game, and not a single player title?

The simple fact is that players are far more clever than any computer game AI. You can have experiences in multiplayer games that you'd never see on a single-player game. This genre is where the most interesting developments in gaming are going on, and it's a thrill and a challenge to work here.

In the crop of Massive Multiplayer games being developed, what makes yours different from all the others? How do you expect to attract a fan base?

One theory suggests that MMP games of the same genre and playstyle tend to attract the same population. That is, a fantasy-themed EQ style game won't bring in any new players to the MMP genre, and will only be able to find a population by cannibalizing EQ's entrenched player-base. We've seen AC2 decimated - more than decimated - in recent months, and that's in part attributable to big new releases such as SWG getting those players to switch. No doubt some portion of our player base will come over after getting tired of SWG or whatever else - and in turn, we'll lose some people to newer games down the road.

There are, however, plenty of gamers who have tired of MMPs in general due to uninspired, repetitive gameplay, and an inability to affect the world in any meaningful way. They're looking for something different.

Well, we're a pirate-themed game, set in the historical world of 1720. The theme, the time period, and the reality of our game are entirely unexplored by the current genre of MMP games. In addition to the setting, Pirates of the Burning Sea is focused on sophisticated nation vs. nation competition, which has proven to be the most enduring and interesting style of gameplay found in MMP games; DAoC has been both popular and lasting and we believe it's in large part because of the RvR experience. Lastly, we actually encourage our players to change the world, and provide them with tools to do so.

In addition, there are gamers out there who have had no interest in MMPs at all until now. They are tactical combat gamers, people who are fans of tabletop games such as Wooden Ships & Iron Men and computer games like Age of Sail. They're looking for real naval tactics, interesting history, and the challenge and surprise of multiplayer gaming. We think they're going to be very happy with us.

What engine are you using to render objects in the client? What led to your decision to use this engine?

We chose the Intrinsic Alchemy engine (now owned by Vicarious Visions) because we were very impressed with the architecture, the coding philosophy, the extensibility, and the customer support. Alchemy was established by a group of 3d graphics researchers who left SGI to work on a high-intensity 3d graphics engine for games. Because they started as programmers outside the game industry, their programming methods are rock-solid. Nothing goes in without being checked and double checked for stability, and their code-optimizing techniques are nothing short of astounding.

Additionally, since they weren't a game company, they put all their effort and manpower, and considerable budget into the engine itself. The engine architecture is fundamentally extensible - it is organized into modules that can be ripped out and replaced as new technology comes out. This design means that unlike Id, where you've got the Quake 1, 2 and 3 engine, and the Doom 3 engine, Alchemy is a single engine that keeps evolving over time. This is perfect for a MMP game whose lifespan is expected to be years. As time goes on and new graphics technology gets developed, those features will get dropped into our engine, and our graphics will stay cutting edge with a minimal amount of work on our part.

In the screenshots that are on your official site, we can see nice reflections in the water. Will there be models in the water as well? For example, could a captain sailing around the tropics potentially see a school of dolphin or a large whale swim by?

We love stuff like this. Don't be surprised if you see 'environmental' features like schools of fish, whales, seagulls, etc appearing unexpectedly some time when you log in. This is part of the joy of continued development, and the Steam delivery system.

When people think of Pirates, they probably flash on Errol Flynn as the best example of what we understand to be a Pirate. How close to that vision do you think PotBS is going to come?

We watched many of the old Errol Flynn movies while developing the feel of the game. Although that view of pirates is very much romanticized, we do love the heroic image portrayed in the old swashbuckler movies. The more recent Pirates of the Caribbean is an excellent combination of reality and heroic romance. They actually had a historian on staff during the production of the film to ensure as much authenticity as they could, but they didn't let reality get in the way of the style and adventure we love about pirates.

Pirates of the Burning Sea is a swashbuckling adventure set in a world as authentic and real as we can make fun. We're pushing for realism where it gives the best results, such as in real-time naval tactics, the visual look, and in the economic and military complexities of international relations. But the player experience is meant to feel epic and exciting. To put it simply, our game is about heroic captains outwitting each other on the high seas; it's not about a hold full of miserable, scurvy-ridden sailors knifing each other over a crust of bread.

People reading this interview are going to envision themselves playing a MMOG where they can swing on a rope, and swash their buckle onto another ship. However, in the first version of PotBS, you're not planning on this kind of interaction. Can you talk about how you came to this decision, and you think it'll affect your entry into the crowded marketplace?

For PotBS, doing avatars right means swinging onto the enemy ship amidst a blaze of cannonfire, cutting a swath through the sprawling melee and engaging the opposing captain in a bloody duel. It means trekking through a murky jungle all night in order to ambush the mule train coming from the silver mines. Doing avatars right in our game means a lot of time.

We could postpone for a year while we implement every feature we want, but we'd rather focus on the core game - get that right - and then build on top of a strong foundation. A lot of games show up with a huge pile of unbalanced features, and when they start flailing around trying to fix things it just makes it worse because there's simply too much changing all at once.

We're taking one step at a time. We'll get ship-to-ship combat and the large scale economics working, and then we'll flesh out the landlubber side of the world.

Stay Tuned for Part 2!