Pirates of the Burning Sea

PotBS lead world designer Cory J. Herndon is the featured target of an interview at Game Daily News. Herndon gives a lot of background to the game and discusses the historical research that was involved:

GDN: Was there a lot of historical research required for POTBS, and did that research affect things like storylines, characters and even gameplay?

CJH: Yes, yes, yes, and yes. All of us have done at least some research and reading on the time period, of course, though our focus was often pretty specialized. Developers working on making the ships function realistically needed to focus on the nuts and bolts of the Age of Sail. Content designers and writers do a lot of historical research--you'll find a lot of non-fiction titles like Cordingly's Under the Black Flag, Johnson's General History of Pirates, Zacks' The Pirate Hunter, and Cawthorne's History of Pirates (not to be confused with the Johnson book, which was published in the 1700s) lying around ConCo (the content department where all the missions in the game are built, written, and designed). Many of us also read a lot of pirate and nautical fiction. In addition to classics like Sabatini's Captain Blood, I've read and enjoyed the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey-Maturin series as well as the Hornblower books, but right now I'm devouring Dudley Pope's work. His Lord Ramage novels are great, swashbuckling Napoleonic fiction, and his Ned Yorke books do the same thing for the Age of Piracy in the Caribbean.

There's lots more interesting stuff to read so be sure to check it out.