Friday's update of Pirates largely went well, though we did experience issues with some users due to network congestion during peak times. This issue was that in some cases a download would terminate (due to load) which would then – because of the way the patcher was configured – cause the user to re-download all information in the patch.

We have modified the patcher system now so that future downloads will only re-download required files, and not all files for a given patch. For users that had issues half-way though their download and have yet to retry – retrying now will result in the patcher updating itself and only re-downloading files that have not been updated, and not files that have already been patched.

Check it out and let us know if you have any issues.

Heads up to all eye-patch wearing, parrot-toting fiends of the seven seas: Pirates of the Burning Seas will be receiving a major update this afternoon at 1.30pm AEDST. The major changes include:

* Bey's Retreat: Bey's Retreat is the unapproachable stronghold to which the Corsairs of the Main escape when the national navies and Brethren pirates chase them down. You and your allies (do not try this alone) have a rare window of opportunity to attack when the defenses are weaker than usual.
* Changes to Open Sea battle placement: We've replaced a system where allies sometimes spawned too far from the battle to make it into the fight before it was over and enemies sometimes spawned on top of each other. The new system should result in a more fun experience for all.
* Underdog tools: If your nation wins the map, it becomes more difficult for them to do so next time. The losers get a little boost.
* UI Improvements: We've revamped chat channels, added chat bubbles (that you can turn off), improved the Social UI, and made other changes.
* Fight Gold Spammers: Among other changes we've made to combat these parasites, you can now use /spam to report gold spammers without leaving the game or right-click the character name in your chat window and choose Report Spam. Reporting spam also automatically adds the character to your ignore list.

For more details on the changes, check out the full changelog on the official site. The game will automagically update for subscribers once the new version has walked the plank, so stay tuned!

If you haven't tried it yet, don't forget you can sign up for a free keelhaul on our Pirates page. Avast!

Due to the size of the client and allow more time to download, we have extended the free trial to 8 days from the initial 7! This gives users a whole day with which to download the client once they have signed up before the clock starts ticking on the free 7 day trial.

What are you waiting for, sign up for the free trial and get downloading. For users that have already started their free trial we have extended your trial by another day too!

The response to the Pirates free trial has been huge! So much so we’ve been experiencing a few technical issues in dealing with so many users downloading the 5+ gb client at one time.

We have made some changes to our environment to accommodate this load and will be watching this carefully over the next 24 hours. Rest assured we are doing what we can to make the download as easy as possible.

It is recommended that when downloading this client you use a download manager, two download clients that have received limited testing within our environment to download these files are Flashget and Getright. Additionally for those users that suspect that their download has issues, you can compare your file MD5Sum to these:

Installer: 42b07d2f9dae2024c174cb8485bf3211
Part1: e1805cb59c50495b0e8aa0863bab2a6a
Part2: d68f3e596e546191850e40de9032b384

Remember if you have any issues please feel free to contact our friendly support team!

Flying Lab Software - the creators of Pirates of the Burning Sea - is welcoming Australia and New Zealand to the Burning Sea. Have a look at what they had to say

Pirates of the Burning Sea has now launched with a dedicated server for our Australian and New Zealand customers. If you are in Australia or New Zealand, you are invited to download Pirates of the Burning Sea and participate in a 7-day free trial by visiting this link to the BigPond website.

As an added bonus, our Oceanic customers gain access to a limited edition in-game item, the Captain’s Cockatoo! The Captain’s Cockatoo is available to all new characters created in the first month of the Oceanic server, across all nations! All you have to do is create a character and the Captain’s Cockatoo will be standing on your shoulder to greet you.



Having trouble with your account? Then you will want stop by our visiting the server forums!

Flying Lab Software is pleased to welcome our Oceanic friends aboard, and we’ll see you on the Burning Sea!

What this means of course is that everybody gets a free Cockatoo pet like the one pictured! Don't forget that along with the official forums for any technical support you can visit the GameArena Pirates forums to hang out with your fellow bucanneers and talk about life on the open sea, new pirating tactics or even just talk about what you're going to name your Cockatoo!

One of the benefits of a slightly delayed release for Pirates of the Burning Sea is that we’re launching straight into an already updated version of the client – but there are more improvements yet to come.

On the Pirates of the Burning Sea official website the developers are releasing their own updates of the upcoming content patch which will bring the game to version 1.2. They’re bringing in brand new ships and ship models as well as some tweaks to the ship-to-ship combat and captain skills.

That's a lot of content for the first major patch of the game - lets hope the developers keep it up! Don't forget to head over to our new Pirates of the Burning Sea forums where you can discuss the upcoming changes, find some like-minded buccaneers to group with or just hang out and share sea stories.