Australian gamers who enjoy a bit of swashbuckling action with Pirates of the Burning Sea are in for a shakeup, with the developers announcing they will "not be renewing" their partnership with their Australian service provider - meaning that the Invincible server will be turned off at the beginning of January.

Rather than leaving pirates homeless, we can assure you that gamers who lurk on Invincible will be provided with one free transfer, to any server - with most gamers expected to set up shop on the new Defiant location, which will feature port battle times suitable for Aussies.


Developers Flying Lab have gone on the record saying that:

Our strategy overseas is to work with enthusiastic partners who are knowledgeable about their market and committed to the game and its community. However, launching and supporting an MMO is a very different beast than a single player game, and some companies underestimate the kind of engagement they have to have with the players. Regardless, we want to make sure that everyone who plays Pirates has a great experience, and will do whatever it takes to deliver that.

Today I sent out notice to Bigpond that we will not be renewing our partnership with them. I enjoyed meeting and working with the people of Bigpond, and I wish them and the company well in all its future endeavors.

While we're not sure of the details, we're reassured that new builds of Pirates of the Burning Sea will be provided to Bigpond to upload onto their servers until the end of the year - when Invincible will be turned off.


Now - if you're a fan of the game, you'll understand that port battles are important, and that the timing of these battles is customised for each server depending on when the most people are logged in. Obviously, Australians are going to want to duke it out at a totally different time to American or European pirates - so it's not just a simple matter of jumping server. This is where Defiant comes in - a new server that is set to feature port battle times much more suited to Australians - 3:30pm until 11:30pm Adelaide Summer Time (which is 9p to 5a Pacific / 5a to 1p GMT, if you were curious).

If you want to jump into a new server, Flying Lab have gone out of their way to make this easy for you, offering one transfer per player to move to a server to better suit their playtime. It's worth noting that if you're signed up with Bigpond, then the process will be "a little bit more involved" as you switch to SOE. Keep an eye out, as soon as we get these details we'll share them!

(The devs do intend to provide a more open transfer service in the future - but at this stage they're focussing largely on the new avatar combat systems. This is a one-off that they consider is worth it, following the port battle schedule changes.)


An upside to these changes is that Australian players are now able to play on the testbed servers - which are expecting an update to the new avatar combat system very soon. Flying Lab want everybody to check out the new system and give their feedback, so if you're playing, hop on testbed and take a look!

Flying Lab CEO, Russell Williams has the last word:

We’re excited about this change, and the opportunity to provide the Australian players with the quality of service that they deserve.