| Written by Mark C. Barlet, on 21-12-2007 20:56 |
| Editor's rating |
 |
|
| Average user rating |
 (1 vote) |
|
| Views |
846  |
|
|
|
Russell Williams, CEO and Co-founder of Flying Labs Software puts down his hammer and the other tools you need to build a highly anticipated high seas MMORPG, Pirates of the Burning Seas, and chats with AbleGamers. (For the record, I think that he is hand stitching all the sails himself, his fingers look like they have seen better days)
AbleGamers: Thank
you for giving Ablegamers your time, we sat down back in January of
this year to talk about POBS, what has changed?
Russell Williams: Wow. So
much has changed I can't really give much more than "everything!"
There's not a single area of the game that hasn't been
dramatically polished/expanded since January.
AG: As you
know, AbleGamers.com is a site for disabled gamers, did anything we
spoke about last time make you re-think how you may have implemented
the way people interact with the game? Such as more robust key
mapping or built in support for things like joysticks or game pads?
RW: The
biggest change isn't so new features, it's reworking the features
that we have. For example, since we last spoke, we now analyze the UI
by applying different filters to simulate color blindness. About a
month ago we finally replaced the fonts to something much more
legible, and updated a lot of the colors to be recognizable by people
who are color blind.
AG: I was
playing in the latest beta release, what is left to do before you
launch this ship (pun intended)?
RW: "Latest"
for us is pretty much this week! In fact, we're just prepping a new
update that improves server performance (we've already broken
through our initial numbers, now we're seeing how high we can go),
PvP fixes (so that group members can't hide in a port for an
ambush), and over 170 priority one bug fixes.
The big
things that are left to do are to put in the looping combat music (we
have just doubled the amount of music in our game), new sounds in the
towns that are nation-specific, and of course, bugs and balance
tuning.
We've
also started on our first patch, and are introducing some new
gameplay systems (like to PvP but are tired of being ganked? Welcome
to Events!) as well as improvements in basic systems and new
repeatable group missions. Our goal for each one of these patches is
to make sweeping improvements across the entire game, and to really
put some efforts into a specific area so that players always get
something cool and new.
 AG: You have
introduced something that I have long thought been missing in the
MMORPG arena, a way for player created content to be introduced into
the game, do you have plans to go beyond the flags and sails? You
want to see the ones I submitted? (You can see them to the Left)
RW: We've
already done that. The majority of our ships are modeled by our
players. We were originally planning on shipping with 22 ships, and
now we'll be going out with around 60 ships. The difference is the
users, and not only do they make the majority of the ships in the
game, but they also make the best looking ships in the game.
AG: I know
the game is in beta right now, and I am sure there is a in house
quality assurance team, do you know if any are disabled?
RW: Some of
our testers have significant vision problems.
AG: Has
anyone on the QA team tried to
playing this game without a mouse and
keyboard, using any of the hundreds of "alternative input devices"?
RW: Yes,
with a joypad, but more to test that we don't break with other
devices plugged in than to see how they are as alternative input
AG: If I
took yours keyboard and mouse away, besides tavern trash-talk, how
would you play this game? Could you?
RW: Actually,
I was just on a demo trip where I wasn't able to use Zoom (mouse
wheel) for the first demo, and I fell apart on that. It turns out I
have an unhealthy love of zooming in on the game! But I'm assuming
you're talking about replacing the keyboard and mouse with other
input devices, as they're the only two inputs on my PC. And to
answer that, I don't know, because I don't have a breadth of
knowledge about the various alternatives available.
AG: I am
impressed at what I see, I am sure that this game will be a great
success, it is fresh, and very different than anything out there, is
there plans for an expansion, or are we trapped in the Caribbean Sea
forever?
RW: Pirates
of the Asian Seas!!
AG: One last
question, I am not sure how your live support will work, but can
AbleGamers get a commitment from you all to have an email, a category
on the forum, or other method, for feedback on accessibility issues?
 RW: I think
that's a great idea. Let me be frank about accessibility issues.
Right now, the focus of our development is fixing the obvious
problems we have, and expanding the basic content. In that,
accessibility issues don't get as much attention as we like. But as
we move beyond the basic process of launching the game, we have less
and less "on fire!" issues, and more discretionary ones to
address. That's when we have the overhead to really get traction on
accessibility issues.
AG: Anything
else you want to add before we let you go?
RW: It's
really useful to have an organization like AbleGamers. Bringing
accessibility issues up from time to time keeps them in our mind, and
makes those improvements come a lot earlier than they would
otherwise. So if you're playing the game, please don't hesitate
to let us know if there's something that's especially problematic
for you. I can't guarantee how much or how fast we'll fix things,
but we're especially fond of paying customers :)
so we want expand the game to let as many people enjoy it as
possible.
AG: Thank
you for your time...
Recommend this article... Last update: 26-02-2008 19:48
| Published in : Disabled Gamers News, Game news |
| Keywords : accessibility, discretionary, alternatives, devices", improvements, organization, alternative, development, introducing, latest", |
|
|
Users' Comments (2) 
|
|
|
