The latest 1.4 version of Pirates of the Burning Sea is available on the testbed. Developers have let players in on the details for helping test this puppy:

As you've probably seen in Taelorn's recent devlogs, patch 1.4 has a lot of important changes to careers, especially for Pirates. Now that this patch is ready for testing, my job is to be sure you're going to like it. We need players like you to play with these new changes and give us feedback before we release them into the live game. If you've never played on Testbed before, check out this post for information about how to get started.

This month on Testbed, we're focusing heavily on the new career skills and the early game experience.

Head to the PotBS site for the rest of the details.

As game worlds become more and more advanced, they also grow larger and larger. The by-product of this improvement is the long distances that must be traveled between locations. For some reason, with this increase in world size, there is not a corresponding improvement in traveling systems. Indeed, there seems to be almost a perverse joy in sending players on quests that involve running back and forth between two distant points with no other objective but carrying a bickering message between a pair of NPCs.

Jim Moreno tackles the difficult task of roleplaying a merchant in this edition of RoleCraft: "Even roleplayers are known to struggle with this cookie cutter gameplay, and with keeping their characters from looking and acting just like every other character in game. What to do? One sure way to avoid the pitfalls of routine is to realize that there are many other classes in game besides adventurer. It's time to become a professional roleplayer!"

The 1.3 update will go into effect on Wednesday, May 7th, according to Aether:

We will be publishing Pirates of the Burning Sea Build 1.3.53 to all our game servers on Wednesday, May 6th during the normal 1:30a to 3:30a maintenance window.

The delay in publishing this patch gives us the opportunity to address problems reported with the Matthew Town Auction House and issues with Port Battles.

We appreciate your patience while we work to remedy these issues.

We'll try to get confirmation if the patch will go live on WEDNESDAY, May 7th or on Tuesday, May 6th. The dev post confuses the two. *g*

Two more laundry list articles have been posted outlining the changes and enhancements in the Freetrader and Buccaneer classes. Read them:

• TheBuccaneer: Up to this point, Ive talked about a lot of the changes that are happening to existing careers and all the new stuff theyre getting. Now its time for something thats completely new: the Buccaneer pirate career.
• The Freetrader: Freetraders are in a unique position right now. Nobody can survive as long as an FT and they can excel in different areas. They have a moderate amount of combat strength, but it can be difficult to tap into that strength.

Devs announced that in preparation for a new user content system, they are suspending submissions of flags and sails temporarily:

In order to prepare for the unveiling of our new User Content system, we will be temporarily suspending the submission of new flags and sails.

User Content 2.0 is entering the final stages of testing, and barring any major glitches, should be available to our community in the very near future.

We are really excited to see what you think about the new system, so keep your eyes on the news for updates!

Best,
Aether

This gives would-be artists more time to perfect their work!

The Privateer gets a work over in the v1.4 patch in Pirates of the Burning Sea. Devs have taken the time to detail all the changes to this class:

One of the common complaints about Privateers is that they have skill options they want to take, but they are forced to invest in paths they dislike to get a specific skill. Sanctioned Piracy is the usual culprit. Now, Sanctioned Piracy is a free skill that Privateers receive at level 15. Weve also done some restructuring and adjustments to make more chains viable.

In the process, we removed the following skills from Privateers: Grease the Wheels, All or Nothing Shot 1, No Quarter, Stealth 1, Hide Crew, Maneuver 1 and Defense 1. Here are some of the new Privateer skills to replace the old ones:

Sturdy Rigging - Tier 3 Agility: Provides a passive boost to mast integrity. ~12.5% mast integrity
Agile Tactician - Tier 4 Agility: A group buff similar to Battle Doctrine. 1% resist, turn, damage, accel
Jugular - Tier 5 Agility: This is a major debuff that can only be used if your target is in a bigger ship class than you. It reduces DR, acceleration, reload rate and a small amount of accuracy. It gets more effective with each hit that lands. ~-20% +2% DR, -15% +1.5% accel, -10% + 1% reload. Max 15 hits.
Ride the Wind - Tier 3 Battle: A passive boost to target tracking and OS speed. ~5 tracking, ~5% OS speed
Concentrated Fire - Tier 4 Career: An attack that deals bonus damage and ignores a portion of the targets DR. ~35% damage, ignores ~40% DR
Hired Crew - Tier 5 Deception: Gives a passive boost to max crew. ~15%

Other skill changes have also been implemented so check out the article at the link above.

PotBS devs have posted the second in an ongoing six-part series of articles discussing changes to be implemented in patch v1.4. Focusing on naval officers this time around, here's what will be forthcoming:

Welcome to the second of six devlogs about the 1.4 skill revamp. If you havent already seen the first devlog, you may want to read about some of the general changes here. Keep in mind that the details contained here are subject to change based on feedback and ongoing internal testing, and the final result will almost certainly differ from this devlog.

Removing all of the tiered skills has major ramifications for Navy because they have so many in 1.3. All of these skills are going the way of the dodo: Requisition Berth, Defender 1, Desperate Shot 1, For God & Country 1, Perfect Discipline, Fortress 1, Thundering Broadside 1, Speed Increase 1, Reload Discipline 1 and Military Intelligence 1.

Check out the rest after the jump.

PotBS has announced a new 'harassment policy' that goes into effect immediately. It's one thing to play a rude, revolting, disgusting, harassing pirate but it's a whole 'nother thing to BE a real life idiot:

Recently, we've participated in several discussions asking us to clarify our policies on harassment, or griefing, and how that policy is enforced both on our forums, and in our game world. In a perfect world, we could distill the expectations we have of our customers to one simple statement: "Don't be a jerk".

Unfortunately, it isn't as simple as that.

So, we've created the following document that outlines our expectations as it relates to customer behavior. Please note that these policies are in effect both immediately and retroactively. Reports of harassment will be taken seriously, and violators risk permanent removal from Pirates of the Burning Sea.

But wait! Before you read on, there are some things every player needs to remember when filing support tickets. First, when providing information on a negative experience youve had in game, whether it be a bug or a case of harassment, you must be sure you are providing as much information as possible.

Find out what information is needed by clicking below.

Underdog Tools have been adjusted via the latest patch. Devs have posted an explanation of changes and reasons behind those changes.

This is a quick devlog about the current state of the underdog tools and how they've changed with today's patch. Due to how we control these tools, this is a new part of the 1.3 release. Although it's short, we're using a devlog to hit as wide of an audience as possible.

With character transfers live, we've condensed our population down to fewer servers. This drastically changed the landscape on many of those servers, effectively nullifying a portion of the server's conquest history. As a result, the underdog tools are no longer an appropriate representation of the situation on a given server. They're also less important when there's a critical mass of players on a server, because they do not have to overcome the same hurdles.

Check out the rest after the jump.