So the beta launcher is finally un-betaed! Sony has officially pushed the Station Launcher into the "final version," dropping in voice chat, simplified menus, faster servers for downloads, and the ability to run the launcher without administrative rights as well.

The fun stuff, however, is really contained within the voice update. This new voice, dubbed "station voice," lets you communicate with friends from within the game or outside of the game. Creating a room from outside of the game is done with your in-game character, letting people who are on the station launcher join you, or people inside of the game join your room from the inside, no launcher required.

Plus, the other new features like the upgraded servers that will give more downstream bandwidth for game updates, are certainly nothing to sneeze at.

This doesn't mean that Sony is done with upgrading and changing the launcher, as they've already pledged to continue taking user feedback and pushing that into their product to constantly make a better launcher.

For the full patch notes, check them out on the EverQuest forums, located in this thread.

Pirates of the Burning Sea is a bit of a departure from some of the other MMO titles on the market since its setting is rooted in history rather than built upon pure fantasy. Given this backdrop, it stands to reason that some players would enjoy logging in for some anachronistic 1700's-era roleplaying in Pirates of the Burning Sea as privateers and pirates. Flying Lab Software has decided to give PotBS's roleplayers a dedicated venue for their player-run events, "Roleplay Rooms", which is the subject of a devlog written by Xenobia.

The devlog is all about the repurposing of old interiors; some altered color and texture here, a motif changed there, and you've got spaces ready to be used solely for RP events. It seems simple, but these changes proved to be tricky in some cases given the objects incorporated into such rooms, and Xenobia describes how the interior revamps were done, illustrated with before and after shots. Check out Xenobia's "Roleplay Rooms" devlog for more info about this feature that's coming to national capitals in patch 1.16.

The latest devlog for Pirates of the Burning Sea is written by Lum and focuses on improving the game's mission system, particularly fixing the problem of mission farming. Lum writes, "When we create big mission arcs, we design them to be a fun, engaging, and most importantly, a linear experience. We want players to get a sense of story and to do something interesting. We also want to reward players who accomplish the goals for those missions."

He says that mission farming and the in-game monetary rewards aren't necessarily the problem, although it's not what the devs had in mind for players. Lum says that since people stop to repeat the most lucrative parts of a given mission arc, they're not experiencing the game as it was intended for the players. Even worse, some players make faction choices on the basis of how lucrative a certain mission with that faction is. Flying Lab Software wants to change missions in Pirates of the Burning Sea so that players are continually progressing through stories rather than motivated to remain in place to reap the gold harvest.

Pirates are always the underdogs in MMOs, aren't they? That seems to be the case in Pirates of the Burning Sea, where the Pirate nation has been at a disadvantage with the game's Conquest system. While their ports can't be controlled (permanently) by another nation, they're likewise unable to keep the ports they conquer. The latest devlog from Flying Lab's Lum is titled Pirates and Conquest and addresses this disparity between the Pirate nation and all other nations in the game.

One solution they plan to implement is increasing the four points that Pirates gain by capturing a port to five. Lum explains, "Currently, Pirates get four points every time they Raid a port, while Nationals get 10. This means that for a Pirate to keep pace with Nationals, they have to win three port battles in order to get the same amount of points. Since every nation can only attack three ports at a time, this means that Pirates would always have to have their maximum amount of attacking ports at all times, and then they have to win all of those battles." Ouch. However, by increasing their capture points to five, Pirates will only have to win two battles and won't need to maintain constant port attacks to stay on par with other nations.

Vegas, city of lights, nightlife, and SOE's Fan Faire! Sony has announced that they will once again be heading for Vegas to party down in high-rolling style. This year they'll be holding the event from June 25th to 28th at Bally's Hotel. The location they've picked is right in the middle of various Vegas attractions - although we're sure if you're there for the SOE party, you won't need to worry about that too much.

Having attended last year's Fan Faire, we can definitely say that it's a great weekend of fun and interesting panels, nice people - and this year's lineup appears to be just as interesting. So far the scheduled events include:

• Special announcements and sneak peeks of upcoming SOE titles at the Third Annual Community Address from SOE President John Smedley
• Autograph signings with members of the original EQ development team and other key contributors
• Lots of in-game tournaments; and live, game-themed competitions and quests
• Developer forums and roundtables
• Cool giveaways and other fun items!
• Player of the Year

To top it all off, prices for Vegas vacations are quite good, currently. So if you've been thinking about getting away, really dig SOE's games - or upcoming titles, and enjoy partying down with a great bunch of friendly, welcoming people, then definitely make some plans to attend this year's Fan Faire.

Today marks a very special event for the players of Pirates of the Burning Sea. Starting at 3:45 PST / 11:45 GMT, a ship skirmish event will take place on the Testbed server to analyze the effectiveness of the ship skirmish system. Named "The Battle of Gull Point", this event will match four teams of twelve players each to battle it out using "all of your ship combat skills to defeat your opponents".

Simply meet up at the Marsh Harbour and the devs will auto-level you to 50 before the actual skirmish starts at 4pm PST / midnight GMT. The spots are first come first serve, but all participants will receive the special title "Gull Point Veteran" once the new patch 1.13 releases on the live servers.

The Flying Lab Software developers working on Pirates of the Burning Sea have done a lot of writing about the avatar combat changes of late, but it's clear that they're still aiming to improve ship-based PvP on the high seas. Pirates of the Burning Sea is going to get a major new feature as of patch 1.4: skirmish warfare, which is essentially a PvP environment where players can experiment risk free with various setups and tactics.

The latest developer log on PotBS is "Enter the Skirmish", which breaks down what this new feature is and what it will offer players: "PvP action is the hottest part of our game, but the difficulty of 'swimming with the sharks' in the open sea has made for a significant barrier to entry. Skirmish gives players the change to learn how to PvP without facing all the dangers involved with conquest. Societies and veterans can use the skirmish system to teach newer players the ropes in a risk-free environment, which means more people who'll be prepared for port conquest and open sea PvP."

For more on this upcoming feature, you'll want to read the "Enter the Skirmish" developer log on the Pirates of the Burning Sea website.

Pirates of the Burning Sea is a title that's been undergoing some major overhauls in terms of game mechanics. Flying Lab Software has been revamping the game's combat systems, both those of ship-based combat and avatar combat. We've mentioned a few of those changes in the past, such as the introduction of new NPC archetypes but the latest issue they've been tackling is how brawling works in PotBS.

A developer log this week, from Isildur, explains the situation with skill lines (as well as optional skill lines) and what was involved with balancing them. The challenge was in creating a system where a given skill line wouldn't be mandatory, giving players choices in how they approach combat, yet keeping each skill line powerful enough that it can remain effective against other combat styles.

Online credit card fraud is big business and even MMORPGs aren't safe from it's far reach. We recently had a chance to sit down with Executive Director of Global Customer Service, Brad Wilcox, and discuss how SOE is dealing with gold selling and power-leveling services for their games. They are taking this war so seriously that they have put all transactional business under keen gnomish scrutiny.

Can you tell us how this fraud prevention task force came to be?

Brad Wilcox: Since the inception of EQ1, we always had components of a fraud prevention team. These were game masters and individuals tasked with looking at the game economy and making sure that people weren't exploiting. Since September 2007, we started to see a big increase in fraudulent activity in regards to stolen credit cards. That is when it was decided to put a few more resources specifically related to the fraud that was happening with accounts and subs being created with these stolen credit cards. That's when we formed what we call the NUGIT team, which stands for Norrathian Underground Gnome Investigation Team. As you can tell by the name, our employees enjoy having as much fun on the back end as we do on the front end of these games

SOE's all-encompassing Station Launcher has received an update, responding to (like the last update) player feedback and suggestions left at the Station Launcher forum. According to SOE, the Station Launcher's daily usage levels have been steadily increasing over time, with more and more users adopting the handy platform. A lot of the changes are related to the "Friends network" -- among these is the new option to "Join [friend] in [game]", speeding you through game, server, and character selections to meet up with a pal. You can also hide your online status from the Friends network with the "Disconnect" button, and inactive characters won't show up on the Friends tab by default any more.

Other welcome changes include improvements to the Scanning process that ensures that game files are up to date, and an automatic re-login feature to counter disconnects. Check after the break for the full list of updates.

It looks like after many long years of developing Pirates of the Burning Sea, Flying Lab Software is ready for something a little more laid back. Which is why the Seattle-based developer's next project will be a family friendly casual MMO through a partnership with trading card company Upper Deck. They're even opening a new branch entitled Flying Lab Casual to work on the project. Right now we really don't know anything beyond that, but more detailed information about the title is expected in the coming weeks.

We say more power to FLS/FLC for mixing it up and keeping things fresh. Nothing is worse than a developer whose lost some of that sparkle in their eyes. Then again, we're sure that the booming casual market has at least a little to do with the choice as well.

That being said, current Pirates of the Burning Sea players have nothing to fear as new content will continue to flow freely as rum on a salty sea dog's ship.

Flying Lab Software's CEO Russell "Rusty" Williams has been fairly vocal about his company's game Pirates of the Burning Sea in the past, doing the rounds with media outlets and spreading the word. His latest project has just been announced on the PotBS official site, and will allow him to maintain his parlance with the game's community; a new podcast series called "Ask Rusty" will be featured on the site on a regular basis, and players will have the chance to do as the name would suggest and Ask Rusty questions about PotBS.

For the first podcast, questions were taken from the old "Ask an FLS developer" forum, but in the future, the questions will come from submissions to community AT flyinglab DOT com (make sure to use "Ask Rusty!" as the subject line). Russell is joined by lead designer Kevin Maginn and producer Michelle Williams in this first installment. There is a direct link to the podcast for those looking to download it or listen in their browser, and there is also an RSS feed that can be subscribed to if you like what you hear.

It's been a whole year since Pirates of the Burning Sea left its dry dock and sailed out into the vast and sometimes-choppy waters of the ocean of MMOs. While it hasn't been a relatively safe year for adventurous new titles, Flying Lab Software's still got a lot to be happy with: Their game is solid, they're part of the SOE family and now they've got one year tucked under their belt.

To celebrate the occasion, the team is gave all players a new and very stylish anniversary coat to wear. Plus there was an anniversary event yesterday that kicked off a new story arc for players to enjoy. All in all, while the game saw a slow start, Flying Lab has added a good deal of free content and new features that definitely make Pirates of the Burning Sea a title worth looking into for any lapsed or newly interested players. We're looking forward to seeing how the game progresses over the coming year, and wish the development team the best of luck.

Over at Flying Lab, they're doing their part to make Pirates of the Burning Sea an enjoyable and balanced game. It's their job! So in a recent developer log, we get word of a revamp to the economy through streamlining items, structures and the recently introduced insurance for ships.

This will all be accomplished through an extensive process of removing redundant crafting items in provision making and ship building, plus a readjustment of how insurance will work. What do you do with all of those obsolete items in your inventory? Luckily, they've created a merchant who will turn any obsolete good into its base raw material. Check out the lengthy developer log for complete information on what they plan to change.

Avatar combat was always the stepchild system in Pirates of the Burning Sea. Where ship combat was polished, intense, and very different from your standard MMO combat fare, avatar combat just seemed plain weak and added in at the last moment. In fact, it was one of the last things added to the game, as lead designer Kevin "Isildur" Maginn tells us in his developer blog.

But as of today, with the new "Clash of Steel" patch, avatar combat has gotten a complete redesign. Thar' be a major update, mateys! Kevin has been working on the avatar combat system for months now under the radar, telling us at Massively about it with Flying Lab CEO Russel Williams at his side back during DragonCon.

"I liked the avatar combat system, we had a good base system, but things just seemed off," said Kevin Maginn about the new revisions. "I was playing Dynasty Warriors 6 a lot, and I think the new system reflects that. I wanted a system that allowed players to move through combat quickly and have fun with missions instead of killing one man, waiting, killing another, and waiting."

With today's patch we finally get to see the fruits of the development team's long labor. Even if you're not a subscriber to Pirates of the Burning Sea, you can still jump on a free trial and check out the new system along side plundering the sparkling seas of precious booty!