Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean Online has created a whole raft of new content for fans of high seas adventure, beginning with the addition of special Ghost Ships that haunt Isla Cangrejos and Cutthroat Island. These ships -- Shadow Crow, Cerberus, and Blood Scourge -- are crewed by the terrifying undead, and they're no easy pickings, but the rewards for taking them on will be well worth the risk.

Additionally, PotCO is bringing a Father's Day event to its players, asking you to find Captain Teague, reputedly Jack Sparrow's father. Under what circumstances could such a notorious pirate disappear? That's up to you to find out.

Come April new weapons will be available in Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean Online. Expect to see new types of voodoo dolls, daggers, staffs and pistols which will create more damage, load faster, and have some all new special effects.

In addition, recruiting for your piratey guild will get easier with the introduction of multiple (1-100 people) and unlimited use invite codes (instead of having to generate a unique code for each new person).

If you're curious about the "Why Pirates are More Lovable Than Ninjas" contest, be sure to check out the latest newsletter for the whole list, but here are a few of the winning reasons:

Last week, Disney Online merged multiple online divisions into a single entity now called Disney Online Studios. I had a chance to talk to the Senior Vice President in charge of it all, Steve Parkis, about the vision for one of the world's most recognizable brands as it tackles the fast-rising casual online gameplay market.

Before now, Disney's online efforts spanned over many different areas: developing Flash based casual games; acquiring the online community, Club Penguin; and building the successful family-oriented MMORPGs ToonTown Online and Pirates of the Caribbean Online. Steve's mission is to bring all of those together to make Disney.com a dedicated casual games destination.

He believes that casual players are more than just Women 35+ and that there is a large, untapped market of players that Disney's brand can draw in. But how does he plan to do that?

Recently, I sat down with Disney Online to get a tour of their MMO Pirates of the Caribbean Online. To be honest, I didn't go in with high expectations. I mean, the movies were fun and all, but with only Toontown Online to DO's credit, I wasn't expecting something that appealed to me as an adult gamer. Boy, was I wrong.

An adventure set around helping Jack Sparrow retrieve the Black Pearl is just as perilous as it sounds. You wake up in the same jail as the rogue pirate. Together you take advantage of cannon fire assaulting the Caribbean town of your incarceration to escape and begin your exploits. Those include meeting Wil Turner, the voodoo priestess Tia Dalma and a new villain, Jolly Roger among others. Not to mention facing down the Imperial Navy, hungry crocodiles, rampaging zombies, pirate-eating giant plants and cut-throat card players.

There are no classes, servers or banks. This game isn't about inventory management, but is action-based about being a pirate. No tradeskills, either. The scourge of the High Seas don't craft, they take. The number of weapons available is small, but the skill ups for them are numerous. If you are looking for less strategy and more action in your pirate MMO, read on for a tour of the first few levels of the game.

Character customization, sea battles, voodoo magic and cameos galore, plus two videos after the jump.