POTBS HQ slaps us with a player spotlight for the month of February. In the spotlight is Havohej, well known for his participation both in game and on the forums. He is also the author of the Defias blog, and has recently started writing for MMORPG.com as a PotBS game correspondent. Find out all about Havohej here.

Vault Video #2 is now hot off the digital presses! This edition of Vault Video features a report on free-to-play MMOs that will have you wanting to jump right in and start playing! Also featured is "The Hyborian Report", and little bit of in-game action from Age of Conan.

In the latest installment of Open Discussion, Angelina Rayne brings up the hot topic of the week: bots and copyright infringement. Are bots taking the fun out of gaming? Should companies such as MDY (Glider bot for WoW) be held responsible? Discuss it here!

GameDaily talks turkey with Flying Labs CEO, where they find out that the Pirates of the Burning Sea developer is branching off into the casual MMO field with a new division.

Seattle-based Flying Lab Software, known for the MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea, has opened a new casual games division as the developer seeks to grow its presence in the booming video game industry. The new group, appropriately dubbed Flying Lab Casual, will focus on creating "casual gaming MMO environments and universes from the ground up." The company's first venture will be a "family friendly universe" built in partnership with sports and entertainment trading card company Upper Deck. Details will follow in an official announcement in the next couple of weeks.

Pirates of the Burning Sea is launching a new regular feature called the Ask Rusty podcast. This is your chance to ask Flying Lab Software CEO Russell "Rusty" Williams your questions about Pirates of the Burning Sea, Flying Lab Software, and his extensive collection of gadgets. Must find out more about gadgets! The first Ask Rusty Podcast can be heard here. Stop by the PotBS Site to find out where to send your questions!

Flying Lab Software is proud to be celebrating the one-year anniversary of Pirates of the Burning Sea! Here's the official scoop from the FLS POTBS HQ, including news of Anniversary goodies such as the free Anniversary Coat players will receive.

The game originally launched on January 22nd 2008, and since then we’ve had 11 feature and content updates, which have included a major overhaul to our Avatar Combat system, new epic group missions for high level players, new Pirate careers, numerous art and UI updates and much, much, more. We are committed to continue bringing you regular updates throughout 2009!

To celebrate our anniversary, we will be giving all of our players access to a new Anniversary Coat, which will be available in the tailor shop. Each nation’s coat is different! Click on the image below to see a preview.

We will also be running an Anniversary event on each of our live servers to kick off the Black Sails, Dread Saints story arc! The event will take place on Saturday, January 24th. Click here for more information.

Our second year is set to be very exciting. In addition to the new story arc, we are going to be introducing some fantastic new features which we can’t wait to share with you over the coming months!

We’re looking forward to continuing the adventure with you through 2009, and beyond!

/ All of us at Flying Lab Software!

The MMOFury Award recipients have been announced, and IGN Vault has received the award for Top Multi-Game Fansite Database. Give yourselves some props!

IGN-Vault has done it once again by holding onto their Top Database Award via launching a number of huge databases for AOC and WAR. This Fansite's contributors are highly professional and the website runs like a well oiled machine. With so many great mmorpg databases out there, it takes alot to be recognized as the leader and IGN-Vault meets those requirements with more to spare. With a dedication to the community, IGN-Vault keeps on getting better.

Black Sails on the Horizon is an event scheduled for all live Pirates of the Burning Sea servers, to celebrate their one year anniversary. The event will take place on Saturday, January 24. Just log in at the start time to participate!

Roberts: 12:00 – 1:00pm PST / 8:00pm – 9:00pm GMT

Antigua: 1:30pm – 2:30pm PST / 9:30pm – 10:30pm GMT

Rackham: 3:00pm – 4:00pm PST / 11:00pm – 12:00am GMT

Blackbeard: 4:30pm – 5:30pm PST / 12:30am – 1:30am GMT

Defiant: 6:00pm – 7:00pm PST / 1:00pm – 2:00pm Australian Eastern (Sunday)

William Kidd Issues Call to Action Against Dread Saints!

The Caribbean is erupting with reports of strange groups of pirates known as the Dread Saints. Few, if any, of the rumors surrounding these villains can be confirmed, but they have attacked and captured ships belonging to French, English and Spanish interests. Even the Smuggler’s Union has lost ships and cargo to these allegedly blasphemous brigands. It is said that William Kidd attempted to negotiate a peace with the Dread Saints, but was shot and wounded by the Saints’ ambassador.

Today, Kidd issued this statement: “As ye may have heard, I was attacked by a scurrilous dog speaking on behalf o’ a new group o’ pirates. These ‘Dread Saints’ be the enemy o’ all nations in the Caribbean. I hereby call upon all captains who would promote prosperity and commerce to seek out and destroy any member o’ this Order of the Dread Saint. Though to each other we be foes, this threat will engulf us all if we do not answer it with a common conviction.”

What is it about the internet that seemingly gives people a license to be massive cornhoolios? Join IGN Vault's Angie in the bi-weekly Open Discussion to talk about internet bullying and that all open pass some people seem to think they received with their modem!

The Vault Network Week in Review at a glance, including Vault of the Week, Wiki of the Week and Game of the Week!

Voting ends on January 31st for the third annual Beckett Massive Online Gamer MOG Reader's Choice Awards. Get your votes in now while you still can, voting is quick, easy and includes all of the usual suspects plus some titles you probably didn't expect!

There are seven categories to vote in:

Best New MMO Release of 2008
Best MMO of 2008
Best Fantasy MMO of 2008
Best Sci-Fi/Historical MMO of 2008
Best Expansion/Addition of 2008
Best MMO Trailer Released in 2008
Most Anticipated MMO

Valve and Sony Online Entertainment will be using the Steam digital distribution service for many of SOE's MMOs, including the EQ and EQ2 series. Also included is Vanguard and Pirates of the Burning Sea. To kick things off Valve will offer EQ: Secrets of Faydwer and EQ2: Rise of Kunark for a promo price during the first ten days. Checking out the Steam new releases, here are some prices for you to ponder:

• Vanguard Saga of Heroes: $14.99 (down from $19.99)
  
• Pirates of the Burning Sea: $14.99 (down from $19.99)
  
• EverQuest® II Rise of Kunark™ Starter Pack: $14.99 (down from $19.99)
  
• EverQuest® Secrets of Faydwer™ Starter Pack: $14.99 (down from $19.99)

Steam uses the following payment methods (I looked these up for my own game addicted purposes, but thought you all might be curious as well!):

Credit / Debit Cards
-Visa
-Mastercard
-Discover
-American Express
-JCB

Other
-PayPal
-Click and Buy
-Visa Electron

Pirates of the Burning Sea is calling all ye sailor types to nations with the lowest populations to check out 1.12: Rebel Apostles. The low population nations need higher numbers to compete in the conquest of the Caribbean. So... character creation will automatically default to the nation most needing new recruits (it's not locked though, you can still pick another nation). But as incentive for joining the underdogs you will receive an XP bonus (double) and a 30% chance at a bonus loot reroll.

These are the nations that will receive incentive rewards:

-Antigua – Spain and France
-Defiant – All Nations (Spain will receive default character generation)
-Blackbeard – France and Spain
-Rackham – France and Spain
-Roberts – Spain and France

More on 1.12 from Pirates of the Burning Sea. Called Rebel Apostles, it's the start of something new and exciting. Since the launch of POTBS they have added loads of new content and introduced epic missions like Fortaleza da Luz and Bey’s Retreat. Now they will be adding in a serial story which will unfold over many milestones.

Rebel Apostles is Chapter 1 of new story arc called Black Flags and Dread Saints. We will spin this tale over six milestones and many missions, making it the biggest addition of new content since launch.

Black Flags and Dread Saints is about the rise of a new pirate faction in the Caribbean. Their origins are unknown but they seem to mix religious zealotry with ruthless pirating. A new gospel is being preached on the Burning Sea and its message is not peace, love, and understanding. The appearance and growth of the Dread Saints are of concern to all nations because the presence of a new faction upsets the balance of power. Even Captain Kidd and the Brethren of the Coast are wary.

Find out more.

Flying Labs Software brings Pirates of the Burning Sea players a preview of their career skills tuning efforts. 1.12 contains a variety of changes to career skills. These changes are based on a combination of player feedback about the careers and data about how the skills and careers are getting used. There’s a theme to the changes for each career. Beyond 1.12, they are looking at replacing some unused skills and restructuring some lines to be more thematically and mechanically appropriate, such as fewer mixed group and solo skills. You can read the specifics on the various careers here.