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Australia Gets Pirates Of The Burning Sea For Free
Posted by Luke Plunkett at 10:45 PM on February 12, 2008
Perhaps as a tip of the hat to our convict roots, Flying Lab's parrot-and-grapeshot MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea will be released to the Australian public for free. Aussie telecommunications provider Telstra are sponsoring the deal, where all interested persons have to do to nab themselves either a download key or a DVD of the full game is visit Telstra's website and register their email address. And before you ask, no, you don't need to be a Telstra customer to get the deal, it's open to anyone and everyone (though BigPond customers will get 20% off the $US 15.95 per month subscription rate, which you'll still need to pay - you're "only" getting the game for free). My swash is well and truly buckled.
GameArena - PotBS [via PALGN]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
Lev Arris
Posted February 13, 2008 9:38 AM
I was reading through that, getting all excited...oh, still have monthly fees, bummer. Well free game a suppose...sokay, i guess...
Sarin
Posted February 13, 2008 10:46 AM
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing when I saw the header, but I guess that would be too good to be true...especially from Telstra
Rob_Jedi
Posted February 13, 2008 11:05 AM
Free game is a nice start, but that monthly fee is more than WoW, makes it's chances of success rather slim. I signed up anyway cause I love me some pirate ship action Arrrrrr.
chappy
Posted February 13, 2008 5:29 PM
Dont be fooled!
These servers will be empty of any well organised and dedicated societies and players.
The entire dedicated aussie fanbase and organised societies (from Beta and US release) are located on the antigua server and bill through SOE. Antigua (US) server is the unofficial australian server with an extremely healthy community of aussies already there
deathwombat
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
@Doshu: Actually PotBS IS covered under the station access pass, all you need to do is get the trial key and you're set for life.
deathwombat
Aprocalypse
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
I'd rather they'd lower the ridiculous cost for internet, and well, actually not be jerks about DSLAMs and such, but I guess there's absolutely nothing bad about this. :P
@RickSaada: MMOs have been limited here? I totally haven't noticed - they must be pretty damned popular everywhere else then. :P
Aprocalypse
Doshu
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
@deathwombat: i think it's ironic that Telstra is actually supporting pirates for once
Why? As I understand it, they're one of the few ISPs who won't give your IP to any of the media companies. Thats not enough to stop me from hating them though.
Hmm, I wonder if my station account covers this game?
Doshu
Achenar
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
@PurpleSfinx: Yeah - any time I see a gaming news title with 'Australia' I'm just waiting to get thoroughly raped again.
This is brilliant news - it was a game I was tempted to try out anyway and now I have the ways and means. Not a Bigpond customer (do I look stupid?) so that second discount does me no good, but given my attention span that's probably not so bad because I'll give it a month. ;)
Achenar
RickSaada
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
So just as a clarification here, this is a special deal Telstra put together. They're doing a huge marketing push for PotBS down under, but it's IP limited to Australia and they'll have to play on the designated Aussie servers. MMO's there have been fairly limited because of the metering of bandwidth by ISP's. With this deal, Bigpond customers will get to download, patch, and play PotBS unmetered, which is a huge step forward for MMO's.
RickSaada
Jomo7
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
Average game is Average. The beta was great for a bit but then it just turned into a mediocre game until you were maxed out so you could PvP. So...basically it's like every other MMO out there. I'll pass.
Jomo7
Passa
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
It's a 7 day trial virtually, if we're the only place that gets a 7 day trial then that is really poor form. It's a 'different' MMO, it can't get away with not having some sort of worldwide trial.
On another note though, Pirates Of The Burning Sea is utterly awesome. The BETA blew me away.
Passa
Koztah
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
Having been in the closed beta for PotBS, I can say that if you liked Sid Meier's Pirates! and if you liked the idea of EvE but just couldn't get into it, then you'll probably love Pirates of the Burning Sea.
Koztah
PurpleSfinx
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
"Australia Gets Pirates Of The Burning Sea For Free"
Good news here from Flying Lab\Sony. Being Australian, I'm really beginning to *expect* shabby treatment lately (EA, I'm looking at you). I expected the article to say we wouldn't be getting a cheap game but we'd actually literally have flaming, sword swinging, parrot-bearing peg legged sea-robbers set on us, just for being Australian.
PurpleSfinx
deathwombat
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
i think it's ironic that Telstra is actually supporting pirates for once
deathwombat
Strangelove
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
Should a free trial come to the U.S., I'll be happy to try POTBS out. For now, jealousy.
Strangelove
magically_delicious
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
@i_am_ben: sorry for the slander been. I'm bad at geology.
I mean histronomy.
magically_delicious
tei
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
Cool, this will make much more easy to enroll people on the boat, hehehehehe..
tei
i_am_ben
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
@magically_delicious:
but the first Australian colony was started in 1788
i_am_ben
magically_delicious
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
Dammit... i know the European powers colonized Australia just so they could offer this free deal and have me stuck in America 500 years later.
Damn you, past people... damn you.
magically_delicious
Irenicus-the one and only
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
@Luke Plunkett: Time is money! lol
Irenicus-the one and only
Speshul_K
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
So I went to that Telstra site to sign up.. but it requires a bill number. How do you sign up without actually becoming a customer, as advertised in this article?
Speshul_K
Luke Plunkett
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
@Rock-Byron: Well, it's free. And will come with a free trial. Why don't you find out for yourself?
Luke Plunkett
Rock-Byron
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
Wait it's only like....2 dollars a month off. Nah I won't. Switching to TPG soon anyway.
Rock-Byron
Rock-Byron
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
I'm a bigpond customer... should I get this?
Rock-Byron
Maniclysane
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
Wow, that's amazing. Yet they're still going to make money off that monthly deal every MMO has.
Maniclysane
Edmon
Posted 5:04 PM 16/2/08
Win.
But is it a good game, thats what I wonder. Also is there some way they are trying to prevent no-aussies taking up the deal?
If it's just the standard port scan rubbish I'm betting Aussie proxies are going to be hot commodities later in the day.
Edmon