http://www.burningsea.com/page/home

A new action oriented MMO...

Based in the Caribbean with 5 factions (British, French, Dutch, Spanish and Pirate)...

You create a character with in a faction (Naval Officier, Privateer or Free-Trader for the national ones, not sure about Pirate)...

You are the captain of a ship/boat... The gameplay is based in public ports, a public ocean and instances of open water (bay's usually) or land locations for missions... This can be individual or require groups of players...

The land based mission stuff is okay and the Ports are fun in a cliched "arrr pirates" kind of way...

The real fun is in the ship sailing and combat... They have gone to great lengths to add an element of realisim to this... It is a real step forward from the circling ships of Pirates...

The basic point of the game is to get go up leaves and acquire better ships to command...

Apparantly most of the objects in game will be made by players, you will be be able to buy them or even steal them as pirates (and possibly privateers)...

Still learning the details but fun so far...

I am in the pre-launch party (got my copy from D2D, 5gb download so be warned)... Actual launch is this coming Monday...