Pirates of the Burning Sea Pre-Boarding Party

For those of you who bought a pre-order of Pirates of the Burning Sea, the exclusive Pre-Boarding period starts tomorrow at 10 a.m. Pacific time. The Pre-Boarding period runs until retail launch on January 22 and you get to roll your characters over to the full retail launch.

The pre-order comes with a Pre-Boarding Party key and a Landing Party key. You need to enter the Pre-Boarding key to get into the game tomorrow. Save the Landing Party key for the full launch later this month. Rev from FLS has posted a FAQ here.

I tried logging in today in hopes that I could at least get the patching done. The FLS forums said that if you had done the open beta, you didn’t have to redownload the client, just patch, enter your pre-boarding key and you’d be off to the races.

Apparently that race will only start tomorrow at 10 a.m. I fired up the client this morning and gritted my teeth as I watched the SOE launcher do whatever the hell it does, taking the inordinate amount of time that it does to do it and was finally presented with the PotBS login which allowed me to enter my existing Station Name.

Unfortunately, when I entered my Pre-Boarding key it simply said “Key entry error.  Please retry or confirm the dates when your key is active.”  Surfing the forums, I was able to find a post  confirming my worst fear.  Yup, no one can enter their key or start patching until 10 a.m. Pacific time tomorrow.  *cringe*

Hopefully, the mad rush will not cripple the patcher like it has in the past, but I’m less than optimistic.  Would have been nice to simply let everyone get the game installed, patched and keyed over a weekend, but not open the servers until 10 a.m. on Monday.  But then again, that makes too much sense.