Public Beta of BFP2 Yarr2 (Release 2) Now Available! news - Battlefield Pirates 2 mod for Battlefield 2

Ahoy mateys! The staff at BFP2 wishes ye the finest Seasons Greetings and has come to port bearing a fine gift indeed. The 2nd Release of BFP2 is now available as a public beta for the next couple weeks as a sneak peek for our loyal fans who regularly visit this website. Come fight with the devs on our very own testing server!

Within a couple of weeks, EA has offered to help us unleash BFP2 Yarr2 onto the masses at large. We hope to make that release as solid as possible - and whereas our devs and testing team have done a fanstastic job getting out as many wrinkles as possible, here's your chance to pitch in and help us find any remaining issues.

Note that should you decide to download the public beta now, we will be offering a small cummulative patch (should anything change) so you wont need to redownload another 800mb file in January.

Please report any bugs, leave criticisms or even give us a pat on the back for a job well done in our Forums. We are particularly interested in feedback on the balance in maps and between weapons.

Additional information for Server Admins
If you wish to take advantage of our free stats system, please send a PM with your servers IP address to PiratePlunder here on the bfpirates.com web site. Please make sure that you already have a bfp2 v2.0 server running so that we can validate the IP address. We will then send you copies of the python files customised to your server.

NOTE: Servers do not need to be ranked to use our stats system. However, any misuse of the system and we will remove your servers access to the stats system.

What's New?
Theres lots of new piratey content to look forward to but we wanted to take this opportunity to mention a few of the most significant changes.

New Gamemode - Capture The Flag
Capture the flag is an old favourite from the original Battlefiled Pirates, and is a common gamemode from various First Person Shooters.

In BFP2 v2.0 players need to capture the opposing teams flag 4 times to win a round. Flags are stolen by reaching the enemy base flag, and captured by returning the flag to their own base flag - so long as their flag is present.

Whilst your carrying the flag, your position is shown on the minimap for everyone to see, so you'll need to be quick and work as a team to defend the flag carrier. If you're killed and drop the flag, a teammate can pick it up and carry on, or the flag can be automatically returned to its flag pole by being rescued by the enemy. If after 30 seconds no one on either team has reached the dropped flag it will be returned to base.

Points are awarded for stealing the enemy flag, capturing the enemy flag, picking up a dropped enemy flag, and rescuing your own flag. In our version, you will be able to keep your hands clear to shoot weapons do other normal actions.

New Gamemode - Zombie
Zombie mode is a favourite of the devs, but requires some explanation. Once enough players have spawned in, a 1-minute countdown will begin. Whilst this timer is counting down you are free to explore the map and kill other players, but no points will be awarded.

After this 60 seconds, all players will be killed and one player will be randomly chosen to be the undead zombie. All other players will join the pegleg team and then everyone will spawn back into the game again.

Its now just a case of survival, each time the zombie kills a pegleg they'll be added to the undead zombie team and gradually the balance will turn as the outnumbered undead will begin to outnumber the peglegs.

There'll be no place to hide for the last remaining peglegs either as the minimap will randomly choose a pegleg and show their location on a regular interval. At the start of the round the odds of being picked are in your favour, but once there's only a few peglegs remaining you better keep moving.

Points are awarded for turning peglegs into zombies and slaying zombies. The more players on the other team, the more points you get for killing, so if you're the first zombie you can still rack up a good score.

New Gameplay Feature - Enemy Vessel Boarding
One of the biggest challenges to the dev team was allowing players to board enemy vesssels, walk up the deck and slice the captain in two with a slash of cutlass steel. For a long time we thought it just wasnt possible, but in BFP2 V2.0 we've cracked it.

You can only board three largest enemy ships, The Frigate, The Brig and The Cutter. To do so, just swim up to the correct part of the hull and you'll be thrown up to the deck, just a quick jump over the rail and onto a bloodbath. Each of the three ships has their boarding point in a different location:

• The Frigate - With a ladder on both sides, two thirds of the way along the hull from the bow, a suprise slaughter of the frigates crew is rewarding.
• The Brig - With gunports either side, climb the centre of the ships hull, and hope no ones there to fire the cannon.
• The Cutter - Rigging on either side of the hull makes it easy to clamber aboard - so again, aim for the middle.

Beware though, whilst boarding a stationary ship is child's play, getting aboard a moving vessel with water running down the hull requires real pirate skill.

Also know that you can quickly evacuate all of these ships by running up the bowsprit (that would be the beam coming straight out the front of the boat for all you landlubbers). This allows an agile pirate a much faster way of getting ashore than simply jumping overboard and swimming unarmed. Everybody knows pirates hate to swim.

These beams are handy for boarding enemy vessels of all sizes, and the Frigate has additional means for boarding by getting out of the crows nest and running along a yard arm. You can parachute to an enemy vessel some 20m away or more from up there.