Tales of Pirates II revealed two new game elements today for their upcoming release. The first is customizable pirate ships for real time strategy sea battles and the second is treasure hunting mazes. What's a pirate game without cannonballs and questing for booty?

Players will be able to customize their ships by choosing their own bow, mobility, cannon and components to create a ship with personalized stats and powers. As players use their ships they will gain experience and level up into to new abilities. The ships will also function for transportation, marine trade and a home base.

What about some Pirate themed dungeon crawling?  Players will use their pirates to explore monster filled mazes to search for treasure. Many of these mazes can be found on the continent but some can only be found on wild, uncharted islands. The mazes will feature bosses that players must defeat in order to take their fair share of the plundered treasure. Players can also discover treasure by fishing and salvaging and can sell whatever they don't want.

One of the professions a player can choose and that every party needs is the Voyager. The Voyager is a pirate that is an expert in exploration and discovering the ocean's treasures. He also has the ability to wield magic on land, which is a bit of an interesting twist for a pirate themed game. If you want more swashbuckling check out Tales of Pirates II at http://top2.igg.com.

To celebrate the New Year, IGG has opened a new map in Tales of Pirates called Prison Island. According to the company, it's a place where players "can enjoy extreme PK."

There is no beautiful scenery, only ferocious monsters everywhere. You are supposed to survive on this dark, desolate island, and fight against any potential enemies.

If you're curious about how to get into or out of the prison, keep reading after the jump.

A new server will open in Tales of Pirates on Dec. 18 called "Burning Sea."

IGG will also be holding the standard events accompanying the new server launch, including:

Event I —Double Exp Carnival
Event II —You Play, We Pay
Event III—Leveling Contest

If you're a Tales of Pirates fan or a new player, try out the new server to enjoy the festivities.

Version 1.38 recently went live in Tales of Pirates and contains many new additions to the game, including features, apparel and quests.

There's now a head-gear forging system, an "Honorary Treasure Chest" to reward players who prove themselves in guild wars and a new map called "Island Prison."

You can read more about Version 1.38 here or in the press release below.

IGG launched a new server called Frozen Sea in Tales of Pirates today, and to celebrate they're holding numerous events and contests.

For 10 days, we will offer double experience for all players on the new server Frozen Sea, just to make sure you have fun and level up quickly in the new environment. Level-up quick and try to catch up with players on other servers as soon as possible! Event Duration: From 3:00 a.m. November 12th to 3:00 a.m. November 22nd EST Time (GMT-5)

For more information on the double experience carnival and other events, check out this post or keep reading below.

To kick off the new school year, Tales of Pirates is holding three back-to-school events. The top students to pass the entrance exam can win some really cool prizes!

Event 1 The Last Carnival

Around the three main cities--- Argent City, Shaitan City and Icicle City, there will be many sand bag monsters which contain considerable amounts of experience. Players can go fight them and will be able to level up quickly.

Event 2 Summer Sunset

The happy summer holiday will end soon, and pirates should think about getting their wandering hearts back where they're supposed to be to make preparations for the new school year. During the "Summer Sunset" event, pirates who successfully collect the relevant props can claim an Entrance Certificate for the coming Entrance Examination.

Event 3 Entrance Examination

We will be launching 1st Tales of Pirates Student Recruitment, including the writing tests and Skills test. Pirates need an Entrance Certificate to join the examination. After the examination, the top students will obtain special kinds of profession books. (Other students can buy these books from the Item Mall.)

GMs. Where would we be without them? Who would help us out when we come across a bug? Who else would help us settle player disputes? Who else could come up with such great game content? Who else would be there for a late night R-rated escapade ? (Ok, so that last one's not normal. Or even a good thing. And actually really creepy.)

But, like anyone else, there's always going to be conflict, somehow. So why not exploit it in a fun, role-playing way? This is just what Tales of Pirates is doing in an upcoming epic battle for treasure between GMs and pirates.

Pirates in Demonic World never expected a dirty war would unfold here. They are facing the offensive from fearsome enemies-a well armed GM army possessing power close to the Gods. This GM army wants the treasure and will wipe out the pirates if need be.

When the door to Demonic World is open, five armed GMs will enter to shed blood there. Players can team up to meet the offensive from the GMs without any registration. When GMs are killed, they will quit competing for the treasure and you will get the GM's supplies...Like Flash Bombs, Radiation, BBQ Shark Fin.

You can read all the details about the event here .

Tales of Pirates just sent over a release about a new event, in which you can get your gear enhanced for free!

Tales of Pirates is planning to hold a special gear enhancing event, Failure is Not an Option, which will provide free service to players who have trouble with this part of the game. Players are always dreaming of cool gear sets of their own, but it can be tough for them to stand all the forging failures it takes to produce the best equipment. In order to give something back to players' for their continued support, the TOP team has a GM Forging Expert to help them and guarantee a high embedding success rate.

Event Duration: 1:30 am August 20th to 1:30 am August 29th (EDT, GMT-4)

Event Details: Go to Shaitan City to find the Forging Expert during the event. He will offer you the free Forging service. You need to give him the Gems and Refining Gems at level 4 or 5, as well as gear with gems already embedded at level 3 or 4. The Forging Expert will then guarantee a 100% success rate to embed the new level 4 or 5 gems.

Tales of Pirates: Easy Credits for All

In order to give something back to our players for their continued support, the Tales of Pirates (http://top.igg.com/ ) team will continue to hold the "Easy Credits for All" event until the end of this year to offer all TOP players a chance to obtain abundant credits. These credits can be exchanged for all kinds of equipment and items.

In the first week of August, all TOP players enjoyed a good week because they could obtain abundant credits very easily. If players have been online for 90 hours in July, they could obtain abundant credits the first week of August according to their characters level.

Until now, there have been more than ten thousand players who have shared millions of credits.

As a free-to-play MMORPG, TOP makes meeting all players requirements a top (no pun intended) priority. That's why the TOP team would like to continue this event for the rest of the year! It means that every TOP player has at least 5 chances to obtain credits for free until the end of the year.

Tales of Pirates (http://top.igg.com/ ), is a 3D MMORPG from IGG (http://www.igg.com/ ), based on cute characters and eye-catching storylines, and quickly created a huge following for itself since its debut more than a year ago.

For more information about this event visit: http://top.igg.com .

Pirates love their plundered gold! Do they love competitive athletics combined with national spirit? Maybe not, but we sure do, and so do the folks over at Tales of Pirates .

In order to celebrate the coming of the Beijing Olympic Games and to thank their players for their continued support, the Tales of Pirates team will be holding a Gold Coins Lottery event to offer all players the chance to win a valuable Golden Olympic Coin.

During the Beijing Olympic Games, the TOP team will choose one lucky player every two days who has bought item mall points and then present them with an exclusive limited edition Golden Olympic Coin. There are only 8 Coins to be given away.