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Sea of Thieves | Review Thread
- Thread starter Metanoia Prime
- Start date
Demon's Souls got amazing reviews and people saying it is great despite being extremely punishing.
Word of mouth was one thing but it went hand to hand with glowing reviews.
No, they wanted a social pirate game. All of that stuff is coming. Well, at least most of it.
I just try to imagine how it would have scored if it was a Nintendo / Rare release on the Switch, even in this state.
Personally im really enjoying SoT and its pirating madness and skin grind, loving the interactions ive had both with my own ship crew and with others so far. Can't wait to see what they'll keep adding. This is definitely a marmite game :)
Don't know about the rest but yes, they wanted a social pirate game. And a game without editor. they talk about how they wanted the characters to follow a same 'design' when they did the randomizer thing in one of the logs. If you like it or not, your prerrogative, but yes, just like the lack of progression, this was intentional and not a goof or afterthought from their part
Also failing to see the link between tattoos, fishing, card games and creativity but that might just be me
It took them 4 years to get to this point, when is this stuff coming? Honestly; get your expectations in check.
None of that stuff is confirmed, all you heard was Rare mingle about all the possibilities for the potential 10-year service, but nothing beyond the pirate hideout/paid pets is confirmed.
Whatever the case. It'll be updated with content.
I have been enjoying the game so far, having fun just going around with my friends and sailing the seas. I haven't had time to sink hours into the game just yet, so I'm not sure at what point I will get tired of the content included in the game. There really were some obvious things that should have been included in this game however. I hope these things can be addressed via content packs which I understand will be free. Some things I would suggest, sorry if I'm repeating what others have already said:
- More enemy types! This is essential. We really need more enemy variety in this game, skeletons are fun to fight but I don't understand why they are really the only AI enemies. Add in enemy pirates, who can maybe sail on their own ships, just make it obvious they are AI and not real people by changing the style of their ships. There should be enemies inhabiting the islands as well other than skeletons. This is one of the very obvious things that need to be addressed.
- Treasure Chests. We really need chests which we can open for loot. Having to turn them in just to get gold each time will get tiring in a short while. I don't mind bringing chests back to have the gold hoarder open it for us, but I feel that getting to see the chests being opened and being given some items rather than gold will add a lot of variety to rewards.Again, this seemed very obvious.
- Inviting Friends to join mid game. Why do I have to log out and start a new game just to add friends who come online a bit later? I like to get in the world and mess around a bit if I'm earlier than others logging in. It is very annoying having to log out just to get a galleon? I should be able to invite my friends to join, scuttle the smaller ship and get a galleon.
- Creating pirates. We didn't need a Mass Effect style creation tool, but any sort of pirate creator would have been better than what we got.
can people stop with this "reviewer are biased toward Nintendo"?
It's Greg Mayles dream game and it's the game that Rare wanted to make, if only there was some random Reddit user we could pin our hopes on to get to the bottom of what went wrong, lol.
If Nintendo had done any supervision on this game, I don't think that it would have come out in such a bare-bones state.
I was trying to think about what this game reminded me of, and it's the late beta/launch of Ultima Online where everything felt like the wild west with an anything goes system with player interaction defining the moments of the game and a great unknown to explore. Unfortunately it seems like SoT has very little variety in it's objectives, there's nothing that feels truly rewarding, and the systems are so primitive I don't see people finding a great reason to stick with it unless they secretly have more stuff ready and waiting to add to the game.
Their big content drop is what 3 months away right? So if this is all people have for content then that is way too long as within a couple weeks it's going to start getting stale.
"We sail on the open ocean,
Where pirates are lusty and crude
And have nutritional diseases
'Cause bananas are the only food."
Now you made me dream about an Amiibo for this skelly. Gold Hoarder skeleton for Smash ;)
Exactly the same score.
If anything it would've scored less because of the lack of Gamepass allowing people to trial it. Charging $60 straight up for this and that being the only available option to play it would be suicide.
Maybe, maybe not. The potential timeline starts from the stock 6 month support and ends with the 10-year plan. Depending on the playerbase, plans will change. Free content might become the expansion, an expansion might become a sequel.
The service model dies if players aren't going to purchase microtransactions. Destiny, Division, Battlefront 2, Dawn of War 3, Black Ops 3 - everyone alters their plans based on the reception/feedback/playerbase. Popular games have their content pipeline extended, failed games have their support cut short.
Maybe not very creative but IMO things like that should be in a social Pirate game.
Or arm wrestling where you can bet against other players.
Yeah. Studio closures suck. But it's still a business so i can totally understand it. Same with game cancellations.
I think SoD2 will find success, Crackdown 3 - not so much. We will see.
MS E3 should be like Sony 2016. Just fire with everything you got even if it wont come out in 1-2 years.
^that's been posted and its needlessly vitriolic towards console players. not a fan, despite him having valid points.
Come to think of it, after BOTW, I'd love to see a Nintendo take on the openworld pirate theme.
Come to think of it, after BOTW, I'd love to see a Nintendo take on the openworld pirate theme.
Hey it's a very Ninty game in some (good) ways ! And Rare with Nintendo have a lot of history in common.
Except they're not from random Reddit comments, they're from actual interviews with well known ex members of staff.
https://www.zeldadungeon.net/former-employee-microsoft-rejected-rares-creativity2/
http://www.rarefandabase.com/exclusive-where-are-they-now-an-interview-with-chris-seavor/
Here is a list of ideas or projects from Rare that Microsoft supposedly cancelled or rejected from several years back.
Ordinary Joe
Arch Angel
Perfect Dark Core
Kameo 2
Cascade
Banjo Karting
Urchin
Sabreman Stampede
Soul Catcher
Banjo Kazoomie
Savanna
The Fast and the Furryiest
Quest
Granted these are predominantly from the 360 days, and even then only the ones we know of, but it does go to show the kind of situation Rare faced in terms of getting ideas and project greenlit all the way to fruition.
I'd recommend at least trying the game with some friends. Game Pass makes it a lot easier since you aren't forced to pay $60 up front. I don't think this game is for everyone and it certainly has its issues, but there is fun to be had if it clicks for you. We'll have to see how it turns out in the long run.
Developers, or even small subgroups among them, pitch so many different ideas. Most of them go nowhere. Remember that real time strategy pitch for Half Life 3? Doesn't mean that the management is evil and cutting their wings, but they can't put hundreds of people and tens of millions into any random idea someone has.
Your list literally mentions games that never got anywhere or got a couple weeks of work from 1-2 people. Hard to say "cancelled projects" or "untapped potential".
I doubt Miyamoto would have let it go to release in this state.
That said, a pirate Mario game sounds like a wonderful idea. :)
Played a decent amount again last night. Out of any game with low-ish reviews, people should really give this one a shot. It's still the most polished low scoring game I've ever played. Needs more content for sure, but it has fun to offer.
EDIT: RE: Nintendo discussion. Zelda is a pretty empty world too. Let's not pretend that BOTW didn't have some of the same issues, it just had big dungeons and the shrines that gave players more overall to do. Also the cities had more character.
EDIT: RE: Nintendo discussion. Zelda is a pretty empty world too. Let's not pretend that BOTW didn't have some of the same issues, it just had big dungeons and the shrines that gave players more overall to do. Also the cities had more character.
Reviews are all over the place even though there's a pretty good consensus on what some of the problems are.
I would still encourage people on the fence to try it because there's just something about it that is hard to get across without playing. Not saying it's for everyone though and it definitely needs more content but it's pretty cool when it works.
I don't think we can tell exactly how many people worked on some of these projects, it could have been far more than 1-2 (which is the implication given for some of the games), not to mention a few of these were being worked on for a year or more, and some even for 6 years on and off.
In any case, it certainly doesn't sound like a very efficient system or work flow, and also might go to explain how some of the content issues in Sea of Thieves could have come about.
In the thread over on the other forum, I believe it was stated that there were a total of 20 cancelled projects around that time, some which had a fair amount of time and money invested in to them, but that were ultimately rejected in favour of more child friendly or Kinect orientated projects.
Banjo Kazooie was one of my all time fave platformers. In some ways I preferred it to Mario. It seems insane that they'd never attempt to make a proper sequel. I honestly think it's a potentially hugely successful and profitable project they've left at the door.
The problem with sea of thieves is not that the map is too big.. it's more like.. why the fuck is there ONE enemy type overall and what.. 3 weapon types or so? Oh, and two freaking ships.. that is the problem. Sure, BotW may have huge world, in some areas quite empty.. but saying that it suffers from the same issues as sea of thieves is just being mad.
What are you trying to say?
And Nintendo would've never let a game like this release with the money put into it.
To be fair, they probably just got bored looking for stuff to do
And I'm telling you this is pretty normal at most devs. Valve, for one, has dozens of projects that went nowhere. The thing is that a lot of devs and publishers are incredibly secretive, and the cancelled games are often related to existing IPs (from games or otherwise) which makes talking about them or publishing material from them a lot more complicated. Rare has always been a very open and honest company, hence we know about their struggles, their ideas and stuff far more. For example, you had to hear from anonymous sources that a giant Star Wars project they worked on for years (one that has never been officially announced) has been cancelled - without Schreier's incredible work we would have known fuck-all about it, and that's a game that costed EA tens of millions of dollars possibly.
And, for the record, those child friendly Kinect orientated projects sold a lot, far more than a Banjo 3 or Kameo 2 would have generated in terms of income. Not to mention it's easy to put the blame on the publisher for cancelling games, like the early gut reactions that we had at that Star Wars game, where it ultimately turned out that the development was a fucking mess and was not going to be completed for many years, if at all. Given Sea Of Thieves' lenghty development cycle and the fact they launched with a limited amount of content despite everything, I wouldn't bet large sums of money on the fact they had 20 projects going awesomely and then evil Microsoft execs came in and cancelled them all. Usually the truth is somewhere between the extremes.
Being fair, Miyamoto released Star Fox Zero which is far from complete.
I sincerely believe that Sea of Thieves is a project the upper staff was very passionate about. And the whole "being a pirate" stuff is something that is very believably a favourite fantasy of Gregg Mayles. The focus on social interaction and online might be influenced by Microsofts general policy, sure, but (sadly) I doubt that Mayles and co. would actually hav preferred to make Banjo-Threeie instead.
On the other hand, I somehow doubt Microsoft is seeing a new Banjo (or a remaster, why ever they would do that, when the first game is available in great quality on Xbox One) as a surefire hit, otherwise we would have seen one in the last 15 years since Microsoft bought Rare. The one newlystarted Banjo project we got was extremely different in nature precisely because the developers thought that no one wants a faithful successor.