Please don't pull an Overwatch and delete it for the sake of Sea of Thieves 2, or whatever. Best scenario if the servers are going to shut down is that it continues as a singleplayer space, but since the sea is run server side, how will it work? People put a lot of time and money into their games, and will need to keep access to it, basically forever.
What will become of SoT when all development stops?
Considering they had/have a 10 year plan I'm sure it's safe to say no one (or at least no one who will be on the forums) has any clue.
Best we can hope for is a singleplayer port, but after seeing The Cycle: Frontier sunset with nothing of the likes, I can't help but say my view is skewed and a little saddened
@ixxxoloff Didn't mean to alarm anyone, it's not based on some announcement or whatever. It just crossed my mind when thinking about the future of the game.
@wolfmanbush The game will live on or die, it won't affect my enjoyment of it today. But i'm sure Rare would rather withold any information in this regard since they don't wanna scare potential buyers. Alternative is they do have a plan to keep it in peoples libraries.
Apparently the word sp00k is censored here, wonder why
@d3adst1ck It will definitely be shut down as an online experience, but my hope is they can keep it in peoples libraries as a singleplayer experience. Meaning transfer the sea clientside. Hopefully be able to do all tall tales, voyages and events (but solo or maybe 2-4 player co-op with host).
@hefty-henri not possible. That would require rebuilding the entire game from the ground up to support offline mode, and it's unlikely they'd commit resources like that to something they are shutting down.
After development stops it may run a bit longer without any updates - perhaps when paid Custom Servers still bring in money and/or people keep buying the game or items.
Making it a game you can run on your own PC, would make that cost development and thus money - probably not the way they'll go - why invest in something that doesn't bring income.
@eva1977 said in What will become of SoT when all development stops?:
Just look at World of Warcraft, it's been going for 20 years and probably will keep going until there is another game to satisfy the current fanbase so same thing here.
I don't think it's really comparable to the games that people use when expressing this sentiment.
I think it's more like a popular tv show where the love for the product is there, the people are still around, but the cost keeps going up and up to keep the show going and it ends from getting too big for sustainability, and/or it becomes just less realistic based on the ever changing business/deal environment.
They make some pretty big deals and big moves every couple of years. It's a flashy game in some ways, expensive undoubtedly. They've even said on a podcast or two that a whole lotta money is being moved around for the product being put out.
Whenever gamepass gets to the point of not being as awesome of a deal as it's been for quite a while is when things will get a lil iffy. It's still a really good deal and is very effective in getting people into sot.
But just to think, one day servers have to be shut down as the game has to end eventually.
What will it feel like to be the last ship to sail this Sea of Thieves, to be a mere hours away from saying goodbye forever and silently remember everything that was before?I think i played another online game that went through this, i played it on the very last day and it definitely felt like a funeral for a friend.
@hefty-henri Yeah I'd definitely play the sequel before moving clientside. It's not even the same game without the random encounters...
@eva1977 said in What will become of SoT when all development stops?:
But just to think, one day servers have to be shut down as the game has to end eventually.
What will it feel like to be the last ship to sail this Sea of Thieves, to be a mere hours away from saying goodbye forever and silently remember everything that was before?I think i played another online game that went through this, i played it on the very last day and it definitely felt like a funeral for a friend.
The millennial tradition is to put green day good riddance (time of your life) and blink 182 I miss you- on repeat and just ride it out till it passes
all are welcome
@zig-zag-ltu said in What will become of SoT when all development stops?:
Enjoy while it lasts, once it's done it's done. Pray SoT2 will be a thing.
Devs said that as it's part of the xbox family they hope to continue it as a franchise. Weather that be a SoT 2 or another PvEvP game, we don't know. Might just be something that continues the story, but is a diffrent type of game. Who knows? All we know is that they hope to continue it.
@eva1977 said in What will become of SoT when all development stops?:
But just to think, one day servers have to be shut down as the game has to end eventually.
What will it feel like to be the last ship to sail this Sea of Thieves, to be a mere hours away from saying goodbye forever and silently remember everything that was before?I think i played another online game that went through this, i played it on the very last day and it definitely felt like a funeral for a friend.
Reminded me of this:
Last Halo 2 player finally leaves Xbox Live
After refusing to log out for more than three weeks, the last person in Xbox Live on an original Xbox succumbed. Multiplayer Halo 2 is no more.
@rustybeanyard Ofcourse a potential sequel will be more engaging, but unlike many other multiplayer live service games, SoT has a lot of content that can be experienced in singleplayer. It would be a shame for all those tall tales, locations, your cosmetics and your achievements to be buried alongside the game you made so many memories in.
Up until now, when you added a game to your Steam (or other) library, it's under the assumption you will basically be able to go back to it and play it forever. Even 20+ year old multiplayer games like Call of Duty 1 and 2 are still being played today, and those games will always have a playable singleplayer campaign as well. This notion is going to disappear the more games shut down after their ''life cycle''.
It has always been my understanding that at some point SoT will only live in the memories players created within it.
I plan to take some time off for the last few days of the game, sailing with friends in the Shores of plenty, sharing our stories. If their 10 years plan holds, I'll be 41... and I plan to cry a bit. :p
@hefty-henri hard to say, i don’t see a simple port to single player happening since the amount of calculations happening server side would probably grind any given regular consumer pc to a grinding halt, maybe some enthousiast rigs could run it but I sincerely doubt that.
Another option is for a server launcher that can then be hosted somewhere
@eva1977 Cant really compare SoT to WoW. WoW patches tend to have far more content then we get in a SoT patch. Heck 1 wow expansion contains more content than we have gotten in SoT in 5 years. HUGE difference here is SoT updates have cost us nothing while WoW has literally cost thousands of dollars between buying expansions and monthly fees etc.
@magus104 That's irrelevant to my point, i was only mentioning it as an example of how online games can keep going for a long time. Whatever reasons keep them going thats a different topic.
If SoT remains profitable post 10 years, they might keep it up indefinitely until running the servers costs more than they are making from sales and emporium. If they do release a sequel, that will likely cannibalise majority playerbase and render the old one not profitable.
In terms of development they are already struggling hard to add any content to the game without breaking a bunch of things or creating problems like hitreg and lag. I hope they figure out a way to get around this, because while the game has come a long way since launch, it can still do with quite a bit more replayable content to keep PvE activity alive, which in turn provides attractive targets to PvP enjoyers.
Last Halo 2 player finally leaves Xbox Live
19 out of 28
