So... the next update for the "adventure" mode is... 4 - 6 months away?

@Sshteeve let's hope that it does not take too long to get a update on the core game. We spoke up and made sure our voices were heard loud and clear. I think @KattTruewalker is right we should focus on Shrouded Spoils now. Hopefully Rare will be able to work on both concurrently.

I have felt like @KnifeLife that I would like to see big updates even if they were spaced out much further than the way we have seen them. I think that is where the Bilge Rats adventures can play a critical role. They would remain smaller updates in between the major ones. Would like to see them become more as story installments instead of time limited events.

Each Bilge Rats release being a new chapter to a bigger story. Ok with some being annual festivals. The long reaching story would spark new quests and exploration while pulling us deeper into the lore and world.

@Mad-Jack-Ketch I am not sure Rare will do much with the feedback to change course. It would be great if they would reverse course and just bring more PvP competition to the current world. They appear very committed to The Arena. They pretty much dropped anchor very hard this weekend.

I have nothing against PvP. I have greatly enjoyed the battles my spouse and I have had over the past many months. We all have to be honest that the conditions for battles have diminished over the same period. I wish Rare would have better addressed the reasons we are at this point in the Sea of Thieves instead of adding a separate mode.

If this is going to be the future, then the future of the core game is really going to be in our hands. It will be up to us to make sure the adventure we started with does not end. Maybe some of us Pirate Legends can become good stewards of the sea. We can make sure the greatest voyage of all stays true to the heart and soul of the sea we all truly love.

I guess it's a good thing you made your own thread for your griping instead of clogging up the megathread.

The OP is full of assumptions and fallacies. You do realize they've been working on the concept of the Arena for awhile now, right? All of the content drop schedules you noted were already affected by the Arena. Joe Neate talking about taking longer for updates is because they were introducing too many bugs into the game with these updates and want to slow it down so they can release a more polished product when they do make these big updates.

All of you accusing Rare of making another Fortnite, and acting like the Sea is evaporating right from underneath your hulls need to realize you are just plain wrong... about alot of things.

In fact, the next big update is Shrouded Spoils... if you really want to get down to it... which is in less than a month? Then after that is Arena, and then after that we will probably see something in the Adventure mode... and during all of this time smaller updates and new bilge rat adventures.

Sorry, but no... let's stop this alarmist behavior and let Rare continue to develop this game to the best of their abilities. There will be some ups (Arena) and downs (Mermaid statues) along the way, but we will patch the holes and weather the storms together as we continue to enjoy these FREE content updates provided to us by Rare.

@sshteeve said in So... the next update for the "adventure" mode is... 4 - 6 months away?:

@x-crowheart-x said in So... the next update for the "adventure" mode is... 4 - 6 months away?:

If this is going to be the future, then the future of the core game is really going to be in our hands. It will be up to us to make sure the adventure we started with does not end. Maybe some of us Pirate Legends can become good stewards of the sea. We can make sure the greatest voyage of all stays true to the heart and soul of the sea we all truly love.

This would be the perfect time for @J4dio to jump in and talk about the Old Salts and their Pirate Training Academy found here: https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/73566/the-old-salts-always-here-to-help-piratical-training-academy

Nice! I am thinking we do this and more every time we set sail. Does not mean we still do not fight each other with iron and steel either. When we do so however, we enter into combat with honor and respect for our brothers and sisters of the sea. We also defend those from others who do not. While we make and have our own fun every place it can be found on the Sea of Thieves, we help everyone else on the sea find theirs as well.

@sshteeve I share most of your "fears". I believe that Arena will drop by the end of February or even March and between SS and TA i don't think we will get anything beside some BRA.
What i'm sad quite a lot now is about what Joe sas a long ago. Was during a Q&A with some players when he sas that something to keep player busy during navigation was coming (he heavly hinted at fishing but could be anything) , he sas that they were working hard to squeeze into FS and if will not make into that expansion was coming shorlty after.
Also Shelly more recently (during a comicon?) sas that they were "cooking" some new features and they were not to far away.
Now, i don't know what's they idea of "shortly" but we are well beyond FS and looks like that even in SS nothing along this line is coming. So like you sas, will arrive around April? A little bit disappointing. I like the idea of TA but the develop of the Adventure Mode will slow down.

My estimate is,

Shrouded Spoils - end of Nov.
Holiday themed Bilge Rat Adventure - mid to late Dec.
Arena mode - early first quarter 2019 (pending smooth sailing w/ pioneers)

It fits with the rate of content releases from Rare as pointed out by @Sshteeve

If it turns out that Area's release will come later in the first quarter, then Rare ought to have some filler content on hand to issue out in the meantime (e.g. another Bilge Rat Adventure - perhaps a February Valentines Day themed event).

@sshteeve said in So... the next update for the "adventure" mode is... 4 - 6 months away?:

@wkd1337 thanks for joining the discussion,

You're welcome.

My point is the length of time after Shrouded to the next adventure. Pure and simple. No Fortnite mention, no alarmist behaviour about the state of the game. But thanks for dropping bye!

Your point is that the Arena some how takes away from the base game, and my point is no it doesn't. In fact, the Arena mode has got me hyped up more so than any other update ever in this game. I am absolutely amused by all of the things people on these forums have tried to latch onto and point at in regards to "Arena taking away from Adventure" somehow.
You do realize this clearly has been part of their content road map for sometime, have already set aside resources for the Arenas continual development, and the facts being as they are make your topic seem like a doomsday woe is me type of post.
The fact that KattTruewalker is trying to placate you is absolutely hilarious.

The honest to George truth is that the Arena is part of the Sea of Thieves experience, it adds to the game and is a legitimate content drop. The entire premise of your post insinuates that it is something separate entirely that takes away from the expereince... which hey, maybe it takes away from your experience because you dont want to play it so in your mind it adds no value to the game... but unfortunately that's not the case for many, many players.

I'll see you in the Arena! (Or not, your choice)

@katttruewalker said in So... the next update for the "adventure" mode is... 4 - 6 months away?:

@sshteeve

Fall snails one Joe has mentioned a couple of times?

Fall Snails = Tall Tails = Hostile Mermaids! That’s my guess 😏

I think there is confusion as The Arena megathreads are stating The Arena is the fifth (5th) major content release. I hope it’s actually the 6th and there’s been a clerical error

Ive seen this idea floating around as a variant to the current upcoming Arena Gamemode. Kinda like a 50v50 mode where theres fleets of ships under one team taking out ships and players from the other. Game is won when every pirate from the opposite side is eliminated... Even if you sink their ship, they can jump aboard an ally ship to give them help. The Shroud would be what closes in as the game continues adding damage to ships the longer they sail in it. And random Maelstroms can come in for any players thinking staying in the water is their best bet...

@Sshteeve
The problem you put forth is entirtely under the assumption that The Arena update will bring nothing to the Adventure Game.
I mean, it may also go live in January (we won't know until we get there, of course!).
We shall see!!
:)

EDIT: I mean, they already said that the tavern will exist in the main game. Who knows what that will mean, what it may bring and what else may come along with the update. Maybe nothing... maybe something... maybe lots! :)

@katttruewalker said in So... the next update for the "adventure" mode is... 4 - 6 months away?:

@wkd1337 said in So... the next update for the "adventure" mode is... 4 - 6 months away?:
There's certainly no placating going on, we're trying to clarify the latest information on these content updates, which is now slightly confused because of the previously unmentioned Arena.

I don't understand what the Arena has to do with the "confusing content updates"... sounds to me like it's right on schedule considering all of the information Rare has given us about their development. The Arena and Shrouded Spoils are the 4th and 5th updates out of the six that were promised for this year. And by one year did that mean December 31st as the end, or March when their game was released? Either way that doesn't really matter...

The fact is the content plans were discussed shortly after release and there's a news post dated 13th April on the website which details the first 3 updates - Hungering Deep, Cursed Sails and Forsaken Shores, they then mentions 3 more updates before the end of the year making 6 in total. Although I think they'd be pushing it to achieve this target now.

Now Rare are certainly within their rights to alter this as much as they need or wish to, but as far as I am aware this is/was the plan and I don't think we've heard anything since to nullify this, except for spreading the weekly patch over a longer period of time.

So, on the subject of Rare altering their plan... they already did! In a video that I'm sure you posted somewhere Joe Neate stated they need to slow down their content delivery so they can give themselves time to release more polished products... ya know, so people aren't walking around with spyglasses in between their legs... they have already told us the original schedule was being altered and slowed down to give pioneers more time to playtest... the original content schedule gave the pioneers no time to provide any effective feedback, and whatever internal testing they were doing wasn't catching all of the bugs. This alone is going to completely change the timeline of their content road map... the fact that they are going to have had five huge drops by early next year, combined with all of the small updates and bilge rat adventures... that's a lot of stuff man!

So yes, to insinuate that the Arena was the direct cause of this content scheduling change gives fuel to all of this fake fire on the forums right now and is misleading. The Arena was not the cause but will definitely benefit from the delay! As will all other updates that come out going forward. Let's not contribute to this conspiracy theory of THERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE MORE UPDATES when the fact of the matter is they already they said they were slowing things down.

@wkd1337
I think the only thing being missed here is that @KattTruewalker and @Sshteeve were just having a legitimately friendly discussion about what has, or has not, been said.
No need to twist it into anything more. :)

And, yeah, as far as I'm concerned the Arena update is just another update for the game, like all the others.

Regardless, Katt is correct that they had said that the "Fall Snails" (my wife also guessed "Tall Tales", immediately, as we were watching that video, hehe) would be the next update after Forsaken Shores.
After they announced Shrouded Spoils, I've been meaning to ask Joe and Rare if the update title had been changed or if the order of updates had been changed.

No big deal, any which way. just a discussion of what we think we know, hehe. :D

It took them 8 months to release a PVP oriented update.
Look at the bright side of things...

@pdt-mindstream said in So... the next update for the "adventure" mode is... 4 - 6 months away?:

@wkd1337
I think the only thing being missed here is that @KattTruewalker and @Sshteeve were just having a legitimately friendly discussion about what has, or has not, been said.
No need to twist it into anything more. :)

@Sshteeve said

This is one of the resounding issues I have with the new Arena mode for Sea of Thieves and is a point I have already raised in the mega thread as well, but I feel it warrants discussion of its own.

Sshteeve felt the need to take his uninformed concerns about Arena and the content road map out of the megathread and post it here. This quote is the first line of the original post which is a complete fallacy. His opening line is a straw man argument. He is directly correlating and accusing the Arena mode of being the reason there will be a "lack of content updates". The very basis of this entire thread is a misinterpretation of the facts. I know KattTruewalker is a good deckhand but all I'm saying is he's feeding into something here that typically gets shut down... ya know... a thread started about a hot topic when there is already a megathread about it...

And, yeah, as far as I'm concerned the Arena update is just another update for the game, like all the others.

Yeah man it's gonna be awesome. Best update yet.

Regardless, Katt is correct that they had said that the "Fall Snails" (my wife also guessed "Tall Tales", immediately, as we were watching that video, hehe) would be the next update after Forsaken Shores.
After they announced Shrouded Spoils, I've been meaning to ask Joe and Rare if the update title had been changed or if the order of updates had been changed.

Give 'em a text, let me know what they say.

No big deal, any which way. just a discussion of what we think we know, hehe. :D

It is a discussion, and I am taking the other side. I am a very direct person, and I do love my online arguments... some people can't handle it, what can I say?

We for sure can expect some bilge rat adventures, we have gotten a new one between every major update, so we should probably get two.

@wkd1337 said in So... the next update for the "adventure" mode is... 4 - 6 months away?:

It is a discussion, and I am taking the other side. I am a very direct person, and I do love my online arguments... some people can't handle it, what can I say?

I think you have just given yourself away, you arn't here to discuss but to argue. Strike this mans comments from the record.

On a serious note, the first thing I think we can agree on is to expect that some things on the road map have changed. I for one would be extremly surprised to see 3 more content updates by the end of the year, so I think thats out.

The second thing we can all agree on was the OP stating that should Arena be the 5th content update, then there will be a "gap" on more "adventure" focused content updates. Which from what I have read is all he was saying.

Side note I think the only way any of this will get clearer is if they released their dev roadmap. The issue with this is, is it's like setting it in stone and any diviation from it would be met with UPROAR. We arn't the most understanding of pirates.