Surviving the Server Shutdown: A Thieves' End of Life Plan

  • TheDemongoat
    Castaway

    Sea of Thieves is an Online-only game. This means it is eventually going to die.

    While this game is going very strong, once Rare decides the servers are no longer worth their effort the game will no longer be playable ever again.

    Rare needs to address this. Can you imagine if Halo, Super Mario 64, World of Warcraft, Starcraft, DOOM, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Pacman, Sonic the Hedgehog, Need for Speed: Underground 2 and so many other landmark titles were shut down and never able to be played by anyone ever again?

    Because that is what's going to happen to this game - ten years, five years, one year from now - there's no guarantee whatsoever the servers will be up and we can only hope the player count remains positive enough for Rare to continue support. This is not going to happen forever, because regardless of how good a game is it will eventually be unprofitable.

    The servers will eventually go down, booting Sea of Thieves will give you an error, and you will be unable to look back on this game through anything but screenshots and let's plays. At this time all of your progress is at risk.

    Regardless of what you think about Sea of Thieves, it deserves to be played and remembered.

    This problem is not unique to SoT, but it is a problem. And it's completely preventable.
    Even if SoT shows no signs of slowing down at the moment, it will eventually become critical in deciding whether or not this game survives the server shutdown. This will need planning, which is possible now but may not be at some point in the future.

    What I suggest is an End of Life Plan to be established and communicated to the community - from a Dedicated Server Client to the release of partial server code - just something to ensure the game does not die when Rare eventually moves on to different titles.

    This is not unheard of or even unusual. Below is a list of titles that have died, and titles that have been preserved thanks to the developers and their communities.
    There are MMOs in these lists.

    Thank you for reading.

    Examples of games never able to be played again:

    • Battleborn
    • Blacklight: Retribution (PC)
    • Command & Conquer (2013)
    • Darkspore
    • Digimon Heroes
    • EVOLVe (Online)
    • Fable Legends
    • Ghost Recon Phantoms
    • Nosgoth
    • Project Spark
    • Shadowrun
    • Sonic Runners
    • The Matrix Online
    • Total War: Arena

    Games that were Online-Only and resurrected from the dead:

    • Age of Empires Online
    • Asheron's Call
    • Battlefield Heroes
    • BattleForge
    • City of Heroes
    • Club Penguin
    • LEGO Universe
    • Need for Speed: World
    • Pirates of the Caribbean: Online
    • Runescape 2 (Old School Runescape)
    • Shin Megami Tensai: Imagine
    • Star Wars Galaxies
    • The Sims Online
    • Toontown Online
    • Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
    • Wildstar

    These lists are not comprehensive.

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  • GutterAngel
    Captain
    Insider

    I don't think "the servers are no longer worth it" is relevant to Sea of Thieves any time in the foreseeable future. It's a "games as service" model and was just said to be the biggest new xbox ip of it's generation. If Rare moves on then I'm thinking Microsoft will have another studio keep it afloat and generating income for as long as possible.

  • UltmateRagnarok
    Master

    @thedemongoat

    Given SoT's 10 year lifetime plan and its relatively supportive community (and Rare being funded by Microsoft), this is not an immediate problem. As you say, it is a problem nonetheless. An issue with the game, however, is that it is written to have a set of servers running it, and as such may require an extensive rewrite to be playable without them. That, or a community-managed server system would have to be made, though Rare is part of the community themselves, and likely will continue to at least run the servers for some time after they stop further development.

  • TheDemongoat
    Castaway

    @gutterangel Thanks for the response! The problem there is we don't have a guarantee. We can assume they will, but it's on good faith. A confirmation of continued support after all the updates would delay the problem and really help out, but we haven't got that yet.

    @UltmateRagnarok Thanks! It's very lucky that this game was made by Rare, because they have a great track record for preserving their games (Rare Replay!). In some cases online-only games couldn't recode their engines or release all their code due to copyright issues, but were able to release enough that the community could piece the rest together with reverse-engineering.

    This game isn't anywhere near the grave, and I think it's clear Rare wouldn't want to do this just yet, but for something as important as this I strongly believe it's worth considering and communicating before it becomes a real problem - because then it might be too late!

  • Ruigtand NL
    Master
    Insider

    Total war arena was so much fun then i moved to my new home and when i tried to play again they already stopped it oh noooo 🤦‍♂️☠

  • BR0CRASTINAT0R
    Captain
    Insider

    I would imagine Sea of Thieves end will be a result of limitations. If that happens, I would like to think “SoT 2” would be in the works enabling us to continue our journey with our carried over character. My hopes anyways.

  • UltmateRagnarok
    Master

    @br0crastinat0r

    That's the only valid reason I've seen to make a SoT 2. So many people seem to expect sequels instead of updates, but that's not the plan for SoT. The removal of technical limitations, on the other hand, could definitely be a reason to make another. Whether that means leaving behind the original XBoxes and even the ones we see now, I do not know, as 10 years (the planned lifetime for the game) is a long time.

  • Katchep
    Master
    Insider

    NPC ships were never a planned feature as Rare publicly stated that it was a limitation issue. But overwhelming requests by the community pushed Rare to overcome the limitation and develop skeleton ships.

    I don't think the game has any limitations as long as its constantly being improved. The early game was a buggy and broken mess and they have cleaned it up well over its lifetime. SOT 2 would only be released as a Microsoft gimmick for more money; not out of limitation issues in the current game. If SOT 2 was a reality, players would have no reason to continue playing original SOT. If a majority of players really wanted to continue original SOT, rare would do it's best to release private server tools to the community. Maybe even dev tools for modding/improving the game ourselves.

    This isn't a problem at all, just a superstitious worse case scenario.

  • KlutchxKay
    Legend
    Insider

    Ah, project spark. Loved that one dearly. Tis a shame that one had to go.

  • AugspaCussh
    Captain
    Insider

    @katchep said in Surviving the Server Shutdown: A Thieves' End of Life Plan:

    NPC ships were never a planned feature as Rare publicly stated that it was a limitation issue. But overwhelming requests by the community pushed Rare to overcome the limitation and develop skeleton ships.

    Honestly, the implementation of these ships could be behind many of the persistant bugs, lag, and glitches we continue to see.

    I personally feel that the introduction Skelly ships doomed our chances of seeing an increase in the player/ship cap. I think the reason we have to remain at 24/6 is because these wandering AI ships have tons of moving/interactable parts, and I can only imagine the strain they put on the consoles and the low-end PCs out there.

    Hardware restrictions don't just go away, but they can be mitigated to a point. I feel we may have reached that point.

  • TheDemongoat
    Castaway

    @katchep Thanks for the response!

    If a majority of players really wanted to continue original SOT, rare would do it's best to release private server tools to the community. Maybe even dev tools for modding/improving the game ourselves.

    We can hope Rare does, but without a guarantee there's no certainty they actually will. I hope feedback like this will help convince them it's worth their effort to preserve Sea of Thieves.

    If SOT 2 was a reality, players would have no reason to continue playing original SOT.

    Splatoon 1 has an active online community, as well as Unreal Tournament 1999, WoW Classic, StarCraft 1, Diablo 2, Halo: CE etc. In my experience an older game can keep players interested even when newer games might be better!

    But if SoT isn't preserved there will be no-one playing, which I believe is a waste for a game like this.

    To put it into a Rare scenario - it's like if Goldeneye couldn't be played once The World Is Not Enough came out, or you could only play Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts. SoT2 will probably be different in some big ways, and some people will probably prefer the original!

    This isn't a problem at all, just a superstitious worse case scenario.

    I get where you're coming from, but I don't believe this is superstitious. A lot of big-budget games have died and never had server tools released. Lots of big games you can still play haven't been online-only, and have only had ranked multiplayer go down after years but SoT is completely online so the risk is bigger.

    With stuff like this I get that I can come off like a doomsday prepper holding a sign saying THE END IS NIGH, REPENT, but games do have this happen. It is absolutely a 'worst case scenario', though!

  • Galactic Geek
    Seafarer
    Founder

    Regardless of what may come for SoT, I hope they don't call the sequel SoT2... 🙄

  • Sicrobite
    Master
    Insider

    @thedemongoat If the devs dont put their stuff together, the game will not survive the next gen consoles ( if not before )

    They have to upgrade their engine because at the moment its so messed up that you would not even dare to call it a finished product.

    Seeing their motivation in the bug fixing over the year (lol) i dont have many hopes left for this game. Hopefully an intelligent dev team will take the concept back and make the great living game SOT should've been.

  • AugspaCussh
    Captain
    Insider

    @galactic-geek said in Surviving the Server Shutdown: A Thieves' End of Life Plan:

    Regardless of what may come for SoT, I hope they don't call the sequel SoT2... 🙄

    How about:

    Bay of Brigands
    Inlet of Infidels
    Cape of Cutthroats
    Gulf of Ruffians
    Fjord of Footpads
    Strait of Raiders

    😂😂😂

  • UltmateRagnarok
    Master

    @sicrobite

    Rare fixes most bugs they come across. You never see the vast majority of them, because they never make it to the full build or even Insider testing much of the time. The bugs which are buried the deepest and are nightmares to find and untangle from the game are the ones that stay, but they do keep trying to get rid of even those bugs as soon as they can. You've been spoiled by the overall lack of bugs that you don't recognize their existing efforts.

  • Joe Krakatoa
    Commander
    Insider

    Games fail for a reason.

    I've some experience with some of those titles listed, as well as a few more recent sun settings.
    Firefall and Ghost in the Shell: First Assault come to mind.
    Motor City Online was great fun but received no support after launch, and died within a year.
    I'm certainly not going to miss The Matrix Online, but Star Wars Galaxy was a seminal experience when it was first released, and still resonates with me today as I watch The Mandalorian.
    Something about SoT always reminded me of Ultima Online, probably the abuse from trolls.

    We are in the second year of this journey with Rare. How long do they expect to support SoT? Five years? Ten?
    Chances are players would have left and come back more than a couple times before the sun ever sets on SoT.
    I think the game looks like it will have a great run.

    Rare has crafted a unique gem of an online experience.
    Find your own motivation to play, and enjoy it for what it's worth.

  • UltmateRagnarok
    Master

    @barnabas-seadog

    Ten years was the original plan. Whether that will hold is another matter.

  • XShadovvHunterX
    Captain
    Insider

    Yeah the 10 year plan may have to be altered with the introduction of the new xbox system.

    If I was a betting man I think we'll see the game splinter into 2 groups...xbox one players with the old servers and the new xbox and pc players with enhanced graphics and added content.

    The game cant stay an xbox one title only and survive.

  • Lem0n Curry
    Vanguard
    Insider

    @galactic-geek said in Surviving the Server Shutdown: A Thieves' End of Life Plan:

    Regardless of what may come for SoT, I hope they don't call the sequel SoT2... 🙄

    How about The Kraken's Body ?

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