You had one job Rare!

  • Thorumsu
    Master
    Insider

    This post contains the finale of the mystery. Read at your own risk.

    So... The mystery itself was pretty complicated. But this finale? It was awesome.

    Reusing the Art Of The Trickster mechanics was so good. The puzzles ACTUALLY required brainpower unlike... What we have now... Which are adventures that cut out the brain requring parts of the shrines.

    You get the mysterious door to open. Woah, The Siren Queen is alive after all! She traps you in a room to drown. You quickly need to play "Who Shall Not Be Returning" with the levers to escape (Also worth mentioning, We never had a scene like this).

    There is no turning back, You go deeper. The Siren Queen traps you again and explains why she framed Ramsey with a dramatic theme.

    When all seemed lost, Ramsey pops out, with a really epic version of "We Shall Sail Together" playing in the background he says:

    "You killed my son, took my daughter. And why? All because you wanted pirates to face the wrath of a merciless Pirate Lord. Your magesty - your wish is my command!"

    And then he brutally kills the siren queen with that bad**s line. After that, he talks with Lesedi, explaining what happened and why he ignored it.

    We never got this good acting, or emotion before. It was perfect all round.

    This is a great scene to make people fall in love with the game again, streamers will play it and and-

    "Mike Chapman? Yes. I am listening. What is that? What? THE REWARD IS 10 DOUBLOONS?!?!? Not even a title? Hmm... let me think about that... WHY THE H-"

    Nope. The result is actually this:

    Blurbs complaining and saying he will never do it as the "Cutscene will proably be bad anyway", comments on Discord, youtube and any social media in existence HATING it instead of loving this scene.

    Rare, all you had to do was give us DeMarco's hat. You already had the asset. Any sort of uniqe cosmetic would make all of the community to jump on it.

    You ruined your content by not giving any sort of reason to do it. Kind of like seaforts actually...

    Why make a scene as perfect as this only for it to be completed by just some lore nerds like me.

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  • Peony7185
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    @thorumsu I agree, I thought that 10 doubloons was quite funny. Not sure why there wasn't something as an actual reward.

    Also, I feel like people are a bit harsh on the Mystery. I think the initial Twitter likes and retweets really left a bad first impression on the larger community because outside of that it seems like the other actual steps/puzzles were actually kinda cool!

    Either way I hope Rare have taken notes on what doesnt work with these.

  • WolfManbush
    Lord

    @thorumsu said in You had one job Rare!:

    Any sort of uniqe cosmetic would make all of the community to jump on it.**

    In a lot of cases this would be true but I don't think it would be for this.

    People don't want to get involved in something as significant as social media and rather than participate they are likely to criticize the content more for feeling left out of significant reward.

    The problem with social media is that participants think that the world revolves around something they enjoy, it really doesn't. Social media is a small percentage of people in general and especially those that play this game. People that don't want to mess with social media really don't want to and the push back will likely increase along with a reward increase.

  • Thorumsu
    Master
    Insider

    @wolfmanbush, You had one job Rare! içinde yazdı:

    @thorumsu said in You had one job Rare!:

    Any sort of uniqe cosmetic would make all of the community to jump on it.**

    In a lot of cases this would be true but I don't think it would be for this.

    People don't want to get involved in something as significant as social media and rather than participate they are likely to criticize the content more for feeling left out of significant reward.

    The problem with social media is that participants think that the world revolves around something they enjoy, it really doesn't. Social media is a small percentage of people in general and especially those that play this game. People that don't want to mess with social media really don't want to and the push back will likely increase along with a reward increase.

    I mean the finale. There are already guides and all. No more need of liking social media posts.

    If they only knew which islands they needed to go (like me. I just looked up which islands I needed to go to and did the puzzles on my own), it is basically art of the trickster but with a perfect Cutscene at the end.

  • TheBlackBellamy
    Lord
    Insider

    Eh, idk. Seems in line with how little attention they give to everything else Arena-related.

    I'm just glad its over so I can finally catch up with whatever happened. Guess I'm logging in for my 10 doubloons tonight.

  • Thorumsu
    Master
    Insider

    @theblackbellamy, You had one job Rare! içinde yazdı:

    Eh, idk. Seems in line with how little attention they give to everything else Arena-related.

    I'm just glad its over so I can finally catch up with whatever happened. Guess I'm logging in for my 10 doubloons tonight.

    Logging in and doing a really long quest for your 10 doubloons*

  • MuaremBossi
    Rogue

    or his gloves

  • Magus104
    Marauder
    Insider
    Founder

    Rare has never valued players time. Tall tales reward for example was a weak amount of gold for time spent. Insiders are rewarded with 3000gold or 30 doubloons for 1 hour of their time per week... They don't seem to care or feel the need to reward players for their time spent. I mean look at captaincy... They disrespected thousands of hours of players past progress and their excuse? Well you weren't a captain so why should you have progress? Ok well you said this update was coming 5 years ago so why wasn't it put in sooner if this is how you were going to handle it? Notice on our pirate summary they literally delete all our past progress where it used to track meg & kraken encounters, ships sunk etc. It seems like this data needed to be wiped in order for captaincy not to give past progress. Even if they did give us credit for past progress the golden rewards for milestones are so high that we wouldn't even be halfway to earning most of them.

    Honestly I thought this whole murder mystery thing was going to lead to unlocking an entire fallen seadog red & black themed set which would have been awesome... But no you get the lantern, a useless spyglass and 10 doubloons for months of peoples sleuthing. Honestly glad I didn't spend much effort thinking about this event.

  • mferr11
    Champion
    Insider

    Yeah, for such a long and tedious quest I would've liked to see some SeaDog cosmetics as a reward.

  • VaughnSilver
    Master
    Insider

    I came here after completing it, I assumed I just couldn't find the reward through all my other items.

    I think it may be worth waiting a little longer in case they plan on putting an item in the shop to buy that requires the commendation thats unlocked like some do.

  • Shady Espresso
    Marauder
    Insider

    Yea the reward was very poor, Demarco's clothing would have been a much better reward

  • Hijack Hayes
    Commander
    Insider

    Like I said elsewhere I would have been happy with a title.

    I hope that the subsquent mysteries are shorter and less complex. I'm not smart or attentive enough for a 3 month long mystery consisting of 10,000 elaborate clues. Personally it lost me, quite a long way down the road.

  • KlutchxKing518
    Lord
    Insider

    @Musicmee I’m so sad…

    I was hoping we’d see those Midnight Prowl Ship cosmetics that were mentioned as “not forgotten” in the Arena shutdown thread, especially after the mention of it in the Mystery. What a disappointment.

    Me and @EliEelEye will “wipes tears” in the corner again… maybe one day

  • Musicmee
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Moderator
    Founder
    Deckhand

    @klutchxking518 Still on the horizon... That's all I will say.

  • Red0Demon0
    Commander
    Insider

    Honestly, making something a core story as part of some social media scavenger hunt was the reason why I was turned off by this. Waiting for the next update so that they can release the next puzzle and having everyone go on a wild goose chase actually demotivates me from playing the game. it shows me the devs are focused on wasting manpower and resources instead of actually providing long lasting and well-developed content. The lore/ story behind it could have been interesting but a shame it was locked behind so much social media advertising and b.s. that it ruined it all. Idk where the devs are going with "adventures" or these types of social media quests but it's ultimately not something I'm supporting/ agreeing with.

    I unlocked the lantern, but with the wait between things I lost interest, and by this point i don't even know how to continue it since each puzzle/ riddle doesn't connect to the other, and no, I'm not going to social media to figure it out.

  • twodozenrats
    Marauder

    @thorumsu said in You had one job Rare!:

    Not even a title?

    Actually, there is a title.

  • abjectarity
    Captain
    Insider

    @mr-whaletoes said in You had one job Rare!:

    @thorumsu said in You had one job Rare!:

    Not even a title?

    Actually, there is a title.

    No title, just a hidden commendation card that gets unhidden and unlocked when you complete it, but no title attached to said commendation card.

  • twodozenrats
    Marauder

    @abjectarity
    Warrior of the Ancients?

  • AnimeOwl0807
    Marauder

    Had we got any cosmetic reward whatsoever I would’ve put in the 2 and a half hours to do the mystery.

    But 10 doubloons...

  • abjectarity
    Captain
    Insider

    @mr-whaletoes said in You had one job Rare!:

    @abjectarity
    Warrior of the Ancients?

    That's the current Adventure, not the Murder Mystery.

  • Ninja Naranja
    Legend
    Insider

    Aye I agree! The whole mystery was really fun, even if it was drawn out a bit imo. But the lack of a tangible reward for completing feels so weird and really bad actually. I almost would’ve rathered not get anything than 10 of the most useless currency in the game.

    Maybe they can retroactively add a reward for all those who have done it or will do it? Like I said, it feels to empty to have nothing.

    Wouldn’t mind the Mightnight Prowl ship cosmetics as a reward too. We saw the hull on that sunken ship that was part of the mystery. Why must we be starved for free cosmetics these days?

  • PersonalC0ffee
    Captain
    Insider
    Boatswain

    Very against anything other than a title or commendation, to be honest.

    The reward is for people that actively paid attention or care about the mystery.

    Giving out something more "rewarding" would just reward people who didn't give a care in the first place and that is NOT what the mystery is about.

    The mystery is about the community coming together to do something. Yes there were parts of it that were not liked, but on the whole I really enjoyed it.

    I think people need to realize this and stop expecting unique cosmetics for everything they do and realize the journey and the community involvement WAS the reward.

  • Galactic Geek
    Seafarer
    Founder

    If you think this mystery is over, you're wrong - remember, Lesedi said she was still going to keep looking for DeMarco. Perhaps we'll earn the Midnight Prowl ship set as a part of helping her?

  • Thorumsu
    Master
    Insider

    @personalc0ffee, You had one job Rare! içinde yazdı:

    Very against anything other than a title or commendation, to be honest.

    The reward is for people that actively paid attention or care about the mystery.

    Giving out something more "rewarding" would just reward people who didn't give a care in the first place and that is NOT what the mystery is about.

    The mystery is about the community coming together to do something. Yes there were parts of it that were not liked, but on the whole I really enjoyed it.

    I think people need to realize this and stop expecting unique cosmetics for everything they do and realize the journey and the community involvement WAS the reward.

    I am aware. I also already said I am satisfied with the ending.

    But... How many people tried to solve the mystery all the way? 50? 100?

    Forums only had the same 10 people discussing while the discord had about 100. Twitter was not any diffrent either.

    Lets not kid ourselves. At Max 1000 actually actively tried to solve this thing.

    You completly misunderstood the point of my post.

    They put in a lot of recourses into making this. But only some nerds like me did it.

    Biggest people of the community didnt even bother.

    Lets say the mystery itself was not a big problem, but the ending?

    Why make an ending as great as this only for it to be experienced by like, a handful of people?

    Thats what I meant with this post.

  • Thorumsu
    Master
    Insider

    @galactic-geek, You had one job Rare! içinde yazdı:

    If you think this mystery is over, you're wrong - remember, Lesedi said she was still going to keep looking for DeMarco. Perhaps we'll earn the Midnight Prowl ship set as a part of helping her?

    I swear... If they make the second mystery finding DeMarco...

    Sometimes it is good to keep things open. This is a good ending. We dont need a "conclusion".

    I dont want a saving DeMarco mission. Them leaving it off like this is a good choice.

    Kind of like how they left off Yaney.

  • WolfManbush
    Lord

    @thorumsu said in You had one job Rare!:

    But... How many people tried to solve the mystery all the way? 50? 100?

    Forums only had the same 10 people discussing while the discord had about 100. Twitter was not any diffrent either.

    Lets not kid ourselves. At Max 1000 actually actively tried to solve this thing.

    You completly misunderstood the point of my post.

    They put in a lot of recourses into making this. But only some nerds like me did it.

    Biggest people of the community didnt even bother.

    Lets say the mystery itself was not a big problem, but the ending?

    Why make an ending as great as this only for it to be experienced by like, a handful of people?

    Thats what I meant with this post.

    What do a majority of those people have in common?

    They play the social game a lot and their feedback is typically quite generous.

    It's marketing in a way that I personally believe to be unsustainable but it's one that has long been a part of their formula.

    Personally I dunno how it gets the green light at this stage of the game when organic production is needed far more than a small group of people saying nice things on social media, there are just too many people that know about the performance issues now and the low activity on organic servers for a bubble of feedback to cover over that anymore.

    Even with a more appealing reward all it is doing is appealing to a different part of the same bubble that just didn't care about going through the convoluted process originally, it's still not reaching a significant majority of the players that play organically.

    The reason adventures get some activity is because people log in, there is a list of things to do, people do them, get the reward.

    It's clear enough for wider appeal, and even then they have still been a mess multiple times.

  • Red0Demon0
    Commander
    Insider

    @wolfmanbush said in You had one job Rare!:

    @thorumsu said in You had one job Rare!:

    But... How many people tried to solve the mystery all the way? 50? 100?

    Forums only had the same 10 people discussing while the discord had about 100. Twitter was not any diffrent either.

    Lets not kid ourselves. At Max 1000 actually actively tried to solve this thing.

    You completly misunderstood the point of my post.

    They put in a lot of recourses into making this. But only some nerds like me did it.

    Biggest people of the community didnt even bother.

    Lets say the mystery itself was not a big problem, but the ending?

    Why make an ending as great as this only for it to be experienced by like, a handful of people?

    Thats what I meant with this post.

    What do a majority of those people have in common?

    They play the social game a lot and their feedback is typically quite generous.

    It's marketing in a way that I personally believe to be unsustainable but it's one that has long been a part of their formula.

    Personally I dunno how it gets the green light at this stage of the game when organic production is needed far more than a small group of people saying nice things on social media, there are just too many people that know about the performance issues now and the low activity on organic servers for a bubble of feedback to cover over that anymore.

    Even with a more appealing reward all it is doing is appealing to a different part of the same bubble that just didn't care about going through the convoluted process originally, it's still not reaching a significant majority of the players that play organically.

    The reason adventures get some activity is because people log in, there is a list of things to do, people do them, get the reward.

    It's clear enough for wider appeal, and even then they have still been a mess multiple times.

    Honestly don't know how many of their current ideas get implemented after going through talks and testing. I mean adventures are more accessible overall, but they are also worse in terms of story telling and gameplay. Each adventure just isn't very well connected to the other, I'm questioning most of their implementations lately, including their sequence and organization.

  • WolfManbush
    Lord

    @red0demon0 said in You had one job Rare!:

    Honestly don't know how many of their current ideas get implemented after going through talks and testing. I mean adventures are more accessible overall, but they are also worse in terms of story telling and gameplay. Each adventure just isn't very well connected to the other, I'm questioning most of their implementations lately, including their sequence and organization.

    I'd call it good intentions and tough crowd

    They clearly want that small town community feel where everyone gets along and plays along, which is far from a negative goal it's just not a very realistic one as the base grows.

    People are on different pages, they view the game differently, they were under different impressions of the game when they started getting into it. Marketing is overly optimistic to say the least when advertising. This just creates expectations that leads to disappointment.

    It's tough to maintain a game like this in general, when so much of the focus is on social media, twitch, and that sort of thing which is such a small part of what people are doing out there it amplifies the disconnect between the social side and the production side which isn't nearly as invested in the social side.

    A part of the issue is going to be that the social side always wants rewarded, they want the special stuff and if they get it that'll further divide the minority of activity from the majority.

    There are already multiple things happening right now that are causing a lack of motivation for production, dividing the base by separating cosmetics imo is only going to cause more of a lack of motivation to produce.

    What are we going to do? continue to cater to people that are focused on forums/discords/twitch/twitter? or are we going to actually get people out there getting invested in production again?

  • twodozenrats
    Marauder

    @abjectarity
    Oh, my bad! I misunderstood.

  • EdgierBear777
    Castaway

    I wanna know why sea of thieves is always protecting reapers from me kegging there hideout it's fair game in my book if then kill me when I just spawn in on outpost and they just watch and wait for some one to spawn in it's happen to me several time and I've only been on the game a month this game talks about respecting new players and there quest yeah right and I've almost deleted this game several time because the game play is not fair at all new players just get bullied

  • Galactic Geek
    Seafarer
    Founder

    @edgierbear777 said:

    I've almost deleted this game several time because the game play is not fair at all new players just get bullied.

    Life's not fair, is it?

  • Galactic Geek
    Seafarer
    Founder

    @edgierbear777 said:

    I've almost deleted this game several time because the game play is not fair at all new players just get bullied.

  • WolfManbush
    Lord

    @galactic-geek said in You had one job Rare!:

    @edgierbear777 said:

    I've almost deleted this game several time because the game play is not fair at all new players just get bullied.

    Interesting you chose this because it's largely where this game struggles.

    The balance was lost, over hunting, lack of maintenance

    Nothing lasts without a steady and healthy process of maintaining the environment for newer players to flourish, participate and contribute.

    Life isn't fair, the environment is harsh, but it can also be maintained in a way where everyone eats and grows, this food chain had the unique opportunity of allowing pirates to try again. The results not being the end of the story.

    In arrogance new players were often told they were wrong or to get over it rather than built up to succeed and that created a scenario of struggling production because they went elsewhere and without them and more like them this ride is going to be a lot shorter than originally planned.

  • Galactic Geek
    Seafarer
    Founder

    @wolfmanbush said in You had one job Rare!:

    @galactic-geek said in You had one job Rare!:

    @edgierbear777 said:

    I've almost deleted this game several time because the game play is not fair at all new players just get bullied.

    Interesting you chose this because it's largely where this game struggles.

    The balance was lost, over hunting, lack of maintenance

    Nothing lasts without a steady and healthy process of maintaining the environment for newer players to flourish, participate and contribute.

    Life isn't fair, the environment is harsh, but it can also be maintained in a way where everyone eats and grows, this food chain had the unique opportunity of allowing pirates to try again. The results not being the end of the story.

    In arrogance new players were often told they were wrong or to get over it rather than built up to succeed and that created a scenario of struggling production because they went elsewhere and without them and more like them this ride is going to be a lot shorter than originally planned.

    While many mice may not make it from something as fierce as a lion, there will always be the few who do still get away, and learn how to survive into their own. There will also always be the occasional overconfident lion who decides to play with his food, or who gets distracted, or otherwise makes a mistake - and loses his lunch as a result.

  • AlienMagi
    Captain
    Insider

    Would have been nice to even know about the mystery. Too bad i'm not addicted to twitter like Rare is.

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