Hoarder's Hunt

  • Lucky11
    Commander
    Insider

    Hey, Rare!

    I finished the mystery, and I wanted to give my feedback on it! (side note: does anyone know if Rare has a leaderboard in place? I want to see where I finished) Anyway, there are spoilers below!

    I wasn't a fan of the "real life" elements of the puzzle. Especially in the last two weeks of the mystery, the puzzles just seemed to drag on and on. It got to the point where I was kind of relieved they were over so we could get into the in-game voyages. I will say this, The Hoarder's Hunt was vastly superior to the last mystery, I just think you guys overdid the "real life" elements.

    The in-game voyages, on the other hand, are FANTASTIC! I would like to request to make 'H's Voyages' a new quest type in-game. I'd like to suggest adding more of these voyages to include more islands. (maybe you can buy them from the Gold Hoarders. Or maybe, once we find out 'H's' identity, we could buy them from him or her) I thought they were the perfect mix of fun and challenging! You guys seriously hit it out of the park with these!

    That's about it; for the next mystery, maybe turn down the difficulty of the "real life" puzzles, and do not touch the in-game voyages!

    As of the time of my writing this, we haven't learned of 'H's' identity yet. It's my hope that it will be unveiled to us sometime this upcoming week, and I'd actually like to see 'H' return in some capacity to the game. (outside of being the quest-giver of 'The Hoarder's Hunt' or any other future mystery, I mean.) I thought he made a really convincing antihero, and I'd love to see you guys flesh out his/her character through Adventures or something like that!

    Thanks, Rare, for the effort you guys put into this mystery! I really appreciate it!
    -Lucky11

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  • BurnBacon
    Vanguard
    Insider

    Yup. The voyages were a lot better than the out of game.

    Seriously who among us would ever have the knowledge to use the code breaking websites.
    Only ones who actual have the know how and those willing to learn someone new, for just a video game.

    It had great ideas to scan the internet but having to wait for tweets to solve clues. I rather it been actual stuff to look for, past videos that were already uploaded like a podcast? Something that was planned months in advance.

    Credit to the ones who get the prizes in the end, you will go down in SoT history. Wouldn’t be surprised if they are mentioned ingame later.

  • Soulstinger2k20
    Master
    Insider

    I agree the in game voyages were great. The social media sleuthing was very much a letdown, and wish there had instead been some sort of ultra secret in-game easter egg hunt to acquire the codes, that then lead to the in game voyages with instructions.

  • Blazebeard2313
    Legend
    Insider

    I'm also not a fan of puzzle solving in discord. The entire stuff resolved outside of the game, so for this part demarco's mystery was much more interesting.
    The riddles of the voyages were good, but extremely boring. The ruotes were studied to make us lose a lot of time sailing around to give us the illusion of content, but the chests were all same in the end (the only thing that was changed was the geographic area). Spending more than 1 hour to dig two patethic trinkets and a key worth less than a mermaid gem was terrible.
    Last voyage was more interesting because let us revisit significant locations in the sot, but that hope was crushed when we completed the voyage).
    Feedback: if this is the new model for mysteries, for me it's a big NO. I understand you did this to boost your social media numbers, but it was nothing more than that. It was like a very nerfed version of legend of the sunken kingdom. Since the start, I didn't care about the skull, I just wanted to see cool stuff happening regarding the lore. We didn't get a cinematic to show us who H is. I'm really disappointed. Sorry for the rant, but as a huge fan of your game, I can't tollerate this stuff happening.

  • BurnBacon
    Vanguard
    Insider

    Wish they made it where you had to Revisit old TT to find answers.
    Maybe talk to Npc at certain times of ingame 'time' and new dialog appears. Maybe even hear someone talk to themselves if your just outside the door/window.

  • Magus104
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    @burnbacon Even if some of the hints were to clues to find in game like an item or writing on the wall in some sea forts treasure room. Like the showed a picture of a sea fort with a galleon parked next to it with the new sails so that could have been a hint like theres a clue at that fort.

    Or they could have been posting in game stuff on the quest board to give it some purpose. I kinda figured depending on who solved it they would give the answer to all their friends or discord community first so in the very least the first 11 prizes would be claimed before the info was made public. Though more than one person could have figured it out and 1 made it public while the other tried to keep it among friends. Curious how quickly the 100 3rd place ones got claimed. Think I finished it about 2.5 hours after it was posted to rarethief.

    Honestly the way it had been going the first few weeks and with it being all social media stuff I wasn't going to participate at all. Especially since the original announcement didn't mention any in game cosmetics. So either I was just dismissive of the whole thing so missed all the other stuff or as the mystery went on they decided to add the in game stuff? Kinda just checked out of the whole thing and figured each set of rewards was time limited to that chapter of the mystery.

    Ended up getting bored last weekend so I knocked out the first 3 voyages since it was on rare thief. I did actually try to solve this 4th part and got a lot of the info just missed 2 of the connecting threads. While the puzzles were cool I can't say I found any of the time spent thinking about it as fun or entertaining more felt like a waste in the end.

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    Overall the mystery was an improvement over the first one except in one area; lore / storytelling.

    Social Media hints were a bit much, but not as bad as the DeMarco mystery. The puzzles were hard, some were clever and some required a bit too much brute force or luck.

    I was hoping for a similar finale cinematic to wrap everything up and without it the mystery kind of falls flat at the end since we didn't really solve anything?

  • CallMeBackdrafT
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    There are two main reasons for the initial part of each weeks puzzle being out of the game:

    1 mysteries where always planned and announced to be a feature that was partially solved outside of the game.

    2 (and especially for this one the more important one) if they had the answers to the puzzles inside the game they would have been data mined day one and then just raced to completion.

    This 2nd part would lead to alot of issues since this time around there was actual IRL prizes on the line not to mention at least one of the prizes being worth ALOT of money

  • FaceYourDemon
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    Some aspects were better but storywise, the first was better (huge minus on the ending with the Siren queen).

    The first Mystery was more of a story, the second was just bunch of puzzles.

    Im ok with it because not every content should cater to me, im a smooth brain and I absolutely dont have the spare time in my life to even attempt to solve the riddles& puzzles.
    But at the very least, the first provided a story, here nothing really happened...

  • Cpt DrKnight
    Captain
    Insider

    Agreed with most on here.
    I LOVED the in game voyages. Challenging, but doable. Keep them in the game, as they were honestly the most fun I've had with this game in awhile.
    The out of game puzzles were too much for me. I don't have the time or patience to try to solve those. I would occasionally follow, but basically just waited until Rare Thief posted the code word.

  • Foambreaker
    Sailor

    The out of game should not happen again. Rare claims this game is for kids, well you don't send kids out onto the internet. I know two moms who would like to have a word with the designers and I assure you it would not be pretty!

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    @foambreaker said in Hoarder's Hunt:

    The out of game should not happen again. Rare claims this game is for kids, well you don't send kids out onto the internet. I know two moms who would like to have a word with the designers and I assure you it would not be pretty!

    Kids would need to access the internet to play the game.

  • Foambreaker
    Sailor

    @d3adst1ck said in Hoarder's Hunt:

    @foambreaker said in Hoarder's Hunt:

    The out of game should not happen again. Rare claims this game is for kids, well you don't send kids out onto the internet. I know two moms who would like to have a word with the designers and I assure you it would not be pretty!

    Kids would need to access the internet to play the game.

    /facepalm

    Do you really need me to explain the difference between running a game on Xbox and going to multiple sites on the web or are you just picking nits?

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    @foambreaker said in Hoarder's Hunt:

    @d3adst1ck said in Hoarder's Hunt:

    @foambreaker said in Hoarder's Hunt:

    The out of game should not happen again. Rare claims this game is for kids, well you don't send kids out onto the internet. I know two moms who would like to have a word with the designers and I assure you it would not be pretty!

    Kids would need to access the internet to play the game.

    /facepalm

    Do you really need me to explain the difference between running a game on Xbox and going to multiple sites on the web or are you just picking nits?

    Do you think kids are going to be interested in a mathematical/cryptography puzzle ARG? If their parents are worried about what they might find on the internet, they should restrict access or supervise them. Online games with and against strangers is probably also not a great idea.

  • Foambreaker
    Sailor

    @d3adst1ck said in Hoarder's Hunt:

    @foambreaker said in Hoarder's Hunt:

    @d3adst1ck said in Hoarder's Hunt:

    @foambreaker said in Hoarder's Hunt:

    The out of game should not happen again. Rare claims this game is for kids, well you don't send kids out onto the internet. I know two moms who would like to have a word with the designers and I assure you it would not be pretty!

    Kids would need to access the internet to play the game.

    /facepalm

    Do you really need me to explain the difference between running a game on Xbox and going to multiple sites on the web or are you just picking nits?

    Do you think kids are going to be interested in a mathematical/cryptography puzzle ARG? If their parents are worried about what they might find on the internet, they should restrict access or supervise them. Online games with and against strangers is probably also not a great idea.

    ...and the answer is you are picking nits. Kids think the skull is cool and there is a huge difference between SoT on Xbox and the web.

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    @foambreaker said in Hoarder's Hunt:

    @d3adst1ck said in Hoarder's Hunt:

    @foambreaker said in Hoarder's Hunt:

    @d3adst1ck said in Hoarder's Hunt:

    @foambreaker said in Hoarder's Hunt:

    The out of game should not happen again. Rare claims this game is for kids, well you don't send kids out onto the internet. I know two moms who would like to have a word with the designers and I assure you it would not be pretty!

    Kids would need to access the internet to play the game.

    /facepalm

    Do you really need me to explain the difference between running a game on Xbox and going to multiple sites on the web or are you just picking nits?

    Do you think kids are going to be interested in a mathematical/cryptography puzzle ARG? If their parents are worried about what they might find on the internet, they should restrict access or supervise them. Online games with and against strangers is probably also not a great idea.

    ...and the answer is you are picking nits. Kids think the skull is cool and there is a huge difference between SoT on Xbox and the web.

    You didn't answer my question. Why are these kids accessing the web unsupervised if it's such a problem for their parents? If they want the skull, they can get their parents to find the codes for them - even easier now that the event is solved and the codes are readily available.

    This sounds like manufactured outrage to me.

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