Content/Events Discussion - Is Rare delusional to call this content a/or events?

I'll never disagree that the game would better be titled Early Access... I've long held the conspiracy theory that Rare wasn't finished with their vision of the game and Microsoft pushed them to release it anyhow for the sake of game pass. It is a finished product in the core sense... but it has always lacked content and I feel that after September... we will finally have the fuller game we've either wanted or expected since launch. I feel that this is also why the "first 3 DLC" are free.... it's not free dlc... it's Rare finishing up with the core game experience they wanted to present from the start and weren't given time to polish. Rare cannot validate this theory, it would detract from Microsoft's stance of a AAA game on game pass at launch and would make alot of people look like liars. So they simply accepted that the definition of 'final product full AAA Gamepass offering" for what we all likely feel is an empty foundation of a game (at launch). But it is coming together well overall.

How can I say it's coming together well?

Aside from the depth of the 'content release(s)' we've gotten so far... and ignoring incidental bug issues... which aren't what anyone wants and does create delays....

The content has been solid so far, I just feel that there isn't as much content per offering as many in the community would hope is presented.

The Meg fight was cool. Short lived... poor implementation on the value of repeating it (IE No reason to do it more than once) but the fight itself, was/is fun, at least enough so that most people don't seem to argue that it wasn't good... it's that there wasn't still more in the HD offering. That final bit, even I hoped the HD would offer "more", but like I said I enjoyed what WAS included!

Skeleton Thrones are just a weekly meme of content... it's not supposed to be some literal week long detailed thing, just a iteration of simplistic content to distract players for a brief period of time and highlight some smallish offerings that lasts a week... because a week long window of opportunity allows more players to goof off with the offering. No one HAS to be in game the day of the 'event' they can wait the whole week if they like.. some players might have hard times finding secondary crews to help them get their 5 'group' thrones as well so stretching it over a 'week' allows more opportunities to actually get the achievements.

But it's never meant to be a literal week of play.. its a minor event.. perhaps more in game LORE would help highlight the event as more than just some strange thing to do... but the rigmarole of the offering stands up well enough IMO.

I admit this first weekly event offering isn't very robust.. yay highchairs on rocks... neat... and perhaps they could have done something like code in some bigger obstacles, but that's not much of a complaint. That's just window dressing, personally I am happy it's not some huge fight.. I just had a huge fight with Megan... now just sailing around and finding places to screenshot and get a few presumably limited time items as a reward is just fine for me.

Offering alternative ideas, expressing a want for "BIGGER" weekly content updates... there is nothing wrong with that! At the bottom line that is all your OP is asking for, and that's fine with me! I even agree that adding different things as weeklies like massive teams of skeletons that are raiding outposts and require people to fight them to secure an outpost and preventing any gains from the outpost until the waves are cleared... would be neato (of course skeleton AI and difficulty would need be reduced in a way) and have this set of waves continue to spawn every so often until a "big bad pirate lord" NPC is killed in a battle that might require a whole server's effort... that'd be cool...

But to say that this offering 'doesn't hold up' is simply expecting more than really needs to expected. Weekly events are meant to be tiny somewhat insignificant offerings that might serve to distract a player from their usual play patterns for a brief amount of time... and the event should last long enough that the advertised 4 million players can get a chance to log on despite potential real world delays in play or other factors such as players who only play an hour or so at a time.

This post would line up perfectly with my perceptions if it were remarking upong the hungering deep ALONE.. even I feel that the HD offering should have changed the game on fundamental ways such as offering immediate quests beyond the single quest we recieved, changed the persistent game world rules (as they did briefly with the sharks who are no longer an issue) or perhaps added a whole new type of persistent enemies OTHER than a single 'big shark" such as mermaids or similar. That is a fine expectation for the HD offerings...

But the weeklies? not so much.

Instead I would encourage others to continue to come up with ideas for weeklies that hallmark not only a players expectations, but also desires. This will help Rare to attune the events to better interest us.. which is something they actually want to do!

But to chide this offering? Is to expect too much from a mere weekly event... it's meant to be somewhat ignorable and missing out isn't meant to rob anyone of the overall value of the offerings.

To the OP's defense I really simply believe the OP is just asking for a different vision of events which may come down the road.. and I can sympathize that this event may not be a big whoopie for some players.. but it's just a weekly... they aren't supposed to be that big of a deal.

Yeah as far as slamming the HD i get it, there wasn't alot of fleshed out lore or action events when hunting for the Meg clues. However it was still fun and I had alot of interesting encounters with other players searching for clues.
Thrones event, dude chill out its the first event, it explores opportunities for hilarious things to happen with other crews.
Overall this game is silly/fun, and the direction the devs are heading are reinforcing that. Do i think they can do alot more to make more in depth content sure and i think they will. This conversation is important but should be taken with a grain of salt and not with buckets. Enjoy the game for what it is (or don't play) because now is all we have.

@ooo-madlax I don't actually disagree on the 'advertising/hype' bit. I mean, they haven't actually ever suggested there was more in any of their updates than what we got. I fell into that rabbit hole in the past myself. If you really look back at the videos and teasers and such... there is nothing to imply more than we've ever gotten.

The skeleton highchairs are a good example..

they literally said there'd be chairs in the world you gotta find, maybe take a selfie with, and that'd you'd get rewarded in a minor way, and they wanted to have crews work together for some of them.

That's all they've been saying since they first announced the event, and this was mentioned several weeks before even HD was fleshed out.

Now they're here and well... they're exactly how they said they'd be. Chairs in places in the world where you'd cannon over or otherwise clamor up to, possibly take a selfie, and go get some clothes for your efforts.

The actual point of the OP still stands... ya want more from the offerings we get.

That is a perfectly reasonable statement. I too would like to see "more" from the weeklies, but we have very little idea what form the weeklies will take through the life of the game. I can say this...

They will be inconsequentially small, as weeklies are meant to be. This doesn't invalidate what you might want! It just reminds that at least this forumite... doesn't think they'll ever be much to write home about in the long run.

The offerings such as the upcoming cursed sails and such...

They need to be soooooo much 'bigger' than HD ever pretended it was...

But were I you I'd prepare for exactly this and nothing more:

AI Ships with skeleton crews, ones you may not be able to board, and likely won't have interactive items/supplies on them.

and later

New empty map locations

likely followed up with weeklies that ask you to find something, and items you can wear once you do.

(This isn't talking about the shops that are commonly mentioned with pets or any of that other window dressing we may see one day)

I really think the bottom line of thoughts as mentioned above are the same: Many players want more substantive offerings brought to Sea of Thieves.

Sad truth is... unless it's all been developed already and we're just waiting on them to drip the content into the game, much of what players are asking for wouldn't even be possible till at least another year after launch date. They've said it themselves, the upcoming content is still being developed, how can it be then that we'd get even BIGGER weeklies (etc) than we already have seen when what we have seen is taking the whole team to produce as is?

Meg was a "medium" update in size compared to what they want to offer... whatever medium means...

It offered a few items and a shark... with a tiny quest associated with it.

That took a couple of months to get into the game. How is it we might expect a weekly event to be on that 'scale'? They can't likely produce a new 'boss' on the scale of meg that took two months to add in... every week or two... it's not impossible but they'd need have teams on that already.

So I'm not sure it's fair to expect much more than reskinning of what we've seen offered in game already, that is... randomly offered new items... new clothes/colors/skins and such.... and a new non AI changes once in a while.

If HD was a 'medium" offering... and the patches are small offerings (The ones with items and such like the thones)... then what's a large offering? Well my mind leaps to the idea that we might get... two megaladons and 8 items introduced to the game with interactive quality... packaged around 2 quests and a content experience that lasts maybe 2 play sessions of effort.

If I had it my way we'd have:

World scattered NPC quest givers.. even if they just scrambled the current 'voyage types' and remarked on them in a lore driven way I'd be happy.

Centralized outpost of a large enough scale that players would need to visit this psudo continent commonly to better enforce crossing another players path

More active built in lore that was more than just 'words to read' but actually was connected to in game play and required an understanding of to progress instead of just a skim over to the forums or a view of reddit.

Wider variety of NPC monster types, mermaids would be perfect and fans have theorized this since pre-launch, animals or monstrous versions of them would be cool, and flying enemies would be even better.

A couple more ship types

and the rest ... for me... would be small quality of life things that I wouldn't be surprised make it in game in the future such as changing my characters hair colors, or even changing my characters actual look (repicking from the wheel for example would be nice), pets (they've said we will get them eventually), some magical way of finding people for the multi crew offerings before the game starts... or at least easier ways to find them in game beyond sailing and hoping you can make friends... and so much more...

None of the above posts are unfair statements of want...

But I wouldn't hold my breath... there aren't enough bananas in the world for what people are really asking for.

@ooo-madlax If you hand someone a bag of chips and all that's left is crumbs, technically it still "contains" something.

I think it's worth mentally dividing large events from the small ones- that is, anything they mentioned in the roadmap (Cursed Sails and Forsaken Shores) when those drop they should enrich the game in some way, whether it be a new gameplay mechanic or an "AI threat".
The smaller events are just the bi-weekly filler- perhaps adding some small mechanics (bilge rat doubloons) but I think its mostly just to keep people placated while they work on the big stuff.

@ooo-madlax nothing wrong with disagreement my man! Since this is a discussion forum, I'd like to continue to counterpoint, since we still haven't come to a shared perspective. Just know I'm not trying to be a meanie or anything with my continued back and forth.

The video shows the bilge rat and says he can help direct you on the quest. He does that by instructing you a tad in the dialogue and having the items for sale. The video cuts to you sailing until they find a throne. Then it shows the throne and says, find the thrones. Then the video cuts to cannon firing oneself to the throne. It shows the player missing the mark several times until they finally land on it. Then it closes with a tiny taunt suggesting you will have a hard time landing your shots on the target by asking: Are you Pirate Enough... an iteration of the tagline Be more Pirate we've had since launch. Then we're given a please subscribe mention.

They show it as something that might be fun to do, they cut it up and put music to it.

But they don't include one single inference of absolutely anything beyond what we have gotten. The video literally is just a quickly edited fast paced showcase of precisely the content offering. Or if we prefer alternative language, event offering, or even better still, the thing of the week we have to do this time offering.

There is nothing wrong with, deceptive about, or misleading in regard to this (So I guess it's lasting two weeks now) weekly event highlight video. It's a video that shows us what we're getting so we can be aware that we're getting it.

Should they instead put a guy with bi-focals and greased down hair and a pocket protector with chipmunk teeth behind a desk, give them a script and read in a monotone voice remarking: There will be thrones placed in the game, you can fire yourself from a cannon to reach them, you can then go buy three items of clothes and some coins or rep with the reward. Please have fun, the public service announcement is over.

Of course not. This video is simply them telling us what to expect. And cutting the video with quick edits and putting it to music. Sort of like a commercial, but with a purpose of letting us know what we will be getting.

Just because they present it with energy and silliness doesn't remark it as being unacceptable.

You say there shouldn't be marketing on this whatsoever. So... game companies shouldn't showcase and show off what they include in the game? How furious would players be if they had no idea what Sea of Thieves was all about? If they feel compelled to market the leafs on the palm trees they have every right, it's not subversive or wrong.

If they were suggesting there's more in the offering via this video or being too vague and creating false sensibilities, I'd understand.

HD was kind of like that. They left commentary for months somewhat vague. AI Threat was the worst of the verbiage that could be misconstrued. For the longest time players theorized mermaids, and more. Even after they announced Megan and we were certain of her arrival, there was room for interpretation and wonder if that was all they meant to offer.

The video you link... literally shows exactly what's in the game and says nothing more.

Asking a company not to advertise/announce the content, no matter how weak it may be, is just unrealistic.

There is some merit to your remark though bud. If the content was an unannounced surprise there'd be different backlash... people would be complaining because they were NOT informed of the event and potentially missed out.

People already whine in various outlets about how Rare doesn't share information in the way they prefer, usually my remarking it's there isn't enough said or that it isn't well shared HERE on this forum. Imagine if they stopped talking altogether as you suggest they'd be better off doing...

That'd create incessant complaints.

I still hold to the merit of the argument that you might not like the event offered, that is wholly a matter of taste and scale of what you want delivered. I too would like to see more in depth offerings for the weeklies!