DeMarco Murder Mystery Completion: Thoughts/Feedback

  • SparkyMagus
    Seafarer
    Insider

    Today marked the day the community finally solved the first formal mystery of Sea of Thieves, Who Killed Sea Dog DeMarco.

    There were twists and turns, and the community was gripped with every clue we got until it was finally solved by the mystery hunters in the SoT official discord server today when they cracked the secret of the map fragments. However this experience was not without its bumps. Many community members were particularly frustrated with how the timegated portions of the mystery were communicated to players: The consensus being that such timegates would be better overtly expressed to players directly either via social media or an in-game means such as an NPC to avoid frustration and burnout, from players thinking that the mystery stalled rather than the fact we haven't received the next clue yet. In fact such debate still exists as to the final step of the mystery, some players believing that we hadn't figured out the final step required until today, while others believe that the final step wasn't added to the game until today's update which brought the new adventure. As it stands, we will never really know for sure which it was, but the disagreements on the subject have been divisive to say the least.

    The second major frustration players who participated in the hunt expressed both in the official SoT discord as well as some other mystery hunting discords such as Merfolk's Lullaby, was the lack of a reward for players who solved the mystery other than 10 doubloons and the gratification of having solved the mystery. Some ideas players voiced was perhaps a special title for completing the commendation for solving the mystery, like those tied to adventures themed to the mystery solved (Some suggestions for this included Sea Dog Seeker, Hunter of Mysteries, DeMarco Detective, and more.) Others suggested a trinket/trophy for captained ships like a music box or one of the infamous coins with an arrow painted on it which confounded mystery hunters for the longest time.

    All in all, however, the mystery was fun and the community delighted in solving it every step of the way and many are looking forward to the next one already wondering what it could be. Lets meet out there to solve the next one, on the Sea of Thieves!

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  • WolfManbush
    Lord

    personally I think community is being used pretty loosely on this, it was something specifically for a small portion of the community and largely left out the majority of the players by choosing an approach that went outside of the game for in game lore.

    Many people that put activity into arena before it was shut down didn't participate in something that otherwise would have been interesting to them and that all just seems odd to me as an approach to content.

  • Galactic Geek
    Seafarer
    Founder

    I absolutely 100% loathe the very idea that they did this anywhere outside of the Sea. I would have had to subscribe to a newsletter, be a part of the official Discord, follow 2 Twitter accounts that aren't even the official SoT Twitter account, and more just to get all of the map fragments.

    So 🤬 stupid.

  • MaximusArael020
    Master
    Insider

    @wolfmanbush

    To be fair, this kind of thing will always draw a certain subset of the community. Not everyone wants to solve a mystery like this. Even if the entire thing was in-game, the number of people working on this would be very small.

    Also, I get some people's frustration, but the team decided to go in the direction of more of an ARG. Many games have done that before, and they can be fun. I'm sure Rare has learned some things from this experience if they decide to do it again. However the decision to do it as an ARG isn't bad or good, just a matter of preference. Some will want everything in-game, some enjoy the searching different places for clues and working on the puzzle outside of the game. Whatever anyone's opinion on it, there choice wasn't wrong.

  • WolfManbush
    Lord

    @maximusarael020 said in DeMarco Murder Mystery Completion: Thoughts/Feedback:

    @wolfmanbush

    To be fair, this kind of thing will always draw a certain subset of the community. Not everyone wants to solve a mystery like this. Even if the entire thing was in-game, the number of people working on this would be very small.

    Also, I get some people's frustration, but the team decided to go in the direction of more of an ARG. Many games have done that before, and they can be fun. I'm sure Rare has learned some things from this experience if they decide to do it again. However the decision to do it as an ARG isn't bad or good, just a matter of preference. Some will want everything in-game, some enjoy the searching different places for clues and working on the puzzle outside of the game. Whatever anyone's opinion on it, there choice wasn't wrong.

    It does further the disconnect between the social media bubble and the organic experience.

    You're right, that's not right or wrong it's direction and that direction isn't one that holds the majority of the activity or interest. If they wanna change how things are it's certainly within their power and freedom to do so but people have to like and enjoy the game in large enough numbers to keep servers consistently and organically active and it would be a real tough case to make for what currently exists.

    I posted before release of Captaincy on the forums that I thought the social side of SoT were over estimating how much activity Captaincy would bring based on my organic experience outside of the social media side of gameplay and that's largely what we are seeing. It's not wrong but it does lead to people not having the pulse of what will and will not work well for activity. Captaincy was heavily posted about and largely never talked about organically outside of social circles within the game.

    Imo this is like the office of a production warehouse throwing themselves parties and then declaring it all a success, if those that are producing aren't included and they keep feeling left out that ain't gonna be great for production, motivation, morale, interest, etc.

  • Lucky11
    Commander
    Insider

    @sparkymagus
    I would have to agree with @galactic-geek. I thought it was frustrating and, at times, counter-intuitive to spread out the mystery across various social media platforms.

    In my opinion, I thought the mystery felt disjointed and finished unceremoniously. As a result, I felt that the twist(s) didn't have the impact Rare was looking for and instead came across as confusing, inconsequential, and unnecessary.

    Here's what I would like to suggest to Rare for future mysteries: I would put all of the clues involving characters, weapons, setting, motive, etc. into the actual game. This way, the community can go at its own pace without having to rely on someone at Rare to allow the mystery to progress. I would only reserve social media for the instances where the community gets stumped on a clue and can't figure out what to do next. (Maybe, instead of using social media to announce the start of the mystery, Rare could add a 'Missing' poster to the taverns or a character is waiting by your ship at the end of the dock to ask for your help with something? Similarly, every clue after the initial one could evolve with the story in-game as the community unearths potential findings.) I like the idea of having NPCs we can interact with and catch ourselves up to speed on the latest updates of the mystery. This way you aren't scouring Twitter or Discord trying to figure out what's going on. If Rare could mitigate their social media use, I think it would allow a lot more players to engross and engage themselves into the story.

  • Kaoteek
    Commander
    Insider

    Quite frankly, a purely in-game mystery where all clues are present right from the start and not timegated would probably be solved in a couple of days tops by a handful of discord pirates spending 24/24 trying every idea or decoding method ever invented by man, and then the entire solution would instantly be posted on twitter, on the wiki or on Rarethief.

    Which would kill any long-term engagement, make the whole endeavor a waste of time and money for Rare, and leave 99% of the playerbase out of the equation. So it's not a solution either.

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    @lucky11 The problem with doing it that way is that it would be solved before most people had the chance to participate. For example, when the final map clue was cracked it was before I woke up and all the locations and the final puzzle had all been solved before I got off work. If the entire mystery was available in game from Day 1, it would likely be over within the week.

    Time gating is necessary to keep everyone more or less on the same pace and not leave too many behind. The problem is, as the OP mentioned, that the gates are not well communicated so it leads to additional frustration thinking you haven't solved something when in fact there is nothing left to do until Rare flicks a switch.

    I also hope that Rare has learned that all the retweet/share for additional clues was universally hated by pretty much everyone. I don't mind puzzle clues appearing on social media, but the solutions should all be in game. They seemed to get better at this in the last half of the ARG.

  • Nitroxien
    Captain
    Insider

    Should have been more in game with more hidden cosmetics as prizes for following along the mystery.

  • RenderedSpore68
    Marauder
    Insider

    Yeah, I'm a huge fan of DeMarco and this murder mystery adventure and it feels disappointing that after all the effort we put in to complete the murder mystery, we are awarded with 10 doubloons. I do hope we get like a title or DeMarco's hat or jacket. Something to show off the effort we put in for this murder mystery

  • Jerem CCD
    Captain
    Insider

    Totally agree, the main issue was that we doesn't know when we were timegated or not.
    But it was very fun globally

  • FaceYourDemon
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    Really hated the plot twist, "oh by the way, everything that youve worked for to figure the Mystery out.... is not true"

    Feels cheap, took my interest completely.. Just another way to strech something longer then it should.

  • abjectarity
    Captain
    Insider

    I lost interest after the first week. Taking it outside the game like they did, with the requirements they used…. It was a big turn off. I can understand timegating some progress to make it last longer, that’s what the adventures are doing too…. But the whole social media, tweeting, newsletter…. I love a mystery, but I want to solve the mystery in game, not on another platform.

    As to the ending of this one, it felt very cheap and oddly like they gave up and ended it sooner than intended because it was losing traction. So I felt like the ending was rushed just like a series finale of a show that gets cancelled mid-season gets rushed.

  • Galactic Geek
    Seafarer
    Founder

    @renderedspore68 said in DeMarco Murder Mystery Completion: Thoughts/Feedback:

    Yeah, I'm a huge fan of DeMarco and this murder mystery adventure and it feels disappointing that after all the effort we put in to complete the murder mystery, we are awarded with 10 doubloons. I do hope we get like a title or DeMarco's hat or jacket. Something to show off the effort we put in for this murder mystery

    You do get a title.

  • Peony7185
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    I overall think this was extremely cool and hope they continue to experiment and evolve the mysteries. There was plenty of rough parts that hopefully Rare can learn from and do more of what worked rather then what didn't.

    Though I do think they ultimately made a very bad first impression when the first two things we had to do were Twitter likes and retweets, it killed my initial want to engage with the mystery which then made it very hard to get back into later on once things got more interesting. Same with Adventures, there needs to be an easier way to catch up on what's been going on.

    However there were definitely some highlights imo, the lantern itself was such a cool idea for something like this and I felt it was used very well. Having to interrogate NPCs while holding the lantern to get information which lead us to visions in specific locations at specific times was a great example of how to do things like this right.

    Though having the cliche of everything we had learned was completely false and then very quickly ending after that revealing the murderer was actually someone we didn't even know was alive? That just felt odd, it feels like there's a part of the mystery missing. I really loved the cutscene, I honestly was not expecting a cutscene at the end of this at all so I was pleasantly surprised.

    I do think some greater reward should have been given, I think having the lantern and spyglass is great but some more I feel should have been given. Wether it was a jacket or something else.

    In the end I think there's something here that Rare should continue to pursue, it helps the world feel more dynamic and adds another layer of adventure, mystery, and intrigue to each day. The idea of knowing that there can actually be something there to be found adds something to the game imo

  • RenderedSpore68
    Marauder
    Insider

    @galactic-geek nah chief. you only get doubloons, just double checked to make sure and saw no new titles

  • HOP March
    Marauder
    Insider

    @galactic-geek a dit dans DeMarco Murder Mystery Completion: Thoughts/Feedback :

    @renderedspore68 said in DeMarco Murder Mystery Completion: Thoughts/Feedback:

    Yeah, I'm a huge fan of DeMarco and this murder mystery adventure and it feels disappointing that after all the effort we put in to complete the murder mystery, we are awarded with 10 doubloons. I do hope we get like a title or DeMarco's hat or jacket. Something to show off the effort we put in for this murder mystery

    You do get a title.

    Which one? And where? Don't find anything atm.

  • SparkyMagus
    Seafarer
    Insider

    @galactic-geek So far there has been no verifiable evidence of any such reward existing. It appears to be a false rumor

  • BurnBacon
    Champion
    Insider

    1). twist was far to late to the game. If it were in the middle it would of been better.
    2) far to many outside game hints and clues. Majority of the players want ingame ones.
    3) with the twist it was a huge blow to the gut. All that work to prove to be a waste. But in a story, it works in its own.

    • the only way I can over look this being the music boxes and the low key connection to Sirens and there “song” that was one hint some over looked. I’m sure there were others. “Red shell” “sunken ship” “color red”

    From my view point. This mystery was a good “test” for rare to see how the players go around to hunt. Hopefully if there is indeed a new mystery they improve on it better.

    But I also see. The end of this mystery didn’t solve much. Only who “killed” but not what happen to him. Where is he…where is his soul…and why him?

    • sure to blame the pirate lord and have his pirates look away from him. But even that was quickly tossed, PL is not that type.
  • Galactic Geek
    Seafarer
    Founder

    Regarding the title, I saw it on the Wiki - not the most reliable source, but there you go.

    UPDATE: Looked it up again to get you a link and noticed that I misread it - not a title; just a commendation.

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