Musicmee said it, is not you, but the gaming world. Now everything is about "achievements" and progression, and not about having fun and improve yourself after thousand loses, and Rare, despite not completely, is in this "feats before fun" ship, but by feats, I mean "wear this shoes to get a trophy"...

@targasbr I don't believe you are too old. I do believe Rare has changed, but I would argue for the better. They may not meet the nostalgic view we have of them, but they exceed what many games have offered today. When I watch videos of them during the early days, starting with a wheel of emotions and sticky notes, and see how they got to where they are now, from where they were, I am truly in awe.

I know many don't like some of the changes that Rare has made, especially those that go directly against some of their earliest claims for the game, such as Every ship on the horizon will have a pirate (live person) behind the wheel to now include AI ships. They are adaptable to what the community wants. This is arguably a good thing and a bad thing. But with gaming the way it is today, games can grow after they are released. Unlike the old days where once a game was released, that was it, you had to wait for the next incarnation of the game before anything changed. And with that ability to keep making changes comes a new way of how games and manufacturers of games work. I think Rare has done a great job of adapting to that new gaming environment, and in many cases is setting a very high bar for others to follow. From community input/feedback, to being a very impressive game that came out free for game pass, to a vision of cross platform and so many free DLC's and more to come, they far and away exceed anyone else out there. Which to me, is what Rare has been most consistent at, setting their own high standard and then putting in the work to produce.

@targasbr It's just a very different game. If SoT was a single player offline adventure it would be way more packed with content to entertain one person alone in a giant world. It would probably be Far Cry Pirates.
This game's core element is fundamentally a multiplayer experience. It's a big world meant for personal interactions. It's not about who has the high score on this mini game, who sold the most loot this month, or who ran the dungeon the fastest. It's about remembering that time you had so many chests and defended it/lost it against an enemy player.
It's about stories both good and bad.

@targasbr You seem to be one of the more seasoned members here. Maybe you are more burnt out from already experiencing the replayability factors. All there is now is each future update and watching the world develop.
I waited and watched streams before I purchased this game back in early April. I knew at the time it would probably be a 2 year time frame until it became something Rare had fully envisioned (much like No Man's Sky).
There is a Love-Hate relationship with games that have this road map. Love that we can experience and watch the world develop. Hate that it wasn't released as it will be another year from now. But in the end, ultimately Love that we got to play and experience it for those 2 years in "development".

@amancebacabras said in Am I too old or Rare no longer is what it once was?:

Musicmee said it, is not you, but the gaming world. Now everything is about "achievements" and progression, and not about having fun and improve yourself after thousand loses, and Rare, despite not completely, is in this "feats before fun" ship, but by feats, I mean "wear this shoes to get a trophy"...

It does seem they swung over to the other side of the equation and are prioritizing achievements and progression now.

I think if Rare balances this with the strive to improve and overcome difficult challenges presented in the games, we can see some amazing things in the future.

@targasbr said in Am I too old or Rare no longer is what it once was?:

@boomtownboss Actually I've played since the insider program, but this it's not the problem with this game. I just cannot not compare it to other Rare games.

You cannot compare it to other Rare games... YET! This game will be updated over the next 10 years.

@targasbr If I may matey, I would disagree about the emotions part a bit. I find that I go through many emotions in the game, both in simply doing PvE content and when interacting with others. I sail solo and with others, probably 50/50, but I seem to always get to experience a wide range of emotions.

I know some of the recent changes Rare has made have not been popular, and I know you have been vocal about them. Perhaps your disappointment with them is casting a cloud over your overall experience?

@Musicmee Yep, as I said, Rare is not entirely in this ship, but last updates are definitely a bad sign of what we could see before the 2018 new roadmap, with all the "earn these commendations to achieve this title or clothes" despite a new tool like, for example, "dice, and get yourself your own fun with this, little barnacle".

I think that, after the very bad reviews of the first month, we're not going to see "never" the true SoT Rare could have had in mind and, maybe this is an unpleasant opinion, the community is going to end modeling this one in probably a worst version, because people is not, usually, generous enough to ask for something that is better for more people but not for them.

@cyberguardian77 exactly, the problem is that it seems that everything that smells to something difficult is being tunned down in every single update. And sorry for who strugle with things in this game, but thats not allways a good thing.

I'll allways remember my second day in World of Warcraft when my witch and my mage budy, went with lvl 6 chars across the south river of Elwynn Forest to end in a very dark forest where black widows with "who the hell know what lvl they are, run dude!" chased us until we died. Because, for who dont played that, we reached a zone with a requeriment of 4X the lvl we had. Was one of the funniest and endearing moments I've spent in that game, and was a lost. A brutal lost XD. The problem seems that everybody think that they all can deal with all the content BEFORE improve themselves, but when they get smashed they think they dont deserved the lost and complain. And Rare is listening that...

@targasbr said in Am I too old or Rare no longer is what it once was?:

@nofears-fun Despite being against many of the changes, the problem is far from being any of them. I think the problem is that I really expected a lot more from the game, expected fun animations, expected an engaging storyline, expected charismatic characters, expected an engaging game full of mysteries. Unfortunately I do not see this... The game is based on comendations, I think this is the problem for me. Even Kraken is no longer a challenge. I see no point in killing the megs. Lately I've been playing only to find other players and fight, many times I do not even stay up to sell everything we collect. I feel like the game is just a huge Beta full of holes.

This is why I mainly play open crew. It changes the game. I too dont stay on to turn in the loot anymore either, and I am not even a pirate legend. The loot lost its appeal to me. I just like the adventure, but want to play on my terms. I dont want to be on for many hours, so I play to help others and jump off.

I feel you on the story. When we got on the seas for the Beta, I thought we would get attached to specific outposts. care for the NPCs and compete with one another a bit more. The game has alot of lore but it is hardly in the game after a year. Heck, fortnite gives a small video to add to the story each season. Give us the great cutscene showing skeletons building the fort in the Forsaken shores.

Rare re-released most of their old games. It's a great buy. Rare Replay has Conkers, Donkey Kong, battletoads, and Perfect Dark. 30 older games with alot of repeat value. (I am still horrible at RC Pro Am)