Update feels lazy

@wilbymagicbear said in Update feels lazy:

@viperishemu2992 said in Update feels lazy:

It's not the most inspired or original event for sure. But it's free content. Something about "gift horses" comes to mind?

These updates aren't free, and they're not a gift. They're a transaction. Rare is giving you content to sustain it's game as a service. In exchange, you continue playing the game, and promoting the Xbox to yourself and others. Problem is, Rare is dropping the ball. Pumping out these lazy a*s excuses for updates and telling you to commit 10s of hours to their 20 minutes of content is unacceptable, and we as consumers shouldn't tolerate this garbage. A lot of people think of AAA studios as their friends, and that's how they get away with robbing us of our time.

You pay a subscription fee?

Rare hold a gun to your head and force you to play?

Quit and begone if SoT does not float your boat. A million other games want your time.

Thanks for posting.

@wilbymagicbear

That's your opinion, and your welcome to it.

After nearly two years playing this game Rare is still finding ways to keep me engaged.
Not only that, I want to see what they introduce next.

I'm not expecting everything they kick out to be awesomely epic, but I like how they move the narrative forward in the gameworld with these updates.
Last year I remember Merrick, Wanda, and Salty effecting changes within the SoT that amounted to unprecedented gameplay. I remember my part in these events.
There was also the meh content updates like Thrones and Mermaid Statues, but those offered great swag that was easy to acquire.
Sure the rehashed game mechanics can get old, but they serve to move the narrative and they're not always required.

Stitcher Jim is back. He is in league with Duke.
Feels like low tide, and Rare is building up for something later in the year.

@contentzilla said in Update feels lazy:

As you can see most of the positive trolls as I like to call them will defend Rare even as their ship is on fire and sinking.

People have been claiming that Rare's ship is sinking since launch. In my opinion the game has only gotten better.

Honestly I feel the same way. Despite that the items are costly and worth the very extreme amounts of effort to get them, it was indeed one of the laziest updates ever.

Compared to the previous update? You got no content. Granted it could be setting something up in terms of the next update but yknow.

You can literally get all this done in less than a week. Compared to the last update, anyways.

@viperishemu2992 Stop saying it's free. You have paid for it when you purchased the game as a service!
It's not free. Sure it's no aditionnal charge but not free!

@viperishemu2992 You didn't buy the game, you bought the "game as a service". That was your contract.
You are referring to "game as a product" which SoT is not.

They gonna keep feeding content, as per the deal, until they run out of money. That's what the deal is. That's what your paid for.

Not free ...

They gonna add MTX to keep financing the game. I doubt they will ever release paid for DLC. Could be wrong.

@viperishemu2992 The game was advertised as a game as a service from day one.

Here are some articles, including some quotes from the the Devs themselves stating why they chose to have SoT as a game as a service:

Pramath

Sea of Thieves Developer: When You’re Building A Service, You Can’t Afford To Burn The Team Out

A perspective we don't often get.

If You Still Think Sea of Thieves Has No Content, You're Not Paying Attention

Since it launched on March 20th, Sea of Thieves has received a galleon's worth of criticism and complaints of missing content. Whatever you thought of it so many months ago, to say it lacks content today is simply wrong.

So that you understand what Games as a service are:

Live service game - Wikipedia

Cass Marshall  /  Dec 24, 2018  /  Opinion

Games as a service need to find out how to keep players engaged

Loot boxes, log-in bonuses, battle passes, skins, and more dominated the conversation in 2018

This is your contract:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/storedocs/terms-of-sale

I would also suggest visiting their youtube channel as they explain really clearly what Sea of Thieves is. Will have a go there to find exact mentions of their plans and definition of the game.

No. Wrong again. I bought a game for €60 called Sea of Thieves. I went the Microsoft store, pushed a button and (pre)bought the game. My €60 was gone on day one. Everything since day one has been Free.

Any purchase is a contract between the buyer (contractee) and the seller (contractor).

I didn't buy any 'contract' or a 'service'. Maybe you did? Please share it with me. Can I see it?

You also did. Read the Terms of Sale.

@ViperishEmu2992

I'd like to read where is says how many updates or what new content your €60 gives you the right to have? Specifically I would like to see in your contract exactly how many cents of your €60 went into this most recent update. Maybe then we can judge it's "value" to see if it was worth the money you spent on it?

I have actually been researching the exact terms of the game as a service. You see in contract law there is a very important notion which is "consideration" :
"consideration is a promise of something of value given by a promissor in exchange for something of value given by a promisee".
Although I have been looking for exactly what we are getting for the 60$, I haven't been succesful in finding an exact reference. Whenever I did try and figure this out here on the forum I was directed to the Microsoft Terms of Sale.

So I understand that you are confused as to what you paid for, as am I!

But I did buy a service and not a product, that's one thing I am certain of.
Just need to keep digging :p

@callmebackdraft said in Update feels lazy:

@ironuzuka well its simple, while yes they marketed it as a Game As A Service (GaaS) they are not following the typical GAAS business model:

In video gaming, games as a service (GaaS) represents providing video games or game content on a continuing revenue model, similar to software as a service. Games as a service are ways to monetize video games either after their initial sale, or to support a free-to-play model. Games released under the GaaS model typically receive a long or indefinite stream of monetized new content over time to encourage players to continue paying to support the game. This often leads to games that work under a GaaS model to be called "living games" or "live games", since they continually change with these updates.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_as_a_service

As you can read from the parts GaaS in no way entitles you to FREE content updates because usually with this model content updates will be monetized in some way, Rare from the get go has chosen and said that content updates will be free as to not block part of their userbase out of something.

"The principal reason to adopt GaaS is financial, giving a developer or publisher the ability to capture more revenue from the market than with a single release title (otherwise known as "games as a product"). While not all players will be willing to spend additional money to gain new content, there can be enough demand from a smaller population of players to support the service model.[2] GaaS further represents a means by which games can improve their reputation to critics and players by continued improvements over time, using revenues earned from GaaS monetization to support the continued development and to draw in new sales for the product."

They are in fact a typical GaaS and follow the typical model. It does entitle the player base to new free content in most cases. The simplest content drop being fixing bugs. This can go up to adding new expensions.

However they have always been perfectly honest that micro transactions will be coming to the sea of thieves starting out with pets, this has been known since before release.

I am perfectly fine with MTX, and do believe it is a smart move on their part.

With the backfire they received on launch day they chosen to take the original release schedule (including pets) and throw it out the window.

That backfire was totally justified. They clearly needed to adress more pressing issues before introducing MTX.

I think personally RARE’s monetisation plans is one of the most ethical out there:

• Cosmetic stuff only
• nothing that will give the buyer of something an edge over anyone else
• No lootboxes, you always know exactly what you are purchasing
• no story/lore/gameplay extending content will be monetized

I do agree it is ethical, that's for sure!

EDIT:

And the ‘contract’ you agreed with on purchase are these: https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/storedocs/terms-of-sale

Those are posted on any sale from the MS store

Thank you. I did refer to this in both my posts, even linked the page in my previous to last one.

So I still believe that the "free" stuff is the least they can do. And, sure you can say it's free, but to me it is part of the deal, so not free, rather included.

@viperishemu2992 So they could have sold the game and not have provided any support, servers, or updates ?

Because that's what you are saying.

The forum, discord, youtube content, updates, bug fixes, website, it's all free!

I guess I didn't realise that Rare was a charity. I guess you are right, it is all free and I should not have questionned that.

My bad.

@viperishemu2992

Yep. As long as that product fell within the boundaries of a "functioning product" as defined by the Consumers Rights Act of the world region/country that you live in where Microsoft is the seller.

That is if the game is a product, not a service. Which is where the whole argument is.
It is a service, and therefore "functionning product" doesn't apply. It would fall under a Service Directive.

You can also read Microsoft's Terms and Conditions if you like legal talk. "Technically" you already did when you pushed the accept button when you bought this game. (I'm guessing that you scrolled past it like everyone else?)

Plus, you agreed to the ToS. I pointed you toward them already.
The ToS describe both products and services. Which is confusing (on purpose).

Maybe these would apply as well ?

Microsoft Services Agreement

What about the people playing the game through gamepass ?

We need legal talk here since this is what we are trying to figure out.

Since the legallity of it all is way past my level of education, I do believe we need some proper clarification. They clarified the Code of Conduct since it was very unclear or unknown to a lot of people.
They should probably do the same.

Rare could have taken your €60 and gone on vacation. But they stuck around to give you free stuff. Not because they like you, but because they want a big player base to generate profit from some day. Believe me, you'll know when you are paying for content and updates. You aren't yet. Which is kind of the definition of "free". Wouldn't you agree?

I wouldn't agree at all, to me, it is still part of the deal. And you have not convinced me otherwise. You have on the other hand been repeating constantly that it is a product (which I disagree with) and that it's all free.

Well I will repeat again, it is a service, and the content is part of it.

@galactic-geek Why? Why should we though? The amount of well thought out, fleshed out, balanced ideas that have came through this forum since launch have been staggering and sound better then most of what Rare has gave us since the release of the game. And not a single one of them has even been implemented. Even with that massive poll last year about what we wanted to see in the game and we had a Rare employee make a post saying we are looking at it annnnnnnnd nothing happened.

So why, why should we as the community keep delivering ideas that would make this game on par with World of Warcraft or even TF2 in their glory days if Rare is just going to not even listen and keep chugging out sluggish, buggy, unfinished content that is barely above the water line.

Rare left to their own devices can only come up with chairs on rocks for people to sit in. They couldn't even tie that in with the actual world of the story even though we know these super big bad skeleton lords exist. NOPE. It's just these drunkards who got bored and built them for fun and now telling people to go find the chairs. AND EVEN THEN, when the Bilge Rats first came out we saw several different pictures of them in their little forum debut talking about them and get in game and it's only Duke in every Outpost. They couldn't even get a different Bilge Rat for each Outpost. Which is why I am sure we no longer get anything of that nature and they have stuck with the same old Reaper Runs voyages for the past 10 months between updates.

We can only keep giving them our ideas and suggestions for so long before it's a moot point to even try when it's clear they have no indication or desire to listen to the community that plays the game.

@callmebackdraft What roadmap? They have refused to even let us see the roadmap since the beginning.

@viperishemu2992 Lol using a wiki article vs the official Microsoft ToS.

I am going to go with the official ToS written by legal professionals vs a wiki article. Wiki is good but their is a reason why ya know, schools and other places say don't use it as your source cause anyone can go in and alter and edit it.

Ah I see, he was the one who posted the wiki article in his own post. I thought you were the one who posted that. He had posted both. I understand.

All you over zealous cheerleaders need to stop flaunting the GaaS card. The only service is the disservice Rare keeps delivering to the community since the Shrouded Spoils update.

They have done nothing but repeat the same game over and over to pacify new players who sail for a very limited time by dumping fleet full of loot all around the sea. No real new content and no content to extend and grow the game beyond leveling new players in over a year and a half.

My spouse, mates, and I got excited when we logged in after this update dropped. The reaper chest sparked some great time on the sea. Problem is it only lasted a couple days. The rest of the update was just the same old, tired, boring cloned, reskinned, renamed, repurposed things over and over and over and over and over and over and over the last year and a half.

Now the sea is slow and quiet again like it gets immediately after each of these repeated recycled voyages. Have been scooping the reaper chests up without player encounters across multiple play sessions. We started leaving them and just picking them up when we sail close. What a shame.

@shinten-rai said in Update feels lazy:

@galactic-geek Why? Why should we though? The amount of well thought out, fleshed out, balanced ideas that have came through this forum since launch have been staggering and sound better then most of what Rare has gave us since the release of the game. And not a single one of them has even been implemented. Even with that massive poll last year about what we wanted to see in the game and we had a Rare employee make a post saying we are looking at it annnnnnnnd nothing happened.

So why, why should we as the community keep delivering ideas that would make this game on par with World of Warcraft or even TF2 in their glory days if Rare is just going to not even listen and keep chugging out sluggish, buggy, unfinished content that is barely above the water line.

Rare left to their own devices can only come up with chairs on rocks for people to sit in. They couldn't even tie that in with the actual world of the story even though we know these super big bad skeleton lords exist. NOPE. It's just these drunkards who got bored and built them for fun and now telling people to go find the chairs. AND EVEN THEN, when the Bilge Rats first came out we saw several different pictures of them in their little forum debut talking about them and get in game and it's only Duke in every Outpost. They couldn't even get a different Bilge Rat for each Outpost. Which is why I am sure we no longer get anything of that nature and they have stuck with the same old Reaper Runs voyages for the past 10 months between updates.

We can only keep giving them our ideas and suggestions for so long before it's a moot point to even try when it's clear they have no indication or desire to listen to the community that plays the game.

This is when I learned last year that it is Rare's dream game to build and implement.
To their success or failure.
This is not a democracy, we do not actually get a vote in the course of development.

Players that get butthurt about suggestions that they percieve as ignored:

Get over yourselves already.

SoT is just a game. Your either playing because you want to or not.
Rare is on a journey and many of us are on the journey with them. The devs are in this for the long haul and so far, there are still pirates that are on board with what Rare is doing.
Feel free to bail whenever you like, for whatever reason.
Your welcome to come back at any time.

Again, there are a million other games that want your time.

BTW, it has always bothered me that there is only one Bilge-rat. With all the detail Rare puts into each NPC, why is Duke cloned?