What made , and still makes , you come back to the Sea?

@clumsy-george nice mate see you on the seas

@clumsy-george always a pleasure to read your posts. What keeps me coming back? For me its the sense of unpredictability -- in many of the single-player games that I play (actually taking a break from SoT until the anniversary update to make progress in The Last of Us), they can make a powerful and compelling story, but they can only tell it once. On the high seas, every session promises its own adventures and unique tales, and even more importantly they are self-created. I can choose what to go looking for, but I can never know for sure what I will find. Be it PvP escapades, alliance shenanigans, or even PvE adventures (yay for lore and Tall Tales!), SoT creates dynamic stories, and I've yet to find another game that can manage it in the same way.

@Clumsy-George There are myriad of reasons why I have not put this game down over the past year of my life. This game just speaks to me on so many levels.

I have been into gaming for way too many years and no game has punched me in the gut the way this game does. So with that said sir, my reasons and excuses for loving this game are as follows:

• Aesthetics and Scenery - This game is just god awfully beautiful and that is a big attraction for me. I find it very easy to continue to comeback to this game as the environment is just pleasing and beautiful. Why Rare has not been more recognized for this is a mystery to me.
• Auditorial Pleasing - The sound of the waves washing up on the beach and the winding rustling the leaves of the palm tress...ahhhh, so relaxing. All we need are lounge chairs and Corona's to sit on the beach to enjoy our surroundings, at least until a skelly bomb runs up on you and explodes.
  The environmental sounds and all the way down to the music is just wonderful in this game.
  As a person who holds a degree in audio production, I can honestly say that the audio in this game just awe inspiring. Some days at work, I just listen to the Sea of Thieves soundtrack.
• Sailing Mechanics and the challenge- The fact that you have to pilot a ship and it actually challenges the players to understand the mechanics of sailing. It's not a typical game, where you just get in or on a vehicle and just press one button and away you go. No, this game challenges you to move around on the seas and I just love that aspect.
• Thrill of Adventure - When you load into this game you may have an idea of what you may want to do or accomplish. But at some point the environment or other players decide your fate or adventure for you and the unknown is just thrilling and fun. Although it could be frustrating at times when other players affect your game play, but I have grown to accept it and deal with it.

Rare LTD, has created something very special here and I always look forward to playing this game. I hope the content continues with this game and I hope there will be many more years to come...

I won't even mention the hilarious chance encounters I have had with you @Clumsy-George, classic mate!

@clumsy-george Matey, I have been wondering where you have been these past weeks or even month or two. Your presence or lack there of was noticed and I was even thinking of messaging to ask where our sage george has been lately. LOL

As for my story I will get to that a bit later. I just saw you had posted and breathed a sigh of relief and had to say howdy.

I check in everyday to see if they fixed the Xbox One S "black screen" issue.😀😂😀 Seriously though..... The adventure! No matter what you set out to do there's a good chance you'll get sidetracked!

I have posted before about my start to the game so I will keep that part short. In a nut shell, a friend @queenpucci talked me into buying and xbox for the sole purpose of playing a game called Sea of Thieves where the dev team were vehemently against pay to win (having played many pay to win games I found this quite intriguing).

So, I bought the xbox and gamepass and got the game. And I was hooked right from the start. Queen would occasionally send me little news flashes of things to come in the game. And wondering how she was getting this info I went searching and found the forums. And my addiction to the game itself was only strengthened by these forums. I found so many people that loved the game as much as I did. And their passions were so strong. I remember many a great back and forth conversations with so many people. Many that even became somewhat contentious (though that was never what I was trying for or looking for). But even then, the passion for the game blew me away.

And within the game, even when hearing complaints about lack of content this, and not enough to do that, I could not satisfy my hunger for the seas or the life of a swash buckling pirate. And it seemed to me, that at least once a week, usually more often than that, thanks to interactions with other pirates on the seas, I would have these fantastic adventures and stories to tell. In fact, even to this very day, I still feel as if I have those fantastic adventures and stories of both heroism and failure, but almost always finding fun in whatever comes my way. Even in losing, while losing is not fun in and of itself, I have rarely walked away not appreciating the experience.

And the temperature in the waters seems to constantly be changing. When I first started playing, there were tons of pirates out there that felt bored with the content, and were quite toxic indeed (not because of the PvP itself, just their attitudes and the ways they interacted with you). And then Hungering Deep, and other pirates suddenly realized that the waving emote was there to show a friendlier side of a pirate. And soon more updates, many of which promoted working together. And the seas became a much warmer place. But always returning to that colder place where more PvP and even occasionally Toxic behavior comes back. But during all of this, never knowing what temperature the seas would be on any given day, just makes it so exciting.

Even now, having obtained PLA10 many months ago, I still find great pleasure in setting sail for the unknown.

While I absolutely love how this cartoon game with amazing graphics has somehow become this amazing, immersive experience, I would say that for me, the reason I love this game so much, it would have to be the complete randomness of everything that could happen, everything that could go wrong and everything that could go right. From the time I sailed with friends from these very forums and we sunk a skelly fleet by having to steel the last rounds of cannonballs from the skelly ships around us because we had run out, to the many PvP encounters I have had. Or even the times where a random pirate would sheepishly approach asking for help with a long forgotten quest (like the thrones).

This game has already exceeded my expectations and yet, it feels like we have only begun to see its true potential. There are many things we could complain about, and so many things that could be done better, yet I am so very excited for the future here.

We Shall All Sail Together.....

@Clumsy-George thank you matey for this thread and for asking us to bring back so many fond memories.

@clumsy-George you and other people

Friendly pirate encounters and nice white beach with palmtrees and lovely clear water with free loot laying around to find while enjoying the sunny warm climate and graphics :")

I enjoy the beauty, cheerfulness and freedom of the game. It never feels like you're being railroaded towards a map marker. You never know what might happen. You might meet another player. They could be hostile, or you could form an alliance. You might come across a megalodon or pick up a cool random quest. You need to keep your eyes on your compass and on the horizon. There's no fast traveling. It's immersive.

And most of all: I play it with my friends. My friends live in another city and it's so great that I still get to communicate with them like this. When you actually call someone, the conversation can feel a little forced, like "...So... How are you?" "I'm good, you?" "Yeah, me too." But when you're playing Sea of Thieves, there's always that part where you are just sailing and not doing anything special and a conversation just naturally starts. I love that.

Came to Sea of Thieves because it was an open world game my XBOX and PC separated family could come together and play together instead of just taking about the games we each played. Except for my spouse and I the others have moved on after not liking what was found too much out on the sea.

My spouse and I stayed sailing because it was a game we could casually play and make our own fun despite the trolling and toxicity that polluted the sea. In the time since then we have met several fine examples of pirates that we greatly enjoy sailing with and have the privilege to call friends. We cannot always hook up as much as we would like too, but we always have great experiences and good stories to tell when we do.

What is very unfortunate is neither of us likes where the winds seem to be taking us on the Sea of Thieves. Rare appears to be dead set in favoring more PvP on the Sea than keeping it truly open as it should be. Do not like many of the changes that appear to be coming to the sea, same for the changes here in the forums over the last few months.

Maybe the winds will keep us on the sea or maybe the sea will no longer be familiar enough and it will blow us somewhere else completely different. We shall see. Either way it turned out to be a voyage worth remembering no matter where the wind may take us.

@clumsy-george

What made , and still makes , you come back to the Sea?

It's you guys... it's you

Kudos all!
Seriously... never had so much fun, laughter, loss & at times been mildly ticked off (in game)... it's been a roller-coaster.

I love how you can be on a high... everything is going so well.
Then SoT happens.... ie. Kraken... spawns.. a meg decides to make an appearance, oh yes a player galleon is in pursuit.
All is suddenly lost, you are just in it for the ride.... that's the Sea of Thieves Life. And I love it!

Loved the game from day one ( & before ), will be sailing the Sea for the foreseeable future.

For me it's a way to relieve the stress after a day at work. Sailing the sea by myself, visiting the islands,....makes it a great way to end the stressful day.

@Clumsy-George I first saw early footage of the game at E3 I believe, though I can't remember exactly when or where. I kept tabs on it though whatever outlet I could find, and watched every trailer I could. I missed the opportunity to get into the alpha but when the beta rolled around I made sure that I was in and so did my brother.

We jumped in and loved the exploration. The sense of a history there that wasn't explicitly told to us from the start kept us exploring every corner. I love the open world, the sense that you exist within an ongoing story that's being told. I keep sailing because I love meeting new and old pirates on the sea. It's a new story every time I set sail. One of my favorite things is seeing familiar names from these forums, people who are passionate about the game like I am, and catching up with them on the seas.