Hi guys! I'm going to give you all a little introduction to what I want "What may improve Sea of Thieves" to be and who am I, then we'll talk about my idea for the Social Hub, so if you don't care just skip the introduction.
So, I'm kind of new, I have started playing SoT almost 4 months ago but I already reached Pirate Legend. I really like this game but I see so much problem with it so I want to give my opinion and help to make the game better for everyone. "What may improve Sea of Thieves" will be a series of weekly (I hope) threads about ideas for SoT, both new stuff to implement and ways to improve existing game mechanics. I always loved to analyze games so I could understand why people like or dislike some mechanics and stuff, so I'll put a lot of effort in tryng to analyze SoT mechanics and I'll do a lot of reasearch on the arguments too. This first thread will be more "soft" than the next ones I planned.
Ok, sorry for the long introduction, Let's get Started!
SOCIAL HUB
So, I've done my research and I saw a lot of people would like some sort of "no PvP" area and minigames implemented in SoT, the problem of most of the requests is that people wants this place to be inside the openworld map, this causes a lot of problems unfortunately so I came up with an idea for a Social Hub that works like this:
When you log into SoT you can access a Social Hub Lobby insted of going straight into the sea. The Social Hub may be an Interior (like the Arena Hub), a Cove (like the PL Cove) or, what I think would be the best, a small island. This island is isolated from the rest of the openworld, so you can't access the openworld from there and viceversa. In this Hub you don't have your ship and you can't swim too far form the island (just put there something, possibly not an invisible wall or a trigger that teleports back to the island, a toxic fog that slowly kills you or some unkillable sharks capable of oneshotting you that swim around the island may be funnier and less annoying).
So what can you do in this Hub? I expected the Hub to be able to handle 20-30 players (I don't know much about technical issues regarding this, so I hope it can handle this much players), on the island you have all the shops (as in the Arena Hub) and you can also invite pirate you find there to your crew (or either kick them out of the crew). This would be an interesting way to meet new people and form a crew, maybe you can look for people that what to do same things as you. Once your crew is ready everyone has to vote for either Adventure Mode or the Arena, so you can join both modes from there.
The whole island should have PvP turned off (ppl can't use their weapons or take any damage) but a small fenced area (with PvP warning signs). In this small area people can just randomly fight, have some fun or improve their fighting skills.
A small area of the island should be dedicated to minigames too. You should be able to challenge other players and bet Golds or Doubloons. There shouldn't be too much stuff, just 2 or 3 minigames. I thought of some tables where you can play dice, arms wrestle and some shooting range where you can challenge other players with the pistol, you get teleported to a location where you can't move and you have 1 minute to shoot all your 5 bullets to a target, if you hit the center you make more points, who makes more points wins (a drunk variant would be funny too).
EDIT: I actually forgot to put this part of my idea:
The month before this Social Hub comes out there may be a global event that require you to get a special wood from shipwrecks and bring it to an NPC in order to help him build the place, you should also be rewarded with a title that proves you helped building it if you give him enough supplies. This idea of getting the wood from shipwrecks is obviusly a placeholder, it might even be "Skeleton Ships Wood" that drop after sinking a skeleton ship or whatever else.
Let me know what you guys think! ;D
