1) Preface:
Well, the servers are down for maintenance this morning, so it seems like a fitting time to grab a morning brew and write-up my thoughts. I've dumped roughly twenty hours into the game since launch, and for the most part it's been a good time. Alas however, all is not as well as I'd like, the seas are currently rough, but a golden horizon is in sight, and the skies are clear as we endeavor forward!
tl/wr: It's good! Needs way more to stay relevant! I have ideas!
2) Red Sky in the Morning, Sailor Take Warning:
I'm also a game developer. I worked on a single-player game called Lichdom: Battlemage that went nowhere, but oddly enough earned a Yahtzee review. I also worked a year at Bioware Austin on The Old Republic MMO, and have been working the last two years on an online games-as-service action RPG that has yet to be announced. My career has a long ways to go, but I've experienced some significant ups and downs along the way, and I'd like to believe that the lessons learned have been valuable enough that I might be able to contribute to Sea of Thieves, at the very least, with a perspective that Rare might find valuable in its own unique way.
I paid the full retail price for Sea of Thieves based on a suggestion by a youtuber who had played in the beta. I'm a sucker for tall ships and high-seas antics anyway, so their hopeful tone for what was to come post-release hit the right notes and encouraged me to give it a shot. I do not regret the purchase, though I should say that the possibility of regret is still a lurking concern. I've had fun for a decent amount of the time that I've played, but I can already start to feel it wearing thin. At issue for me is a certain hollowness; as though my joy is only barely containing an empty core. The main gameplay loop is solid; I grok it in the way that I should, and the mix of PvE and PvP is solid on its face; but I can't help but ask myself "to what end?" I know that cosmetics reflect advancement, but I've already purchased the two or three items of clothing that I actually want. Many items remain locked to me, but their stylings don't immediately appeal, and all that's left is a ship skin that I'm eyeing. The skin is expensive enough that I know the grind ahead will be long, and I'm not sure if my interest will hold fast for that time.
As an aside: that youtuber I mentioned? They have since given the game a poor review. They believed the game would be more than what it was during the beta. Though, like me, they hold to a glimmer of hope.
As I said: the game is fun at its core, but for what I paid it does strike me as oddly thread-bare. There's little room for me to add variety to keep my experience fresh. There's little to interact with to add more to my sense of immersion for my imagination to truly take flight. I'm not left wondering what I might find or what I might want. I have what I want, and according to the internet, I've found what I could find. There is the 'legendary pirate' issue, but even at a constant rate of play, I wouldn't likely get there anytime soon, and I find it hard to work toward something without truly knowing what it is or what it might add to the experience, if anything. The secrecy surrounding it and what it really offers is a detriment in this case. Do I care for what others think of my cool outfit, or my fancy ship skin? The fact that I wear the same pair of hiking shorts to work nearly every day suggests I might not.
My 'regret', given all I've said, is then perched precariously on what Rare does in the coming weeks and months. In many ways, Sea of Thieves reminds of my early experiences with ARK: Survival Evolved, with one great exception: Sea of Thieves is performant, where ARK never was. Despite ARK's glitchy experience, the developers hit a stride of new monthly content that forced my attention to constantly look back to the project. Dinosaurs are an easy sell for me. They are like a mental candy that feeds both my inner-child and my inner-paleontologist. What's more, the new dinosaurs offered both visual substance and gameplay that challenged the way ARK worked with every release. Some for better, some for worse, but the cycle always brought me (and many others) back.
Given that Sea of Thieves will be played the most by folks who subscribe to the Xbox gamepass service, ensuring that Sea of Thieves is supported in this way, with free and substantial content, will keep people coming back. It will keep them subscribed, and it will add to the sense of value that those who purchased the game have. It will also add to Microsofts valuations of Rare, I suspect, if they sea the gameplay hours for SoT rising every week and every month. As with Netflix, the value of a movie or show is not in the critical reviews, but in the hours watched or played.
In summary: I don't feel like this is a $60 game, but I feel that in time it could be. I'm patient enough to give Rare that chance, and to give Microsoft that chance. My thumbs up, or thumbs down, will come with the Summer season. What has changed, what has not changed, and what we know is coming by that time, will solidify my opinion one way or another.
P.S.: the sea is lovely. My fellow FX artists and I were geeking out over it yesterday at work.
3) What I Want, Mr. Morden:
In my time played so far, I've developed a number of suggestions for new content, and altered content, that I feel would greatly improve the experience for me (and I suspect) for others.
Mission Variety needs improvement. Let's Talk Merchants: This is a big ask, but I think the current mission structure only really works for the treasure-hunting missions. It fulfills the fantasy: a mysterious man gives you a map (or you find a map), and you go that location and dig, watching for other pirates along the way and finding other stuff in the process. Unfortunately, the bounty and merchant quests work mostly the same way, and they really shouldn't. Firstly, in order to add variety and depth to the world, I think that some of the non-outpost islands should host random, timed, or permanent merchant NPCs. These individuals could then sell and buys goods-crates that already exist in game. Prices for these goods should vary by location and merchant, and crucially, I believe that merchant faction reputation should be earned by turning a profit from buying and selling these goods. Fulfill the fantasy of being a merchant by being a merchant. This also adds value to the pirate fantasy, in that it increases the likelihood that players will be carrying valuable goods worth taking.
Bounties, instead of being handed to players as personal or group-specific missions, should be posted publicly on a physical bounty board, or alternatively in much the same way the skull draws players to skull forts, islands should have smaller bounty clouds (or some other marker) suggesting that a bounty is present. This will foster competition as players are drawn to these markers, forcing them to either work together or fight each other to claim the bounty.
Bounties should also be awarded for killing players and taking their skull trophies back to an outpost. It should be a flat amount, awarded only once per day per player (so you don't encourage bounty-griefing). Whether a player's head has already been claimed should be marked by the color of their nametag or with a symbol over their head, and by a symbol on their ship's flag, so that people know that killing them again for the money is a waste of time. Lastly, at the end of each day, players who participated in a minimum number of other activities who didn't lose their heads should be awarded for the amount equal to the value of their skull. Critically, player-skulls should not be so rewarding that it encourages people to take advantage by killing themselves and their friends daily for cheap coin.
Farming at Sea: Catching pigs and chickens you find on islands isn't very valuable at present, especially as it relates to pigs, who you have to feed precious bananas in order to transport. Rather than pigs and chickens having set values and operating as chests do, I think you should be rewarded for keeping and taking good care of these animals over time. By feeding pigs and interacting with pigs and chickens in a positive way on a regular basis, the values of those animals should raise over time. This will encourage players to remain actively in-game, and also increase the value of piracy, because more players will be likely to have these valuable animals on their ships. After an hour or so of taking care of these animals, their values should then cap.
Down the road, more farming mechanics could also be added, including husbandry and eggs, that with time and attention can be used to add even more value to the animals and to the time players spend in-game with them (and to the sweet pirate hauls after those players are ambushed at sea).
Please Sir, I'd Like Another (Microtransaction): The game needs just more of everything. I suspect this is already in the works, but it bears repeating. Content is king, both free and MTX. For people who purchase(d) the game, I think it would be fair to give those players a modest amount of whatever microtransaction currency Rare eventually deploys. If only to make those people feel better about their purchases, given the predominant complaint is that they feel the game is light on content. I realize this is self-serving, but I think it's also a very reasonable PR response to the reviews that have been so damaging to SoT, yet so specific in that their complaints revolve around the lack of content.
Consider it a gift for supporting the game, and it might go a long way toward repairing some of the larger audience's opinion of the title.
Let's Party! I don't have any detailed way to say this, but I do think the party-system needs some work. Players should be able to add friends mid-voyage, at the very least.
Keep Me in the Loop! You guys already have some of this covered, but as with the previous point I think repetition is useful. Regular development roadmaps and diaries would be an excellent way to keep people engaged and looking forward, instead of back. Paradox have been masters at this, and despite some of their own issues relating to pricing on their expansions, their regular updates and releases of both free and paid content are a wonderful example of positive community engagement.
That's All For Now!
Thank you for reading, and good luck to everyone, both players and developers alike, as time marches on!
