End of Life Contingency Plan.

  • SPARTAN DSP96
    Rogue
    Insider

    I guess this suggestion is a hail mary, but I'd love to see a plan in place for the possibility that if Sea of Thieves is no longer a viable game to continue sustaining for Rare and Microsoft, that somehow the servers are given to the community to preserve and maintain. Or create a copy of the game where all the content that has existed is preserved and available for players to explore and earn offline.

    Many of us paid full retail for the game at launch, many of us have spent money on cosmetics. The reality is live service games take the control of "ownership" out of player hands, I'm happy to support the game and devs in the emporium but the threat remains that one day, hypothetically, some men in a boardroom can decide that SoT is no longer worth the investment of resources and pull the plug. Then we are left with a game in our library we've spent lots of time and money on, that won't even launch, that we can't even revisit offline because it is solely functional based on internet connection and servers run by the dev team.

    I would love to hope that SoT can endure for decades like World of Warcraft (20 years old), but most live service games don't survive that long. Just look at games like The Crew, Star Wars Galaxies or CoD Warzone (the first one), games people loved that simply don't exist because a group of people decided it was time to pull the plug. That would be such a terrible way for SoT to end if it had to, even offline the game deserves to live on people's PCs and consoles. SoT has such a strong and passionate community, having a plan in place where the magic of the game is preserved, or even thriving as freeware where a community runs the servers would be a most piratey send off if that day ever came. And even though there might be issues with the licensing from the crossover IPs in the game (Pirates of the Caribbean, and Monkey Isle), it would still be worth having a plan.

    And it is possible, 1997's Meridian 59 is possibly the oldest MMO still online, the game was shut down but eventually released as freeware to the community who still keep it alive and flourishing.

    I write this post simply because we are now living in an era of gaming history where artistic works, good or bad, creations that took years to build by armies of people, are being delisted and never seen again. Where players no longer really "own" the games that they buy. It would be heartbreaking to one day have to realize you may never get to sail with your pals in this world ever again, whether it's ten years from now or a century. Just having a plan could prevent that grim possibility.

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  • Th3 Tater
    Marauder

    Most likely a maintenance mode until the emporium stopped making money.

  • BurnBacon
    Vanguard
    Insider

    They may end up fully unlocking the game for people to host servers on there machines and let friends join.

    With a little magic added, you maybe able to go back time and revisit stuff.

  • Europa4033
    Commander
    Insider

    City of Heroes/Villains was shut down by NCSoft. For approximately 7 years or so, the players begged them for the IP, and they continued to say no. There were private servers of the full game some players had, where players were secretly invited to. Eventually, NCSoft relinquished the server, and now it's run by the most dedicated of players.

    Unfortunately, no further developments, changes, additions or expansions will happen with the game as there's no longer a development team for it, so whatever is there is all that will ever be. Donations are collected each month for the server voluntarily by those who still play and enjoy it, but no idea how long that'll last. As long as volunteers continue to donate, the game is up and running.

    It would seriously suck if that happened to Sea of Thieves, and I don't think Microsoft would be as willing to simply let a certain group of players take total control of the game. No new content would probably get old fast (especially with so many dynamic games being released these days) and along with that, I don't know if people would be willing to donate money to keep a server going. I hope it never happens.

  • WolfManbush
    Champion

    Let it go peacefully into the night imo.

    Look how much player created drama there is, exploiting there is, etc and that's with a fully dedicated team trying to keep things running smooth.

    It'll either be the worst of the cliquey stuff in SoT or the worst of the exploit/trolling stuff in SoT. Mostly would just be both.

    The magic of SoT is right time/right place. Should let it go when it's over, imo. It'll never be what it has been once it's no longer maintained as it has been.

    Longevity shouldn't extend into lower qol and worse access. The titles and the cosmetics and the status are all gone when this is over. Experience is far more enjoyable when embracing the importance of the moment rather than attaching to some form of forever.

  • Karkona
    Commander

    Cult game, will never die, but if they actually handed over the source for the game to the players I have no doubt they fix it up and make it even better

  • Hefty Henri
    Marauder

    The game will likely be around for a long while still. It's been 6 years and they're still working on it on a pretty large scale. Even after that, when the game enters maintenance mode and they have to invest much less to just keep the servers and the shop running, it will likely be profitable for a long time.

  • SPARTAN DSP96
    Rogue
    Insider

    @wolfmanbush I respectfully disagree, it's a romantic sentiment you've expressed, but from a consumer standpoint, if I paid $60 for the game, spent a couple hundred on cosmetics from the emporium over the years, I expect there to be some way for me to play the game and content I bought even offline. I think as gamers we've been letting these big studios get away with depriving us of the ownership of games we buy. The industry has inverted "products" into "services" of a finite duration, but they are still charging premium prices.

  • WolfManbush
    Champion

    @spartan-dsp96 said in End of Life Contingency Plan.:

    @wolfmanbush I respectfully disagree, it's a romantic sentiment you've expressed, but from a consumer standpoint, if I paid $60 for the game, spent a couple hundred on cosmetics from the emporium over the years, I expect there to be some way for me to play the game and content I bought even offline. I think as gamers we've been letting these big studios get away with depriving us of the ownership of games we buy. The industry has inverted "products" into "services" of a finite duration, but they are still charging premium prices.

    I used to collect only physical. I only played physical. I only played single player. I didn't want anything to do with the online stuff.

    I was one of those that liked seeing the art and the case and I like the vibe of a physical collection of things. Old horror VHS tapes, single player adventure games. I didn't even have high speed internet until later in life so the internet stuff was largely out of the experience. Didn't want the dlc and the micro transaction life and all of that. Didn't want the experience to rely on someone maintaining a server.

    I knew from the beginning what I would be getting into when I decided to get involved in SoT. I knew it was temporary, I knew I'd have to deal with decisions the devs make, changes the devs make, I knew I'd have to deal with the reality of this space, the live service experience. This was a ride, a trip to the county fair. I was paying for the experience around others, the sights, the community experience.

    In my view I opted into this knowing what it was. It was part of the deal when I chose to participate. There are lots of single player games that are more fun than SoT as a gaming experience, this was about the ride. I paid for the ride, every ride ends eventually.

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    @spartan-dsp96 said in End of Life Contingency Plan.:

    @wolfmanbush I respectfully disagree, it's a romantic sentiment you've expressed, but from a consumer standpoint, if I paid $60 for the game, spent a couple hundred on cosmetics from the emporium over the years, I expect there to be some way for me to play the game and content I bought even offline. I think as gamers we've been letting these big studios get away with depriving us of the ownership of games we buy. The industry has inverted "products" into "services" of a finite duration, but they are still charging premium prices.

    I'm pretty sure you signed away those rights when you agreed to the ToS.

    Online games can and do just disappear, and with games like this one that use a lot of 3rd party tools to operate are not likely to be distributed after they get shut down because they legally can not distribute those tools even in binary format. The best you could hope for is if someone reverse engineers their own server software and there are people hosting it or you host it yourself.

  • Europa4033
    Commander
    Insider

    @d3adst1ck said in End of Life Contingency Plan.:

    @spartan-dsp96 said in End of Life Contingency Plan.:

    @wolfmanbush I respectfully disagree, it's a romantic sentiment you've expressed, but from a consumer standpoint, if I paid $60 for the game, spent a couple hundred on cosmetics from the emporium over the years, I expect there to be some way for me to play the game and content I bought even offline. I think as gamers we've been letting these big studios get away with depriving us of the ownership of games we buy. The industry has inverted "products" into "services" of a finite duration, but they are still charging premium prices.

    I'm pretty sure you signed away those rights when you agreed to the ToS.

    Online games can and do just disappear, and with games like this one that use a lot of 3rd party tools to operate are not likely to be distributed after they get shut down because they legally can not distribute those tools even in binary format. The best you could hope for is if someone reverse engineers their own server software and there are people hosting it or you host it yourself.

    100% this^^. Even World of Warcraft can pull the plug tomorrow, and everything you've ever "owned" on your account, is theirs, which you agreed to.

  • KeylessWord4029
    Ship Mate

    i kinda feel like they are preping for end of life already. the site redesign hide the emissary ledger page. its still there but you have to manually type it or bookmark it. they said with the playstation release they will no longer be adding new emissary ledger rewards. my friend has been holding off on some achievements because he only likes to play when he can min/max his play time. well now theres nothing to look forward to. its the typical "too few people are at that level of rewards so we cant justify putting in the time or money to make new cosmetics for the minority" also emissary ledgers arent a thing in safer seas. so once they open up experience in safer seas... theres 500 levels the rep gain is so abysmal in safer seas theres no reason to restrict it. but i predict in 2-3 years safer seas will get an update in preperation to close the doors on high seas.

    same with athena not being available on safer sea... why? cause the chest of legends is the single most valuable and rarist piece of loot because you can only get it from the very end of a 2 hour long voyage for all 3 other trade companies before you get that ONE x marks the spot that has the coveted item? well that was 6 years ago.... we have bottle voyages giving athena loot in 2 events now, pop up plunder giving athena loot, fort of fortune, actual other athena loot on voyages. theres so much athena loot out there its almost lost its uniqueness. in fact between chest of fortune and the orbs now you have 1 item thats harder to earn with orbs that are super easy to obtain

    but yea we are already just doing recolors on the emporium sets and as cool as they look the obsidian stuff this season is just recolors... amazing recolors but less effort to recolor than come up with new cosmetics. so the signs are already there that its started to reach a point where the emporium might not be enough to keep this ship afloat much longer. the push to playstation has probably helped delay the inevitable but as fun as some of these updates are they usually find a way to make them so tedious that the magic wares off pretty fast and keep those who have been around since early on satiated just isnt possible new players have an almost seemingly endless amount of content to farm. but for those who 100% everything every season it released.... i wonder how many of them are even still around. theres a lot of names on here who are day1 players. but i imagine even they are more active on here than in the game.

    we love this game. i dont think any of us want to see it end. but everything has its time and everything ends.... i think doctor who said that... and probably many other people but yea.

  • WolfManbush
    Champion

    @keylessword4029 said in End of Life Contingency Plan.:

    i kinda feel like they are preping for end of life already.

    6 year old game in a space that is struggling. No doubt that it's an uncertain time but I've never once felt people were right about this and it has been said for years.

    Nothing ever really lined up with the narrative. The deals have always been big and big deals are based on confidence in the numbers.

    I disagree with a lot of what they do that is in their control but they've never run this game like they were preparing for the end.

    They tinker with way too much to be preparing for the end. They recently brought in third party anticheat, they are still doing what they view as balancing, they are still fixing random stuff that is more about quality of the product than serving loud feedback.

    None of that is necessary for a game that is just gonna go lights out at some point in the near future. It's because they are still trying to create a quality adventure experience for the future, as a live service game.

  • Hefty Henri
    Marauder

    @wolfmanbush said in End of Life Contingency Plan.:

    they are still doing what they view as balancing

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