Sea of Thieves!

You can play alone with a sloop, but otherwise it’s hard to avoid multiplayer idiots in a multiplayer only game…

Really? I thought it still put you with a crew of 3. I’ll give it another shot.

You get to choose the size of your crew. A 1 person sloop is considered hard mode as it’s hard to hold your own when you are outmanned and outgunned. But it’s certainly a possibility.

If nothing else, it’s a good way to familiarise yourself with all the controls.

Make sure all your lanterns are switched off so other ships don’t spot you from afar at night.

I wonder if anyone who has seen that comic has smiled at it.

I have that deja vu feeling again.

So I somehow was invited into the Scale test this weekend.

I started the game and chose a 4-player galleon ship. I was placed into an already active ship with a very disciplined crew. I learned a lot just watching the other players. This crew’s main objective was chasing down other ships and gunning them down. We sank several ships including ones that were anchored near islands with their crews off searching for treasure on the island. My crew wasn’t entirely bloodthirsty though. We eventually came upon an anchored sloop with a 2-player crew. We started using our personal weapons to fire at the smaller crew then another player and I boarded their ship. The smaller crew knew they were out-gunned and out-matched so they took out an accordion and hurdy gurdy and started playing music on the deck. I lowered my weapon and pulled out my hurdy gurdy and played along with the other crew. Eventually my entire crew joined me on the sloop’s deck, we all played instruments for a while and then left the smaller crew in peace and sailed away.

This is a really enjoyable game but not one I would have plopped down $60 for. I am glad it is included in the Xbox Games Pass (which I have purchased a year of in advance). I can’t see getting completely immersed and dedicating huge amounts of time to Sea of Thieves but I can see logging on in between other games for some occasional hijinks on the high seas. A perfect game to play with a few drinks.

My other takeaway is that the experience shares a quality with Left 4 Dead. Playing L4D (or Sea of Thieves) solo is very tense and deeply engaging. You cannot rely on anyone else, but you can move at your own pace and enjoy the environment, scenery, and little moments of emergent narrative. When you play with others (especially randoms) everything is a race to the next objective, there is little downtime, and more of a focus on hilarity and chaos.

Another thing: My god this game provides so many amazing screenshots. The water physics, the skybox, the dynamic time of day, the horizon, all combine in a truly gorgeous tableau! It creates a strong desire to just explore and seek out what lays beyond the horizon.

These are low res sadly and almost do the game an injustice:

I played it a bit as well. I actually pre-ordered it on PC. I surprised myself by doing so, because I don’t often have time for extended co-op play sessions. Or at least can rarely coordinate them in advance. But I love the atmosphere and vibe of the game. Not cutting edge graphics, but beautiful nonetheless.

I hopped into a one man sloop and simply tooled around islands. Rarely encountering anyone. I was happy when I found a couple of chests to cash in back at port.

I did sail into a storm when another small ship was exiting. Our ships hit, (he intentionally rammed me) but mine sank almost immediately! Luckily, I didn’t have any treasure on board, so not a great loss. However the dudes kept circling around. I managed to swim underwater and board their ship. I killed one dude, and was gleefully preparing to abscond with THEIR ship. but the other fella shot me as I was raising anchor. Pretty exciting ‘emergent’ play.

I can’t tell how much content this game will offer. I wouldn’t mind if there were some long form quests to keep me focused, as I can imagine just searching islands, and exploring the occasional sunken ship, while fun, could put me off. I’ve yet to play more than a few minutes on a larger crew. Hopefully there will be a few folks at Qt3 in game after launch so I don’t need to partner up w/ randos.

I got to play a little in the test over the weekend, too. I played solo, just a little sloop for myself. I didn’t run into another ship the entire time, which was somewhat disappointing. I mean, my last post here, I was complaining about random people just coming by, sinking our ship and taking off (you’re part of the problem, @AntediluvianArk! ;)), but not seeing anyone was something else.

I’m still debating on picking this up. The game pass is tempting, but I’m an old man, and it’s hard for me to stomach the idea of paying for something month after month and not own anything for it if I cancel (I guess Netflix is the exception, heh). Not sure I’m completely down with the $60 pricetag for it though, either. Of course, I know that what’s in the test so far is but a tiny slice of the content, but still. Hmmm.

Still, It was fun sailing around and learning the mechanics by myself. I got caught in a crazy storm trying to get into an out-of-my-way outpost- that was fun. And just to be clear, all the stuff for sale in the various vendor stores is just cosmetic, right? No matter that it says ‘perfectly balanced’ or whatever.

That’s correct. Pet parrots and the like.

I’m really looking forward to going on an adventure with a Qt3 crew post release.

The sound design is the star of the show for me. At least as much, or more so than the water and pretty lighting.

Everything has such a perfect, meaty sound. From the thwack of a mast angled as far as it can go, to the sudden explosion of a sail perfectly catching the wind (along with a wonderful little musical trill when you manage to get all 3 galleon sails catching the wind at the same time).

It’s a multilayer symphony. Close your eyes and you can still imagine being exactly where the fancy graphics say you are.

It’s glorious.

That sounds wonderful, no pun intended.

Another stress test this weekend, starting tomorrow (Friday):

On last week’s test, here was my experience:

  • Oh cool, I’m on a ship, these three seem like they know what they’re doing
  • Wow, open water, this is so gorgeous!
  • Uh, oh. We’re approaching an island, and there’s already a ship parked in front of it. My teammates are loading cannons. I wonder if I can do that? Hmmm, doesn’t seem like it. Maybe it’s already loaded?
  • Oh look, we’re firing on the enemy ship. I wonder if it’s empty since they’re not firing back.
  • Oh shit, they’re firing back. What do I do? Let me see if I can hop onto one of these cannons. Hmm, I can aim, but not fire. How come my teammate is firing?
  • I’ll go downstairs. Is there any weapons or equipment I can pick up anywhere?
  • Oh crap, the ship is filling with water. Hmmm, it says I need wood to repair this hole.
  • I remember walking next to some barrels where it says press X to pick up wood.
  • Yay, I was able to pick up wood and then go to take it to the hole. But it doesn’t seem to be fixed, and I’m under water and drowning.

Anyway, really weird way of introducing you to a game. No tutorial, no instructions, no weapons, the buttons on the controller don’t seem to do anything. I think I’ve lost all interest.

Keep in mind it’s a stress test. I’d hope they actually have some welcoming tutorial on full release.

I was similarly confused as well. Except I fired up solo play and figured out the key mappings, and how to repair, load cannons, store bananas, wood, cannonballs, etc.

Ditto. One old the options on startup is ‘play solo with your own ship’. Do that, run around for 20 minutes, you’re set.

I’m kind of glad I haven’t been exposed to these tests because they sound as if they can potentially backfire and give you a bad impression of what the final experience will be like. Stress tests gonna stress.

Yep. I did that once during the test to get to explore the ship and mechanics at my own pace and I thought it was a great way to gain confidence. I much prefer sailing with a crew, but that was a great way to learn.

I also expect the final game to have a much more fleshed out introduction to pirating. This was just a test.

I hope they keep it that way. Not to be an old crank, but it’s really not hard and you make it sound as if it’s a very bad thing that a sum total of a couple of minutes of a battle left you confused.

Afterwards did you not hop on the new ship and figure it out? Once you learn the main concept of interacting in the game, everything is pretty much easy. Your character is doing things, to use a thing you need it in your hands. That’s it.

If you have any amount of curiosity about how to interact with the game you are playing, this does not require a tutorial. It just requires that you briefly care to play with the game, which is kind of the entire point of games.

The things I interacted with didn’t seem to do anything.

In order to be curious about something, the game should establish something in order to get me interested in it. I guess for some the pirate theme itself is enough. I’ve made it quite clear that’s a blindspot for me. I have no idea why people find pirates fascinating, since I don’t. But I didn’t see anything in my brief time with the game that made me think “i want to invest more time in this”.

For example, firing cannons. In Sid Meier’s Pirates (from the 80s), I enjoyed firing cannons because of the way the ships were moving, and the juxtaposition between having to maneuver the ship and get it lined up to take a shot, while at the same time chasing the other ship. But firing a cannon in first person on a ship, where I’m only doing that one activity? That doesn’t seem as appealing to me.

As for your unapologetic stance on the interface, I just have to disagree. If I’m on the cannon, and I’m aiming, it should tell me something about what I should do. Maybe tell me what button it is to fire. Maybe tell me that the cannon is not armed so I need to load it first. Maybe tell me what button would fire if the cannon was loaded. Maybe if they want to be more realistic, let me press a button to lean forward in first person to tell whether or not the cannon is loaded (by opening the back of it somehow). There are several ways that can be handled better than just to let me aim the cannon and give me seemingly no options, with me pressing a bunch of buttons on the controller that do nothing.