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Xbox and Rare celebrate 5 years of Sea of Thieves. Deluxe edition released. Game is now Steam Deck verified.

Ozriel

M$FT
The answer is that simple. Right.. while my response is my personal opinion and feeling, not taking into consideration of the friend coop side.

I personally don't get it. Don't take it as an attack on possible beloved SoT..

The way I see it is I don't hear anything about SoT unless it's this one off news. I see what brings me back to Destiny and why it has its following -:good blend of pve / pvp / single player campaigns / pvepvp . I personally do not see it for SoT.

Sea of Thieves remains quite popular. 21k concurrents yesterday on Steam, and it's usually in the top 20 most played Xbox games. But it's still way less popular than Destiny 2.

Why does it have it's following? Because people like to play it co-op. It's that's simple.

It's fine if you don't personally get it. I don't play SoT myself.
 

daTRUballin

Member
Five years since their last game, not sure that’s something to celebrate,
I agree somewhat.

I've always been incredibly happy that Rare has finally found some success with such a popular game, but I'd have been even happier if SoT wasn't literally the only thing we had from them this whole time.

I wish their output speed was similar to the likes of Obsidian or Insomniac. Hell, even Naughty Dog is faster than they are.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
I agree somewhat.

I've always been incredibly happy that Rare has finally found some success with such a popular game, but I'd have been even happier if SoT wasn't literally the only thing we had from them this whole time.

I wish their output speed was similar to the likes of Obsidian or Insomniac. Hell, even Naughty Dog is faster than they are.

Not entirely a fair comparison to contrast them vs studios with more than 2x their employee count.
Rare’s slightly over 200 people, and they’re the only one on that list with an active GaaS game.

Content updates to SoT have be very meaty, so it’s puzzling for anyone to go “it’s been 5 years since their game came out”.

That said, we’ve overdue a look at Everwild. Hopefully at E3 this year.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
Not entirely a fair comparison to contrast them vs studios with more than 2x their employee count.
Rare’s slightly over 200 people, and they’re the only one on that list with an active GaaS game.

Content updates to SoT have be very meaty, so it’s puzzling for anyone to go “it’s been 5 years since their game came out”.

That said, we’ve overdue a look at Everwild. Hopefully at E3 this year.
That is very true but at the same time it was rumoured for years that they had 3 development teams at Rare (1 was supposedly headed by the legendary Gregg Mayles). Obviously Gregg has now taken over Everwild. When you see what small teams/sub teams at Moon and Obsidian can produce it’s still fair to wish we’d had more from Rare. They are magic.
 

daTRUballin

Member
Not entirely a fair comparison to contrast them vs studios with more than 2x their employee count.
Rare’s slightly over 200 people, and they’re the only one on that list with an active GaaS game.

Content updates to SoT have be very meaty, so it’s puzzling for anyone to go “it’s been 5 years since their game came out”.

That said, we’ve overdue a look at Everwild. Hopefully at E3 this year.
Yeah, but content updates are different. As neat as they are. I'm talking about other games. I'm not trying to suggest that they haven't been doing anything AT ALL for 5 years, of course.

Back on the Xbox 360, Rare would release games for the system almost annually, as divisive as some of them were. I get that it's a different time though.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Ahh an Xbox thread.

Time to take a dump......oooooppppp too late people got here first.


On Topic
Such a solid title and still going strong.
I didnt know it was SteamDeck Verified.....for all SteamDeck owners have a chilled sail and slowly get into the game, its not that daunting.

Make sure your mic is on, whenever you can smell someone is going to attack you, beg for mercy and say you dont have alot of cash or booty and are just trying to relax and enjoy the waves.
90% of the time people will leave you alone......the other 10%.........well thet are pirates what did you expect?



P.S
That last 10% can be convinced if you tell them you are high as fuck and wouldnt even be a good challenge for them.
Theyll laugh and keep going their merry way.
 
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Banjo64

cumsessed
Back on the Xbox 360, Rare would release games for the system almost annually, as divisive as some of them were. I get that it's a different time though.
Didn’t appreciate what I had at the time but PDZ, Nuts n Bolts, Kameo, Viva Piñata and TiP were great IMO and whilst they pushed those out they also released Diddy King Racing DS and Viva Piñata DS.
 
While personally I don't play SOT, it's pretty cool to see it take off. One, because it made people eat Crow about how Rare was dead, and two because it's variety for people to have fun with.

Now I am staunch in my belief that more exclusives on each console the better, and I don't want MS to give Sony anything hecause of how Sony has acted with them, but SOT is one game that I could understand if MS was to put it one PS.
It's a big enough hit to be making money being on Xbox and PC only, but these live services games need more people playing them to survive. Grow or die is the fact they have to deal with. As it stands SOT is unique in the game industry. No other live service game is like it, and Ubisofts efforts to copy it have fallen flat.
The added bonus is that it's not free to play, and so they are getting the money up front and then the continued money following that.
Putting this on PS would be a good move. No one is going to buy an Xbox to play SOT, but a ton of people on PS would buy it.
Obviously Sony would need to be brought to heel over cross play, but that should be doable.
 

Eotheod

Member
Heck yes! Excellent game, jump in every so often just to enjoy the casual sailing of what is probably the best ocean-based game ever. I do wish combat could get a decent overhaul, like everything else that has succeeded in growing combat really needs a revision. Otherwise it's all gravy baby on this boat ride!
 

daTRUballin

Member
Didn’t appreciate what I had at the time but PDZ, Nuts n Bolts, Kameo, Viva Piñata and TiP were great IMO and whilst they pushed those out they also released Diddy King Racing DS and Viva Piñata DS.
Don't forget Jetpac Refuelled for XBLA. Conker: Live & Reloaded also came out on the original Xbox 5 months before the 360 launched with Kameo and PDZ. Not to mention the DKC GBA ports they did during that time.

Their output was actually kind of insane looking back. It's just that people never realized it because they would compare it to their Nintendo output which was even MORE insane.
 
Titles like Nuts & Bolts and Kinect Sports were certainly very divisive to say the least. While PDZ is literally considered to be one of their worst games ever.

Kinect Sports was their most successful game ever at the time in company history, that's why it had 2 sequels. Kinect Sports and Season 2 sold over 6 million on the 360 as of 2012.
 
Kinect Sports was their most successful game ever at the time in company history, that's why it had 2 sequels. Kinect Sports and Season 2 sold over 6 million on the 360 as of 2012.

Found myself playing a little of that Kinect sports title with my wife/young kids when it released. For me, I only miss the Kinect fitness app thing. It was so bloody well made with the real time feedback and colour coding etc, better than $10-20K Peloton rip off equipment of today even, no joke or hyperbole either.

I wonder if they could ever get Kinect sensors down to the size of fitting in a smartphone? Why the hell not? The smartphone industry destroyed the camera/film industry and miniaturised lens/apps etc. Mobile gaming could have an interesting avenue with a Kinect enabled phone and a wireless headset.
 
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Found myself playing a little of that Kinect sports title with my wife/young kids when it released. For me, I only miss the Kinect fitness app thing. It was so bloody well made with the real time feedback and colour coding etc, better than $10-20K Peloton rip off equipment of today even, no joke or hyperbole either.

I wonder if they could ever get Kinect sensors down to the size of fitting in a smartphone? Why the hell not? The smartphone industry destroyed the camera/film industry and miniaturised lens/apps etc. Mobile gaming could have an interesting avenue with a Kinect enabled phone and a wireless headset.

Not sure about the film industry that's still pretty strong.

But Kinect for it to IMPROVE would need more parts. I'm actually surprised they got Kinect 2.0 on Xbox One to be as compact as it was with the new improvements.

Now you may be able to cut the Xbox One Kinect in half, but still not there to have it fit in a smart phone imo.
 
Five years since their last game, not sure that’s something to celebrate,
Five years since Bingie released Destiny 2 as well.
Look, I get that it's a little disappointing that you can't say Rare haven't produced anything decent now, but just accept that Rare made a great game that is played by a shit ton of people.
 

01011001

Banned
When I played this around launch, you just sail around doing nothing.
If I play now, with a friend or two - is there anything compelling for us?

there are long quest lines called Tall Tales.
they are multiple mission long quest lines where you have to solve puzzles and fight enemies etc.

the main progression is buying multiple ships and customizing you and your ship by getting lots of money, leveling up your reputation with different Factions.
 
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Not sure about the film industry that's still pretty strong.

But Kinect for it to IMPROVE would need more parts. I'm actually surprised they got Kinect 2.0 on Xbox One to be as compact as it was with the new improvements.

Now you may be able to cut the Xbox One Kinect in half, but still not there to have it fit in a smart phone imo.

I mean the change from cameras being physically film based to digital, smartphones had a hand in that too along side digital cameras. At some point the tech is likely to get small enough.
 

Holammer

Member
233k Steam reviews means it's approaching 10 million units sold just via Steam.
Add another 38k for a total of 271k. The number on top is only copies bought on Steam, scroll down to the users reviews to see the full number with purchase type. They did this early on because of attempts at gaming the system with freely issued Steam keys.

Game is no doubt in the 8-10m copies sold range.
 

poodaddy

Gold Member
My daughter loves this game, and I have to admit I've enjoyed it some myself. I just wish it wasn't a persistent online world. I adore so many things about the gameplay and art style, but putting work into finding treasure just to have some guys bomb your boat fuckin puts me off it hard. That being said, I get that that's the point; pirates and all, and it's well done. Just frustrating lol.
 

ManaByte

Banned
My daughter loves this game, and I have to admit I've enjoyed it some myself. I just wish it wasn't a persistent online world. I adore so many things about the gameplay and art style, but putting work into finding treasure just to have some guys bomb your boat fuckin puts me off it hard. That being said, I get that that's the point; pirates and all, and it's well done. Just frustrating lol.
Its not a persistent world. Each game is just an instance with five total ships.
 

Three

Member
When you see what small teams/sub teams at Moon and Obsidian can produce it’s still fair to wish we’d had more from Rare. They are magic.
Rare will always have a special place in my heart. I remember I visited a decade or more ago and a dev (a university colleague) was showing me how he used a 360 gpu to model the electrical signal in a heartbeat. He did this I think because a family member had heart issues IIRC. Gave me a nice Banjo mousemat back then too.
 
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daTRUballin

Member
Five years since Bingie released Destiny 2 as well.
Look, I get that it's a little disappointing that you can't say Rare haven't produced anything decent now, but just accept that Rare made a great game that is played by a shit ton of people.
You do have to admit though. As a diehard fan of the studio who wishes we had more from Rare, it's a little rough having such long wait times between games.

Then again, it could be even worse. It could be like Retro Studios with one game per decade lol
 

KungFucius

King Snowflake
I know very little about this other than it was something I figured I'd try on gamepass. I have it queued up, I didn't see this thread but saw the 2023 special anniversary edition and was surprised it has been that long.
 
Had some great times with this game, don't play it much a more except with my son who is on it right now.
The first event they did the Hungering Deep was honestly some of the best online gaming ever, wish they would do it again. You had to team up with another crew, at a certain island then play a drum while sailing twords a certain point. Then fight the massive shark alongside the second crew. Fun times.
 

Dane

Member
All I remember is that i've tried to play it alone and once realized that the ship gameplay was almost a sim like game I said "uh oh" and dropped it.
 

Havoc2049

Member
Everytime I hear about SOT, just reminds me how it's hidden by forced coop, and the many times I've uninstalled it. I just don't see how this game is still alive. Might check on it again to see if you can actually use a ship and not forced to a shitty slooth because of coop.
Ninety-five percent of the game can be played solo. There have only been a few events here and there that require a multi-crew alliance to complete the event, and even then a solo crewed ship can join the alliance. I actually enjoy the challenge of solo slooping and have completed Forts, Skeleton Forts, Skeleton Fleets, Forts of the Damned and Forts of Fortune solo. With this new update, it's even easier to be a solo sloop, as world events are now tailored to crew size. My buddy and I took down two Forts of the Damned yesterday in a two person sloop and it was easy compared to what it used to be. Harpooning treasure and selling treasure has also been streamlined, which definitely benefits someone running solo or two person co-op.

Do microsoft games sign you into your xbox account so all your progress moves over from your xbox cloud sync?
Yes, you can go seamlessly from console, PC and XCloud, with all your progress in place.

summary of video?
Honestly, it's too massive of an update for a quick summary. They tweaked and added tons of stuff in the game and it would be like 20-30 bullet points.

Here are the dev notes for the uodate:
https://www.seaofthieves.com/release-notes/2.8.0
 
I mean the change from cameras being physically film based to digital, smartphones had a hand in that too along side digital cameras. At some point the tech is likely to get small enough.

That was already happening, and it took phones a long time to get to the current cameras which were already in those flat mini cams.

Maybe in another 5 years, but we aren't talking about a regular selfie/film lens, we are talking kinect with extra tech behind it.
 
You do have to admit though. As a diehard fan of the studio who wishes we had more from Rare, it's a little rough having such long wait times between games.

Then again, it could be even worse. It could be like Retro Studios with one game per decade lol
I think alot of us don't understand how many people it takes to keep a live service game up and running.
I would have thought that 90% of their devs would have jumped onto Everwild once SOTs dropped but they didn't.
I would prefer that Rare was doing Banjo or Perfect Dark etc, but they want to try different things. They hit on a good one with SOTs. Sure it's not for me, but people like it and Microsoft would be over the moon with how SOTs is going. Rare are one of MSs golden children at the moment, and the ongoing success of SOT has given them the ability to take all the time they need to redo Everwild, which hopefully means that it's really good.
 

daTRUballin

Member
Still can't get over how amazing the sea water looks in this otherwise cartoony game.
Well, no reason a cartoony game can't have amazing water. Rare has never disappointed when it comes to visuals and they have a history of making great looking water too. :p
 
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