Yes they are, but if you want to play a good naval battle game now, Blackwake is really good. They just introduced several different ships and fort invasions in a recent update.
We don't know that yet. The game is not finished, and Ubisoft is usually good with updating. The game is based on Assassin's Creed engine, so they have the tools to make land gameplay happen. It would be more accurate to say that it probably won't be an open water free roaming game, at least from what we've seen.
This seems to be an ongoing trend in AAA gaming at the moment. "Where the fuck did the time and budget go towards this thing?"What the fuck were the doing with all of that development time? Just making sure the water looked fucking awesome?
Not even Monster Hunter held strong for too long and that game features both masterclass gameplay, progression and compelling social gameplay whereas I don’t expect Sea of thieves to survive the week. It’s not fortnite or PUBG.
Yea, I’m starting to think it’s time Rare really does close up shop.
Off topic but you know MHWorld just celebrated 7+million copies sold the other week. Its the best selling Mohun game ever. Even compared to the record shattering psp games.
https://www.polygon.com/2018/3/5/17080334/monster-hunter-world-sales-capcom
From what I seen, you get to control your captain. Remember, a large part of AC4's ship battle was boarding. Also, we have really seen that much, so we'll hold out until E3 before we can really say what's what.They already said it wasn't. You don't even control a character, your "ship" is your character. There's no land based gameplay, no getting off a ship going into taverns, exploring land or anything.
It's basically like World of Warships but set in earlier times, which is disappointing since most people that wanted a sailing game from Ubi after Black Flag wanted an actual....full-fledged golden age of sailing game, being able to choose to sail under different flags (IE France, Spain, England), be a privateer, pirate, merchant. Find people to join your crew with their own stats, etc and growing them as you play the game. Having a storyline with quests/sidequests and things.
Not the point. It sold well but doesn’t seem to have retained as many players as you’d think. 90% of the day one players that took over my friends list dropped to 2-3 players within 3 weeks. And that’s a game with the right loot hooks, chase and compelling cooperative gameplay encounters.
Point is... what do you expect a game with none of that to do?
Not the point. It sold well but doesn’t seem to have retained as many players as you’d think. 90% of the day one players that took over my friends list dropped to 2-3 players within 3 weeks. And that’s a game with the right loot hooks, chase and compelling cooperative gameplay encounters.
Point is... what do you expect a game with none of that to do?
There is no story quests. There's no dialogue either beyond NPC sound effects. It's definitely not Battle Royale, and you can't really get creative like in Minecraft.I think that happens with most Triple A games. It comes out>people beat it>there's an update>people either move on or wait for more content. There's always that peak of players during that initial launch because everyone takes a bite. Everyone wants in on it.
It's sad when I think about Monster Hunter 3 and 4. Just because I thought they lasted longer. I might be wrong about MHW, but it's also streamlined it for people who wanted a lot smoother experience. It's also great to look at and it's fun. You can also get a Monster Hunter expert to join your game and slay a beast in a few short minutes.
I almost dread an SOS because I'll get shown up. I haven't finished MHW yet and I'm ok with that. I did solo until I SOS a creature and he was a MHW expert if you ask me. Everything he did was grade A level stuff. I don't normally feel this way, but the new charm feeling wore off.
Sea of Thieves though needs something. It's cool to think about hopping on XBox Live at night and joining people. Hell, I had a similar experience with the FFXI beta on 360. There will be Sea of Thieves streams and everyone will mention it in their Twitter stream for a week or two. Then what, Far Cry 5 and then God of War...
I hope this games does well, but who knows. The trend for games like this need something to hold its player base otherwise it's a discussion for a month and then everyone moves on. I've been trying to follow the discussion of this game. I was hyped about it, but I'm getting FC5 this month and God of War the next.
I could buy this, but I hear there aren't any real story quests. is it from the battle royals mindset or minecraft era?
From what I seen, you get to control your captain. Remember, a large part of AC4's ship battle was boarding. Also, we have really seen that much, so we'll hold out until E3 before we can really say what's what.
It would be nice to have such a game, but that's ways off, and Sea of Thieves is certainly not that game. We're pretty much hoping for a Star Citizen of pirate ships.
Rare is back, baby
Metacritic is officially showing a score now for Sea of Thieves.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-one/sea-of-thieves
It's currently at 67 right now
TBH that's only based on four reviews right now, not exactly the largest sample size.Metacritic is officially showing a score now for Sea of Thieves.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-one/sea-of-thieves
It's currently at 67 right now
After each organised playtest session we were encouraged to give feedback on the experience. we would play for around 45 minutes to an hour each time. perhaps once a week. after the first few sessions, people in our barn ( Rare is split into 4 wings of offices they call Barns) were finding any excuse not to play... because we weren't bug hunting and such, but expected to play the game as a average player would, it just got very boring very quickly. admittedly, the first few sessions were hilarious... but the experience wore thin very quickly. I always thought that the initial Unity prototype that was developed along side the unreal version at the beginning was more fun.
I'm not sure if they made it into the final game but in the prototype you could steal other players ships, and you could set ships on fire ... often accidentally by trying to cook food. it was a blast.
Funny anecdote , even after working on it for 2 years or so.. there were still a lot of people who were working on it that wouldn't have been able to tell you what the actual game was. .. or was going to be. It never seemed like a solid idea.
The original idea was that it was a buddy adventure. Like the kids movies the devs grew up with. Where 4 friends or so would be pulled out of their ordinary life and go on some wild adventure. It think that initial idea was awesome and had so much potential. We were even taken on an outing near the beginning of the project to watch The Goonies at a privately rented cinema with free beer to get a feel for what the game had to FEEL like when you played it. I absolutely believe that they had all the best intentions of making a truly awesome game. I personally just feel that they spent too much time on the tiny details rather than adding content.
I'm not sure how melee works for example coz when I left a year ago, there was still no melee combat in the game, or enemies. which is a bit crazy when you think about it. leaving major gameplay issues til almost the end of production.
They were really anal about every detail of the game. Ranging from things like getting the characters hands to place exactly on the anchor wheel, climbing ladders with treasure chests had to look believable and I personally had a piece of work returned with the feedback.... the thumb needs to be rotated about 10 degress... when referring to the hand on the balustrade of the ghost ship.. if it's still even there.
I have never worked on a game that was developed so slowly.
All I can say is that the plans and ideas for the game were bigger than what was released but there were never any solid plans on extra game mechanics. For instance there were originally 7 different zones I think but that was cut down to 3. The main game loop has always been the same though. Personally i was hoping for dungeons and raids and such but that has never been a thing. My worry would be that it's taken them 4 years or so to produce what's there. Which isn't a lot in terms of variety. The main pirate ship was constantly being worked on the whole time I was there. That's 2 years for 1 asset. It became a bit of a joke among us. Personally i think they need to be a bit more relaxed and not be so anal about perfection if they're going to release DLC. Otherwise there's just not going to be enough content.
I'm surprised people actually expected anything different. If you look at Rare's track record, what have they released in the last 10 years that wasn't wafer thin on content and was actually any good? It's like the Rare fanboys forgot about the recent games and were expecting the same calibre of games from yesteryear... but it's not the same devs working there any more. There may be one or 2 but it's a very different studio from what it was when the good games were being made.
I don't know if [microtransactions] made it into the final release. At one point that was definitely how they planned to fund the game. I'm also seeing people say that the game cost $60. So a full price game. Their intention was to release at £20 from what I remember. I have no idea what changed.
The core game loop hadn't been solidly defined at that point, other than get chest, return chest, get gold and buy ship upgrades. (Which weren't in the UE4 version of the game at that time ). We always thought there would be more... but then there never was 'more' . Seriously, while all the interns and juniors were running around just being happy to be working at Rare, being featured in video blogs in 'look how hip and happening Rare is' PR stunts, many experienced devs were just looking at each other with the shared opinion that 'this isn't a game'. It was bizarre.
Apparently this is ex-Rare Rob Beddall, he linked his website in his comments. Some more quotes:
Apparently this is Rob Beddall, he linked his website in his comments. Some more quotes:
I don't know if [microtransactions] made it into the final release. At one point that was definitely how they planned to fund the game.
I'm also seeing people say that the game cost $60. So a full price game. Their intention was to release at £20 from what I remember. I have no idea what changed.
You sort of have to wonder how much longer Microsoft is going to keep Rare around, consider the company's burn-it-down strategy with game studios in general.
Rare is back, baby!!!!!Metacritic is officially showing a score now for Sea of Thieves.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-one/sea-of-thieves
It's currently at 67 right now
Unless he's bound by an NDA (in which case, utter stupidity), it's perfectly OK legally to do this.Wow! Its nice read insider information and all like this. But this Beddall guy needs to watch his ass posting with his real name like that!
Usually this kind of information is anonymously leaked to the press/blogger. But to post it in his own name...
Ok, so I previously said some things, which I now can say differently. Its not a 180 by any means, but more of a... Lets say a 90?
Anyway, after playing for a lot more hours with friends they knew what they were doing, with mics, it opened up a lot. It was a lot of fun. But it was a lot of fun, because we were pratting around while doing what needed to be done. We were messing around, getting chests, laughing at getting rare chests that fill your boat up with water so you have to keep getting the bucket out, laughing at trying to find obvious chest locations that just did not want to play ball... I had a lot of fun.
HOWEVER...
This game is the classic bare bones (no pun intended) example of what not to do. Yes. I had fun. But has that fun got sea legs? No... I can say with certainty it hasn't. Unlike some games, lets Say The Division, you are not in control for 90% of the time. You have a boat, and that means most of your time is spent sailing to the next destination. Which is, quite frankly, boring. Yes it can be funny when your friend gets the sails wrong, catches the wind, and makes you circle the island 8 times. But... And? I mean... And what? What else? Locking up people in the brig? Throwing up on deck? Its just wasted, on so many levels.
The enemy variety is something Rare need to be hung for. One mob? ONE? Oh sorry, sometimes they wear a bandana, or a hat, or have a gun... Wow.... That's... What? That's awful? You're telling me, in a game that looks this good, with designs this good, you don't have huge spiders, crazy wildlife, monsters, tribes and all sorts... you have... skeletons... And not just any skeletons. Dumb, easy to kill skeletons that don't really do anything? That's very poor.
The actual gameplay itself has a solid foundation, but man, there are zero features to it. There's nothing. I disagree completely with the lack of progression. Sure they want everybody to be "the same", but hell, not even a viewable pirate rank? I can't upgrade my weapons once I pay the quite frankly stupid gold for them?
And the gold...? What the hell? It would take you hours upon hours to buy just lets say half a dozen things. The game simply doesn't have that much gameplay time in it. So its a chicken and egg situation there. There's not enough to do, so you don't get enough gold.
My suggestions, from what I've played, which may go against what they want. But they are suggestions none the less:
- Viewable player rank next to name take as a culmination of your 3 main stats.
- Lower prices of, well, everything.
- Make more exotic loot, something you can find on an island, something rare. It could be very good, very powerful, very accurate, but also temporary. Maybe a weapon you can collect, however you can chose to store it on your ship and use it later? Lets say you are being boarded, well, head to the captains cabin and pull your flaking sword of souls off the wall and take them on.
- Ditch that good awful character selection process, and allow you to change visual appearance at will ingame at any stage.
- Allow a way for newbies to play their own mode with fast travel. However, limit fast travel to one location, and don't allow chests to be transported over.
- Give players a way to hold, or buy, a map. A holdable map, that will be at a set zoom level of the local area.
- The quest maps? left trigger flips the page, that's great. But 99% of maps have nothing on the back. Switch this so that it brings the map up to your face nice and close. I play on a 4k 65" tv and i struggle to see the details.
- Add more things for single players to do. As in... anything. Add some random NPC questlines. Add some ghost ships that have skeletons on them, that have loot. Random things in the world to keep you engaged.
- Fix the performance on the X. Seriously. The screen tearing is some of the worst, and the frame rate in some cases chugs along. That's not a good showcase for the X.
- Just add more content!!
Do some of these and you will help give it legs a lot more. But sadly, i don't think this is the type of game rare want. I think they want to give you a sandbox to just have fun in... The problem is, the sandbox is 90% covered in water, so I can't really do anything other than get eaten by sharks...
But remember, its the reviews we hoped for!Rare is back, baby!!!!!
Oh wait...
This really does feel empty even with the little bit I played. I loved Viva Piñata and it kept me really busy, what happened with this? This game also has a nice family appeal to it but so far it's a missed opportunity. I can't help feel this is another Destiny or Man's Sky, lots of potential held back by lack of content.
Unfortunately, that's not how corporations work. They worry about money more than their players. If the game doesn't do well, Microsoft won't be interested in continuing support for it.100% this. in a year it will be all patched up (ala no man's sky) but the world will have moved on.
Its table scraps. a beautiful fun framework with nothing to hang on it.
...except in this case, they put the skeleton crew on the islandsThey'll put a skeleton crew on it and ride out the game in its current state.
But remember, its the reviews we hoped for!