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Sea of Thieves - (Good & Bad) Review Thread

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WaterAstro

Member
Here's a REAL review of actual players who played the game through beta as they're quitting the game. You'll hear their reactions as they switch games.



Bear with all their banter for 8 minutes, but they give their point about how there's nothing to do. They even compared Blackwake, an indie, early access game, having more content than Sea of Thieves.
Not my opinion. It's the opinion of a top streamer.
 

God Enel

Member
Here's a REAL review of actual players who played the game through beta as they're quitting the game. You'll hear their reactions as they switch games.



Bear with all their banter for 8 minutes, but they give their point about how there's nothing to do. They even compared Blackwake, an indie, early access game, having more content than Sea of Thieves.
Not my opinion. It's the opinion of a top streamer.


Yeah chat was even saying that the game should be called "no mans sea" and that a lot of stuff will be patched in afterwards like in no mans sky.

Though I have to admit the game does look great.
 

hiphopcr

Member
Yeah chat was even saying that the game should be called "no mans sea" and that a lot of stuff will be patched in afterwards like in no mans sky.
Guys clearly the massive difference is this is co-op in a shared world and every session is different. This is like saying any MP game doesn't have enough to do because it's just a multiplayer battles over and over.
 

Nikana

Go Go Neo Rangers!
Here's a REAL review of actual players who played the game through beta as they're quitting the game. You'll hear their reactions as they switch games.



Bear with all their banter for 8 minutes, but they give their point about how there's nothing to do. They even compared Blackwake, an indie, early access game, having more content than Sea of Thieves.
Not my opinion. It's the opinion of a top streamer.


Your vendetta to destroy this game is beyond nauseating. We get it, you don't like it. Like what do you want from people who are enjoying it? Do you just need them to agree with you so that you can feel better?

Genuinely I don't understand why it upsets you so much that somebody likes something you don't that you feel the need to find a "top streamers'" opinion to somehow vindicate that you're "right" with their "REAL" review.

For the love of gaming, MOVE ON WITH YOUR LIFE.
 

WaterAstro

Member
Your vendetta to destroy this game is beyond nauseating. We get it, you don't like it. Like what do you want from people who are enjoying it? Do you just need them to agree with you so that you can feel better?

Genuinely I don't understand why it upsets you so much that somebody likes something you don't that you feel the need to find a "top streamers'" opinion to somehow vindicate that you're "right" with their "REAL" review.

For the love of gaming, MOVE ON WITH YOUR LIFE.
lol, now real players' opinion don't even matter. Okay then.

Enjoy your selective quoted reviews of journalist who probably only put in a few hours and haven't played the beta.
 

Alx

Member
lol, now real players' opinion don't even matter. Okay then.

What makes them more "real" than other players ?
Some people like the game. Some don't. Those who do like it, play it. Those who don't go play other games instead.
That's how it's always worked, there's no reason to doubt the enthusiasm of people who enjoy what they got.
 

WaterAstro

Member
What makes them more "real" than other players ?
Some people like the game. Some don't. Those who do like it, play it. Those who don't go play other games instead.
That's how it's always worked, there's no reason to doubt the enthusiasm of people who enjoy what they got.
Because he isn't a fanboy, plays a lot of games, has solid reasons why he quits games.
 

Alx

Member
Because he isn't a fanboy, plays a lot of games, has solid reasons why he quits games.

It's fine if he has reasons to quit a game. Other people have reasons to keep playing it. It doesn't make one more right than the other, it just means different people have different tastes.
 

Algorum

Neo Member
Every reward being cosmetic with no real progression or stat system = Who Cares: The Game.

I get that it’s all about the socialization, but there needs to be more to keep players in.
Not every game needs to be an RPG with multiple stats and systems to make the experience meaningful.

It’s all up to the player to decide what to do with pretty much everything available to you from the very beginning.

Each and every item up to the ship itself has multiple uses and makes things seem dynamic without pausing the experience for upgrades and leveling up a skill tree.
 
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The criticism surrounding this game is getting nauseating, not because it's criticism itself but rather due to there being some type of pushy narrative behind it. I like this game, I'm enjoying it, I'm playing solo, with random people and with friends. While there is limited variety in quests there's always different ways to approach things, no venture is the same as the last, the game is entirely emergent and there's always variance.

Right now it seems trendy to bash this game, and I know there's some valid criticism out there and the grounded stuff I can understand. However and I don't say this lightly, I'm honestly of the belief that a lot of people really are mindless sheep and follow a herd, there's some serious herd mentality going on right now. A few streamers start flapping their gums in a particular way negatively portraying this game and then a large sector of the internet start reciting it as gospel spewing the same things over and over again word for word.

The unoriginality, lack of variance and magnitude in complaining is clearly derived from third person recounts of what other people are saying pushing a long a bandwagon. It's one thing to be a player of the game and legitimately criticize it, but it's quite obvious most of this criticism is not legitimate and most of it is coming from people who have never touched the game.
 

DryvBy

Member
This game absolutely sucks. What a total let down. It's a fetch quest game with mediocre everything except the waves. This was put in Game pass for a reason.
 

VertigoOA

Banned
This game absolutely sucks. What a total let down. It's a fetch quest game with mediocre everything except the waves. This was put in Game pass for a reason.

Pointless, do nothing games are in style these days. If I could’ve actually logged in I’d probably echo these sentiments as I severely dislike PUBG and fortnite for similar reasons but at least those games have a competitive element, which is a driving force for me in most online games.
 

DryvBy

Member
Pointless, do nothing games are in style these days. If I could’ve actually logged in I’d probably echo these sentiments as I severely dislike PUBG and fortnite for similar reasons but at least those games have a competitive element, which is a driving force for me in most online games.

I was really excited about this but it's just freaking lame. Biggest let down of 2018 for sure. I was wondering why even on their own store this had a 3/5 star rating. Maybe I'm just old too but wtf do you even do in this game except fetch quests?

It doesn't run exactly stellar on the Xbox One X either. Having a couple of sub-30 frame rate drops in jungles.
 

VertigoOA

Banned
Man, not having legit loot is a huge letdown. Just cosmetics is trash; especially when there’s no proper character creation suite on top of it.

It’s not a competitive pvp game. Pve experiences should have this stuff.

And y’all like to bitch about Destiny when it’s still the only game that does this shit best for the most part. Whatever thankfully that game gets a pretty significant overhaul next week and the shot in the arm it needs to prepare for the next content drop.
 
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-MD-

Member
I played for 5 hours with a friend and never ran into anyone.

I'm not sure why it took the entire Rare studio almost half a decade to make a game this bare-bones, there's nothing here. For their first real game in a decade this is kinda sad.
 

Cato

Banned
Here's a REAL review of actual players who played the game through beta as they're quitting the game. You'll hear their reactions as they switch games.

Bear with all their banter for 8 minutes, but they give their point about how there's nothing to do. They even compared Blackwake, an indie, early access game, having more content than Sea of Thieves.
Not my opinion. It's the opinion of a top streamer.

Haven't played the game and will not play the game (since I really only play on PS4) but that seemed like completely shameless click-bait.
I don't think the game would be for me, since I am more of a Dark Souls guy, but whatever floats your boat.

That said, I really hope that this game will be a commercial success. For Rare's sake. No one benefits from a studio struggling, regarding of platform.
Rare needs this, and maybe they will release something for PS4 too in the future?

(I do have fond memories or Rare in the past, way back past.)
((Edit: I am just worried if this fails, will Rare be scuttled? It already looks like this year is the end of the road for Bioware. I don't wan't to see Rare scuttled too.))
(((First time I played Knight Lore, it blew me away. Yeah, I am that old.)))
 
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Seems like a game that’s too barebones as a adult, most likely jump in when the stuff hinted at AMA come later on.
Kinda like the plants vs zombies Xbox games

Giving context too this, I saw game spots video of them clearing endless respawning skeletons and snakes on a island for a reward then sailing off. It just looks too boring in that context, but maybe in a year will have chinese dragon boats and cooler enemies.
 
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It's fine if he has reasons to quit a game. Other people have reasons to keep playing it. It doesn't make one more right than the other, it just means different people have different tastes.


I can't believe you have to break it down to this WaterAstro salt employee sentence by sentence in so many replys..

1st, It's an Xbox exclusive,so learn do deal with it, 2nd, it's selling like crispy cream at a donut shop , 3rd, folks enjoy the uniqueness it brings from Rare

...move tha @$!#% on cause obviously not a single f is given on these boards no matter how hard you try.....Next.
 
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I don't know why people get so eager to defend this game.

We were all hyped at announcement, I think we all wanted it to be great and are concerned that is really bare bones. People that criticise it are making a valid strong point and people defending it are avoiding the issue altogether by saying "I enjoy it, so you are just a hater".

Even the producer indirectly admitted it's an empty shell of a game by claiming that "we are going to add things to the game listening to player's feedback, blah blah blah". Yeah man, that's what the Alpha and Beta were for.
 
I don't know why people get so eager to defend this game.

We were all hyped at announcement, I think we all wanted it to be great and are concerned that is really bare bones. People that criticise it are making a valid strong point and people defending it are avoiding the issue altogether by saying "I enjoy it, so you are just a hater".

Even the producer indirectly admitted it's an empty shell of a game by claiming that "we are going to add things to the game listening to player's feedback, blah blah blah". Yeah man, that's what the Alpha and Beta were for.


That is amazing, even producer admitted it's an empty shell of a game..follow up question, why would you release a bare bone game and play with fire when its out in the wild..
 

Zimmy68

Member
The first few Sea of Thieves reviews are exactly what you'd hope for

You mean a non biased review of a AAA first party title where I have no stake in the game and doesn't matter to me whether it is good or not?

Awesome!
 

VAL0R

Banned
MS wanting you to subscribe to GP for this game isn't hanging SoT out to dry! MS is shifting their entire ecosystem to this Netflix sub model. When Halo 6 launches on GP, will they be hanging that out to dry as well? Of course not. MS wants you to opt into their ecosystem for a impulse buy price of $10.00. Then when you are in, they give you a ton of content (100X more than your $10.00 should afford) and slowly trickle in exciting new content every other month or so, to retain you. MS would be thrilled if SoT didn't "sell" a single copy and instead they got 2 million new subs for GP right as SoT launched into the service. Eventually we may see MS just launch games exclusively on GP. That is the beating heart of the Xbox business model going forward: affordable subscription for content and services.

As far as the game being content bare, I share that concern. But I think the "bones" of the game are so solid and rich (the boating and water simulation in particular are stunningly well done) that you can make your own fun. I know some gamers will roll their eyes at that, but it's true. One quick example: I got on with my brother-in-law and we tried and failed to kill a full Ghaleon crew 3 times. We stole their boat and almost got away once, etc. So we were making our own sea battles. I was swimming to their ship, sniping their sailors on deck as sharks were coming at me. Attacking a defending sailor underwater with my knife, etc. We had a lot of fun, even though none of this was "content" or "quests." But again, I agree, they do need to shore up the content and quests with more variety and combat, etc., and I'm sure they will. They are promising new content in 3 months, I think. And honestly, I haven't even sailed with a full Ghaleon crew, taken a skeleton stronghold, fought a kraken or completed more than a handful of poorly paying intro quests. And I'm having lots of fun. The game is beautiful and the art style is charming, imo.

The cool thing is, now that they have these great underlying systems and foundations, hopefully they can build upon them with all sorts of content, like fishing from the boat, scuba diving caves for treasure, visiting a mermaid lair, freeing slaves/ransoms taken from NPC pirates, and all the other cool things others have mentioned.
 
Enjoy your selective quoted reviews of journalist who probably only put in a few hours and haven't played the beta.

I agree with this entirely. How many times do people need to get burned by the gaming press before they stop taking these quotes at face value? These people aren't the ones that spent hours on the beta. These aren't the people spending money on these products (before anyone shouts at me about professionalism, I've reviewed games courtesy of the big publishers and it was always difficult to not be lenient because of the preferential treatment I was receiving along with not having to pay a cent and I'm sure it's something everyone else struggles with too). When you're a reviewer, you don't have 150 hours to spend with a title so I'll take the word of actual users over the vast majority of games media.

What's the rush on these service games anyways? Wait two weeks, see if early adopters got burned and jump in if people are still playing. That's probably the best kind of test for this game anyways. Let's see if the Game Pass trial users end up resubbing.
 
The criticism surrounding this game is getting nauseating, not because it's criticism itself but rather due to there being some type of pushy narrative behind it. I like this game, I'm enjoying it, I'm playing solo, with random people and with friends. While there is limited variety in quests there's always different ways to approach things, no venture is the same as the last, the game is entirely emergent and there's always variance.

Right now it seems trendy to bash this game, and I know there's some valid criticism out there and the grounded stuff I can understand. However and I don't say this lightly, I'm honestly of the belief that a lot of people really are mindless sheep and follow a herd, there's some serious herd mentality going on right now. A few streamers start flapping their gums in a particular way negatively portraying this game and then a large sector of the internet start reciting it as gospel spewing the same things over and over again word for word.

The unoriginality, lack of variance and magnitude in complaining is clearly derived from third person recounts of what other people are saying pushing a long a bandwagon. It's one thing to be a player of the game and legitimately criticize it, but it's quite obvious most of this criticism is not legitimate and most of it is coming from people who have never touched the game.
You are not incorrect in saying that there are a sizeable contingent of mindless people out there that follow and agree with everything their favorite streamer says. But at the same time, there's a contingent of people out there that are mindlessly defending it for similar reasons (i.e. their favorite company rather than their favorite streamer).

That said, these "unoriginal" concerns have been levied by alpha and beta testers for months so brushing them under the rug as a bandwagon of some kind isn't exactly fair or productive. But I digress - ultimately the fault for this situation lies entirely on Rare's shoulders and it'll be interesting to see how they move forward.
 

waylo

Banned
I was super excited for this a year or two ago. It looked like a ton of fun. Then I never got into an alpha or beta and it kind of dropped off my radar. Watching a ton of footage yesterday and this seems like it's still the exact same game from years ago, including the lack of content. There being zero progression other than cosmetic items (in a game where you can't even customize the physical appearance of your character) is a huge bummer. I thought this would be some massive pirate RPG. Instead it's basically pirate dress-up with some very basic exploration gameplay. Some friends were trying to get me to buy it, glad I passed.
 
Odd seeing the same person every sea of thieves post non stop shitting on the game. We get it, you aren't a fan, move on.

Highly suggest this game. I managed to get two friends who have never had an interest in an xbox game before to try the beta out with me, they fell in love with this game more than I did.

The experiences we had in the beta was unlike any game I've ever had before. Although I agree this shouldn't be a full price game, but it is definitely worth a try with the free game pass.
 

Calibos

Member
I think people are simply taking this game way too seriously and out of context...

It seems to be intended as a shared world, emergent fun generating, co-op social experiment. People expecting Destiny or some sort of massive RPG are just living with expectations inflated by their imaginations.

Thoughts...

Graphics - Amazing
FPS Mechanics - Mediocre
Ship Mechanics - Excellent(ships are the highlight)
Content - Mediocre
FunFactor With Friends - Unchartable
FunFactor Solo - Mediocre

I really look at it as a relaxing change of pace game that can be a complete blast when playing with friends....and I think that is exactly what Rare intended to launch...remember that there are plenty of other demographics out there that will be reached with this style of game.
 
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Is this the famous astroturfing?

Ah, so the Sony Defense Force (tm) hit this thread in page one? Good job guys, you're getting better at crapping all over positive XBox news in a timely/quicker fashion.

---

As for the game, I got GamePass for this, and I had a blast during Beta and now GR (until server problems last night, that is). Had our boat stolen, stole someone else's boat, found our original boat, sank our original boat, then the people from the second boat we stole found us in a third boat and sank us.

Yes, there's concern about combat and quest longevity/variety, but Rare's already said they've got a massive DLC roadmap for all this, including new companies, outfits, quests, enemies, etc. I fully expect this to be very fleshed out and be a work-in-progress (in a good way)...though I honestly think Microsoft should have went with a lower price point for the game in its current state, and maybe go with a higher price point down the road when more content has been added in.

Regardless, I had a blast, and I hope you all do too. :)
 
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daibaron

Banned
The media push for this game is so big. It is only missing elon Musk saying that within sea of thives lies the hope of manking, so much astroturfing that he could terraform Mars with it.
 

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
I just want to try the game. Tried to play last night for an hour and couldn't connect :confused:
 

demigod

Member
I can't believe you have to break it down to this WaterAstro salt employee sentence by sentence in so many replys..

1st, It's an Xbox exclusive,so learn do deal with it, 2nd, it's selling like crispy cream at a donut shop , 3rd, folks enjoy the uniqueness it brings from Rare

...move tha @$!#% on cause obviously not a single f is given on these boards no matter how hard you try.....Next.

Hilarious, WaterAstro warned you guys the game was going to be the same from beta and from the sounds of people playing it, its the exact same thing. I'm sure its selling like crispy creme at a donut shop, so much that you had to Game Pass it yourself.
 

nowhat

Member
First as a disclaimer, not trying to start any platform wars on be a fanboy of any sorts - while I've been firmly in the PS4 (and later Switch too) camp this gen, competition is always healthy. Microsoft needs a hit, so all the best for Sea of Thieves. Having said that...

The media push for this game is so big.

Yeah. If you check out the new Eurogamer design and the front page there, you'll not only notice that it's hideous (and truly it is - how much white can you fit on a web page?), but there's a separate section for Sea of Thieves. What the actual fuck, that's not being a gaming news site, that's just very blatant sponsored content. I've nothing against it as such, but it most definitely should be labeled as such.
 
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MilkyJoe

Member
Here's a REAL review of actual players who played the game through beta as they're quitting the game. You'll hear their reactions as they switch games.



Bear with all their banter for 8 minutes, but they give their point about how there's nothing to do. They even compared Blackwake, an indie, early access game, having more content than Sea of Thieves.
Not my opinion. It's the opinion of a top streamer.


DY0nr5uW0AIOxAC.jpg
 

Arkhan

Grand Vizier of Khemri
Staff Member
Just a quick reminder that it is fine to not like a game at all and articulate why that is, but conversely if someone enjoys it and clearly expressed why, then going out of your way to piss on their parade after making your points is borderline trolling. Ultimately you are not going to convince a person who does or does not like it that they are wrong, and so getting out of shape about it is unhelpful. Please try and be more productive with your positions here. I think there is an interesting discussion to be had about putting a new boxed titles on gamepass, but it needs to be handled a bit more reasonably than 'lulz gamepass why bother'.
 
Played the first day and couldn’t get into it then I tried it last night with my brother and I had a absolute blast.

Probably going to start playing the shit out of it after I figured out what to do.
 
Whats up with the performance on the One X? Vsync not enabled so there's tons of tearing, framerate is iffy, hopefully they patch this.
 

Jigsaah

Gold Member
So I got to experience a raid, some ship vs. ship battles and I played with 4 friends. I've seen a lot of different types of skeletons. I've done missions with each faction and am level 15 in the gold hoarders, souls and merchant faction.

My take is this. The game is fun, the sailing mechanics are great. The exploration lacks though. Why go to an island unless specifically told to do so? The map is kinda just a grid of islands. I kinda wish the map had a more realistic looking map system, like where it shows you where these islands are in some relation to the rest of the world. It's a minor complaint but one that i think would help immersion.

The fighting feels mundane. I wish I had some form of combo...a parry system. Something like you would see in a Pirates of the Caribbean movie. There's just so much of the pirate experience that you don't see in this game. I would have rather them make the combat deeper. I wish there were AI ships in the game to battle with as well because player controlled ships run into similar issues as people did in the darkzone of Division. You got loot, we got loot...nobody wants to risk their loot...so we just pass each other, waving at one another.

Raids should have mechanics. I don't think I've done all the raids, but the raid we did was basically a hoard mode with a boss at the end. You fight waves of skeletons of different types until eventually a boss pops and you kill him, grab the key and many many loot. I'm hoping things get more interesting as you level up your factions. There's not enough grog to keep me invested in this game.
 
Based on the beta, I had wished this could be a 20 dollar game where I sailed around and fucked up other ships, because the sailing mechanics are great and the only fun fighting wise I had was with the ship skirmishes. I don't know how you'd make it deeper beyond that but the burden would be lessened for a 20 dollar game imo
 

MilkyJoe

Member
The only thing I'm not really overjoyed about so far is the length of day, granted I've only played a couple of hours, but that's one thing I hope gets patched.
 
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