You are currently viewing Sea of Thieves to Add More Content

Sea of Thieves to Add More Content

Sea of Thieves devs are aiming their cannons directly at the game's biggest critique: A lack of content. People savagely critiqued the game for simply being an empty world with nothing to do once the novelty of being a pirate wears off.

While I agree with this lack of 'things to do' to a certain extent, I will push back and say that people have largely forgotten what it means to have fund and make your own fun and content in an open world where players are the content. Regardless, Sea of Thieves devs are attempting to remedy this problem.

How? With more content, and an attempt to create a content/patch cadence for updating the game to bring more for players to do. 

More...

The video doesn't do a whole lot to explain any of this in any sort of detail.

I believe this was a quasi-rushed attempt at getting SOMETHING out there to address the fans, lest they be accused (by people like me) for waiting too long to fix the issues with their game ala Battlefront 2.

Still, we can dissect their direction. Here are their main points:

  • Bringing players together in interesting ways, encouraging different types of player encounters
  • Enriching the world that players adventure in
  • Giving players new ways to play
  • Giving players a variety of goals and rewards
  • Broadening the journey to Pirate Legend and beyond

The first update coming in May will provide more content in the form of a "new threat". Sounds a lot like NPC-related fighting.

Future updates -- not including their "weekly events" -- will be geared towards adding a new type of ship, and then finally a new part of the world to explore. I think adding this new portion of the world to explore, along with updating the existing world to breathe life into the hidden caverns, islands, and landmarks, will be the biggest boost to the world.

Despite a new ship, more AI baddies, and new areas to explore, they're still going to run into the same critiques from people who don't know how to take the tools they're given and go out and make their own fun.

Scheduling "content" out through the rest of the year could be really risky if they aren't making the type of content that people actually think they need / want.

    • Niche, yes. It’s a pirate game designed around this idea of sailing around a map and fighting other pirate players while amassing whatever treasures you can before you call it a night.

      Boondoggle (I had to look that one up and found it means wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value), I disagree.

      Last night I sailed for a few hours with a crew of random pirates I never met. We planned these great attacks at specific island, plotted the demise of a dozen other ships, and brought home 20+ treasures. We used skill and cunning (I brought more of the cunning, others the skill) to out-sail the enemies.

      I had a lot of fun last night, and never thought once that I didn’t have something to do.

  • I don’t play SoT and I have no wish to but I quite enjoy reading about what a total shambles it is. When I read the news squib about their supposed solution to the “there’s no game in this game” issue my immediate reaction was “this is just throwing fuel on the fire”.

    None of what they’re proposing even sounds like substantial content on the face of it. It sounds like hastily cobbled together filler and very thin filler at that. If you can’t even tweak your PR convincingly to suggest you’re doing something that matters then all hope really is lost.

    It’s all very well sniping at “people who don’t know how to take the tools they’re given and go out and make their own fun” but PUBG and Fortnite don’t seem to be having that problem. Maybe Epic just made something no-one really wants.

    • I agree with you, as my post states, about their hastily proposed solution to the “problem” because are having.

      Epic did make something no one really wants (Fortnite, the original game) and pivoted to the mass-market appeal. But you probably meant Rare. 😉

      Rare made a niche game with a different way of playing. People have mistaken that difference to missing something. That’s where they’ve forgotten that not every game must lead someone by the nose to have content. People don’t have to like it, but it’s incorrect to say it’s in shambles.

  • I disagree with your snipe at people not knowing to make your own fun.
    We know you are very aggressive in this create your own fun without there being any content. (eg: your eq farm vods) It is clear you are having great fun talking to your friends.

    The thing is, we have so many great games now, we don’t have to accept shitty games anymore just to have something to do while chatting with friends. We can have both now. It is not that people don’t know how to have fun, it is that they are not willing to accept a shitty game anymore.

    • I agree with this.

      I would add on that what makes a good game of this type is eough good content to create your own fun with. Minecraft is a hugely successful game that people still play that is all about creating your own fun. Yet games like Elite Dangerous a couple years ago, and now Sea of Thieves, are not keeping people happy because they are large 1-inch deep sandboxes instead of medium 10ft deep sandboxes.

      That is the problem I feel with Keen’s statement is he views all sandboxes as equal and almost seems to think if you can’t have fun with a sandbox it’s on you. But there is a huge difference between a shallow sandbox like Sea of Thieves and a deeper sandbox like Minecraft.

      • I don’t see Sea of Thieves as a sandbox. It’s closer to a simulator. I would never expect everyone to enjoy Sea of Thieves.

        In fact, I think it’s not for most people. I haven’t, nor would I ever, accuse people who dislike to game of being wrong.

        Maybe people haven’t read my post. I’m one of the people saying they need more content. But perhaps not the kind of content everyone else is bashing the game for lacking. I want more opportunities to double down on this open-world sense of pirate exploration and plundering.

        Based on the blast I had last night in a crew as we sank dozens of ships, Sea of Thieves did SOMETHING right, and never once did I think last night, “Gee, this game is such an empty and unfinished sandbox.”

    • The industry has devolved greatly to a point where players have to be led around by the nose in order to see the ‘game’.

      It’s not that there isn’t a game here, it’s that people didn’t understand what type of game they were looking for in the first place.

      There is indeed a lack of content in the “typical” sense, but it’s not a lack of game.

      I think Gabe from Penny Arcade said it best in his article about Sea of Thieves: “Sometimes you can just play games for the joy.” He said that when talking about how much fun he had just in playing the game, and not worrying about or sharing people’s concern over “progression mechanics.”

      Sea of Thieves is so far from being a “shitty game” when compared to the legitimately “shitty games” we’ve seen the past 5 years.

      Disliking a game because you simply don’t like the gameplay, a certain mechanic, etc., is 100% valid. I do it daily. Claiming a game is null and void, in shambles, or otherwise “shitty” because it attempts to approach the idea of gameplay without prescription or progression mechanics, however, seems narrow-minded.