Unfinished: Sea of Thieves Beta (01/29/2018)

Argh

Arrrgh, I hope this game has some substance, matey

Brad "Poop Deck" Pegmaker

JARRRRRrrrrr Time

But I don't wanna be a Pirate!

This game looks pretty fun... Just wondering how fun it will be to people who only have a limited amount of play time available and have different schedules than most friends. Is it still fun solo?

@shadowwolf9 said:

Same. The beta makes it seem potentially very shallow with a large amount of the fun depending on who you play with. I hope it's not like Destiny 1 was at launch.

Ya' best start believin' in Giant Bombs. Ya'r in one.

Oh goodness!

Abby with the pirate mouth. :)

This game is soooo cool - I really hope they flesh it out in a big way! This would make for a great East/West series where different duders are in each week.

35 minutes in and my conclusion is that these guys are hopeless. A flat hierarchy doesn't work on a pirate ship.

Let see if this sells me on the game

I'm an forty-five minutes in and loosing my mind. Do they ever figure out that they have three sets of sails, and not two?

no, don't think so

@grumpybob: All the quests in the game are small, 15 minutes to 1 hour, adventures. It works just fine as a drop in-drop out game. Also there's auto-matchmaking on the 2 and 4-man ships.

Working barf bucket physics? 10/10 2018's GotY

Don't have a one, but I watch the GB crew attempt to pillage, or is it plunder?

I'm 2 minutes in but I'd just like to say I'm already super jazzed to see this has a 2.5 hr Quicklook

Well just fucking around in this world seems fun enough for me to buy. Hopefully they'll be a lot to gain for exploring but overall I'm waaayyy into this.

2 Minutes in and I'm reminded of the best TNT's back in the day

They do actually. By the 53 minute mark.

#YearOfTheBow

Never get rid of Abby's bug that keeps playing Drunken Sailor.

@nickfoley: Little bit of column A, little bit of B

Yar har fiddly dee, you are a pirate!

I've been playing solo foe like six hours and enjoying myself for the most part. Although running into other boats is terrifying and really hard to win a battle. The best you can do is fend them off.

Also why does Abby insist on looking at the chart upside down??

I need more Abby-giving-directions content, I don't care what the context is. "We need to go south, but more left than south. Now loop around this island and turn west. No, the other island. Sorry, I didn't mean you should go west, I meant just turn slightly more west than south. Oh wait, this whole thing is upside-down, forget everything I just said..."

Why was the sea red!? Why did they sink in the storm and why did they sink when the sea went red? I don't get it, but I want to.

This game looks fantastic, the water and sky are spectacular. Hope there is a bit more to do than seems to be there though.

I want a game with this kind of moment to moment gameplay with the structure of the sailing part of Black Flag

@themaniacsgnome said:

Edge of map

All I ask is that when you sail off the edge of the map you get attacked by a random mythical beast and are sunk and killed.

I really want to be excited about this because it seems like a fun time that's pretty well put together, but with less than 2 months until release I haven't seen much info about what content will fill it out. With my PC in need of an OS upgrade just to get this (a hardware and software upgrade keeps getting postponed) and the questions I see/hear many people asking regarding what exactly this will be at launch, my excitement has been tempered. (And with so many games I'd find interesting releasing unfinished in Early Access these days I miss getting excited about new releases.)

I hope it's good. It might just turn out that I finally have a cross-platform game to play with my friends...

No Man's Sea.

@cursethesemetalhands: I have to say, I've gotten that vibe as I've looked for more info about this -- a high profile, console-exclusive title; a lot of interest from all across the industry; a lot of talk but not a lot of detail; and a dedicated community defending a product that hasn't quite proven itself, let alone come out yet. It's easy to see some parallels between them.

I'm hoping it doesn't go that way. Though No Man's Sky does seem to have a pretty dedicated community that's been receiving updates so I suppose there are worse games with which it can be compared. I guess we'll have a better idea in 2 months.

I was so excited for this thing until I started watching some of Rare's dev diaries. It sounds like few to none of the upgrades and equipment purchasable will have any gameplay impact, in order to "make competitive play fair."

If I don't get to buy better weapons, or at least even new tools or equipment, then all this awesome piratey stuff just feels like such a waste.

Thanks for making my Monday at work way, way better. I don't think I've laughed so hard at my desk before, that was really fun. I need more of you guys playing this!

Would love more long-form content like this. Especially when it involves both offices on each coast getting together.

This game looks super fun and cool. I hope they do more when it comes out and really happy for Rare on this one.

I could see instead of running a a single-ship four man crew, running a two-ship, two crew each fleet would be pretty deadly as an assault-and-pillage fleet.

this games graphics look fucking phenomenal!

Watching this made me a bit nauseous even when the characters are sober.

Time to watch this again, get a little tipsy, stuff myself with junk and try to forget about my wretched existence for a couple hours.

Abby was a joy in this, and it's fun to watch them all cavort together on the high seas.

This is a Lionhead-ass looking game. Or maybe Lionhead with a mix of BotW/Wind Waker. Definitely needs more content but this is a solid base.

I don't see why people are getting all excited about this game. I have watched several streams of it and the people playing the game seem more fun than the game itself if that makes any sense.

Very solid base, but i feel like there's room to populate this world with all kinds of random events to spice it up. Hope there will be some of that. What if you were searching for treasure and suddenly someone falls into a hole leading to an ancient temple. A ghost that only shows up at night and leads you on a quest for a piece of jewelry. Follow a parrot and it leads you into a rival pirate crew. Stuff like that.

This definitly looks interesting enough to keep an eye on!

I'm all about the soulful music.

1:34:04 May as well stop releasing games, we got our GOTY here

Arrr this fov will make me vomit before the grog gets to me. Avast!

Oh, sugar.

It looks like there is more to do based on their videos. Some PvE stuff and trading. (And the resultant PvP opportunities that provides) but in general this is pretty much it. Pick a mission, have a bit of a sail and maybe some PvP, get paid. Rinse repeat.

I love it. Playing with random crews can be hit or miss, but when it hits it is amazing. Solo is also good as a pallet cleanser. Yes you are a sitting duck, and unlikely to get away with a pitched battle or chest stealing, but the intensity as you scan the horizon, run from pursuers through rocks and sick 180 turns, desperately trying to find and get your treasure before some pirates spot you and sink your whip, it's real good. A fair bit of impromptu alliances on the high seas as well. A sloop is a sitting duck but two sloops is an absolute nightmare for the galleon bullies.

As for being shallow. I dunno, it does a few things very well. Some games do one thing very well and that's ok. I prefer this to having lots of banal busywork. I still enjoy the treasure hunting, though some harder maps and puzzles like in Pirates! Wouldn't go amiss. Should be good for dozens for hours at launch a great platform for layering further systems, boats, missions and islands. (If you dig the basic loop, anyway)

I really don't like the look of this game. The character models are awful, and everything looks like its made from plastic, but not in a deliberate way.