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

I love the look of everything in this game except the character models. Are they going to improve them any? They're really ugly right now. This is the game, other than Cuphead, that's making me want an Xbox One.

Bravo!

Every time they show off this game, it looks worse and worse.

This seems like a game where because one person can be an ass and screw everything up for everyone else; this will be a game where 90% of your time in game will be telling people to stop griefing.

Looks like it could be fun, fortunately don't need to worry about it being shallow or not as, being an App Store only game, I'm giving this one a pass.

I'm not usually bothered by that stuff but something just seems really... off about this camera (even when they're not drunk!) Like it's too low or too close or something?? Whatever it is, it ain't right!

@mrwoks: Yeah I found myself wishing for Brad or Vinny to take over. I watched several people play this and really enjoyed it.

@boiter: This game is going to be available at launch through Xbox Game Pass. Which means paying $10 a month you get this in addition to the stuff that's already there. That change to Game Pass is going to be great for a game like this dependent on multiplayer. At the very least you can sign up for one month and play this game for $10 and see it's something you want to stick with. It also helps that you don't have to convince friends to buy the game at full price to play with you. I agree though that I really might be more excited to see Giant Bomb play this together since I don't think it's a game my Xbox friends will get into.

@kordesh said:

Just gotta love MS and their every couple of years "We care about PC gaming, that's why we make weird stuff exclusive to our newest operating system that just came out" attempts.
I already fell for that trap with Halo 2 and Vista, then they tried it with the EliteController, which now works on Win7 with bare minimum support (no remapping, no profiles), at least better than having had straight up no Windows XP support for wireless 360 controllers.

Usually it's easy to resist but State of Decay 2 being Win10 exclusive is already a really big draw, now this looks kinda fun too, but darned if I'm gonna sign up for another walled garden of the MS varierty. I still have some super useless "Windows Live" account with GTA 4 and Dead Rising 2 on it, wouldn't even know where to go to install these games if I actually wanted to.

yeah, I wish it was from their perspective. I got really tired of the drunk cam ...... it wasn't funny to watch

Arrr the feels!

For as aggressive as the drunk effect is, it lasts too long. I guess that sort of thing is the purpose of a beta.

The FOV is rotten, getting drunk in first few minutes didn't help at all.

The game itself seems fun, but also too shallow to have lasting appeal.

Whenever Abby says "sugar" in place of "shit" I immediately hear the guitars to System of a Down's "Sugar."

Five minutes in and Jeff and Vinny are goofing around having lots of fun, but I can't see any of it because it's just Abby's perspective. Went to YouTube, hoping Jeff streamed it on his end, but I guess he didn't. ? Maaannn This sucks.

I wasn't excited for this game at all until I watched this video. Now, I really want it. I hope there's something to tie it all together--a story, progression, anything really--but this already looks like a lot of fun.

Abby literally showed Vinny the ropes. XD

Is it weird that I want this game to have a really robust music playing system? Like, dozens of songs. Your pirates dynamically playing different stuff depending on the situation (hanging out in the tavern, sailing, combat). You getting better and unlocking more complex songs the more you play (the instruments) with the same people. I mean, I'm not talking Through The Fire and Flames but maybe some sort of ballad?

What are you talking about? I used up to three Wireless 360 controlles simultaneously while playing emulated old school fighting games and beat 'em ups on a Windows XP machine with some friends years ago.

I think people who are complaining about there "not being enough to do" and "there are no stakes" are kinda missing the context of this stream. A lot of this is the crew figuring out what to do, and then getting distracted while trying to make it happen. They don't accomplish a whole lot in this stream, but even though they might chalk it up to it being a thin game, it's really because they're having fun with all the little parts. So much so that they're not heads down to the grindstone to keep progressing the quests.

The tension of the game, as I've experienced at least, is in having a couple chests on board and deciding that it's time to head for the outpost and cash in because I need money for that next voyage - and then seeing a boat round the island to the East and come straight at me. This game has been really fun even solo and with randoms, but you have to try it to see if it grabs you. I know there's a lot more to the game's mechanics than are in this beta, but we'll have to see how it all shakes out at the end of the day. I'm optimistic

This makes me want to play Guns of Icarus Online again. That was an awesome game.

@icyeyes: It requires extra editing but it is a shame we don't get more perspectives like you would on a YouTube gaming channel for example.

After watching this unfinished I really don't think this game is for me. Neat ideas but I don't see myself enjoying it at all, especially single player

I could very well be mistaken but didn't they say that if you sign up for Game Pass you are committed to paying for it for 6 months? So yeah it's only $10 a month but you are committed to paying $60 anyway so you might as well buy the game?

edit: Never mind, I just jumped on the Game Pass website and it says you can cancel anytime after the free trial. Unless they are changing that?

@malrock: Rare really should be pushing the single player aspect of this game more (maybe closer to launch?) because I exclusively played it solo and had way more fun than I thought I would. There's something very calm and serene about sailing and exploring alone, until, for example, you spot a ship in the distance and must think on your feet what the best thing to do would be. After 10 or 15 minutes you're fully adept at controlling the ship on your own, and the gameplay loop of that alone is a ton of fun. Also, the open ended nature of the game, plus all the cool mechanics at work can lead to some really great emergent moments. It gives me Breath of the Wild vibes, and you can definitely tell that game has had an influence on Sea of Thieves. I really can't wait for release.

It is the best way I spent the last 5 nights. So much fun looking forward to the full release. I am so glad they did this.

From looking at the character models I did not expect Sea of Thieves to be a beautiful game...

but it is a beautiful game.

@gamerpigeon: My thoughts exactly. I assume they were playing on xbonesxs. So isn't there some kind of builtin game streaming there? I know Jeff has a setup for xbox game streaming in any case. Guess he just didn't do it here for some reason. Oh well. Still a bummer.

Captain Brad Is unsafe at any speed!

I don't know, that game looks a little...Crazy.

This just needs to be said more. Ninety percent of the on boat/on island gameplay and visuals is just Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag re-skinned. The biggest gameplay difference is you must adjust the sails to the prevailing wind. I say biggest because if the wind is somewhat constant and not changing evey five minutes anyone with some sailing skill will slaughter people who do not know how to handle their boat.

That is not an advantage to this game. ...That won't make it fun and will most decidedly make ist NOT FUN at all for most people. That means the 10% difference Sea of Thieves has over AC 4 is to it detriment not to its advantage. That said if you have a good crew of six and people, crew willing to stay on their duty when ship fighting, it will be fun enough for some people.

What they game needs is three more elements aside from treasure and ship fighting.

Trade: The ability to harvest raw wood, rope, boxed 'trade good' from the islands. Grabbing commodities and then selling them back to 'cash-in' would add a trade/commodity element to the game for people, who don't want to fight.

Bigger PvE Spaces: The islands are small right now and that fine for the base gameplay. But, I think the game could be helped with some bigger islands that worked like an instanced PvE dungeon. These instanced islands provide a structured and fuller PvE experience for a group to play around in, but the downside is you cannot be collecting trade goods or finding supplies on them so they cannot be used to"cheat" the economy or act as safety after a fight.

Gigs: I noticed that if you wanted to get onto and island or off you had to swim. I think they should have a gig or a row boat. A gig would be a six postion boat that can carry a small amount of cargo. If one person enter the gig they need to rhythmically press Square and Circles to row, if they press Triangle they can look behind them to see how to steer. To steer they press either Square for row Port oar or Circle for rowing Starboard oar. If two get in the gig one person steers with tiller/rudder and one just rhythmically rows - faster and more accurate. The more people you put in the gig the faster you can go and they faster that boat moves with cargo. So one person or all six crew can be in the gig. That gig can carry twice as much cargo as six people can carry swimming, so for the trade element above using the gig to move people and goods is advantageous.

This game looks fun, but I won't ever get a crew together to play it. And I won't trust randos.

That weird instrument with the crank is called a "hurdy gurdy."

This is the best quicklook.

I hope they eventually get to Seadogs level of ship to ship combat with things like grapeshot ripping apart the sails and destroying the mast etc. Man, what an underrated game that was.

Looks like a "game of firsts". Everything looks fun the first time. Being in jail the first time is like, "ha-ha... wow now Im bored". First song you play together looks fun... 5th song? Nah. Drunk once was funny, but i was over it by the end watching Abby do it here. First time to all lower sails and get to an island will be fun, or sink another boat. After that it will seem like a chore. Sailing didn't look fun at all. Edge of the world looked funny once, now Ive seen it. That guy getting spawn camped didn't look fun at all. It will be fun the first time you cannon out onto a ship, first time you get drunk chest, first time you see Kraken. After that - meh. I feel like unless they add a ton, or good story, i had my fill in this hour and a half?

I want to like this game. I even went to an event for this at NYCC, where they first announced the single player boats, (which they needed - with only 4 player boats I think it was doomed), I love the staff who is working on it, i like what they said about "positive mutliplayer", I like the idea of this game.

Also - lots of people saying "will it be fun solo?". I think that is the deal breaker. I wasn't even going to touch it before they added single player boats. It looks to based on "who you play with".

So for solo -- If the NPC's all get real fun dialog, sure. A good story would hook me, funny quests. And before you say "well its not a single player game" -- it IS, they added single player boats -- and yes I 100% think this looks fun for a group like Giant Bomb with 4 people who know each other and chat and can be on for hours at the same time; I don't see that scenario happening once for me. For most adults it is super rare to get 4 people who can often all play together for hours like this - (pardon the pun). And even then there was some boring time here..

(Are you going to have fun with 3 strangers is they vote you in jail? Its only fun because they are friends, that behavior would be annoying if it was strangers I think?).

I hope they add a ton for the real release. Especially for single player. I can see the allure of finding loot to customize ship and pirate. (Let you have a monkey or parrot!!!). Finding X marks the spot for good loot could be great. Rare needs a come back. And Xbox owners are starved for content. So hopefully it does well. I need a new Xbox game!

@chummy8: Solo play is tremendous fun, you really don't need a crew to enjoy this game. Man, I think Rare are onto something extremely special here. March 20th can't come soon enough.

This must be the first time one of those E3 "This is how gamers play our game!" voice chat demos has been pretty close to the actual thing, unlike The Division and Wildlands.

@paulunga: Then you are either remembering completely wrong or you used a weird workaround because there is no official XP support for the 360 wireless adapter just like there's no Win7 support for the wireless XboneOne wireless adapter. Bonus fun fact: Using the elite controller wired under Win 7 makes the 360 wireless adapter software crash.

I really enjoyed watching this. Thanks GB crew!

Well my dream of owning / learning to play a Hurdy Gurdy has been dashed against the rocks... They cost anywhere between $1000 to $5000 bucks... Ill have to become a real pirate to afford one.

@nethlem: I'm not even sure what you're trying to show me, I don't see any wireless compatibility listed on that page at all. It just reads "Set up a wireless controller on Windows PC" without mentioning any OS. Unlike this one which specifically mentions XP Service Pack 2 and up.

Hell, is there any place on the internet that specifically mentions it not working wirelessly on XP? Because I can't find it.

Edit: However, I DID find some dude making it work on Windows 2000.

Okay the inclusion of ability to shoot yourself out of the cannons is genius. I like this game now. Also nice looking water,.

About the aurora borealis, i live far enough north to be able to see them apparently but never have.

Well, I guess I'm watching this again. Thanks Brad.