So based on the E3 trailer/demo thing it looks like you need a group of people to accomplish ANYthing. I noticed the guy who was steering the ship had his field of view almost completely covered by the main sail, meaning he would need a spotter to tell him where he's going. That plus most of the boat activities seemed to require people scurrying all over, manning different stations. Sounds neat in theory, but based on past experiences I just don't care about playing games that force you to rely on others and requires that they actually be somewhat competent. That's what I got from it anyway. I know it's supposed to be MMO-like, but even MMO's allow you to experience most of the content as a solo player. What do you think? Am I getting the wrong impression here?

I have the same questions as you. It was one of a few games they showed at e3 that looked very co-op based in that if you were solo I'm not sure how things would be playing out.

I think this is a tough problem for a lot of games now. If you don't have a dedicated group of friends who are willing to play as much as you are, then a lot of people might not be able to play this game.

That said, this game is somewhat similar to Guns of Icarus. That game had the same sort of problem, but you could still play reasonably well without friends. If this game has a decent hud and clearly shows you what you can do then it might be okay.

It also seems like it needs a ceratin amount of coordination between team members which means you either have to get lucky and find a good group in pub games or have a dedicated group of friends to play with.

In a perfect scenario it seems like it could be really neat, but the chances of me getting enough friends together to do this are pretty slim and hoping for good groups in random is not fun.

Reminds me of a UT2k4 mod called Air Buccaneers i use to play. It was the sense of dependency on other players that made that game interesting. There was a good feeling you got when you were dominating and you knew you did so as a contributing part of the whole group, like a well oiled machine. The stand alone version of the game tried to "fix" the incapability of solo players and just ended up with a very bland game. The original Air Buccaneers, though, had smaller ships that you could somewhat reasonably pilot solo.

I'm not an MMO guy and I personally like the concept of a team being a necessity and not just a buffer, so i'm looking forward to checking out Sea of Thieves, assuming it'll come to PC.