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All forts are going active with Shrouded Spoils

Get ready to fight up hills and on narrow walkways. News
We’ve known for a while that the currently inactive forts didn’t quite make it through play testing before the launch of the game, and had been put on the back burner for a while. Well Rare have been hard at work bringing a ton improvements to the game in Shrouded Spoils, and it appears forts have received some attention too. During this week’s stream, Jon and Joe announced that all remaining forts will be going active with the Shrouded Spoils update! 🚨 ALL THE FORTS ARE BEING ACTIVATED IN SHROUDED SPOILS 🚨 9 total forts + emergent, roaming Skelly Ships……

Should we be worried that Rare is ‘splitting the player base’?

Here’s everything the team at Rare has said about Adventure vs Arena. Roundups
The recent announcement of the upcoming “The Arena” update to Sea of Thieves, which introduces a new competitive game mode, has been and enthusiastic but mixed reception from Sea of Thieves players. Fans on both the official forum and Reddit have been voicing their concerns that the introduction of this new game mode is a Very Bad Thing™ and signals a failing of the core game, leading to the apparent inevitability that Rare will end up placing all of their focus on the battle mode if it becomes popular, leaving Adventure to languish. Worse still, they’re worried that Rare’s development…

XO18 Panel with Joe Neate and Craig Duncan

Our full and detailed summary of the entire discussion! Roundups
Rare Studio Head, Craig Duncan, and Sea of Thieves Executive Producer, Joe Neate caught up with Xbox’s Major Nelson to talk Sea of Thieves and field some questions from the audience and from Mixer chat. It’s worth watching the whole thing, however, if you don’t have time for that, here’s a full and detailed summary of what was covered: The Arena The Arena is a response to some players wanting more focus on action, as well as shorter session lengths. A new trading company, the Sea Dogs. It’s a “new way to progress” in Sea of Thieves. Confirmed DeMarco is in…

Sea of Thieves: The Arena (updated)

Now you know everything we know. News
At XO18 today, Rare Studio Head, Graig Duncan, and Sea of Thieves executive producer, Joe Neate, unveiled the next (after Shrouded Spoils) major update to the game: The Arena! The Arena will introduce a new mode to Sea of Thieves. Announcing #SeaOfThieves: The Arena – a new competitive game mode coming in 2019. Prove your worth in the game’s fifth free content update, test your pirating skills against other crews and impress the new Trading Company – the Sea Dogs! Watch the trailer: https://t.co/i0fV8i6ALW — Sea of Thieves (@SeaOfThieves) November 10, 2018 This dedicated PvP game mode will be separate…

What’s up with Forts and Skelly Ships?

Improvements to how Forts stack behind Skelly Ships are in the works. Tidbits
Since the end of Cursed Sails, and the introduction of the fort-like Skeleton Ship encounters (signified by the cloud ship), you will have noticed that Skull Forts no longer activate until the Skelly Ships are cleared. Because the payouts for defeating the fleet captain were initially half what they were during the event (they’ve since been increased), pirates have been much less likely to tackle the Skelly Ships, meaning a huge reduction in Forts activating overall. Senior Producer, Drew Stevens, dropped by one of the many Reddit threads discussing this topic to shed some light on the situation. Hey Everyone, I’ve…

Blocktober

See what those now-familiar islands looked like as low-poly placeholders. Tidbits
In October 2017 Michael Barclay, from Naughty Dog, started the Twitter hashtag #Blocktober with the goal of showcasing the rarely seen stages of game development where rough versions of objects and mechanics are put into action, giving devs an idea of how those systems play together. Luckily for Sea of Thieves watchers, Design Director, Mike (Chappers) Chapman, joined in the festivities by sharing some screenshots and information from early in the development of the game. Read on to sea Snake Island like you’ve never seen it before! Mike Chapman: Time to get involved with #Blocktober! Here’s one the first islands that…

The Forsaken Shores web page is up

Get a look at those sweet, sweet cosmetics. Tidbits
The Sea of Thieves website was just updated with their dedicated Forsaken Shores page. There’s not really any new information there, but it sure is nice to see all those delectable cosmetics on show. One important note: Cargo Runs voyages on behalf of the Merchant Alliance are due to drop into the game on “Week 3” of Forsaken Shores, so you can expect that to land around October 10-11th. If you feel like having a reminisce, you can also check out The Hungering Deep and Cursed Sails web pages too. Them were the days.

Panel: Tales from the Creation of Sea of Thieves (video)

EGX panel with Shelley, Mike, Joe, John and Craig from Rare. Tidbits
Some of the team from Rare sat down at EGX to discuss what it’s been like to build Sea of Thieves, then take questions from the audience. It’s worth watching the whole thing above if you’re interested – but, if you don’t have time, here’s some notes of interest: Forsaken Shores: Geysers destroy skeletons. Forsaken Shores: During Cargo Runs, carrying plants partially obscures your view making them difficult to handle. Tease: Shelley mentioned they’re currently “cooking up some new stuff for the future”. Six ships per server was always based more on the experiential aspect rather than performance. It’s something…

Sea of Thieves is on sale!

Its a good time to buy. Tidbits
Sea of Thieves rarely goes on sale, but now is one of those times! The Microsoft Store has the digital, Play Anywhere version of the game on sale for 35% off, across all regions, until September 25th 2018 October 1st (ish). That’s USD $39 / AUD $65 / GBP ÂŁ32.50 / EUR 45,50 € …etc. LINK! With the Forsaken Shores update coming at the end of next week it’s a great time to take the plunge (get it?). Of course, if you’ve yet to try the game, you can always get a 14 day free trial of Game Pass to dip your…

Forsaken Shores delayed until September 27th

Adjust your schedule accordingly. News
Unfortunately, after a weekend of play-testing in the Pioneers group, Rare have decided to delay the release of Forsaken Shores by a week. In a followup post on the Sea of Thieves forum, executive producer, Joe Neate, described the issue in a little more detail: We have just had a weekend of Pioneer testing, which has highlighted a memory issue in the build, which is resulting in an unstable build where a large number of our Pioneers were experiencing crashes. From our investigations this is a complex issue that we are working through solving, but as such we do not…

New in the Forsaken Shores update: Sea Posts!

Kids sea posts sometimes… Tidbits
Coming in the Forsaken Shores update, and new to the Sea of Thieves, are Sea Posts. Sea Posts are mini-outposts with one trader. Think of them like a bargain store: they’ll carry a handful of random cosmetic items that the major outposts stock, but will sell to you at a discount! Additionally, the new merchant quests, Cargo Runs, may start or end at sea posts. There are a couple of sea posts in each region, including Devil’s Roar, so from September 19th remember to keep a close eye out for these isolates trading posts when you’re sailing the seas. You…

Everything we know about Forsaken Shores

So far… Roundups
Updated Sept 14th 2018 The third major content update for Sea of Thieves, Forsaken Shores, is just one week away. With Rare skipping the maintenance update this week in favour of preparing for the new release (due on Talk Like A Pirate Day) we thought we’d take a look at all the things we know for sure arrrrrrr coming, and a few things we can deduce… Confirmed by Rare: The Devil’s Roar is located East of The Wilds There is one Outpost in the Devil’s Roar You won’t spawn there, you’ll have to prepare and journey there Volcanic activity on…

San Diego Comic-Con 2018 Panel

Battle Royale? Battle Royale??? Tidbits
Notes of interest from the Q&A section: Q: If you square your sails into the wind you sail faster. Mike: I think we should look into that… Q: Why is there a brig on the sloop? Mike: The reason why the brig is there… it may we have a function on the sloop in the future. In terms of level design we needed to earmark space on the sloop. Other reasons to brig players in the future we may be considering as well. Q: Have you thought about implementing a bounty system? Mike: Yes, quite a lot actually, we even prototyped…

The next Bilge Rat Adventure: Cursed Crews

Cursed Cannonballs and The Reaper’s Mark. News
Along with all the new information revealed about Forsaken Shores during Inside Xbox, Sea of Thieves executive producer Joe Neate also told tale of the next Bilge Rat Adventure: Cursed Crews. This adventure focusses on cursed cannonballs which will be discoverable by exploring the world – we assume in higher spawn rates during the event than in normal play afterwards. New in this release will be an upgraded inventory system to allow effective management of your balls. Commendations and doubloons for the event will be centred around using the cursed cannonballs on other ships. With this in mind, a new…