News, updates and info from the Sea of Thieves.

Official Tall Tales Q&A

Mike Chapman and Andy Preston answer questions from the community. Roundups
On Wednesday the Sea of Thieves community team hosted a Q&A with the Tall Tales design team. I’ve collected all of the answered questions below, lightly edited. You should note that a small handful of questions were answered only with smiley faces – these have been omitted from this roundup due to their overly ambiguous nature, but you can go looking for them here. I’ve arranged the answers by topic for your convenience: Tease + future content Tall Tales (questions, comments, ideas) Developing Tall Tales Lore     Tease + future content   Q. Has the team considered adding elements…

Dev update (video)

A huge cache of upcoming features! Dev Update Videos
In a huge dev update, Joe Neate takes us through a raft of upcoming features. As always, it’s a great idea to watch the full video above. For reference, heres a full summary: Digital Business strategy – AKA in-game purchases Rare have been upfront about pets being paid additions to the game right from launch. Now, with pets coming to testing soon, Joe has confirmed Sea of Thieves’ broad monetisation strategy. The stated principles for digital purchases are: No power advantage Nothing that will “separate players” Completely optional Know what you’re buying – no loot boxes. Pets will be hitting…

Hit registration is being worked on

Yes, it’s an issue. Yes, it’s being improved. But there’s “no silver bullet”. Roundups
Update – 14 July 2019: Hit reg improvements are now in testing with Insiders. Hey! We have our Hit Reg improvements in Insiders right now, jump in and come hep us test out the latest improvements! Joe describes the improvements as “significant” and “super promising”. Original post: Longtime players of Sea of Thieves know that hit registration in the game has always been a bit patchy. You shoot, get the hitmarker, but no damage is done. This kind of thing happens a lot in online games, but many feel that Sea of Thieves can be worse than most. The arrival…

Sea of Tease Roundup

Reconnect, emotes, pets and more. Tidbits
Sea of Thieves Executive Producer, Drew Stevens, is the most active dev on Reddit – even though many more of the team seem to be heavy lurkers. Drew – aka Sonicbob – usually tends to be most active in the period after game updates. After the release of Black Powder Stashes, he’s dropped in to reply to a few questions and comments. It’s been a while since we’ve had any real “Sea of Tease” from the devs, but there’s a small handful of tidbits here: A reconnect feature is in development A common complaint, especially among solo pirates, is that…

Twitch Rivals: Sea of Thieves

Watch the event across two days to get the Obsidian ship livery! News
Sea of Thieves has partnered with Twitch to present “Rivals“, a two day Arena competition with $100,000 in prizes up for grabs! Taking place from July 23rd-24th 2019, the Twitch Rivals Sea of Thieves Showdown is a series of four distinct contests starring some of the world’s best-known streamers and Sea of Thieves Arena players, each battling for a share of a true pirate fortune: $100,000 in prize money. Cannons will roar, blades will sing and cutting remarks will almost certainly be made during this no-holds-barred Arena encounter, so be sure to tune in and catch the mayhem live on Twitch for a chance…

Black Powder Stashes Content Update (video)

Boom kegs go boom! Trailer and Announcement Videos
We’re kicking off monthly game updates with Black Powder Stashes, an explosive good time for everyone! Visit Duke to pick up new voyages, all paying out gunpowder kegs. Turn them into any Trading Company for reputation. Boom! Job done. As if the smorgasbord of features that landed with the sea of thieves anniversary update weren’t enough to keep even the busiest of pirates occupied, we’re throwing even more into the mix with the introduction of our new monthly content updates – starting with Black Powder Stashes. Duke has word that the various trading companies are looking to stockpile explosive gunpowder…

Release Notes – 2.0.5

Black Powder Stashes Mercenary Releases
[Link] The latest update is here! Read on for the complete breakdown of changes coming in with update 2.0.5 which introduces Black Powder Stashes, the first in a series of planned Monthly Content Updates for Sea of Thieves.  Black Powder Stashes Reaper’s Black Powder Runs – Duke is challenging crews to face off against rivals in an explosive new Reaper’s Run, the ‘Reaper’s Black Powder Run’. These dangerous new voyages task crews with hopping from Fort to Fort finding Gunpowder Kegs, buried Merchant Crates and even guaranteed Stronghold Kegs! With two routes to pick from, crews should keep watch for rival crews…

Dev Update (video)

Black Powder Stashes! Dev Update Videos
A summary: How the game will be updated moving forward An acknowledgement that updates have been sporadic since launch. Rare wants players to understand the rhythm of updates, so they’ve moving to a cadence of monthly content updates. Each update will bring “new voyages”, “new rewards”, “quality of life updates”. Any new Tall Tales, updates to Arena, or new mechanics will drop into these monthly releases. Black Powder Stashes Update A new set of voyages which send you to forts to collect kegs and other rewards. A ‘lost shipment” of mermaid gems are washing up around the world. A range…

Dev Update (video)

More of what’s coming on July 17th… Dev Update Videos
I summarise, you read: Black Powder Stashes: July 17th. “It’s going to be very explosive.” Duke will send players around the world to collect merchant creates, gunpowder barrels and stronghold barrels. What else is coming in the update? “A range of areas” have received some additional balancing: The Hunter’s Call will have increased rewards The Skeleton Lords have been better tuned for various crew sizes Megalodons have been better tuned for various crew sizes Megalodons generally” have been tuned so you’ll see more “distinct behaviours” Cursed cannonballs have received balancing “Upped the rewards for exploring” More details on all balancing…

The AI of Sea of Thieves

A four-part series exploring the AI systems behind the game. Videos
Tommy Thompson of AI and Games has just released the final video of his four part series on Sea of Thieves. Thompson interviews some of the programming team at Rare, and covers subjects like enemy AI, quests and voyages, pathing in Unreal Engine, and much more. You can watch the whole series here. For posterity, here are a few points of interest from the series: Only skeletons, pigs, chickens and snakes are controlled with Unreal’s built-in AI framework; for everything water-based, Rare had to custom-build support by extending Unreal via access to the engine’s source code. Voyages (islands, bounty targets…

The Hunter’s Call Gold and Rep will be increasing soon

Expect this to land on July 17th. News
If you’ve been selling endless Splashtails to Merrick for the last two months for an absolute pittance, you now have something to look forward to. Lead Designer, Shelley Preston, has revealed on Twitter that an increase to gold and reputation is coming to the Hunter’s Call Trading company in Sea of Thieves. Well, good news Hunters! I’ve had a long chat with Merrick and all those Ruby Splashtails you’ve been delivering have given The Hunter’s Call the capital to give out greater Gold and Reputation rewards. Coming soon to a Seapost near you! 🐟🐠🐡🐟🐠🐡🐬🐟🐡🐬🐠 — Shelley Preston (@residentveg) July 8,…

Dev Update (video)

Black Powder Stashes: July 17th. Dev Update Videos
A summary: Black Powder Stashes Black Powder Stashes will be “the first of a regular set of activities coming to Adventure”. The event brings a new activity with its own motivations and incentives, along with cosmetics and commendations. Joe mentioned the previous Reaper’s Run Mercenary Voyages as an example of how the BPS will work, although different in its own way. With this in mean, we can safely assume these will be Mercenary Voyages, with similar set ups for voyage format, commendations and any titles and cosmetics that may be included. The Dev Update video thumbnail surely offers a hint…

Official Arena Dev Q&A

Hit reg! Cross play! Cosmetics! Etc! Roundups
On Wednesday the Sea of Thieves community team hosted a Q&A with some of the Arena leadership team. You can read the whole thing here, but to keep things nice and simple we’ve summarised the discussion below.   Q: When are we going to be able to play with sloops and brigs in the Arena? Shelley: We want to do this! In fact they’re currently in the Insider build for experimentation. We are working towards finding the right approach for adding all the ship types into Arena whilst creating a fair and level competitive playing field.   Q: Crossplay, the Opt…

Dev Update (video)

A new Adventure “activity” soon + Shelley rocks! Dev Update Videos
This week’s summary: Capstan Damage In this week’s dev update Joe returns to give the studio’s thinking on the updated capstan damage change. In last week’s game update the ability to drop a ships anchor by hitting the capstan with a cannonball was removed. This lead to some interesting feedback and discussion around the change. Many felt it went too far in removing the tactical ability, in Arena especially. Others felt it opened up some much need fluidity to the ship to ship combat. In Joe’s words, the original functionality “really didn’t fell right for the flow of ship battle……

Dev Update (video)

E3 and looking forward. Dev Update Videos
Joe returns after an E3 break to recap the inclusions and changes in the latest release, reminisce about E3, and look forwards to the next year. Notes of interest: From the latest update: Letters of recommendation for Sea Dogs and Hunter’s Call. Shores of Gold commendation fixes, and other small Tale Tales tweaks. Updated Arena matchmaking after each match. Capstan damage no longer drops the anchor – “we’ll see how that plays out in the wild”. Some Tall Tales localisation is being worked on for French and German, will be fixed in an upcoming update. Notes from E3: Joe reconfirmed…