11/01: News Hoard

Ghoul & Glory Weekend, Dev Update, Dev Stream

The spooky Fort of the Damned update continues in full swing, along with a double XP week, and the usual Dev Update and Stream… and even a bonus second Dev Stream!

For a Complete Guide to the Fort of the Damned Event, click here!

Don’t forget to check out a full breakdown of EVERYTHING new this month

Our October Shopper’s Guide shows off the latest new Cosmetics

Finally, take a deep dive into the Lore Secrets of this spooky saga

Ghoul & Glory Weekend

A ghoulish Double Gold & Double XP week is going on in Sea of Thieves right now.

Click Here for more details on this limited window Halloween event!

Developer Update

Executive Producer Joe Neate brings us his weekly update to the community

The Ghoul & Glory Weekend has begun, and though it is exclusive to the Adventure Mode, they will have more to share on something similar for The Arena next week .

. The Pirate Emporium is going well, the goal with it is not necessarily to bring in large profit but just to cover the ongoing investment of development costs. To do this, they will be expanding the kinds of things that are sold in the Pirate Emporium:

in the Pirate Emporium: They will be adding seasonal cosmetics to the Emporium , including some instruments and pet outfits that are themed around Thanksgiving for November. These additions expand beyond what they initially promised would be included in the Emporium, but they will continue to adhere to their key principles around microtransactions, including no Pay-to-Win schemes or Loot-box mechanics.

, including some instruments and pet outfits that are themed around Thanksgiving for November. These additions expand beyond what they initially promised would be included in the Emporium, but they will continue to adhere to their key principles around microtransactions, including no Pay-to-Win schemes or Loot-box mechanics. Player cosmetic loadout becoming randomized bug : the team is aware of this and has been working on unraveling the issue, which is much more complex than one might think. They will communicate when they have a fix, but are aware of the issue.

: the team is aware of this and has been working on unraveling the issue, which is much than one might think. They will communicate when they have a fix, but are aware of the issue. Moving forward, Monthly Updates may be on the second OR third Wednesday of every month, depending on size of update or scheduling around holidays, etc.

of every month, depending on size of update or scheduling around holidays, etc. The next update is releasing on NOVEMBER 20th

Developer Stream

Community Video Manager John McFarlane hosts Lead Video Producer John McMurtrie, Social Media Manager James, and community guest Absolute Pixel, as they attempt the Fort of the Damned and answer questions from the chat

Will you be doing anymore Twitch Drops soon?

All I can say is they were very successful the first time…

There’s a bug where Island title cards cover health and ammo?

We are aware and working on that.

Will the Black Dog Pack be available again in the future?

I don’t know

Are Seagulls coming to the Emporium?

I wouldn’t hold your breath, won’t say never

Did Robin Beanland play the banjo for the shanties?

Actually, Katie Tarrant played the banjo for the in game music!

Will we ever see a hammer while we’re repairing with planks?

Not likely going to be a high priority

Is there an easter egg or hidden secret in the game that you don’t think anyone has discovered?

I think there’s more than one…

Developer Stream Part Deux

Jon’s back with a special holiday BONUS stream, with Executive Producer Joe Neate, and special community guests Summit1g and Pace22! They set out to engage in some PvP and answer some community questions as well

Jon: What one thing do you guys want in Sea of Thieves?

Summit: I want my double gun back (laughs). I want to see Daily and Weekly tasks, and it would be cool if the Shores of Gold area was an area for elite voyages that you need the shroudbreaker to reach

Joe: we have plans in the future to use that area more with more cool and interesting challenges. When it comes to the Daily stuff, we’ve got some stuff planned for Christmas, a different kind of campaign of things to do and engage with that is a test for us on this kind of gameplay.

Summit: Are you doing anything to address server hopping (low pop servers, all sloops, nobody has treasure, etc)?

We’ve been adding things and adding more things that encourage players to opt in to higher reward content that also makes them more visible to other players. We’ve got cool plans for more variety and risk and opt in stuff for trading companies that will get more loot in the world and more obvious where that loot is, higher rewards but higher risk

Pace: I’d like to see more options for on land PvP and more diversity instead of always on the ship

Yeah, that’s good feedback. It’s been cool seeing Pace use the Reaper’s Chests to create his own King of the Hill type confrontations. We’d like to give players more tools to create these modes by themselves. Social mechanics and social roleplaying that allow players to create interesting moments is a big part of our upcoming content. We’re also having conversations about private servers for player to set up their own modes and competitions

Summit: Have you ever thought about adding another ladder to the Galleon? Trying to board when four guys are watching the ladder is frustrating

We have heard feedback around player to player combat balancing, we are looking at how all the weapons play against each other, we’re looking at all of that and we’ll update in a Dev update soon. We’ve taken a look at all the changes we’ve made, and what problems still exist and have a list of things we want to fix and we’ll share our ambitions with this soon. This includes balance between different ships

Do you prioritize full capacity servers or what?

We changed with this update how often we do server migration, the change should make servers more full. We changed the rules about how server migrations are triggered

Do you have any plans for cosmetics that are locked behind achieving things instead of buying them?

We’re always going to be introducing new rewards and new goals so we’re adding things like this

Is progression in private servers going to carry over or be just for fun?

That is a big topic and we aren’t ready yet to talk about our plans for that. The intent with private servers is to make it easier for people to coordinate for their own fun and competitions, it is not about allowing them to remove the “shared” part of the game’s “shared world”. It’s not going to take away from Adventure Mode. When we get this out, it will be a quick as possible version of it with base functionality that we will build on over time

Any plans to build on story missions so that there are more rewards on their ships for other players that might want to engage them in PvP?

That’s a good question, we’re constantly looking at how we can better integrate those Tall Tales into the shared world. We’re having conversations around it right now. There’s a conflict between people doing Tall Tales and people that want to steal from them, the quest objects don’t have value to pvpers but high value to Tall Talers, and we’re trying to better solve this. We have a rough idea of our solution, but not ready to talk about it

Any thought on doing a quest that costs a lot of gold or investment to start, so players are too invested to quit if they get attacked?

That’s a good idea, but we’d have to discuss that with Mike and think about how that would work or what could be the problems with an idea like that.

It would be cool if the Beam from Reaper’s Chests stays after they’re picked up, maybe a new color to show they’ve been taken, because players don’t always look at the map

Yeah once the beam goes away, it makes them less noticeable, there could be a technical limitation to doing that but I don’t know. We’ve been having a conversation a lot about visibility and making things less hidden and communicating more obvious to players where things are happening in the world, so players can opt-in to things

Have you thought about being able to read more about player’s quests when you board their ship, like see what island they’re going to, or what X’s there are, an ability to steal the information?

That’s a cool idea, we purposely put in that you can see what kind of quest they’re on and you can read their map to see what they marked, that’s definitely a part of the intent of the game but we don’t know if that’d be too far or not, we’d have to discuss whether that’s right for our game design or not

Is there a way you could speed up players spawning in and leaving outpost, maybe give more starting resources? Players sit at outpost for 20 minutes sometimes

Joe: I’ve had some thoughts on how we could speed this up and respect people’s free time, I haven’t vetted the ideas by anyone else in the studio yet but it would be helpful to reduce this buy-in time at the start of a session

Chat: Maybe start people with stronger fruits instead of bananas

(Everyone Liked That)

Are you ever planning to add a speedometer that lets us see how fast we’re going?

We did have that in the prototype actually! I don’t know why we never made it in the final game, it was at the back of the ship, you’d drop a rope in the water with a cyllinder and it would show you how fast you’re going

Pace: Is there anything coming up soon you want to talk about?

Joe: I don’t want to spoil our November update because I’ll get in trouble. We’ve got some fun stuff planned for Christmas.

Is there any way to make render distance further for players to see ships from farther away?

That is purely a performance issue, if we increase render distance then we hurt performance, and it’s a constant battle of balance

Can you add spyglass sensitivity settings?

Spyglass sensitivity might be coming soon