There's another S (or a 5?) here too. That caption is weird, such odd phrasing, and the image description is incredibly detailed.
At this stage, I'm already lost and probably just going to let this one play out. It's a shame, I was hoping for more involvement and stuff to do, not just dripfeeding teases in the same way that they did with the runes before (which ultimately led to fuck all). Back to general rep increasing then… cleared Reaper 62 yesterday and I think we're going to have a crack at the new Athena voyage today, so that'll be fun.
Oh, we haven't tried the new Athena thing yet - looks like it's likely quite a long one.
The mystery stuff does seem like it's just a bunch of unconnected stuff to piece together from disparate sources, rather than something you can actually follow. I'd have much preferred it be entirely in-game, for one thing; trawling the social media accounts is a bit too meta.
I don't mind the mix of social stuff and in-game content, but the latter should be worth seeking out. Sailing for 20 minutes to an island, only to discover there's fuck all there is a waste of time.
We're going to check with the Pirate Lord when buying our quests today, as the dead pirate in question was his son. Doubt there'll be anything of note to report though.
Oh, we haven't tried the new Athena thing yet - looks like it's likely quite a long one.
Nope, it can be completed in an hour and gets you to Grade 5 emissary guaranteed. The loot is good too. The only issue is that the final stage puts a whopping green lightning tornado on the map for everyone to see, so it's not like you can do it quietly…
Thankfully, you don't have to. But those gunpowder-strapped rowboats are going to be fun (even if they're only around for the duration of the adventure).
Starts Thursday… when it's a bank holiday here in Germany. Wonder what I'll be doing?
The mystery just got a whole lot more interesting… I'm very much not a fan of them deciding to put out clues based on Twitter RT numbers, but at least there's some in-game content now to balance it out. Hard to tell what's real and what's Photoshop, but I need to pay another visit to Sea Dog's Rest now…
Generally, it's the Sea of Thieves Twitter account but then you need to work out the in-game stuff (or read the comments for spoilers to save hunting). Here's the timeline (apologies for the long paragraph, spoiler tags don't like bullet points or carriage returns):
Spoiler - click to show
The SoT account put up the video I posted above. That's on Sea Dog's Rest, you could go and 'inspect' the body but not do much else. Then there was a post showing Devil's Ridge (also shared above), but it was just letters hidden in the image and nothing in-game. Then there was another long video on Sunday just showing Sea Dog's Rest from a distance. Then there were two posts close to each other which had symbols on the image, suggesting more would be revealed at a certain level of RTs and comments (this sucks, it's engagement bait). Then suddenly, as of about 8pm last night, there were footprints on the sands of Sea Dog's Rest, leading to a note with a clue that leads to a chest in the sea containing a lamp, which can be shone on the beach by the body revealing a secret message. Oh, and DeMarco's sister has just turned up, covered in cuts and bruises. She's not saying much… yet.
The image in the tweet was a pair of arrows in a circle and two Ms on their side. As the arrows were by the key of the music box, I initially thought it meant you could turn the key of the box… except it actually meant they wanted 2,000 RTs (M is 1,000 and there were two of them, and the arrows are the RT symbol). Honestly, that absolutely sucks.
Logged in last night to have a look at Sea Dog's Rest, but then realised there's only a week left on the current Emissary reward track, so did some Merchant Alliance stuff instead. I think after this rotation, I'll only have the blunderbuss left to unlock?
We're so far behind on emissary rewards, I need to make more of an effort. This month, we've been slowly dripping into Reapers, and we were inside the top tier last time I checked. That can change so quickly though… fingers crossed we can stay there.
Merchants are the only one I'm even close to finishing, and that's just because they're so easy to rank up with; just picking up the loot you find on a Lost Shipment voyage gets you to Emissary 5, and if you do a couple of commodity runs after that, you'll be halfway to the top tier.
Order of Souls, on the other hand, can fucking do one.
Merchants are the only one I'm even close to finishing, and that's just because they're so easy to rank up with; just picking up the loot you find on a Lost Shipment voyage gets you to Emissary 5, and if you do a couple of commodity runs after that, you'll be halfway to the top tier.
That's mainly because no-one bothers with Merchant, so the quantity needed to get up there is lower… as easy as it is, it's so dull as fuck. I've done so many Merchant cargo runs, and yet my progress through commendations is glacial because for some ungodly reason, cargo missions don't count as Merchant missions. You need to be catching animals and delivering them. And don't even get me started on the 'Deliver wood/cannonballs/gunpowder on time' missions which are entirely random if you even find them…
I do like that most company-specific quests (Gold vaults, Order ghost ships, Merchant lost shipments and now Athena veil quests) are engineered to get you to at least Grade 4 emissary in one mission. They take time, sure, but the reward is worth it. I haven't done one in ages, so I really should, but I do love the Crystal Maze feel of a gold vault's final stage…
That's a pity… I love a bit of naval combat, the strategy of getting the right approach and angle while my partner blasts the shit out of things (not real people). We don't do them too often, but they can be quite exciting.
We did both halves of the new adventure today and it's… fine. I guess. It doesn't seem particularly polished, because there are issues with it registering stuff for the Deeds. We also failed the Reaper half completely despite doing exactly what we were supposed to do: we blew up the rowboat on Golden Sands, but it said Adventure Failed and that was that. We'll have to try again, I guess.
I also managed to get the special lantern for the mystery, but it bugged for my other half. Not going to go looking for more clues until she can get it too, because that just wouldn't be fair to her.
I assume that's a combination of Reapers getting more motivated early on, and the fact that a lot of folks are doing the Destroy version for Commendations even if they're on the Save side. We'll see how it goes.
I do like how there are ways to influence the balance without having to actively do the adventure. Taking wood and fruit to Golden Sands, or rowboats you find around the world to blow up is good. That said, you can also fuck with people doing the adventure on both sides (stealing the rum/sailcloth from saviours or the rune caches from reapers), so I guess you were right about it having a PVP aspect after all Ninchilla…
These guys with diaper sails chased us for ages, even after we ditched all our loot. We did try fighting them to little effect (though they didn't sink us) and they just kept falling for me jumping off the ship and firebombing them as they pursued. One of them called me a noob, so that was enough… thank goodness for portal hopping.
Save Golden Sands won by 53 to 47 or thereabouts. Golden Sands is slowly coming back, though there's nothing there yet. The cannon emplacements are gone though.
What an absolutely massive waste of everyone's time. Fuck people who were thinking about gameplay mechanics (Oh, the distance to sell is shorter, oh the location is so handy when you're here on the map) rather than what interesting forward events could come out of keeping it ruined. Without the ruination of Old Boot Fort, we'd never have got the Fort of the Damned. People are so boring.
I don't know if this is worse, but we didn't really contribute at all, beyond running the Adventure once each side; we were away for the first week of the thing, and by the time we blind the time to give it a go, it was the last night.
Not sure what the "new cash-in points" are, though; are they replacing the existing merchant company locations, or just an alternative option?
Have you noticed that on main outposts, one of the unused docks has started to have extra construction on there? It's that.
Spoiler - click to showThere's a new faction (ish) coming called the Sovereigns who are basically a catch all group for people who want to sell quickly. You can only use them when you're captaining a ship - you can still play without choosing to do so - but it allows you to hand in all types of loot to one spot, while still receiving the respective reputation for the right company. Essentially, they'll sell it for you to the right place (Gold Hoarder stuff to the Gold Hoarders, etc) while removing the need to run all over the islands. They don't service Reapers or Hunters Call though, so you still have to go to a seapost or the hideout for those.
Doesn't seem to be. It's just faster/more convenient.
(and easier to have all your stuff nicked from one spot)
For reference, the Sovereign tent has a viewing platform that has a lift with a harpoon. That means you can stand on it and look down, harpoon all of the loot off the deck of your boat really quickly onto the lift platform, then lower it and find all your stuff directly in front of the person you're selling to. Very, very fast, although the platform does make you a bit of a sitting duck…
I watched the Skull & Bones presentation from Ubisoft last night, all 60+ minutes of it. It's definitely a Ubisoft game, which is to say there's a radar with icons all over it, many NPCs with massive banners/icons over their heads showing who they are and what they do, lots of menus and shiny, shiny graphics. The naval combat has you controlling the boat, not a character, and you ethereally move between weapons (which all have on-screen crosshairs), shooting at the many, many boats around you. Things blow up a lot. Loot from sunken ships has a massive yellow circle around the perimeter and icons above, so you know where it is (and if you leave the circle before collecting it, it vanishes). There are lots of side quests. There are cutscenes when you discover treasure. This is, in no uncertain terms, a videogame.
I'm sure there's a market for this and it'll do well. But it's not for me.
Yeah, there have been some headlines about this competing with Sea of Thieves, but… nah.
I didn't even make it all the way through the presentation; the boat stuff looks like smashing bath toys together, and the on-foot sections remind me of Black Flag multiplayer. As you say, it's Videogame: the Videogame (with pirates!).
Yeah, there have been some headlines about this competing with Sea of Thieves, but… nah.
People saying this will compete and/or negatively affect SoT are bring silly. Same for SoT fans panicking… there's room for more than one pirate game in the world.
Did Glitterbeard again yesterday in another epic ten hour sail (which also featured a four boat, near-server domination alliance involving three grade 5 Reapers and nine Fort of the Damned completions). It's still as beautiful as it ever was.
… aaaaaaand now I've hit Reaper's Bones lv75. Thank fuck for that. Still loads of commendations to do, but now I literally have no need for any loot ever again (unless it's Athena's Fortune).
Hit Athena's Fortune lv20 today as well, but they've boosted that to 30 as the maximum now and nerfed the reputation value of all items. So, great.
And all that's before Captaincy comes in, which basically sees you having to do 90% of all things again from scratch. JOY.
I hit 75 with the last of the three core companies the other day, though I still have a fair chunk of emissary stuff unearned. Don't know if I have the nerve for Reapers, or the patience for Athena (or, gods help me, Hunter's Call…).
Reapers isn't that bad as long as you're patient. We've never been aggressive players, we just ensured all the loot we got was sold there rather than to the respective companies. We also kept a watchful eye out for flags others had left behind. Took a while, but we got there now.
Hunters is okay, I quite like fishing now they've made it easier (labelling fish before you hook them, etc). Stuff coming in for Season 7 should make it even easier again. And obviously, selling all mermaid/siren gems to them helps too.
Athena… eh, it is what it is. Post-game content was always going to be slow, but at least the new Veil voyage is fun. Best to just plug away when you can.
Our brig is called Lady Dwayne, which is an in-joke among the crew; my sloop is Left Foot Forward, because boarding a ship left foot first is considered bad luck, and I'm trying to set expectations.
One good Gold & Glory weekend, and you'd have more than enough. Also, don't forget you can sell doubloons to Larinna - if you do that during Gold Rush (5-6pm UK time every day), you get twice as much gold back. Do that during a G&G weekend, you get even more.
Good. Requiring players to be on fire for a full 60 minutes per level, among other things, was just stupid. That said, people moaning that the goals are too high to unlock things are just dumb. It's a long-term game experience! You don't need to unlock everything right now! FFS.
Unsure if anyone cares (Ninchilla? Aniki?) but if anyone wants a code for the Oreo boat set they released yesterday via the special promotion, ping me a DM with the email address you want it sent to and I'll sort it. I got a pack of the Xbox cookies this morning, so can generate codes at will (in the UK, you can't do it until the 16th).
