Anyone playing the Sea of Thieves Beta?

That's right, a sort-of-exclusive Xbone game! They might be a thing again!

Remember, you can get into the Beta by preordering the game from Amazon. You will immediately receive a Beta code through email, and you can cancel your preorder. Amazon won't charge your card for preorders until they release, so you don't have to wait for them to hold your money! :v

Here's a (slightly NSFW) video showing what Sea of Thieves might be like. It's a great watch, and if the actual game is like this, I might be picking it up:

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I'm definitely planning on playing it some this week. Most likely some on Thursday night after 9:00 pm (Central) and some more on Sunday night. Definitely want to have a full group of 4 if possible.

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I obviously don't have an Xbox (although with rumors of a new Fable, I may be looking into it at some point), so no Sea of Thieves for me.

Sorry, to threadjack, but I've been meaning to ask and this makes sense rather than making another thread. Anyone getting Monster Hunter World on Friday? I'll be picking it up Friday evening after work.

I'll probably play solo for the first night at least. I'm new to Monster Hunter and want to play alone and get my feet under me, but I'd love to join up with some folks if anyone else is going to get it.

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I have a few friends getting it. I am not sure if (when) I will get it. Like You I am new to MH, but the Beta was pretty fun. Its not something I could find fun without friends it seems like, based on the beta.

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The beta seems like sort of a bad preview of the actual game. The beta was very specific, limited challenges. The game is much more free form and open. Quests are typically 50 minutes versus 20, and you can explore freely and hunt and collect while not on a quest. The beta showed what the game feels like to play in combat, but doesn’t really show the actual loop very well.

Not sure if that will actually change your feelings or not, but I wouldn’t really judge the game by only by the beta.

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So I put quite a bit of time into the game last night, and I give what I’ve played a thumb’s up.

You are part of a crew of four, sailing a ship across the seas, running fetch quests for island outposts. A pretty weak premise, but it’s carried by the rest of the game. The ship must be manned by the whole crew, with someone at the helm, someone handling the sails, and the other two managing the ship and it’s resources, charting the course, or keeping an eye out for danger. If you’re playing with a full team, the sense of adventure is real.

And it must be said that the waters are gorgeous. From underwater effects to the glistening reflection of the sun in the evenings, the water in this game was completely nailed.

So what do you do on these waters? The game’s pretty massive map is littered with small islands. Some are the size of your ship, and some are big enough that two crews could be on the same island and not encounter each other. I say that, because it’s a shared-world sailer... Resources are scarce, and different player groups often have to loot the same island for ammo, gunpowder, cannonballs, and... bananas.
So you often come to blows with other teams for their resources, or to protect your own.
Encounters with other players can often be lengthy affairs, since the sinking of one ship isn’t exactly the end. When our ship sunk during one encounter, we swam the shark-infested waters over to a nearby island, where we armed the cannons and continued to fire on the enemy ship as they tried to loot our sunken ship. Eventually, the enemy lost their ship, and came after us. I made my way to the very top of the island, where a peak loomed over the waters below. My teammate’s got our ship back somehow, and before the enemy could corner me, I leapt off the top of the peak all the way to the water, climbed aboard the ship, and we escaped with the loot that we had come for, leaving the enemy stranded.

... Then we spent over half an hour just turning in the quest, gathering loot, and picking up a different island quest... it was a tad dull, since there’s not much to do while you wait for your teammates to handle their business and such. The next island we went to was tiny, so we picked up the chest with no trouble, then had to sail aaaaall the way back to the outpost to pick up what would hopefully be a more exciting island.

Combat is somewhat wonky, but it’s tough to get killed, so fights against the AI and other players tends to feel very forgiving. Death itself doesn’t seem very punishing, as you’re just taken to a neat ghostly ship while you wait to respawn (I was eaten by a shark once!).

Anyway, the game can be really fun and unique, so I recommend giving it a shot. I’ll try to work on some of my footage to share later.

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Watching Griffin and Justin McElroy play makes the game look hilarious (but they can make anything hilarious, so . . .), but I'm honestly not sure it's something I'd enjoy for very long.

It looks really, really neat. I also can't imagine playing a game that requires me to party up if I want to play it at all. I just don't have the schedule for that.

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It looks really, really neat. I also can't imagine playing a game that requires me to party up if I want to play it at all. I just don't have the schedule for that.

You definitely do not have to party up and run a full big ship made for four. Although that is fun, and will likely be my preferred way to play most of the time, there are also smaller ships, including one that is made to run solo.

Once Breitzen finally got it downloaded and jumped online, I gave him my spot on the big ship and jumped into a solo ship for a couple hours. It can be a bit challenging to go solo, especially since that means you have to do ALL the things (steer, raise/lower/turn sails, raise/lower anchor, go up and down the deck to look at your big map and make sure you’re still heading in the right direction, and even repair breaches in the hull and bail water water out if necessary. But it was a ton of fun! In fact, those hours spent soloing tonight have probably sold me on buying the game. I am looking forward to playing a bunch with friends, but knowing that it can be a fun challenge to go it alone makes it worth a buy for me.

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Follow our fantastic voyage here on Mixer!

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Sharks are fun.

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I watched a bit of this last night and it looked awesome. It reminded me a bit of the rhythm of Elite Dangerous, but more cooperative than I've ever played that game.

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Alert your crew and make sure you have all hands on deck by the time you decide to try a high-speed docking maneuver. You don't want to drag your boat halfway across an island instead of doing that sweet drift. (That poor, poor boat)
Don't keep all your powder kegs in the same corner. When one blows up, you don't want all of them to blow up. (Never had I seen a boat sink so fast)
Mancannon is a thing.
Sharks don't die when shot with people.

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This game is so fun, you can't help but get into character. :P

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A+ commentary

Is everyone still playing the beta? Looks like it got extended for 2 days.

I've been unable to use voice chat AND play with people at the same time for the past few days due to some controller issues, but I think I have that fixed now. Might see if I can get in on what's left of the beta. I usually don't care for PvP but this seems like it's done in a comical/low pressure way that I might be OK with.

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A+ commentary

Is everyone still playing the beta? Looks like it got extended for 2 days.

I've been unable to use voice chat AND play with people at the same time for the past few days due to some controller issues, but I think I have that fixed now. Might see if I can get in on what's left of the beta. I usually don't care for PvP but this seems like it's done in a comical/low pressure way that I might be OK with.

The thing about it is that it's PvP mushed together with PvE. We once played for like 3 hours one night on a 4 man ship. There was two man ship tailing us and and trying to mess with us for a solid hour. We fought them 2-3 times going back and forth trading ships and killing each other (they had good weapons). We eventually said F this and started sailing for some treasure and full speed, but their small ship kept up with us and so we devised a plan to have two of us jump overboard to grab the treasure while the other two stayed on the boat and keep circling the island. It actually worked pretty well. And it worked even better when another 4 person galley came in and blew the hell out of their little ship. I recorded it, but this game won't push the videos to Xboxdvr :(

It was a hell of a fun time. Sometimes you can play it PvP, other times PvE :P

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Is everyone still playing the beta? Looks like it got extended for 2 days.

Yeah. Even if you get in one night, you play solo, two-man, or four, you're probably going to have a fun time ranging from relaxing, to flat-out exciting.

I've been unable to use voice chat AND play with people at the same time for the past few days due to some controller issues, but I think I have that fixed now.

Last night I jumped into matchmaking for a two-man ship, and left my headset unplugged for a while. i used the fairly-serviceable text options (there should really be an option to give Cardinal directions) to communicate with my crewmate, and we were able to do a couple of runs before I decided to plug in.

Might see if I can get in on what's left of the beta. I usually don't care for PvP but this seems like it's done in a comical/low pressure way that I might be OK with.

There's a bit of an odd line there. Last night, the aforementioned teammate and I were attacked by a single-man ship (what was he thinking? Who knows!). I jumped on his ship during the fight, and stole his treasure chest before we sunk his ship. He must have taken it personally, because he came after us two more times (I'm getting real good with that cannon :P). After that, he somehow got a four-man ship to team up with him to come after us, triggering a chase that went on for about half an hour (we went all the way south into the redwaters, all the way to the East side of the map, then we circled around and headed west. No matter where we went, the two enemy ships kept pace, and slowly gained on us enough to have all four people on the large ship take endless pot-shots at us with their rifles (I was even looking for a hostile fort to get some heat off of us).

Once they finally caught up to us, they had four (five with the smaller ship) times the firepower, and we stood no chance. I had even considered strapping our lone keg of gunpowder to my back and jumping overboard to blast a hole in their ship, since we had no hope otherwise.
After they sunk us, it spawned us near the closest outpost, so we weren't exactly safe or free from them (remember that the first guy found us three times).
Griefing seems like it will be easy, since the big ships can easily keep up with the smaller ships, so if you get one after you, there's very little that you can do to avoid a watery grave. Hopefully they make the smaller ships slightly faster, because the balance is severely skewed at the moment. It was fun the first time, but I can imagine it getting very stressful.

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Griefing seems like it will be easy, since the big ships can easily keep up with the smaller ships, so if you get one after you, there's very little that you can do to avoid a watery grave. Hopefully they make the smaller ships slightly faster, because the balance is severely skewed at the moment. It was fun the first time, but I can imagine it getting very stressful.

This is my biggest fear too. Maybe the final game's map is so much bigger it'll be less of an issue.

My other thought was just allowing you to select where to respawn your ship or make it easy to switch servers (although I suppose this could be abused too).

Like Mac said above though, our hour of being trolled forced us to be creative and actually led to a really epic and satisfying victory.

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A+ commentary

Is everyone still playing the beta? Looks like it got extended for 2 days.

Why, yes, we are! At which times are you usually up for it? I really want to squeeze the crap out of this beta.

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Why, yes, we are! At which times are you usually up for it? I really want to squeeze the crap out of this beta.

Probably between 6:00-10:00pm US Central time. If I get in and get it downloaded.

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I placed a pre-order but only ever got the placeholder for the actual game. No beta in my ready to install list. Looks like they probably stopped issuing access on the day there beta was originally supposed to end (today). I've canceled for now - turns out you can do that via the web without talking to customer service.

I'm stuck with Korny's videos until it releases.

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That's right, a sort-of-exclusive Xbone game! They might be a thing again!

Remember, you can get into the Beta by preordering the game from Amazon. You will immediately receive a Beta code through email, and you can cancel your preorder. Amazon won't charge your card for preorders until they release, so you don't have to wait for them to hold your money! :v

Here's a (slightly NSFW) video showing what Sea of Thieves might be like. It's a great watch, and if the actual game is like this, I might be picking it up:

Any way to get that code without making an (easily cancelled) Amazon order? Seems they've shut Amazon out, or Amazon has run out.

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Any way to get that code without making an (easily cancelled) Amazon order? Seems they've shut Amazon out, or Amazon has run out.

I'm wondering the same thing. From what I've read, you CAN cancel an XBox Store preorder, but you have to go through customer service to do so. I mean, I'd like to believe I'm definitely buying it, but it'll depend a lot on the beta experience. If I get in.

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Any way to get that code without making an (easily cancelled) Amazon order? Seems they've shut Amazon out, or Amazon has run out.

I'm wondering the same thing. From what I've read, you CAN cancel an XBox Store preorder, but you have to go through customer service to do so. I mean, I'd like to believe I'm definitely buying it, but it'll depend a lot on the beta experience. If I get in.

Nope, not that complicated, you just go to the orders page in a browser and there is a cancel button.

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There was some trouble validating access to the Closed Beta through MS purchases, but the code Amazon would send you worked flawlessly. It was weird like that.

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Yeah, but Amazon was sold out by the time I started looking into this on Monday.

I did actually find the web return option on the MS store. It's just odd that my Googling beforehand hadn't revealed that option.

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This is so very up my alley (well, except for the PVP stuff. That does not seem well thought out and will eat to griefing).

I have not played they game as I had not heard of it until last night (when I returned from my hometown's annual celebration of pirates), but I watched a few hours of people playing the beta and am pretty hyped.

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This is so very up my alley (well, except for the PVP stuff. That does not seem well thought out and will eat to griefing).

Yeah, but it can have its moments. :v

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That was hilarious

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This is so very up my alley (well, except for the PVP stuff. That does not seem well thought out and will eat to griefing).

Yeah, but it can have its moments. :v

Wow, You guys had that entire fight while I was trying to find one lousy chest!

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Hahahahhahahaha

You didn't notice? Why did you think we bailed on you?

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Hahahahhahahaha

You didn't notice? Why did you think we bailed on you?

I knew it in the back of my head but I was too busy fighting skeletons, making sure the map wasn't upside down, digging holes and finding scarecrows! It's hard work. You guys just floated around in circles and fired cannons! and there was three of you :P

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That actually looks fun. I think I like that they've built in a certain lack of accuracy with the weapons. Seems like it makes it all feel a little more fiesta and less MLG.

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Given that almost everything is at distance, having bullet drop will require skillful compensation too.

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Given that almost everything is at distance, having bullet drop will require skillful compensation too.

The pistol accuracy is pretty bad and the sniper/musket has insane lead time if you are trying to snipe someone on another ship. But it sure is fun to try :D

Even so, it's a lot of fun to use both weapons.

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Not to mention the lateral inertia

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Anyone playing the Sea of Thieves Beta? (Gaming)