Prologue
Ahoy there fellow Pirates!
Today's 'The Captain's Quarters' isn't just the fourth chapter, it's also one month since I started writing them. As some of you may have read in last week's chapter 3 about community ideas, I now have a small crew to help me do these things. I'm grateful for them taking the time to voice their thoughts and opinions and what you are about to read is written with their input in mind!
Just a reminder that the purpose here is to encourage healthy discussions about the things that have been added. Any arguments should be settled according to the Pirate Code: on the seas.
Here's this week's The Captain's Quarters!
Bilge Rat Adventure no.3: The Sunken Curse
Our waters be cursed and our brave explorer hearts are put to the test while we search and destroy the Cursed Mermaid Statues that roam around the islands.
Sunken Curse Event - Cursed Mermaid Statues are the latest addition to Sea of Thieves. Hidden in the shallows around island shores, they radiate ancient magic. For this adventure, the Bilge Rats are challenging all brave pirates to seek out and destroy the statues. Not all statues are bound by the same curse but they all regenerate health over time, and while some will require more firepower than others to destroy, no more than four players will be required to destroy even the toughest statue.
First things first; when I heard about the name for the third adventure I was very excited. As we all know the release date for Cursed Sails is going to be in July. The timing and name of this adventure were absolutely perfect for a build up event towards Cursed Sails. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Yes, I burned myself by expecting something and not getting it. Still, I feel this is a missed opportunity because the timing would have been absolutely perfect!
So what is it that we have to do this time around? Well around the island there are these mermaid statues, as you can see pictured above. There are three variants: Sapphire, Emerald and Ruby. Coincedently the third generation of Pokémon games were also called: Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald. I am counting on the next adventure to have something to do with Diamond and Pearl, otherwise I'll be very disappointed. What? Sunken Curse? Oh... right.
The three types of statues have an increasing difficulty. Sapphire is easily done solo where you'll need some help to take down Emerald and Ruby. There are players who've done all three solo, so it is definitely do-able! I would suggest trying out yer skills and see if you can take them down yerself.
Finding the statues isn't too hard. There's a new type of ambient music that comes with the statues and you can usually hear it when on deck. If you happen to sail over one, like we did quite a lot, you'll hear it. In my crew's case this meant that two of us would go absolutely crazy and yelled: "I CAN HEAR ONE!" and subsequently jumped overboard.
How do you take them down? Well, there is a variety of ways. You could hit them with your sword or you could use your guns. There are players out there, however, who are incredibly patient and put a couple of barrels above the statue and waited until they sank to the bottom of the sea. When timed correctly you could blow all of them up and take down the statue.
Disappointment
Okay, I'm going to start with something a bit negative here. Yes, I was rather disappointed with this adventure. The name got me thinking that we'd have a curse we would face at the bottom of the sea somewhere. We would fight something and cure ourselves, or the sea, of said curse. I didn't think we would be hitting statues until they explode which, granted, does look pretty cool.
I thought the Skeleton Thrones were okay simply because there was some skill involved regarding your cannon aim. There were a few easy ones, a few harder ones and one that got players so mad they drank all the grog the sea could offer. Yes, I'm looking at you Marauder's Arch! Anyhow, the gunpowder skeletons were very cool because they put some dynamic into Order of Souls and Skeleton Forts. They made you run for your life.
Mermaid Statues, however, aren't really that exciting. Well, not if it's the main focus of your gaming session. Which brings me to my next point...
Side quest to your main quest
While hunting down statues and mind-numbingly hitting them until they explode isn't all that exciting, it really can be if it's an addition to whatever it is that you are already doing. I think the strength of this adventure lays within doing a voyage, like you normally would, and finding them along your voyage.
This is exactly how my crew and I went about it. There's still a few crewmates left who need to become Pirate Legend so we let them decide what type of voyages we were doing. When arriving at an island we would simply do that voyage and one of us would have a quick swim around the island to see if any statues are there.
Doing it this way caused two things. One: we were just doing voyages for hours on end and having an incredible fun time doing it. Two: there were other crews who did the same thing which meant that most of the ships you'd find had a decent amount of loot on them! The battles that then occurred were amazing because all ships had something to fight for now.
Finding sunken items is a pleasure as well. You'll just run into them and can stack them next to the rest of your loot.
Overall thoughts
I've seen people rush to the end of this adventure, earning every single commendation there is. Afterwards they'd complain that it was too easy and boring to do. While I agree, I also feel that is in part due to the way these players went about it. Now, don't get me wrong, players need to be able to play this game the way they want. That means that if you want to focus on taking down statues, you should be able to and that is totally fine! I just feel that this particular adventure has been designed to go alongside your regular voyages. So I agree that focussing on this adventure alone really is boring. Doing it alongside your voyages, however, makes for a couple of great moments and battles.
Food for thought: Lore
This one was mentioned by @Skulliah and I think it's something to think about. There isn't a single bit of lore around these adventures. Surely Rare could come up with even a tiny backstory as to why the Skeletons decided to become meaner and carry gunpowder kegs or why there are now Cursed Mermaid Statues appearing across the sea.
Given the short lead time that THD and these adventures had, we understand that this could be overlooked. Hopefully lore will be a key point of adventures still to come!
The Wailing Barnacle Set
A new adventure also means a new set of cosmetics. Last adventure we were able to gain more items for our Bonecrusher set but, luckily, this adventure we are able to purchase an entirely new set. While I originally didn't like the bits of red on the shoulders and along the side, after I dug up a Chest of Sorrows I figured out what it's based off. It made me appreciate it a bit more.
Now that we are on the subject of cosmetic sets that we can buy with Doubloons: why do we have to run all the way across the island to put it on?! We go into the Tavern to find Duke. We spend our hard earned Doubloons to get a new set from Duke. Great, you now have a new cosmetic set! Do you want to try it on? Yeah?! Great, you have two options: run back to yer ship or run to the clothing shoppe. You can't put it on right there at Duke's. Rare, please, give us a clothing chest near Duke 😊.
Commendations, titles and Doubloons
This time we are able to earn a total of 10 commendations, well 9 but I'll get to that. Only 7 are worth a couple of Doubloons. I think the new ribbon across the commendation is a lot more clear than that little thing we had previously. I'm glad that there's a new design for each new adventure. It makes filtering through the Bilge Rat commendations a lot easier.
Okay, so about this 10th commendation. Number 9 is the Legendary Curse Breaker. To achieve this you need to destroy one hundred mermaid statues. This will simultaneously unlock commendation number 10: "Legendary Curse Breaker" title. Surely this could have been added to commendation number 9? I understand this is probably done to fill out the remaining space, but come on. It feels a bit, lazy.
Bilge Rat Flag
In last week's The Captain's Quarters I talked about having a Bilge Rat Flag. One of our community members, @archangel-timmy, even created a couple of designs of what these flags could look like. Then patch 1.1.5 came around and lo and behold Bilge Rat Flags were added to the game for Pirates to signal they are doing the new adventure! A great, and highly requested, addition.
There is one thing, though. As you can see in the image above, the Bilge Rat Flags are present on all three masts for the Galleon. The flags we already have, like the Jolly Roger, is only present on the main mast with smaller, but similar colored, flags on the other two masts. I'm don't like having three flags. I like the approach of having a similar colored flag!
Main Menu Pirate Animations
As small as this addition may be, I'm incredibly fond of the new Pirate animations that populate our main menu! Each time you log in, your Pirate could be holding one of nine items. As you may remember, this was also the case for the Infinite Pirate Generator when you created your Pirate! It's great to see such a small thing being added here, because I feel it really enhances your experience to some degree. It throws you right into the environment you are about to step into 😊.
Epilogue
As is usually the case with these things: it's been a long read! The read is over, though, and I thank you for making it this far. I would love to know what you think of this update and what your thoughts on it are.
A big thank you to the following people for either sending in a screenshot of their main menu, or helping out with thoughts for this chapter:
- @Skulliah
- @FishSt1ck
- @triheadedmonkey
- @mr-shatango
- @CaptnJaq
- @MyOnionsoup
- @N13-Insomniac
- @Elisyra
If you think I can do something better with The Captain's Quarters (TCP), please let me know. I want to create the best TCP I can make each time around so I'm open to all feedback 😁.
Smooth sailin' to ye,
Murkrage