I've just thought of a unique idea for a safezone!

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Great idea.

@jarofpeachz i would rather it not be an instanced area, personally i like the idea of a big port city where it's not so much a safe zone as it is just patrolled by npc guards that don't like random people getting murdered in their city xD

Not sure the developers’ time is well spent coding and testing a bunch of mini games.

I can hear the complaints already:

• ”The cards are not really random. There is no way these hands could come up so often!”
• “The dice game is broken. Here is a video of the same roll happening three times in a row! This shouldn’t be possible.”
• “The tavern is dead. No one plays because they are all searching for gold and reputation. We should have the ability to bet and earn gold in the taverns.”
• “I lost all my gold. We should get some free chips or something to get warmed up or when we lose everything.”
• “We should have a way to kick players who are disrupting the table.”
• “We need to have a way to have a mics only table. Part of playing the games is about the interactions.”
• “I was playing with these pirates who were working together at the table. I lost everything. There needs to be a way to stop that from happening.”
• “There needs to be a way to separate the PC players and the Xbox players. The PC players have too much of an advantage at the dart game.”
• “There needs to be more of an incentive to play the mini games. I was in the tavern for two hours and it was just me in there most of the time. I only saw one other player and they just played pirate slot machines the whole time.”
• “We need emotes for the tavern. Especially for the card games.”
• “I had an idea! Why can’t we choose to play against NPC computer players? It would give us someone to play against when it is slow, and we could avoid the cheating pirates who are obviously working together.”
• “The NPC players are too easy/hard. Most real players are not that bad/good.”
• “There needs to be a beginner, intermediate, and advanced setting on the NPC players! We need a chance to learn how to play. I lost everything I had!”
• We should be able to have our own private taverns to play at if we want. I was playing at a table of NPCs when a pirate showed up when a new hand was dealt. He replaced the NPC who had all my chips! The chips were gone forever. I didn’t get a chance to win them back. I lost everything.”
• “There needs to be a way to stop griefers in the games. They just come in and go all in on bets. They don’t know how to play and upset the balance. This reduces the mini-game tables to a bunch of scratch-off lottery games.”
• “The new ‘kick from table’ feature is being abused by griefers. I was playing at a table and they booted me when I kept winning.”
• “There needs to be a way to play with just friends. I am tired of joining a table and getting kicked because they want to play with a friend.”
• “Why can’t we have the option to play with just chips instead of wagering our gold?”
• “The mini game system is broken. It is too easy/hard to get gold that way. Everyone/no one plays them now.”
• “Everyone just plays the games and no one hangs out at the bar. Not all of us want to play simple mini games for gold. There needs to be more stuff to do at the bar. Like special emotes, maybe a dancing game, and a mini Rock Band type of thing on a stage. Maybe even give incentives like reputation and gold to attract more players away from the tavern tables.”

I really could go on. Maybe they do end up making something like the non-PvP tavern. I hope it gets very little attention. Time spent on it is time not spent improving and maintaining the core game.

@dutchdeadschot said in I've just thought of a unique idea for a safezone!:

@ghostpaw aye. Be quite a list.

Based on the other threads here and on my experiences in games like Texas Hold’em on Xbox.

@kgmshylian How could it be abusable? entering this (hub) or social area would be equivalent to being killed in the game. You wouldnt be able to take a chest with you.

@kgmshylian I see your point. I would take just as much pride in making someone run like a coward but i could see some players might feel cheated on a kill.

@knifelife said in I've just thought of a unique idea for a safezone!:

@ghostpaw Have ya not seen the forums recently? XD people are going to moan no matter what is implemented or proposed. I dont think that should stop good or highly requested features from being implemented. :)

Right, but I dispute that a non-PvP tavern with mini games for gambling would be good for the game, or that it is very highly requested. When you have hundreds of thousands of people who have tried the game, and a small handful of players keep requesting the same thing only to get shot down by the larger community, maybe it is not as popular as it seems to those advocating for it. I think it would be a distraction for the developers from making SoT into what it was envisioned to be rather than filling the requests of a minority of players who could play Hardwood Hearts or Catan on Xbox Live with their friends before hitting the high seas. Do we really want Rare to have to recreate that stuff at the expense of the core game? I know I don’t. Not when each filled request will be followed by further complaints and demands. Continuously adding features beyond the intended functions to appeal to more people is known as “feature creep”and it can ruin development if it is not managed.

@knifelife I hope you get your wish, but I also hope it does not distract from the core of SoT. I also know a significantly large feature like that will require further upkeep and tweaking. Maybe they will do it. I just wouldn’t want another poker or billiard game to distract from focusing on what SoT is. It is easy to code a simple mini game, but it takes time to polish and integrate them with the larger game. Especially if gambling is going to be a part of it.

Just curious, why does a Pirate game need a safezone again?

What do you think about this?
When you die and go to ferry of the damned if you wait long enough an other exit would appear. leading you to the city of the damned. where you could play a mini gambling game. Drink for eternity. socialize with other condemned souls. If SoT had its own little game in the world, like how final fantasy did it. It would make the game that much more fun.
I dont think would take away from the core game as it would only add more ways people could enjoy it. Its such a beautiful game everyone wants to be a part of it and all want to see it shape into the game they dream about. PVP is great but having a "safe space" is important to alot of people. I would like to keep these people playing the game.
With what i impose this would give someone who has possibly been trolled the option to take a break in the city of the damned, play a mini game have a drink vs rage quit. Once the emotional scars have healed they can exit the city of the damned loading back into a server.
No one is saying that we need these features for this game to be great but it is fun to think about ways you would like to see this game grow.

We're not getting safe zones. They've stated this in almost all of their recent videos, when discussing things like this. The closest thing to it that we're going to get is the Legendary Pirate hideout thing. Check out the official posts on here, and google some of the dev interviews that they've done recently. That'll give you the info you need to have before you post more ideas that have already been specifically denied.

@aenima123 Social mini-games? Um no, not really. Is all the voyages and working out the maps to find the "x" with your mates not considered a mini game in itself? I feel the scouring the seas, searching Islands, finding messages in a bottle, taking out enemy ships, searching shipwrecks etc is plenty to keep the social thing going. Plus, there is supposed to be the Skeleton forts, Kraken fights, and maybe even fishing coming (rumored?). Plenty to do socially, imo. I do understand that people always need MOAR though, I get that.

@aenima123 said in I've just thought of a unique idea for a safezone!:

@exc4liber47 said in I've just thought of a unique idea for a safezone!:

@aenima123 Social mini-games? Um no, not really. Is all the voyages and working out the maps to find the "x" with your mates not considered a mini game in itself? I feel the scouring the seas, searching Islands, finding messages in a bottle, taking out enemy ships, searching shipwrecks etc is plenty to keep the social thing going. Plus, there is supposed to be the Skeleton forts, Kraken fights, and maybe even fishing coming (rumored?). Plenty to do socially, imo. I do understand that people always need MOAR though, I get that.

Most of what you call "social things" are just things to do with your crew (or alone for that matter) in the game, they are not particulary social.
By social, we're talking about activities especially designed in order to bring people that don't know each other to meet in a friendly manner, to socialize.
Of course you could socialize during a skeleton fort raid, during a Kraken attack, hell, even during a naval battle, but that's not the point of these events. Can you tell the difference between those and, let's say, a dice game in a tavern where you could bet gold ?

As I said before, I understand there needs to be more and I get that. Personally, I am not going to purchase a Pirating game that has all the awesome treasure finding and sea battles just to bet some gold on a dice game/card game. Too much other fun to be had. I can play mini games for free online with people I dont know. I understand where you and many others are coming from but I personally wont be wasting time with something like that when I could be hunting treasure. To each his/her own, I guess.

@aenima123 said in I've just thought of a unique idea for a safezone!:

Of course you could socialize during a skeleton fort raid, during a Kraken attack, hell, even during a naval battle, but that's not the point of these events. Can you tell the difference between those and, let's say, a dice game in a tavern where you could bet gold ?

Actually, no. I'm trying, but I really cannot see the difference. Both are competitive, but the raid on the fort is us working together on a task. Is that it? You do not want to work together on something? Okay.

The dice game lets one person profit at the other's expense. Attacking the Kracken can lead to profit for both of us, only one of us, or none. Is it that you want to compete in a mini game where there is only one winner? What am I missing?

Is it that we are not "killing" one another in a very cartoonish, non-permanent, and entertaining way if we play dice together? We're still competing against one another in the mini game and the results have similar meaning. Death in SoT is not a thing to be overly concerned about any more than losing at a game of Chess.

Maybe they will insert the ability to play some kind of card games, pirate bowling, or a chance to play Bingo together. If you think mini games are going to bring out a better side of people, then I'm going to assume you didn't experience the hostile players who joined rounds of Risk, Catan, Texas Hold'Em, and even the Backgammon game on Xbox Live a few years ago. Did you ever try the poker game within the multiplayer section of Red Dead Redemption? It wasn't pretty. I saw some grievous behavior just playing Othello across the Internet a few years ago. Anonymous gaming can bring out some dark sides. If you think a tavern filled with mini games is going to be some troll-free paradise with everyone raising tankards to each other's virtuous behavior then I have some bad news for you. Wherever you give people the ability to socialize with anonymity you have an increased risk witnessing some heinous behavior.

Maybe you simply want the pace to be slower to lead to more discussion. I mean, in that case, why not just have a place where we can sit down and just let our pirates enjoy a good meal together? We could sit across from one another and talk while a server periodically brings plates of food and mugs of ale for us to enjoy as we socialize. What do you think? Not likely to draw a crowd? Yeah, probably not. Perhaps people loaded SoT to enjoy what it does well, which is giving people a way to interact as pirates in an engaging environment where risk and rewards go hand in hand.

@ghostpaw said in I've just thought of a unique idea for a safezone!:

@aenima123 said in I've just thought of a unique idea for a safezone!:

Of course you could socialize during a skeleton fort raid, during a Kraken attack, hell, even during a naval battle, but that's not the point of these events. Can you tell the difference between those and, let's say, a dice game in a tavern where you could bet gold ?

Actually, no. I'm trying, but I really cannot see the difference. Both are competitive, but the raid on the fort is us working together on a task. Is that it? You do not want to work together on something? Okay.

The dice game lets one person profit at the other's expense. Attacking the Kracken can lead to profit for both of us, only one of us, or none. Is it that you want to compete in a mini game where there is only one winner? What am I missing?

Is it that we are not "killing" one another in a very cartoonish, non-permanent, and entertaining way if we play dice together? We're still competing against one another in the mini game and the results have similar meaning. Death in SoT is not a thing to be overly concerned about any more than losing at a game of Chess.

Maybe they will insert the ability to play some kind of card games, pirate bowling, or a chance to play Bingo together. If you think mini games are going to bring out a better side of people, then I'm going to assume you didn't experience the hostile players who joined rounds of Risk, Catan, Texas Hold'Em, and even the Backgammon game on Xbox Live a few years ago. Did you ever try the poker game within the multiplayer section of Red Dead Redemption? It wasn't pretty. I saw some grievous behavior just playing Othello across the Internet a few years ago. Anonymous gaming can bring out some dark sides. If you think a tavern filled with mini games is going to be some troll-free paradise with everyone raising tankards to each other's virtuous behavior then I have some bad news for you. Wherever you give people the ability to socialize with anonymity you have an increased risk witnessing some heinous behavior.

Maybe you simply want the pace to be slower to lead to more discussion. I mean, in that case, why not just have a place where we can sit down and just let our pirates enjoy a good meal together? We could sit across from one another and talk while a server periodically brings plates of food and mugs of ale for us to enjoy as we socialize. What do you think? Not likely to draw a crowd? Yeah, probably not. Perhaps people loaded SoT to enjoy what it does well, which is giving people a way to interact as pirates in an engaging environment where risk and rewards go hand in hand.

What all these threads about mini game safe zones or drinking safe zones is really about is just another way to get safe zones people can run to in the server and sit and hide. Nobody will be honest and just come out and say it is all.

@aenima123 said in I've just thought of a unique idea for a safezone!:

@ghostpaw I'm not saying people would behave appropriately by magic just because of a mini game in a tavern, i'm not talking about player behavior.

Any type of mini game would add meaning to the tavern, it would set this special pirate vibe, with drunk sailors, betting money, talking trash to each other, but with the only purpose of relaxing themselves BETWEEN adventures, and spent the money they got from those adventures.

From a RP standpoint, it's not the same thing (as treasure hunts and skeleton fort raids, etc.), and thus, from a social standpoint, it doesn't lead to the same type of interactions between players. It would be a way to puncuate your adventures, to mess around with your crew mates and strangers, before getting back to more serious business. A other way to make the world of SoT more immersive, more alive, more meaningful.

Yeah the safe place is great for you but what happens when a player who actually wants to play SoT gets put on a server where 12 or 13 guys are all playing cards in a safe zone?
I cant know when i log in where everyone is or what they are up to so basically ill sail around for hours with nothing to do. Nobody to attack, nobody to give me a threat or make sailing meaningfull.
You are sentencing everyone wanting to play to be bored on a open sea.
The only way a safe place could ever work is a seperate server all together so you can play sea of bffs while SoT remains a competitive server.