Vi blev nyligen inbjudna till Rare för att spela Sea of Thieves, något ni kunnat läsa om i vår massiva förtitt. Väl där fick vi chansen att snacka med executive producer Joe Neate om DLC och mikrotransaktioner samt eventuella loot-lådor. Neate berättade att de inte vill dela upp communityt mellan de som har och inte har eller göra det tråkigt genom att ge andra fördelar, så därför kommer expansioner och nya funktioner vara tillgängliga för alla medan det som kostar handlar om kosmetiska saker. Dessa släpps tre månader efter lanseringen och han lovar att det inte blir några loot-lådor:
"So as we then move into our service and updating the game and growing the game, so [for the first two months] we're going to be very reactive, very much listening to players and then driving towards a first kind of major update to the game around three months after launch. And so at that point we're still going to have the majority of the team working on this game and a lot of people adding content.
We never wanted to do anything from a business perspective that separated players, so we've got no intent to charge for any of those updates that come to players, so when we add new features to the game they just go to everyone, but we do need to consider that we've still got a lot of people working on the game and it costs money and we need to generate a successful business right. And so when we looked at 'what do we think is right for Sea of Thieves?' the kind of things we want to add are optional, so nothing we ever do will effect power or progression, you'll always know what you're going to get, so that means no loot boxes. But what we want them to do is add to what we think is really fun and special about Sea of Thieves, which is the fun, social, funny side of the game, because I think that's our special sauce."
Han utvecklar sitt resonemang och fortsätter:
"If we can give cool stuff that people want to do, great, that's fine and it feels okay, because ultimately we do have to run a business right, but we spent a lot of time thinking about this and looking what player sentiment was around certain things and this just feels right."
Det blir alltså bara kosmetiska saker som kommer kunna köpas på detta vis, och sådant som Rare menar kan göra spelet roligare även för andra som väljer att inte köpa:
"It's 'emotional cosmetic' in that it adds to the emotion and fun, like drinking and instruments are just fun, emotional things, they don't have a mechanical benefit right? they have an emotional benefit, so if we were to add pets for example, so I can now buy a pet, I've got a cat and it'll be by me and stand there and I can pick it up and it'll be funny and animate funny, other people can see it and maybe you could grab my pet and run off with it for a laugh but whenever you put it down it'll come back, so you can play around with it and do silly things and I would love, love for us to be able to fire pets out of cannons, even though they'll be fine when they land. And so just those kinds of things will add that. If you want to do it you'll just be like 'this is the pet, you can buy it if you want' optional."
Vi förmodar att PETA kommer höra av sig och uppmana till bojkott för att husdjur inte bör skjutas ur kanoner. Men bortsett från det, hur tycker du att detta låter?
