Griefer Bait

My little girl seems to attract griefers for some reason. It probably comes down to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can't help but sympathize with her. She doesn't bring this stuff on herself in any way, it just happens.

Last night, after supper, she played SoT for about 30-45 minutes. After logging in and running around the outpost to collect supplies, she noticed another sloop sailing towards the docks. Once in range, the sloop proceeded to shell her boat. Hoping to avoid a confrontation, she scuttled her ship and went up to the tavern to wait for the guy to leave.

Long story short, he didn't leave. In fact, he anchored his sloop next to her mermaid and camped the spot with his eye of reach (ie, sniper rifle). Whenever she'd come out to see if he was gone, or to try and get to her mermaid, he'd shoot at her. Eventually he shot and killed her.

What the hell kind of sociopathic crap is that? It's not enough to sink someone's sloop before they've even left the dock, but you have to make sure you kill them, too?

I don't think my daughter gets too upset over these things. She's come to accept the possibility, but she doesn't enjoy it when it becomes the reality. She eventually respawned at a small island, then (just to see if she could) swam to another island she saw in the distance (killing two sharks on the way). After that, she went back to her ship and sailed to the secret island at N10 to explore.

I played for about an hour, myself. I managed to complete a profitable Merchant Alliance voyage (thank God for gold snakes!). It took me the whole hour, though, because I couldn't find chickens anywhere. I eventually turned in my snakes just to avoid losing them to some random dweeb before canvassing several islands for poultry products. Eventually I found the birds, but it took more time than I would've liked.

Avast!

A Night of Murder

Last night I decided to play a little bit and it turned into a bloodbath. My estimation of the average player in Sea of Thieves has dropped several notches. These people are homicidal sociopaths.

Galleon's Grave Outpost spawn-in.
Starting/Ending Rep - GH 23/23, OS 20/20, MA 20/20
Starting/Ending Gold: 30,945/34,785
Gold Earned: 3,840g

An Evening on the Blood Red Sea: For the Gold Hoarders

"A prize raided by the prominent Cheat Daniels"

Consists of two riddle rhymes, one to the Sunken Grove and the other to the Crooked Masts.

Leave Galleon's Grave, spot shipwreck WNW and decide to check it out.

Coast is clear, dive on the wreck of the Hangman's Hate. Recover 2 Disgraced Bounty Skulls (291g, 337g), Villainous Bounty Skull (967g), and Marauders Chest (514g). Pretty good haul.

Return to Galleon's Grave to sell loot. Run aground like and idiot, patch hull. Sell stuff, buy voyage from Henry (80), grab more supplies.

Go to Sunken Grove. Run aground again. Guess it's not my night.

lotrmith, Consummate PvPer

Coast is clear, head to island and follow clues. Find pig crate. And then another. And a third. Sunken Grove is now known as Pig Crate Island. Also find a gunpowder barrel. Leave the last pig crate and the gunpowder on NW island for later pick up.

Find Captains Chest (786g) just sitting in a cave, not part of the riddle. This is good, because the four clues lead me to a crummy Seafarers Chest (256g). Guess that answers my questions about riddle length corresponding to loot value (apparently it does not).

Return to ship, swing around to NW island to get pig crate and gunpowder barrel. Set course back to Galleon's Grave to sell goods.

Arrive at Galleon's Grave, find banana Crate on beach. Sell loot, then raid all barrels on island for bananas. Fill crate and sell to Mandy for 427g. Not bad for bananas.

Galleon arrives to my port side as I pull out of the dock. A player, lotrmith, boards me as the galleon starts to shell my ship. I protest, "Hey, hey, hey! I don't have anything!" but he kills me, anyway.

Re-spawn into sinking ship, my gunpowder and pig crates floating nearby. Craving revenge, I get floating gunpowder barrel and swim towards galleon, intending to use barrel to destroy or cripple said ship. Intercepted by crew (Oceanrider) and killed again, though I got a few cuts in.

Oceanrider

Of course, Oceanrider was defending her ship from my attempted demolition, but like as not was one of the individuals who shelled my sloop when lotrmith murdered me. She's as guilty as he is. To Davy Jones' locker for both of them!

After my second death, and without a ship to go back to, I respawn on Salty Sands. I spot a shipwreck to the SW. Might as well check it out given my distance from Crooked Masts. After a short jaunt, I arrive at the wreck of the Devil's Rage. Coast is clear so I dive, find a Seafarers Chest (213g) and a Foul bounty Skull (129g). Nothing else visible in wreck.

Set course for Crooked Masts by way of Daggertooth Outpost. Long way to go, but I like sailing so it's all good. When I arrive at Daggertooth, I notice a galleon in the distance on other side of the island. Wonder if it's the same group of dweebs that killed me earlier. Too distant to see their sails.

The Wreck of the Devil's Rage

Figure I should sell my stuff in a hurry, then sail to Crooked Masts. As I approach the island, I notice there's a galleon moored there. Sails are up so I can't tell if they're the guys from before. Instead of dropping anchor, I decide to check out Shark Tooth Key for incidental loots and supplies.

Find nothing but supplies and skeletons on Shark Tooth Key. I watch the galleon leave Crooked Masts, wait to see if they notice me. They seem to be moving off, so I head for the island. The galleon (the same one? Can't tell) is still out there.

Spend the next ten minutes running around Crooked Masts solving riddle clues. Get three out of four done before I notice a galleon off shore. It passes around the island, spots my sloop. I watch from shore as it turns sharply and rams my anchored ship. The crash is followed by a couple of cannon shots. I see people leaping into the water from the galleon.

The Galleon what Rammed My Anchored Sloop

I decide to sit down and wait for someone to find and kill me. No one comes. I find out why as both the galleon and my sloop begin to sail away -- they're stealing my ship. Typical.

My mermaid appears, so I dive down into the water and use it to return to my ship. As I spawn in my cabin, the dweeb who stole it (Trappin Dan) blows me away despite my attempts to engage him in conversation.

I respawn on my ship's deck, with Trappin Dan's back to me. Before I can attack him, he climbs the mainmast to the crow's nest. I pursue him, but he leaps down onto the cabin's awning. I don't even know if he's noticed me yet.

I jump to the yard arm, then onto the awning behind him. His back is still to me so I use my blunderbuss to turn him into fish food (and get rewarded with an achievement for my cowardly behavior). He dies and despawns. I look around and spot his galleon a ways off, sailing away.

Trappin Dan, Killer at Large

I'm unsure what the point of stealing someone's ship is given they can just respawn there. Good old Dan had spent time to repair the hull and bail the water out, so he obviously had something in mind.

As much as I would like to go back to Crooked Masts and solve the last riddle, it's way too late and I need to go to bed.

With each encounter I had with a player, I attempted to use voice chat to speak to them in the hope I could avoid further violence. In each case my attempts to parley made no difference at all. For whatever reason they found it more expedient just to kill me. In both cases, I carried no treasure and nothing of any real value, and they gained no profit from attacking me. It was not only a waste of their time, but of mine as well.

I can only assume these people are sociopaths.

I'm going to start a gallery of villains, killers, and thieves on this blog. Think of it as my personal dweeb collection. Hear that, guys? You're dweebs!

Captain's Log: Introduction

So I'm playing this Sea of Thieves game, and I've enjoyed it (for the most part) so far. The PvP aspect isn't really my cup of tea, so I tend to avoid people as best as I can. That said, it seems like the majority of the people playing the game are intent on destroying other players and sinking their ships, despite the fact that it accomplishes nothing and wins them no awards.

I can understand trying to steal other people's stuff, sure. The game has the word "Thieves" in the title, right? But I suppose when you give someone a hammer, everything (including my ship, parked off a remote island, with no one aboard) looks like a nail to them. I dub those people dweebs, and this blog is (at least indirectly) about them.

I've had a couple of what I might call normal interactions with folks. In one instance, some guy (who had apparently just spawned at an outpost) came to me and asked if I knew where he could find some cannonballs. I told him he was free to take any of the ones I had stored on my ship, but he was too conscientious to do so. Heck, I rarely use my cannons at all unless I'm shelling skeletons on the beach.

The second normal interaction was with a bloke who was selling his stuff at an outpost. We came across one another and paused. He pulled out his blunderbuss but didn't immediately shoot me dead (a rarity). In response, I waved. He waved back, then we both went back to ferrying treasure from our ships to the island.

See? Civilized behavior.

Conversely, there was a day early on in my sailing career when I pulled into an outpost. Another ship was docked nearby. Before I could even get off my ship, someone had boarded it and emptied a blunderbuss into my face. Instant death.

When I respawned, the guy (still on my boat, spawn-camping) shot me dead. And again after that. He had his microphone on and was singing (in a dorky teenage voice) "I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky. Think about it every night and day..." as he gunned me down in cold blood aboard my own vessel.

But what I really love is when someone aboard a ship sees me and gives chase, cannons blazing. I tend to sell my booty regularly, so it's rare for me to have more than one valuable item (skull or chest) aboard my ship unless I've gotten particularly lucky. It still amazes me, though, how much time they'll spend trying to sink me, especially when I've got either nothing worth stealing or something incredibly meager (such as a crate of fine sugar) aboard.

In those cases, I actually feel somewhat accomplished if I can keep them busy chasing me for a good long while. They're wasting their time while I'm actually (silently) trolling them.

So that, in a somewhat larger nutshell than I intended it to be, is what this blog is about. I'll likely update it as I play, and if I can get footage or pictures of the various dweebs that haunt the shipping lanes, I'll post it here with an account of their dweeby behavior.

And before you say, "Wait a moment! If you play Sea of Thieves, you're agreeing to be chased down, attacked, spawn-camped, and griefed by said dweebs." And you'd be correct on that account, and I am in no way complaining about the game. I'm merely documenting the amazing behavior of society's best and brightest video gamers.

Like as not I'll post a few entries and then get distracted and stop entirely. If so, enjoy what comes along, conscious of the fact that every post you read could very well be my last.