Sea of Thieves temporarily turns away new players to sooth server problems

Yarr :(

News by Alice O'Connor Former Associate Editor

Published on March 21, 2018

While half the RPS treehouse seems to be happily singing shanties and taking screenshots where the placement of their boat's steering wheel means they appear to be clasping a pegpenis, some players have faced stormier waters in Sea Of Thieves. Rare's open-world pirate 'em up launched yesterday, and was met with such an unruly torrent of pillaging hordes that the servers struggled to keep up, causing server problems. In the end, Rare temporarily stopped letting new players join the game. The game seems to be slightly more shipshape this morning, but not without problems.

Some poor soul scattered the bad news across the game's official Twitter account last night:

Hey, pirates! We're aware some players are experiencing issues with gold and reputation upon logging in or turning in items. We're currently investigating and working on a fix! The gold and reputation rewards should merely be delayed. More information: https://t.co/obgvC7AgSN
— Sea of Thieves (@SeaOfThieves) March 20, 2018

We've got A LOT of eager pirates playing #SeaOfThieves right now and due to this some of you may experience issues. Our engineers are working hard to investigate and alleviate them. Thanks for your patience! Visit support for more guidance: https://t.co/qtuHXghul5
— Sea of Thieves (@SeaOfThieves) March 20, 2018

We're still hard at work working on issues affecting players trying to connect to the game as a top priority. We'll provide updates when we have them! Thanks again for the patience, pirates.
— Sea of Thieves (@SeaOfThieves) March 20, 2018

In order to resolve the issues players are seeing with the servers, we will be temporarily suspending new players joining the game. We'll get everyone back in and playing as quickly as we can!
— Sea of Thieves (@SeaOfThieves) March 20, 2018

For those playing and those joining we are continuing to work on improvements to the game in order to ensure the playing experience will be optimal. Please be patient as we are working on updates. pic.twitter.com/wUc8xw8Wmk
— Sea of Thieves (@SeaOfThieves) March 21, 2018

I'm still seeing players reporting problems with delayed or missing rewards and cheevos, lost money, and other issues.

If the game is giving you a bearded error message (KiwiBeard, CinnamonBeard, BronzeBeard, Ashbeard, AvocadoBeard, AlabasterBeard, AllmondBeard, CyanBeard, Beigebeard, DaffodilBeard, FluffyBeard, Lapisbeard, Lavenderbeard, Lazybeard...), check the support page's list of Beard Errors to help diagnose the problem. Yes, it is very twee, but I suppose those are easier to remember and look up than the usual blasts of error numbers and jargon stew.

Sea Of Thieves does seem a lark when you are playing, mind. Mostly. Ish. Fraser Brown wrote yesterday that it "is fun until you meet other pirates", finding the PvP ultraviolence everywhere got in the way of pirate adventures. I know our Alec will have more to tell us about the game soon too.

Sea Of Thieves is out now exclusively on Windows 10 for £50. You can play Sea Of Thieves free through Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass, which usually costs £8/month but does offer a free two-week trial. If you want to see what pirate life is about. Once these launch problems are settled, preferably.

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