As we prepare to set Sea of Thieves Season Five sailing off into a beautiful digital sunset, welcoming the Forts and frolics of Season Six in its wake, we feel it would be remiss of us not to take a look back at our first ever Community Day, and celebrate the camaraderie and capers we witnessed over its extended 36 hours.
In case you’ve navigated to this article with no idea concerning what this blue-branded day of picaroon appreciation and untold riches was all about, here’s a quick recap: starting at 10am GMT on Sunday, January 30th 2022, we invited Sea of Thieves players of all stripes to take part in a day of adoration for their fellow freebooters, both in-game and out.
Those who set sail found a free flag and emote with which to mark the day, while those interested in ridiculously raising their riches had to take to Twitter and use the hashtag #SeaOfThievesCommunityDay, as each instance of it being posted and shared helped boost in-game rewards through the helpfully named Community Emissary Grade.
The maximum Grade 5 was hit after just 13 hours, leading to a 3x gold and reputation multiplier – the biggest boost to ever grace our fair waves! Sea of Thieves was even trending for a while on Twitter because you’re all so brilliant to us. We’ve gone as red as your favourite ruby-coloured ocean dweller just thinking about it.
There were, however, some connection issues throughout a portion of the day that left a number of sailors adrift, with only an error message evoking visions of fruity face follicles to keep them company. Some stars of the community worked to raise spirits regardless, writing shanties, creating wanted posters and even designing cosmetics around this cursed concept.
We expected Community Day to be of interest to a lot of our players – in the end the numbers far exceeded our expectations, and we’re incredibly humbled by this, but also regret that it meant the experience on the day was not what it should have been for everyone. Those interested in hearing about how we’re working to resolve server issues to avoid such a situation occurring again should turn their ears to Episode 5 of the official Sea of Thieves Podcast.
But despite these issues, we still saw a huge swell of positive pirates sharing memories, creations, stories, screenshots and more, helping to make the #SeaOfThievesCommunityDay tag a place to see the very best of what our unique and varied community has to offer. In line with this uplifting uproar, we set out to award an avalanche of the much-desired and unspecifically bestowed Hat of Unfeasibly Glorious Fame – or the #BeMorePirate hat for short.
More than 50 of the blue bonnets were dished out during Community Day, for a range of reasons more varied than Umbra’s future tattoo plans. From the ongoing pineapple burning of KaidaWrath to a celebration of pirates around the world set into motion by Patagounia. There were long overdue hats for stunning prop creators such as Jobiwan, ChloeSauras and TentacleCreations. Head-warmers for incredibly enthusiastic young sailors. KrisKalissa found one for their incredibly detailed hand-made map. SanderRoli’s ongoing support of community art needs earned them a cap of recognition.
Pirates simply nominated for being some of the best, most humble corsairs on the seas, including MrFawlout and cottonandcreme, found hat-shaped surprises in their Equipment Chests. As did some sailors who probably should have had an azure crown a while ago, but never quite had their head in a convenient spot, such as Keelhauled Podcast’s Capt Logun and organisers of competitive chaos for the NAL, Ragetrox and Dadinat0r. This is but a taste of the ways people truly embrace the mantra of #BeMorePirate every day, and we’re thankful for every one of you.
Not only were there hats, there was also fun to be had with our special Sea of ‘Friends’ Challenge List, with many players posting clips and screenshots of their escapades as they tried to complete all the arbitrary tasks set to them. Special mention goes to the crews of mystcasual and EliEelEye, who managed to complete a range of tasks and edit their work into swish clips. The crew of EliEelEye even adapted when caught a few thousand grogs short of a Cursed Chest, quaffing a healthy dose from the ship’s supply before staggering across an Outpost with some standard chests, and far be it from us to critique a clever application of available tools over our suggested rules. Hopefully Wonda enjoyed seeing so many friendly faces, too…
And that wasn’t all! Some of our dedicated Deckhands were out on the waves distributing Obsidian Capstans and Six Item Packs to people who spied their elusive sails, or solved their tricky puzzles. There was an actual commemorative T-shirt available, as well as a cheeky one-off Gilded Phoenix Tankard Twitch Drop. And throughout the day, over on Twitter, there were threads where you called out favourite crewmates, really showed us how much you love gold (the look of it, the taste, everything) and enjoyed the special wallpapers and photo frames provided for you to use (which you can still enjoy even if you weren’t around on the day, we won’t judge).
All this and more! So really, we can sum the day up by simply saying “lots happened”, even as we thank all our pirates for being the best, most creative and most hearteningly rowdy community we could ever ask to have sailing the Sea of Thieves with us.
A Community Day is planned for every Season moving forward, and ideas for Season Six’s event are already taking shape. That shape being nothing like a certain bite-sized fruit commonly enjoyed with cream, you’ll be pleased to know. So continue to keep your eyes on the horizon and, if you can, follow us on Twitter so you can join in the fun when the next Community Day rolls into port soon!