While the current state of the seas could be best described as turbulent, with pirates scuffling over the fate of Golden Sands in our latest Adventure ‘Lost Sands’, those with the capacity to cast their minds back to May 14th will remember a pallier period of piracy. A more relaxing event. A Community Day, if you will.
That’s right, the 24-hour period that ran from 10am UTC on Saturday May 14th saw scores of scoundrels setting sail with a view to make the most of boosted gold and reputation for the duration, and of course picking up their free flag and Wing Flap Emote. Alongside in-game actions, many pirates also took to Twitter where they could mingle among the community and share their shenanigans using #SeaOfThievesCommunityDay, with the ultimate aim of boosting Renown gains to previously unseen levels through cumulative use of the hashtag!
The lack of a certain berry-bearded bounder obviously kept morale high, contributing to speedy sharing of the tag and the Community Emissary Grade being raised to its maximum level in under 11 hours, more than an hour quicker than the previous Community Day! We were even trending for a bit, so thanks for helping us raise our flag high. Go ahead and pat yourselves on the back for us. It would take a while for us to get around to all of you.
Speaking of all of you, let’s talk cold hard stats to get a view of what you got up to as a community throughout those 24 hours. Fun and frolics were high on the agenda, with 525,387 fireworks fired, 810,862 pints of grog downed and 1,900,558 instruments played. There were also 205,162 instances of pirates hiding in barrels, though how many of those were for nefarious deeds and how many were simple practical japes, we can’t say. Aside from fireworks, cannons were used to launch a lot of cannonballs (14,474,694 to be exact), a lot of pirates (1,492,407 counts of corsair cannonballs) and a number of projectile pets (71,235).
In terms of the biggest numbers, you’re all clearly very hungry, scoffing a total of 9,212,294 pieces of grub, of which 3,078,249 pieces were the classic banana. But then, treasure hunting is hungry work, and after raking in a cumulative total of 129,420,824,546 gold we can’t blame you for splashing out on a few prime Kraken steaks. You deserve it!
You all also had a lot to say about the most important debate on the Sea of Thieves right now, with 39,746 Pocket Rats whipped out versus 59,527 Pocket Crabs after their recent introduction to the Pirate Emporium. Seems the presence of the pinchy crustaceans in our trailers may have inflated their celebrity status…
Moving away from the big numbers, we also like to use Community Days to bestow the blue bonnet, otherwise known as the Hat of Unfeasibly Glorious Fame, on deserving but as-yet-unsung pirates, and this time we gave away more than 30 over this 24-hour period. Dedicated artists such as Ozurian Art, Skeleton Crew Comics, ColourMeFun and Havexis, prop creators like MiniMeMarcLee and Sirbats and Community legends including Capt_Ballzonia, gaming_4nj4, AT0MAC and ItsGummyyBear all found long-overdue fancy caps in their Equipment Chests throughout the day.
We also celebrated a number of sailors doing something special for the day itself. From personal projects such as Cpt_Drasuk’s Community Day skull competition and KlutchxKing518’s concertina effort, to in-game fun inspired by our Challenge List from vznDustBunny and crew, we loved seeing how the community marked the day and we hope they enjoy peacocking about with their new headwear.
Speaking of peacocking, we also snuck in a little announcement during the day, revealing that our new #StyleOfThieves social competition will be launching during Season Seven and offering a way to earn the Fashionista’s Finery Gloves! Fashionable filibusters should hop over to our dedicated article to learn more about that, and keep an eye on social channels following the arrival of the next Season to be sure of seeing the first set of prompts.
We’ve covered a lot and we haven’t even mentioned the Gilded Phoenix Banjo Twitch Drops. Or our special screenshot frames and wallpapers we made for the day. Or how you all told us what Sea of Thieves means to you in a handful of words. Or the fact that our merch store had an actual physical flag available to buy. Or the fun score card we created and saw people using on streams and social media. Or people scouring the seas for crews sailing under the Deckhand and Quartermaster Sails and giving away elusive Obsidian items. Or us calling out everyone looking at their phones instead of handing in loot (we know you do it). As with last time, let’s just say lots happened.
So if you sailed with us at any point during our Season Six Community Day, either on the seas or simply via social media, thank you. Thank you for bringing your creativity, fun and passion for the Sea of Thieves we share, and for making loads of noise in the simple spirit of shouting that affection at the world. The #SeaOfThievesCommunityDay tag remains an archive of your enthusiasm. It’s both heartwarming and humbling for us (and the entire Sea of Thieves team) to see, and certainly puts a big gust of wind in our sails.
We’ll be holding another Sea of Thieves Community Day in Season Seven, so keep your eyes on the horizon and, more helpfully, our social media channels (and Twitter in particular), to find out when that’ll be. We’re already looking forward to seeing how you’ll all impress us again!