Sea of Thieves PC design chief talks optimization, Microsoft Store and more

Recently we took a trip to Rare's big studio in the Great britain to discover out all about Sea of Thieves, the upcoming pirate adventure multiplayer game.

Neither Rare, nor Xbox, are names one would direct acquaintance with PC, but the studio is hoping that information technology can deliver on the big expectations and freedoms enjoyed by PC gamers the world over.

We defenseless up with Ted Timmins, who leads PC development on Sea of Thieves, to talk over optimization, the oft-criticised Windows 10 Microsoft Shop, and much more than.

Sea of Thieves PC specs

All about optimization

Jez Corden, senior Xbox editor at Windows Central: We talked just at present about how Sea of Thieves runs on a Surface Pro 4, which patently sports integrated graphics. How important and how much focus have you guys put on optimization? What can PC players across the whole spectrum of hardware?

Ted Timmins, PC design lead for Sea of Thieves: Great question, when I started out at Rare two years ago, I had a slap-up conversation with the rendering team almost what is our "min spec." And, the challenge we kinda came upwardly with was how low tin can we go. That we shouldn't but pick an capricious number or hardware model, nosotros should beginning of all encounter – if we turn everything off graphically – what does the game look like? The fine art team has done such an incredible chore on the art style, that information technology lets the states transcend many unlike setting levels. Of form, we've taken a bit of tonal license and it goes from "cursed" to "mythical" for our graphics settings.

It'due south of import because we know that in that location'southward a lot of people out there who aren't necessarily – wouldn't consider themselves "gamers," but they might jump in and play The Sims or some coincidental World of Warcraft because their lower-finish device supports information technology. And because of that, that'south a gateway for them into the worlds we create.

If you just decide 1080p is the min spec, and the graphics settings only went down to say "medium," yep the game is going to await not bad, but you'll probably siphoned off fourscore percent of the people who might accept been interested in playing your game. So, we went every bit depression every bit we could and played information technology with our art director, and for him to go "yeah, pretty happy with that," that was our "neat, right, nosotros've got it in writing now, we've got it working on the potato, let's become upwardly from there."

Then of course, you look at the tiptop finish, and yous've got the Surface Book 2, almost at 4K resolution on the horizontal airplane. And y'all get right, permit's get this up and running. GTX 1060, "mythical" settings (and we were astonished at how powerful the Surface Book ii actually is).

Then you lot look at the desktop PCs themselves, GTX 1080ti, RYZEN, all the variants in between. We designed our play session lab to sport a different device in each booth, we'd organically perform compatibility testing without realizing it. We've got great partnerships with AMD, NVIDIA and Intel. Every ii weeks we have a phone call with each of them individually, they get regular builds of the games then they can update their drivers, we've had this partnership for two years.

All of those things have hopefully put us in a good place for when we release on Xbox One and PC simultaneously, that the PC version meets histrion'southward expectations. Particularly around stability, performance, and going to that really depression-cease.

Dissecting the Windows 10 Microsoft Shop

One of the big things the PC community is going to be maxim is, why is this locked to the Windows 10 Microsoft Store? Why is this not coming to Steam? Or even Windows 7. What would you say to those players?

It'south a actually off-white question. When you develop a game, you can obviously spend resources in a multitude of unlike ways. Both as a start party developer, where we take our responsibleness to Xbox and the wider organization, but also equally a developer who wants to build Krakens, skeleton forts, and support minimum specs and upwardly to ultra specs – all of that is work. Nosotros gather and go, "how do nosotros save the most fourth dimension? How exercise we piece of work the most efficiently?"

What we do get from the Microsoft Store is that we only have to build the game in one case.

What we do become from the Microsoft Shop is that we only take to build the game in one case. We build ane game, and it works beyond the whole Xbox platform, including Windows 10. That allows united states of america to build one fix of achievements, one prepare of multiplayer services, one sec of min specs and everything between there and ultra. Of grade, and then y'all've got the cross-play that brings, Xbox Play Anywhere, Xbox Game Pass. It literally ties everything together.

Of course, nosotros could put the game on Steam, simply and so we'd accept to do unique work for those other platforms and their systems. The way the APIs piece of work, the phonation chat systems would have to work differently. What'southward of import for launch is that the game is feature rich, that information technology's stable, FOV sliders, resolution sliders, every graphic option PC players expect, keyboard bindings, text chat, and so on.

We engaged PC gamers very early on and asked for their expectations on Sea of Thieves on PC. In those surveys, the ability to play the game on a different platform was barely mentioned. When players think virtually what they want in a PC game, it'south about the features. When you're really in the game, yous're thinking about the things we just talked virtually, all those various settings and options, rather than the delivery system.

We had 25,000 responses, and we prioritized those features in the lodge of which was almost of import to them. We've never built a PC game earlier, so information technology was important for the states to piece of work that chip harder to really prove that nosotros know what we're doing. If Bethesda brand a PC game, anybody'southward like, "yep, they know how to brand a PC game, they've done it for the last 20 years." Whereas Rare, who have made N64 games, who take never fabricated a PC game – and that audience is non going to simply give united states of america brownie, we have to earn it.

After we did those surveys, we actually had a portion of the community – perhaps a trivial harsh – but we took it, because nosotros left off "button to talk" for voice conversation off the survey. We got together and we were like "damn guys, we actually dropped the brawl hither. How do we solve this?" Rather than stick it in the roadmap, nosotros decided to prioritize that feature now. There was enough chatter around that feature in the community, we wanted to show that we not only heed, but activity.

We spent three weeks working with the Xbox political party conversation team at Redmond, of grade, internally on getting keyboard bindings set. 3 weeks later we released a build to Alpha with that feature.

Having that extra pressure level, on us, that we need to show ourselves, really makes u.s.a. want to deliver above and beyond expectations.

Working with the Windows team

You lot've kind of got double force per unit area there, because you're also representing the Xbox platform on PC, which bluntly isn't the all-time experience in my opinion. When your customs gives you feedback and says "these features aren't working," but it's not your fault – it's the Windows or Xbox Platform'southward team's fault – how do you turn that feedback into action?

What I will say is that we practise know the Windows and platform team very well. As a first party developer, they come to united states and say "what's important to your game?" And we'll give them a list of, not simply actor-facing features, but at that place'southward a lot on the pipeline and delivery side of things. Like how we service the game with multiple updates over time, and that kind of period. And and so likewise, they come back to us and they say, "what tin can we do better? What do we demand to do from your community?" Then there'due south a real dialogue in that location between us, and the Windows team, and like you say – we take the customs's feedback and pass that on.

They're a very diligent team. When you retrieve of whatever storefront, going back early on days of EA Origin, or Steam, even merely when the Xbox 360 first came out. We were entering this new era of DLC, there was always growing pains, every single fourth dimension.

And then at that place'due south a existent dialogue at that place between us, and the Windows team, and like you say – we take the community's feedback and pass that on.

Then I accept conviction, over time, we will start to really first to deliver on that expectation. I think we're already on that path, merely, certainly we're trying our best as a game developer to not just push on that team, but also back up that team. And say look, we retrieve we're making a really cracking PC game hither, and our players are proverb to us that they're having some friction in trying to establish parties, creating sessions and that blazon of thing. How tin can you lot help us? And likewise, how can nosotros assistance you to ameliorate that experience?

Nobody woke upwards one day and went, "we're going to make it harder for people to make party invites," it'due south part of that process. Even actually when you recall about Sea of Thieves, when we put in features very early on, like gunplay, information technology was pretty ropey. It was our V1, our very kickoff pass. That's the nature of a service. At present, we're really happy with our gunplay. We've got tracer fire, it works nifty in cross-play, focusing on timing and accuracy, so information technology's balanced across both platforms and all inputs. Once more, nosotros had to get there, we had to go on that journeying – "hey community, bit crude effectually the edges, merely you can shoot each other now. We plan to take information technology here."

Mayhap there's a messaging thing here too that nosotros need to await into equally a company, but I have a lot of conviction. I've seen that roadmap for the platform team, and they're passionate almost what they do.

On the topic of cross-play

You lot mentioned crossplay. What considerations exercise you have to brand building the PC version for people who do have an advantage turning with a mouse, without sacrificing accuracy, for case? How does Sea of Thieves balance that against slower turning console controller players?

I guess like y'all say, whatsoever offset-person game you sit in that location and think of twitch-based, competitive games, where all you lot do is shoot and kill. Whereas when you lot think of Body of water of Thieves, it'due south not twitch-based, information technology's a game that's merely enough about gunkhole gainsay, or even more nearly gunkhole gainsay than it is pirate versus pirate "PvP."

We had the opportunity, considering we had an Xbox playerbase initially in the tech Blastoff, and we had PC players separately. We can really say to our analytical team, how practise PC players get forth fighting skeletons vs. Xbox players? Nosotros found that PC players did have a 4.v% advantage in skeleton killing. Nosotros took that as our initial data prepare.

I think beingness new to PC games immune united states of america to think a trivial scrap more than outside of the box.

We began looking at our shooting mechanics. We decided it was silly that when y'all burn a bullet, it actually hits immediately. When yous fire a bullet, it should arc, it should have a trial and have a particle effect that carries information technology. These are pirate weapons from hundreds of years ago, they're not AK47s or M16s. While that benefitted crossplay, putting a greater emphasis on timing, information technology also fits tonally within Ocean of Thieves.

When we started talking nigh inputs, like you say, the mouse can turn quicker. We figured since we take a mouse sensitivity slider, we demand to enable that for controllers as well. Same for the field of view (FoV) slider. Why wouldn't nosotros? Why don't more console developers practise that? When we added keyboard bindings to the Alpha, why would we not practice controller rebindings as well? Very few games seem to practice that now, but why non?

I call up beingness new to PC games allowed us to think a piffling fleck more outside of the box. Nosotros had no prior concept of making a PC game, and so nosotros tried to focus more than on the thespian, rather than the "process" and the whole "this is how it should piece of work." This applies both to the game, and the device specifics equally well. It'southward a practiced culture.

Thank you to Ted Timmins for talking to us!

Having seen Sea of Thieves running on ultra "mythic" settings at 4K sixty FPS on a high-end PC next on "cursed" depression settings on a Surface Pro tablet, information technology certainly seems as though Rare is going all out to ensure every bit many PC gamers as possible can experience Bounding main of Thieves.

I'grand a house Windows 10 Microsoft Store skeptic, simply if Sea of Thieves proves as successful equally it potentially could exist, maybe it will incentivize the Windows and Xbox platform team to actually sort out the usability bug with the Store.

In any case, Sea of Thieves is shaping up to exist something truly special, so be sure to take a look at some of our other recent content on the game below!

Sea of Thieves launches on March 20th, 2022 for Xbox I and Windows x every bit role of Xbox Play Anywhere for $59.99, or equally part of Xbox Game Pass for $nine.99 per month.

• Run into at Microsoft Shop (Digital)
• See at Amazon (Physical)
• Buy Xbox Game Pass

• Sea of Thieves on Windows Key
• Purchasable pirate pets and future Sea of Thieves plans
• All about the Kraken in Ocean of Thieves
• Sea of Thieves interview: vision, game world, and more
• Transport captaincy, hideouts, raid content, and becoming a Pirate Fable
• Sea of Thieves PC specs

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/sea-of-thieves-pc

Posted by: thomascuslichavy.blogspot.com

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