Feedback from 70 Users Prompts the Return of a Popular Feature: A Look at How Developers Value User Input

Nose in the powder

Introduced in 2019, Black Powder Stashes trips have been popular among fans of Rare's game. To buy from good old Duke, these missions required collecting powder barrels in the most dangerous regions of Sea of ​​Thieves (yes yes, like the Devil's Roar). These trips were popular with pirates because in addition to being entertaining and very dangerous (the slightest impact, and it's an explosion), they brought in a ton of money, reputation and citations. However, the Black Powder trips were removed from the game recently, with the arrival of season 11. Like other content before it, they come, stay, disappear and sometimes return over the seasons of the title.

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However, one Sea of ​​Thieves player has been brooding since his favorite voyages disappeared. He launched a petition asking for their return. “We, the undersigned, the Sea of ​​Thieves community, humbly request that you reinstate the Black Powder voyages that were removed at the start of Season 11. These voyages were great for quotes, content, and fun. We miss them. Please let them come back to us” we can read. At the moment the petition only has 70 signatures, which is really not huge compared to other online petitions, Joe Neate, executive producer of Sea of ​​Thieves, sent a short message on X/Twitter to Mike Chapman, the creative director. “One day… What do you think?” Neate asks Chapman. A few minutes later, the creative director responds: “I think we can fix this… signed by another Black Powder Stashes fan“. In Rare language, that means: “it happens”. As we write these lines, the petition has just exceeded a hundred signatures.

Season 12: all together, all together!

Launched on PC and Xbox in March 2018, Sea of ​​Thieves has welcomed more than 40 million pirates. This impressive figure, which takes into account players having fun on Xbox and PC, is thanks to Rare's unfailing support. The British developer has in fact delivered around a hundred free updates since the release of the software to ensure that pirates stay at sea. Among them, we find the Pirates of the Caribbean and Monkey Island campaigns, particularly popular with fans. The good news is that this number shouldn't drop for a while, since SoT Season 12 will arrive at the end of the month, along with the PlayStation 5 version of the game. Maybe this will be the opportunity to find the Black Powder Stashes…