make you login to them every so often to keep all your stuff.
Don’t really have much more to say about it. I just really dislike that mechanism in games and I hope it doesn’t continue in future games. It’s supposed to be a retention mechanism but I feel, personally, if I lose everything I’ve done in a game simply because I stopped playing it for a couple months, it’s that much harder for me to ever come back in the future.
It’s like losing saved games in the old days of Playstation Memory cards… only this is a built in game mechanism. It’s just dreadful. I dislike it greatly.
It’s not just a retention mechanic. It is also a way to stop old abandoned builds from taking up space on a server and sitting around forever.
A lot of games implement a decay mechanic to combat this if the players don’t log in every x days to reset it. Boundless does it in a MUCH better way by allowing us to fuel beacons instead of forcing you to log in every week to refresh your build.
Well you still have gleam club if you know you won’t be playing for a couple of month.
Pay for 3 month and you have everything back once you start playing again. If you don’t play for 3 month I’m sure people who do play would like to use your land to expand.
Oh, I’m not talking down about Boundless or the way Boundless implements this mechanic in general… I just dislike the mechanism overall.
In regards to Boundless, there should be a built in storage capacity or something where when you login after 5 months, you still have all your blocks and coils, etc. (Without GC)
I just feel the mechanism in future games need a way so you dont lose anything… especially in MMOs where you spend considerable time investments… way longer than most other genres.
Someone brought up a vault idea in a thread somewhere recently (very descriptive!). I think thats a great idea to consider. Maybe losing placed blocks etc is fair if you dont maintain them. But this game is rough if you go on holidays etc. So a vault all your stored things/machines etc transfer into keeps them out of the world, and doesnt completely wipe everything if real life gets in the way.
Only option is to pay to save. Which i think is worse than pay to win. Punishing for not paying, rather than rewarding for paying isnt nice. If my beacons ever expire ill probably give up on the game. Too much lost effort to make me want to redo it all again
There “kinda” is a way, depending on how you look at it. Use mule alts. It’s easy to make alts and you can make 10 of them. If you plan to be away from the game for 5 months, simply take all of your expensive stuff and put it into the inventory of an alt. No, you can’t keep “everything”, but 320 smart stacks is not bad at all.
Yes, exactly. You dont want stuff plotted forever in a game like this. I get that. Then again, there are builds I’ve seen in this game that I’d have no problem seeing forever. But I digress…
You should be allowed to go on a hiatus for whatever reason, and not be way worse off when you pick back up again in the future, than where you left the game. This goes for all future games… online or not, sandbox MMO or not.
Im planning 5 weeks leave over xmas, so i literally have to play for gleam club if i want to keep playing. Thats a brutal business model i think needs to be looked into.
I understand your point, but getting 10 alts takes about an hour, tops. It’s super easy to get an alt to level 10+ in a few minutes, then use the cubits earned on that alt to make another. Rinse and repeat until you have them all. There are quick leveling tips that will cut your time down by a lot.
EDIT: I was going to mention the improved beacon fuel, but I thought you meant a really long extended leave of absence.
Yeah the idea of all your blocks, machines etc being kept in an archive if you go inactive is good.
You would lose your spot and have to build from scratch in that event but at least all your placed blocks and possessions would be saved.
I like that.
I get it luca… Boundless is very forgiving in that sense (4 months is a long time). There’s still better ways of handling it though. If I leave for any amount of time over that 4 month window I’m still at that same loss.
I understand as a developer you want people to engage and play as long and as much as possible. People take breaks from games… people do different hobbies in their spare time (im an avid kayaker for instance and go upwards of 80+ trips a year)… if I want to put the game down for the spring and summer im still starting from relative scratch with such a game mechanism.
Again, Boundless and 4 months is very fair… I just dislike the mechanic overall. Again, not just in Boundless, but every game that has a time loss mechanic. There should be even more fail safes of some sort.
The longer beacon fuel is good and workable in most cases, but 4 months still isnt all that long either. Its really makes the game one and done. Either keep playing or lose everything.
Anyone who’s invested any time in the game is going to get a little disheartened doing it all again knowing its all only temporary.
Ive never actually seen a ‘pay to save’ model before, not a fan at all (if you didnt notice).