There are a lot of ideas and strong opinions around this topic. Let’s try to get a numerical representation of what people are thinking so far (keeping in mind that this only reaches an audience of people reading this thread and that a wider Boundless-lead survey may be more fruitful).
Beacons should be permanent. They only disappear if their owners remove them.
Beacons should require some sort of fuel/payment maintenance. Once the fuel is 0, the beacon no longer protects against regen.
Beacons should fade away only if the owner hasn’t logged on within X amount of time.
0voters
If 2 or 3:
Beacons with full fuel/payment/time should last 1 week.
Beacons with full fuel/payment/time should last 2 weeks.
Beacons with full fuel/payment/time should last 1 month.
Beacons with full fuel/payment/time should last 2 months.
Beacons with full fuel/payment/time should last 3 months.
Beacons with full fuel/payment/time should last 4 months.
Beacons with full fuel/payment/time should last 5 months.
Beacons with full fuel/payment/time should last 6 or more months.
I honestly don’t think everyone will have the same play style - not everyone will want to be in a guild - sure, they’ll trade to get the stuff they want/need, but there will be people who prefer to just play solo. You can see that in the builds people have done across the servers… instead of joining a community build area, there are lots of players that have wandered off into the wilderness to be away from the main hubbub of multi-player communities.
I don’t think any of the options discussed in this thread make the game dysfunctional Some options just make it easier to continue where you left off after an extended period of time in the real world.
212.0654% of stats are made up to sway opinion or perception.
I fully understand the reason people want to have a fuel source for additional immersion … and the potential to be able to grave rob other people’s stuff when they don’t pay the fuel bills. I just don’t agree with the idea. I prefer a basic, easy system where you just need to login and play the main core of the game to have fun.
I think ‘coin’ would be the only suitable resource for beacon fuel since it is the most neutral resource in the game.
THIS. People use natural disasters or multi-month holidays as an argument for a 6+ month regeneration-buffer for beacons. But I think such a timespan would only help a very small percentage of players while it would be a major annoyance for the majority of players.
It’s taken me a while to read through all of these posts. Damn, this topic exploded pretty fast!
My thoughts on beacons is a bit different than what I have read so far… rather than gathering fuel from resources to power a beacon, what if instead you gain power charge from work? This has a few of its own pros and cons, but I’ll go into a bit more detail for clarity first.
What I mean is that by doing actions in game, you slowly build a charge to power your beacon, much like charging your phone battery. No matter how long you charge your beacon, it has a max amount of discharge time before you need to begin charging again. (It’s a hotly debated topic, but my opinion is 100 days, 1 day = 1% charge) know those lovely glowy cubes on all of our tools and weapons? We simply know them as “oort cubes” but what if they function as some sort of kinetic energy transfer device that stores energy from work done with that item and transfers it directly to your beacon? Effectively, simply being active in game will charge your beacon.
Pros:
Powering a beacon is not a chore, just play the game.
You don’t need to return home to maintain the beacon.
Any profesion can charge their beacon without having to switch to finding fuel.
Cons:
Not tradeable
Not transferable
Possible fixes for these cons, perhaps if your beacon is at 100% capacity, you can then charge tradeable batteries that can be traded or socketed into your own beacon to add additional days to a beacons life? Perhaps batteries could also be used to power other devices besides just beacons such as airships, or consumed by a tool to allow that tool to output extra power (ie break speed for hammers, or damage for weapons)
TL:DR work is converted to energy that charges beacon’s capacitors, and excess work is stored in tradeable batteries.
Nevertheless you would be forced to play a lot or constantly. It wouldn’t be in favor of permanent beacons. Although I like this idea. If balanced right (for example by 2 hours of mining you gain 2 weeks beacon energy) this could be very motivating. Especially tradeable beacon energy. Well done.
1 UP!
That’s highly dependant on the conversion rate of work to power, and subject to simple balancing. A few hours of play every 100 days is not constant by any means.
Now that I have finally read through the wall of text and am not too tiered to write a reply, I’ll share my opinion/idea for beacon persistence(and a suggestion that doesn’t directly concern the topic).
I’m going to kick off with the suggestion for new consumable container, without further ado, let me represent:
Time capsule(just a concept name)
So the idea of this container is for the players to store their gear and what else they would like to for extended period of time.
The container would be accessible only by the player who placed it and it would have ‘lifespan’ up to 6 months, after running out of the time span it would still be available for week or two while anyone can loot it and after that it degenerates with the items inside(also the container would be consumed immediately when/if all the items inside are taken).
The container would persist one log off, so if you place the container log off, come back and log off again and don’t empty it before the container will remain in the world for week or two and is open for anyone.
Players can have only one Time capsule placed at a time and they could have double the inventory size of regular chest.
So now that’s out of the way, what I think about the beacon persistence is that they should last for 2 months in total.
For the first 6 weeks the beacon would work as it would regularly, for the last 2 weeks the beacon would let the structures to degenerate up to 66%(this would be the state at the end of the 2nd week, after which the beacon disappears and the world regeneration kicks in as well), while the beacon is at the last 2 weeks and if the owner(or anyone else associated to the beacon) recharges it, the structures can be restored to their former state if the player(s) have the materials to replace the degenerated ones.
What comes for upkeep of beacons I have to say I’m with @Stretchious as it shouldn’t be a grind to upkeep the beacon, so if there has to be some sort of substance to fuel the beacon I like @Havok40k’s suggestion a lot.
Maybe the time for beacons to run out should be depending on the distance to the capital, so very attractive spots in crowded areas go down faster, and my lonely building out in the wild can stay, maybe not for ever but much longer.
Then you have a choice when you build and know you not so faithful to a game.
See now you gotta take that idea and crank the capitalism up to max, start a power company that recharges other people’s beacons for a fee with a low paid labour force producing that energy working in the mines, so you get energy to sell and raw materials.
All joking aside I think this idea is on the right path, it encurages users to play the game to keep their beacons active instead of just having a system where a timer is reset when you log in or a fuel system where the resource could be scarce, which has its pros and cons. This makes beacon upkeep easy for people who regularly play the game but harder if you don’t have time to spend on the game.
A few concerns I have is how the energy would be distributed, would their be a global beacon power bank that all beacons draw from or do you have to charge each individually? On that same note if all the beacons draw from the same source then does having more beacons increase the energy consumption which forces you to be increasingly active to support multiple beacons?
My other concern would be the rates and methods for generating power (an example you gave was 2 hours work = 2 weeks energy for the beacon. Is 2 hours too short a time or is it a bit too long? I’m not sure.EDIT: was thinking of the wrong post, just ignore that last part) for whatever conversion rate that is decided on would the charge be a constantly updated value or is the energy only produced once milestones are met?
Dude, stop leaking my evil machinations to the world!
Let’s keep it simple- your work charges only your beacons- no matter where they may be in the universe or how many you have. This is ancient alien tech, after all, so why limit its range or capacity?
Those numbers were not my example. I would not measure power in hours worked, but by actions done. Example, hammers power based on stones/ores broken, axes on trees chopped, grapples on distance traveled, slingbow on creatures slain, etc. Each tool would need it’s own conversion rate so that average use across all forms contributes roughly the same power output over a given period of continuous use. Profession trees could allow a player to buff this rate slightly for their favorite tools.
Mhmm. @Thorbjorn42gbf was it really necessary to tag me twice? Never the less this got my curiousity slightly peaked. mainly because i disagree with almost everybody here.
So before i start my rant, my usual disclaimer, I am speaking from my personal view and from my own logic. I will try as much as possible to avoid stating anything as definitive proof but rather as “i think” or “i believe” (although i might slip up once in a while). secondly this is a rant, not nice and coherent thoughts. So i will more than likely offend a few people. Dont take it personal, not trying to hurt you. Im just indifferent to your feelings and find them a hindrance.
Mhmmkay? Enough warning. Lets get to the meet of the topic.
So i will try to control it. But for me this topic is as determined for me as @KuroKuma is about character progression. Very very ironed out opinion that will influence what i am about to say. I find the idea of beacons running out absolutely disgusting. Now i dont think there is inherently anything wrong with it, But i find it to be the bigger of two evils. Let me go through some of the “good points” that was mentioned which people mentioned
“it stops ghost towns and unfinished builds” This argument is slightly… Annoying. to put it mildly. Because i completely understand it. But it still bothers me. It reminds me of the posts that has pretty much just been “i dont like the way this guy builds and therefore i can say it looks like ■■■■” Now im sure that the people using it has no evil intentions with it. However that is effectively what i believe it says on a grandscale. “We will find these cities and they will be ugly”. But what if they arent? wouldnt you then be HAPPY that beacons didnt run out?
(Splitting so its easier to read) This argument comes with the assumption. Extremely rooted in it. That any person who does no longer play have created something that is a nuisance to the community as a whole. AND THAT WILL BE THE CASE AT TIMES. But it isnt different from a guy who plays who make something ugly right? I suck at building, i will most likely live in a god damn assymetrical dirt hut. And i have EVERY SINGLE RIGHT to live in that damn dirthut. a guy can come up and be like “your house sucks, i dont like it. remove it” And i can tell him to ■■■■ off. that is the beauty of it. EVEN if i played every day i would still live in that ugly dirthut and people would STILL be annoyed by it. So what is the difference on that and a person who leaves? “It will have ugly unfinished pieces in it” I could make ugly unfinished houses and still pay for it if i had to wouldnt i? I think that of the people who quit it is very likely that many of them came in. made a half arsed building and then never touched the game again. But at the same time it also affects those who DID try to build their houses. So forcing a system of upkeep would NOT stop ugly builds, unfinished buildings or unfinished towns. Again i completely get the annoyance, i am a piano player who by most standards is fairly good. It physically pains me to hear people just mess around with a piano and just slam it or just completely ■■■■ it up. I can EASILY imagine it might feel the same way for people who build alot, But the system proposed DOESNT only delete those unfinished things, it would also make people lose fully fleshed out houses and builds.
All that above is only saying “it only has a minor positive impact” so let me explain what i think is the NEGATIVE impact of it alright? Again lets just try to free ourselves from the mindset that people who doesnt play anymore only ever build horrible things. Just try to enter that state of mind. Done? Good. We as the players affects the world, we as the players makes choices which changes the world that we will play with. Natural regeneration as a gameplay system works well, because it keeps a constant influx of materials getting into the game. BUT it also effectively erases the impact that players have on the worlds that they live in. Beacons are there to stop erasing that impact. Beacons will allow us to shape the world. Beacons should ENCOURAGE people to shape the world. I would love. absolutely love to walk around in boundless and see a bridge between two mountains. i would love to walk around and see someone having carved a nice tunnel through as a way to minimize the amount of time required to travel from places. I would love to walk around in a cave and find a small statue with the inscription “May luck be with you traveller”. All of those things are POSSIBLE by allowing people to change the worlds that we live in. People can decide to make a path which will help EVERYBODY. people can make a bridge that will help EVERYBODY. people could make hidden monuments that would be a “wow” moment for everybody. If it only cost a beacon. A one time investment. A constant reminder for what was done. A year after a person stopped playing a new player might stumble unto that bridge and thank the person creating it for saving him time and reducing his risk. If you have a forced constant upkeep then those things would eventually run out. Or the people who were always on the line saying “eh i can use a few beacons on it” might instead say “its not worth the upkeep”. A big discussion on the other topics was something like “What if it refreshes upon people travelling through it?” “What if people through them could donate fuel” And that might be an answer to the bigger roads. But what about the hidden ones? what about the easter eggs hidden by players, What about those things made with a purpose and a certain intention to be a truly unique find or to only be used in extreme cases but in those cases it makes the difference between life and death. those would still get destroyed. Those things wouldn’t survive. And I fear that set a constant upkeep or an increased price might just mean that everybody only uses beacons when they are truly necessary, like homes and stuff. and discourage using beacons and fun and interesting things that could help everybody.
“Then people could get the spots other claimed that they dont use anymore” This. Is peculiar to me and makes very little sense. Again im not a builder. But how uptight do you have to be to play in a universe with a many different worlds and ATLEAST a few billion square meters of land, and then just go “I have all of this to build on. but i want THAT particular 30x30x30 spot or my build wont be good”. There isn’t much to say about it because it makes no sense to me honestly.
This is my personal and biggest problem with the system. I have a feeling i will get alot of “but you arent a builder so why do you even care” and its true. i’m not a builder, which is why i don’t care if I were to lose my own cosmetic house. The real problem for me is this. “Beacons are effectively. Most of your progression.”
Almost every single argument i have seen so far from skimming through it was A) in favor, B) considered ONLY the building aspect. So as a shortcut into my mind. Imagine that nobody could build and that every beacon was just a grey square, Okay? For me building is purely a matter of functionality cause i cant build even to save my life. That doesnt mean i dont think its important how they look. that is what i said above is that i think there would be awesome monuments and stuff. But right now i am talking Personal housing which for me might as well be a grey block. Slightly went off-topic, bear with me. Okay so the whole “beacon is part of progression” is really the biggest problem i have with all of it. From what I SEE from the game is effectively that people start from nothing and then slowly build up houses, machines etc etc. Upon dying you would love stuff meaning that you would most likely have it stashed in your house. So in your house are all of your excess crafting materials, maybe you have extra gear, maybe you have machinery. the only thing that is NOT in your house is your skills, currently equipped gear and items and you gold/gems. This is where the biggest problem is for me. Losing your house is not just a matter of “oh i lost something that looked nice” but rather “I lost about 75% of my progression” which would be REALLY FREAKING DISCOURAGING to those who MIGHT want to get back into the game. Can you imagine it? Those who stopped playing and wants to play again. And they log in and they lost that much? Can you imagine in any MMORPG where they would get away with making it so when people came back after a few months it just said “Due to being gone for too long we have decided to wipe everything in your bank and everything in your backpack. Welcome Back!” The reason this is such a big problem for me personally is that i jump between alot of games, i might play something a lot for a few weeks and then come back again half a year later after having gone a round through various games. If i were to come back to the game with that sort of state i would just be like “you know what. ■■■■ it”. And this is not meant as a sort of “bow down cause i decide everything” argument. But simply a statement of how people like me would feel about it. And because while i am arrogant I will only argue from my own position. And THIS is even only a luxury matter, as @Thorbjorn42gbf mentioned several times. Real life DOES HAPPEN. And people are suggesting you to PUNISH people for having a life? You want to PUNISH people for coming back? Look deep into yourself. If you were to leave a place you loved and decide to come back. What would you prefer? A person standing in the door saying “welcome back. i missed you” or a person standing the door saying “I assumed you wouldnt get back so i threw out all of your stuff. Well whoops. not my problem”
Those are my thoughts on why i HATE the idea of a fuel system or any sort of upkeep system. This doesnt cover much of various other cases which is beacon specific. But to make an ending comment all i can say is that the ONLY time you should ever lose a beacon should be in extreme cases like someone building a 30 block tall majestic phallic symbol. But don’t punish the guy who just has a small house with his stuff there who has too much stuff going on to play.
Couldn’t say it better myself, i am one of them who can get hooked by something new for months, and don’t care about old stuff, until after long time when bored, looking into old games and get hooked again. I still visit old games from time to time and chat with friends, and eventually start playing again for a time. If my stuff in those games was gone, i would start write angry letters, and ask what the *** they are doing, and demand to get it back.
Most players are casual players. Also, noone can “live” in the game, or be expected to play every week. We all have an actual life and the game NEEDS to accept that it isnt a persons priority. Thus, the game claiming priority is only causing player frustrations and they will all leave.
I know there are like 1% of hardcore players, they will want it hard to maintain and something they want to “work for”, but they are also through with the game once they play for a month.
The best effect will be had for both the player and the game if player areas dont decay at all. and are never lost. So, a player never has to actually think with negative thoughts about the game while having real life priorities. Instead, they will know the game will wait for them and respect the fact that they cant play rigth now, they will look forward to logging back in and finding what they had been working on intact, wanting to play on. If it is gone, each time they have time to invest in the game, where would be the point in playing your game in the first place?
Of course there are also going to be players that mess up the world and leave it behind in a bad manner, their structures untoucheable forever.
So yes, a difficult question indeed. I think, for sure, the mere idea of an empty area and yet the stuff decaying for the sake of decaying while there is plenty of room for people to build still, sounds silly.
Maybe the first thing that should be thought of is a way to track all the changes that were made in the world, and only then, if the world gets “too full”, should buildings be removed. Else, players can just find another spot instead of wanting to claim a spot when tehres plenty of space elsewhere.
When the world then indeed gets too full, it should be based on the oldest beacon in place plus the longest time the player was offline.
And, in order to reset this time, players can make upgrades to their beacon to reset the oldest beacon plus also log on again.
Well it was more an afterthought, we had started running in circles and I thought your input would improve on the discussion, because the large amounts of new viewpoints you so often bring to the table.
And in this case I knew you would disagree with beacons disapearing a point that have basically not been defended.
I would say that a lot of the better build would be allowed to stay though one of the many proposed systems to keep good builds alive for others to enjoy, those it would not stop ugly building but increase the overall ration of nice building to ugly ones. ^.^
on the other hand I Really REALLY like your argument on small easter eggs and such.
Good spots can be seriously hard to find when a world starts getting players, especially if you find a really nice like bot right besides you sit an abandoned dirt hut left by some dude years ago. Just like pointing that out, I can use 10 hours on a minecraft server just searching for a nice house spot for my ideas.
(Not saying you are wrong but damns sometimes I could slaughter people who take me good spots, I innnitiated faction wars spanning months to get the mountain chain fitting for a specefic idea i had)
DAMN I like your rants.
I am still for beacon decay but it needs to be thought through a lot.
Idea proposition: Allowing people to remove the beacons when they reach a certain age, that would still leave the problem with progression though
Is there such a thing? Doesn’t making logic subjective instantly defeat the definition of having a set of reasoning adhering to certain principles? People always hail you as having “logical” arguments but really they’re more full of pathos than logos. Which I think you admit to. Just saying.
My personal argument, which I’ve mentioned three or four times in this thread so far, is that I’d like explorers to be able to loot town with weak/vanished beacons. My argument for beacons decaying is that I want to scavenge the builds and take advantage of the world regen tech. I don’t think anyone arguing for this has ever assumed that the ghost towns will look “bad”, because “bad” in the aesthetic sense is subjective to each person. We just assumed that, by definition, they’ll be empty. Or I did at least.[quote=“Zouls, post:142, topic:4285”]
This argument comes with the assumption. Extremely rooted in it. That any person who does no longer play have created something that is a nuisance to the community as a whole.
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You know what they say about assumptions ;P. I think I debunked this with my personal reasoning above. So I’ll skip the two major paragraphs assuming everyone making this argument is in the mindset that all builds suck.
Let’s say there’s a town with 25 people such that it’s arranged like this:
A B C D E
F G H I J
K L M N O
P Q R S T
U V W X Y
Now let’s say player G has left the game and has no intention of rejoining but player H has a really good friend Z who wants to join this town. But the town belongs to a guild called “The 25” or something and they won’t let player Z join. Now if G’s beacon were to deteriorate in their absence, Z could join. Yes this is a weak example. Yes this doesn’t apply to everyone. But it is a valid example and thus can be used to fuel that argument.
Let’s also not forget they’re promoting real estate brokers and whatnot as something people can do if they want. Not sure how many idyllic-cliffside-waterfall-facing-sunset-with-a-valley spots there are going to be in these worlds, but I also don’t want to search every inch of every world to find them. If someone has claimed this beautiful area and hasn’t been around in 9 months, it’s hurting my business.[quote=“Zouls, post:142, topic:4285”]
Due to being gone for too long we have decided to wipe everything in your bank and everything in your backpack. Welcome Back!"
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I don’t understand where you’re getting the idea that the inventory is wiped too. I don’t think anyone is suggesting inventories be tied to beacons and when you lose the beacon you lose your inventory.
I’ve been thinking about this for a bit, but would functionality like an ender-chest be something that would appeal to people to save important/rare materials?
And as I’ve said several times, there are responsibilities in real life. Taxes, rent, bills. You go away for 6 months and neglect these, you’re going to be discouraged when you come back too haha. If you’re planning to go away, ask someone to watch over your stuff. If some major big bad thing happened and you’ve lost your computer and all internet access for a year, then idk what to say. I don’t play it, but I think you lose your EVE “beacon” or whatever that some people were talking about. You lose towns in Minecraft Towny. But most MMORPGs don’t allow players to shape or impact the world. Most don’t regen the world. Boundless isn’t your typical MMO and I don’t think the typical everything-you-do-is-immortalized-forever aspect of most MMOs has a place in Boundless.
I think as I suggested a bit above, having an ender-chest type thing (built with end-game mats/tech, of course, and probably a shared inventory across containers) would be a good answer to this.[quote=“Zouls, post:142, topic:4285”]
But don’t punish the guy who just has a small house with his stuff there who has too much stuff going on to play.
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Again, people have suggested in this thread that it would take maybe 5 mins every month to replenish your fuel cost. Or if we go with the login route, maybe 30 seconds. And if you get multiple emails saying, “Hey, you, log on or you lose your beacons” then whose fault is it really? If you’ve got too much going on to spare 30 seconds every month, maybe you’ve just got too much going on to even be playing video games in general.
I personally find this argument rather weak, most people play games to get a bit away from the responibility of real life (In general all intertainmnet is about distracting us untill we can go die really), if you want to chain everybody joining a game with responibility the playerbase will take a huge loose in people who just want to play it casually.
