I’ve “de-personalized” these quotes, and decided to start a new thread, rather than post a giant tangenital rant on somebody else’s related topic. Not to try and evade any backlash, if it’s not obvious to you where this comes from - that’s not actually important. On with the topic at hand.
So it’s early morning here now. I woke up having a laugh at the fact that I got really preachy last night. Not just here, tbh. No matter. I’m a 50 year old american to be clear and I’m tired of a lot of things that have developed in the world. This is much more a symptom of things than boundless being any super important issue.
I want to be crystal clear on one thing:
Boundless already failed.
There wasn’t enough money to retain sufficient staff, and the community overall got extremely nasty for a bit. It will hurt some people to process around this but take a good honest look. Those of us still playing were hanging around waiting to see how long contracts would keep the servers running and the forums and other social channels were full of newer players asking if it was even worth getting involved with the game.
The $40 (ish, pre humble bundle) purchase price is not sufficient to support the game perpetually. Frequent sales and then thousands of “extra” keys meant that, end of the day, one of James’ biggest achievements was finding a way to keep the staff paid and the doors open - giving Boundless a potential future.
And honestly he got directly crapped on for it - not even subtly. For reasons like this. It was painful.
Now someone is taking up the mantle, saving the game. And “they” have clearly stated that they are willing and able to monetize this IP to profitable levels. Thus saving the game, but changing the overall arc of the property. I don’t know what they’re going to do yet. Clearly Monty has some personal friends/contact in the community so maybe some people do 
In any case it’s going to mean the end for certain types of players. Those who are super offended at the notion that they might be asked to contribute (financially) to the survival of the game as they continue to consume it’s actual real world resources are likely to be among the first to go if an actual, viable system for monetization is introduced.
Honestly, that’s fine. Go ahead and take that personally if you wish - any of you. Boundless isn’t something that exists in a void, with someone trying to paywall a “natural resource” from you. If people would get so heavily offended and put that attitude against the groups that are literally paywalling natural resources - damn the whole world would be a better place.
The studio/owners/developers of the game will do what they need to in order to get paid, or the game will get turned off. It’s a lot of random chatter here at the forum as we don’t necessarily have any “say” in the matter and for the most part can only speculate on the direction of things - but that’s how it is and obviously these virtual spaces can become very important to people. People who then get very passionate about their particular standpoints.
This game has a daily hard cost, in real world dollars. Just to persist. There are additional costs associated with keeping it running smoothly, and further costs in order to improve or expand in any way.
Again the current playerbase has, end of the day, largely adopted this attitude. And not stopping there but going on to threaten “I’ll leave if I get a single sniff of P2W”, etc… and I hate to be maybe the first to say this to you but - that’s fine. They have to find a new player base. And it sounds like they have some ideas on how. I’m waiting to see what they are.
But brutally, end of the day - alienating a group the majority of which has said “I’ll walk if you ask me to pay anything more” is absolutely necessary for the survival of the space. Unless enough people show up who are willing to carry them financially, they need to walk away. Sad, but true.
Walking that tightrope, finding a balance to minimize losses but absolutely achieve revenue goals is the stated expertise of the new owners. I don’t know how they’re going to do it, but it’s what they have to do. This game is an ongoing service, with ongoing costs, and they need ongoing revenue. There’s ways to dress it up, but no real way around it.
With all that clearly said:
If the revival means losing some players - that’s what’s going to happen.
I don’t even honestly mind if I’m ostracized from the current community for my viewpoint on this. Because a community that refuses to support it’s own ecosystem is not something that I’m happy to be a part of. I do also speak out about these things in real life, and I do sometimes pay a social price for that. I accept it.
Wow that’s a whole side rant. There are other points to how this sort of attitude and activity impacts the community and the players.
There are hard examples from this game demonstrating that the people who enjoy digging into the game mechanics and then exploiting them are not the ones who get hurt in the fight. That’s because they’re not really here to participate - they’re here to see what they can “get out of it”.
In every case where someone has spotted a high cubit earning activity and isolated it into a repeatable loop for cubits, the game has been nerfed. And the people doing it aren’t the ones set back by the process. The people enjoying the game and operating within defined paths are the ones who get hurt over it. The ones who are seeking only advantage just move on to the next challenge. Because for them, that is the game.
People were taking, at the end, in the neighborhood of 20m XP per pie in the OG pie and table model. Who really got nerfed? New players trying to advance their characters through the early levels using the simplest “machine” in the game. Not to mention in that case it seems clear - with no input from james on this obviously - that in the resultant fray we got an extra kick for attacking the developers over it.
In the end, even after extensive analysis showed it was the pie model that was flawed, the tables got the nerf and a little extra poke in the eye, to boot. They went ahead and halved the XP - and left the full timers in place. The advanced players using late game tools to exploit early game balance moved on to find another loop, and left any newcomers holding the bag.
One of the things they discovered was plants and boulders. And suddenly a bunch of people who were not even trying to be “extra” found that the XP they were earning playing their game got taken out from under them. NGL we’re lucky they sorted a way to get some of that XP back to the “normal” players.
But again, the people looking to isolate and exploit a specific gameplay loop weren’t bothered at all. They just moved on to the next thing. Now I don’t really want to turn this into a personal feud with any of the people who suddenly want to brag about how great their achievements are - specifically in the arena of undercutting monetization - but in overall terms, this is a continuous problem.
Those of you who are enjoying playing the game as designed might consider how this affects your future gameplay. Players involved in starting to push and brag about finding these loops are also clearly stating “it’s fine with me if this causes (some aspect of gameplay) to get nerfed - I’ll move on to something else”. You might consider what you’re “oohing” and “aahing” over. We (as a community) have been politely asked, and sternly told, not to do this.
Case by case enforcement is difficult, with the game not making enough money to support continuous moderation it’s nearly impossible. That leaves us with the choice of either being supportive, or picking at the carcass until it’s gone.
There are other examples but this is already turning into a novella. Moving on…
If a bit of emergent gameplay blows up an exploitable niche and results ina direct loss of revenue to the studio - it has to be quelled. The immediate and obvious way to handle this is to break that exploitative loop. The next most obvious is to find a new stream of revenue. We’re sort of at a dead point between studios right now and the path they will choose is … not entirely obvious.
If the decision is to nerf the emergent mechanics, that’s sad but we move on.
If the decision is to nerf the exploitable portion of the core gameplay loop, that’s also sad, but it’s a lot harder to move on from. It’s been clear for a long time that people advance their characters (and thus their impact on the worlds) in various ways, and a lot of work has been done to balance that.
Boundless is still a building game. Taking the opportunities for character advancement out of building is, in my opinion, just fully game breaking. I really hope that’s not what happens here. But I guess we’re going to have to collectively wait and see. Maybe in 2 years time the current systems will be almost unrecognizable. The new studio has a different area and level of expertise at such things.
In any case, we’re going to lose some players on the way. That’s ok. It’s not only ok. It’s necessary.
I do look forward to seeing what happens here in the next 24 months. I suspect that many of you will be missed. But not missed enough to cater to you until it results in the death of the game.
Long Live Boundless!
from me, beyond that. America is hosed. Can’t speak for belgium. I am hoping Boundless will continue to improve.
Belgium….€2100,- average…… wow im way below that, get barely half of that…. Still not complaining though.