This is exactly what was said when the sovereign planets were launched. That the players would splinter and it would hurt the game. I think it has helped the game. It has allowed for more planets with resources players wanted making it harder for players to plot resources and prevent other players from getting resources they want. It has allowed players to build undisturbed by other players or groups of players that have had all sorts of agendas. It has (hopefully) provided some funding for the developers. It has opened up space on the public universe, which was getting awfully crowded as players with 10’s of thousands of plots earned after years of play, were taking large amounts of space for various purposes. It also allowed the universe to be bigger without increasing the cost to the developers, which with the small player base was not going to happen any other way.
I am not sure what would make having a private server unsuccessful other than not getting a group of other players to want to play on it. I am not sure how that is bad for the game in particular if you are worried about the public universe population shrinking. As far as malls or even a store not being popular or successful, that is just playing a game, you do not always win.
The reason I have a different take is probably my outlook on the game overall. A number of players seem to imply time after time that simply promoting/advertising the game will expand the player base. My experience playing since launch does not support this. It seems like every time we get an influx of players (Free weekend or whatever the cause), we do not keep even a fraction of those players. Promoting a game that cannot keep players playing is not worth it.
Even the launch of the Sovereigns did not result in a permanent increase in players. There are probably multiple reasons for this such as the NPE, the game not being casual player friendly or whatever. I just think that given tools to make changes to the core game in separate universes could bring back some of those players and maybe provide a more new player friendly experience for new players. I know too many times in the past groups of players have made suggestions for changes they wanted in the game such as eliminating the forge. This always stirs up controversy as of course there are those that like the forge and the RNG that goes with it. The same with color rarity and other game play mechanics. If you give player that are unhappy with the mechanics another way to play versus leaving the game, how can that be bad? The players I am speaking about already are not playing, they watch the forums hoping for some change in the game that will bring them back. This means an increase in players overall and does not mean necessarily fewer players in the public universe. And if it does. If 90% of the players move to a universe that has a specific change to the core mechanics, then maybe that is information that would be useful to the developers.
We constantly get players that want a PvP experience. If this could be done separate from the public universe, that could bring in those players. I also think it gives the developers a way to sell DLC. I think it would be impossible to sell DLC that affected the game mechanics or introduced new blocks or technology to the game in the public universe. Not everyone would buy them so how would it work? We would also get the Pay to Win arguments if some players could build and sell blocks to other players that could not build them. On a private planet, it is easier for a group playing to all agree to purchase specific DLC to introduce it to the game they play. It has no affect on playing in the public universe so it does not affect if they can play or not, just which places they can play. It is also a way to generate development income for Wonderstruck.
Initially, I think the pull is to be able to play with specific friends and not deal with some of the personalities in the public universe. I also think if a group is focused on building it lets them build undisturbed and with rules that make them comfortable.
I kind of already covered this but to the point of not having my stuff. I know personally over 95% of my inventory is in reclaim and I know others where all their inventory is in reclaim. They have no interest in engaging in the game as it is. Given the opportunity to play the game in a new universe with the people I want to play with, I will give up my current inventory or hold it in case I decide in the future that I want to play in the public universe.
It’s pretty simple it you give players more options some players will take those options.
Some do sovereigns and some don’t. Some will do private servers others won’t.
New players already say it seems so empty and we can blame sovs for part.of that and oddly many friends of mine view sovs as a P2W system. We can argue that later.
Point is people want to do their own servers for admin rights, cheats, and basically adding and doing the things the devs haven’t and won’t do
I see the draw and Id reclaim my stuff if I could claim it again on a priv server.
Starts up boundless, attempts to Gen a Multi-tier Large Exo. Insta gratification syndrome kicks in where is my planet and why hasn’t it loaded in 10+ minutes? To get planets…it takes a good amount of time.
My desktop takes about an hour or so for one 64 region planet.
My Laptop takes about 3 hours to generate one.
Some would be dissappointed unless downloading existing worlds becomes a thing.
From what I remember there was some discussion of the developers providing some pre-generated planets so players that wanted a planet quickly or who did not have the hardware sufficient to generate one could still get one. Of course you could get a lot of repeated planets.
I did the “3 world” one that it offers a few days ago and it took around 15 mins per world to generate for me, so around 45 minutes or so for a 3 world “universe”. Not sure how long it would take to download 3 complete worlds, but it I have heard it has taken others multiple hours to generate worlds so its very PC dependent and downloads may be a better option in that case.
I had the downloaded worlds from before, but I kinda wanted to see what it would generate from scratch to explore.
I think somewhere they said it uses 50% of your CPU. So if you are rocking an i3 or less, there’s only 2 cores for all processes to work with (or less).
Yeah, lots of variables. Was just saying that it took me about 45 minutes to get up and running with a basic 3 world universe that I could start exploring.
This is definitely one of the reasons the update never came out. I (probably too aggressively) made a big deal out of new players bouncing and getting refunds as soon as they saw the world gen time.
So, one of the big problems is that a 3 hour world gen eats your full 3 hour gameplay refund window. A download is just a download, but a 1-3 hour world gen is an instant refund because people don’t want to be stuck without that option.
Iirc it was total cores minus 2 get used for worldgen, but you and I probably have about the same accuracy of memory
My predictions:
Boundless is re-entering development,
plans for a new marketing push,
Boundless goes free to play, increases cosmetics to include other races
Season pass that gives access to a new set of worlds
gleam club gets something new, possibly reduced oort shard consumption in portals (not removed though)
No pants… hopefully new cloths for us though, gotta show off those body paints
Multi-platform, boundless comes to Xbox and Switch!
Roadmap that includes new mobs, worlds, boats, and Titans!
I honestly don’t know how boundless can honestly be pay to win in it’s current state. It’s a sandbox mmo, everything needed to progress is available to you, on one character. You can even change the colors of blocks with the pigment system (which is more involved than I’d care to get into but none the less it exists) no single color or block is winning boundless, the “best” gear in the game comes from building with mats that are both limited and cannot be bought for currency, and although you can swipe a card to get more cosmetics and land to build in quicker (lumping sov/creative worlds in here) you don’t get anything that makes you “better” or “more of a winner” over any other player…
A season pass set of worlds would be a way to give player’s who want fresh starts and the progression reset to have it (never understood this desire personally but there is money in it so ).
I’m predicting only a few folks return at first and work as best they can on getting 249 out. The recent BG3 Panel from Hell had Swen indicate that development was nearing an end (roughly around 1:26:00 he mentions there’s a few more months of development). I’m sure their need for developers is dwindling as they finish internal testing/polishing of Acts 2 and 3.
So I think we’ll see a few staff return and try to push out 249. But I think future updates will take more time than they did in the past due to fewer staff members as others potentially remain with Larian through all of the issues that will likely be found during launch.
I do not see roadmaps suddenly becoming a thing and I do not predict changes in communication/transparency.
I Would Be Happy With Update 249 Releasing and maybe 1 more update (Hunters Update) after that Releasing. Concepts that are already there just needs polishing
Monsters like
Hunter
Ground Basher
Stone Thrower
Just so we have more to kill with the swords and shields
They also have models of advanced crafting stations I would love to see sometime.
But yeah. Don’t expect a fast pace developing race. To see 249 pushed over the line within next 6 months would be huge already.
And permanent community manager with support handled properly again.
I am skeptically optimistic…. I would love to see an announcement that they are back to making Boundless a priority. I would love to see the Hunter finally become a reality.
I would also like to see them put the game on XBox and promote it better than they have in the past.
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