Lol… Their “soon” was like half a year so i wouldnt expect much. Like boundless birthday is in september so… Maybe Then haha
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I have a feeling it will be next week. I bet its a little more exciting than most ppl think
P2W is perception. There are hardcore MMO players that feel anything that gives anyone any form of advantage over another player is P2W.
Some people feel that if you buy a game @ $40.00 it should allow you access to everything in said game.
Deep down I feel sovereigns are P2W, Gleam Club is P2W and buying cubits is P2W.
While I have bought 2 of the 3 myself, I do know it gives me an advantage over someone that doesn’t buy a Sovereign or Gleam Club. Even if there is no “winning” in Boundless, people always find a way to create winnable scenarios.
One could buy a lot of plots with cubits and have the largest settlement and reap the benefits of a higher percentage of footfall etc.
As stated, I have argued the exact point we all make about P2W to people and in the end they just don’t agree, right or wrong.
I will not disagree that perception matters and a poor perception of a game can kill a game.
So if you have a game with a persistent universe that requires funding every month to pay for it, and you want to eliminate the items that some people perceive as P2W such as gleam club, how do you pay for running the servers?
Just selling more copies does not work because if those people play then at some point additional users mean more planets and higher costs.
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Nah that was never my point. I was never saying we need to remove the P2W.
I think the game has a very high entry price point. I mean as compared to other games similar to it. For me $40 isn’t much, but it was a deterrent for some friends of mine. Especially when I had to tell them they could “rent” their own planets and could pay monthly for Gleam Club.
I mean it adds up. I don’t know the “right” way to make this work, but making the game Free 2 Play always comes up in the conversations I have. The way things are now, people don’t have to rent a sovereign or buy gleam club so when money gets tight, people will most likely just let a sovereign go and gleam club expire to save some cash.
If the game was Free 2 Play it would be interesting to see if that works out. I know it was Free once on Steam and seemed to generate some additional players.
Who knows.
The Free Weekend did generate additional players for a very short period of time. But player retention is so poor, we did not see a long term bump in the number of players. What we did get was more planets (that increased the cost to run the universe) and a large number of dead builds all over the place that we had to wait for the beacons to run out so they would regen.
As far as long term free to play, you and I both understand that nothing is free. The developers of all the games I have that were free either force watching advertising or make the games so grindy and slow that you are pushed into buying all sorts of things in order to progress at an acceptable rate. So do free to play games that do not use advertising turn into P2W games?
Edit: Actually I can think of a few games that you can pay to remove the advertising also
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I am mostly thinking Free 2 Play during the initial cost would be more ideal or at least drop the game down to $9.99. I was pretty deterred about buying a sovereign and gleam club after paying $40, but I have both.
I also have a wife that is not a gamer and totally against me paying for anything monthly when it comes to gaming even though I can afford it and I am sure there are other people.
Personally, I am ok with things as they are I mostly think going Free 2 Play with Sovereigns and Gleam Club and maybe some additional P2W resources would be a better approach… such as purchasable pants… err clothing. 
EDIT: Player retention is whole other issue.
It might be enough to cover the game costs. Unfortunately the only people that know for sure are the developers and they have not said. We know the steam side alone was not enough, but we do not know what revenue is with the PS and Sovereigns added.
My only concern with F2P is how many of those players would be willing to spend any money on the game at all? Would they buy Gleam Club or a Sovereign or cubits or character customizations or would they just take space. Could we get enough additional players to require more planets without also getting enough of a bump in revenue to cover the costs of more planets. I also know how toxic some free to play games can be. Even with all the issues and disagreements we have had, it is nothing compared to what I have seen in some other games. This is the main reasons why I have personally been against free to play. I guess I felt if a player had to at least make some investment up front, then they were less likely to join just to be a griefer and more likely to spend additional money. I, of course, could be wrong.
I do agree player retention is a different issue, but I do think it is one that needs to be focused on by the developers before they spend a lot of time and resources trying to promote the game.
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Don’t you have to “Pay” for boundless before you can “Win” in the game? 
ok, ok, I can overlook a lot, but this? This game does not need core level changes, any advantages the people you’ve talked to claim make it pay to win I’d argue aren’t really advantages… Its just a different way to play the game. nothing makes it better than another way, unless they perceive it better, and nothing a developer can do will change the way people perceive a game.
For instance I tried Diablo Immortal, thought it was a mechanically sound game with some nice story beats, people say its pay to win (and maybe it is) but that didn’t effect my enjoyment of the game in the slightest. I didn’t need to spend a dime to enjoy what I did play of the game.
The problem with the popularity of Boundless is a combination of exposure and a vocal few saying it is pay to win (which causes others to echo it). if you stopped the few saying P2W it could help, sure, but if you just simply got enough exposure the truth would become apparent as well.
I strongly disagree with some of this. Every time the game gets any exposure like the free to play weekend or some of the other offers where licenses were provided cheaply, it never gains any players over the long term. Simply advertising is not going to address the reasons people are not sticking with the game. I think you take a chance on alienating potential players if you do not address the issues that are affecting player retention before you advertise or otherwise promote the game.
I will not disagree that reviews on steam that claim Boundless is Pay to Win do damage the game and prevent players from even trying it out.
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I think if someone that has played a game that sells loot boxes and booster packs to unlock high tier weapons/equipment quicker thinks this game is pay to win then they might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but that’s just my perception.
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Then what are the player retention issues? I don’t think its core mechanics or p2w. Is it disparity between the people at high level end game and how the person starts by hitting things with a totem? well that is pretty typical of almost every mmo so that’s not likely it unless…
unless the people trying out the game are only voxel / minecraft interested players. if that was the case then maybe the disparity is the issue then. While a diamond pickaxe does work tons better than a stone one, it still only hits one block at a time, ours not only work tons better but can also hit 9 blocks at a time, offer a glow effect, and be made to last longer. Plus in minecraft you don’t see tons of players getting massive things built in the world around you and you thinking that the beginning block placement feels bad, how on earth can they build so big, let alone get all the blocks to do it…
So at minimum the onboarding process needs improved, that is pretty easy to agree with. maybe a “recommended level path” that gives you block placement speed up to a certain point, and rewards a single diamond aoe hammer? or maybe just an augment for the totem that lets it hit 9 blocks? or maybe just help guide them a little further than the, whelp you setup a beacon and a crafting table, the rest is up to you, approach. or maybe speed up the first 50 levels by a couple percent, let them get some of that early excitement of being able to improve incrementally quickly, then they will be able to progress into to item progression faster? idk, iron and copper tools already feel pretty useless to an early player, you might use them for an hour or two before you move on to the precious metal versions… those ones last for a while, and can feel fine to get the first few gem tools with though.
to note, none of these are “core changes” just some surface level early game changes. Playing a new character you immediately notice how slow they move, use tools, and how little they can even see what can be crafted. maybe making categories in the crafting menu for things you don’t yet have the skills to make, just so you can dangle a carrot in front of the early player would help?
edit: to note, I don’t mean to sound like I’m talking down to minecraft players, or voxel game enthusiasts. I’m just not one of them and only have an outside perspective on how they interact with their games, I’ve tried them so I have a mechanical understanding of the games, but boundless is the only voxel game I’ve EVER enjoyed, and that is from the grindy mmo side of it, since I have a deep love (and maybe problem) for MMOs they are my favorite genre. So things I see as trival non issues, might well be serious road blocks to someone who comes in from an entire other game genre.
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I would not disagree the new player experience is poor and I strongly believe that affects retention. Beyond that we would probably disagree on what makes players leave the game. Having played other voxel games, in my opinion boundless has a much higher level of grind and I think that discourages more casual players from staying with it I also think the rng does not really benefit the game but instead frustrates many players. Of course this my opinion. The only way to know for sure would be the developers soliciting data from players leaving the game.
To some degree I think boundaries needs to decide what it wants to be. Is it more of a sandbox voxel game or more of an economy game.
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I haven’t really been keeping up with the thread and everyone’s views on the recent topic but I think this is on point basically. The grind, rng, and color grind really impacts people’s willingness to play if they are more casual.
I think the MMO concept put undue pressure on the game mechanics that ultimately led to the demise of the game when MMO stuff really didn’t happen. If the game can come back with real financing then I’m fine with them trying to fix things from the original concept, but if this is to be more indie or sporadic development then they should simplify things and just make it more fun for people. Less grind to allow people to come back.
And most of all… “free the colors!”
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100,000,000,000,000% this.
I can attest to the NPE (new player experience) as I got pretty frustrated with the game early on and the chat lag didn’t help. Getting dropped on a planet with no one around and not much of a tutorial or anything that helped guide me to where more people might be.
I have numerous friends that said the game had zero people in it when they landed on a planet, and this continues to be the case.
The CORE game is a sandbox MMO, the sandbox is there, but the MMO experience just plain sucks. The core parts that need addressing are the new player experience, the forging with its RNG is just frustrating for people that actually stick around (even though I enjoy it) and a few more of the MMO elements.
In reference to the P2W some better advertising and clarification of what P2W mechanics are in the game and how they really don’t give anyone a GREAT advantage (albeit they do give an advantage) might be a smart call.
A good counter would be for all of us to go on Steam and leave a good honest review about the game… I know I have.
As far as what makes players leave, I have asked a lot of them … some are around.
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Boredom - Blame this one whatever you want, the grind, no new content, etc. etc. but in the end, people just get bored playing a game over and over for years.
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Feeling of game abandoned - The devs and their lack of communication and the lack of updates caused this more than anything. The continuous players mentioning it has been abandoned also doesn’t help, but I solely blame the Devs here (sorry, not sorry).
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Grind - I will agree the game does get a little grindy, but it depends on your goals. Are you just trying to level? Yup, fairly grind. Are you just trying to get more plots? This is not so grindy if you use the P2W idea of buying cubits for plots.
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New Player Experience - I could go on and on with this one. Simply put the chat system, the randomly dropping someone in the middle of nowhere (kind of as a player can choose where to drop), and the huge lack of a GOOD tutorial is just not very friendly.
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Game feels empty - Anywhere I go now it feels empty I might see 5 people a day at most unless I stay in TNT all day. As a new player it’s worse they don’t know about portal hubs, sovereigns and just how many and how big the worlds are. So, their perception is emptiness as that is all they see for a good bit.
I am sure I can point out some other core things that needs some tweaking, but this is a good example. My son, who plays many games like Boundless quit and hates it as he is never sure what he is supposed to do.
I would agree with this, but it would be nice to at least just give the colors a rotation on the good ole Exo train. Make all the colors pop every month or so… I’d be happy with that.
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What if James only said exciting news to see what we thought would be exciting, to guage the minimum amount of work needed to make the majority of us happy for a while. This would be so he could not have to have that buzzing in his ears; which I’m certain all our grumbling causes him.
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What if the news is… There is no news 
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What if the News he Ate all the 
s D: Scarrryyyy
I saw something P2W I know I spent alot on Plots and gleamclub but I knew I was gonna be around along time when I hit my 1st 1000 plots so I nuked my gleamclub. And plots is pure laziness I wanted to build BIG Muhahaha but did I P2W by doing that xD
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