I still want those things and still expect that game play to continue. I want a strong community where people help people. Sure those people leaving still have various stuff but this gives a bit more back. Plus I want a local file and not cloud storage for cost reasons and that devs should not have to manage people’s stuff.
I want to state one more time that I do not link this to the expired beacon feature. I want and think that game play is critical to keep. People need to be responsible for their beacons. But, a small feature allowing some type of saving when you make a decision to leave isn’t bad.
I did read your other post and I do understand that what you are saying and MinerDiggerMan are two different things. I have also read the comments you and James made in the other thread. I am not in favor of local storage. This is a very smart group of players I am sure they could figure out how to unencrypt and modify the file. Sometimes the players are too smart for their own good. It would eliminate the issues on space James brought up, but I think it is too risky.
I will make any other comments in the other thread so we are not trying to run two simultaneous conversations on the essentially the same subject.
I have already though about what I’d do if I decide to take a break. I’d load down each character with the tools they need to do their job effectively. I’ve even been thinking about leveling up some extra alts that I don’t need just to load them down with inventory in case of an emergency. Load one of them down with machines, spark generators, spark links, titanium furnaves, and advanced power coils. Plus a stack of compact hard coal for spark and furnace fuel. Then load another down with mining/gathering tools. Some aoe shivels, hammers, and axes with a stack of persisting pies, mega fast brews, loot sticks, and atlases loaded with the most relevant thing for each planet. Then load somebody with everything a hunter needs to thrive. Give them some building materials and storage blocks scattered amongst them too. Might not have any materials for crafting on return, but you’ll have everything you need to start back up if you quit for a time. I’d also make all my current builds guild controlled and hope that my guildmates either fuel my beacons or replot them to preserve guild prestige.
Or you could just make 1 beacon grab som good beacon fuel and store all your stuff in there will be good for 3 months then just drop another beacon fuel in there 4 beacon fuels will last a year.
You can’t basically unencrypt an AES 256 file without the private key or some huge brute force type scenario. Sure maybe someone could somehow inject something into the program and capture the key in transit or find a way to read it from memory. But, let’s be realistic that if someone is willing to take the time to try to hack the game in that fashion then they will hack it in other ways. So we shouldn’t be worrying about these type of things. People can try to hack this game in any way. There are already features in the game to give you everything on testing so I’m sure they could augment the code in production…
I don’t think that returning players should be rewarded any way. Of course it is sad to see that that buildings are vanishing, for example some of cool buildings in Little Japan are now gone But luckily we have players who have made videos of that area
I promote possibility to loot beacons, it is reminding me of UO IDOC hunting.
Instead of rewarding only returning players there could be some sort of mechanic like monthly pay or bank system that would effect also active players.
There’s lots of community help if they ask for it. I agree with Kal. Even if you don’t have Gleam Club a beacon lasts 3 weeks, and you can even have a friend fuel it for you. I’m all for player retention, but If you’re a vet player you are well aware of this. Players have to accept responsibility for something.
I am rewarding them for not following the rules in keeping a beacon fueled. The game specifically allows for the scavenging of beacons that expire. So we are going to remove this functionality for a group of players that does not like a driving mechanic in the game? You are basically saying the players that took the time to keep their beacon fueled or asked a friend or a guild member to do it for them (followed the game rules) are foolish for doing so.
If players do not like the beacon fueling system then they need to complain about that and offer a reasonable solution to the problem of abandoned builds lasting forever in a persistent universe. This was an issue EA with fewer players before beacon fuel was a function in the game. I think the developers increasing the max beacon fuel to 12 weeks makes it pretty easy to keep your build going if all you need is to log in once every 3 months, but that is my opinion.
That’s what we are doing. Delete the beacon but save the materials. It solves the problem.
Calling it a driving mechanic is a stretch. Beacon looting is in no way an advertised feature of the game. No one buys Boundless specifically for that.
But a lot of people who come from other voxel games definitely have an expectation their stuff won’t be deleted.
It means every expired beacon has to have everything saved? I am never going to agree that this is a good idea and James’ comments on the storage of this information and the mechanic needed to re-introduce what could be hundreds of thousands of blocks back into a players inventory make me even more convinced this is not the right way to handle this.
Maybe, but their are players that like the mechanic and want to continue to be able to take advantage of it. Personally I think it is a great idea to allow for scavenging even if I have not done it since EA. But in any case portal fueling is a core mechanic. It is one of the very first things introduced in the tutorial. And there is a lot of information available on what happens when you plot outside your beacon and if your beacon expires. It is not a secret.
This is not every other voxel game, if it was then why play or even develop Boundless? This is a game universe with infinite resources and a regeneration mechanic that continues to provide resources and provides a way for removing abandoned builds. James made the points about this being a persistent universe and how that makes it different from some of the games people were referencing. I am going to have to agree with the developers that have a lot more experience and understand how their game works and stores data.
They get all their stuff with no effort so I think that is not meeting anyone halfway. But I personally still would say no. This creates a new mechanic in game that allows players to not follow the rules other players are following in order to keep what they have produced. I do not feel the need to meet players halfway that did not take the time to consider what would happen if they left the game for 6 months and made no effort to protect what they had or might want to have if they returned. Why should a player be able to recover hundreds of thousands of blocks after being gone for a year or two years? Why should the developers have to store all this data for players that might never return?
I think this was mentioned before but you conserve everything in your inventory so instead of trying to implement a new system how about we incourage the fact that player that are quitting should keep their valuable ressources in their inventory. I know the inventory space isnt massive but it should be enough to keep your gems, coils and forged gear etc…
Last I checked, this is supposed to be a game, not real life, and games are supposed to be fun, or else people don’t play it.
Losing your stuff because you forget to fuel a beacon is not fun.
I know people who won’t even try boundless because you have to keep fueling your beacons.
Not caring at all about people who forget to fuel their beacon, and saying things like they deserve what they get is a fantastic way to drive people away from the game.
Saving people’s blocks and stuff somewhere so they wouldn’t have to gather it all again would be a good thing. It might help keep players.
But they deserve what they get because they read the fine print and they knew the beacon would expire and it’s their own fault they didn’t take precautions! /s
For real though, I definitely know casual players who would be more likely to try this if they didn’t have the pressure of beacon refueling looming over them.
More people mean a better and more vibrant game. If we need social programs, aka, a returning player package, so be it! Make the items “no trade” to prevent monetizing the care package and give it to anyone who has been logged off since the last patch. Send it out each patch and say “hey, we got some good stuff going on, and we want you to come back”.
Any comments about personal responsibility is short sighted. I could make parallels to the real world, but none of you would like them. The fact of the matter is we have folks that will be worse off if we don’t help them get their foot back in the game, nothing is harmed if we do that. We could do it for every single person, every single patch and it wouldn’t hurt a darn thing. Why? Because more players makes the game better! If you wanted a single player game, there are great options, this isn’t one.
Besides, no one has any idea why a given player quits. It could be anything or nothing. Asking for players to be punished to ensure they work hard enough is perverse. This isn’t a ranked game, there isn’t money on the line. Having more players is always preferable to less.
An observation about keeping beacons fueled:
For people who play every day it’s not much of a problem, we get multiple warnings when a beacon gets low.
But, for people who only play once a week, or less…big problem. They may have 7 days 0 hours left when they play so no warnings yet…but if they don’t log in again for over a week… their stuff would all be gone without having seen one warning.
In summary, beacons can be a big deterrent for casual players who don’t play as often.
I notice this because I’m trying to keep a friends beacons fueled, and started remembering less often to check and almost missed a refueling.
Should they change it so that when you log in, the system tells you the date when the earliest that any of your beacons expire? Then even if you log in less frequently you would know that in 2 weeks and 2 days you will have a beacon expire. This way if you only log in every two weeks, you know you might want to do something and can check all your beacons in the beacon tab.
I don’t have a good answer for this.
I suspect people usually intend to log back in before their beacon expires but stuff happens in real life, they get distracted, forget, come back too late, and may decide they don’t want to start over gathering stuff.
I’m sure there are other scenarios too.
But luckily we have players who have made videos of that area 