Expired Homes Should store items

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61

This is a very bad way to characterize this issue and those that enjoy expired beacons. It also doesn’t help the conversation.

You are boiling a whole host of issues down into a single problem and failing to face each issue alone. Doing this type of thing gets you no where in solving the problem.

Retention of players goes WAY beyond whether a beacon expires or not. It is not being responsible to assume that the person quit because they lost all their stuff versus they quit because of other problems in the game.

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62

I completely agree with you on everything that you’ve said so far.

63

No, in this thread we’re facing a single retention issue.

Everyone recognizes that there are many issues affecting retention. This thread is only about one of them.

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64

I am not trying to to start an argument with you but there has been various comments for your post where you are making huge assumptions or using language that makes it come off like the solution you proposed is the answer. Case in point the database server - that is only 1 part of a multi-part issue.

So your “single retention issue” direction cannot be isolated because inherently it is linked to other issues. My point is while it seems to make sense that a single issue can be solved with X type of solution, it cannot because it is linked. So you must take the results from that decision and see how it plays out across all the relevant other parts it is linked to.

65

As it keeps getting brought up again and again, by players that have lost all their items and decided not to return as a result, yes it is a retention issue as you and others have stated. How many players had this happen and never even mentioned it on the forums because they removed the game and decided not to even talk about it? We will never know for sure, but like a lot of things, for every person that might say something on the forums there are surely more that have not.

I have argued about players being responsible and either buying gleam club, using longer beacon fuel or giving someone in game permissions to fuel their beacons. But the game continues to loose players so maybe I was looking at it wrong and we should see if there is a way to not have this be an issue for players not to return. In particular for a game that has yet to deliver all the functionality (titans as an example) that was promoted at launch.

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66

Xaldafax, I want you to try something.

Every idea proposed, no matter how distasteful, ask yourself “Will this drive players to the game or away from the game?”.

If devs are making choices that result in players moving away from the game, they are bad choices. Nailing yourself to a post and calling it art doesn’t make it so. Just like losing a bunch of customers because you are being obstinate about your vision doesn’t make a business a success.

This is a cut-and-dried issue about player completion persistence. Rewards goes away when it should just be moved into a storage so folks can rebuild. Super easy. Instead of listening to their customers, they are obstinately digging in and making no changes.

To hand-wave it all away by saying “you cannot possibly know what drove players away” just further shows you have no desire to solve the issue. If the devs were sending “welcome back” packages to lost players or sending out mail campaigns to ask questions or literally any standard retention strategy, I would be floored. They aren’t. They are “working on farming”. Great. They can work on farming while the few hundred people play the game and attrition kills it.

This isn’t doom and gloom. This should be a wake-up-call. If something as brain-dead simple as “don’t delete the blocks I made because my mom has cancer” then Christ on sale, I don’t know how to help you to help them.

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67

It is absolutely disgusting that you assume I don’t ask that question. You are completely incorrect and lack utter understanding at any level about how I approach situations and complex problems. If you are going to take the time to actually personally attack me like you just did, then at least do a good job at it. Or actually stop attacking people and instead ask me: “Hey, Xaldafax how do you approach these problems?” Then maybe you can get start to understand who I am instead of coming in with a whole bunch of assumptions.

There are a whole host of decisions that can be categorized as “bad choices.” Each of those are based on a contextual discussion point and anyone that thinks they know what is “bad” or “good” is beyond arrogant because those things don’t exist.

There are almost 8 billion people on the planet with more being created every single day. People really need to wake up to the fact that losing a few players will not be the end of the earth. The problems we have are a whole variety and anyone that refuses to approach the situation that way is being obstinate.

It sucks the game lost players and things need to be fixed. But until you really understand why they left and put things in that will stop that, trying to give incentives to people that are disillusioned with the game is a waste of effort.

Yeah hence why I spend the hours I do having conversations with the community and various members and passing that information off to the developers while I work on ideas that might help them through the problems they say they have.

Until you have an exit survey for those people that left, you will have no imperical data. Everything mentioned to date is conjecture and that was my point.

Are there so many darn arrogant people in the forum that can’t understand that the Devs actually know things and see that the game has issues. They don’t need a wake-up call. The group that does are the ones that constantly think they are better and smarter than the Developers and have all the solutions. People need to learn to work with them and understand the complex situations they face before they step up and provide isolated simple yet lacking solutions.

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68

Ahaha oh wow.

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69

its not so much that you are in the wrong its more the mindset of the given player haveing read the steam forums its widly agreed that buying gleam club for the sole purpose to keep your stuff in the game is just a form of extortion so there is a stigma over that and the permissions depending on what MMO you came form people may think “well what stops x player form just takeing all my stuff has soon has i log out?”

i do agree the longer beacon fuel thing would work and just guess that people dont want to get in the cycal of remembering to log into the game just to refuel

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70

My base is a perfect example for @Kal-El. I have a lighthouse that still has a partly finished brazier on top for the flame. I have the gleam, but just don’t have the skills to make the flame so it sits there with part of it finished and has given the look of being abandoned.

If you came by to see if someone was there you would think it was deserted. Today, I logged in and unloaded a couple machines, then noted what I needed to make some mats. Dashed away to get them and got caught up in exploring a planet that was new to me. So, was at my base for maybe 15 minutes, if that. Came back after a couple hours and unloaded what I had found but didn’t find what I left to get. So, dashed out again. This time at another planet to get what I needed, and collected it and some other goodies I needed. Back was hurting so went back to base and logged out. Played probably three maybe four hours, but you wouldn’t know it by how long I was at me base.

I will be going back in a few maybe a hour or less from now, but you won’t know it unless you have been sitting there watching my door as I will be dashing out again to see what has been bought at my shop and not what I need to restock. Back to see if I am missing any ingredients to make those mats and if so dashing out again to gather them.

It will look as if the base is empty, deserted, but I am just out gathering. When I do get all that is needed, it won’t take but half a hour to get it all loaded into the machines, then there will be no need to stay there, I will quit for the day.

As for expired homes, lost items. I don’t mean to sound mean, but that is part of gaming. Very few games will keep your stuff for you, it is rare from what I have read and from what my son says, and he is a gamer. I know that I played Sims 3 for over 2 years and lost everything, and I mean Everything. No backup, no copies, nothing, Geek Squad deleted what they were supposed to make up back-up copies for me and no backup copies.
Not just my Sims 3 but my thesis that I had worked on, all of it gone, a thesis, my Master’s thesis from college, gone, they had deleted it, didn’t make the backup copies like they were supposed to.

That is life, ■■■■ happens, if you can’t deal with it, that is on you.

We don’t need to but on the devs the burden of keeping stuff for players who may never come back. Sussie Q and Billy Bob may get pissed and quit, but they need to understand that is part of the game. you know it when you bought the game that if you didn’t fuel your beacon, that if you left it and it expired you would lose it all. Things happened and I know this sound hash, but part of the problem is that too many players want others to take on the responsibility for them, I don’t have to worry, the devs, someone else can take care of it and I can just go off and have fun.

Life isn’t that way, you take responsibility for it, it is your base, your items, and if life gets in the way and you lose it, that is bad and I am sorry for you, but it has happened to all of us at one time or another and we just either pick ourselves up and start over or move on.

If I lose everything in this game for whatever reason, well, I can start again. I know what to do so it will be easier this time around. And I can build something different this time around.

Gleam Club is a blessing and a curse, it can save your stuff, but at the same time there is only so much room and the deserted ghost cities are taking up room, and some are a eyesore on planets, glaring building that give the appearance of life but are empty, stands remain the same, no new stock, old stock stays with the same number of items, prices are still at the prices they were when I started to play and you had to pay 40k for a forged gem hammer.

Said enough.

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71

very true but i think it has to due with the fact of how different boundless is to normal MMO’s for example if i let my time in WoW lapse they don’t just auto delete my char unless i dont play for years it stays there but when it comes to SP/MP games like minecraft there is anger when a save is lost or corrupted unless that was due to a patch or bug but alot of the blame then tends to fall on the user and they kick them selfs for letting that happen and ether start a new a bit angry or just quit but when its something out of your control there is more a focused anger there cuz you wanted to play you dont feel that maybe you did anything wrong by not loging in and you then get the mindset of “i just lost all the stuff cuz i did not log in this game is stupid” and that is harder to shake off.

72

Dang it, you are having me look at both sides LOL.

"I have argued about players being responsible and either buying gleam club, using longer beacons fuel or giving someone in game permission to fuel their beacons. But the game continues to loose players so many I was looking at it wrong… . . "

Is that the key to it then? And this is me just brainstorming. I have stated before, that the trailer has given the impression that there is more to the game than there was when it was released on Steam. Is the real reason for not keeping players, the lack of content in the game, the feeling that what was stated and isn’t there has left a bad taste in the mouth of some players, who have then trashed the game and that has soured others?

It is hard to know what has driven players away, caused those who were from the start to stop playing, from those who bought it when it was released in Oct (like I did) and some stayed and many left. I’m still here, but then I have the “problem” according to my son in not being picky about the games I buy and play. To him, there has to be a story, to give it life, what is shown in the trailer should be in the game, that the price asked should reflect the content. And to him and others this game messed up in all three areas. If the game had had what was shown in the trailer, the titans, the perceived active cities where we would see shops with the owners there to interact with along with other players, the variety of critters and much more, the Titans to fight against, that would have made the price worth it. Word of mouth that it didn’t have that, that it was a setup gave the wrong impression that they game was a rip-off, that is what I have read on a couple discords I am a member of.

Or are there other reasons that players leave? And that there are very few buying the game now. What had the older players leaving? It is a shame that many of them won’t post here and say this is why I am not playing instead of letting others state why and not voice if those who think they know are right or wrong.

I wish the older players who have left, are not playing and yet keeping their beacons fueled would speak up and go this is why I have stopped playing, own up in a way as to what is the reason so this beating of chests by some who go I know why and everyone should listen to me can be stopped.

Those who claim to know can either be told they are full of hot air and should shut up or we can know the truth. But, I can’t see them coming on here and going this is why I don’t play and why I stop posting.

So, why don’t they speak up, give their say and then go back to whatever they were doing.

Oh, and on saving players tuff, I’m am still thinking that over, should it be done or not, I still go we shouldn’t. But willing to think it over the good and bad of it.

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73

I think this is just the reality we are faced with. There is a whole host of reasons - some we can come up with, others we will never know.

All we can do is work with the Developers to increase the content and game play experience to one where those new people that are giving it a try decide to stay. Then hope that those that left might come back.

Either way, a vibrant game is what is more important than who comes and goes in the long run because that vibrancy will increase the game’s success.

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74

Not true. It’s happened plenty of times on my beacons that i visit daily. Happened to a friend as well just a well or two ago and he was just on the day prior. And it was his main base beacon.

75

James told me this. There is prob also a reason that that is happening to you. So perhaps ask James?

76

Perhaps many reasons but one is what I stated. I don’t make up ■■■■ lol.

77

So the way he worded it here is the duration of the gleam club. I can’t find the conversation about the players. Maybe I miss understood somewhere or it was a particular way.

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78

Can sanctum ever be that safe place to store important items? Limited storage, of course. But, is that a plausible solution, do you think? :thinking::slightly_smiling_face:

79

I love Boundless. Thanks to @cagian I have gleam club to tide me if I take a break. But, if ( this really is just my own feeling on this) I can’t have gleam club and my beacons were to expire then, yes, I’d be pretty disheartened, but I adore this game and I’d bust my hump to get started again. I don’t actively hunt for beacons ready to expire, but if I happen across one that has, then I take full advantage. I am currently keeping someone’s beacon fuelled, and have been for months now. They said that they might be off for a long time and reckoned they’d lose their base. I said give me permissions. Viola! Just ask. Someone will help. With anything, virtually! :smiley:

80

I doubt it. Sanctum does not reside on the servers but in the local pc. That makes it subject to hacking where players could give themselves whatever they wanted. Since sanctum already has access to an editor and a tool to give anything, I think this is dangerous.

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