I believe the game isn’t dead.
I believe they will return fully as soon as they can.
I believe i will continue playing it because what’s there now is more than enough for me to have fun and be happy.
I believe, my biggest issue with this game, is myself, and the white blank wall of translating my imagination into the game.
No i don’t know you personally, heard the name once before of a shop or something called espers lucents (is that connected to you?) but beyond that know nothing. i keep to myself and my guild mostly and interact with others on a limited bases over the years whether in ea or after ps4 release
My friend, more patience. The game has enormous potential. It took a huge amount of time and effort to release it (most likely all working hours at night and work on weekends). The development team is doing (I think) everything they can to keep the game up to date (working properly). If the developers have other (joint) projects, then this is rather a temporary phenomenon. time will pass and the team with renewed vigor and a lot of time will return to finalizing our favorite game. Comrade, from Russia with love))
In fairness to the Devs though; However much potential Boundless still has unrealised, I wholly doubt it’s a profitable venture in its current state if it were to have active developer wages to pay beyond basic maintenance (for the record, I don’t have facts, but it doesn’t seem like an unfair assessment). I imagine they’ve got to a bunch of other work that they have to do so that can make time and money to work on Boundless. It certainly feels that way from James’ latest update. Perhaps think of Boundless as having moved into the realms of passion project/tech-demo instead now?
I probably wouldn’t suggest patience though as another poster has, because patience waiting for new features that you really want can be pretty demoralising too if you feel like you’ve done the other things you wanted to and are just waiting for them. Perhaps it would better to pack your stuff up with reclaim (or if you’re feeling flushed with cash and charitable, buy a bunch of extra gleam club time) and stop playing for a while. There are plenty of other great games out there, and then you can come back to Boundless at some point in the future without as many sour memories of the in-between-times.
This is my feeling too. The way I’m trying to look at it now is, Larian may very well have kept the studio from meeting the same fate as so many in this brutal industry, and saved their jobs and this game. I just couldn’t see how even if this game is maintaining it’s own costs, that it could be paying salaries. This is such a wonderful game, but it does have a steep learning curve going in that seems to weed out a lot of players, and in any case, a lot of success in the industry these days seems to boil down to some luck in exposure, hype, and such, not necessarily the quality of the product.
So, while the delays are sad for us as fans, better slow than never and disappearing. Maybe if BG3 is a huge hit they’ll earn some bonuses that could be funneled partly into further development here? In the meantime, there are some advantages to a smaller community, if it is just being sustained as a passion project or hobby now. I do wish we could get more communication but at this point I figure: hey, I love the game, I can’t change what they are going to do even if that ends up being that they do pull the plug, so only thing I can do is enjoy, and try to contribute to the community here as I can, bring in who I can. I’ve been negative on here at times in past months (been in a bad mood in general because of life stuff, so that isn’t helping, haha), but now I’m at peace with it, and I said my peace on what I needed to. Though I think I’ll still beg for special exos and events and all…
I am not a long-time supporter as I have only been playing 6 months, but I can sympathize with you as I have been in similar situations in other games and have taken the angle you have here with doing some dev bashing and showing some frustrations.
I don’t feel they have given up on us though or the servers would be shut down and James and the other devs would not be helping with anything. The game in its current state is on par with what Minecraft has out there and various other games like it and more development, while very wanted, isn’t really needed. Granted I am a firm believer that if things were “promised” then they should be delivered, but I am not sure what was promised at this point as much as just something that was hoped to be put in at some point.
Titans, Hunter, Swords and Shields, private solar systems will still not solve the overall problem of playing a game for over 2-4+ years will eventually become stale. Through an update or two out every year may bring you back for a little while but in the end, it’s a sandbox MMO and the game requires you to come up with a lot of your own content. It’s the nature of the genre.
The game could be profitable in its current state if it was marketed and pushed and some advertising being done. I am not sure why Larian and Square Enix couldn’t be used in some form to help push the game it just baffles me at this point. Unless there are some limitations with the game and it would be able to handle the load of a large player base and thus it prevents it from being profitable then I could semi-understand.
I know there are some very bright people on here and we could probably do that math on what it takes to run the current universe and the cost to develop say a swords and shields update and then compare that with the amount of gleam club, sovereigns being paid for and game sales and estimate if things could be profitable. In my eyes, I could see where it could be… but I also see where profits currently aren’t a stable one, not because of people leaving, but because there is no actual form of stable income. There is no guarantee Paka will buy 200 sovereigns and sustain those, there is no guarantee that the players playing will buy gleam club and there is no guarantee that someone will buy anything other than the core game… so at times I get it…
All that said, it could be profitable possibly if marketed more, I don’t think that these updates are going to solve your issue in the long run though as I have stated to so many others. They may curb your appetite for something extra on top of the base game that is already there… but all in all like most sandboxes the game is only as fun as you allow it to be and the game is what you make it … if you are bored … then maybe it’s time to move on.
EDIT: Didn’t mean that as a reply to Paka, but oh well
Many of us are at that point, but the reality is that this game does not seem to have a future, as you may have already realized, some users did not take long to come out in defense of the game and are completely satisfied with what currently exists, a game without support, updates or events and that is the vision that they are giving to the developers, if there is conformity it means that they do not need to do anything.
The developers are not at fault, as they are employees of a company, and if the game is not profitable, their superiors will not want to prioritize something that they do not benefit from, and that means putting it on hold or shutting down servers in the future.
I still have the slight hope that one day I will see this game in its prime like 1 or 2 years ago, almost all the malls were full of stores and they were all replenished every day. But I see it very difficult, the interest of the game’s superiors has been lost, as well as the trust of many users.
And it still amuses me that some say that the game is not dead, it will be true that there is no greater blind than someone who does not want to see.
PS: sorry if something is not understood, my English still does not improve haha
It’s a possibility. Although I’d argue that if they don’t have money for development, they don’t have money for marketing either.
That aside though, what would really happen if they ran a proper advertising campaign right now? Is it ready? Is the new play experience polished enough? Is the progression really balanced? Would the planet player cap become a major frustration like it was at launch (especially for hub worlds). If they got thousands of players, would it actually still function well?
I think they’re making the right choice in not advertising yet. Boundless absolutely has potential, but I’d still say it’s not ready for mainstream release (despite being officially released years ago), and many if not most people don’t give games a second chance. I’d rather they keep it running in maintenance with a view to work on it when time and money permit than try to push it out right now.
Some malls and big cities disappeared but new people and new settlements appeared too.
This game is not dead.
It’s stagnant.
But people still play and where old timers stop, new people jump in and start new big projects.
New malls, new portal hubs, new sovereigns offering farming areas for public.
I myself stopped playing and had a half a year break, but I’m back and enjoying it again (and there are other veterans keeping an eye on things and having their come backs as well - SWProzee himself came back from 2 year hibernation and not just to play but to make videos about it, where I spotted another veteran working with him, Mr. AndySav).
I do hope Boundless will be back on track with updates, but sure there are enough people enjoying the game as it is, which is a tribute to how attractive it still is to many.
I agree with that.
No point advertising like they did after premiere and a few months or half a year after, cause a lot of buyers didn’t play long discouraged by this or that (let’s just say lack of more in-depth tutorial might cause it more than “lack of content” some often blame; a lot of players seem to be rather taken aback by seeming complexity of the game, frustrated by slow block mining with first tools or being slayed by wildstock and spitters, or getting lost after falling into a caves which seem to be deadly traps without light and grapple).
I always thought that lack of further advertising was just a case of waiting till they roll a few big updates more first (which now is on pause after most of their team got picked up by a bigger studio).
It’s been said many times that many of the people that are enjoying the game currently or defend the game are not blind to the fact there are issues and people leave and join the game all the time. I will continue to say the game is not dead until the servers shut off.
Manage DK Mall a while … or heck take a walk down every aisle of it… and count how many empty plots there are. I run up and down every aisle 2-3 times a day checking for stores that have turned to ash and it sucks when I find one. I can tell you exactly how many there currently are that are no longer there and I can even tell you the active ones as I mark them so I can keep track of some stats for myself personally. I even keep track of how many people are in the mall each day and even the peak times and a whole slew of other stats, like how many new players and guilds I see. I have spreadsheets galore … and I may have some other issues (haha) but blindness is not one.
I’m not blind I promise you and I’ll defend all the other players like me that love the game as I know they aren’t blind either. They just love the game and are glad to play it as long as it lasts, however long that may be. There are those that come to the forums to read or write some positivity about a game they love and there are those that drag themselves here to do the opposite about a game they did love, but to call anyone blind is just silly.
I considered this and I am about 99% sure this is true. I don’t know that they do not have money for development or a marketing push, but the game is as ready as it has ever been for a marketing push. A few of us were working some numbers and is a hard cap on the total number of players the game could actually handle in regards to homeworlds but who knows what a marketing push would do. If they have no money to develop and none for a marketing push then the game may just need to stay where it is …with the possible exception of 249.
I am totally happy where the game is at, even though I would love updates and love to see more people playing it. I was in the marathon hunt where the hunt was so full we had to form a second hunt for the overflow and also saw a DEV participate in the hunt… to me both of those are a pretty good thing… but read into it as you will.
to be true, inactive shops in malls are not an indicator of how the game fares in general; even with 1 million active players they will always be people who stop playing and new ones taking their place
from a perspective of a post release buyer: the game is not in EA, as long as it continues to work, it is fine as it is.
but of course I want frequent content updates, all the stuff early backers keep talking about and a lot more and of course I can see that the game has potential (everything and everyone has potential until you realize it becomes what it becomes and not the thing you thought it might.)
what should be fixed / updated is the steam shop page (dunno about PS). trailer features outdated models, outdated visuals, places that don’t exist… we got new things since then, there are amazing places to show, and it being an MMO, game that depends on someone else managing and paying for servers, there should be a ‘everything is fine’ post from the devs pinned on top of the forums and pinged monthly
If a marketing push were to be made, IMO, the NPE absolutely HAS to be addressed first. I’m really not sure the exact answers - things like a dedicated tutorial/demo world, using the Sanctum Elder as a tutorial/guide, simplify some of the more important early recipes, speed up actions at the outset a little and lessen T1/2 block durability some come to mind - but it took working directly with someone I gifted the game to and walking him through a TON of initial problems he ran into in the first hours to really see just how much an issue it might be. Barrier to entry with a game like this should be low. When the free weekend happened way back, while we got some great folks who loved it who stuck around, also lost the majority.
Also, I think an ad campaign should start with a smaller first push, aimed towards fans of indie stuff that attracts a similar crowd, like NMS. A good first start that won’t cost too much - and I won a key for another indie game yesterday through this method - if the Boundless Twitter did retweet for keys thing (even better, if the SE Collective did it too). Make it sustained, give away maybe 10 keys a day for a week. Something like that better than randomly aiming a paid ad at a huge base like Minecraft fans and hoping a few stick - have the fans help spread the word to similar gamers. I’d think the game would want to be at a larger size than current for at least a month or two before trying for a major campaign that could suddenly bring in thousands at once.
