28 posts were merged into an existing topic: Bg3 news ( i still think this should be In General as it has impact on boundless)
The discussion regarding BG3 and Larian has been moved to OT as James stated Boundless is independent of those entities. Therefore, it’s not a Boundless topic.
This topic was automatically opened after 3 hours.
3 lines of wisdom in an ocean.
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And the rest of the ocean is made of all the other un-wise things I say all the time?
'cause it would be fair to say. XD
But thanks for saying that. 
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Is there any way to decouple the meelee/shield update from the private universe update? Most of the drag-downer posts seem to be guffed about not having the meelee/shield stuff and not interested in the private universe part so much, and the latter seems like a huge update worthy of its own.
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Their normal approach was to pull things that were not working and release the larger update to keep people waiting or try to if they could. Since they didn’t follow through with this for this update then likely it was feasible from a work or some other technical reason.
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This makes no sense to me, I fell in love with the game by following the tutorial; people saying “it took me bla bla bla before I could get an AOE” make no sense–what would you have done if you were the first player and had to build up to making the AOE yourself but you wouldn’t even know it was a possibility until starting to forge yourself. That’s how to judge the pace of the game, not zomg I don’t have what that other person has yet,
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oh right I forgot the whole update already runs on the test servers, i played it long enough to see the melee & shield, even.
I had a blast with the tutorial. Every day was a new thing and new discoveries. If I had it to easy, I would have lost interest and not stuck with the game as long as I have.
Those who can’t tough it out and learn the in and outs of the game, perhaps we’re better off without them. 
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Or perhaps if they had stayed we would have enough people playing that the game would actually be generating enough cash to pay for its running cost and maybe even continued development.
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Ok, going to put this out here, because why not…
Is there a chance Sony might be willing to pick up all server costs (including the PC players’ as those would be a very small % of total players if they did this) as part of a deal to have Boundless as one of the initial games when Spartacus (Game Pass equivalent - Sony’s own Game Pass, called Spartacus, coming to PS4 and PS5 in 2022 - Polygon ) starts in the spring?
I started Game Pass not too long back, it really is an incredible deal and has me planning to play some games I otherwise wouldn’t. From this - https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-game-pass-is-a-new-paradigm/1100-6498307 - Game Pass is apparently very sustainable, and also, the deals they cut with game devs who join in are all over the place. Sony is going to need to compete with a very established Game Pass now… so they are going to need lots of offerings, with a diverse array of types of games. This is why I think Sony might go for it.It is a $40 game they could offer, a free MMO of a very unique mix of genres. They could be made to understand the game has never had a true ad push and launched before many current features were in place. Covering server costs as part of the compensation a little risky maybe but not a big risk for a company like that, they really need more than anything to get things on there that might encourage people to sign up, which pitched properly Boundless could easily do.
And even if we still lose most players, I think with being on and promoted by that service, still keep enough and get enough new ones trying regularly to have us at a higher average count than we’ve ever had.
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That sounds like something that would be great. Fingers crossed!
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I don’t know if Sony would want a game with no current development 
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My thought is, at least if I were Sony, I’d be wanting to get as much volume and diversity of games on there as I can and hit lots of niches. Someone looking at maybe subscribing, when comparing it to the over 100 or so on Game Pass now, they probably aren’t going to look TOO deep at offerings they aren’t familiar with… my feeling is they will want to see that it is at least somewhat in the ballpark of GP (so having 100 rather than 40 or 50 will help a lot) and stuff that looks intriguing at a glance.
This is sort of what I did when looking at Game Pass. And the thing here is, there is going to I think be far less “buyer’s remorse” with something like this if a game doesn’t click with someone… just move on to the next one; I could be wrong but one not spending to play it specifically (getting it as part of a very large package) who don’t like it, probably less likely to bash it online. Like with GP, first game I downloaded was Craftopia. I don’t like to be mean/negative with games, but while I didn’t give it much time (I might do more later) and mechanics seemed ok at the outset, it left a bad first impression by the awful quality of the translation - like it was run through Google translate. But since it was something I got on GP, I’m like, haha… well, ok, put that one in the pile!
Boundless is very fun and complete as it is even though things like the NPE do need work if they want to aim for a higher retention rate; enough at least to give ones who come in and stick with it past the tutorial enough time where they’ll like that it came with Spartacus I think and give Sony reason to stick with it even if development is halted. And if Sony does this (from link I posted) -
The devs here could show Sony the number of hours some of the players play. That while it might not keep a high % having this game will fill a needed niche for the service and the ones who do stick with it might well put in 1000s.
Edit: Put another way, I think Sony needs to do everything it can to have a really great offering when they go Live with this… even if some games might be INDIVIDUALLY perhaps not really profitable for them, they have to look at the bigger picture, making the deal overall as good as possible by the numbers for people tempted to subscribe.
Flip side though: Going in with this might pull in too many people; 80 person planet cap could cause issues. Hard to predict how many people will sign up for it and of those, how many will download it, and how soon they’ll fire it up. But I think it is worth the risk, especially at this point.
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It’s an interesting notion, and it would be good to get it on there to act as second-hand advertising. My only concern would be:
While I believe what you’ve said is true, there’s also the flipside to that. Players also give games they acquire for (more or less) free, less of a chance before moving on too. It’s not big deal to put down a game that you start playing but don’t feel like you clicked with if you didn’t pay (much) for it.
So the real question becomes, “Do we think Boundless’ first couple of hours are the ones that are going to grab people’s attention and make them want to stay and explore more, or are they going to be put off”?
I can’t give a full answer to that, because a lot has changed since I started the game with a fresh new character and no idea about what to do. If it’s still anything like I remember though, it felt like a slow-to-start version of minecraft (albeit with better graphics), and I can’t honestly say that would have held my attention if I wasn’t already mentally and financially invested in Boundless (and everything else I thought it was going to become).
It’s a great out-the-box idea though. That’s exactly the kind of thinking we need.
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Perhaps an enthusiastic community manager that did regular livestreams and showcased the stuff that can be achieved in game could help encourage new players to stick with it.
I’ve always felt the game could benefit from YouTube/Twitch streams showcasing the great things the game has to offer. If they also did giveaways, such as a gleamclub sub, or free plots, etc during streams it could really entice people to keep going.
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That’s a very good point… we may lose a larger % of those before a few hours of play than we do now. There are some NPE issues that really need addressing to help that.
But even without any work, I think that if the number of subscribers is in the millions, enough of those that download it and try it will end up liking it enough, becoming long-term players and sticking with it, to provide funding over time for further development. While we’ve definitely got some issues still like the NPE, mid-level grind, complexity of some systems, with SE not willing to invest in more marketing, seems the most likely way to fund development and get work done on the issues. It might always be a niche game as Phil said, but if Sony can even get to a quarter to half of MS’ GP subscription numbers, that could still be a good number of people who both try and stick with it. Say 5 mil sign up first half year, half a percent download and try Boundless (I think those are fairly reasonable and probably conservative guesses but could be way off), that’s 25k, keep 5% of those and we’re then at an average higher than the free weekend.
Having the private universes might help here too? The game could hit a larger audience because of the single player option being available, and also, more might stick it if they try that first then enter the MMO side. Private universes could also take some pressure off the public planets if it were the case the numbers trying were very large.
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Unless I totally misread things private universes were not going to work on consoles. Unless that changed they are moot.
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Drat, yeah, forgot totally about that. 
Unless maybe they could get it where even though the PS players can’t generate them, can maybe have templates available for download and some customization.
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