Well the very first BIG mistake was not taking care of the folks who backed you at launch. It created a hierarchy where James felt the need (right or wrong) to do the bidding of those backers at the expense of the regular players, This gave these backers a sense of entitlement and hurt the general population.
The game was perfect at launch in my opinion I mean it had a few bugs but the overall gameplay was great just not intuitive but I like figuring stuff out so it was fine to me. I spent most my time building and looting beacons (which was frowned upon yet everyone was doing it go figure) They removed that and promised to put something in its place but never did,
Updates consisted mainly of grief prevention, compactness, buffers ect…instead of real content. So you went from Boundless to Bound, big game killer. The sad part is after all the buffers, and all the griefs, and ban hammers, player owned planets get released, so all that wasted dev time where you couldve added content and kept player retention was for nothing.
Next on the list Politics (Created by the prior example in first paragraph)! I have never played a game that was like “Game of Thrones” on steroids. So much backstabbing just general BS. Some ppl got favors other ppl got the shaft so the ones who got shafted had to get back at the one who did it. Just day in and day out. I dont know how many times Ive seen bully pretend victimhood in this game. This game needed a GM severely (and not James.)
lastly I find it kinda ironic that most (not all) of you on this very thread had a huge hand in killing this game as well,and to hear you worried about its future is kinda rich. I thought you wanted it this way, all to yourselves?
Anyway Philelliot it WAS a great game (I got my moneys worth) sadly though the way I see it it couldve been prevented by giving the backers what the paid for at start and then enforcing the rules evenly. You really had a diamond here, Hey but we all live and learn good luck to you in the future.