To be honest in its current state, I’m quite happy boundless doesn’t get too much exposure. I know I’m a very small sample size, but I’ve been running around Gellis often for the past couple weeks and I’ve seen quite a few obvious beginner camps. Some of them never went over the “campfire -> crafting table -> beacon” stage. Some went to a simple house and then whoever made them stopped playing. So my conclusion is that the new play experience is very lacking. As we all know the game is also very grindy and while I personally pushed through the grind, I can see that turning off a lot of new players too. Also don’t get me started about the questionable balancing around ridiculous crafting times. When I started playing during the first humble bundle spike, this situation seemed even worse.
What I’m trying to say here is that while we may love the game as it is, I fear it is not yet ready for prime time exposure. Seems to be a rather tough spot to be in… Not enough players to warrant more development time and not enough development time to warrant more exposure. :-/
Totally agreed that improvement to the NPE is an absolute must before any sort of real push should be made, and that the initial efforts to get and bring back players should be on a smaller scale - can’t just dump thousands in all at once, not just for technical reasons, but the economy and all. But it does sound like - and once again, reading in here, but that post worried me - we do need some growth, maybe better monetization, in order to at least stabilize the future here. The wording “a lot more to it than that” on bringing in new players, I’d be interested in elaboration on more of SE’s concerns there.
The first few hours absolutely seem to weed out a lot of players sadly, I’ve worked directly with one I gifted the game to where he encountered a number of problems that would have led to a quit then if he didn’t have help. The barrier for entry and speed of progression at the outset needs a rework. But I don’t have any easy answers on that front. As it is, it is still a great game, but will be a more niche audience - however, any niche can be sizeable. Market is pretty saturated though, any long term plan to really get the game to boom will probably require some innovation in content after the NPE improvements and then some serious marketing genius.
Thank you for taking the time to read through players’ concerns & for making a comment.
As far as updates & events go, 2021 has been quite different, when compared to all previous years. This is a bit alarming, when you are a player that is investing time & money into a game.
Finishing off this year without the big 249/250 update, a 3rd Anniversary event, Halloween & Oortmas would be very disappointing (and the 1st time we haven’t had these). If contractors or outsourcing is needed to get this done, then it should be considered.
Almost every single person I’ve spoken with about Boundless has never seen it or heard about it. When I show them screenshots & videos, they ask what it is and how to get it.
I don’t know what the costs would be, but paying a SFW family-oriented influencer on YT, Tiktok, or Twitch to play the game for a month(or 200 hours) might be more helpful than posting a screenshot on an obscure Instagram account with 4000 followers. I’ve also watched lesser games receive more prominent positioning during steam events, gaming conventions/events, etc. It would be nice to see Boundless included once in awhile. Otherwise, no one sees it.
We have some great content creators, but they aren’t being given keys to hand out & their content isn’t being featured anywhere.
Boundless should be allowed to flourish. It’s as if something is holding it back & we’d like to know what that is.
For any newer players reading this thread, this may be helpful:
I appreciate the input and it’s good to know more eyes are still on the game and the forums than most believe. It is good to see that looking at options for the continuation of updates is still happening, but it is a little disheartening to hear that is an issue. It would seem that Boundless would be low on the proverbial totem pole when it comes to development and I suppose when thinking on it that this makes some sense given the low popularity, sales, and just overall income.
Sadly, all the updates that are coming and that have been said to be coming won’t lend to a better NPE, it won’t extend the game to the extent it would change very much and add a whole lot to the end game and all in all the only true update that I find that would truly make the game more marketable would be the single player experience and while that is more marketable and may make the game more visible I still believe it will ultimately hurt the MMO universe. With that said, being able to create our own MMO universe … even starting over from scratch, would be a positive in my eyes. I’d hate to lose all the hubs and great builds, but being able to have a universe we can control may be a viable solution.
Looking at it financially from a developer and business owner point-of-view it makes zero sense to me to continue development if there aren’t some form of funds coming in and the only true solution to me at this point is either crowdfunding or taking a loss to develop more and then market but that would be a pretty high risk solution.
Im in hopes that Square Enix or anyone involved could see this game and community and all the potential it has and realize that with a bit of development, a bit of funding and a whole lot of marketing could make this game relevant again. But all that is risky… I just hope someone can see that risk as a worth it.
I don’t agree with this. The update includes many features that will help newer players. Things such as being able to use all skills/points on one main character, a boost in the # of paint sprays per craft, a large selection of melee weapons + shields, etc.
Local/Singleplayer modes will appeal to some, but the game shouldn’t do a 180 and put all it’s focus on just that. It will just be an additional way to play the game, as James has always spoken about.
? Players are continually buying Gleam Club, cubits, and rental planets. There are “funds coming in”.
Some funds are coming in, yes. But while the costs of running the game servers are stable and scale up or down with player numbers, the two haven’t been balanced for a long time.
We invested quite a lot upfront into development to get the game to 1.0 release, plus some more into marketing; it’s unlikely we’ll recoup that amount. Right now our focus is on the monthly costs, to see if there’s a way the game can be self-sustaining. However, we don’t own the IP and we don’t have any hand in the development, so there’s really nothing that Square Enix can do (if you assume that just pouring more money in really isn’t a viable option, unfortunately).
So for the game to become self-sustaining, I’d assume we would need to increase the amount of monthly coin from our side right?
I dont know if that’s an answerable question cause I honestly have no idea what I’m talking about to be honest lol
But to be blunt, this game is a one of a kind imo.
I’d be happy to do whatever was necessary including spending coins, to achieve stability so who decides to play can continue playing until our consoles die. I bet theres more that would agree
Sprays won’t be a thing for a new player and most likely the one main character won’t affect a new player either. It is mostly that few weeks of play that a new player needs to get through at least from the 2 new players that I have gifted the game to and had to help them out here and there. It’s things like the beacons and a few others things that were issues, adding swords and shields won’t solve that…
Most of these may not be able to be answered, but Is owning the IP an option? Is there something we as players can do to help with the monthly costs? Wouldn’t pushing out the single-player and allowing the players to create their own version of the MMO universe an option to self-sustaining?
In the absence of a real marketing push to up the player count, one option to consider here: better monetization of those of us who may fall into the Whale category.
The big one that I think could easily work, and wouldn’t be unfair I think if done in the way I suggest here: allow players to sponsor the special exoworld types, T7s and particularly the color cycling ones (and Gleambow ones, once that is ready). This could be priced where you could make a pretty good profit off one and there are at least a few of us who’d be happy to throw some cash at it. At $100 for a 3 to 5 day world, I’d probably do a few a month. Groups could also pool together for them. A win-win if they were only allowed to be public worlds, these planets have things in short supply, and at that price point they wouldn’t I think be spammed to the point of breaking the game economy. But let’s face it - I think most of us would rather the game economy take a dip from an influx of goods than to lose the public servers.
In a bid to help Turbulenz keep developing, we also agreed to forgo any of the income from planet rental, so that money goes straight to them. I have no idea what that brings in each month, but it doesn’t go towards covering server costs.
It’s an interesting idea; on the assumption that any changes would require dev time, I don’t know whether something like this is possible or not. Currently server costs are in the low thousands of dollars per month, so in theory it wouldn’t take a huge amount to make it self-sustaining.
At the moment revenue received from Steam from game sales or in-game items sales comes to us (after tax, Steam cut, etc).
EDIT: We agreed to a provision that after running costs of the game were accounted for each month, the next chunk of income would go to Turbulenz to help cover dev salaries, before we would make any actual inroads into the recoupment of our investment. Unfortunately that’s really been a moot point for a while.
Thank you for doing that. What if the money from my suggestion could be put to that though? Right now, it is $40 for a month on a 40 person planet. I’m thinking go $100-150 for 3-5 days for that. This would probably be a question for Turbulenz then, but couldn’t there be a price point where they could make up at least a part of the shortfall (I know you can’t come out and say it but seem to be alluding strongly to it) between current income and costs, and where we’d still be buying them? Not to be crass, but I know I’m not the only one here with spare cash I’m willing to spend on this game. I think a way to monetize those of us that are able to do that would be better than something like a monthly subscription model that would hit everyone and cost us those who can’t afford it.
Edit: Sorry, just saw your other reply, thanks!!
Edit again: And, I think my suggestion would bring some players back - some don’t like that this stuff is so rare and, like with Rift exos, gets picked over before they get a chance. If you let me sponsor a color-cycling exo right now, just watch that player count shoot up.
Possibly; I think the question is really what needs to be done in order to get to the point where it is sustainable without needing this kind of level of donation/payment each month, though. The challenge is how to ultimately fund additional development - but the question of the “what needs to be done” has been discussed a great deal… and I don’t really think it’s a quick/simple change.
It would seem to me giving the game the ability to allow players to create and link servers (which I believe was said to be in development) would allow the game to be self-sustaining and alleviate the monthly server costs. I think crowd-funding or even donations would not be a long term solution where as player maintained servers may be a better option at this point.
That of course would require an upfront development cost but maybe it’s a means to alleviate some pressure off of server costs.
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What if the money from my suggestion could be put to that though? Right now, it is $40 for a month on a 40 person planet. I’m thinking go $100-150 for 3-5 days for that. This would probably be a question for Turbulenz then, but couldn’t there be a price point where they could make up at least a part of the shortfall (I know you can’t come out and say it but seem to be alluding strongly to it) between current income and costs, and where we’d still be buying them? Not to be crass, but I know I’m not the only one here with spare cash I’m willing to spend on this game. I think a way to monetize those of us that are able to do that would be better than something like a monthly subscription model that would hit everyone and cost us those who can’t afford it.
