I don’t think this is necessarily fair.
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I disagree. More transparency from James and the comments from Phil are all positives in my opinion.
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Well I have been here VERY many years and I didn’t put a “time frame” on my comment so I could see that some might assume I only mean currently so I can see they might think it is not fair. I certainly feel that the current community members and die-hards appear to be able to handle things differently than those we had near the end of EA and into release. We’ve lost a lot of those that showcased what I was speaking too and had me create the views I have on why the communication style is the way we see it play out. I’m not going to get into names or details and yes it’s only my view taking everything I’ve been exposed to in this game from all sides.
You missed the whole point I was making then… I didn’t say James or Phil’s comments were the problem so I have no idea where you picked that up out of everything I said. The other noise and drum beats that constantly repeat and come back 8+ times since the Bg3 deal are the issue…
Trying to be all cute doesn’t help and is actually quite rude. You still missed the point…
I believe that your point was they shouldn’t provide “incomplete” information, but what is complete or incomplete? I think it’s actually the obsession over so-called complete information that led to the devs stopping posting. But that is a) speculation and b) based on incomplete information.
I was trying to be cute because you were pretty rude. I think cute is better than rude. Conciseness is good too.
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Let’s stop talking about people and get it back on track about the game itself, as this is starting to feel like a “leave Britney alone” moment.
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Perfect so now you have made it so the only person commenting at all is not going to do it any more. James has not posted in a meaningful way in months. His last post was, in my opinion merely scolding players for going to Larian to try and find out what was going on with Boundless.
The only person providing any insight into the financial performance of the game was Phil. Since he works for square enix, I personally found his comments to be meaningful and relative to the concerns expressed by a number of players. To be dismissive as far as if he has any insight into the actual financial viability of the game seems to me to be really condescending. Hold on to your wishful thinking if you want, but I am tired and fed up with your attacks on others for actually listening to what little information we are given. If you want to believe in some fantasy that the game is doing better than it is then feel free, but to treat others as if they are making things up is hypocritical at best. At this point the information from square enix, whether official or otherwise is all we have. If James feels we are acting or reacting to bad information then he is free to correct it. Until he does it is what we have and there is no reason to treat the information provided as unreliable until someone in a better position with square enix or turbulenz comments.
Apologies to @Stretchious for not getting back to the topic, but after reading and dealing with your comments and attacks and your being constantly “misunderstood” over the past 3+ years, I have had enough. Let me take a page out of your playbook. If any of this seems like a personal attack that was not my intention.
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I shared my views and clarified my points. Just like every person on this forum I’m allowed to do that. Everyone has their views. Mine was simple – LESS negative MORE positive so people stay around and play.
I don’t feel misunderstood – I just see clearly people who can understand and accept my views and those that can’t.
Don’t blame me for this. You and plenty of others took him down a rabbit hole of junk with partial truths and throwing Boundless Devs under the buss for two days before I was here and even saw the thread.
Let’s just trust and invest all our hopes or disappointments on one viewpoint on the game’s success or failure. Clearly, the Devs viewpoint on the legal and financial agreements between SE and them means nothing… Yup that seems smart we can get all the answers from one side of the coin.
I have no wishful thinking on the state of the game. Much of my posts were about REALITY and being a REALIST. Instead of being the condescending one actually take time to read and try to comprehend my posts. It would do wonders…
You really need to update your copy… it is so out of date.
You reacted exactly as I had told others you would so my playbook is not as out of date as you might think.
But back to the topic at hand. Hopefully turbulenz will decide to make some comment on what is going on and what might be needed for the game to continue. Until then even if some players choose to ignore them, someone from the game’s publisher has made comments about the game regarding marketing and general financial health. Unfortunately a continuing dialogue with that individual seems to have been cut off. So I guess continuing to make suggestions on what might be done to fund the game until development can be picked up again seems irrelevant.
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While it would be nice, I don’t think we really need comment from James, and from recent experience we’re unlikely to get another comment so soon after the most recent one.
Given that last we heard they were having difficulty finding time to work on Boundless, and in business time is often interchangeable with money, it would seems reasonable to surmise that Boundless isn’t profitable for Turbulenz either. Even if that’s not the case and they literally just can’t find the time, knowing that alone is enough that we can’t expect any meaningful input or code to support the community helping out any time soon.
Absolutely. Given the probable lack of profitability right now, it sure feels like it’s down to the players to save Boundless (a thought which entertains me, given that it’s always been intended as a community based game… but perhaps not that much).
It definitely seems to boil down to; How can we get more players playing Boundless (and presumably buying gleam club, as that’s the only stable-ish source of income that doesn’t incur it’s own costs) in the state that it’s in right now?
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The indication is that the games running cost is in the low thousands per month. It requires 200 players buying gleam club each month for every thousand at 5 usd a month. That figure ignores transaction costs and any cut Steam takes. My concern is that if square enix has no visibility into the PSN side is that a separate contract and does any of the income from that side go to server running costs? In any case, if server costs are 3000 usd per month then it is 600 plus players (possibly just steam players) that have to buy gleam club every month.
While that number does not seem to impossible given the fact that at one point James indicated the game had over 3000 unique players in a month. I do wonder what the number of unique players is currently on a monthly basis.
As far as trying to bring in new players, the retention rate seems so low when you look at achievements, I am not sure that is a reliable income stream if all you do is churn players. Are you just turning off possible future players that will write off the game and never come back due to the poor NPE?
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Possibly, yes. But at this point, with no apparent option for additional development, what else is there?
It’s not that I don’t want the development of additional features if quick and easy that could let the community chip in, but it just seems like that’s not on the table.
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The only other solution seems to find a way to monetize off the existing player base and/or reducing the game’s running costs. It just seems that based on past new player spikes created by events or humble bumble sales, the player increases do not last more than a few months. I have a feeling we will need longer than that if we are going to allow turbulenz time to finish with baldur’s gate.
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Steam told me recently that only 1.19% of steam players have earned the 1000 plot achievement
It does not take much time to earn 1k plots on one character.
At all.
So were that many copies sold and just never used?
I think early access players that never returned after achievements were added still count towards the total player count.
And Boundless has been part of a humble bundle once.
I also believe that the achievement stats are biased by EA players that did not play once the game launched or some other combination of reasons. That being said if you assume every player does actually make it out of sanctum then the “Journey into the unknown” would be 100% versus 70.9%. Compare that to going through your first portal at 21% or completing your first journal objective at 30.2% and either there is something very wrong with the way the achievements are being calculated or players are leaving pretty quickly. Possibly so they can refund the game. It might be more interesting to see the stats from PSN since they were not part of EA or the early launch.
I had thought there were two humble bumble sales but I could be wrong.
Probably sitting unplayed in many playstation librarys, It was one of the free psplus games. thats how i got and first heard of it.
O steam nevermind
It was part of a hunblebundle