What hasn’t worked and why? I’d say marketing hasn’t worked…Boundless to me is just Modded Minecraft all in all with just more things to it. Minecraft works… Boundless works or apparently it did at some point.
I would say in it’s current state I bet the game makes money. I know I spend quite a bit monthly, I know of at least 6 others that spend what I do or much more … I can’t imagine the servers and the bandwidth costs are extremely expensive and if there are only minor tech issues being addressed the cost has got to be pretty low.
Blackhole? Nah…
Edit: Sit in TNT count how many names you see… do it for a week or two. I have done this… I have a whole list of names if you would like to see them of all the players I have come across. I also have seen some new people in the hunts. Marathon hunt had at least 10 new people in it when I spoke to some people I didn’t recognize… and no one said they are all on at the same time… but I have a list of 412 unique people that I have seen in game of those about 200 are new. I added 4 today…
look at sovereigns - the number is in hundreds; that’s all monthly money;
most multi-beacon players (quite a lot of them, believe it or not) need GC to avoid the risk of missing re-fuelling somewhere; when you think a sovereign world owner, you practically get world fee + GC each month;
private worlds owners do a lot of short term world purchases - be it for testing biomes or to spawn new colours; so the number of long-term private worlds doesn’t even cover what really has been and is happening if it comes to players purchases
(I myself had 3 private worlds for months, and went through around 20 to learn how to build worlds I want; and atm I have 1 long-term private world, but bought 6 or 7 worlds for testing, all over like 3 weeks).
the dev crew has been picked by other studio so they are not on payroll here atm, so that’s defo helping to at least not lose money while keeping Boundless running
as for hiring new developers: I bet the priority is to wait for their old crew to come back, rather than have entirely new people working on it; to move forward in a decent pace you need that core staff that created all the artwork and did all the logic programming, so there is continuity and understanding when moving forward; so, even if they got a sponsor now paying for a year of work, it’s easy to imagine they would still wait for at least some of their old crew rather than hire a completely new group of developers)
years 2016-2017-2018 for Turbulenz:
Net Income 406.5k (480.7k) 305.3k - thats 2016, 2017 and 2018
that’s before private worlds introduction; cant see 2019 and 2020 records though
Maybe I’m misremembering, but I was sure James has said that the pricing on Sovereign planets was aimed at coving the costs of hosting them, not as a source of profit. Unless we’re to believe he wasn’t being truthful, the vast majority of that monthly money in is also monthly money directly out again.
yes, that’s what he said, but I would think it means cover and leave a bit left (not a huge profit, but sth over the actual costs)
these costs are partially mitigated by the process of deleting unwanted worlds without need for the 2 week locking period, or in many cases before they actually run out of fuel; so there is some money there bit by bit - worlds paid for full month by buyers but not kept as long on the servers
I have personally given up on that happening, and for the time being, I have moved on to FF14.
I keep my portals fueled because I host a public service, I go on a handful of hunts each month so I am able to keep the portals fueled, and that is the extent of what I feel like doing in boundless at this time as long as the state of the game remains how it is now.
When the sword, shield and skill page updates are pushed to the live servers, then I might spend more time in boundless. But I am personally not expecting it any time soon.
I wave at ya whenever I see you sitting at the hub lol.
TBH the game is great as is. Can it be better? Yea. Does it need to be better? Not really but would be cool it did.
All the game need is a strong community to keep it afloat. Let’s look at an example, Minecraft. This game right here has been officially around for 10 years more if you count the Java edition’s release in ‘09. But what makes it so great? Is it the SICK graphics? Is it the next gen mechanics? Is it the avatar customization? Is it your ability to walk up to an NPC and smack them so they make funny grunting noises? Nope it’s the players. The players who find this simple pixelated block game so enjoyable that the make videos and stream their experiences in game. The players who make mods to enhance the experience. The players who shell out dough for servers so others can be apart of their experience. The players who don’t implode if there isn’t an update when they want it.
That’s not really the whole story though, it’s categorically not just the players. When minecraft made it big, it was:
new and fairly unique (they more or less created a new genre, and if you want to argue that, then it at least popularised it) and so had no competition and wasn’t being constantly compared to other things.
cheap
accessible & casual-friendly
quickly grew to offer deeper (optional) gameplay elements like redstone
could basically run on any old potato of a PC.
While Boundless does bring more to the table in some areas (It is an MMO after all), I’d say it’s a the lesser of the two games in all 5 of those areas. Maybe “the players” are enough to keep a game hanging on in there, but I don’t think it’s ever going to be enough to make a game actually good and popular.
Boundless was the 2nd Sandbox type game I’ve played. I started with Planet Nomads, version 0.9.1
I watched and played that game till the release the 1.0 version. It’s sad that it never lived up to the hype.
When I started playing Boundless, I played PN less and less. I kinda miss it, even though it had it’s share of bugs…
The comments from myself and @kasaisaru weren’t saying what made a game big and popular, but what keeps the game around or in the case of this thread (Not Dead).
Minecraft is and was great probably one of my favorite games I’ve played only because of the multiplayer experience more than anything else. Like @kasaisaru said though its the players and server owners that keep it around. Not the fact that is cheap, new, redstone, etc… it’s kept alive by a thriving community. I run 2 MC servers still… even though I don’t play and there are still 10-12 people on them at times.
Anyways, the point… a community makes or breaks a game most times… that is why I defend the game here on the forums, on Steam and on various other platforms. If people want to see the game stick around putting the game and devs down constantly on the forums isn’t the way to make that happen…
@kasaisaru Well that’s not necessary I just want to make the game enjoyable for the ones that continue to play it while also trying to attract new players to the game. There are many people that want the same thing and a lot of people that while they might not be as vocal as I am are worthy of medals in many ways.
I was giving shout-outs to people but the list just became too long and what all they do… there are so many people here that do a lot from providing sovereigns to farm, to forging, to marathon hunts, regular hunts, gleambow hunts, builders, hub owners, mall owners… there are so many…and they all know who they are … they deserve as much if not more recognition …
I suppose if tiny core of super-dedicated (multi-thousand hour) players makes the game fun to you… then more power to you I guess?
Have you considered though that this could be where so much of the contention about this topic comes from? For you, that is enough. And technically, you’re not wrong. The servers running is enough for you to be happy, and that is the metric against which you measure. But there are other people who’s opinion is different from yours, and who are importantly not wrong either because their metric is different.
More interestingly still, my first post in this thread was pretty moderate, literally saying that the game wasn’t dead, but that maybe considering it as a passion project or tech demo was a good way forward for the OP. My conversation points only turned to negativity when my attempt at middle ground and balanced points of view were still too unpalatable for the the people who feel the need to push positivity all the time.
Supporting and championing something doesn’t always help when that support relies heavily on good old rose-tinting.
I’m a brutally honest kind of guy. I don’t see things with rose tinting.
That said, if the next update never comes, that’s just fine. The game as is, is quite playable and enjoyable.
Personally, I play less because I’m burning out. There’s only so much mining/crafting/building/hunting you can do before you get bored.
But that’s not the game or Devs fault. That’s on me. I wish I had the creativity to keep going and keep building.
I see so many on here who come up with big, beautiful builds that blow me away. I wish I had that drive.
But you’re trying to reach a middle ground where there really isn’t one. You either like it or you don’t. It’s just that simple.
I know you were not really just pointing at me with rose-tinting. For me its simple, I know there are issues as do so many others like me that still play the game and many that don’t play the game. That doesn’t make anyone right or wrong…I have been very adamant and very vocal about the game on all fronts.
I take everything into consideration. I take everyone’s comments and concerns into consideration or I would write glowing reviews about just how perfect the game is. I never said the server running is enough for me to be happy…and if you think myself as a gamer would have a metric as simple as that then I could see where you might not respect my opinion., but that couldn’t be further from the truth… the game itself is what I love … and the community be it 10 people or 500.
If I were to measure a game on one metric at all it would be fun, but I am a little more critical than you might think as I also look at graphics, gameplay, community, development, replay value and handful of other things. What matters most to me though is fun… and I would be willing to bet that holds true for the majority of gamers. If a game is not fun or loses its fun factor boredom sets in and people move on.
I by no means want to push positivity all the time in the areas that do not deserve it and that would mostly be in the areas of the development of the game. There is a huge lack of transparency, a bit of content that was shown that may or may not have been “promised” that isn’t in the game and I think there was mention of some deliverables that may or may not have been given… but all those aren’t opinions those are facts and I am always quick to point them out. To me that doesn’t detract from the fun the game gives … but I do see how it could jade one’s opinion on the fun factor.
not cool did my weekly check in and saw thank+devs+update
there so much people like me atm i think just constantly checking in since it been so long i have feeling when they come back to work on the game
it gonna be a huge reunion party
take your time @james ive been recollecting my ps1 games from childhood just missing hogs of wars got driver 12/tonyhawk 123/tekken 123 / syphon filter 12 and FF 678 so i having a blast burning fisting that anoying eddy doing gymnastics and breaking the score counter with bob burnquist and best minigame known to man getaway from the cops
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