Thanks for reminding me. I need to drag out my PS2 and play all my old games again!
Yeah, part of why I got back into it recently, I like the update now with the amethyst geodes, those are fun to find when mining. 
Although Boundless kills it on building and beauty, MC is more interesting with exploring underground, because of mine shafts, strongholds, and dungeons… things like that would be good in Boundless, even if only to find on exos when they pop, random structures with cool stuff to collect/harvest for those that get there first.
Heh, STILL part of what I do a lot of times I play is sit there and fire up random seeds to try to find really good starting ones… kind of like my rental addiction here! 
Now, on the major success of MC, I’d say these are the big two -
There is a principle in biology that holds in the business world as well, like with games: generally better to be first in a niche than to be best. Hard to knock off the top dog once it is in place. In the business world, being first, so that you’re the name everybody knows, can make you a success more than copying the model later even if you create a much better version.
These days with gaming, seems especially tough, as SO much is being created… look how many hit Steam each day. Not much really unique, and as I mentioned, seems a lot of success can be due to some luck and hype, getting streamers to get excited about it, things like that. Boundless, for all I actively search out new stuff online - I was hyped for NMS years before it’s release, for example - I had never heard of it until I saw it by chance in the PS store! On the communication/marketing front, there were IMO some very serious missteps made. And MC is a lot more accessible/easy to get into, it doesn’t take long at all on a new map to have lots of diamonds and all the basics set up in a base.
I agree with @Redlotus about how a community can make a lot of difference, which is why I’m trying to go back to just being a more happy/positive person here and helping where I can… a lot of what I’ve seen in positive reviews about this game in the past were tied to the community, the friendliness and helpfulness. If people are having fun with others - and let’s be blunt, people can have a blast with nothing more than a ball or some cards or such - then they can overlook a lot of flaws in the tools they’re using doing so. NMS is a great example of where a positive base I think made all the difference - they had enough hype going in so that there was a large core group that was positive and stuck it out til the updates started dropping, and formed a good online community for those coming back or new to be a part of. Boundless is still a better game than NMS IMO, much as I love NMS.
Also mentioned elsewhere a number of times, but the chat feature here really needs to be improved - not having a good chat system in an MMO hurts a lot, like the message lag. 
Anyways, yeah, during the slow time here, good to jump around on other stuff to prevent burnout. On a bit of an RPG kick now.
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You return from a 2 year hiatus just to greet lil’ old me?
I am beyond humbled! 
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You are also a fantastically impartial and fair moderator 
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Yeah, I’ve been away too long…coming back, starting fresh…new characters and thinking whether or not to get a sovereign world.
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not having a go at your choice of words or anything
just imagined a flirting situation in a bar or sth: " you are so… fantastically impartial"
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Well there are guys that I would say that too, but they’re more of the nerdy kind, since we tend to debate various topics. 
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Hi why do you think this will get banned? What for saying your opinion ,your allowed to say how you feel & so you should.Thats the problem with this human planet we live in your not able to express how you feel without someone banning you because they don’t like what you’ve said.Good for you.I don’t care about how the game ends up it’s just another game to me.I love boundless mainly because I’m a creative being and like building but the only thing that I dislike is the fact portals are not free to fuel.It takes forever to get portal fuel especially if you have quite a few.I don’t like having to grind like hec to get the fuel it costs alot of coins to even buy oort.By the time I’ve fuelled most of my portals I’m thinking why am I playing boundless.lol. I think the devs should make you pay only once for fuel to run forever on each portal so you never need to fuel them.Sometimes I’ve not been playing boundless for say 3 weeks and then when I return someone took my portal spot ,that’s annoying.Now if I don’t want to loose my portals I will always need to beam on boundless especially just to fuel my portals even if I’m not playing.To me it’s done purely to make you play the game because if we don’t play we will loose that portal pretty quickly.Apart from that dilemma I love boundless.Now as the devs have made money from boundless like most games it’s highly unlikely they will deliver the goods anytime soon.They should post frequent updates about what there next plans updates are going to be next.Even if they are working on other projects they should be at all times loyal to there boundless players and post exactly when and what’s definitely coming not just ignoring questions.Have a happy cosmic day 
P.S nothing is forever we all leave this world in the end and boundless ain’t gonna be going with you.Its like everything in this world tempary .Þhe game is great as it is and if no other updates come it won’t annoy me because I can build and collect stuff.Plese make portals free after fuelling them only once.You earned your ability to use portals so why not make it free:alien:
P,s I’m a solo player but have managed to meet some really nice kind genuine friends which is rare to find on games. so that’s nice to have a group of friends we can share creations with like seeing each others builds and my bestfriend Marcel always helps me out when I’m in merky waters .very sweet friends I have.
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The lack of communication from the devs to the players is something that amazes me .
How can you expect the players to understand the situation the game or you as a dev are in if you do not communicate .
I was going to write a lot of words here to explain what i was thinking or feeling about the situation or game…but i wil not do that.
I spend over 12.5 k hours in boundless , that should prove my dedication to the game and beleving in its future.
But i keep doing the same things every day…and i do a lot in the game…i gather…hunt…craft…forge…sell stuff…make farms and portals for peeps to get stuff, i even started streaming cause others stoped .
We realy need to hear some positive feedback from the devs soon if they want to keep us beleving in them.
I will stop playing the game for now…i will not feed my portals anymore…and maybe in a bad mood i just mite take everything down.
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You have been a great help to me in my early days in Boundless and for many other players. I totally understand your feelings and we hope to see you back in the game soon. Have a good break.
Lots of good discussion. I’m sorry, but I don’t have any updates I’m afraid, though for the time being Square Enix continues to cover the costs of running the game (as we have done for some time). Speculation around whether income has been higher than costs for a while now or not is fair, though obviously I can’t really comment in any detailed way.
Ultimately, we have been looking at ways to continue to update the game; just throwing marketing dollars at it isn’t a viable solution though - it’s fair to suggest with no visibility there is unlikely to be many new players, but there’s a lot more to it than that.
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Thank you for the reply and information, very appreciated! 
I don’t want to read too much into things, but the wording “for the time being” does worry me, has me a little scared that looking for ways to continue to update the game might be eliminating that cost after the update so as to focus on content development… if that is the case, while sad I do understand, I just hope we have plenty of time to prepare, and possibly be able to migrate copies of existing worlds as well.
There are many of us here willing and really eager to help. I agree just throwing marketing money at it isn’t a good idea, like mass hitting MC fans and hoping a few stick. But the game does need more exposure, there are many out there who would still love it just as it is – they just don’t know about it! Some of us here are in a position to maybe help on that front, for example if we can get things like promotions on the SE Collective and Boundless twitter to share – a few of us are pretty involved in the NMS community there, which is trending strongly, we can get things there under the noses of that community. Of course we need more than that, but showing excitement and passion, giving us stuff to share, I think could go some way here to building up the base again.
If it comes down to a matter of costs on the servers too, could always try some fundraising as well, I’m willing to help on that front and I know others here are too. I think the public worlds going offline or scattered to private hosts here would kill what is left of the community, if there is a way to keep it going it would be good to have that chance if possible, and letting those of us who can help probably better than say turning to a monthly subscription plan which would lose even more players.
Thanks again, from a grateful fan!
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I am thinking back on the opening the game to be updated & developed by the community - also matching the running costs of the servers. It super successful, an agreement could be made with Square Enix? Anything but death is better.
If the servers would be shut down, I wouldn’t play on private servers unless the source code would be accessible, so we can receive further updates and content…
Regards,
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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. :-/
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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.
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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:
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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.
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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”.
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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).
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