I love this game but it falls short due to lack of players

General
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This will probably come across as blasphemous to the handful of people who still play the game regularly, but… Boundless falls short because it… falls short. It has a lot of glaring weaknesses that were never corrected before or during the time that it had the most public exposure.

  • A lighting system that was brilliant and became good again but was in bad shape when the game launched…
  • A level of grind and an inability to put the game down and pick it back up again that both served as a deterrent to many casual players…
  • An economy that was supposed to be player-driven but never came to organically reflect the needs and habits of the players…
  • A roster of wild creatures that you can count on one hand…
  • The initial new-player experience, which saw both of the extra keys from my founder’s pack get used and discarded in under 20 hours apiece…
  • STILL NO PANTS AND HARDLY ANY FURNITURE AFTER ALMOST 4 YEARS…

And this is to say nothing of the game elements that were teased but never arrived - this is looking at the state of the game as it is. As much as professing one’s love for the game has become an almost religious duty on these forums, if you take a serious look at it, there are plenty of things to dislike.

If the game weren’t so deeply flawed in so many ways, there wouldn’t need to be a debate about Recruitment Vs. Retention… After 4 years on the market, word of mouth would’ve sent the game on a completely different trajectory.

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@anon73404375 Take these stats as you will.

In regards to your comments:

  • I doubt the lighting system, pants, furniture or the lack of creatures was/is a huge deterrent. Although they would be nice to have.
  • The grind could be a deterrent for more casual players who don’t have the time to wait on crafting times.
  • The New Player Experience is a bit lacking. I think most of that could have been fixed had the chat system been in real-time and players weren’t being dumped into the middle of nowhere (Not Kree hah).

I will agree however that these are things that people could and do dislike, while others don’t. I find it hard to call the game deeply flawed or a containing glaring weaknesses, but sure some things could have been done better.

In regards to the population:

  • We had the first back-to-back monthly player base increase since August 2020
  • The largest player population in one month of 1150 can mostly be discarded as this was a free weekend.
  • Highest player count discarding this is Sept 2018 with 832 peak players. This was the launch month.
  • Average player count has never been huge. Averaging all months minus the free weekend the average player base over the life of the game is about 225 peak players.

My point to the population is the population has never been very large and we are actually fairly close to the average population currently and that is based on Steam stats only. As I said previously I am pretty sure there are far more people on Playstation.

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I’ve yet to convince anyone besides my wife to have even try the game. The issue of getting new players in is multi- faceted…

First even Before development stopped: the game in it’s current state does not reflect all the things that are talked about it having on the main website. Several things did come that were not at launch, but now that active development has seemingly stopped those features look like they might not ever get added. This is a branding issue looking from the outside in as it makes the game Look incomplete (whether you think it’s incomplete or not doesn’t matter, this is to a new customer).

Secondly, we’ve got no clear direction for the game. What is the game about? Building, community, story, exploration, gathering resources, player economy? It’s a sandbox that seems to have a small amount of room for any of these thing to co-exist. The walls look small, planets aren’t un-numberable, resources are both hard to get but become too easy once you progress, the amount of blocks you need to build x y or z makes even the awesome chiseling and building the game has become way more effort. The materials that do exist for the game don’t sell it well, because it is doing so many things at once for an indy game it’s practically doomed to not get enough of any of them to be a mainstream hook.

Third, and possibly most of all. It looks like a Minecraft clone. I know it isn’t, you know it isn’t, but everyone I try to explain it too always says, “so it’s like Minecraft” and they already have, know, or didn’t like that game, and have already written off boundless because of that.

To be fair, I dont care for Minecraft, but love boundless. I think they have a much better game here with a more interesting foundation. But if we want this game to grow it needs a direction to grow in. It’s not unique enough to not be compared to similar games right now, and while I think it does soo much better than several of those games it still looks like those games.

How to get over this is something I’ve been thinking about a lot. While it would be helpful to be a developer working on the project to make the kinds of changes needed to get new players entering and enjoying this beautiful game, I don’t think it’s necessary. I really feel like we the community can think of, create, and build out ways to show why boundless is different and why it’s worth bothering about when other games similar to it exist… I don’t know all the specifics yet, but the hunts are unique to boundless, so are portals, and the way shops are made and work. These can be examples of highlights to use to share about the game when talking about it.

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I agree with most of your points. I personally think a minor rebranding could do a little good mostly on Steam and how the game is portrayed there.

I describe Boundless to people as a more advanced, more up-to-date Minecraft and most people will always write the game off as some clone from the first look.

Sadly, modded Minecraft has portals that you could create and go anywhere just like Boundless did. The hunts however are unique, but they lack being very fun. They are pretty cool the first 50 or so you go on though but they slowly become tedious at a point.

I have been thinking about streaming Boundless again but it sadly isn’t a game that holds much entertainment for Twitch viewers.

We can’t control the website I don’t think, but we may can do something about Steam and how it’s presented there. Maybe @philelliott can chime in here for a sec and see if adding something new to Steam would be possible before going down the road on what that might be.

The game is about everything listed. A sandbox with building, community, exploration, gathering resources and player economy. Including hunting, crafting, farming etc. It’s a lot…but all resources aren’t easy to get … if they were I’ll take 20SS of your Umbris, Rift and Blink please.

I do agree that I am not sure a hook was thought of … maybe Titans were the hook, I don’t know.

@philelliott feel free to chime in if you think its possible to change anything on the Boundless Steam profile

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Funny i brought in 7 to the game and they have brought in others. I had few others that got interested in the game after seeing my streams of it. So it can be done. Part of the dip in numbers is people got tired of not hearing anything from Dev. Not even a word as to if the next update will or will not happen. So they left, Have seen several of them check in to see if the updates have come or not. I think “if” we see the updates we might see the return of some of those players with it. To be seen though.

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I will say - as someone who hasnt really played in over a year and serously in nearly 2 - i’m honestly just waiting to see what the devs will do and if theyl contuine developement after baulders gate 3.

Building is boundless’ greatest strength, but if your creatively burnt out like me then it dosent leave a lot to do that I havnt already done for years.

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You find it hard to call the game deeply flawed because… you’re one of its handful of remaining supporters. Your viewpoint is vastly different than that of the people who’ve tried the game and didn’t like it, but fortunately we have plenty of documentation from them.

Look to all of the people who’ve come and gone and GIVEN their reasons why they left. Sift further back through the forums and see all of the issues that have been brought up, and how strongly some people have felt about them, and where those people are now. Read through some of the non-trolly Steam reviews.

In the highly competitive game market that exists today, a game doesn’t have to be broken to be dead-on-arrival. Even if there are a limited number of voxel games out there, that doesn’t mean many players won’t find more enjoyment from doing something else; very few people HAVE to have a voxel game in order to be happy with how they spend their time.

With all of the things that I’ve listed here, and that you’ve listed, and that a couple of other people listed - just in this thread, not even overall - the problem should be apparent. It’s Death-By-A-Thousand-Papercuts. The game’s biggest sin isn’t that there’s some completely broken system or some painfully brutal mechanic… It’s that the game is Just OK without ever being Very Good.

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Interestingly, my experience was almost the exact opposite. The only people I was able to encourage to give it a try did so on the understanding that it was a bit like Minecraft, but as an MMO (so persistent world, community etc etc). They wouldn’t have to worry about hosting, or that whoever was hosting would just get bored and shut it down at some point. In fact, many of the reasons they stated for not sticking with the game were because it strayed too far from the Minecraft recipe rather than because it was too similar. General grindyness, crafting timers, coils requirements for machines, loss of stuff if not logging in and fueling beacons frequently (prior to the reclaim system)… mostly NPE problems that didn’t let people get easily invested quickly in the game.

My experience has been that if it’s done poorly, it’s because it’s not more like Minecraft (or because Minecraft with mods does pretty much anything that Boundless does and then some, and they got there first).

Perhaps that fact that we have such different experiences is testament to the fact that, I agree, it would be a good idea (albeit perhaps too late) to give Boundless a brand refresh where possible. Something to try and give a realistic feel of what the game actually is (and isn’t) instead of the hopes and dreams the people once held for what it could eventually be. It might help to draw in no so much more people, but the people that want what the game offers.

I have to concur with Ingvar too though, it does feel like you find it hard to call the game flawed because it offers you what you personally want out of a game, and not because it is a game without flaws. Even without going in to specifics, there’s enough evidence that this game is flawed in its execution because of the resulting large numbers of people who don’t stick with it. It’s either that, or it succeeded in its execution and offers more or less the experience, features and attention to detail that it intended to, but that the whole concept is flawed and targeted to too small of a niche market to ever truly be viable.

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On 2 occasions, when I had the extra money, I offered 10 free steam keys to the game. Both times, no one even asked for details, let along took up my offer.

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Just had myself and 5 friends join the game this last weekend. So far it’s the best Voxel game I’ve encountered (we were doing Portal Knights for a while, but the hard player limit cap on that game really kept it from being a long-term play). I kinda hate Minecraft, but I enjoy more world-building, base-building, sandbox games where you’re not having to fight and claw to just stay alive (like Rust).

I hope more folks will start coming to the game, it’s been included in some Humble Bundles/Choices and the barrier to entry seems quite low now. Maybe some folks can do Twitch streaming to get more awareness out there. The biggest limiting factor at this point seems to be player base.

BTW, all the portal guilds are what’s making the game so playable, so massive kudos to them!

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Welcome to Boundless, hope You enjoi it :slight_smile:
On my sixth year and still enjoy it.

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There are several of US WHO Stream boundless in twitch or making Other content Like Tutorial s on YouTube.
All Try their best to get more Attention to the Game .

You can Help all the streamers and content creators and at Last the Game if you Share These everywhere you can to get even more Attention to the Game.

Enjoy the Game and the Game IS how you Like to Play IT , you can do everything but Don t Need to do anything keep that in mind .

Greetings Turrican2006

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I agree with you Cirlex more players would be nice
that’s why I bought Boundless Keys the last few days
For new players who are raffled in 3 streams and I was able to convince a slightly larger streamer to present the game to her community. She will be streaming on April 30th and 20 keys will also be raffled off. I bought almost 50 Boundless Keys in total because I love this game and wants to help too

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Boundless became a little lackluster after Ultima left Finata. #blameultima

Just teasing this game will always have a sweet spot in my memories, though I do miss old Ultima lol.

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Great games … stick around and outlast the content in them usually. I can’t count the number of games (including MMOs and multiplayer) that I have in my Steam account that I can go log into and have a blast with and usually play with a bunch of other people.

Look up Runes of Magic some time. It has more players than Boundless does by a bit (100+ players more) and it has been around since 2009. Was it a great game? Nah… but I can jump in it and pick up where I left off (kind of since they wiped a few years ago) and just play. No new content…

Point is… Ultima left Finata and just gets replaced by someone else. Portal Seekers go and get replaced by someone else.

In a game where buildings can go when a player does… it’s expected. You can either change when things change or leave the game… but if one hub or one guild is what makes you leave, is the guild/hub/mall that made the game fun or the game itself?

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The people are a huge part of why I love Boundless. If it was single player only, I’d probably only pop into creative mode for a few stretches per year to expand on a useless, just-for-looks city due to it having the best graphics of any building game. If all my current friends left I’d try to make some new ones to hang with in Discord, but if I didn’t click with any group I’d likely stop playing.

I think 500-1000 daily players would be the sweet spot. 500 would be enough to make the galaxy feel alive and hopefully cut down on the amount of players who leave for those reasons. Then there would be a better balance of player flux to keep the active numbers consistent.

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How many do we have now? @DutchOfSorissi

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I mean Steam shows close to 70 which doesn’t include PS. I was only thinking about steam numbers when I said 500 though so maybe the ideal floor should be higher overall.

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70 Avg players and 143 Peak Players for Steam only

Id say that PS is probably about double that.

Even if it’s equal that makes for about 300 players. I’d venture a guess its around 450 peak players PC and PS combined.

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There’s almost nothing left of it, now. Jacey’s building and the old DK Mall building, but pretty much everything else has ashed/vanished.

The best laugh about the Ultima move to eresho is that that place was dead on arrival. It just seemed to suck all the players out of Finata, but didn’t transfer them to Eresho.