The landscape is also changing with gaming and I think we are close to a new era of gaming due to AI whether you like AI or not. There have already been some developers that have used AI to create a Diablo 1 sort of game in about 10 hours and now we are seeing AI where it can merge games into a single game with mechanics and graphics from both.
AI could get to the point where it can be used as a tool by a knowledgeable programmer to make a game from start to finish and as much as I hate that in some ways, I’m also excited.
AI could get to the point where we could simply remake Boundless ourselves however we wanted it.
I’d say in the next 3-5 years if not sooner this will come to fruition and I for one am excited.
I think making Boundless is not the hard thing. This is what I made and I stopped due to lack of time:
The problem is that the game is a niche. Nobody would actually play this without some new game mechanic or a huge marketing campaign.
What I see is that games go the opposite way - simple, repetitive, fast dopamine hit, next..
ps. Also, Boundless relies on paid servers, like most other gams, don’t. I think that’s a big minus.
pps. This was made with no AI whatsoever. Imagine how far you could get with AI. Since I figured a similar meshing algorithm similar to Boundless, and square mining, AI could easily take this a long way in a very speedy manner. But again, no more than 50 players will ever play it.
Yea thats sort of the issue. But I said the same thgn about Hytale. Really it offers nothing new, yet it sold tons of copies and is thriving. It also has constant updates and constantly has new mods so I think it helps.
All in all I think Boundless may have just ran its course. It doesn’t make it a bad game, but imagine if it used the newer server technology fo layering with better graphics and smooth voxels versus blocky.
Boundless was also marred by a horrible launch, a clunky UI, no marketing, the on-going Minecraft shadow etc. and as you said the voxel niche.
@ciprianb With your skills and AI assisted programming you could get some pretty awesome going.
I am not sure what happened, and I think @Dhusk op is very plausible. But I just want to leave my thoughts on businesses acquiring assets in general:
A company can acquire a game, or any asset, because it sees potential in it, truly intends to improve or expand it, and then gradually loses interest when the game doesn’t justify the resources required to develop it further.
It could be that simple.
Boundless had a small community and a good foundation, and, in theory, a publisher could build on them. But that doesn’t mean turning it into a more successful game would be easy or profitable. If it were, James would have done it.
I am certain Monumental saw Boundless as something with potential. But for whatever reason, Boundless gradually became less attractive as an investment.
Turning it into something more successful is dependent on what you call a success. For James, that success was probably just making the game and seeing to what he thought was completetion.
Profitable is something we have talked about many times on the forums. The game is setup to fail because there is no way to migrate builds to other places, no way to scale down the universe size once it gets larger and its hugely dependent (like every game) on the amount of players playing it, but it’s more dependent on players since it’s a live service game with an economy.
All that said, James saw the player numbers dropping and had probably been in the talks with Larian long before we found out about it. He saw the writing on the wall, saw the Larian opportunity and jumped ship and that was the smart play.
There is potential with Boundless even if it’s old, but it desperately would need some work and since the game has no proven track record, I’d call it a high risk of any investment and probably the main reason Monumental hasn’t dedicated any time to it.
Boundless has potential, but realizing that potential would require investment, and Monumental apparently hasn’t seen enough of a business case to justify it.
That’s really my point. A game doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad investment from the beginning for it to eventually become a low priority.
Did a dev get out over his skis and make too many promises? Absolutely. But things change
I seen where the devs used Ai to create the objects to get an object in place. Then went in and replaced all of it with actual artwork created by the team. They used it as a base basically then tweaked it look the way they wanted it to look like.
Aloft: Game is buggy and recent complaints are that saves wipe when new updates hit.
Astroneer: a classic, but a bit basic. bland graphics.
Empyrion: Galactic Survival: This game has some game breaking bugs that can hit and cause you to have to start over.
Icarus: Unless your computer is optimized to run the recommended specs, the game looks like poop. Also, logic issues. You’re in a suit that requires oxygen rich rocks to refill your oxygen supply…yet the wildlife can breathe the air with no issue. Also, you go into a cave, you can get a lung infection from the air…while WEARING A SUIT.
Minecraft (with mods you prefer): Vanilla minecraft has terrible graphics. To mod it to the point where it looks anywhere near as good as Boundless requires a lot of mods and significant HDD space.
No Man’s Sky: You can’t craft a shelter on your first planet. You have to travel to another planet to do so. And then the shelter is basic poop. And then avoiding the drones that will kill you immediately.
Palia: with the recent cash shop additions, this should be named Paylia.
Pax Dei: Basic graphics. Multiple people experiencing launch issues.
Rising World: Might as well play minecraft at that point.
The Planet Crafter: Great game for such a small team. I encourage people to try it out.
Valheim (1.0 now out): crappy controls and weather clipping issues.
Why play boundless when you can play minecraft?
Rising world has a better building system where you can set your block and layer them. Planks and Beams is the baseline for the new system. Its ok if you can’t understand it…I don’t use it but its freaking powerful for builders. I just lack the creative bones in my body to just do that. I’d rather gather/explore/collect. Players have built castles with molding around the door frames, detailed windows with non-working shutters, recreational Vehicles. Its ok to hate on a game where its only 1 developer but comparing rising world to minecraft isn’t a fair assessment. Two entirely separate games. 1 has deep pockets/funding and another that the dev simply cannot quit their day job or expand much. $14.99 game where I have 135 hours = I got some value out of it gophing for talented players.
Yeah I’m not sure that’s a fair comparison at all. Each “server” for Pax Dei can service thousands of players simultaneously. The servers are simply for better latency due to location.
We’ve been the dark for 6 years and still nothing I’ve drop the game and been playing since came out on ps4 switch to pc and now this game dead. They haven’t done anything but tiny maintenance and schedule holiday events that literally it nothing else.I can’t believe people actually stick up for these devs especially the ones that kept saying the handing over to company takes time will 6 years later they definitely ain’t cooking up any content people paying for sovereign planets and gleam club is what’s keeping this game hanging on a thread.
Enshrouded is pretty good!
Well to the people that are upset about the lack of updates, i think we all share that feeling. Now… turning that into anger towards the people that love the game, are still playing and and choose to support it via gleam club or sovs, that i just don’t understand.
If you are burned out or bored from boundless there are plenty of good alternatives mentioned you can choose to play.
And maybe you’ll get bored of those alternatives too, eventually, even with a handful of updates and DLCs.
Then maybe you’ll realize the problem is not really this game itself or the people who choose to stay behind it and try to rewire your brain a little.
Again, i’m the first to say this game could benefit a lot from extra content and player count but if you spend your days on this forum complaining and almost wishing for it’s downfall (almost sounds like it sometimes) what does that say about you?
The people want to keep supporting a game they love, devs apart.
dead. They haven’t done anything but tiny maintenance and schedule holiday events that literally it nothing else.I can’t believe people actually stick up for these devs especially the ones that kept saying the handing over to company takes time will 6 years later they definitely ain’t cooking up any content people paying for sovereign planets and gleam club is what’s keeping this game hanging on a thread.