@Cookviper Then say a huge group of players move here en masse (like a group called Goonsquad) and troll the game by getting majority votes in player content elections? PS. I’ve seen similar groups do similar things, so do not think it is not possible. It most certainly is. I’ve seen it.
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Maybe a mayor of a settlement could set some guidelines on what is ok to build and what is not. Then they could take action if the rules were disobeyed?
This would work better, of course, once settlements stop absorbing one another!
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Another good question. What do you suggest?
I’m glad this was brought up cuz obviously this can become a serious issue in the future.
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@Cookviper Honestly, I have no real idea. I think the Devs need to define it for us. This is their game and we live within it. If I’m reading a book, for example, I want to read that person’s story and be in their world. Limitations are not always limitations.
If the Devs want an entirely player driven universe and content then they need to define what is and is not allowed. It’s their game. I want to live within it. I’ve seen enough of what the internet has to offer to know that entirely ‘player driven content’ can lead to some very ugly conclusions.
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How bout this… if a player or players set up a huge area using their own plots and erect a city, they should have not only say but also the ability to forcibly remove objects from their city. And I don’t mean having somebody build on the cities owned plots. I mean a player comes into the boundary of the city, builds something offensive using their own plots, and is banned from the city by the owners which in turn removes the players plots.
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Agreed. And I just know it’s gonna happen in boundless as well. Hopefully we can help minimize it though.
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I wouldn’t expect to see the devs reply to this topic at the moment. There are many other things they’re currently trying to figure out, but I can gautentee you they’re all thinking about this issue and will let us all know the plan as soon as they’re ready.
Insult is taken not given, so I’d say all builds like religious or satanic could possibly be allowed as a part of freedom. As long as its only a build showing someones believes in a passive way that’s ok in my opinion.
Religion and politics shall be banned from conversations in public channels and as preaching/attacking statements written on signs or walls and floors etc. As they would be surely lead to provocation and such.
A freely standing building called Satanic Temple or The Great Mosque shouldn’t be a problem. I would love myself to build The Temple Of The Spirit and be able to keep it with that name.
I think that definition of an offensive build should be limited to builds that are blatantly made to annoy someone (even if those are not religious or political in content) or are a clear sign of a personal attack on another player (so if player1 builds a cathedral and a player2 builds upside down cross in front of it, that would be a clear offensive and intrusive intent, while the player2 building upside down crosses in his own area as part of his Satanic Town should not be regarded inappropriate).
Because of a potential under age players being online, it’s strong sexual and vulgar content that should be banned and not religious builds. What’s political and religious that is not made in an openly attacking form can stay as under age players will often not even know what they look like, and besides why should they not see diversity around?
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@Cookviper I don’t expect them to respond. I hope they do, as this issue cannot be solved by us.
We can suppose and surmise all we want, we can share all of our opinions and make the soundest of arguments, but at the end of the day this is their game and we will live by their rules. However, I do know that they want our opinions and hold them to be relatively important. I don’t think they make their decisions entirely on what we want, nor do I want them to do so. However, they are listening because these conversations are literally part of the beta testing process.
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Yeah but guess what. Some joe smoe just opened his own religion that has a giant dong statue as it’s saviour and decides to build it in boundless. Since it’s part of his religious belief does that make it acceptable? We gotta draw the line somewhere which I think a voting system could Possible solve.
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But then again if 1.0 releases a ton more planets, as well as privately owned planets, we may not have to worry too much about this.
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I actually just finally came across a build that I was mildly offended by. This player has some questionable words written at their build. If there was a voting system or some way to report this build I think I would report it for voting.
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It’s been a loooooong day, and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to catch up with this thread. Sorry ya’ll!
For the first topic, Is Boundless an RPG? I say yes, in a very open ended sense. I believe that the Sandbox part of the game takes precedent over the RPG part. Yes, it is a game in which you role play in that you fill roles of crafters, explorers, fighters, healers, support, etc. like in a classic RPG, but it’s open ended enough that you can decide how to go about it. If you want to be a builder that specialized in Pixel art or Mario themed builds- go crazy. The narrative is just a back story for those who want to explore it, it is in no way mandatory that you follow it.
How many of us have booted up a game like Grand Theft Auto, and NEVER finished the story mode? Boundless is a bit like that. You are given a sandbox, and tools to interact with that sandbox. The fact that there is a narrative to go with that is just icing on the cake… but it’s a sandbox… this metaphor is just all over the place! Like BOUNDLESS!
Now then… The next hot topic… Religion, and religious iconography, displays, etc.
It’s funny as hell to me that the Satanic Temple is brought up as an example of being extremely offensive because…
… Well, I’m an IRL card carrying member of the Satanic Temple. Whoops! But, before anybody apologizes or feels awkward or something like that, don’t worry, it’s not something I push or promote on anybody that doesn’t want to hear about it. I only bring it up now, after being a member of this board for years because it’s ironically relevant now (mind you, it’s in the satirical atheistic sense, not the occult devil worship sense). And, frankly, I think that’s the way religion should be treated in Boundless, too. It should not be pushed or promoted in game. But, does that apply to role play, too? What if you want to roleplay a crusader, for example, going on a holy crusade against the vile spitter menace? That’s cool. Bring your cross iconography and holy water too. That’s cool, because you’re not trying to ram it down another player’s thought. On the other side of the coin we have fantasy religions, such as the Illuminoorti. Here, I feel like a little more room for creative license can be taken. In these cases, there are no actual followers, and no actual intent to influence or alter somebodies behavior like in a RL religion. Essentially, it’s just a Role Play Club, not at all unlike a role play guild or any other role play group. If you’re offended with a particular role play club… just leave. There is no pressure to join or stay, and no punishment for apostasy. Again, not at all unlike any other non-religious groups or guilds.
SO! My TL;DR is simple. Boundless is First a sandbox, second an RPG, with heavy emphasis on sandbox.
Real life religion and religious iconography (and by extension really, politics) is OK in boundless. Just don’t push it onto other people. Fantasy religion/politics and iconography is much the same, just a role play club that shouldn’t be taken seriously. For the most part, nothing in boundless should be taken too seriously, and that’s ok.
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Just to chime in my two cents… I think that boundless is currently an open world sandbox in the same league as Minecraft, but I don’t know if I would call it a full blown RPG just due to the professions.
With the planned addition of dungeons and titans, I believe that it has the potential to become a full blown RPG and I think this would provide boundless the opportunity to truely do something unique and long lasting. I don’t believe that the RPG elements should be required by anyone though and while I believe that there should be a few quest-giving or lore-giving NPCs, I’d be just as happy with subtle lore in the descriptions of found items. I don’t think the world should be littered with NPCs. This can and should be done in such a way which allows people who only want the sandbox to just live in the sandbox. As I’ve mentioned in other threads, I want to see lore and context from which we can grow our buildings and stories. This would provide a depth to this game which I always felt lacking in Minecraft. At the very least, even with the “lost” Oort, I would like to know what the state of my people is, and what the state of this world is as my character spawns for the first time.
I’m also ok with Mario and references to other games and I think that there are ways to legitimately do both. I don’t believe that religious symbols should be permitted on public servers.
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Really, though, isn’t boundless something of a parallel to real life? We are all sharing a world already, full of things offensive, political, and religious. I think it says something about the internal morals of each and every one of us here in game that, even though we already live in a world full of these things, that when given the unique opportunity to determine our own moral code of conduct in a fantasy world we lean so heavily against allowing these things in this world, for fear of offending our neighbors. Is there a deep rooted understanding among us that these things are for some reason undesirable? It’s an interesting thought for me. I feel that so long as reasonable effort is made by the player to be considerate of our neighbors, asking ourselves if something is maybe offensive, and conversely, asking ourselves if something is intended to offend before taking offense to it, then we will all be fine. Unfortunately it would be naive of me to think we live in a perfect world, but none the less, I like to believe that we all would want to live in such a world, even if we disagree on some of the finer details.
Ultimately, I think it comes down to a difference between shared space and personal space. If somebody wants to build the temple of the dong in their private hidden caves or hidden away in their own territory… cool. Nobody is being forced to see it or visit it daily. But in a shared space, such as a settlement where everyone and everything is out in the open, that same temple of the dong could be easily seen as lewd and inappropriate for the public space. Think of the children!
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Wow that is a really interesting thought, you should start a separate post discussing the idea, as I feel that it could spark a very interesting conversation on morals.
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As subjective as morals are, I’d rather not engage in that line of discussion so directly in a gaming forum, rather just determine a middle ground we can agree upon for this player charter. I feel like that is a much less perilous road!
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Think of it as a Philosophical thought exercise and state that it is such, as your thought is extremely interesting.
as it will rise so many interesting ideas.
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I can see where you are coming from though and how it could be PERILOUS and you don’t have to if you don’t want to.
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