I’m not sure why there’s such a fixation on a promo trailer made five years ago. They had grand plans and ideas and no doubt some of them proved to be technically infeasible so they aren’t going to add them. Instead there has been a laundry list of excellent additions over the years that have grown this game into something more than was promised.
Would you rather they just stopped development? When is a game like this ever going to be finished?
Not what I said.
Not the solution I was going for.
If you’ve read what I actually wrote, it’s like :
Development too long > Solution : Recruit more devs > If money is an issue : add non-intrusive micro-transactions.
As for the ‘fixation on the promo trailer’, well it’s like I said, don’t put out a trailer for a feature that is far from being finished. Titans are so un-finished we still haven’t seen anything from them since the trailer, the devs likely barely have a prototype, and you’re actually even suggesting they abandoned that feature (which they haven’t, that I’m sure of).
You don’t “Launch” a game (like, official launch, out of Early access) when some of the main promised features in trailers are still years away.
As for the list of things that have made the game more than promised… I’d say that might be an over-exageration.
The farming update, sure! I’d give you that.
But a lot of the updates I’ve seen since 2018 were extensions of promised things, or were standards in this genre of game which the game needs to survive, or were almost a form of damage control (some recent features have been added as a response to some bad players acting up against the rest of the community).
Then they should just say that.
The defense has been offered countless times that they’re a small studio and that, therefore, they can’t afford to do things in the same manner as larger teams. But there are certain fundamental aspects of building a game that’ve been inconsistent here over the years - such as the pace of development, the level of community engagement, to name some big ones.
If you can’t meet these obligations… The logic behind it is almost like saying that you built a car but it’s getting off to a slow start because you had limited resources and failed to install a battery.
In EA, there used to be Weekly Updates… but then the Weekly Updates started coming biweekly, or monthly, or whenever/never. One of these updates even trotted out some in-game models for posts and columns - only for them to take about a year to arrive in the actual game.
I also remember all of the fanfare when Lance (!!!) perks were added to the skill tree in anticipation of their unveiling, to be mysteriously yanked about a month or two later. Even though there’ve been game models for shields posted recently, the weapons that would accompany them are still missing roughly 2-1/2 years from when they were on the verge of 100% implementation.
I agree, but my suggestion to add both MT and non MT clothes was NOT well received. Lol
Of course it wasn’t. There will always be people arguing against micro-transactions, especially in a game with an initial price-tag.
But the truth is, it’s a necessary evil. If well balanced, you don’t even notice it.
It’s either that or you have what Boundless is right now : suck in dev limbo.
There are solutions.
But I won’t be among those who will patiently wait here 6 more years for blueprints, furniture, rental worlds, titans, clothing, racial variety, more blocks, PvE variety, etc. I’ll go play another game which managed to do what they couldn’t quicker by having micro-transactions, by having a bigger team or by some other means.
I’m already 85% sure what game I’ll be playing next year. The last 15% depend on Wonderstruck being able to deliver on a 6 year-old promise or not.
I know I sound mean on them right now, but seriously, to me, the last meaty update was when they introduced the glass panes & chests in late 2019, 6 months ago.
Prototype Creative Mode, Compactness update, Reclaim, the QoL we just got, all of that does nothing for me personally. Most of them are steps towards bigger things (like an actual creative mode and blueprint system), I guess. But they miss some meat on dem bones for guys like me to dig their teeth into.
Purely cosmetic micro-transaction is something that could help to make money without turning the game in a p2w. Shirt, pants, dress, hat, glasses, boots, gloves are some examples but i also found in the forum new “races” that could be added for MT. Skins for the tools/weapons (a pickaxe instead of a hammer, bow for the slingshot)
I think they could “easily” add more flora and fauna that could match biomes on planets and are different from planet to planet. Underwater lifeform like fish and maybe fishing too.
My house is almost empty, i want more furniture 
10 char
I’m fine with purely cosmetic transactions - overwatch style. Or like fork knife.
Maybe a season pass with unlockables for free and gleam club members?
This is one of the reasons devs don’t like to do roadmaps. You were promised something you thought was cool and when they decided not to go through with it you were disappointed with them. In essence a roadmap results in them teasing features that might not get finished and letting down a good number of fans who might have otherwise been pleasantly surprised to see the features they do release.
I would warmly welcome a roadmap. But if I am being a somewhat duplicitous because if I was a dev I would not add one either. When I see a game with a road map it gives me the impression that I am paying full price for a shell of a game. Even if there is a good amount of content, that is the notion I am left with.
In regards to roadmaps, you say it like there’s only one way to do it : the bad way.
That’s not the case.
Write on the roadmap that nothing is promised. Don’t put dates.
Each item in development could have a link to a thread dedicated to that feature. You could just express at which state of development a feature is. If you decide to shelf or scrap a feature, you explain why. In general, if the information is widely available, then people will be less likely to cry about it and more likely to understand the reasoning.
A roadmap can indubitably be a bad thing. But in essence, from my point of view, what’s currently happening seems worse than a bad roadmap.
Because really, if you condense it all, when people like me cry about missing features like “when are the furniture we’ve had concept art since 2017 coming?!”, how is it really different from a bad roadmap? What does it all come down to?
Communication.
We know close to nothing about the dev stage of most promised features. Some information is sprinkled here and there (sometimes privately to people like @AeneaGames or some early backers) who then whisper it to people they want (I for one have seen stuff that the devs would surely never have shown me by themselves).
Most info the devs deem 'ok for public consumption" is lost in the huge mess that a forum like this one inevitably ends-up being, and sometimes, the devs lose time repeating the same things. They do have a “Devs” button at the top-right of the forum, but it’s not good enough.
In the case of the Lance, I don’t even know if it’s definitely scraped or temporarily shelved. I hope it’s the latter.
A roadmap would straighten that out immediately.
Among the list of upcoming features, it would have an indication to say if it’s scrapped, shelved, in concept/brainstorming phase, in prototype phase, in testing or released. When you’d click on it, you’d see pictures and concept-art of the feature, followed by links to the latest relevant info given by devs.
@Goblinounours already reiterated my point for me… It’s not simply the expectation that built up from seeing working models and being able to peruse a separate skill tree, it’s the lack of clarity that followed. I don’t even think there was a formal announcement about what happened to them… I was just told second-hand that there was trouble tracking hitboxes across servers…? Unconfirmed.
ARE they scrapped? ARE they currently a high priority? ARE they on hold?
None of these three questions would require anything resembling a timeline, but if the devs checked in on any given week they wouldn’t be hard pressed to give you one of these answers, and the reasoning behind it, without making any false promises or setting any false expectations whatsoever.
But I don’t know when was the last time that anyone spoke of them.
Sadly no roadmap around boundless currently. I miss when we had something resembling one, I knew things were coming to look forward to. Currently I know shields were teased and everything is speculation outside of that. I’ve moved on to other games and I don’t want to… Communication is why I’ve gotten back into World of Warcraft, their dev team is finally doing a lot more of it. Animal crossing is still new and has little communication but I feel like I have a better idea of what is coming in it in the next year than I do about boundless…
I love boundless for the persistent MMO, the rpg like leveling system, exploring worlds and places people have built, and playing PvE combat with a group of players.
It’s a glorious sandbox but sadly hasn’t got many tools for awhile, sure some nice shiny blocks, and some rule sets to help encourage people to play nice, but not things we interact with the world with. I’m sadly on the verge of fading away from boundless altogether, not because of broken promises, but because I don’t know what is coming, and there is no hype to keep me coming back. Communication is what brings ideas and discussion, it builds excitement. Silence builds apathy and sows discontent.
So I am all for a unrealistic dev road map, if we get even 10% of what is promised at least we knew it was coming and were able to get excited about it.
If you want to see some road maps you can look at Biitula on maps.playboundleds.com
Too soon?
Exactly. I think that all we can agree on a roadmap of the near future - no big and hard promises but some news on what they are currently working on and on what they are planning to work next. Maybe something like what the empyrion develpment team does, every 2 weeks (1 to 3 sometimes) they update the community on the status of the new update.
It takes a ton of effort to make a decent roadmap and frankly I’d rather the devs spend their time on making new content. But I’ll stop with the dissenting opinion since clearly a lot of you are very passionate about the idea.
It really doesn’t take a lot if you make one without dates. Hell we already know from Ross now that melee combat and a furniture system are being worked on.
There also was a mention of crafting overhaul and of course many recent changes was also to get rental planets out…
We do know some things, but it would be lovely to know more!
If they need to spend more than an hour on such a thing I would be rather surprised…
Anyone else hope we get some more information after gleambow ends? I was hoping maybe for something by the end of this week but I know I’ll probably have to wait for the weekend to end 
