In Boundless, trees are currently very static, and never change unless people cut them down. I think it would be interesting to make trees dynamic, so they grow, change, make seeds, and die, and may even be cultivated. People could build whole empires based on tree farming! Another thing you could do is give the trees a genetic code. They could have different genes that encode for branch size, leaf color, fruit type, etc. However all of this would cause a lot of lag, and would be very hard to handle. Maybe dynamic trees could be artificial and made with gleam, spark, and oort, and be reserved for more powerful, higher class players.
Edit:
This feature would also be a doorway to other features. People could use artificial selection to create new varieties of trees, and then sell their seeds. There could be different sprays you could craft that would change your trees, such as dwarfing sprays, branching sprays, flowering sprays, etc.
YES PLEASE I’d loooove the ability to do this – I’ve been searching for a game with genetics/crossbreeding for a while, but I think it could add a ton to Boundless in particular, and help with various parts of the game that have been worrying me. For instance:
gives people something to do with their buildings – tree-farmers would need a place to farm, somewhere to test things, a nursery/shop to display grown trees…buildings that serve a purpose are buildings that get visited, which means players congregate around them, which makes the world seem alive.
gives noncombatant players a way to provide rare items – right now it’s pretty hard to avoid combat unless you’re always playing alongside someone else, which can make players who don’t like combat feel under-appreciated. Farming is a good way for them to contribute something really valuable.
adds gameplay complexity – in a good way! think of all the theorycrafting that goes on for combat-type games, and how much depth that can add to a community.
is a good endgame-ish activity for casual players – seems like a lot of MMOs require high time committment for endgame activities (raids etc), but there are huge numbers of players with limited or unpredictable playtime. Farming is the kind of thing that can be hugely rewarding even if you play it in 15-minute chunks over the week.
Of course there is a minecraft mod that does this, not necessarily great, but it works, so there is a basis and audience for it. It’s a good mod tbh.
It allows for new wood colours, leaf block colours, and fruits. All which could be end-game rare as @cor-karolis says
Most of the colour thing is already ingame as the world builder has options for changing what type of trees and their colours, are planted on the created biomes/worlds. So it would allow for creating off-world trees without having to do the travelling/searching for them.
