Ok, here we go, my turn (Mesa / Ino in game).
First, in response to the talk about player numbers:
Whiler player numbers are certainly important, its not even that important at this point, seeing as we would need a LOT more players than we have, to make an actualy difference for the sustainability of the game.
If you are in the game, on this board, and in this thread, and you are not just here to troll, then its because you care, and if you care that much, you have already read the replies from Square, laying out completely clearly, that the game isnāt sustainable as it stands right now.
On top of that Wonderstruck left the game to work on something that made more (financiel) sense for them, and have completely ignored all they possibly could since then on Boundless. (except must do support and maint). Thereās a lot to be said about this behaviour, finacielly sound or not, and i think a lot of our frustration stems from this alone. The lack of communication, and in the end, the lack of honesty.
It wasnāt just about the āgood offerā from Larian, and that they would come back and pick up where they left off with Boundless once that job was finished. It was also about Boundless simply not being what it needed to be, and with no real chance of that changing in the short term. It would require massive changes, that would likely bankrupt the team/James. Something had to be done to make some money, and quite fast.
So theres no real point debating the player numbers, because it doesnt matter if its 10, 100 or 1000. We need a LOT more than that to have a big enough pool of players spending money, for it to be a āsafe betā for Square.
It doesnāt help that 100 people spend a lot of money for a few months and gets it āfloatingā, itās still not safe for Square (or Wonderstruck that matter). It needs to be so far above cost each month, that itās worth putting more time into, and right now it just isnt.
The hole model needs to change, that much Square also made quite clear, and changing the model, would require Dev time, and well, we donāt have that. On top of that, Square has no idea what would need to change, that much they also made clear, and they even said they had lots of talks about specifically that with James and the team, and never came up with a solution.
Now, while Square stated that they fully āunderstandsā the choice James made to move the team on to more profitable tasks, i would certainly not just stand by indefinitely, paying for a game that isnāt making money, while the games Dev team is off making money for them selves elsewhere.
So itās a mexican standoff.
Either Square pulls the plug and we get a āX months noticeā on the servers, or James brings the team back and makes huge changes to the entire model of the game, to make it more profitable.
There might be a few other options in there to consider, like scaling the servers back (10 perms, rest rentals, or making it a pure single player game, but both would require dev time too).
Itās sad but true.
Many of you have said something along these lines for many months now, and most of you have caught flak for it, being called trolls, or too negative or the likes, but the above is simply just facts.
Facts provided by Square them selves now, in a thread on this very board. Denying that the game is dying, and boarderline already dead, is just fooling your self.
So im enjoying the game as best i can, for whatever time we have left. I quit the game back when James did, cause wellā¦ya knowā¦ and recently came back to my favorite game of all times, something i suspect a lot of os share, making this such a hard pill to swallow.
Iāve been wanting to make this post for many months, but seeing the flak posts like it have gotten, i just couldnt be bothered. However, i felt it was time to chime in.
RIP Boundless, my favorite game of all times, i will play you until they close your servers.
