We really should have the option to opt out of being obsorbed by otter settlements. What’s gonna happen when the game goes 1.0 and there’s significantly more players? Granted this wOuld be less of an issue with more planets but still.
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Maybe the Problem right now is that you can have a settlement on your own with a single beacon. Which makes little sense in the first place. A lot of single beacon settlements i’ve seen name beacon and settlement the same. Would the problem still persist if settlements only generate around neighboring beacons of different players? You don’t have the feeling of something taken away from you if it wasn’t there before?
Or maybe the problem is that the mayor can name the settlement. This gives some feeling of ownership. Would the problem still persist if settlements had generated names like regions?
What do you guys think?
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I think part of it is the identity of the build you’ve created becomes lost, and therefore it may lead to it not really feeling unique to the person who has created it. I definitely think that the mayor should absolutely not be able to change the name of a settlement that doesn’t belong to them - I didn’t actually think that was a thing.
I think then there is, of course, the problem of some people preferring to play as quietly and uniterrupted as possible. Whilst this is indeed an MMO, there are still going to be very many solo players once Boundless reaches 1.0. For them to login and find that their settlement has been swallowed up by a bigger build is outrageous, really. When consideration is given to the amount of time and effort they’ve put into creating thier vision, to have this essentially ruined by a larger settlement swallowing them up, well… where’s the fun in that?
I get that we can’t protect everything around our builds because plots are limited, so it’s not like we can keep the nice view of a thriving forest below, for example, but to have people encroaching on something another player has worked hard to achieve? I’d say this is a major issue the devs should be focusing on, otherwise the potential to lead to a lot of negative discourse is massive. And of course, negative discourse causes an avalanche affect which ultimately could lead to people avoiding the game because it isn’t particularly boundless at all.
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Well said. This problem has the potential to cause much greif. 
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Maybe there would be a way for players to own mini asteroid worlds where they could be king, but still allow portal connection to the planets and have visitors that would only be allowed to alter their personal world if given permission. But it would still be connected to the universe and travelers could freely visit and be visited, just not have the ability to edit these tiny worlds. The environment and resources could be limited to the most basic / or just barren soil and rock, with no mobs spawning, to push the player to explore and gather resources from the rest of the universe.
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This is basically the plan right now. Q: What server configurations will be available for Boundless?
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Related Trello post:
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Personally I think we should have some sort of option on the beacon to be able to join builds together when they are within a certain proximity, a bit like the friend option which has to be by mutual agreement. The town name could initially be game generated and then if they all agree the top contributor would have the control to change it for the town/hamlet etc and the incentive for the new outposts to join could be something like less tax, higher coin from footfall etc
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Really I think more planets will solve a lot of problems like these. I have talked about it before, but more planets does not mean we lose anything. People will still congregate to build settlements. But, in the current state of the game, there simply is no “untamed wilderness.” It doesn’t exist. We’ve explored all of it!
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I think I’ll probably opt to host a server. This is what I usually do. I did it on Ark because holy ■■■■■, the amount of pillering in that game is ludicrous. This is where I think the Boundless devs have really showed a spark of genius - by awarding players plots based on progression. When the time comes and I do host the server, all pre-release players are more than welcome to join, although I generally don’t moderate and leave people to play the game they want to without breathing down their necks. I also keep the same settings as the main game - none of this x8 gathering, no fun in that.
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I dont think there will be any settings available to customize. Private worlds will be there to give you quiet environment with controlled flow of players in it, but you will be free to explore all the public worlds (meaning your private server/world won’t be separated from others) and there is no point in giving players advantage of setting progression speed and such as that would cancel equality.
Only guessing though. Just what common sense tells me (or whatever that is I take for common sense 
).
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That sounds cool. I hope they can implement private being able to explore public, but I’m not sure how they would do this. Or, I just can’t remember if this has ever been an option in other games.
I know for sure private only means having choice of who can enter your world, but the whole idea of Boundless is to have one universe for all. Private worlds will be like private computers in the internet - just a bit of a firewall and malware to shield you off is all.
I am not sure about some game settings being open to customization or not. I hope all will have same rules but its the devs who can say some more. Might find an older post somewhere.
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Im sorry I gave you wrong info.
There will be private servers not connected to the main game universe.
I remembered it wrong.
I forgot about the point 3 from the post below. Only remembered the first two.
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This is cool, thank you!
Are there any Devs on here that can say if beacons will eventually have the option to opt in or out of becoming part of a hamlet, town, city etc … my particular place that I built was intentionally built far away from anyone else as a little retreat with a portal to Munteen where I have a shop which is part of a city … I just want to be able to choose if I want to be part of a community rather than have it forced on me regardless. … Am I supposed to now spend stupid amounts of hours deconstructing my place, looking for somewhere else to build and then starting all over again … until the next person decides to do the same thing!!
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The Devs do have plans to put something in that solves the situation of builds being absorbed by other builds and settlement take over. We don’t have any other real details on their plans…
So I understand this, the official public and private servers will connect to the same universe? So if I decided to purchase one to have my own planet, I would still be in the same universe and interact with players from the official public server? If so, I could deal with that. Then only the self hosted server would not connect to the official universe servers?
That’s correct yes. The intention with self-hosted worlds is that they will be moddable as well (which is why they wouldn’t be able to connect to the main game universe).
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Thank you for the clarification @Stretchious!! I could handle that if I wanted to get my own planet and have friends visit. Or have permissions if I would like to let them build there. But still connect to the larger universe to allow people to visit and to visit other cities.