dang the no edit … “You;d have to start a new universe from scratch for everyone to be fair, and”…
This is the problem the focus should not be on bringing people back, the focus should be on making the game sustainable monetarily and bringing in new people. I’m not sure of the costs to run the servers but in my rough estimation I’d say on AWS it’s anywhere between $2k-$5k a month give or take and when you have 50+ homeworlds, 200+ sovereigns and around 20 or so players the numbers just don’t add up.
While some people would have to rebuild (maybe there is some other solution), the game would be better able to sustain itself. I imagine in its current state it’s bleeding money so while it might be an inconvenience, removing planets is better than shutting the game down completely.
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I meant people playing now.
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I agree. It would be the most cost effective solution. I’ve seen other games do this to make them more sustainable. And the money they save on server cost, they could possibly put into development.
Honestly I think a community vote would be the best solution. I suggested before that we trim it down to 6 planets (one of each tier) per region. Move some worlds over to Australia servers to balance them out. Consolidate US East and West into one region. So trim it down to 18 planets.
And for those that would need to rebuild, well that would just be part of it.
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I think it might be the 200+ sovereigns that are the largest server cost to run. I imagine there are quite a few that were pre-paid that made/make Monumental no money at all. I think the 50 Homeworlds are probably fairly manageable.
What resources do you think are being used for planets when no one is on them? I seriously doubt there is a permanent instance running for each an every planet. They spin up and down as people come and go. That is why it takes a few seconds for a portal to load. So the only resources being used are for the planets that have people on them, and whatever data storage is being used to hold planet data (a database or whatever). The less people playing, the less server cost there is.
I think you are forgetting that people pay to keep their builds intact via gleam club. You cannot just poof people’s money away. Nuking people’s stuff sounds like a good way to lose what is left of the player base.
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I think there are a lot of unknowns to the players:
How many pay for gleam club?
How many sovereigns are there currently? (last record I have 125)
How many sovereigns are paid for monthly vs were pre-paid?
What is the cost per planet for Monumental?
What are the server costs? Storage? Data?
What does it cost for a planet when its active/inactive?
What makes a planet active? Crafting queues? Players?
I could come up with more, but I can say the biggest cost for the game are the planets and the amount of those and if the income cannot cover the cost of those it will bleed money and in turn would prevent them from even being able to afford development.
I i ever bought a game with investors money, i would asses how much money it was making, and give the investors a clear idea of when we will be making the purchase price of the game back, and this would be before I was ever going to put any more of the investors money into potentially improving the game. I would keep an active foot in the game, as well as in the forums, get my own ideas about what has been going on, then once the initial investment was recouped talk to the investors about your views of its potential and what you think could bring more money in if they were to invest more.
No idea if this is how monumental are doing things but its defiantly what i would do, and this will take time. If you run a company with ‘deep pockets’ you need to have stringent rules in place that mean anyone invested in the company keeps getting a return on investment. It also seems like a no brainer that something was done wrong with the 1.0 release and to be very careful not to put money into a project that will not again guarantee a return on investment, but more that that have a plan that you wink will do more than just a slow return on investment, which could take a while to build up and communicate clearly with the investors. Threads like this I’m sure help allot in this process so its interestig.
Honestly, as much as I loved Boundless, I’ve moved on to Enshrouded. It scratches the same itch building and exploration-wise and actually has developer support. Monumental has no plan for Boundless so, if you enjoy it in its current state, I’m sure they’ll keep the lights on for a bit longer. Eventually, though, they will either turn the servers off or take some dramatic turn with the game.
Moral of the story: move on to Enshrouded, folks, and let this game die.
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Technically, I’ve already moved on a couple of times. I still come back to play occasionally, but it’s nothing like those early years with lots of people on every day.
May 14th was my move on to Cubic Odyssey.
People always come back from time to time. Heck, I’ve done it several times. The game is fun if you enjoy creatively building. All of the people in this thread have enjoyed the game for a long time, it’s still the same game other than the community being smaller. Who knows the game may never die … and while I doubt any updates come along, I’ll remain hopeful.
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This game scratches an itch that no other game has scratched, even other games with all sorts of building.
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I spent 9 weeks in hospital and Boundless was something I missed. Like others say, this game just does something no other one does. I wish I knew why!
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I would have agreed with you, until Cubic Odyssey came out.
I get the world building and ability to travel to other worlds, have pants, use a mount, and fly a big ship.
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I would expect that they figured costs in for running the servers for for sovereigns when they set the monthly price.
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Prior to launch of the game years ago or whenever it was when they introduced sovereigns. Yes.
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Why do some make posts that end up with “move on oortians, the game is dead or dying”.
Why not move on and let us enjoy what we have?
There’s a lot of players that enjoy playing what we have and are ok with where the game is at.
I’m not trying to spark a war or step on toes but I’m tired of reading posts that tell us what we should and shouldn’t do with a game we paid for and still enjoy.
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I agree, but what I do is just play multiple games. Nothing wrong with having your cake and eating it too.
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Yeah, its almost like they actually still have an emotional attachment to something they are trying to tell themselves to move on from, why come to the forums? I guess some would say its the people that bring them back, perhaps others just check in occasionally and think yelling ‘DEAD GAME’ helps them deal with… something. Noticed lots of posts like this on steam, for different games, lots of witch have since had updates.
Perhaps they know there will be updates one day so they are here to serve as a trolling warning, under the forum bridge shouting platitudes that will seem futile and silly to someone from the future. Hard to tell.
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It’s a principle thing, for me at least. You are actively supporting a game owned by a developer who promised updates, development, marketing behind it, and an actual, you know, future yet, here we are, literally years later and they have not said a word about any of that. Are they keeping the lights on? Yes. Great. That’s wonderful. But “keeping the lights on” is not what we were told/sold. We were told “they are buying up games with good bones to market and relaunch them with new features, fixes, and a roadmap” and that “they have very deep pockets” and that “they are going to build a world class dev team around these games”. What we’ve seen is them acquiring games, keeping the lights on, and then eventually executing them. Look no further than Crowfall (Monumental acquires Crowfall MMO | Monumental). Acquired at the end of 2021 with the promise (literally in the article title) of active development and a roadmap. Instead, it was shut down and is completely dead. No development has been done towards it that anyone is aware of and no roadmap has been provided that anyone has ever seen. Same thing for Boundless.
So by all means, if you like the game as it is and you’re comfortable with supporting Monumental as they engage in radio silence multiple years after acquisition from a company that was, at the very least, updating the game, then go for it. As for me, I choose not to and actively discourage folks from, in any way, supporting Monumental. If that’s a problem, I’m sure their “deep pockets” will ensure they’re just fine.
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