Edit: Apparently my tongue-in-cheek manner isn’t hitting very well according to my DMs here and on discord, so let me do a TL:DR version of what I originally was going to post.
We need more people, but there are different groups that play MMOs and solo games.
Opening it up to unconnected servers with mods and LUA scripting will expand the possibilities that come with the game, and generate a lot more potential media content.
Families need a safe place to play with their kiddos, for both them and so we don’t feel bad when our kids make crazy things next to people’s builds.
Finally, we need to be open to change or the game is going to disappear.
Yup, it’s basically just single player boundless with a few changes, like having tiered regions so that everything works on one planet (but you may well have a whole universe though). There was a streamer not too long ago that tried the MMO first, but just wasn’t interested and thus played / streamed the local universe stuff on the beta patch. I don’t think local universes will draw away people who actually enjoy the MMO aspect of the game. One could argue that the resources invested into it would’ve been better invested into making the MMO experience better, but as far as I understand it, the only thing that was missing from it, was a delivery system for pre-generated worlds, because they took quite some time / computing power to generate. In general I’m in favour of more options and would also welcome a fail save for when the servers will turn off (hopefully in the very very distant future).
Really like the idea of local universes, but only if the game itself has enough content/depth.
That is not the case in the current state, so IMO fix that first and then introduce local/selfhosted universes.
I really like the dialogue going on in the thread. I suppose it really is up to Monumental and what they want to do.
If monetization is the goal and using that to fund further development of the game, I am not sure how local universes could be monetized especially if those local universes can be modded or adjusted.
If the local universes are run on servers owned by Monumental then that could be possible as they could control what can be changed.
It will be interesting.
EDIT: I do agree with many others in the thread and wish they would focus on making the base game better and then make the move to create local universes.
If someone just wants to solo, access all items, and/or only give access to their family/kids, that’s available via Creative worlds currently.
If they make it so that players can share mods, skins, & upload worlds like some other games do, I think it would be better than spending dev resources to create an offline or local only version. I know some don’t agree. We’ll have to agree to disagree.
If you can mod the game you can make your own cosmetics. That is if we can access local files. So making money selling them might not be an option for local servers.
I feel like making an offline option would be the death of the online universe since an already limited population is not likely to be augmented, and more likely to be reduced, with such a move. Cosmetics and a steam workshop integration are possibilities but far from the priority of building up the population by attracting and, most importantly, retaining new players. I understand the appeal of being able to continue playing boundless if the official servers go down permanently but in that event the fun of the game would be drastically reduced for me anyways.
Local Universe are great if you want the game to live on. It might not be good for the Live mmo universe but it opens door for modding the game like what happen with Minecraft. There are really interesting/complex modpacks that came over the years.
If i can recall Local Universe is not only for solo, other players/friends will be able to connect(if you want so). So basically you create your own horde of planets with your own rules.
From what I could tell from the documentation available, modding capabilities weren’t really intended to be full modding, just some moderately limited scripting.
Stuff like “if x entity is near y entity, change/create entity z”.
Plus, the local servers were still checking the authentication server for both ownership of the game and gleamclub sub status. I don’t think they said it was checking for individual cosmetics, but not 100% on that.
It is entirely plausible that local universes could be monetized with GC subs, but the ethics of that is questionable imo.
Also, I suspect that the authentication server could be spoofed with a host name entry to just bypass that entirely.
With one of the “Paints” technically yes, but they are skin tight.
James showed us how to at one point i think, was part of a contest to make some new paints, i believe the winner was the skeleton one that was added to the Halloween event.
Simple… flip the current business model on it’s head
Make the game free to play in the MMO universe (after making the NPE smoother and more engaging to get people to stay).Has the benefit of drawing in players that were put off by the cost of entry previously. The big key here will be getting them to stay.
Charge for a standalone version of the game, so players can create their own universes (and join others universes) and have the ability to use mods, change beacon fuel settings, crafting times etc.
Leave it disconnected from the main MMO - having portals that go up and down in the MMO based on when a players home computer is switched on is just crazy. Only require a connection to the main game for authenticating login etc. Allow players that have paid for the standalone version to cobble their universes together.
Keep planet rentals (sovereign/creative) so people can still have their own space in the MMO universe.
Include a basic set of craftable cosmetics for both MMO and standalone versions of the game - and I mean actual clothing & armour, not just day-glo body paint.
Include tons of premium cosmetics for the MMO version. Make them amazing. Charge for them.
From there it’s just a case of creating more and more content.
IIRC someone had mentioned the current iteration of the local universe was built-in to the main menu of the test version. I suppose that could be changed easily enough.
Free to play means thousands of players clogging up the inner worlds and making it impossible to cooperate as a whole. There has to be a gate to make sure new players have at least some vested interested in the game before they commit to a month of their footprint.
If there was a system to remove empty beacons sooner, like requiring players to at least set foot there once between 3-7 days of placing it or it’s gone at the end of the week, then maybe we could work with more players who are just interested. I just feel the growth of the game/community needs to be gradual (after an initial bounce back to a standard minimum) and by targeted marketing to people who are willing to pay.
Or there can be a buffer for dabblers to try for free and try to usher them into public once they’ve seen what the game’s all about.
