For me…There are lots of positives for boundless that I see over other Voxel games. In ways…for me…this is a hidden gem.
Game Engine
With the game engine and world(s) mostly regenerating the materials. This function is really the biggest selling point for me. This way the worlds are not unusable after a certain period of time. I am sure there are more behind the scenes that is better than Minecraft/trove/creativerse…but this is the biggest feature that I can honestly say, Keeps me wanting to come back. World Regen is just great!
RPG
Right now the voxel MMO RPG space doesn’t have much in terms of classes. While not necessarily a Role Playing game…except for the KREE guild but who doesn’t argue with a Blue Blood creature!.. But this being a sandbox…the players can make their own stories! But the skills allow for a variety of roles (Builder, Farmer, Hunter, Miner, Bomber, ect) There is just not one “One role does everything”. But that will change in the future.
Resources
The world generation has a pattern…once you figure that out. Its fun! Each resource having its own elevation and biome or water/lava to spawn…makes it interesting. Finding them is fun! Especially when you add in the Atlas.
Region exploration
Another interesting feature for each new/existing world. While not my cup of tea, its still a feature that I respect due to being an avid miner.
Community
Honestly…there are bad apples but overall the community has been overly positive. Always willing to help out. Between Duskmoor, Twisted Dragonz, EZPZ, Brown Town to Redlotus (Begging me to come back), the members make this game great.
Cash Shop and Subscription model:
There is no pay to win here. Very fair all around for what you can get additionally. Not overpriced and overvalued. Yes I wish there were some more options but I like it the way it is
What do you like/love about boundless? Features that always have to returning and feeling positive.
Definitely have to put community at the top, it is what made finding Boundless the best thing that happened to me in my gaming career. And while I know every game is going to have a few bad apples/griefers, seems on the whole there are fewer here. I’m so used to not having problems here that in another game I didn’t take proper precautions starting up in a public world recently and got griefed pretty quickly.
Economy - This is the addictive hook for me, player-based economy and the balance of all the stuff to gather, mine, and collect. I really never grow bored with participation, I can always find relaxation in getting stuff to sell.
Beauty of the worlds/world regen - Biomes done better than other games of this sort I’ve played, by far. Worlds have real atmosphere, feel like actual places to get lost in.
Rental worlds - Um, I might have bought a few of these. Very addictive and fun to play with.
Being able to see stuff on other worlds - Never tire of staring at the skies in Boundless!
in comparison to other block / crafting games I played:
chiselling - almost every block can be shaped after placing instead of having to craft the shapes separately
world generation - more complex resulting in interesting shapes and a lot more variety
naturally occuring sloped blocks make a huge difference
art style is consistent - textures and mesh objects don’t clash with blocky terrain
very smooth gameplay, very stable (only 2 crashes in over 3k hours)
colors - 255, including lights, immersive color selection (having to find the color you want, not just pick any color from a menu)
MMO living universe (bit sleepy these days but still good)
existing mechanics offer very few opportunities to be a ****, therefore a very friendly and helpful community
A lot of great things said already that maybe we take for granted but really don’t find in any other game.
For me though, still thing that will still stop me in my tracks are the vistas.
Looking out at dawn or dusk, over a stretch of water with the sky reflected beautifully or over a forest to distant hills and mountains still gives me the same pleasure as it did way back when.
Planets in the sky that I can see & travel to, then build or whatever I want to do. You can also look up in the sky at other planets and see players’ builds & cities on them. You can’t do that in other voxel/polygon games.
Crafting: gathering all of the supplies, putting the parts together, powering machines, etc feeds into the immersion.
Meteors that fall from the sky. You can chase them down for great loot or ignore them.
Being able to walk around and see other peoples’ builds, whether they are online or not.
You can skip the built-in tutorial, if you want to. Being able to immediately run around and do what you want to was important to me. I get bored easily and always bypass tutorials (since I’m certain I’ll be able to figure it out quickly). I also hate having to chat with NPCs for information. I’m glad Boundless didn’t go that route.
All of the tools, forging options, etc.
Economy/coins/trading.
Great storage options.
Portals (I just don’t like fueling them).
Exo planets.
Color-changing exos.
Events (more, please!).
The quality of assets is amazing.
The ambience. When I’m exploring someplace and leaves/particles fall around me, anime-style. The sun rays bouncing off of nearby trees. The sound of birds and frogs in the distance. It’s very enjoyable & peaceful.
Sitting on a mountaintop, watching my build and follow the sky and the beautiful views in a living universe, a friend logged in, running there, jumping up and down and just be happy.
Portals are done really well, countless times I have accidently gone through a portal thinking it was juts a doorway (i play with the portal distortion off)
Building is really flexible when you combine 255 colours with the amount of detail you can achieve with all the different chisels
the open ended creativity in regards to building mini games and technical stuff (things I make videos on) really keeps the brain juices flowing
Those times when I struggle to climb a mountain or spelunk in a cave and then stop and look around and say a quiet “wow” under my breath as some crepuscular rays highlight a scene.
All of the above … plus atlases… I remember when we didn’t have them at all and you had to learn what sort of environments and altitudes was most likely to spawn certain resources and then just rely on blind luck … then atlases dropped and everything changed … unfortunately they only updated every 24-48 hours and who knows which time zones which meant many people ended up with out of date info (great for those who logged on when they updated, not much use 12 hours later for someone in a different time zone)… but then eventually the Devs managed to figure out a way they could update in virtual real time which leveled the playing field for everyone. Plus you can put in a warp augment and see all the plotted zones … plus they make great collectors items to display on shop stands.
Another thing I was just thinking of when exploring a new rental… how the biomes merge into each other, and sometimes create some very interesting results that look quite different from either of the biomes that combined to form them.
Very addictive and fun to play with.