Q&A: Building

Q: I’m sure we’ll lose infinite mode … how does the world “react”/look like if we need massive amounts of material ?

A: This is where the player driven economy kicks in. Players who are out mining, exploring or fighting can sell the materials they gather to traders who can then sell them on to builders who want to build with them. Some materials may become valuable purely because of their importance in building, and it’s in the interest of players to know this while they’re out and about. For example if green gleam is in demand then mining any of that they see while out hunting would be worth while. Having said that, building is one of the key player activities in the game, and whilst the economy around materials is important we don’t want it to become a struggle to be able to create even a simple structure, so as always the balance is key.

Q: How fast / in which areas will world regeneration work ?

A: Luca is currently implementing the world regeneration so it’s very much up in the air; however, we are currently looking at regeneration starting between 12 and 24 hours after an area is last visited / edited. The process of regeneration will take some time, and will happen in an a natural way so things will slowly decay back to their original state.

Q: is a farm a realistic idea? animal reproduction for food / harvesting of different fruits / vegetables / spices?

A: Farming is a feature that we are very fond of here, but currently sits outside of the 1.0 scope. My take on it is that to do a feature like farming justice needs a lot of effort, and for the whole thing to be absorbing and engaging. We don’t want to shoehorn in a simple implementation that’s not very satisfying, instead we would rather hold it back and have a great farming system in version 1.1.

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That’s a good answer for how the economy react but it’s not really a satisfying answer for me on "how does the world look like … ". Let’s imagine i like to rebuild the “Cologne Cathedral” (which i planned in the pre C++ build and maybe in the 1.0 build if i have the time). Therefore i’d need gigantic amounts of stone. If i start to collect my material by myself (because i don’t have the currency to buy all because i’m a master builder) i’d start to dig a HUGE hole in the ground which really look odd (like all quarries do [example for the Cologne Cathedral]). If there are a lot of passionate builders out there who need a lot of stone wouldn’t this ruin the look of the worlds because the regeneration would be much slower than the request ?

So in fact my main question is how do you plan to scale the regeneration according to the request for materials or the “change rate” in a region of the world to avoid “destroyed landscapes” ?

EDIT: Some time ago there was a discussion (AFAIR in here) if the regeneration should depend on “how often a region is visited or crossed by people” and if the regeneration should be faster in “abandoned” places and slower in “highly frequented” places. Do you plan on such a system for the game ?

I hoped to hear that :thumbsup:

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Yes, that is the plan.

Obviously this comes down to balance, but we’ll make sure that the generation goes at a rate that keeps up with people’s mining activities. You may want to dig a little way from civilisation to get a quicker regeneration rate, but that’s part of the process of mining.

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Best thing I’ve heard in a while^^ (apart from the C++ release of course^^)
Can’t wait to can’t wait for all the past 1.0 features after I couldn’t wait for the 1.0 features xD

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If you keep visiting the same quarry, then it will regenerate slower by design, as per Ollie’s first post. If you go to a new quarry, your old one will regenerate after some time. Not sure what the problem is here? If someone else needs a bunch of stone, they can visit your quarry or make a new quarry. Based on my minecraft days I don’t think not having enough basic building supplies while waiting for regen will be an issue in any way shape or form. Even digging out a 100x100x100 cube in the ground gives you 1 million stone. If that’s not enough for your build, then I really can’t wait to see what’s being built haha.

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Also very excited about this. I love meaningful and engaging farming and food systems and am very excited for it to be done right and not fast in Boundless.

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If regeneration is slower near civilization does that mean people who grief will be more of a problem. They could come dig between/under/around beacons in a player town and make everything look horrible but since it would be active, it would take a while for regeneration to fix it…

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Under two conditions:

  1. It’s all solid ground (which it’s not … there are a lot of tunnels in all worlds and most worlds start “ground level” at a ~60 hight)
  2. You can use every stone you collect (which you cant … eg. dirt will be used only few for building)

Even if the amount you collect is still big enough for your own building (sure it’s a few 100k) i’m feared what happens when “a lot of people” start building huge structures (endgame, guilds …) or mining huge areas because the search for precious ressources (see open-pit mining). @ChickenBranches also mentioned a good question. If i mine my quarry often will it ever start to regenerate ? I mean … mining a 100x100 deep hole on the ground may take some days / weeks (depending on the mining speed) but it’s a comparatively small region of the world.

Guilds will most likely plan such big structures accordingly.
So that the quarry is far away from civilization or integrated well into the existing builds.
I mean you could always just have a temporary portal to a “quarry world” which you destroy after finishing your build.

But I hope too that regeneration doesn’t completely stop even if it’s in a relatively busy part of a world. Because it would make griefing so much worse.

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Queries

Q: What will be the main transaction commodity (Like how we use coins to represent value used to change things instead of bartering,

Q: For different jobs how deep can they be explored?Will they be rewarding/entertaining and will experience increase the efficiency/speed to do a certain task?(More time spent in fishing industry = get fish more often)

Q: What expensive items can you purchase in each industry/role/etc?

Q: Will there be official support for different types of jobs, like building for others, mining, etc? Selling yourself around basically.

Q: Will you ever remove placed beacons? If a player does not play boundless after a few years will you remove them?

Q: Will you section of variants of block types at some point? You coul section them off with a number/colour, it would be really helpful to builders and traders.

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As @KuroKuma said, there are quite a few very easy ways around big groups all wanting to start building at the same time. You could head off-world or even just spend two minutes traveling in any random direction. Assuming the person knows how to mine (i.e. don’t start in an ocean or you’ll suffocate, don’t start on a mountain top or you’ll deal with some dangerous cliffs/more dirt than you would in a cave/more air since you’re presumably dealing with peaks, etc.) then I really really don’t see how not having enough basic resources will be an issue.

Recap: If you absolutely have to wait for world regeneration to give you back your mining area, then it seems you absolutely have to wait for world regeneration. If you don’t, a multitude of simple alternatives exist.

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Coins will be the main currency. See a recent post by Ollie that I can’t currently look up because I’m at work.[quote=“Combatman12, post:10, topic:4191”]
Q: For different jobs how deep can they be explored?Will they be rewarding/entertaining and will experience increase the efficiency/speed to do a certain task?(More time spent in fishing industry = get fish more often)

Q: What expensive items can you purchase in each industry/role/etc?
[/quote]

I’m guessing you meant to ask these in the progression Q+A instead of the Building one?

Building for others will take place via blueprints. Several people have already talked about forming mercenary type guilds to provide services to others. I don’t think official support (like…LFG, is that what you’re thinking?) is needed here, people just have to be creative and settle on a price/timeline themselves.[quote=“Combatman12, post:10, topic:4191”]
Q: Will you section of variants of block types at some point? You coul section them off with a number/colour, it would be really helpful to builders and traders.
[/quote]

Not sure what you mean by “section off” here. Ben had a recent post with his UI stuff about splitting different spots in 9 possible colors or something like that, within an inventory. Is that what you mean?

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All the answers were fine, the blueprints could be a cool way to build for others, but I’m talking about the actual resources, time to gather them, actually building it, and then just selling that service to someone. I don’t know what LFG is. I didn’t realise this is a building Q and A, the other 2 example questions didn’t seem like they would be a part of it.

So having someone spend time to manually gather and build something for you? I mean, it’s possible within the current game. Again, just have to agree on price/timeline/location/other details with whoever you’re hiring.

Or if you want to be the one collecting things and building and then selling what you’ve built, I believe the devs have said this will be possible. Whether through actual beacon trading or through removing your beacon and having them places theirs is TBD (to be determined).

LFG is looking for group. It’s an interface used in many games to quickly connect players who are seeking to do the same content.

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That sounds good, I just wanted to know if there would be more official support in some form. That’s fine the way you’ve said it.

Sounds like harvest moon :wink: but i like the game and it’s idea and the system totally fits in here too :slight_smile:

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James liked Stardew Valley so I hope he takes some inspiration from that^^

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Plinths will work as shops while you are offline. A player could set up a location in a town with plinths to sell items to other players even when the owner is offline. Conversely, another type of plinth will allow players to sell items in exchange for coin. Thus, you can always visit a town to buy/sell/trade. That should support trade pleanty.

Plinths only work for items and goods, not for services.

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Ah, yes. I miss understood that :upside_down: