I play a ton of games and I misspoke. I was thinking of all the loot boxes and mtx they have so I’m still on point. You can’t assume things would have happened, that didn’t happen.
Most games like BL start out as F2P and add things to buy. BL chose to do things differently. There are games right now in EA that are charging similar amounts. It’s not unheard of.
How weird that they both released in May’17 
You’re lucky then. My club stuff is gone from trove. I didn’t own the club or was a top rank person in there.
Not if the source of disdain for Boundless has to do with the initial price tag.
Your original argument was that other games have an upfront cost and mtx therefore Boundless is fine.
I then proceeded to prove every game you listed was either free or at it’s lowest point only 7 dollars.
People are going to be much more forgiving of mtx in a 7 dollar or free game than a 27$ game.
Furthermore. I don’t think Portal Knights charges money for plots. I dont lose my progress in it if I stop playing. Nor do I lose progress in Creativerse nor in Trove.
It’s also considerably easier to get materials to build in those games.
The genres are the same but the similarities end roughly there.
I didn’t even realize that… ahahahha
You are making a lot of complaints about BL in general. I am not complaining about BL in any way.
I never said Portal Knights was free.
You can see the list of people working on the game on one of the i game menus.
Main Menu > Support > Credits
Wonder if the one that left is still on that tho. And if he is then what others may have left or gotten hired? We don’t know what their coming and goings are.
I can’t imagine it still has 25 full time employees working on it. We’d see more and faster progress (no offense, devs)
There may be 25 contributing to the game but Wonderstruck has 3 different games it has developed and it’s likely that the dev teams share responsibilities with those games. I could be wrong though.
Let’s try not to get off topic…
Here we have a system that unnecessarily apes a widely criticized form of monetization.
It doesn’t matter that we know what they are as players from the inside looking at it. What matters is that a not-insignificant number of people who aren’t invested and are only giving a cursory 30-second look are fooled. In the end, we’d be the fools to ignore common preconceived and misconceived notions.
Once a person is emotionally turned off, it’s very hard to climb back as everything from that point on will be viewed with a negative lens.
One of the reviews captures this effect pretty succinctly:
0.3 hrs last two weeks / 0.3 hrs on record
Not just bad, insulting…
Yet another Minecraft ripoff, but this time for $45 AND with lootboxes.
It does nothing that modded Minecraft won’t do and for 2x the cost.
Square Enix should be ashamed!
This person spent 18 minutes total in game- just long enough to see the “”“lootboxes”“”, and then went no further. They had an emotional reaction to the coffer + exchange interface presentation and quit on the spot. Left a review warning others about the lootboxes.
SamF responded.
SamF [developer] Posted: Feb 24 @ 11:56pm
Hey there,
Thanks for giving the game a try.
Sorry to hear you didn’t have a good time, but I do want to clarify the point about ‘lootboxes’, as there seems to be a common misconception here.
This isn’t something we have in the game. We give players set rewards at various points of the game, which are visually presented as being contained within ‘coffers’, but nothing is randomised and it’s all earnable through Gameplay.
There is no element of lootbox design in Boundless, and it’s never been something that’s in our plans.
Cool beans, the developers felt the need to respond. SamF even acknowledges this as a “common misconception”.
User edits their review.
EDIT:
After the devs response I checked my facts to discover sometimes if it looks like a horse and sounds like a horse its still sometimes a zebra. The boxes you receive or can purchase with premium currency are NOT in fact loot boxes even though they are boxes that contain loot. The so-called ‘coffers’ contain a set group of things and therefore have no gamble associated with opening therefore not ‘loot boxes’.
However, I stand by my previous statements and sincerely hope the developers will rethink the overall cost of the game and reserve the premium currency to cosmetics only.
The user never actually exceeded 18 minutes. They did not want to give the game a proper go because their view was already tainted; instead, they doubled-down on their original negative response. Because the original line of criticism was proved wrong, they found something else to criticize without ever trying out.
The “horse that looks like a horse but is actually a zebra” is a pretty good descriptor of what is happening here. And our unneccessarily horse-like zebra has warranted quite some attention from SamF!
SamF [developer] Posted: Feb 23 @ 12:40am
Hey DieNand
Thanks for giving Boundless a try, sorry to hear it wasn’t quite for you.
I did want to address your concern about loot boxes though, as this isn’t something we have in the game. We give players set rewards at various points of the game, which are presented as being contained within ‘coffers’, but nothing is randomised and it’s all earnable through gameplay.
We’re serious about making Boundless a fun and fair game for everyone, and loot boxes have never been part of our plans.
I hope that clarifies things!
SamF [developer] Posted: Feb 28 @ 7:07am
Thanks for trying the game - sorry to hear it wasn’t for you!
I do want to clear up one point though - there are no lootboxes in Boundless. We do have some cosmetic and convenience options available for real-world purchase, but they are certainly not randomised and are totally optional.
Players do earn rewards in the game, through gameplay, which take the visual appearance of a box of items, but again, these are not randomised and are pre-set rewards earnable through gameplay. Lootboxes are not and have never been in our plans for Boundless.
SamF [developer] Posted: Feb 23 @ 12:43am
Hey there
Sorry to hear that Boundless wasn’t the game you’re looking for, but thanks for giving us a try, we appreciate that.
I did just want to address the point about loot boxes, as this isn’t something we have ever had in the game. We give players set rewards at various points of the game (levelling up etc), which are presented as being contained within various ‘coffers’, but that’s just a visual depiction of the reward. Nothing is randomised and it’s all earnable through Gameplay.
We’re very serious about rewarding gameplay, and loot boxes have never been part of our plans.
I hope that clears that up. Thanks for playing!
etc etc etc
We can say “no no no you’re wrong!!” to those misinformed shoppers all we want. We can call them stupid. We can say all sorts of words but none of them will change first impressions and the reality of what is happening, right now.
It’s not as if the coffer presentation is critical, or even really important at all. Just replace the coffer image with the coin/cubit/exp one on the reward screen. Simple.
Longer-term, I prefer the earlier-mentioned idea of tying the objective and rewards interface together to make a more traditional quest screen which shows what the reward is from. And I agree that plot purchases should not be presented as many different types of coffers, but as one option with a number select. But that requires UI development effort that maybe isn’t priority.
So, look, I like opening chests and boxes and it’s a nice dopamine hit. But I think that’s better framed as a game treasure out in the field. My feeling is that “what’s in the box!?” imagery should stay away from any interface-related reward function and certainly miles away from the cash shop. It’s just so unnecessary and I see no reason to invite problems when there doesn’t need to be one.
(Heck- that beautiful coffer art and animation would be wonderful to see as the reward from meteorites, or from future dungeons or things like that!)
Very well put.
I’m going to hazard a guess its like every other entity out there, 3 or 4 people who do actual work, and the rest is administrative staff
This post is not to be taken seriously
^ This. As cool as the boxes are it was a big mistake by the developers because of the perception it set.
And whether we like it or not people entering the game have perceptions that we need to respect. There is no reason to have options in the game that INCREASE that negative perception.
Breaking out the store was good but leaving the crates just sets them up for people to assume at some point that we can buy stuff for real. It would have been better to only add the crates WHEN or IF they planned to link them to cubit purchases. OR at least use the crates only for the cubit purchase and not general rewards. That linking there is causing the biggest issue.
I agree with this, and I actually see the “Elder” as a possible conduit.
Using him as a gatekeeper to advancing throughout the game, and making the Sanctum a hub with even more options in terms of transportation (Like allowing us to warp for free to our home beacon, and warp to the Capitol on a planet).
I think Player-Made quests could be good too. Like contracts.
I give you 1 hammer, you bring back 3000 stone. If the user doesn’t fulfill the requirements, they are hit with a coin penalty.
The cubit boxes can easily be repurposed as rewards elsewhere, as you explained.
