Rental planets with changed rules AND creative mode planets suggestion

Suggestions
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As some of you have noticed I’ve been tinkering with Creative Mode in Boundless and made some changes here and there that could potentially be a basis for a set of rule changes for Creative Mode players.

But, I also have some thoughts for the future of this mode. Just like on Testing we have a Give dialog hidden under the Debug menu with which we can give ourselves everything we could ever want.

For one how it is now implemented is rather cumbersome (and on my setup the Debug/Creative Mode font is super, super tiny), you can give yourself any amount of the same item, 100 and a smartstacks also default options. But when that smartstack is empty you will need to dive back into that dialog to give yourself more.

Secondly it makes the game as boring as can be for me and many others, there is literally no challenge left anymore, you just build.

Well, last week a new update came out for Creativerse, yes, yes, another voxel building game and lo and behold it has painting of blocks like we do already (they do all tho BTW) and a Creative Mode!

I wanted to test it out, at first I did not want to buy the Pro version but since you can’t create your own Creative Planet without owning Pro I caved.

Well, it was quite different than I had expected it to be! For one, the game just plays like playing on any other (non creative) planet. You still need to progress, need to craft items, etc.

But players with Creative Mode permissions, which the planet owner can dole out, can switch to Creative Mode on a Creative Planet!

What does this mean? Well, the game gives you, Minecraft style, 14 ‘equipped’ items in a row at the bottom of the screen, which in Boundless are basically our 2 hands. The Inventory screen works like a regular inventory as you expect in a game and you can move stacks from inventory to the equipped slots.

When you switch to Creative Mode, the bottom row is replaced by a new one (they are persistent, but there are just 2 sets, one for normal play, 1 for creative mode) and the Inventory screen is replaced by a gigantic list of ALL available items in the game that you can then equip!
ALL placeable blocks/items are in there but not tools, potions and any other consumables, you still need to craft those.

Neat! You can build like normal with those but the stacks are always maxed out (which for Creativerse is 999) so you will never run out and no need to waste your Inventory/Equipped items with more than 1 stack.

Especially in Boundless’ creative mode this would be very nice to have! One stack of a block is enough in there to place ten thousands of the same block down!

When you remove blocks from the world in Creative Mode the blocks go into a void which I at times also miss in creative on Boundless!

Even better tho, since you still need to progress, but you can cheat, I needed to find a coal block, after 10 minutes I switched to Creative Mode, equipped coal blocks and placed a few, switched back to normal mode and mined them! :smiley:

I know, still cheating, but this made it way, way more fun than cheating 100% of the time, also I actually played Creativerse longer because of it than I previously had!
It also still encourages normal gameplay instead of just giving everything to yourself. Besides, consumables can’t be placed in the world and not be put in your inventory!

I think Boundless could benefit from a mixed mode planet like this as well. It could open up more possibilities.

For instance, I rent a planet, a Creative Planet. I can then give a select few, besides myself, permissions to switch to Creative Mode on my planet. Then this planet could allow visitors to come over and if nothing else has been changed to the rules it could be put inside the normal public universe!

Yes, yes, the only problem would be that I can then give items to myself or craft consumables from mats that I’ve given to myself and give those items away. Well, that is something that should not be possible. Perhaps visitors should have their inventories locked. And players with permissions just have special alternative characters that can’t leave creative worlds or if they can then their inventory is locked.

Even better is that this allows the creative types to be as creative as they wanna be without obstructions, without a grind at all, and if the system would allow the Lua scripts to run on these, and why wouldn’t it, then even nicer things can be made like interactive dungeons!

Oh and BTW, in Creativerse you can also fly in Creative Mode but not when in normal mode on a Creative Planet! Same could apply in Boundless!

And with all the changes I am making to the rules and settings, and with others @Nerarth is making we can then also have a nice basis for progression based rental planets with changed rules (and of course those should be in a shared universe of their own OUTSIDE the public one).

I think this could work well in Boundless! Replace Inventory screen with a dialog like the Give menu, but only for items that can be placed into the world and when you switch to Creative Building mode (or call it Building or Architect Mode!) the items in your hands are replaced with a different set of items as well.

3 Likes
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Almost the same as MC creative except you can spawn tools. Not enchanted (forged) tools though, in MC you still have to make those.

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Ahh didn’t know it worked like that in MC too…

Still, what do you think of this suggestion?

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I don’t think regular players would like the idea of trying to grind/level up/craft items & having to play alongside players that get invited to a creative planet where there’s access to items that the regular players don’t have. (Maybe I misread some of your statements…feel free to correct me).

What’s made in Creative, stays in Creative (lol)

I think James said that Creative Mode planets wouldn’t be connected to the regular public Universe and that rental planets would, if they followed similar rules. Not sure, I’d have to look it up.

I play Creativerse, Terraria, MC, Unturned, Roblox, Trove, etc. I like Creativerse, but it gets boring pretty quickly like MC and the game is hardcore dying (from 10,000 players 4 years ago, to around 400 now). It got a little boost from the last update.

I think you should be able to give yourself anything on a creative planet, but you can still craft things, if you’d like to. :+1::blush::blush::blush:

P.S. Keep up the good work - don’t let anyone discourage you (even me lol). We are all watching to see what you are doing there :star:

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Well I talked about how implementing what I described opened up possibilities, one of which is, like @nerarth’s idea, to have a set of settings which can be changed and which then change the rules entirely. This is for people who still want to play a game but do not like the grind.

Then there are the improvements for the pure builder types, who can either go on entirely solo or have the possibility to share it in a limited way with public players.

Which is exactly what I said too :wink:

Yes, he did say that and as I said above what I proposed is for more than a simplistic creative mode with rule changes, it can be non-creative with rules changes, a full blown creative or anything in between!

I would not want otherwise normal planets but with changed rules to be in the public universe.

I do however want rental creative planets to be allowed in, in a sort of read only mode (can still interact with doors and such tho) with locked inventories.

Yes in a Creative Planet when you can switch to Creative/Builder/Architect Mode (whichever name one likes best) you can give yourself every single building item, but not tools, you can give yourself the machines and the materials tho to craft them easily.

Heck, perhaps it can be split up and the owner of the planet decides if one of the rules is ‘give anything’ or ‘give placeable items only’ once in Creative Mode…

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Maybe they could create a side menu where players could find servers to access someone’s creative planet to look around (if the player allows access) - it seems like a lot of games have it set up this way.

Ah…this kinda sounds like clubs, guilds, dojos, etc in other games - I think I see what you’re saying now.

:+1:

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And what about a family renting a planet, creative planet, they decide to limit which give items there can be for different levels of player permissions, the parents can create something nice in the builder’s mode, they can change lots of rules around, then let their kids loose on the planet which is much less grindy but still still has progression somewhat like the normal game.

2 Likes
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That would be cool, a traveller mode or something like that. Just to go and see what people do on their creative worlds.

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Since the day I got the game and started playing it, one of my main interests and hopes would be that the day would come where I could host a local server to play with my friends/family, with modified settings that can accommodate such a small amount of players. In fact, should Hytale live to any sort of expectation, it might offer something similar, though it still won’t be Boundless, really.

I feel that it was always hinted at that separate and locally modified worlds would be possible, but more recently we’ve gotten these creative mode changes and we are finally getting closer to that idea in a more realistic sense.

The balance on the main universe is fine most of the time, at least when there’s a community/economy, but if you’re playing alone and don’t have any way of bypassing certain progression thresholds (via coin, for instance), it can feel like it’s just too much or too slow.

Indeed. Right now we can use the give menu in the creative worlds, but that feels too much like cheating for me and does get boring. I want to properly play the game, including with its challenges, but not to a point where things are feeling like chores, or like I have to waste power to leave a server on all day for a digital farmland to grow…

I like to play in the main universe, of course. But even when I played Minecraft on public servers a lot, I still went back to my single-player and LAN worlds very often, because there’s a different atmosphere to each thing and the mood I’m in isn’t always the same.

And really, like @AeneaGames is saying in part here, I truly hope that later on many of these settings will be moddable via some UI too, even if it’s just using an external tool provided by the devs, like the world builder. I really don’t see every single person that’s interested in changing just a few variables wanting to actually dive deep into many of these files. Ditto for the configuration of the custom/local worlds, but that’s likely in the works, I figure.

Also, I do definitely agree that custom or heavily modified rental worlds, if they would be possible, should be kept separate from the main universe anyway.

I would figure the value is a placeholder or up to be tested still, but interestingly there’s already the following in the universe settings for the game:

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I am a bit confused why the existing Creative Mode isn’t seen already like this. We can completely grind up from level 0 to whatever without ever handing ourselves anything the current Creative. In my testing of creative I do exactly what you say - bounce back and forth.

About the only thing it is missing is really the ability to create a universe of all the types of planets and resources we need. So sooner or later we need to either give ourself a color or something. So that could be fixed for sure.

Personally I am still pushing the Devs to allow as much interaction between creative and public MMO as possible as long as items don’t cross in a bad or exploit way. Unfortunately I still don’t think they understand how important it is to keep these game modes mixed and seamless. They seem to think they are different games kind of. I know James had initially said to me late last year while developing creative that they saw people having two inventory - creative/public. But, I guess after more chats they might be moving away from that.

Hopefully the community can help shift their view back.

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I don’t think they should be.

Will creative mode be free or on rental servers? If it will be on rental servers that only one or specific players would be able to access, then it shouldn’t be mixed (as in being able to bring items into the live public worlds that the other players can’t access)

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Well you split the user base and things when you don’t find ways to link them that make sense. That feels bad for the game especially when the public MMO universe is suffering numbers. While, if you find ways to keep them seamless you grow the user base. That helps more than it hurts… Obviously there are limitations and how you decide to mix them that matters. If not done well it can hurt more than help…

I just don’t see how it is a bad feature to allow a person to run between the modes… it only gives them more content and more planets to explore. As long as there is no exploits it should be fine in my view… good for all.

I assume they are options you get with the game when you buy it. I am unsure what will be on rental servers. I assume both options. Private planets have always said they can be part of the universe or not if they don’t meet the rules.

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Of course you would be able to swap to your world in creative mode.
A lot of games already have several different modes that you swap back and forth into.

However - I can’t go into Minecraft creative mode, give myself a bunch of enchanted tools, then swap with the tools into Adventure mode or anything.

Creative mode items should stay in creative mode. You can give yourself infinite items - it’s for players that want to build without interruption and do whatever they want.

Regular rental planets will hopefully connect to live :+1:

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I agree, the items should definitely stay exclusive to one mode or the other. I am all for being able to quickly switch back and forth from the live universe to the private one to allow a player to enter a private creative planet. However, for ease it may be a warp to sanctum thing to limit the issues that may arise from bringing our live characters to planets outside of the official universe.

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Honestly I don’t see where I am promoting this or any reason it would even be considered by any word I said. I have been clear many times in other threads that items shouldn’t cross at least from “creative” to “live”. Who cares about live to creative.

I am only trying to make it easy for people to visit the worlds and know they are there. Seamless as possible for people to all feel as one. Helping to ensure the least amount of segmentation as possible.

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It’s your wording. When you say you want “mixed” modes. Different modes and easy access to them yes. Mixed modes, no.

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I do not disagree that the more seamless the experience for players moving between creative and live planets the better for the game. I do agree that you do not get to bring items with you between the different modes either.

I do think you have to be careful of the characters also. I can quickly level a character using the cheat loafs or even using spammed materials to craft with or build with. I think while you may be able to move your character they really need to be two characters to keep the coin, xp, levels, skills, etc. . separate. With all the room in the sanctum, I think there would be plenty of room for another portal to the creative universe.

2 Likes
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Mixed modes should be no issue on some levels. There isn’t a big deal with me in my MMO character walking into someone’s private creative planet if technically that is an option. All we need is a few tweaks of no items coming back, no XP gained, etc. - a simple ruleset to protect from exploits, etc. Integration like this only helps the game because it drives player interaction, provides more content across the board, and shows people all aspects of the game.

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This feels like we’re going in circles over and over Xal lol — I’m pretty sure we’re saying the same thing :+1:

I think everyone agrees all players should be able to visit any world that’s not private or password protected against visitors. Many other MMO games already do this - it’s not anything new. :wink:

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Yes you are saying the same just using different terms that indeed can be seen as if you were talking the opposite :crazy_face:

1 Like