I really dread this happening. I hope they:
A. Keep them connected to the main game.
And
B. Don’t allow custom rules
Dividing the player base would be very bad.
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Depending on how many people want private servers, I think that says a lot about how people feel about the game in its current state sadly.
edit
It may also reflect a difference in a perceived target audience. How many people bought this because they wanted Minecraft + Action, and how many bought it because they wanted Action + Minecraft? Or MMO+Sandbox, or, well, questions like that.
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this is one thing i love about wonderstruck,the transparency and inclusion of the community 
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This is what I love about the players! The support to the devs who keep improving this game 
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Originally a lot more features were planned for 1.0 but they were sort of pushed to release it early so some of the bigger updates are still yet to come. They weren’t originally planning 1.0 until the end of the year so there are still some things that need ironed out. It will come in time
This is something i was looking forward to before i started playing the game. I am still new to the game but I now have about 170 hours played over the last 2 weeks. Now that I have played and seen the game. Rental servers is now something that I am dreading and kind of hope will not be put into the game.
Section 1: Non-Public Servers
I do not feel the player count is healthy enough for us to be isolating groups of players from each other. This is not ARK where you have about 50,000 players playing the game at the same time. As far as steam is concerned on average we have about 300ish players online with peeks of about 800. I don’t know if the numbers also reflect the PSN players, im going to assume it doesn’t but even so I do not think it would be a massive change.
Personally I feel intill the game gets popular enought to the point where the devs feel forced to add new worlds just to keep up with the player count. This game most likely should NOT have Non-public servers DEPENDING on how much the devs care about keeping the player count on the main server healthy.
Section 2: Player Owned Public Servers
I thought I read something about being able to rent a server that you will have alot of control over AND have it connected to the main universe. I feel this might create alot of problems depending how this is put in.
Since this is something a player haves to buy and I assume keep a monthly fee going. What will happen to all of the stuff on that server when the player stops paying for the server? I feel this might create the situation where work and/or assets can be removed out of the universe with or with out warning based on something outside of the players control if and when other people start to build and play on that world.
I thought I read something about the owner of the world being able to control who can and who can not place plots on the world. This is a function that should not be within a players control on a system that is connected to the main universe. I do not feel a player should be allowed to create any type of rule set that is asymmetrical from the rest of the Universe. furthermore I feel this haves a high potential to be a catalyst for Drama.
I also thought I read something about the owner of the world being able to control who can and who can’t access the world. This is function that should never be within a players control on a system that is connected to the main universe. No Player Should Ever Have The Incontestable Power To Deny Another Player Access To Resources Or Stuff They Might Have Built. This haves the extreme risk of being a catalyst for Drama when rights are revoked by the owner for whatever (most likely silly) reason.
In Conclusion
In short. I feel Non-Public Private Servers might cause more damage then its worth to the health of the main universe. and I feel that Player Owned Servers that are Connected to the main Universe will give a player too much control over what other players can or cannot do, to the point it might create alot of drama related problems.
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I think this is a pretty good post, but I’d point out one thing, I think part of the reason the playerbase has dropped is because some players are waitin’ for private servers. Eventually, the grind is gonna wear out all the casual and builder-types who hate grind, and they’ll either quit, or wait for private servers.
When more patches get in the game, I’m confident the playbase (as well with sales) is gonna increase again, but I wouldn’t say for sure that addin’ private servers is gonna matter much. Seein’ as the playerbase has dropped, I think the people who are gonna be left are gonna be the ones who weren’t waitn’ for private servers in the first place.
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Raises Hand Thats me.
Also I saw some streams and what some players have done, I was very excited to have my own planet to manage/run and create as my own.
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I just dont understand this fuss. If players want private servers there are alot of other singleplayer games where you can build with alot of content.
From my understanding the selling point of this game is the mmo in it. Thats why majority of us are here. Thats what makes boundless unique. How many times we played minecraft servers that were closed after few weeks, months loosing our sweat earned buildings.
For me private servers will serve no purpose to make this game great. It will only divide player base and make it clone of other well known games. On the other hand i like the idea of player owned worlds connected to main uniwerse. It still has the feeling of being part of boundless universe.
If devs do it right it can net them alot of income and for us it might bring new crazy cool worlds. Imagine the possiblities of new portal hubs, new blocks, gleam. I bet even there can be market where players will offer cool places to settle. More gem worlds to mine etc. Why ppl are 100% sure it will be some p2w? The rules will be same everywhere.
Grind. Geez i am tired of this topic too. Its nowhere that hard as some players make it. Its quite light. I am builder at heart. I dont have any problems with getting any block, tool, etc. I want. The whole feeling of making something cool looking is doubled by the effort to make it. For example now I try to remove half of a mountain to make some cool looking temple. Now that is hard! 
Recently there is ongoing trend of silver platter. Just ask yourself what will happen if you get all at once. What will keep you going. I am sure devs will bring tons of cool content for us. I love what is in the game so far and cant wait for more. Hell bring more grind
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I don’t actually know that that’s true. I know a good number of people who came to Boundless did so because of it’s (now lessened) heavy focus on building, and didn’t care one way or the other that it was an MMO. I know that’s definitely how I feel about it.
I’d also argue that they won’t be as detrimental as you think. All the people that are waiting for Private servers are doing so because they don’t like the current state of the game. If private servers don’t happen, they will just leave and find that other game that offers them what they want. Either way, the public Boundless universe will lose them as players, and it’s better for Boundless as a whole if they’re still paying towards the game with what will essentially be a monthly subscription, to maintain their own planet(s).
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Not really no… Imho people who want better drop rates and easier grind will leave the game without private servers either way and with private servers they will actually be able to come back and enjoy the game they want to play.
Those who can cope at this point will either be part of communities and stay or there will be no harm in them leaving.
Those who like it will stay.
i agree
i was on alot servers in minecraft, rust, ark and it at the end allways (#all) leaded to:
- admins that are active playing and administrating allmost will start cheat or world editing at some point
- inactive or not updated servers because the admin is now playing another game
- Special strange rules, ban ppl because admin dont liked a building or a tactic of play etc etc etc.
- tons of mods, where most mods are just cheats at the end and not really giving new content (#notAll)
- incredible drop rates, progress to top in 2 days, spoiler the whole game and concept of develop your progress.
- if its a pvp game: there is some admin guild wich is kinda untouchable because if you win versus them, then they introduce new rules that punish your game/win style or even direct ban you.
so if you want that: make your own game, or get a minecraft, ark, rust server and some mods or whatever suits you.
there are also some other minecraft like blocky games out there where you can host your stuff, have fun.
Let the devs focus onto the real game, ty.
i love this game for being 1 universe with 1 set of rules that are applied to all, and the possibility to just travel around the world for a whole evening and discover the stuff that ppl who i dont know and never heard or saw have constructed somewhere on far distand world.
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I agree. The player base is small as it is. People knew it was an MMO when they bought it.
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The developers will have to disappoint a lot of people. There are a good number of people that like the level of grind, the more complex recipes and the RNG factor affecting the forge. There are a group of people that feel just the opposite. The renting of planets with ability to change the rules allows them to keep both player bases happy and playing the game. If the do not offer the private planets with custom rules, I think they are going to disappoint a group that was expecting them based on prior developer statements. Personally, I am one that will be disappointed and will seriously have to reconsider if I am going to continue play or not. I do not expect the developers to make all the changes I would want in order to enjoy building, that is not realistic. I can argue for them in the forums, but I know they have to maintain a balance. Private planets give me and some of my friends a way to keep playing the game versus getting burned out with what we consider to be to much grind and leaving.
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But what if the people who want private servers for e.g. family/guild play wouldn’t be here without them? See above for an example. Widening markets doesn’t necessarily mean fracturing the player community. I plan, for example, should they ever arrive to have a rented server for my son and I but still mainly play in the public universe for me.
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I can’t pretend that I don’t like the idea of setting some rules to skip some of the damn grind.
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Actually it is because we as a group want to build together. You are correct, if I wanted a single person building game, there are many on the market (and I have more than a few of them). I bought and have supported this game for the MMO aspect as well as the Sandbox aspect.
I do not want a pure creative mode, my desire would be to tweak some of the rules to make building easier so we could focus more on building. As I have stated in another response, I do not expect the developers to make all the changes a number of us want. There is a sizable group that is fine with them as they are. This allows them to keep both payer bases happy.
On this you are entitled to your opinion, but I disagree. Over time the developers have weakened tools, added a forge with its additional crafting and resource requirements, and added more to recipes. They have added time to get the same things we had before. This does not bother some people, probably including you based on your statement, but it does bother enough people that simply ignoring it, is probably not a good idea.
Right now the people that are arguing the grind is too much have an option to either leave the game or hope for private servers. What is better for the game? A reduced player base or a broader player base with the ones paying for their servers supporting the game? Does this not remove the need to argue about grind being to much from the forums? If you have the option to go and tweak the rules to your satisfaction, then there really is no reason to complain. If not then you and the others will just have to continue to hear about the grind. You may not agree, but personally, I feel strongly enough about it that I am not going to stop making the point until, the developers change it (unlikely), it becomes enough I leave the game (possible) , or they offer the private planets (I stay and pay more to play).
I do understand your points, but if the option is to loose the players or give them another option to play (that has been mentioned by the developers) which is better? The public universe loses the players no matter what. If they quit the numbers decline, if they move to a private planet the numbers decline. So isn’t the end result the same?
As far as your comments on the rented planets. Does this create the opportunity for drama, yes probably. Why is someone going to rent a planet without having control? They are not, so your suggestion is not to do it to avoid the drama. What about the elimination of the drama around settlements that is happening now? People do not want to be absorbed and want to control the name of their settlement. With rented planets they can do this. People complain when someone plots a single plot in the middle of their building area or a single plot to block their roads. Again, if I can control who can build, I can reduce this dramatically for the people who care. People are complaining about all the mining reducing the availability of resources. More planets means more resources and spreads the player base so regen should be helped.
There is downside to any decision the developers make, but I think the upside far out weighs the bad.
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I enjoy the Game a lot and hardly feel people are dropping off this game because of ‘private servers’ people are dropping off mainly because “Waiting on world Data” I know I spend waaaaay to much time waiting on warp loads. People want to play not wait on ports to the next port to wait again.
Also the game music (or lack of) scares the hell out of me when it suddenly decides to play. That really needs fixing.
Local chat would be nice as well. Maybe a message system like mail in game might be nice.
As a recently new player the warp portals have me logging off to play something else during peak hours because I can no longer wait out a portal its awful and needs priority before theres talk of other features.
No the end result is not the same at all, As it stands right now, if you want to play the game, you have to play on the main universe. the moment you give people the choice to play elsewhere there is a good chance they might, especially if the server owner is allowed to tamper with the rules far enought to create a server that is far more attractive then the main universe. Therefore I think that the result will not be the same at all and the population of the main universe will drop even more.
This is something that the devs themselfs have to think about. How important is it to the devs to keep a healthy number of people in the main universe to try to maintain the MMO aspect of the game? or are they willing to throw that out, at least to degrees, to allow a decentralized network? (like minecraft and ARK).
There are other reasons why someone might be motivated to rent a world other then having the power to kick people off of it for silly or salty reasons. Being able to name the world. being able to pick the block colors, biomes and the many many other aspects of the world.
As for the current settlement drama, I am still kind of new to the game so there are aspects of that, that i am most likely not aware about, but never the less ill take a shot at it anyhow. The simple solution to that is to allow settlements/beacons a button to disallow merging with another, saying you need to have your own world for that is overkill. furthermore on that note as it stands right now, that is the risk you take if you pick to build very close to someone else, If you wanted your own world to build on, then why would you build close enough to someone else and run the risk of auto merging in the 1st place? why not build in a more remote location?
As for people being [Insert Colorful Words Here] when it comes to plot placement, This I feel is more of an Admin/GM problem and the way plots work may need to be reworked a little bit. I thought I read somewhere you can report people for placing plots in such a way, that they are obviously trying to create a problem. The devs may need to hire more people to be able to go thur the reports and make a judgement and remove the plots that are deemed unhealthy,
I also think that maybe plots might to be reworked a little bit, as it stands right now when you place a plot it also protects everything higher and below it from being taken by someone else, This protection might also need to be changed to cover a small radius around the area and/or be able to detect when there are gaps/holes in a ploted area and protect that as well, with the option to disable this function or have a whitelist of who is allowed to build right up against their area if the player wants.
As for people complaining about the reduced availability of resources, this haves nothing to do with having
absolute control over a world. If people are wanting to rent a world so they can have a world to themselves that no one else is allowed to mine on, then maybe they should not be playing a online game that contains other people. limited resources is not allways a bad thing, as this game also seems to be trying to promote some Econ features. It is a good thing for some resources to be hard to get and run the risk of being taken by other people, it adds value to the resources.
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