Rental servers

General
22

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! :grin:

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 :grin:

3 Likes
23

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).

2 Likes
24

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.

25

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.

4 Likes
26

I agree. The player base is small as it is. People knew it was an MMO when they bought it.

1 Like
27

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.

4 Likes
28

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.

2 Likes
29

I can’t pretend that I don’t like the idea of setting some rules to skip some of the damn grind.

1 Like
30

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).

31

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.

4 Likes
32

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.

33

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.

2 Likes
34

And here is the issue, “creating a world that is more attractive than the public universe”. If this is really the case then isn’t the issue the main universe is not attractive enough to keep players? If 20% of the players move off of the public universe mainly due to a perceived problem are the developers going to change the main universe to make them happy? If they do, then they risk making the people that like things the way there are unhappy. So it is better to just frustrate people by not offering something that has been put out as a option and push them to leave? That is what this does, it says that despite having been told people private and rented planets would be an option, they are not going to offer it. That erodes trust in the developers. That is no different than the developers now saying no titans or other mobs. They have committed to these on the website and other posts and a lot of people are anxiously waiting for them.

As to your points on plots and settlements. To this point the developers have said it is too complex to add a system to the beacons to allow an opt in opt out merging feature. So that does not appear to be an option now or in the future.

This would be nice if it was the way it really worked, but the evidence says otherwise. I plotted an area on Trior quite a distance from the hubs and there were no settlements in the area. I go back a two weeks later and I am surrounded by a settlement on 3 sides. A guild I belong to found a remote site on Kada away from the hubs, no other settlements and not on top of the gleam deposits. We go back to work on clearing and now there is a large (and in my opinion ugly) gleam tower immediately adjacent to our build site. So without control, you never guarantee someone is not going to build next to you and if the gleam tower has more prestige, they will be in a position to rename our guild city. If we can rent a planet, we can build how we want and take as much time as we want and not have to worry about others building something unattractive or that does not fit the theme, taking plots we want, or merging with us. I fail to see how this ruins the public universe.

1 Like
35

one thing i’ve learnt in 30 years of gaming is you can’t please everyone no matter who you are and nor should you try,the more you try to please everyone the more you annoy and drive people away,settle for the majority and be happy with it.

as for moving away from people sorry but in practice that does not work,before i joined a settlement i picked the most remote spot up a huge mountain 15 mins walk away from the planets main city for a reason and 1 week later i find 5 people moved right at the bottom of the mountain where i lived.

2 Likes
36

I agree, you have to try to please the majority. That is the way it should work. The advantage is that by offering private servers, the developers can still please the majority while giving players that want a different play style the chance to also play the game.

37

It depends, in my experience, a fair few people are attracted to, having admin cheats, insane drop rates, or mods that might aswell be admin cheats or insane drop rates, or anything that makes anything alot easyer. and i am not saying there is anything wrong with that on a fundamental level. what i am saying however is. i personally feel that the games population might be to low at this time to have people leave for such things. But at the end of the day that is something that only the devs can make a determination about as they have all of the real stats and are the ones driving where they want this game to go. I say what i say not because i am against there being private servers, but as a concern of how much damage that may or may not happen when they go live.

What I am against thou on the other hand, is giving someone too much incontestable control over something that is connected to the main universe.

I am not a programmer, I have taken programming classes and I know enought of python to write stuff to automate tasks. Networking and computer security are my strong areas. I find it slightly hard to believe (i am NOT saying they are lying about it I just don’t understand it), that it is too complex to add a button where a beacon will always be able to display it’s own name and owner in the large white letters whenever anyone walks within range of its plots, as the base system of displaying the settlements text is already in the game. Is there something else to this settlement drama that I am not understanding that is making it more complex then displaying that information to players?

Lastly I do understand your point about wanting to be able to rent a world to prevent people from building next to you, but on a personal level. I kind of feel like, that is simply the risk you take if you want to play on a public server that contains other players. but lets never mind that for now. The main reasons why I feel this might be not so good for the Universe is, and its really based on how the Devs go forward with this feature, is as follows

Part 1

Will the control given over the world allow the owner to deny people access to mine or collect stuff from the world?

If the owner is allowed that control then that creates an unfair advantage in favor of the people who paid for the server, it gives them access to unique colored blocks that no one else is allowed to get, and they can then sell those blocks at whatever price they want, which may or may not be fairly priced, it creates a monopoly for that color of block intill someone else also buys a server with that color and is willing to share.

I feel this can also be considered a Pay to win element aswell if you can buy yourself a world full of blocks that other people are not allowed to get via the normal in game rules. Also you should not be allowed to add THAT many extra gems and other rare mats to the universe that other people also don’t have the chance of also mining themselfs.

Part 2

Will the control given over the world allow the owner to deny people access to the world and “ban/kick” them off of it?

This is a level of control that should ONLY ONLY ONLY be entrusted to the Devs or GMs of the game. or at the very least needs to be strictly monitored by the Devs and the GMs and abuse of such functions will result in an account ban from the main universe. Nobody but nobody, other then the Devs or GMs of the game, should be allowed to ban someone off of a decent part of the main public universe.

Part 3

Will the control given over the world allow the owner to deny people access to stuff they already built on the world if the owner for some reason picks to revoke someones right to build on that world at a later date?

Having the incontestable power to be able to deny someone their stuff should not be allowed by any player. This is not a PvP game where the player being denied can fight back. If revoking the right after the fact means they can no longer take their stuff off the world, and/or it automatically transfers the stuff to the owner of the world when the rights are revoked then this is a problem.

Part 4

Let us suppose someone rents a world, and they have it public and anyone is allowed to build on the world. What happens to all of the stuff on the world that other players built on it when the owner stops paying for the world? this might create a situation where players can permanently? lose stuff, maybe with, or maybe with out warning. This seems kind of bad on all accounts depending on what will happen to the world when it “expires”.

Part 5

I also have a concern about the fact that if you can deny people the ability to place any plots at all might open up the situation where the owner of the world, makes a very very nice looking world thur the custom worldGEN that people want to build on, but can’t and the owner knows this then starts to sell or plots for coin or other items or even charges rent for them to maintain access. Another situation that might be considered Pay 2 win.

I am not against people being able to rent worlds. as long as doing so. doesn’t give the owner a level of power that can be abused against other players. or creates some kind of pay to win situation in terms of the Econ of the game. And I am very curious to how the devs are going to handle the situations i mention.

1 Like
38

This is the argument for rented servers. so we will have to leave it alone as you said.

Yes it would. With a whitelist as has been suggested, I can create a planet with colors not seen in the universe at this time and limit who can come to the planet. Can this create an issue with the economy short term yes, until someone else sees the person making coin and duplicates the colors on their own planet, or until the developers offer the color on a new public planet. This can be addressed. If everyone is interested in white stone, then maybe the developers should be offering it anyway versus the repetition of colors we see now. Another reason for the rented planets.

yes they can limit who can come onto the planet and if someone risks coming onto the planet to build, they risk their build to the whims of the renter. Just like now when a community builds and they give someone permissions to their build, they have to trust the person they gave the permissions to not to steal all their stuff, or to unplot infrastructure. Do I think the developers should give anyone that has permissions on a planet 1 month access after they are “kicked off” to remove their stuff, yes. This is not different from the trust you have to have now in large builds.

I would handle this by having the developers offer the people who have a presence on the planet the option to rent the planet. If no one picks it up after a month, it goes away. As long as the rules are clear from the start, then the people that decide to go to a rented planet assume the risk. They can always build on the public planets if they do not want to have the risk.

You can do this now. I can buy thousands of plots and take the best spots on a planet and make people pay for them if they want to build there. No difference. I can also make my own planet and duplicate the areas I liked on the other planets including the rented one to have access to sites that I might not have otherwise and pay the developers versus paying a player.

I am also curious how the actual implementation will happen.

1 Like
39

Part 1a

This shouldn’t be allowed. You should not have easy and mass access to a type of block that no one else can get inless someone else also opens their pocket book and pays for it. this doses cross a line of P2W a bit to far for my taste. I am already trying to look the other way about the golden fists. I don’t feel we need to add even more to that.

Part 2a

A large build is, in my book different then a whole world. also you can not deny someone access to walk around the build inless the whole thing is behind locked doors, which depending on the size of the build may be fairly hard to do with out building the great wall of china aswell. I think that if you really feel the need to be able to prevent people from even stepping foot on your world then it should NOT be connected to the main universe. make an invite only private server for that or put the actual effort in to building a great wall to hide your build from prying eyes. Also If I can look up into the sky and see the world in space. I should be allowed to get to it.

Part 3a

As far as helping out with large builds are concerned. It is fairly obvious that when you are building in someone elses plot, you are more or less donating thoses things to the plot. however, when it comes to whole worlds. I feel it is a totally different matter, and might take some players aback, when the player places HIS OR HERS OWN plot on the world only to find that his stuff in his or hers or its own plot that can be taken away, which is a asystematical rule set, I can not steal plots from you in the main universe because I feel like it. to be able to do so on select worlds only i think will only cause problems. open up ways for abuse, baiting, or tricking people, or just plain misunderstandings.

Part 4a

That should be OK for the most part thou the price point and how much of a burn in the pocket book remains to be seen.

Part 5a

There is a difference, You might be able to buy enough plots to take some of the good parts of a world, but it would be fairly costly to do so and it comes at the risk that what your doing might not be what most people want at any rate as since there are other parts of the world they can go to and build on that will likely have the same type of landscape look or feel or elements. and at the rate of 100USD for every 500 plots, you would need to spend an extreme amount of money to take control of most of the world. Is it going to cost 1000s of USD a month to rent a world? I don’t think it is, they would never sell. therefore there is an amplification effect for how much control you are getting for X amount of USD between the two. which makes buying a world and then selling its land,alot more P2W then just trying to claim what you think might be what other people want by plotting select areas on a world. Let us suppose someone really likes the color of something on a world. there are many other places that person can go to on that same world to build such, with out having to buy from someone else, when you own a whole world that is 100% different then all the other worlds, then the player doesn’t have any choice in the matter if they want something like that aswell, inless they pay the price. either to the person owning the world or opening their own pocket book.

So inless the devs are also willing to make it such that, every time someone buys a world, a public copy is also made that isn’t controled by a player, I am not sure how this can be made in a way that isn’t pay to win and giving people the power of being able to deny ploting on the whole world. Also if the devs did try to make a public world for each and every world someone paid for, that might also create an financial burden on the Devs because now they have to maintain a new world for each time someone buys a world, and maintain it even after the owned one expires.

Ultimately I don’t really see much of a way to make rented servers not pay to win AND give people full control over it, both at the same time. This is obviously going to be a polarizing topic/situation for some people, and we just have to trust the devs to read the stuff we are posting and for them to try to do what is best for the game based on what people feel and are saying.

2 Likes
40

AFAIK they plan that rented servers with non-public rulesets won’t connect to public universe so no p2w on resources for anything there.

41

I respect your opinion while I do disagree on some points. However, you are right, the implementation is very important and if not done right will create problems for the developers and the community. I think they can implement private and public with minimal fuss (they are never going to get no fuss), but they do need to be careful.