Starter and/or F2P Planet

If they were motivated enough to find a shop on the starter planet selling tech, they could build whatever. Or if they could talk a friend into bringing them some. Honestly, they’re just better off buying the game.

I thought the idea was that the demo planet wouldn’t be reachable from the the rest of the universe. Or at least items from the outside world wouldn’t be tradeable.

If the demo players are allowed to trade with the full universe, I think that would be too much. Basically then you can do anything in the game, as long as you’re willing to farm the coin to buy it. That shouldn’t be possible in a free demo I think.

2 Likes

I don’t think it should be part of the BL Universe. They shouldn’t have access to any other planets and vise versa. Their play should be limited & they should def not be able to trade with actual players. Real players won’t have access to the trial because they have already purchased the full version and have become part of the BL Universe.

2 Likes

Would an offline planet be better…? Zero server strain that way, but then there’d be culture shock when a wildstock dies and continues to take 3 steps and ram you.

2 Likes

Hmm, hadn’t thought of that. :+1:
When playing these MMORPGs…we all start out wearing potato sacks and wielding a plastic fork for a weapon. I think everyone expects to work up to better equipment, tools, monsters, builds, etc. Makes it fun to skill :slight_smile:

2 Likes

You can’t have access to forge materials on a T1 world though.

1 Like

No, you’d have to buy them if they did it that way.

I think right now for them its not how to attract new people.
When the game “Official Released”, we actually had a lot of active players daily.
I could see a lot of people showed up in our city and most of them i never met.

The problem is, most of those players quit.
Due to my observation, only like 30% of players will play long enough to become mid level players.
Only 15- 20% players will become end game level players ( Base on crafting / forging / char lvl)

Most of players quit around 2 weeks - 1 month play times.

This why the population is so low.

The problem for wonderstuck is how they make those players willing to stay longer to enjoy the fun part of this game.
(We all know this game has a lot of potential, just people can’t stay long enough to understand that)

It means there must be some problem for the earlier lvl contents.

Also the lack of end game contents cause a lot of players leave as well.

They need to “Fix” all this issue first, and start doing the same promotion and release the giant patch to attract people again.

Offer free play i really don’t think it will help them running their business. I am sure most people will leave when they feel the same as those new players who left earlier.

This I feel is the main reason the game is and will suffer, just about everyone in the guild that i am in, which seems to contain about 30 players, has quit for this reason and the nerfs on top of that do not help the situation.

I don’t think its because they are not staying long enough to understand that, i do believe most people do understand the game haves alot of potential, and that is part of the problem, its just potential, and i think because the devs putting out very little content at an time, A new block every week or two, while nice is not good enough and people don’t want to wait 6 to 8 months for all the updates to add up into something better, when they could be playing something else in the mean time that haves a more finished experience.

Also almost everyone in the guild that i am in doesn’t like how short the road map is they put out, they claim it is not really a real roadmap and more of a “coming soon” list.

Right now we have a MMO sandbox game that is pretending to also be a RPG. and as long as that remains the case. I don’t think some people want to wait even if they understand the potential that might not come for another year or 2.

If a player is indeed leaving the game before they get to the point they understand that this game haves the potential, then I feel that is more due to the fact this game just is not their type of game, vs them not understanding something.

About the potential part i was saying is for the players who quit around beginner level to mid level.
I used to host the huge town, we had like around average 20 -30 active players.
Due to my observation during the official released time, a lot of new players quit before they fully understand the game. (Of course some will stay and play till now, but the majority of people quit.)

So i think there must be some problem for their early game.

Since i was the alpha players, so its hard for me to experience the game as the beginner when the game released. Once the new universe started, me and most my guildys we already knew how to play this game till the end game.

Also they used to promote this game as the minecraft but mmorpg.
However, minecraft has mod system, so people will never feel it lack of end game content.
Once they are bored at any point, they can simply switch mod and experience totally different game content. (sometimes even the graphic) This is the huge difference between Boundless and Minecraft.

Boundless kind of require Devs to keep working on a new content to keep players feel “fresh”.
I understand this is very difficult to do, but most mmorpg in the current market they all have this issue as well.

As result, i think its fair to ask Wonderstock company to catch up the new “content”. Adding a few blocks to the game is not consider as new content. (at least not for me, Its more like extra art work) Otherwise the market will make the population of this game decrease more in future.

A lot of defenders may feel the population drop because of other great game release on the game market, but if this game is fun enough, i believe majority of people they won’t leave.

This why i feel making this game free won’t solve the population issue because the game itself has some problem need devs to find out the solution first, and then they can think about the best way to promote the game and find players back.

Well I am curious to what this problem is. I started playing after release, as my attention was only brought to this game mostly by it showing up on the steam new releases section and slightly by one of my friends talking about it. The only problems I encountered in my early game was getting over the fact that melee combat in this game is suicidal (I am a melee only player by nature), and making glue was kind of annoying, mostly due to the major regen problem with surface stuff at that time, and cutting down trees with basic tools and no control range is not so fun. Other then that, I do not recall having any problems with my early game.

I was a bit disappointed when I learned the max player cap was 60 (now 80) per world at the time, I came in to the game kind of expecting each world to have around 150 to 300 players online at peek times.

The crafting UI in this game might be a little overloaded for some people as it is just a flat list, with no search function, and the filters are annoying as all ████ to click thru, so maybe this might add some level of confusion and annoyance to a newer player.

One other problem that may be a factor, is players failing to understand how important it is to keep on top of refueling his own and/or her own beacon, They let it expire by mistake, and then quit the game because they lost everything unexpectedly and they may not fully understand why.

So I am curious to what other problems other people may have had that might cause them to consider quitting before giving the game a decent amount of time to try.

I like this idea, but why not let them run around normal lvl1 planets but with the same restrictions? Then they can also see what is possible further in the game, they can look thru a portal but not go thru it, talk with more experienced players, etc. Limit to one char per account too.

Could really work I think!

6 Likes

:+1: (minimum characters)

1 Like

Chiming in on the, “why do people leave so early in the game” thing…
For reference, I’m no stranger to crafting/survival games, nor MMORPG grind. But when I first bought the game in early access, I was thinking Minecraft, Creativerse, and Terraria- looking for a similar game but with a more seamless, unified multiplayer universe.

And oh boy, Boundless sure gave me whiplash.

I touched down on Solum with no player builds in sight and wandered around a bit and honestly, it was just Overwhelming. In comparison to basically every other voxel/sandbox/crafting game out there, the number of steps to make every little thing was just difficult to comprehend. I distinctly remember looking at recipes thinking I wanted to make a torch…so you’re telling me I need to kill >1 monster for tallow per torch? what is a sackcloth? ok, how do I get an extractor for a sackcloth? [googles: “boundless how to make extractor”] oh ok, I need a workbench first, that’s actually different from the crafting table. ok ok wait first I need a crucible to melt some copper to make the workbench to make the extractor to make the sackcloth to make the torch.

Honestly, I didn’t make it very far. I hung around just long enough to get stuck on iron tools before quitting.

That seems to match the pattern of basically every now-gone settler I’ve seen fade away from near my Storis II base. There were lots of them- nearly a dozen- but one by one their bases have burned out. Mostly at the same tier of progression that I was stuck at back then.

It’s only after the official release that I came back, and things went much better the second time around in large part because I was already expecting what Boundless had to throw at me. The objective guide helped a lot, too.

I think there is a sense of crazy urgency in the beginning of the game, where you feel that you need everything and have nothing, and it’s easy to burn out on. It almost seems like a filter, or a weeder course, or something. cos the “lategame” actually gets significantly easier and it seems like it’s mostly at that point that building big and fancy becomes realistically possible.

I really like Aenea’s idea of letting free demo players join the normal lv1 planets with the stated restrictions. I think that being able to see the multiplayer aspect, the crazy cities, and the quiet builds are an important part of the experience.

2 Likes

I rather have f2p players in a offline version or blocked off world. Cuz of trolls and spammers that come with free games.
If they make a online version f2p, they should not be allowed to be able to trade hand to hand or place shop/request baskets for RMT will be a thing then.

Noobius (obviously the name of the demo planet) should be vistable by everyone else so we can show off what its like to be one of the cool kids.

If i was trying out the game and someone warped in and handed me a max forged bow i would be pretty inspired.

Either that or it should be pvp and noobs have a chance to drop advanced coils.

Not sure if im feeling nice or mean tonight. You gotta admit noob hunts do sound kinda fun though.

1 Like

:joy:

Countdown starts now little noobie, run, run! Muahahahahahaha

2 Likes

I remember my first char, and not wanting to “waste” skill points to be able to craft better tools. And then fiber leaves were bugged on top of that. Then I spent the skill point and still couldn’t craft better tools because I didn’t know I needed a workbench. Game gave me a headache for the first week.