Ok, let’s look at this from the perspective on a new player that wants to play on Creative and be connected to other players… not from a perspective of players that have been playing for 2 years, have all the skills and are sitting on a few million coins to buy whatever they want.
I’m going to use Nightstars summary as it perfectly describes what the current “simple” plan is with regards to portals on creative…
Buying Oort to fuel portals is out of the question for a purely Creative player, as they just won’t have the coin to do so. Let’s show this with some scenarios…
Scenario 1: Tell them to “join a hunt” … first let’s look at the minimum skills and equipment needed to actually join a hunt group …
- They’ll likely need 8 points in agility to be able to keep up (ignoring that some players run n00b friendly hunt groups as this is play time limited - i.e. those hunts aren’t running all day every day).
- They’ll likely need 12 points in atmosphere protections - 4 in each (again, can’t rely on groups just hunting on low tier worlds due to play time limitations - also remember that these skills only unlock at level 12).
- They’ll need a loot stick, otherwise they’ll likely not keep up with the group as it will have moved on while they’re whacking individual corpses with a stick. Can’t forge your own, so they’ll need coin to buy one (or rely on someone giving them one, which should never be a factor).
- They’ll need a decent grapple. Again, can’t make and forge your own, so they’ll need coin to buy one.
- If they actually plan on shooting anything, just so they don’t feel like they’re a dead weight in the group, they’ll need coin to buy a Slingbow.
- They’ll need food… as energy drain is a thing.
All these things take time, playing in the survival universe, to acquire.
Scenario 2: No hunt groups running when you play, so they need to hunt solo. (Let’s completely ignore the fact that in 50 minutes you can get enough Oortstone for 900 shards… on a level 50 character).
- You’ll need … actually I have no idea how a fresh level 1-2 character is supposed to get any of the skills and equipment needed to hunt solo, without playing a fair chunk of Survival first.
Bottom line, acquiring Oort is going to be a massive chore for a creative player… Ok, fine… let’s assume they have acquired some Oort anyway… now they need to process it into shards so they can actually use it…
- They’re going to need to build an extractor… Stone, Base Metal (Copper/Iron) & Ancient Tech Remnant…
- … which means they now need to make Shovels and Hammers for digging/mining.
Alright, let’s assume they’ve done all that…
- They’re going to need some Portal Conduits to actually connect their chosen place in the survival universe to their creative world - Refined Rock, Refined Wood & Opal…
- Now they need to build a Workbench - Timber, Base Metal & Ancient Tech Remnant.
- Now they need to build a Refinery to make the Refined Wood & Rock - More Stone, Precious Alloy, Ancient Tech Component & Ancient Tech Remnant… Oh, and Spark.
- Now they need to build a Spark Generator (Base Metal, Iron Furnace Base, Cog & Ancient Tech Component)…
- Now they need to make Spark Links to connect the Machine to the Generator (Base Metal & Ancient Tech Remnant).
… I feel I don’t need to continue with this … you can see where I am going with it… (Edit: Even though I missed out getting fuels for smelting and spark!)
For someone that wants to just play in Creative and be connected to the rest of the main universe like everyone else, even though they gain no advantage over Survival players as they don’t get footfall, nor do they participate in the economy and certainly they take nothing away from the Survival universe at all… there is no p2w argument here as there is nothing for them to gain other than players more easily being able to reach and see whatever wonders they have built.
TL;DR
It’s absolutely NOT just about getting Oort to fuel a portal. It’s being forced (yes, forced) into playing Survival for countless hours (see above), just to get to the stage where you can be connected to the rest of the universe like everyone else.
For me, the simplest solution seems to be the absolute worse solution for getting players to actually rent a Creative world.