I might be wrong, but what I got from the thread was that indeed, there was only a few people manning the entire network. At the end of the day, I suspect that most people who leave do so because there’s a lack of content to entertain them, and through-out 2020, there hasn’t been a lot of content added. Lots of system update. That’s why I really hope update 250 will be about adding a LOT of content. Blocks, props, creatures, activities, whatever. If not, then I might really give up on Boundless once and for all.
In essence, it’s a bit like maintenance mode. But yeah, I wouldn’t say Boundless IS in maintenance mode. But it looks a lot like it is.
Seeing how often we use things said by James as facts, I would have to disagree. Except if he confirms the fears of the complainers.
The problem with these arguments are that they are just enough factual to be somewhat reliable but still rely way to much on inferences and biased opinion not talking straight to the negative people but everyone
The majority of PS members that actually contributed to the network and guild quit due to lack of content and communication. Vansten, Dumaru, Questor, Fallon, Simoyd, Gorilla, me, Stunner, all are/were Elders (officers with access to everything) in PS and all quit due to these things. It is true that Tagris, Jiviita and Dat are all occasionally playing but don’t want to spend time on the network anymore.
Fair enough. The line between “rare non-fix updates” and “maintenance mode” is very fuzzy.
I don’t want to get far into this again, but most of the things people want to know have been answered by James directly, it just happened some time ago and I question that if hearing the same answer again will change much.
Titans are literally on the website and listed as “Coming Soon” and have been for years now. They were told to EA backers as something coming with 1.0 launch but I don’t have time to dig up the old threads.
EDIT: @majorvex You might as well lock this thread for two months as I’m confident we’ll not see 249 before then anyway and nothing good is going to come from this thread.
You are comparing a small team in the early stages of a game that is also still considered in EA, not a game that has been out for a number of years. Looking back through the news, the forums and a few other places it seems Boundless had a lot of patches and updates pretty often. While neither game is complete, one has been officially released. None of this to me accounts for the lack of transparency, but making comparisons to games like this is always questionable.
This seems like a fair evaluation. Looking over the wikipedia page on that game, it looks like they were going to run out of money from their personal savings and signed on with a publisher for funding to keep going. If early sales hadn’t been so strong, they would likely have had to slow or stop updates to make money through contract work or making an additional game.
It is my opinion that the best path forward for Boundless is likely a slow-burn development at a sustainable cost, focusing on features that will convert new sales and then retain them.
Once conversion & retention issues get ironed out, a big “free expansion” release of dungeons, clothes, and/or Titans (and a gorram roadmap) or something could get the game over the hump and back onto the radar.
Upon digging I agree it’s a pretty fair comparison in some ways. You explained it better. I wonder if Boundless is running out of funding? Personally, selling the game to another company to me is a safer bet … depending on what company that is. I think if a company were to see how much passion there was in the community and how we want it to grow they might have some interest.
Looking at it from an investors point-of-view though… would you invest in the game? I question if I would as I don’t know if there would actually be an ROI. Reaching out to some gaming companies might work…who knows. Why Lariam hasn’t just picked the game up and called it theirs is beyond me.
Having looked at their financial records, I don’t think their cost/revenue situation has changed much over the lifetime of the project. This doesn’t account for anything that happened in the last… year and a half, but we should get an update soon.
Based on what I know about investors, there are two types of groups that would invest in Boundless in it’s current state. One is a maintenance company that would take over, move it to cheap servers, and just make sure the service runs forever. The other is an organization who has money to spend and wants to take risks. They would have to believe that the game could be profitable within $Y and X years if Z actions were taken, though.
Maybe BabyCookie is secretly an angel investor getting ready to pick up the game, but I don’t personally think that this path is likely unless James has some good friends looking to spend cash.
wants is those second chance brews drool…