Well we went from 50 planets, to over 1000, to - I dunno - about 450 - 600 right now? If your impression of the population is the same or a little less after the number of worlds increased more than 10x, that’s not too bad.
The same people do tend to congregate in pretty much the same places but plenty of stuff moved to sovereigns, etc… and I still see people in game every time I play. Unless I stay in my own base and craft like a hermit 
I mean, it’s not THAT bad.
Wait there’s more world’s then gyosha and circa…
In the future, all planets are Biitula …
Uhm just to point out…Yall are complaining about them adding something they said they were going to add 6 years ago…
Yeah, I’m waiting for the local servers to arrive so I can host my own world for a more casual play style. Hope to see this update on stable soon.
@james Is there an estimate for when this will be pushed to stable? Will it be end Q1, Q2, Q3 or even later?
It’ll be published Live once we have resolved the path for generating vs downloading worlds. The option of downloading worlds also opens up the option of uploading worlds as well. So maybe there is something interesting in the community easily sharing worlds.
Who would’ve thought that a genuine, polite, relevant question would work better to get an answer from devs than demands and doomsaying? Lol
This is /s, obviously, but in a lighthearted way
So I’m really afraid of the update. I fear that this means the end of the MMO part of boundless and everything that you have earned / worked for over the years will be lost.
As someone said above already. This feature was brought up 6 years ago to add into the game. And James also mentioned uploading worlds that people create. Might mean we can actually design a world for our sov instead of the rng of they system
That sounds cool! So my mind immediately goes to a setup not unlike the creative to main MMO setup - a different kind of portal, where items and resources are not shared upon entering/exiting. I might be off the mark with my miniscule knowledge of how these things work, but whatever happens, I’m sure it’ll be super cool!
I use your statement there, @epoling, but I mean this as general respond to the idea of chasing cuttles with melee weapons (and I exclude posts meant as a joke).
Swords will be good for spitters and even hoppers and wildstock. Cuttles still sling-hunted but if you pair a sling with a shield, you get yourself a chance to block projectiles between shooting, so it’s a great addition to the game.
The fact that shields are introduced with melee weapons in one update, doesn’t mean you have to use that combination.
Sling+shield, bomb+shield, bomb+sword, etc.
Let’s the fun begin 
If I can’t wield two shields then I don’t have much hope.
If you are soloing high tier spitters, the shield helps a lot too. There is just enough time to put up your shield if you watch for the spitter’s tell. Forged shields are probably more forgiving with that, too.
You can kill cuttles with sword just have jump epics. If they are shy quick swap shield to grapple to pull them to their doom.
Edit: it is more challenging then simply slingbowing them to the ground.
I know that and I wasn’t arguing that you can’t chase cuttles with a sword. You can do it with a totem now too, or any other tool, should you like a challenge lol.
It’s all about what’s more natural and obvious choice for each type of creature. I was just pointing out that addition of swords has its merit, and no one needs to run after cuttles with melee weapons.
either way melee and shields going to be a good addition
Another big question: how long before the inevitability of spitters getting swords and shields D:
For some reason that never crossed and my mind, and part of me really dosen’t like the idea of shields and slingbows being used together.
Why? Think Monster Hunter -> Gunlance. Im stoked 
Don’t play it, know nothing about it.
Short answer, I am bias against ranged classes. I been a Melee only player for most of my life.
Long Answer, I do not believe range classes need to be nearly as tanky as a melee class. Melee classes have to be in melee range to do their damage, They need to beable to sustain extra damage that range classes can typically move right out of, I feel part of the trade off as being a ranged user, is the fact that if you do take damage, its going to hurt more.
I do not play on the testing server at all, so I do not know how strong the swords are, but now that my mind has been made aware of Slingbow+Shield, it makes me wonder, why would anyone use anything else? If you can be as tanky as a melee class, with out the risk of being in Melee range, Why use swords at all? Unless they put out absolutely massive damage. I feel swords might be more of a novelty and less of a competitive option for high level hunts, and T8 hunts and titans whenever that comes out.