I mean, at what frequency would you like to be reassured that nothing has changed?
Usually, I would expect some news once per month. That seems fairly standard.
But I’m more concerned by the notion that the situation hasn’t changed in 3 months.
Leaving players grasping at straws for that long without any good or bad news is pretty bad. There are rumors circulating, in-fighting, well-known players leaving. Should we really just shrug it all off?
I mean, you make it sound like the players asking for news are children who need someone to hold their hands.
But players are clients who (often) spend money in the in-game store. It’s only fair to keep them well informed. I don’t think it’s entitlement to ask for news on the development of a patch we’ve been waiting for the past 7 months, when apparently no noteworthy progress has happened in the last 3 months.
IF the rumor that the pace has slowed down because more energy is being spent on Baldur’s Gate 3 turns out to be false, then MAYBE that rumor should be dispelled once and for all by the devs. But I have yet to see James comment on the matter, which could mean that the rumor is true, in which case : yikes!
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Hello,
I’ve started to play on Boundless for now a few months, and i am worried that the game might be in a state of slow decay. While i can understand as a developper that development requires time and reflexion, i am still worried.
Is there any news on the upcoming status of the “249” update ? I didn’t get the chance to have time to spend on it, but i am still curious, looks interesting for the part of new weaponry and shields. I also have heard about content related to blocks chiseling, and it caught my interest because i was waiting for something like that to come. I’ve paused my base building in order to wait for this, but seems like there are not many news now, isn’t there ?
True. But different peoples requirements for an ‘overall’ opinion vary. Additionally, if you defend something that someone else finds otherwise indefensible (especially if you hadn’t left consideration to concede some form of compromise in opinion or discussion point), then it’s much easier for those people to view you as they do, because they literally can’t find common ground with you. For the record, I don’t view you like this. There are other people on the forum here who display more one-sided bias than you.
Strongly disagree. I agree that the specific timeframe is largely irrelevant, but the continuity and regularity of communication is a key to building a good relationship with your community. I think people are starting to get concerned not because of the amount of communication, but because of the lack of it compared to how they used to communicate.
Also, if we had regular (say monthly) updates that the developers stick to, then people would know not to expect updates until the next month unless they have something specific or important to say that they want to say sooner.
This even works when there is no major update to give, especially if that communication is done right. For example, a monthly update of ‘No new news’ is bad, but something like “This month we’ve been focused on working on X. It’s not progressed as we’d like because of system Y. We’re struggling with use-case Z. What does the community think about solutions A, B or C” (the last part may not be relevant).
Even an update of “Next month we’re focusing on a different project, so do not expect much progress. See you next update!” is better than silence.
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I agree with @Marrash. There’s historical precedence on these forums for weekly updates but at this point I think something shared monthly would be nice to at least talk about whether things are and where they’re headed. And I don’t think it even needs to be as crazy complicated as the posts in the past. A few sentences along the lines of what @Marrash posted seems sufficiently in my mind.
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Not only news about the current update in testing, but we also had these quick picture supposed to act as a roadmaps.
Not sure why these completely stopped with nothing to replace them. Maybe it’s because they couldn’t follow-through with these. We’re still waiting for the Hunter creature 2 years later. ^^
It would be quite nice to have a vague idea of what will be the next priority after Local Universes.
I sure hope it’s content and not more systems (aside from maybe blueprints). The game is in dire need of more things to do or put in our builds.
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Well the multiple lockdowns in England will have had a significant impact on game development, on-top of development for baldur’s gate 3.
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Here, we get to the core of what I have been failing to communicate. I strongly believe that we would be in basically the same situation even if we had monthly updates. Three to six months of “Well, we’re still working on figuring out how to do downloaded worlds” doesn’t fix a content drought or a forum riot, it just changes the flavor a little bit.
Just a side note, I looked into these a while back, and they only lasted for like 4 months sight after launch, and they were pretty inaccurate. I wasn’t on the forums at the time, so I don’t know how the deviations were received, though.
Thanks, this is the kind of thing that communicates a meaningful opinion. While I agree that this would be a good thing, I tend to be a pessimist and don’t think this would have prevented the current forums riots or keep the game from bleeding players. The current method isn’t working, so maybe this is something @james should try if he has it as an option, though.
Most IT industries have seen an increase in productivity due to the new WFH culture, after the initial disruption and adaptation period. A large number of companies are converting to this permanently because it is cheaper and more effective. I’m actually really curious what about game development makes the situation different. Maybe it’s because it requires so much interdisciplinary collaboration, I’m not sure.
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My advice, and this is general personal advice, is to enjoy what is in front of you today.
There is no actual evidence the game will shut down any time soon; you are as safe as ever to assume your work won’t be deleted by a server shut down, so if you can enjoy the game that is currently at your fingertips, I think you should let yourself enjoy it.
If you are waiting for something new to come to the game, if the current game is already spent for you, you may want to choose a different option, though.
The last news on that was that player feedback on new blocks & chisels has been gathered, and it will be looked at as potential additional content in a future update.
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The most disconcerting part of all this is the apparent 180 on their well-established track record for communication. Since I joined back in Beta their was always interaction between devs and players on the forums, it was not just limited to game updates, they were activily part of the community, from discussing topics and joining in community events etc… Even when they were busy working on updates there was still communication and involvement. We could have been considered spoiled by the amount of attention we once recieved but even with pandemics and other projects shaking things up the absolute stop on their involvement with the playerbase is simply strange and completley out of character.
I wonder do any of the EarlyBackers still get their monthly call with James?
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From someone who is well known to be gathering all the information- which due to no solid evidence or dev input, leans strongly towards negative, I would say this
Despite my concerns for what may come, up to closing down I still do one thing…play. I play a lot, I build a fair bit but I gather tons and go about generally chatting or giving stuff away (I made a LOT mining) . Does the comms and no changes suck, to me hell yes. But if one thing is unchanged it is the fact that in game there’s lots of help and also lots to do, or just hang around with friends.
My mindset is to treat this like one of my favourite single player games currently. I love it, I play it a lot and I have to accept that it will (well possibly in this case) end.
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If I was one of the devs, that’d be my stance too 
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Please stop promoting fear and worry and what ever else this type of statement is. There is clear evidence that most if not all of the key dev team have moved over to BG3 to do a lot of work because their social profiles state this.
We aren’t sure who on the team is still doing Boundless stuff. Also, unless James has put a bunch of Cuttles into forced labor to code the game it is an obvious conclusion that development has slowed.
We don’t know if this was perm or temp or what situation but we don’t need people starting more rumors trying to hurt the game because they disagree with their decision to not communicate. Clearly no one is happy about their decision and how they approached this situation but people can either go on break from the game or continue to play the game. Stop with the endless negative banter because it doesn’t help anyone and only hinders the game.
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I’m not saying this applies to BL, but one drawback of WFH is that access to a lot of critical systems can’t always be accessed via vpn, etc. Game engines, dev kits and such…Just a thought
I’m looking forward to the melee weapons and whatever else is in the pipeline, but I have a question to ask of anyone that feels they need to know the current state of development to enjoy, or even continue playing the game:
Do you need to know whether or not you’ll be hit by a bus before you leave the house to go to the cinema?
I mean it would be useful to know, but you still want to see the movie, right?
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I think it would have lessened (though not prevented) the dissatisfaction shown in the forums lately. There will always be some people that aren’t happy, but if you can point to a recent post and say. “this is the current news” and then to a concrete future date and say “this is when we expect more”, there’s not a lot that they can say that shouldn’t just be chalked up as drama and ignored.
I don’t think it would have done much to significantly limit the number of people leaving or on a break right now, BUT I do think that some of those people would be away on better terms than they are now.
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I don’t want to play sides here and I think @Rydralain makes some solid points. I do software development, but I feel there should be a scheduled public announcement that occurs every two weeks or every month.
It could be something as simple as “Still chugging away at the code” or “Identified an issue, working through it” or it could be more detailed. For me, I don’t need clarification of what is being worked on simply because I love the game as it is. If someone told me development had stopped it wouldn’t prevent me from playing the game. I was unaware of any roadmaps when I first started playing and I wasn’t even aware of the forums. The only reason I even found the forums was doing a Google search initially for information on the game. I am very glad I found the forums and have met some great people on here.
I think much like the marketing for the game, there needs to be a bigger push for making the game more visible. It has been included in some Humble Bundles, but maybe putting it on sale during one of the major Steam sales (summer, spring, etc.) would be beneficial. I know Square Enix isn’t the developer, but leveraging something from them might not be out of the realm of possibility either.
All in all, speaking as a developer my company has release notes, we have a development blog and we have even had online Q&A sessions on products. This shouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility. I personally would rather hear “this will be the last update” or “development will end” over no communication at all. This of course is just personal preference, but it is pretty much standard practice when it comes to game development.
Lastly, I don’t think there should be an exodus of people over the lack of development and I still stick by what I said in another thread about players just becoming bored or feeling the game is stale as the main cause for departure, but as a developer, if I saw people wanting better communication and leaving the game I was developing I sure as hell would make an attempt to communicate better and also talk to a few backers and get some input.
@james Could very well say I am going to give out a quick update twice a week on the forums… it would take very little time…
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I am personally in support of this patch NOT coming out right now.
It is clear many devs are over working on BG3 and responses to support threads can take 24 - 48 hours on the low end.
After any patch there are going to be issues…so to keep the game stable, until more Dev’s can support the game, this patch should not be pushed. We don’t need game breaking bugs that last for days because the team doesn’t have time to fix them.
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I also feel like the BG3 team might have put a gag order on the boundless team until work on BG3 is compleat. Having been here a long time and knowing how involved James and his team are usually this is the only sinario that makes sense to me.
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