I know you stated the difference but I still think you’re really confusing the Store and the Exchange
The store uses cash. The exchange uses cubits. You can’t say cash=cubits because that would mean cubits=cash. Since cubits are non transferrable their only real use is to be used in the exchange. You can literally turn parental controls on and never spend a dime in this game outside of the initial purchase.
I’ve played since September and have spent $0 on cubits (only real cash on gleam club which is only a convenience). I have about 1500 plots across all my characters and probably another 15,000+ cubits unspent.
In regards to pay2win argument, boundless is not pay2win. Maybe if we could buy coin, since that would give you access to virtually every item in game. But we can’t. I can however agree with @AeneaGames that you could call boundless payforconvenience. Which I have no problem with, because that money goes towards supporting a game I love and keeping it alive. But there’s literally 0 need to spend real money. If you want to plan out a big build you can just take your time and hoard plots/cubits until you have enough to reserve your area.
Betabob is a perfect example of of not paying to win. I even had to buy him the game because he “wasn’t sure he’d like it”. (Absolutely hilarious in retrospect) I’m sure most people here have been to or at least heard of the “the all block shop”. This massive build is all one person. One person with time and dedication. The thing that EVERY SINGLE MMO requires if you want to be “king” or a bad mamajammer, or “win” …whatever you want to call it. Being able to do what he did with literally just playing the game is an amazing feat. It might have taken him 3+ months but that’s an mmo for you. That’s how they work! Time spent playing = how awesome you are. Period! This new craze in video games of instant gratification is terrible view to have for any MMO. Don’t play them. They aren’t for you.
This game is a tiny grind to get Max level. And you can’t pay to win. Sure you can buy a poop ton of land at lvl 1 if you have the money. But what does that do for you… NOTHING. You still have to go play the game to do anything with it, a whole bunch if you want it to look nice. Which ironically is exactly what the devs want. Play and earn. Crazy concept I know. The aquire rate is even perfect. And after 50 it gets silly. Like a reward from the devs. Thanks for playing here is a ton of cubits go do awesome stuff. I’m not a builder and I’m sitting on over 600 plots with a few thousand cubits, and it’s because I play the dang game. Simple as that.
Betabob and I are both gleam club now because we feel supporting the game we love is important. But it’s not necessary. If you don’t want to support past the initial price you don’t have to and it won’t hurt you. End of story.
game is about reputation and relations and art biggest jerk can buy 1000 plots
for me hes still a jerk just one that thinks hes a winner?
even worse also cool for like epic builders that have spare cash and just wonna build something epic
the more plots that get into the game the more the builders have fun i say
btw im still unpainted green naked dude in game with no extra real cash investments except for a backer plot bonus and im doing pretty fine in game
I’ve currently got about 10000 unspent cubits from playing the game and levelling up. None of them purchased. At no point have I felt forced to spend money to enjoy the game. Even all the skins and special event costumes can be purchased using cubits earned via gameplay. Compared to virtually every modern game, the Devs should be commended for not making this game pay to win.
This topic is super tired, but I’ve never seen the argument that the free currency and the pay currency being the same is a problem. It’s actually the solution to the problem with so many p2w games out there. If you have 2 different currencies then you have to have 2 different markets: the pay one and the free one, and that is the very source of the inequity that makes the p2w model feel so bad.
The fact that there is only one premium currency means that you paying players and those not buying cubits have access to exactly the same things. The fact that the allowance of cubits is super generous means the vast majority of players will never feel the any pressure to spend. The only players that feel pressured to pay are those that want to create truly massive solo builds. If you had a separate shop and currency for that only paying customers would have access to, would make the game look much more p2w, not less.
I also don’t have a ton of sympathy for people fretting over the idea that at some point the devs might try to get players to actually pay something for this thing that they are getting hundreds if not thousands of hours of enjoyment from. I am astounded at how low the pressure is on players to spend in this game.
I’d like to mitigate my earlier post a little bit,as I’ve gone about my day I know that was pretty rude.
The truth is though the sentiment stands. I had three developed characters and plots/beacons on several planets before I ever addressed the cash shop in this game, and I literally had to come to the forum to find out how to access it. I mean, i WANTED the cash shop and was unable to find it.
Yes it’s in an obvious place in hindsight, but it’s not in the way and it’s certainly not serving as the gate to any “basic” functionality or “core” game play.
Loadkill has been around here longer than I have by a good long ways and I’m not honestly sure if that’s just an attempt to play “devil’s advocate” in some way, or what. In either case, i was pretty shocked at that statement. It’s so fundamentally incorrect it’s definitely not worth thousands of words from so many people trying to explain it again and again.
A legit new player that’s confused can be straightened out in seconds. I have no idea what to do about someone who has played this game through two or three versions and still thinks you need cash to get plots. I feel like it’s just an attempt to spread drama and/or confusing information.
Read the original post and a few other replies but cant read rest due to time constraint. Dont you thinkbseparating them actually highlights the fact that this is premium currency (real money) and this is ingame credits? At least now both are the same and as dozens have mentioned before, easily earned if you play. There is literally nothing that ppl who pay can get that you cant (except GC) which you can very easily play the game without. Sure it offers some things and it should. How else will attract capital? Behind the names we see on screen, there are people who need a constant pay and servers that need to be run after our initial payment, CONTINUOUSLY. In other MMOs, people happily pay for all sorts of insanity ranging from skins to subscriptions to special items that significantly make your gaming easier and here we are bothered to complain about cubits that can be earned and what not. If you kept your argument about new players, i mightve understood and even then, any new player whos willing to put in 5 mins of reading the tips of a new game (which should be done) will understand how it all goes. The talk goes on and on but lets be easy on the devs.
Yeah, this is what gets me downright angry, when stuff like bad reviews appear to be nothing more than this. Not making an accusation in this case, but just in general - when the internet mob piles on, when people decide to create drama or be trolls or whatever, and as a result a great game with devs trying to earn money the right way like this can get hurt. I know that even when I say “internet mob” it is really a comparatively very small number doing this stuff but those few people can potentially do a lot of damage. The internet mob gets worked up, and next thing you know, game devs are getting death threats about butterflies - https://gamerant.com/no-mans-sky-death-threats/
Well, clearly we are not playing the same game. As i know Boundless has a system that when you level up you get cubic, and you get higher level you get more cubic (at lvl 50 around its +300 cubit / lvl) So there is a system that you don’t need to spend any cent of real money to buy the plot. You just need to level up hard as you can, its the same thing as your idea about the challenge part. This why i said we are playing different game, because the plot things you are talking about is way to far from the game I know.
Ok, while I’ve already expressed myself on this, I want to make one point.
Saying “but you can level instead” is missing the point. For the love of god, stop making this claim people. That’s like saying “but you can just wait 24 hours to play candy crush you don’t have to buy anything”, once again completely missing the point.
I think that’s a bad comparison. You’re not really earning anything by waiting in candy crush. You earn cubits by playing(or not just mass craft a bunch and log out come back to a ton of xp)
Well, i don’t ask you to wait, i ask you to play the game (level up lol).
It’s really not hard to get enough plot on early level.
unless you want the ability to build a city in day 1.
In this case you may need to throw over 2000$+ cad to this game if you think this is worth investigation when you don’t even fully understand the game method.
The core mechanic your implying here is the exchange, where you spend cubits to buy conveniences, plots, and cosmetic things. Which is in fact just a rewards delivery system in which the devs allow you to pick what rewards you get for leveling or spending extra money on the game (the actual purchases of cubits is on another completely separate “store”).
I think the real issue here is not with boundless, or how it handles “micro transactions” or even the “exchange” (which you are arguing is a storefront and I am arguing is an invisible npc allowing you to get whatever rewards for leveling you want). The real problem is how the gaming community perceives micro transactions and “store fronts” in games. We all have been pushed into aggressive marketing by these systems in a large number of games (especially mobile games), and whenever we see something that even looks similar we get super defensive and PTSD from it (a lesser form of ptsd, in that your perceptions are warped by past negative interactions with similar situations). The problem isn’t that we have the “exchange” as a feature in the game, but rather that it looks like a “cash shop” and that makes people angry.
The “Exchange” actually does it’s job really well, and if it were offerings from 4 or 5 separate NPCs and nothing else was changed, then no one would be taking notice at all (I mean buying cubits was in the one “shop” menu still, and gleam club was still there too). Instead we would be complaining that the NPCs detracts from the rest of the game, or that we had to go to the sanctuary, or some city to turn in rewards for our levels instead of being able to decide our bonus rewards wherever and whenever we want (which is what the “exchange” allows us to do).
The lootboxy presentation when opening the quest rewards was the no. 1 thing that scared me at the beginning. I know it’d be throwing away a lot of work, but I think it’d give a better impression if one of your first objectives wasn’t to “open a loot box”.
I know they aren’t lootboxes, it’s just the first thing that comes to mind when you see that animation and hear the sounds. After I realised they’re not some predatory F2P things I started enjoying it more, but in the end I never watch the animation anymore.
IMO this is a fair point. The line between pay for convenience and the dreaded “P2W” is razor thin and people will always argue about it. The game doesn’t have a win condition per se but it’s got leaderboards and that’s enough to inspire some heavy competition.
It’s a pretty far cry though from stating that you can’t acquire plots or alts without using “a premium currency”…
Looking back at the OP and noting the statement that the cash shop was separated from the game due to the events around the free play weekend tells me (among other things) that I could have skipped this thread, but you know other people were participating as if it was serious discourse on a relevant topic.
Skimmed through alot of this and I can see that an outsider might see it as another money grab for cubits etc but like it’s been said unless you want to plot massive you can earn more than enough cubits through leveling. Maybe make it clearer in all ads that it’s more of a character cosmetics thing, not lie just not be highlighting something that could be misconstrued as pay to win cos to be frank massive builds doesn’t always mean big footfall. On a different point I’ve always felt willing to pay a small subscription say a couple of pounds/dollars instead of buying gleam club cos I do feel boundless is a game worth supporting and do feel like it’s something that should be pushed harder to the masses, it’s an mmo after all and a bigger population would be welcomed
The game is Boundless and not Call of Duty or any other action-adventure or first-person shooter! … I always hear “pay to win” and keep thinking “wtf?” …
DarthPain is Viceroy on Arie and has not bought any plots except GleamClub! he has crafted and builds over lvl 300 and all without buying cubits! It is stupid to say that you have to invest money to achieve something! It also depends on the creativity and not on the fact that you have many plots!
I e.g. buy again and again - every month for 50 to 100 euros Cubits - but I’m even without this money almost lvl 200! I have more than 1k plots free and I do not even know what to do with them! Pay to win does not exist in this game and someone who really thinks so did not understand the game!
Only thing why i dont rly like plots is that you run out of those especially when you are alrdy lvl 50 and it takes like 200k exp to lvl up.
Either you grind that 200k or spend cash. Or demolish some other build of yours
also cool for like epic builders that have spare cash and just wonna build something epic
