The future of Portal Seekers (& myself)

General
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So, there has been a bit of confusion regarding what is happening to Portal Seekers, so I thought I might make this separate thread to clarify what is going on.

A bit of backstory…

It’s no secret that our popularity has been dwindling as time goes on. When Boundless restarted in Sep 2018 I would have argued that Portal Seekers was one of, if not the most popular portal network around, distinct from other networks via the usage of shop portals.

While I still believe plenty of people use PS (if they didn’t we wouldn’t be able to run the network), its no surprise that TNT seems to be the main go-to portal network.

I should clarify that I hold no ill-will toward any other network or the players that choose to use them. Infact, I praise their clean and efficient centralized design, but as someone who has been with PS for over 2 years it can be extremely discouraging when I see so many threads - sovereign worlds, shops, and the like, mention how to get to their place from several different networks, of which PS is not one of them.

That to me means that they don’t consider PS worthy of being linked to, and makes me question “what’s the point”.

The situation now

While PS are an amazing group of people, to be frank almost all of us have not properly played for some time. While Boundless has an amazing community, I find myself running out of things to do. The last update I found myself actually exited for was exoworlds, every update since has ranged from “meh” to “this doesn’t impact me at all”.

After building and hunting for 2 years, I just cant find it in myself to grind out the materials, the plots, and to build.

PS has basically been on maintance mode for the last year, being looked after by like 2-3 people. One of those main people - the one who refuels the portals, activates the buffs and helps maintain the network - have chosen to take an extended break, to which I don’t blame them.

As it stands we have the oort shards to maintain the network for quite a while, but with the way things are I don’t see the point. We cant exactly change our design without straight up copying another network, and it’s clear that PS isn’t as popular as it used to be.

While there has been talk of dissolving, I don’t expect PS to go away any time soon. But with that said, the rise of other networks and the lack of (in my opinion) meaningful updates has driven most of us in PS away from the game.

And so I ask, what do you think we should do?

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I don’t blame any of you. I basically only log in to fuel portals now and I can’t imagine I would do that if I had as many portals as you guys maintain.
Whatever you guys end up doing, thanks for use of the network all this while /salute

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Can’t answer question about what to do about guild or network but I will say this.

Do what is fun and makes you happy, that’s what is important.

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What about donating the network to some newer players who are eager to make their mark, or like recruiting if not to completely give away? I don’t know, just an idea.

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Wanna build something Portal Seekers like on Houchus Vansten-chan (;. ; )

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First of all you where my first :wink:
and would be sad if the network where to disappear.

That said i had the same portals for more than a year until recently because of multiple reasons where one of them not much time to play is…

I love the “highway” and the redesign(s) you guys did for the network (still do).
All i can say if you guys can keep it running why not?

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If you guys are done then you’re done. People will just move portals. The landscape will change, go back to nature, get rebuilt, who knows. Finata was once upon a time the happening place to be every day and night. As more people come, more people go and the game and builds that are in it ebb and flow.

That’s part of the cool thing about Boundless. If you’ve been around long enough you’ve seen a lot of change. It’s a living entity.

If you guys don’t find enjoyment any more, I’d say just bring down the network and take that stress away. Take a break from the game, come back in a year and see whats been added. I did. I think it was a great thing to do.

(you guys have always been my preferred network if I took portals. Circa always gives me issues so networks focused there are inaccessible half the time. I think Tiggs tunnels still exists but it’s been awhile. I’ll cope :smiley: )

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In whatever capacity they’re comfortable with maintaining it, will be fine with most folks, I’m sure :+1:

If they decide to keep everything going, that’s cool. If not, maybe they could just keep a few of the most-used hubs open? I always liked showing noobs how to get to one or two of the PS hubs because they were on low level planets, each portal had signs with info, and it was easy for them to use/remember/connect to.

It would be nice if Boundless would add some type of auto-fuel/GC option or all-in-one fueling machine for portals.

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I have always felt PS is/was the Only portal network that worked For me and my brains… I see the brightside of the TNT design etc but ive been part of the game so long so i guess i just like the “same old”…
I cannot say what you should do.
But Maybe first ask these questions from yourself.
-are you having fun while playing?
-do you get stressed over portal network?
-do you play boundless just cause of the network?

Whatever you guys decide…
Take care. I liked PS layout more than others.

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PS was THE network when I began and I still use it regularly. Each network has its uses as far as I’m concerned, some places are more easily accessible from TNT and some from PS.
If you’re happy continuing what you do then… Keep doing it.
If not… As previously mentioned, why not donate the network to someone else? There are quite a few big guilds with active player based who may find it easy enough to maintain and they may even bring it back to the forefront by revamping or redesigning it?

Regardless though, fuel the portals and play for just fun for a while. See how things change one way or the other.

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Hello!

Since you asked for our (my) opinions, here we go.

I’ve always linked my beacons to PS hubs even when I realized I was increasingly visiting TNT because more and more places were linked to them. That is, until yesterday when Dhusk said PS voted to dissolve so I thought maybe it was time to move on and I linked my house to TNT. I, and I think all players, owe PS a huge thank you for establishing their network in the early days of the game up until now.

Commenting on copying others’ designs, I don’t see any issues in that. It makes no sense to stick to a less efficient way after knowing better ways just to set yourself apart. We copy forging methods, shops, farms, and etc.

As the saying goes: change is the only constant. I think it is important to realize what you want to do and when you want to do it. The goal of this game is to have fun. When an activity ceases to bring fun into the equation, you tweak it or leave it. Having a well-known shop (coal and fuel shop) (even if I say so myself) made it very hard for me to come to terms with the fact that I can’t properly run it anymore. My suppliers disappeared and raw mats prices were fluctuating often. It took me months before accepting the fact that it was not fun anymore to keep it stocked. What I mean to say is: keep running the network if you enjoy it, otherwise don’t let others’ expectations force you to do it. Maybe keep the guild only without the network? Nothing wrong with that. Maybe one day when we have enough new content and your guild is still there, you all can reopen the network. Maybe if there are enough motivated members, you all can renovate the network to a more compact and efficient design - this way you can own the new hubs instead of using the old hubs whose owners don’t play anymore.

Best of luck!

Edit: Also, it is perfectly fine to take breaks or play more casually so you don’t burn out. I do this while running my new (smaller) shop so it’s doable :smiley:.

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It’s sad to see PS in this state, but why don’t you just recruit people/get existing members to help out in maintaining the network, I am not that familiar with PS hierarchy but from what you said it’s only being maintained by the 2 elders now.

So again why not recruit new people and interview them to find the right people for the job, if a smaller guild can do it and bigger guild like PS can do it, there’s plenty of people that would like to do it in the community.

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@Vansten Firstly, I cannot express my gratitude enough for what PS has done for this game.
When I started it was my way to find shops, and Ultima for quick travelling.

When we came up with the idea of the Megahub it was so that we didnt copy but instead added a new way to travel.

I think the ideas shared above so far are great, and if the reality is that no one wants to run the hubs anymore, then TNT would like to help to atleast preserve a few locations, not only would it make our network stronger but it would be an honour to preserve some PS hubs and some boundless history.

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Thank you PS for all those years of making sure we can get anywhere in the boundless universe we wanted to go.

It sounds like you are all burned out. Maybe think more about yourself than the community at this point.
If you are happy to let it all go you should do that. It opens the possibility to come back at some point and go newer and better. The reclaim feature makes it all possible.

If you rather want it to stay in-game well then do a call out to players who might take it of your hands. Although tbh I see this as a logistic nightmare with the current plot system

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such a shame, PS has been around for so long! i know people do move on and games do too
a game will never last forever, there’s always a better game coming out its loyalty that makes you stick around. but when time has come the end will come closer faster than you think.
i wish everyone from the PS Network a wonderful time in their new choices and addictions

having said if it has to go at some point i’m willing to take over to maintain the PS Network
i got about 50k free plots to help out

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to clarify, because this thread looks like a funeral. there are still PS elders continuing the guild. yes there is some internal struggle but there are no means to shut it down :slight_smile: there are elders going to maintain the network.

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a funeral being created by the PS Network itself :joy:
but good that its not going anywhere

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The thing I love about the PS Network is it fees like…travel…planet hopping… going out into the universe. I got a sense of where things were with PS.
The thing I hated about PS was the travel, the planet hopping LOL. My dsl connection makes all the jumps challenging. (for me)
All that aside, in another thread Fallon and Quester mentioned they’re still active. Have they been asked if they want to maintain it? I know they are great at getting portals set up for people. They might not want to, but they sure should be checked with!

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I think the PS network is much friendlier for new players to use as you don’t need atmosphere protection. I stumbled across a PS hub in my first week of play and had a blast discovering all the planets. No matter what happens with Portal Seekers, know that you have provided a great service for the community and you should all be proud of that. But if it’s too much or not fun, then nobody could blame you for needing a break.

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If maintaining the hub is currently discouraging and more of an obligation, then I would say maybe it is okay to take a break and let the current PS network be reclaimed.

You can always come back revitalized later, when more content that PS players enjoy gets put in and then PS can boot back up with a completely new and refined design if you guys want to do that.

Or PS could do something completely new with their plots too.

It is okay to take a break. It is also okay to reclaim PS plots. Dont let an obligation bring you down. You can always come back revitalized if PS wants to.

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