I am sure there are players that would value this and also value the cosmetic changing aspects of the Gleam Club. I personally buy for the beacon fuel, so this could save me $50 per year.
I am all for blueprints either generated when a beacon expires or on demand by the player that owns the beacon, but I think once you introduce storage or automatically building if the player has the blocks, you make some real changes to the game.
One question (not aimed at you), so if you use a blueprint to build something and it automatically builds the structure with what you have in your inventory, I am assuming you get no xp for the build. Would that be correct?
I would probably get gleam club if they offered a token for 1 free any size portal. Would make it worth it for me. Beacon fuel is easy as is but having a free portal that would be great.
While I have promoted blueprint systems I am still majorly on the fence about it. After a conversation with @Havok40k about the beauty of single real time builds I do fear that blueprints will remove a very unique thing that we have in Boundless. He can speak much better about how important Boundless is in how it approaches a few things around building and creation.
It can easily create a copy cat mindset of the same builds everywhere. So that means we need single use blueprints. Plus if we bring in an economy to sell those blueprints then we will have a culture of someone taking a persons blue print and changing 1 thing and then selling it themselves. It increase the copy nature we have already seen in some people stealing build ideas. And God knows the fights that start with people taking other cool blueprints and selling them.
I cannot argue how helpful it can be but I have many concerns about what this turns the game into.
In respond to the question:
Design only for now because of the challenge around capturing blocks.
People should build their own stuff. Making any automated feature for building is bad because it further cheapens the game on many levels.
Hand made buildings certainly are unique, people can be proud of their creation. There is something amazing in seeing all these structures being made. Ont the other hand universe is full of ugly strustures. 95% houses are messy block with blinding color combination. This not how boundless was shown in the trailer.
Building also takes time. I myself spent 12hours today crafting 200 gleam poles and building 3 roads. WTF 12 hours. You also need to design what you want to make. I canāt imagine anyone spending time on crafting all these building blocks and placing them without sacrificing their social life. This is too grindy.
Today 4 people talked to me and requested to build something for them. And I just canāt. I donāt have 40 hours to spend on a castle. And these people wonāt make these buildings alone. Blueprints in lego style would help but that still means you have to grind materials and place them.
In my mind I really tried to defend your point but I failed. Just look at minecraft example. Whole game was build on creativity. Creativity that was not limited by some OGās (Original Players) screaming they want their buildings to be unique. Instead people invented World Edit and there were whole websites founded to support people creations.
If I want to build a decent city, why I must spend half my life on it? I get it is an MMO and we should but things over time but half a year after release but things arenāt really happening. I think main reason why people donāt want automated building blueprints to be implemented is because they want to keep identity. I must tell you, I spend 1700 hours trying to make greatest buildings and cities and all of that because of my EGOā¦ I partialy got rid of it and now Iād sacrifice even my greatest structure for the bigger good. We should ask ourselves a question. Is it worth to sacrifice such unlimited potential for such a trival thing as EGO and unique? This game will be so much more if we will give people tools. And there still be unique creations, so this element of uniqueness wonāt go away. It will be sufficient to not share your blueprint of your unique structure.
On blueprints I am all for unique and if only the beacon owner can create a blueprint then they have the ability to make something as unique to the universe as they desire. Now once they let another player use their blueprint, they have essentially given up the exclusive rights to the design as that player now can make a blueprint from their beacon. But I find that acceptable. No point in making this more complicated than it has to be to program.
I do think that if you use a blueprint and by using a blueprint it actually places the blocks then you should not get XP for those placed/chiseled blocks. Otherwise it is an exploit. I can also see where maybe it is an option. Either it places the blocks or you can have it do a 3D projection so you can place the blocks yourself. Give the builder a choice so they can get xp if they want, they can tweak the design if they want and they can start a build even if they do not have all the blocks needed to complete it.
I can sympathize with you about how long it takes to build something. We see all these fantastic builds in the videos and it is not until we get into the game that we find out how long it will take us to actually gather everything we need and then build it. This is THE reason I have not engaged in making a large solo build. I just help my guild and store stuff in my one personal storage spot. What is too bad is the building part is the part I do like and the grinding for stuff is really why I have not started a large build. The Blueprints would actually still force me to do the part I dislike and make the part I like go faster or happen immediately. Interesting twist isnāt it?
Account bound blueprints/prefab would defiantly be an advantage for the ambitious builderā¦maybe even guild boundā¦
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Iām sure a lot of players come here without any previous experience with voxel-type building games (such as myself) and there is definitely a learning curve to creating something universally admired, so players shouldnāt be discouraged to getting stuck in and just having a go.
Players should be proud of their first builds and encouraged to build more. Then later they can look back in deep regret
Builds usually become more refined as time goes on, as people get more experience of finding their own style and becoming more accomplished when wielding chisels.
Thatās a really exciting prospect for me personallyā¦seeing original (though what is truley originalā¦but thatās a topic for another day ) builds that arenāt just a copy/paste
Just as how some people donāt want the forge system to be made easier because itās something theyāve managed to become accomplished in, personally Iām of the same opinion when it comes to building.
Why should building be reduced to blueprints because someone wonāt make the effort to learn how to use a chisel or do a bit of research to find some inspiration.
Overall I heard where you are coming from and have been on both sides in my view of a solution. I understand that you feel your efforts are linked to ego, but I do not think that is for everyone and the only way to contextualize this. For some of us we do this because we love to be creative. The same goes for uniquenessā¦ In some ways each thing is unique but in many other ways there is too much of the same stuff everywhere in the game from planets to builds to cities as well as monsters.
I think tools are helpful and I do think we need to look at how the game will need to be played in the future to keep it growing versus being stuck in the past. I just hope we as a community can have a constructive conversation on what that model might look like and how we balance all aspects.
For me I could easily see requiring people to use the Sanctum sandbox area to create a build, then taking a picture of it, going back into the real universe and placing a machine down and feeding it all required blocks (or blocks as you get them) and then have the āregeneration engineā actually slowly grow the build. This solution gives everyone everything they need - manual labor, ability to create stuff easier, etc. The only thing not allowed is selling or giving that blueprint to someone which at this point I still think isnāt as important as empowering individual players.
The blueprint system sounds great if you just want to farm the mats and let a machine build something for you then that is your choice and nobody else should be able to dictate that. If you dnt like the blueprint system then dnt use it. But nobody has the right to say John Doe or Jane Doe canāt let a blueprint builder make them a nice house if they put the resources into it. Their is also no reason for someone not to be able to make an in game living off of making blueprints and selling them. It is a great tool for people to sell and share design why would you feel the need to limit other players ability to sell something they worked hard on.
About reselling blueprint I think it would be quite easy to implement a system that prevents you from making a blueprint if beacon contains any blocks that come from another blueprint. Just as server recognises if block is natural or placed by a player.
I prefer a cut and paste option, as it keeps everything in the game completely hand made (and it would be instantly built when placed). I also feel that these should be trade-able so people can sell their awesome statues/houses/walls/farms/etc. but at the cost of removing their copy.
I do relent that copy and paste is tempting, and is done in other block building games. Personally these systems bore me as I can just get awesome stuff without much or any effort. That is why I no longer am playing World of Warcraft, they keep giving away too much for basically just logging on and running around a little.
I am not completely against a copy paste system, but I feel it should have something that slows it down some. like to copy a blueprint you have to load up all the materials into a machine, and it takes say 1hr per plot to copy it. This way it still costs time (afk time granted), the same number of resources, and discourages the would becoming a cookie cutter game where almost everyone has the same house because it is pleasant to look at and super efficient at storing everything.
) builds that arenāt just a copy/paste