Weekly Dev Update: 2016 September 2nd - Secret Features, GUI and more

A wooden axe may seem dumb in real life - but we need the crafting tree to start somewhere. The most basic tools (shovel, axe and hammer) come with a wooden variant. Where as chisels, spanners, lances, grapples, and slingbows - don’t. The crafting tree has a designed structure to it with layers and gates for players to progress through. If you’re not happy with the inclusion of an unrealistic wooden axe in the game - then there are plenty of other unrealistic axes at the other end of the scale we can drop as well…

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I mean which unrealistic axes on the other end of the scale would that be? I couldn’t say what I’d rather have or if there was a third way without knowing that.

Also, ollie asked me twice about how to do it differently but never got back to it (or I can’t remember it, correct me if I’m wrong). What do you, he and others who might be involved think about that alternative idea?

link to the idea

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@james, what are your guys’ thoughts on @KuroKuma’s idea of instead starting with stone tools, but change their recipe to be crafted via items that are collected by hand?

E.g. loose stone (from gravel or new block type) + sticks (from leaves or new block type) = stone tool

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RIP Dark Matter Axe :frowning:

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Just call it a hardened wood axe and have done with it! :wink:

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Gah! Not helping :stuck_out_tongue:

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Why are people so passionate about not having wooden tools? Who cares lol

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Behold the power of the Dark Matter Axe and my new Neutrino Blaster! Oh ■■■■, this weapon not interact with matter… and also you not seeing it as result! :scream:

Well, we have an axe for tree chopping, a hammer for rock digging and a shovel for zombie splitting. What about the weapons like silver swords for monster slaying?
And would it be possible to live in witcher style?

  • Slay a monsters
  • Earn some money
  • Spend money for new elixirs, new clothes to substitute your rags and for silver sword sharpening
  • Repeat

Can players use so different playstyles like peaceful farmer and scarying monster hunter?

Can we look on this prototypes? For the history of :boundless:

If someone in the dev team came to me and said “can we change the wooden tools to something-else tools?” - I would give them a flat “no” response. Because we’ve got more important stuff, game altering stuff, to work on and worry about. It’s just waaay down the list of stuff on our radar to think about, re-design, re-model, and change.

If someone in the dev team came to me and said “can we change the name of the wooden tools to something-else tools?” - I’d say - “sure, as long as it fits in thematically with the lore”.

Maybe Non-Wooden Tools needs to be the first Mod for Boundless?

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It’s just a bizarre flow for players: you craft wooden tools, immediately use them to craft stone tools, and then throw away your wooden tools. (Or they hang around and take up inventory space)

They’re not very useful at their intended job (in practice); they’re more of a weird intermediate material (that isn’t consumed)

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My suggestion is not changing them, it’s leaving them out all together. Please read the idea at least.

I mean you could also have the wooden tools stay in game like @Havok40k suggested, for fun reasons. But they wouldn’t be useful for anything.

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I did read it.

So why would you talk about changing wood tools when the idea is everything but that? It wouldn’t take any redesigning or remodeling.
It would, at maximum, take a stone/pebbel like item, which you most likely have already modeled or it’s on the list to be modeled, to make stone weapons and leave out wood tier all together. *

If you tell me now that you have nothing that resembles stones/pebbles in any shape or form then, ok, then you need to model something new for this idea. But I really doubt that.
Worst case you could even use the stone block as they are now, like in Minecraft. No redesign needed.*

I just don’t see the need for the start of the crafting tree being wooden tools which could easily be left out and the start moved up to stone tier.
I know you have other priorities and time is of essence but those just don’t have any influence here. Since you have to leave something out instead of putting something new in the game.
Unless I have overlooked something. If so please tell me.

*This talks only about the tool head. Anything you’d need for the handle, you’d need to model anyway. So that’s out of the equation.
Also aquiring for example wooden sticks is as easy as letting leaves drop their branches aka. sticks.

Frankly, I find it a tad bit nit-picky! However, I have another silly solution! (besides renaming it to “hardened wooden axe”, which honestly should be more than adequate!) What if we give the wooden axe the ol’ “Axe of Cenarius” treatment, and say that a wooden axe can be made into a super powerful bad-ass monster slayer when enchanted/enhanced in some varius and/or secret manner? Then, the axe stays as a part of the basic progression tree, and it’s worth hanging on to or making more of to make a secret unique weapon! Still not as good of a solution but hey… I’d laugh.

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How about we just add rarerererer trees that need rarerererer woods to cut and make more rarerarerrerer, Gems are overrated.

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Did we even discuss about how absurd it is to start in a world by beating a tree with a leafy stick? Or how inefficient it seems to mine rocks with literally a big cube on your stick than the sharp piercing end of a pickaxe? I may be wrong but i’m no mining expert.

Jokes aside, we should steer clearer away from realism. I don’t wanna play “Earth”, I wanna play Boundless. I don’t mind the wooden tools at all. If wooden tools shouldn’t exist in this game, then so should the crystal and gleam tools.

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I think its less about the realism but rather about the redundancy of wood tools.
Like @nevir said:
Five minutes into the game and everyone discrads them in favour of stone tools.

Any big changes regarding such a small “issue” would definitely be highly inadequate but what about:

  • Remove Wood tools.
  • Add Stone to the materials that can be mined with the starter stick.
    (It feels weird anyway to not be able to mine stone right away imo)
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And? As James keeps repeating, progression has to start somewhere! If you throw away your wooden tools in 5 minutes, neato! You’re already on the next step of progression, yay you! That’s how it’s designed to be.

But that’s not how it should be designed.
Even more so if everything is about being clever how to use their ressources on the development.
What sounds cleverer?
Including a tool which needs to be modeled and designed which noone 1h into the game will ever use again.
Or not including that tool and starting the crafting with something people will use for longer and which makes more sense too as a bonus. (Note: A bonus not the main point.)

Until I see any logical argument against that, because I think there are none which would make wooden tools a better idea than not having them at all, I will fight for the extermination of wooden tools.

May I re-push myquestions that haven’t really been answered yet? :smiley: Even when i think they want to be secret about it, but there is just a slight hope inside me for a little tease :smiley:
Or is the question answered already elsewhere in forum?