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

Hey @KuroKuma,

They may have other properties that make them good at something else in Boundless that isn’t mining or logging. Also, maybe those players who are particularly good at crafting can do something special with those items.

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Yeah, if they have other uses beyond just making stone tools (effectively), that makes it far less of a concern!

We’re just going off the information we currently have - and probably making an assumption that the tool progression is similar to Minecraft’s (and pretty much every other voxel sandbox builder). Wooden tools are more of an annoyance than a useful part of progression in those games (for reasons outlined above)

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Yeah you are right! It has become a standard approach for voxel sandbox games. When a new player starts a game in this genre the mindset is usually “Hey, how do I get a wooden weapon?”

Then it’s “How do I get a better weapon?”

For us it’s a way to introduce players to the world of Boundless in a familiar way if they’ve played a voxel sandbox game before. Then after that point we can start introducing our MMO elements, which are new to some players, but its OK because they’ll be holding a tool they know and trust.

Eventually when the player gets good at the game ;), they might discover that wooden tool they used at the start of their journey is actually really good for something else, or they need a wooden tool to advance in another area of Boundless.

We’re in the early stages, but we think we have a system we would like to try to make early game items useful for end game players.

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No you may not! :stuck_out_tongue: (joke)

The current thinking is multiple “starter” worlds. Details of where you start, how you start and leaving the start worlds are still being worked out.

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Now that is a good argument. Like nevir said, that’s new information which changes a lot.
That makes wooden tools valid in a progression sense.

Now there is only the realism factor which I guess I can live with (although it still bothers me^^) because you use it to guide new players, which come from other voxel games, to the Boundless way of doing things.

Thanks for the information :slight_smile:

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Boundless - we are not bound by laws or realism! :smiley:

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I can already predict forum/reddit/steam-community entries like:
“Why the &#%! do I have to backpaddle to wooden tools when I just spent weeks on getting dark matter tools?!”

People usually progress to the late game to be able to use those epic dark matter tools and weapons. Making them use wooden stuff again won’t make too many people happy I´m afraid.

It`s like WoW saying:
Yeah, gj getting this legendary weapon and maxed out epic armor
But this activity requires common equipment
Sucks to be you


But again, this is just based on the very limited information we as community have. Maybe you have something super awesome and clever planed and my concerns are completely unjustified.

I might be out of touch with current WoW gameplay but in that example you would be expected to run a dungeon multiple times for a random drop you need or currency you get to trade with an NPC who will give you a reward.

In Boundless we want the community, the players, to generate the high end gear as opposed to a random weapon drop from a creature or an NPC reward.

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My analogy was not about how the item is obtained but about having to use very basic items after spending time & effort on obtaining something exceptional.

(I havn’t played WoW since 2010 either, I just used it as example because its a well known game)

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I mean just because we are not bound doesn’t mean we can’t or won’t be bothered by things^^

As a real world example: I could also kill people if I liked to because I’m not bound by anything. (And no the law doesn’t bind me, it just sets a punishment^^) But obviously that bothers other people^^ (yea I love extreme analogies :P)

The mindset is still the same though. You are grinding for an epic item for a specific action just because it is an epic item doesn’t mean it can do everything. There is an other tool that can be used for another action.

Also, the idea of an epic item doesn’t have to be one item. It can be several items and each one is good against something different.

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Very extreme. But maybe wood on boundless isn’t the same as earth wood. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Can’t argue with that.
It’s just that one has to spend weeks(months?) advancing from wood through stone,iron,alloy and gem to finally be able to use dark matter (or whatever is the high-end material) and suddenly a mysterious task pops up that requires you to switch back to wooden tools.
I think this kinda diminishes the reward of progressing through all these stages.

why? maybe you just need the wooden tools for crafting? Also the wooden tools would probably just have other abilities than the dark matter ones so they are neither superior nor inferior ^^

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Maybe the way to think about it is things might not end up being so linear in Boundless. Instead of getting better by going from material to material, you can branch out with a material and see where that journey takes you.

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Well, that’s why I covered myself by writing this right at the beginning of this discussion:


But you know what they say about No Mans Sky:Wide as the ocean, but deep as a puddle.
Hopefully Boundless won’t suffer the same faith with all its non-linear progression.

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Could we please stop comparing every game to NMS? Just because one big game failed doesn’t mean any other game after that one will. I just hope sony wont ■■■■ boundless up ^^

Totally agree. This is a relatively new concept @olliepurkiss and I are looking at and it might be some way off before you can try it.

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NMS rearranged is MSN. Mind blown :scream:

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Just because you have a prominent example of how to not do something and reference that, doesn’t mean you think the game, you’re “warning” that way, will fail.

It’s just a way to get a point across. “Do you know X? Yea, X did Y this way. Please don’t do it that way too because it failed.”

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