While I agree with this in principle, I am not sure it is practical. If Boundless is not even covering the cost to run the servers, is there enough money to pay for development? The money they received from Square Enix is gone and based on what Phil said, it seems they are not going to fund more development. So how much longer does square Enix loose money with no real movement on development in sight?
Sure it could be a part-time effort by James and maybe a few others, that just means slow development and does not address the issues with the game not covering the cost to run it. If release 249 offers private universe, shields and swords, is there really enough in this to bring the player count up to a level that will pay for the game? Or does the addition of private universes give players a way to play allowing for the shutdown or shrinkage of the main universe so the MMO can continue? Sure its all supposition, but with so few facts, we really do not have anything else.
If Boundless was providing enough cash to fund full development, the move to Larian Studios UK (of which James is a director) would probably not have happened and they could have continued to just contract with Larian. My personal feeling is that Square Enix has a date in mind for the shutdown and that could be 3 months or 3 years to see if the game can evolve. Phil did tell us they would provide some notice if they made that decision, so while they might have a plan, I do not think a decision on no longer supporting the game is imminent. I do also think, given enough time, James will finish release 249. I also think how it is released will say a lot about the future of the MMO universe. I think if the feeling is the game will not succeed as an MMO, then the logging into and selecting a private universes will not be tied into the MMO universe. I also think we may see more options for modding and possibly the ability to duplicate existing planets in the MMO with the builds so players can move their builds/planets to the private universe.
it’s unclear if the $ saved by a server merge would balance out with the $ spent on dev time preparing and planning for a server merge. i personally doubt it would happen.
moreover, suppose they had the dev time to do it. they would gain much more by using that time to make the underlying code more efficient. a 2% gain across 50 worlds could outweigh destroying 1 world. my personal opinion is that a sufficiently efficient algorithm is relatively insensitive to the number of worlds, since the cost should primarily come from player movement/activities, which would be the same wherever that player is moving/acting.
It certainly is not. Like it has been established, in every option, there will be a loser (whether it’s the players, James, Square Enix, or everybody at the same time).
I’m not expecting a server shut-down to happen in 2022, but I have high doubts for the following years.
And yeah, I agree with everything you wrote there. Looks like 249’s private servers might be the ‘last ditch effort’ to ensure Boundless has some form of future beyond its MMO status.
But if what happens isn’t the devs fully coming back to work on the game to finish what they started, especially after all of this silence, I will definitely never trust James ever again and will never again buy a game where he’s the leading developer (BG3 being a different case : if that game fails, it will be on Larian). The very least James owes all of us is an apology for this whole situation. Every time I’m being negative/confrontational on this forum, it’s me failing to contain all the resentment I have towards James.
Although, I’m a weak-willed person, and you can quote me on that : if James announces a come-back by launching a new crowd-funding campaign to help development get back on its feet, I’d likely throw too much money for my own safety into that because I still love the game.
Just remember it is one side of a story (from their perspective and likely in defense/support of them) without context or anything from the perspective of the Boundless Dev team. There is certainly more to the story so it is probably best to take the information with a grain of salt…
Well James not really taking the time to ever explain his side of the story makes it mighty suspicious on his part.
I have no particular love for Square Enix (but it’s not their fault, it’s really that during COVID, all the big companies like Ubisoft, Activision-Blizzard, ElectronicArts, Riot, CDProjektRed all gloriously presented how rotten they really are - that only makes me weary of it all), but through Phil, Square Enix gave us way more in terms of (apparently) truthful-communication than James did in the last few years.
I’d be curious to know more on what @philelliott would have to say on that matter, but I think you may have driven him out when you called his statements reckless… when someone with (albeit limited) knowledge of the situation was FINALLY giving us straight answers…
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn stuff like Square Enix not investing enough/as much as hoped in Wonderstruck early on. It seems clear enough that Square Enix grossly failed to do a proper marketing campaign for the game. Though it also seems they are taking fair enough actions, like paying for the servers while Wonderstruck is ghosting us all, letting Wonderstruck keep all the sovereign money (which I can guess is far from enough to keep developping the game, but it’s something…).
Phil said several times that throwing money at the problem wasn’t enough, which sounds to me like there were some issues in how Wonderstruck were handling things. I’d like to know more about that.
But if James wants to tell his side of things, he’s apparently free to do so. He just doesn’t seem to want to. And I definitely am curious to know if James and the others are silent for one of the following reasons:
out of shame because they failed to finish their vision of the game with the money they had and they don’t want to admit it.
because someone is forcing them (maybe it’s Larian, maybe it’s Square Enix)
because he thinks it’s a good plan to emulate the No Man’s Sky team to just make yourself as little as possible hoping we’d forget them until they’re ready to make a proper move… one day… in 2023… maybe?
because of some reason I can’t think of… which is likely…
Oh yeah, I can totally imagine James tell his team “Their vision is based on movement!” or posting “We’ve mastered the ability of being so incredibly silent that our statements have become invisible to the eyes of our players”.
While it is from their perspective, there are certain things presented as facts that are facts unless your suggestion is that Phil lied. I would say these are:
1 - Square Enix is paying the costs for running the servers.
2 - Square Enix is not getting enough money from Boundless to pay the costs to run the Boundless servers
3 - Square Enix is not willing (at least at this time) to spend money on advertising or further funding
development.
4 - Square Enix does not own or control the intellectual property associated with Boundless.
All we have from James is that Larian has nothing to do with Boundless and to not bother Larian with questions about Boundless. James has also said that at this time there is a lack of time to put significant effort into finishing release 249. At this point, I would argue that Phil has no reason to lie to us and based on my experience with him in the game, I do not think he would lie. From a legal perspective, as an employee of Square Enix, he would subject the company to legal risk if some of the statements he made were false.
I would argue that none of these items are subject to interpretation. What the ultimate outcome of these facts might be is certainly unknown and there are a number of possible outcomes that I can imagine. Also who or what may or may not be the cause of the game not doing well enough to be paying its own way and to also not be able to support continuing development is certainly an unknown.
I mean, to me, Square Enix is an editor, never tried to think of anything more.
Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. is a Japanese entertainment conglomerate and video game company, best known for its Final Fantasy , Dragon Quest and Kingdom Hearts role-playing video game franchises, among numerous others.
Check Wikipedia in case that doesn’t answer your question.
Oh wierd, I was having fond feelings for them because I thought they were in Montreal too My brain is in constant skid these days thanks to being stuck in a system that thinks I don’t need my back fixed, ADHD or narcolepsy or chronic anxiety medication anymore. I’m learning how to be happy in the end of days tho, and I have the best cat in the world. Anyhoo thanks for the info I’mma gonna fire up Boundless and live the good life in there with you all for a bit before I get in a slumpy mood from “real”-world defeats…
I think the team needs to finish what they started. I mean I supported the game based on this content Oort Online - Announcement Trailer - YouTube and still have yet to see the concepts come to fruition…
My brain is in constant skid these days thanks to being stuck in a system that thinks I don’t need my back fixed, ADHD or narcolepsy or chronic anxiety medication anymore. I’m learning how to be happy in the end of days tho, and I have the best cat in the world. Anyhoo thanks for the info I’mma gonna fire up Boundless and live the good life in there with you all for a bit before I get in a slumpy mood from “real”-world defeats…