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Boundless, this Sandbox MMO is the best early access one I've played
MaxBacon
Member LegendaryPosts: 7,766
Talking about Boundless, one MMO that deserves more attention that is progressing nicely and is reaching a point where it's capable to provide one of those unique experiences. Don't get mistaken just by looking at the visuals "Oh look Minecraft", not quite.
http://playboundless.com/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/324510/
I'll put this review as my words as well: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198142468145/recommended/324510/
Its unique portals feature is impressive, you can be looking at a portal streaming live from another planet, and another planet is actually another server, from EU/NA East & West and Australia and it simply works seamlessly what is rather impressive in my opinion. The whole thing is fully player-driven, the cities created, the economy, everything, providing the type of MMO I really like to play, by and for its community, it's based on levels and skill improvement that defines what you can/can't do or how good you are at it with the skill caps (Imagine LIF MMO style on that aspect, but more relaxed), and so on.
This team of developers deserves more support, 2 years ago they had to literally start over by changing the whole thing into a new engine to fix severe problems, today there have been more frequent feature updates that have expanded the game past building, with one economy, trading, PvE combat, with heavy crafting progression while still in Pre-Alpha.
Not sure about you guys, but on a genre where we are constantly being hit with more of the same, this is oxygen for me, and it is been the best I have encountered yet on the MMO/Sandbox sphere.
http://playboundless.com/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/324510/
I'll put this review as my words as well: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198142468145/recommended/324510/
Its unique portals feature is impressive, you can be looking at a portal streaming live from another planet, and another planet is actually another server, from EU/NA East & West and Australia and it simply works seamlessly what is rather impressive in my opinion. The whole thing is fully player-driven, the cities created, the economy, everything, providing the type of MMO I really like to play, by and for its community, it's based on levels and skill improvement that defines what you can/can't do or how good you are at it with the skill caps (Imagine LIF MMO style on that aspect, but more relaxed), and so on.
This team of developers deserves more support, 2 years ago they had to literally start over by changing the whole thing into a new engine to fix severe problems, today there have been more frequent feature updates that have expanded the game past building, with one economy, trading, PvE combat, with heavy crafting progression while still in Pre-Alpha.
Not sure about you guys, but on a genre where we are constantly being hit with more of the same, this is oxygen for me, and it is been the best I have encountered yet on the MMO/Sandbox sphere.
Comments
Just wish more could bring some of these titles to a "released " state, but few seem able to do so, regardless of the resources available to them.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Voxel-based games are the future, imho, and the visiual quality will only improve over time. Dual Universe has already pushed past the "blockiness" of many of these voxel games, and others are bound to follow.
Once you've experienced the freedom of creativity allowed by voxels, nothing else is good enough...
Nov 13 2014 Release date ???
that always scares me when the release date is 4 years passed and still talking about Early access
The game was long in-dev, around 2 years ago they pretty much started from stratch because the engine they were using had too many problems. That caused quite the setback but things are better now thanks to that.
cant they change the release date ? that turns off a crap load of people
when people see a release date 4 years Old , they probably will never try a Early access game that was supposed to be released 4 years ago
2nd question, any official timeline on when that might be, or is it open ended?
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
They do wipes, but the wipes I've noticed are not global, for example they wipe the planets to regenerate them but things like your skills got refunded (when they change skills also give reset option to all players).
Info on wipes here: https://forum.playboundless.com/t/q-will-there-be-server-wipes-or-resets/4253 I think after they overhauled the engine there hasn't been a wipe, from exploring the worlds and all I don't think there has been a world wipe for a long time.
The release date is open-ended yes.
The lag matter, I don't notice that one, even when I'm portaling around through EU/US/AU servers the pings are decently stable, the render lag is something I'm not hit with, at max downs me to 20~ on heavy built areas but I had bigger problems with Minecraft on that aspect. (before the C++ overhaul the game performance was awful that I remember)
Your last point also relevant to what @Linif said I've met with some devs playing around and was having this discussion, the low population of the game is one intentional decision, by having one higher price tag while the game is at this phase (the biggest retainer to new players really), it's not a dead community to me, and seems to be growing slowly as the game also gets more fleshed out, but they haven't really invested in promoting the game at all yet.
I see this one like Rimworld, or even Slime Rancher, quiet small communities as the games were early in dev, once they pushed on promoting them to wider audiences the games exploded.
And to me, Boundless still retains that, still is one unknown to most, nothing died on Boundless because they haven't loss anything that they've had before, unlike MANY other titles (especially early access MMO's) that had their highlight and peak, jinxed it and now are incapable to revive a playerbase.
I don't get to play many new MMOs these days....
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
They do not actively invest into promoting the game, very little on interviews or pushing for exposure in the media, social media and so on, once they properly push on the typical promotion of the title, likely get the price to a good spot, seeing how it is fleshing out, I would say it will, and I think you would agree the game is attractive even at this incomplete stage, so and 101 Marketing here (my job also), once you have one attractive product you just need to cash in on it, by marketing it widely, Boundless is still a big unknown to most.
That would be huge if it does.
How would you know if they are sustaining? Have you seen their financials? Or are you just telling us what you "imagine" is happening?
The price here would moderate, when they know that the price will restrain how many people will be willing to buy in, but they purposely do it as such, it's beneficial for a game in early stages the people who will jump in is because they really want to.
You also have the opposite, the most common on, games on early stages, released at cheap prices with higher player pops resulting on the typical steam early access drama over the usual issues (performance, lack of content, etc...), often backfires on the devs and results in the death of the titles, there's no lack of examples of that.
And ofc, what you mention is also common, other times games just put the higher price just to cash in on hype and then lower it.
When I talk sustain I mean the overall activity in the community and game over the past years, with a slight growth over time.
The game isn't dead, it's purposely underpopulated because the devs believe this is the best way to attract genuine interest, instead of the type of player who doesn't understand the purpose of Early Access and dev decisions that may not benefit the player?