Boundless News

Hey folks,

We hope you're all enjoying the free weekend of Boundless! We thought this would be a good time to let you all know what we're currently working on for the next few updates to the game.



We’re following a development process where we alternate between updating Testing (our Steam branch for beta testing new features) and Live (the full game) every other week. Then Tick-Tock between minor and major feature updates to Live. The aim is to deliver a constant stream of quality, optimisations and features. Every week there should be something new to explore on Testing or play with on Live.

(Unless someone suggests we do a free weekend, then we only have a few weeks of panic where we attempt to polish the new user experience, and all the releases get thrown up in the air!)

We often have many different sized features progressing in parallel. In these roadmap updates we want to make sure you’re aware of the most significant features. So we’re planning to keep it updated as items are released. We recently launched the new Poles, Beams and Letterboxes so it’s time to refresh the coming items on the roadmap.


Feature development can often take more time that you might expect so we have a few things going on in parallel. These items are in development NOW, so you should expect them to appear in the coming updates.

Special Worlds: Exoworlds will shortly start visiting the Boundless universe. These are worlds that enter the universe temporarily, orbiting around another world, before vanishing never to be seen again. Expect a constant stream of new worlds to explore, filled with resources to harvest, unique colours to snag, and a playground for future features. There’ll be no regen or beacons on these worlds so once they’re exhausted you’ll be ready for another. Exoworlds will also include the first Level 7+ Rift, Darkmatter and Blink worlds. A new challenge awaits, but only until you or they expire…

Gleambow Racing: An event unique to the Boundless universe. Race fellow citizens for the multi coloured prizes waiting at the end of the gleambow. But don’t be too slow or you’ll be left feeling a little grey. Gleambow totems at the ready!

Guild Buffs: Are all the guilds’ perks feeling a little alike? Well not once the next batch of guild buffs land:

• Home Healing Helix provides your guild members with healing whenever they are in a Guild-aligned Beacon.
  
• Building Safety Helix grants your Guild members reduced fall damage and increased interaction range when within a Guild-aligned Beacon.
  
• Brew Extension Helix grants your Guild members the ability to extend the length of applied brews by killing creatures.
  
• Gatherer Healing Helix heals Guild members whenever they harvest a surface resource (Plants and Boulders).
  

Global Chat: A new set of global and public messaging channels 2. To help everyone connect. They contain rate limits and a big group of players will be given the rank of messaging moderators to help us keep these global channel on target.

• Shops and Trading - A public channel for all players to promote their shops and ask for trades. You’d still need to visit shops and meet in person to trade.
  
• Looking for Group - A channel to promote builds, hunts, community events and other collective stuff.
  
• Questions and Help - A channel for players requesting and responding to help.
  
• Advanced Locks: for giving permissions to individuals and guilds to access storage and machines
  

Hunter: She’s still coming. Prowling up on you. The Hunter’s AI is in development and she’ll be unlike any of the other creatures already in the game. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. Did I just hear a warp open? She’s been coding, doing technical reviews, joining in with design discussions - we think we’re going to offer her a full time job. Get back to working on your own AI!

… and …

Farming: A new farming system is coming to Boundless with 4 cultivating domains:

• Organic farming - everything you’d expect - irrigated with placeable water.
  
• In-organic farming - grow yourself a nice bit of Kindling Mass and Combustion Fraction - irrigated with placeable lava.
  
• Garden Flower farming - to bring some much needed life, colour and prestige to your home.
  
• Dripstone farming - cultivate your own dyes by farming throughout the known worlds. Each world atmosphere will mutate your crop’s tint and with skill and perseverance you’ll open up the full spectrum of building materials.
  
• Oh, and did we say that placeable water and lava will be used for irrigation - or whatever else you can find a use for.
  

Keep an eye out for announcement posts of features going to Testing. These features are already in development and coming soon.


Let us know what you’d like to see next.

Our aim is to expand Boundless with new content and new systems for the full spectrum of Boundless players. We’re just as desperate as everyone else in the community to make progress with adventurous and experimental universal persistent sandbox features.

Of course, this is very much another step of our plans for Boundless. We’ve got plenty of features planned for the future, and your feedback will be invaluable as we continue active development of the game. We love talking with our players on the forums and social channels, so don’t be shy about championing the features you want to see in the future of Boundless.

Thanks!!

Hey everyone,

We’ve got some exciting news - Boundless is FREE on Steam for the entire weekend. The event will last until 8pm GMT Sunday, and the game will be on sale with a 30% discount during this time too, which will run until March 4th. So players who really enjoy their time in the free weekend can join in permanently at a discount.

If you’ve been waiting to join the game, or have friends who you’d love to convince to give it a try, then now is the time!

Let’s make sure to really welcome all our new citizens, and show off just how awesome and supportive a community of players we have. This is our chance to show off just what a brilliant world we’ve all been building together, so don’t be shy!

Hello Citizens! We have just released another update to Boundless, with the focus on making the opening of the game a little smoother for new players. Here are the full patch notes;

Please restart Steam to make sure you get the latest version of Boundless. If the update happens whilst Steam is open it’s unlikely you’ll get the latest version.

Overview:

The aim of this release is to fix a collection of rough edges that hit many new players.

The most significant change for all players is that warping home is now free.

Release 215:

Sanctum + Tutorial + Objectives + Progression:

• Added an arrow that shows the steps in the tutorial to make following the tutorial easier.
  
• Added custom lighting to Warp Conduits during new user tutorial.
  
• Hide non-critical tips during the tutorial flow.
  
• Add an error log if you try to interact with a campfire, informing the user they cannot be interacted with or refuelled, and to use a beacon controller instead.
  
• On reaching level 10 and claiming rewards we now show a popup asking for feedback on the game.
  
• Make warping to your home beacon be free, rather than just allowing coins to go negative. All players can now always warp to their home beacon for free. This is to help players who get lost, or stuck on worlds with dangerous atmospheres.
  
• “Mapping the World” Objective can now be unlocked sooner by completing “Mountain High, Cave Deep” or having a Furnace in the inventory.
  
• The Core Objective “If you Build it They Will Come” has had its Prestige requirement to complete dropped to 150 from 200.
  

GUI + HUD:

• Add various icons and markers to the atlas when held up in front of you, as long as it is an atlas of the current world. Any settlements and players as well as your home and any currently set destination on the compass will be replicated onto the atlas with the same visual icons, as well as the top-50 settlements, and any settlements in your Places menu, and will also show any other players on the world even if not on the compass. The atlas will also show your saved locations and beacons from your Places menu with the usual planet-in-the-sky marker icons. No icons or markers will be shown if the atlas has any resources equipped.
  
• Made the atlas larger when held up in front of you to get a better view.
  
• Upon dying you will now be given a second choice, to return home via the sanctum. Technically this is not something new, as you could always do this by interacting with the second warp, but many users did not understand this. If you have the option to “revive” then this will replace the usual option to return to the sanctum.
  
• The game now supports Xbox One and Xbox 360 Controllers with relevant Icons.
  
• We will now only ever show the 3 most recent news items at the start of the game.
  
• Added an exchange promotion for upcoming special worlds.
  
• Added an exchange promotional item for our upcoming Gleambow Racing event.
  
• Exchange promotional items will cycle on entering the screen if there are multiple to be shown.
  

Bug fixes:

• Fixed a bug which inhibited progress in the tutorial for characters who have gleam club.
  
• Fix beacon refuel text when you need to get more plots from the Exchange.
  
• Fixed early tutorial so that the correct number of items are reported that need to be collected.
  
• Fix a crash with out of date clients when new time limited events are added.
  
• Fixed a client issue when returning home after death that could leave the client stuck in the sanctum if the connection to the server was lost (only applied to returning home after death).
  
• Fixed client crash when receiving rewards for >= 20 levels.
  

This time of year is perfect for celebrating companionship, so why not show your fellow Citizens how much you enjoy playing together?



From 1200 UTC today, until 1200 UTC on the 18th February, Boundless is getting Lovestruck!

Handcraft a Bouquet from Flowers commonly found throughout the Known Worlds, and Trade it with another Citizen to gift them a Heart Rock. You can then use this to Craft a Romantic Vase, Romantic Stone Column, or even some Heart Balloons to decorate your home!

Then head to The Exchange to pick up one of our time-limited Wearables, including the Lovestruck Mask, the Ribbon Fascinator, and the Climbing Roses Body Paint - you’ll love them!

Greetings Citizens

We've just released the latest update to Boundless!



We’re introducing a big drop of new building materials in this update, with 24 variations of Poles and Beams incoming. These are a little different to the Blocks you’re used to, with each Pole or Beam acting as a more streamlined piece (visually, they don’t take up a whole voxel), designed with connectability in mind. They can be placed on Blocks, or slotted together with automatically generated smart Connectors. For example, a Connector will appear between two Beams, but not between a Block and a Beam.

For more detail on the placement logic of the new pieces, James has a handy rundown in the patch notes, so I’ll quote;

• Both poles and beams can be place vertically and horizontally based on the surface they’re placed against.
  
• They have some new placement logic to assist with making structures. When poles connect to poles, and beams connect to beams they will follow the same orientation.
  
• When beams connect perpendicular into poles the beams will automatically extend into the pole voxel so that they’re touching.
  
• “Beams extend into Poles” is the rule.
  
• The chisel can be used to rotate the poles and beams around their longest axis.
  

These are a really cool addition to the visual language of Boundless, and we’re all looking forward to seeing how some of our super creative Builders can put them to use!

Letter Box

This release also includes another new Item to be placed in your Beacon, the Letter Box. This handy device allows Citizens to leave each other Private Messages, much as you would your Friends or Guild Team in Boundless. Say you’re exploring a World, come across an amazing Build and just have to congratulate the architect - just drop a Message into their Letter Box and they’ll get it next time they’re online.

This should have some useful implications for Traders too, allowing more nuanced negotiation and sales to be conducted within the Messaging System, making the most of its asynchronous capabilities.



General Improvements

Stepping away from new features for a moment, we’ve been hard at work on a wide range of bug fixes and general quality of life improvements. While there are way too many to list here, we’ll have updated patch notes very soon, which we’ll link here.

Lovestruck Event

Love is in the air! Boundless will be getting seasonal again very soon, with our Lovestruck event kicking off on the 7th February from 1200 GMT. It’ll run until the same time on the 18th February, during which time we’d like to invite you all to celebrate companionship in the Boundless Universe!

Collect Flowers from around the Worlds to Craft a Lovestruck Bouquet, which can then be Traded with another Citizen, the recipient will then receive a Heart Shaped Rock. (Please note, this will only happen once per citizen that you trade with - so get out there and meet your neighbours!) This can then be used to Craft some unique thematic Decorations for your home - Romantic Vases, Stone Columns or even a bunch of Heart Balloons! You’re also welcome to swing by The Exchange and pick up a Lovestruck Mask, Ribbon Fascinator, and Climbing Roses Body Paint in exchange for some Cubits.

We’re really looking forward to sharing this update with you all, so don’t be shy, let us know what you think! Remember, your feedback is incredibly useful (and we never get bored of seeing your awesome screenshots!)

Thanks, everyone, see you in the Known Worlds!