World

**Worlds** are the environments which *Boundless* players explore. They are procedurally generated and rendered using a voxel engine. The engine allows for world generation with a wide variety of colour combinations, sloping terrain, organic variations in shape and orientation, complex underground cave systems, dynamic weather, extreme verticality and highly variable terrain generation unique to each planet. Worlds are composed of billions of blocks. Due to the nature of the engine, no two worlds are ever likely to be the same.

The voxel renderer "gives life" to *Boundless* worlds with large draw distances (2 kilometers), advanced level of detail (LOD) scaling, real-time reflections, bloom, volumetric fog, depth of field, HDR lighting and crepuscular rays.

Worlds all have their own weather systems.

## Types of Worlds

There are several types of Worlds in Boundless, each with their own characteristics.

### Known Worlds

The **Known Worlds** are the default Worlds of the game. Citizens can claim Plots, regeneration is operating, and the Worlds exist permanently in the Univers.

### Exoplanets

**Exoplanets** are ephemeral Worlds that appear in the Universe at random times and exist only for a short while. Citizens can not claim Plots and regenration is not in operation.

### Sovereign Worlds

A **Sovereign World** is similar to a Known World in most aspects, but it is owned by a Player, who has selected some attributes of the world and can make decisions on privileges. Sovereign Worlds may disappear from the Universe (going dormant) if the Player ownership lapses.

Sovereign Worlds require the owner construct a World Control in a Beacon when the World first appears in order to make the final selection of Colours and to set World Permissions.

### Creative Worlds

**Creative Worlds** are similar to Sovereign Worlds in that they are owned and can disappear, but they are not a part of the Known Universe of are instead a part of the Creative Universe where regular rules do not apply. Citizens can obtain infinite quantities of items in the Creative Universe and can even fly. It is not possible to carry any items either direction between the Known Universe and the Creative Universe.

Unlike the other types of Worlds, Creative Worlds require a Creative Bridge instead of a Portal or a Warp in order to travel there.

## Regeneration

The Known and Sovereign Worlds constantly regenerate blocks. Regeneration being about 4 (real life) hours after the last interaction in the area and proceeds gradually over several hours until all blocks are restored. An area can regenerate the basic blocks before special blocks like Seams or Plants regenerate.

Beacon Expiry is a special case of regeneration. When a Beacon expires, or when a Player opts to expire the Beacon explicitly, the contents of the Beacon are put into storage and the blocks appear to be burned to  Ash of the nearest colour. The Ash will slowly regenerate to the original materials over time.

## World Tiers

Worlds belong to a tier which indicates a relative level of danger and resource availability. Lower-tier Worlds present less danger and have fewer higher-level resources available.

Worlds Inhospitable or above require some sort of elemental protection, either through Skill points allotted or through buffs from Food. A lack of the required protection is indicated in the game by a visible fog in the atmosphere plus debuff icons and a drowning countdown timer in the centre of the screen.

A World's tier is directly related to the amount of health and armour that blocks in that world possess. In other words, it takes more effort and higher-tier tools and weapond to break blocks or defeat creatures on higher tier worlds.

## Required Protection

There are three categories of elemental protection required for various worlds. The required Elemental protection is indicated by the adjective in the planetary description (see table).

## Exoplanets

While most Worlds are stable, from time to time one (or occaisionally more) unstable Worlds called *Exoplanets* appear in the skies. These Worlds can not be plotted and can only be reached by using a Totem Augment. They last for only a few dozen real-life hours and disappear once more.

## Technical Details

Each World is implemented as a separate server, with servers clustered in one of several real-life geographic regions to provide improved network responsiveness to regional players.