This article brought back many memories. Writing a history for a new character with it including the Black Ogre event that happen between Trinsic and Skara. Working with Friends trying to Clear the undead out of Trinsic,
God I remember those! The best times I've ever had in any MMO was during those chained Live Events in UO.
I remember... the public funeral for some murdered noble in one of the ciies, many players in attendance, the dm-led ceremony was proceeding very solemnly, when a black robed character pushed his way thru the crowded church and shouted threats of doom and destruction on all in the city, then disappeared!
Mass confusion for a few minutes, what was going on???
Suddenly the npc Town Criers staterted yelling TO ARMS! TO ARMS! THE CITY IS UNDER ATTACK!
Everyone RACED out of the church to find the gate was being sieged by waves of monsters! Friends and strangers spontaneously grouped and fought like berzerkers to push them back and chase them up the highway. After what seemed like hours of fighting our over-zealous party got too far ahead and we fell to a pack of Red Robe Mages.
Later we found out the whole assault was just a diversion - when the city emptied out to fight the monsters someone slipped in and kidnapped the Mayors daughter! Who planned and executed such a foul deed?!?! Where was she taken??? We must rescue her!!!
and on and on the Adventures and Intrigues went. Wonderful stuff.
Well I think the suits' myth that only linear theme park games are profitable is a complete bunk.
The only 2 MMORPGS that were really successful in this WoW era (except the lumbering giant itself) were EVE online which is a pure sandbox and Guild Wars which has a definitely "sandboxy" advancement scheme - no leveling to speak of, lateral skill based advancement which keeps all the players in basically the same "tier".
All the AAA mmos that followed EQ single-player RPG model "grind levels to eventually save the world" failed to varying degrees. (Except WoW which suceeded due to an entirely different set of reasons) While SWG didn't really perform stellar it was destroyed by force-applying of the EQ model. WAR and AoC's faults can be to a large degree attributed to the forced stratification of players and the percieved "grind" inherent to the model which plays total havoc with the PvP component (and many others) of the game.
Imo the greatest problem with breaking the "developer ice" with sandbox mmos is that they still equate sandbox with hardcore PvP - as Dana noticed, with DF a prime example. You can have a sandbox with "soft" PvP or even without any PvP at all - if themepark games managed to dispense with the harsh death penalties nonsense (EQ was quite hard there) then there is no reason whatsoever why sandboxes shouldn't do the same. Until someone makes a sandbox game that doesn't actually punish you for playing with harsh death penalties we will never see a truly mainstream sandbox mmo.
Notice that I'm not saying that harsh death penalties are inherently bad.. Some people do enjoy them and the sense of danger they bring. However it is now obvious even to the blind dog that the vast majority of mainstream players and especially casuals (the guys whose 15$ is as good as yours) find them a real obstacle to enjoying a game. For example - the negative experience of ganking - the scourge of open PvP worlds - is directly proportional to the harshness of the death penalty associated. No death penalties and ganking becomes maybe a minor annoyance without the need to actually implement laborious elaborate systems to prevent it.
Flummox, thanks for helping me to remember some of the greatest times ive ever experienced in gaming ever, all those live events in UO can never hold a candle to games these days, and i suppose alot of people wont ever understand that. Thanks again.
Sandbox concept is freedom in a sense. But you have to be charged for content. No such thing as a true or proper sandbox let alone ever will be. What makes you think a developer would host something without wanting something in return whether it's making you pay for content, pay to upload your own stuff, or pay to play. Want a true sandbox load up a single player game. Just hope yeah don't mind the fact your the only one gonna be playing on it.
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
Blizzard is all about making the most money. Thats to be found in the mass markets. Thus, thats what their focus is. Niche markets seldom attract the attention of major investors. All those investors care about is their return on investment. Intone the mystic phrase; "Its just like World of Warcraft" and watch them go all starry eyed, and start throwing truck loads of money at you. AAA class games are NOT cheap. They typically cost many millions of dollars(of other peoples money). Thus the suits involved are VERY wary of taking risks. Theme park games like WoW have demonstrated a substantial return on investment. Sand box games tend to be niche. Until that perception can be altered, I doubt we are going to see much progress.
Blizzard will today only makes games they know will earn moneys, things were different 12 years ago but this is something that happens with most companys that becomes to big. Also they lost Jeff Strain who kinda was a pioneer and wasn't scared of trying new things like Diablo who were rather different at the time.
So Blizzard can well make a sandbox game but only after someone else have a successful one running, Morhaime would not take the chanse otherwise because a Blizzard MMO today will cost 100K million dollars at least to make. A total failure would really hurt Blizzard, both in terms of cash and hurting the brand.
No, the hope of the sandbox fans are right now with other companies, like CCP. CCP will present their next game late this month, it is most likely "World of darkness online". If it will be a sandbox, a themepark or something else is still anyones guess but it is likely that it will at least have many sandbox features. It will however also likely have many RPG features (something that is rare if not non existing in a MMO) since it is made together with the pen and paper RPG maker White wolf.
As I see it there are other way than themparks and sandboxes also and mixes of both those and other types of games. A MMO doesn't really have to either be like EQ/Wow or Eve. In Wow your only freedom is to not take a quest if you think it is boring, I don't see the future of gaming in that.
While sandbox games might be on life support, they are hardly dead.
Most people mention EVE, but there are others around in some surprizing places. EVE definatly is the most sandbox subscription game out there. But for those who have no pejudices againts F2P games, I would strongly encourage them to geive Voyage of the Century or better yet, Bounty Bay a try (they are essentially the same game run by diferent companies).
VOC/BB was open enough to me, a 3 year vetaran of EVE to really enjoy it and somewhat become addicted to it. Other then that, another game I don't think anyone mentioned was Runequest. True, I did not enjoy the game myself and the graphics are, for the lack of a better word, "challenged", but it's still pretty open ended.
I'm sure if we look around there are probably even more sandbox games out there. Some more flexible then others, and some more obvious then others for sure, but there are still a few there.
Personally I wish there were more out there since to me those are the most enjoyable games. If there are two things that I really hate in a game it's being forced to gring endlessly and being pigeonholed in certain path. Both things that most game these days seem to think they need to do in order to stay sucessfull.
I think probably the worst in that respect was CoH/CoV. Even though I really enjoyed those games I got tired of going to the forums and hear people almost demanding that certain builds needed certain powers. That really got ugly and I remember even having a intense argument with one such idiotic biggot who was proud of the fact that if he noticed a there was a tanker in his team that did not have stamina he would promptly kick him. And he was one of a whole horde of people who thoght it was their devine right to tell you how to build your character
Such kneejerks are a rare site in sandbox games, which is an added bonus all by itself.
First of all, I would like to say I absolutely love the responses in this thread, I read about all of them except the last two pages which really was just repeated material more or less in one way or another.
To eric:
No this is not a bash against you, so its safe to read I just think people seem to hate your opinions just based on the style of writing (which I agree with Dana, it has points like anyone else's opinions) and maybe in part they see your opinions against games, that they seem to have loved/connected with, as an attack which wasn't your intention. But anyway, you seem to do a lot of redefining words like "freedom" and "lack of direction" etc. which ultimately makes you neither right nor wrong. However, why so set on trying to put "sandbox" games into the same context with "theme park" games? Regardless in how we define the words, it seems you can easily redefine the context of it back into saying that you can do the same things in both. Perhaps, maybe its not about having the same content and more about the mechanics and context behind it. Sure I can pick berries in WoW with a little use of my eyes, being in the right area and a single mouse click, but would this still be the same to you if berry picking actually involved let's say an extreme example like physically looking a bush which opened a loot window forcing you to pick between a ripe or unripe berry, which can lead to a weak effect or strong effect (or perhaps even between a beneficial or adverse reaction even)? I think some of your thoughts appear to be a bit narrowminded and give very little freedom to other thoughts as well.
To the general population, first off, everyone says Blizzard is all about money or wouldn't have the testicular fortitude to take a risk. My question is, if the risk isn't worth the reward, would you take the risk? Take their position for example, they currently have the top-selling MMORPG right now. Would you relinquish resources while you are #1 to take a risk on concepts which would apply to a more niche market? I'm sure they're a beast in terms of resources, but their resources do have a limit somewhere along the line and they have a baby to take care of already. If I was #1 at ANYTHING, I wouldn't risk what I already am successfully doing by switching gears into something like a sandbox MMORPG, I would keep doing the same thing over and over again and make the most of it until it needs fixing ("If it ain't broke, don't fix it"). Sure, I may sound like a business man or all I care about is sales/money but if any of YOU were in the same position, you would do that too and hey they still have much of their player base currently so they seem to be doing something right still after how many years.
My second point is that it seems people are actually defining sandbox more and more into a criteria set. Why is that? Just curious to the responses. Sandbox is supposedly defined as being open-ended but then many opinions seem to reflect that in order for a sandbox to be a sandbox it has to have X, Y and Z and clearly this game doesn't have Y and/or Z so it can't be called a sandbox. Wouldn't this appear to be narrowminded thinking in itself on a concept based on an open mindset? I'm coming to think more and more "sandboxes" released are going to carry elements from the theme park mindset that do seem appealing and why not? There are good things that can carry over and as Eric has indirectly pointed out, MMORPG's regardless of theme-park or sandbox carry universal similarities within the MMORPG realm. Why can't a game without levels and open-ended skillset have an "end game" (perhaps you need to have so much combat skills and mining skills to mine incredibly hard to acquire ore in dangerous territory) or quest lines to follow that may not reward EXP but there's plenty of other things that can be used as reward (money is great last time I checked). These are just things I'm throwing out there, but would love to see the reactions to some of these questions.
EDIT: BTW I'm not like this huge WoW/Blizzard fan, but just trying to give a fair and balanced view on particular things that people seem to focus on for the sake of discussion. I, myself, do have my own qualms and issues with WoW/Blizzard, but look at me now, I'm still playing the game. Maybe I'm waiting for the next big thing, researching what other games can fulfill my MMORPG thirst or maybe seeing some of my own MMORPG's implemented (or if not heard in time, implementing them myself). I believe everybody has their own opinion of what would be "better" for a particular game and what should or shouldn't happen, but I guess the trick is, what would be the best decisions for the whole community/player-base/player population. Definitely, easier said than done and I think this is what makes Blizzard's job hard as well.
nice article. I'm currently playing darkfall. despite its many flaws it is prolly the best sandbox game out, but yeah I agree with the criticism in this article. its stupid that everything has to be a skill in darkfall. too much grind not enough freedom, but you can choose to be simply a fisher etc. if you wish.
Looking forward to future sandbox MMOs, but pretty much only the roleplaying shooter ones. Mortal online hopefully will fill the sandbox space with a quality MMO, if SV manage to pollish the game enough in the coming months of beta. Think most of the others (earthrise, fallen earth) will fail, thats the hard truth.
PS: I've played darkfall and UO on freeshards. even today UO is a pretty cool game and I can appreciate it must have been the shit back in 96 or whenever it came out. but the fact is its not THAT good. its nostalgia. if it was THAT good everyone would still play it on free shards. since niether of these games is my first mmo I think I can say with less bias darkfall is a much better, funner game despite its many imperfections.
There are still problems with a sandbox system, and it is in the players. The reason UO worked was the type of crowd that played MMOs back then. It was a crowd of mostly geeks and nerds who really wanted to be a part of the world and have it be something amazing (this isn't an insult, I played UO as well as MMOs before and after it). With the modern day crowd it just wouldn't work, it would still be about being the best and almost entierly focused on the fighting and the pking.
People seem to forget that UO started out with few rules and it worked well at first. You could pk anyone anytime as long as it wasn't in a town and there was no penalty. You could loot anyone and there was no penalty. You could even break into houses and rob people blind. At first this worked fine because it was balanced by the players. Not everyone wanted to mindlessly kill, in fact in the graveyard people used to just hang out and chat etc. This was a place anyone could be killed, or robbed but it rarely happened because the players balanced it. Occasionally someone would come up and pick a pocket and be chased around for a while but it wasn't detrimental.
As UO continued rules had to be put into place because of griefing. There became turning red and grey and all the ramifications that came along with it. The first change was houses and how they became off limits to any kind of stealing etc. And as time continued the rules became more and more.
If a base UO game tried to launch today it would just be a PvP gank and grief fest because of the players.
Take an example of the writing that was talked about. Asheron's Call has always had books of different sizes and even single page scrolls that could be written on and handed around. It still has these today, but there is never anyone using them because that isn't the crowd that plays MMOs now. Nobody wants to take the time to read someone elses writing when they don't want to take the time to read 4 lines of quest dialog.
A true sandbox would just not work today, people don't care about the stories that each other make up, and the game will always attract a large let's grief and rob people all day crowd. It's time for people to get real and realize games like Darkfall are going to pop up now and then but that's as big as it's going to get, look at the troubles that game has had. Instantly everyone wanted to cheat to be able to gank better, no one developed stories or made a world out of it.
DF is a sandbox; it doesn't have enough depth to its non-PVP-related activities... yet. it'll get there though.
the other big difference between sandboxes and themeparks that wasn't mentioned is that themeparks start high and maintain that high through diligent addition of content or risk fading into irrelevance.
sandboxes start small and niche, and build up their content/mechanics/dpeth over time. people forget EVE started as a very niche game with not that much content, it's taken 5 years + 10 expansions for it to get to where it is now. DF's days as a sandbox are only just beginning.
point being that the spiritual successor to UO is not going to just magically appear on release day (just wait for the hardcore MO fans that have been bagging DF to face their own reality check...). the spiritual successor to UO is going to *evolve*, not be released, and right now, the most likely game to taken that title is Darkfall.
I couldn't agree more with the article. I'm seriously starting to believe I was literally in love with the game. I've tried to go back so many times but it's just not the same post-UO3D, even with the classic engine. The game's just changed too much. Pre-trammel and even the first year post-trammel were the glorious days in which UO claimed (and in my eyes, still owns) the title of "best MMOG ever."
Blizzard is all about making the most money. Thats to be found in the mass markets. Thus, thats what their focus is. Niche markets seldom attract the attention of major investors. All those investors care about is their return on investment. Intone the mystic phrase; "Its just like World of Warcraft" and watch them go all starry eyed, and start throwing truck loads of money at you. AAA class games are NOT cheap. They typically cost many millions of dollars(of other peoples money). Thus the suits involved are VERY wary of taking risks. Theme park games like WoW have demonstrated a substantial return on investment. Sand box games tend to be niche. Until that perception can be altered, I doubt we are going to see much progress.
Blizzard will today only makes games they know will earn moneys, things were different 12 years ago but this is something that happens with most companys that becomes to big. Also they lost Jeff Strain who kinda was a pioneer and wasn't scared of trying new things like Diablo who were rather different at the time.
So Blizzard can well make a sandbox game but only after someone else have a successful one running, Morhaime would not take the chanse otherwise because a Blizzard MMO today will cost 100K million dollars at least to make. A total failure would really hurt Blizzard, both in terms of cash and hurting the brand.
No, the hope of the sandbox fans are right now with other companies, like CCP. CCP will present their next game late this month, it is most likely "World of darkness online". If it will be a sandbox, a themepark or something else is still anyones guess but it is likely that it will at least have many sandbox features. It will however also likely have many RPG features (something that is rare if not non existing in a MMO) since it is made together with the pen and paper RPG maker White wolf.
As I see it there are other way than themparks and sandboxes also and mixes of both those and other types of games. A MMO doesn't really have to either be like EQ/Wow or Eve. In Wow your only freedom is to not take a quest if you think it is boring, I don't see the future of gaming in that.
$100 Billion to make a game? Damn I can't wait until Blizz releases it :P
either way pvp limitations have to be placed to avoid gankfests like darkfall
On our server, in UO, we had a rather large guild dedicated to stopping gankers/griefers/whatever. What enabled this? Instant teleportation to a location of the players choosing [and of course the lack of long term power-up goals]. The community took care of itself even if the occasional "murder" was required to stop the more annoying members (exploiters and/or griefers) of the populace.
I want my instant teleports to virtually anywhere in the world back. The players cannot do the "police" work when it takes 30 to 60 minutes to get places and players get rather bored when forced to sit around doing nothing but babysitting to protect against griefing. Mechanics will always fail in protecting against griefing. Give players the tools to handle such things. More sandbox please.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
DF is a sandbox; it doesn't have enough depth to its non-PVP-related activities... yet. it'll get there though.
the other big difference between sandboxes and themeparks that wasn't mentioned is that themeparks start high and maintain that high through diligent addition of content or risk fading into irrelevance.
sandboxes start small and niche, and build up their content/mechanics/dpeth over time. people forget EVE started as a very niche game with not that much content, it's taken 5 years + 10 expansions for it to get to where it is now. DF's days as a sandbox are only just beginning.
point being that the spiritual successor to UO is not going to just magically appear on release day (just wait for the hardcore MO fans that have been bagging DF to face their own reality check...). the spiritual successor to UO is going to *evolve*, not be released, and right now, the most likely game to taken that title is Darkfall.
Here's the thing, will today's anti-social, instant gradification mmo players actually give DF a chance to live long enough to become the next uo?
DF is a sandbox; it doesn't have enough depth to its non-PVP-related activities... yet. it'll get there though.
the other big difference between sandboxes and themeparks that wasn't mentioned is that themeparks start high and maintain that high through diligent addition of content or risk fading into irrelevance.
sandboxes start small and niche, and build up their content/mechanics/dpeth over time. people forget EVE started as a very niche game with not that much content, it's taken 5 years + 10 expansions for it to get to where it is now. DF's days as a sandbox are only just beginning.
point being that the spiritual successor to UO is not going to just magically appear on release day (just wait for the hardcore MO fans that have been bagging DF to face their own reality check...). the spiritual successor to UO is going to *evolve*, not be released, and right now, the most likely game to taken that title is Darkfall.
Here's the thing, will today's anti-social, instant gradification mmo players actually give DF a chance to live long enough to become the next uo?
You are making the quite unwarranted assumption that the darkfall Dev's are capable of creating something on the order of the original UO. Given the sorry state of the game as it exists, what makes you believe that they have the ability(let alone motivation) to advance to that point? The reality is that darkfall is very likely to remain a gankfest niche game, which will slowly fade out as so many before it have.
I don't think its been that long since a proper sandbox was on the market, I'd say SWG circa 2005 fit the bill of just about everything you described. Otherwise I agree with most of your points, with particular kudos to the non-combat options and XP as an anti-social mechanic. Hopefully some development types hear you.
I was thinking the same thing and thats because SWG when it was first in development had a lot of ex-uo developers on its team. Its a shame that SOE beat the UO out of SWG because in my mind its what made that game great. I agree with Dana however... we need a new game that fits that bill.
It might be almost impossible to go back to what UO was doing and make a game with absolute freedom. I would take partial freedom over what we have today and the main problem is the reliance on quests. Before the quest phase started, games like EQ and Asherons Call offered quite a bit of freedom in the fact that people were allowed to level where and how they wanted. People became jaded with camping places for hours, but the thing is people could choose to move to wherever they liked. The game didn't demand they be there. Exploration plays another key role in this. MMO's today are typically designed where if you do every quest given to you, you see every part of the world. Exploration is no longer rewarded because the places you might find are the places the game eventually leads you to anyways. There is no mystery. Everyone knows everything even before they play it.
Dev's seem to think "Hey!!! MMO's are about bringing people together.". Then they use a level system that segregates the community into nice little slices. Lvl 20-24,25-29,30-34 and so on. Making sure that if a friend starts playing after or before you you wont be able to play together unless you make a new toon. Punishing you for having a friend join the game. A few exceptions, of course, but not enough imho.
New player's are then often attacked and berated going through the "group" content. Usually by the alternate characters of some kid who's ran toon after toon to max level, for not knowing about some detail of the games mechanics.
Then you rely on expansions to place more of the same content in for the people that have been around awhile. Rehashing the "go here, kill this, get this item(maybe), repeat x20, run back then do it all again" quests we had to run to be "leet" in the first place. Maybe with a few extra bells n whistles, but a dog's still a dog.
I dont get it. /shrug
By far the best thing about a sandbox game is the community freedom. You shouldn't have to push people into enjoying themselves. If what you made is fun, people will do it. If not, fix it or try again. When's the last time you ordered a burger and they said you had to have extra pickle because they think it tastes better. Seems like every other industry work's for their customer. Movies, t.v. have groups telling them if their stuff is good or bad. They don't like it, it doesn't go through. A musician writes a song no one likes, he/she tries again.
I haven't actually listened to "You'll do it and like it!" since I was 8 years old. And they want me to pay for it. lol.
Good summery of sandbox’s potential, with a nod that it may have not been as rosy as some people remember.
Some of the things he mentioned had a place in any game, what theme park would not benefit from a ‘trend’ like an invasion from the north? Giving the players a focus occasionally in any MMO would work well.
I think what has been forgotten though is how much all the old MMO’s depended on their communities of players. Without being able to revive that feeling of community a new sandbox game is going nowhere.
The expectations of a MMO for the younger generation are now vastly different. Instant gratification soloing and attention span of a four year old casualness are the order of the day. How many of those could we expect to bring on board? But I question if we need them, adventure games were never for pre teens, they once sold well. The market for an older players game is out there, it would just take a company the guts to want a slice of that pie and make something for it.
Comments
God I remember those! The best times I've ever had in any MMO was during those chained Live Events in UO.
I remember... the public funeral for some murdered noble in one of the ciies, many players in attendance, the dm-led ceremony was proceeding very solemnly, when a black robed character pushed his way thru the crowded church and shouted threats of doom and destruction on all in the city, then disappeared!
Mass confusion for a few minutes, what was going on???
Suddenly the npc Town Criers staterted yelling TO ARMS! TO ARMS! THE CITY IS UNDER ATTACK!
Everyone RACED out of the church to find the gate was being sieged by waves of monsters! Friends and strangers spontaneously grouped and fought like berzerkers to push them back and chase them up the highway. After what seemed like hours of fighting our over-zealous party got too far ahead and we fell to a pack of Red Robe Mages.
Later we found out the whole assault was just a diversion - when the city emptied out to fight the monsters someone slipped in and kidnapped the Mayors daughter! Who planned and executed such a foul deed?!?! Where was she taken??? We must rescue her!!!
and on and on the Adventures and Intrigues went. Wonderful stuff.
Well I think the suits' myth that only linear theme park games are profitable is a complete bunk.
The only 2 MMORPGS that were really successful in this WoW era (except the lumbering giant itself) were EVE online which is a pure sandbox and Guild Wars which has a definitely "sandboxy" advancement scheme - no leveling to speak of, lateral skill based advancement which keeps all the players in basically the same "tier".
All the AAA mmos that followed EQ single-player RPG model "grind levels to eventually save the world" failed to varying degrees. (Except WoW which suceeded due to an entirely different set of reasons) While SWG didn't really perform stellar it was destroyed by force-applying of the EQ model. WAR and AoC's faults can be to a large degree attributed to the forced stratification of players and the percieved "grind" inherent to the model which plays total havoc with the PvP component (and many others) of the game.
Imo the greatest problem with breaking the "developer ice" with sandbox mmos is that they still equate sandbox with hardcore PvP - as Dana noticed, with DF a prime example. You can have a sandbox with "soft" PvP or even without any PvP at all - if themepark games managed to dispense with the harsh death penalties nonsense (EQ was quite hard there) then there is no reason whatsoever why sandboxes shouldn't do the same. Until someone makes a sandbox game that doesn't actually punish you for playing with harsh death penalties we will never see a truly mainstream sandbox mmo.
Notice that I'm not saying that harsh death penalties are inherently bad.. Some people do enjoy them and the sense of danger they bring. However it is now obvious even to the blind dog that the vast majority of mainstream players and especially casuals (the guys whose 15$ is as good as yours) find them a real obstacle to enjoying a game. For example - the negative experience of ganking - the scourge of open PvP worlds - is directly proportional to the harshness of the death penalty associated. No death penalties and ganking becomes maybe a minor annoyance without the need to actually implement laborious elaborate systems to prevent it.
Flummox, thanks for helping me to remember some of the greatest times ive ever experienced in gaming ever, all those live events in UO can never hold a candle to games these days, and i suppose alot of people wont ever understand that. Thanks again.
Creepy. Yet beautiful.
@ ;Dana: I dont know whether to thank you for making me have faith, or hating you for realising all that we dont have.
@ Everyone else: stop mentioning FE as sandbox. FFS.
PAST: UO-SWG-DAOC-WOW-DDO-VG-AOC-WAR-FE-DFO-LOTRO-RIFT-GW2
PRESENT: Nothing
FUTURE: ESO
Sandbox concept is freedom in a sense. But you have to be charged for content. No such thing as a true or proper sandbox let alone ever will be. What makes you think a developer would host something without wanting something in return whether it's making you pay for content, pay to upload your own stuff, or pay to play. Want a true sandbox load up a single player game. Just hope yeah don't mind the fact your the only one gonna be playing on it.
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
Blizzard will today only makes games they know will earn moneys, things were different 12 years ago but this is something that happens with most companys that becomes to big. Also they lost Jeff Strain who kinda was a pioneer and wasn't scared of trying new things like Diablo who were rather different at the time.
So Blizzard can well make a sandbox game but only after someone else have a successful one running, Morhaime would not take the chanse otherwise because a Blizzard MMO today will cost 100K million dollars at least to make. A total failure would really hurt Blizzard, both in terms of cash and hurting the brand.
No, the hope of the sandbox fans are right now with other companies, like CCP. CCP will present their next game late this month, it is most likely "World of darkness online". If it will be a sandbox, a themepark or something else is still anyones guess but it is likely that it will at least have many sandbox features. It will however also likely have many RPG features (something that is rare if not non existing in a MMO) since it is made together with the pen and paper RPG maker White wolf.
As I see it there are other way than themparks and sandboxes also and mixes of both those and other types of games. A MMO doesn't really have to either be like EQ/Wow or Eve. In Wow your only freedom is to not take a quest if you think it is boring, I don't see the future of gaming in that.
While sandbox games might be on life support, they are hardly dead.
Most people mention EVE, but there are others around in some surprizing places. EVE definatly is the most sandbox subscription game out there. But for those who have no pejudices againts F2P games, I would strongly encourage them to geive Voyage of the Century or better yet, Bounty Bay a try (they are essentially the same game run by diferent companies).
VOC/BB was open enough to me, a 3 year vetaran of EVE to really enjoy it and somewhat become addicted to it. Other then that, another game I don't think anyone mentioned was Runequest. True, I did not enjoy the game myself and the graphics are, for the lack of a better word, "challenged", but it's still pretty open ended.
I'm sure if we look around there are probably even more sandbox games out there. Some more flexible then others, and some more obvious then others for sure, but there are still a few there.
Personally I wish there were more out there since to me those are the most enjoyable games. If there are two things that I really hate in a game it's being forced to gring endlessly and being pigeonholed in certain path. Both things that most game these days seem to think they need to do in order to stay sucessfull.
I think probably the worst in that respect was CoH/CoV. Even though I really enjoyed those games I got tired of going to the forums and hear people almost demanding that certain builds needed certain powers. That really got ugly and I remember even having a intense argument with one such idiotic biggot who was proud of the fact that if he noticed a there was a tanker in his team that did not have stamina he would promptly kick him. And he was one of a whole horde of people who thoght it was their devine right to tell you how to build your character
Such kneejerks are a rare site in sandbox games, which is an added bonus all by itself.
First of all, I would like to say I absolutely love the responses in this thread, I read about all of them except the last two pages which really was just repeated material more or less in one way or another.
To eric:
I just think people seem to hate your opinions just based on the style of writing (which I agree with Dana, it has points like anyone else's opinions) and maybe in part they see your opinions against games, that they seem to have loved/connected with, as an attack which wasn't your intention. But anyway, you seem to do a lot of redefining words like "freedom" and "lack of direction" etc. which ultimately makes you neither right nor wrong. However, why so set on trying to put "sandbox" games into the same context with "theme park" games? Regardless in how we define the words, it seems you can easily redefine the context of it back into saying that you can do the same things in both. Perhaps, maybe its not about having the same content and more about the mechanics and context behind it. Sure I can pick berries in WoW with a little use of my eyes, being in the right area and a single mouse click, but would this still be the same to you if berry picking actually involved let's say an extreme example like physically looking a bush which opened a loot window forcing you to pick between a ripe or unripe berry, which can lead to a weak effect or strong effect (or perhaps even between a beneficial or adverse reaction even)? I think some of your thoughts appear to be a bit narrowminded and give very little freedom to other thoughts as well.
No this is not a bash against you, so its safe to read
To the general population, first off, everyone says Blizzard is all about money or wouldn't have the testicular fortitude to take a risk. My question is, if the risk isn't worth the reward, would you take the risk? Take their position for example, they currently have the top-selling MMORPG right now. Would you relinquish resources while you are #1 to take a risk on concepts which would apply to a more niche market? I'm sure they're a beast in terms of resources, but their resources do have a limit somewhere along the line and they have a baby to take care of already. If I was #1 at ANYTHING, I wouldn't risk what I already am successfully doing by switching gears into something like a sandbox MMORPG, I would keep doing the same thing over and over again and make the most of it until it needs fixing ("If it ain't broke, don't fix it"). Sure, I may sound like a business man or all I care about is sales/money but if any of YOU were in the same position, you would do that too and hey they still have much of their player base currently so they seem to be doing something right still after how many years.
My second point is that it seems people are actually defining sandbox more and more into a criteria set. Why is that? Just curious to the responses. Sandbox is supposedly defined as being open-ended but then many opinions seem to reflect that in order for a sandbox to be a sandbox it has to have X, Y and Z and clearly this game doesn't have Y and/or Z so it can't be called a sandbox. Wouldn't this appear to be narrowminded thinking in itself on a concept based on an open mindset? I'm coming to think more and more "sandboxes" released are going to carry elements from the theme park mindset that do seem appealing and why not? There are good things that can carry over and as Eric has indirectly pointed out, MMORPG's regardless of theme-park or sandbox carry universal similarities within the MMORPG realm. Why can't a game without levels and open-ended skillset have an "end game" (perhaps you need to have so much combat skills and mining skills to mine incredibly hard to acquire ore in dangerous territory) or quest lines to follow that may not reward EXP but there's plenty of other things that can be used as reward (money is great last time I checked). These are just things I'm throwing out there, but would love to see the reactions to some of these questions.
EDIT: BTW I'm not like this huge WoW/Blizzard fan, but just trying to give a fair and balanced view on particular things that people seem to focus on for the sake of discussion. I, myself, do have my own qualms and issues with WoW/Blizzard, but look at me now, I'm still playing the game. Maybe I'm waiting for the next big thing, researching what other games can fulfill my MMORPG thirst or maybe seeing some of my own MMORPG's implemented (or if not heard in time, implementing them myself). I believe everybody has their own opinion of what would be "better" for a particular game and what should or shouldn't happen, but I guess the trick is, what would be the best decisions for the whole community/player-base/player population. Definitely, easier said than done and I think this is what makes Blizzard's job hard as well.
nice article. I'm currently playing darkfall. despite its many flaws it is prolly the best sandbox game out, but yeah I agree with the criticism in this article. its stupid that everything has to be a skill in darkfall. too much grind not enough freedom, but you can choose to be simply a fisher etc. if you wish.
Looking forward to future sandbox MMOs, but pretty much only the roleplaying shooter ones. Mortal online hopefully will fill the sandbox space with a quality MMO, if SV manage to pollish the game enough in the coming months of beta. Think most of the others (earthrise, fallen earth) will fail, thats the hard truth.
PS: I've played darkfall and UO on freeshards. even today UO is a pretty cool game and I can appreciate it must have been the shit back in 96 or whenever it came out. but the fact is its not THAT good. its nostalgia. if it was THAT good everyone would still play it on free shards. since niether of these games is my first mmo I think I can say with less bias darkfall is a much better, funner game despite its many imperfections.
My blog:
So... ummm, time to get in Mortal Online waiting line?
..................MEMORY'S O MISTY EYED MEMORY'S OF THINGS WE WHERE WHEN WE WHERE YOUNG................... R.I.P ULTIMA ONLINE And SHADOW BANE
There are still problems with a sandbox system, and it is in the players. The reason UO worked was the type of crowd that played MMOs back then. It was a crowd of mostly geeks and nerds who really wanted to be a part of the world and have it be something amazing (this isn't an insult, I played UO as well as MMOs before and after it). With the modern day crowd it just wouldn't work, it would still be about being the best and almost entierly focused on the fighting and the pking.
People seem to forget that UO started out with few rules and it worked well at first. You could pk anyone anytime as long as it wasn't in a town and there was no penalty. You could loot anyone and there was no penalty. You could even break into houses and rob people blind. At first this worked fine because it was balanced by the players. Not everyone wanted to mindlessly kill, in fact in the graveyard people used to just hang out and chat etc. This was a place anyone could be killed, or robbed but it rarely happened because the players balanced it. Occasionally someone would come up and pick a pocket and be chased around for a while but it wasn't detrimental.
As UO continued rules had to be put into place because of griefing. There became turning red and grey and all the ramifications that came along with it. The first change was houses and how they became off limits to any kind of stealing etc. And as time continued the rules became more and more.
If a base UO game tried to launch today it would just be a PvP gank and grief fest because of the players.
Take an example of the writing that was talked about. Asheron's Call has always had books of different sizes and even single page scrolls that could be written on and handed around. It still has these today, but there is never anyone using them because that isn't the crowd that plays MMOs now. Nobody wants to take the time to read someone elses writing when they don't want to take the time to read 4 lines of quest dialog.
A true sandbox would just not work today, people don't care about the stories that each other make up, and the game will always attract a large let's grief and rob people all day crowd. It's time for people to get real and realize games like Darkfall are going to pop up now and then but that's as big as it's going to get, look at the troubles that game has had. Instantly everyone wanted to cheat to be able to gank better, no one developed stories or made a world out of it.
Truly wonderful article. We need a "spiritual successor" to UO.
DF is a sandbox; it doesn't have enough depth to its non-PVP-related activities... yet. it'll get there though.
the other big difference between sandboxes and themeparks that wasn't mentioned is that themeparks start high and maintain that high through diligent addition of content or risk fading into irrelevance.
sandboxes start small and niche, and build up their content/mechanics/dpeth over time. people forget EVE started as a very niche game with not that much content, it's taken 5 years + 10 expansions for it to get to where it is now. DF's days as a sandbox are only just beginning.
point being that the spiritual successor to UO is not going to just magically appear on release day (just wait for the hardcore MO fans that have been bagging DF to face their own reality check...). the spiritual successor to UO is going to *evolve*, not be released, and right now, the most likely game to taken that title is Darkfall.
I couldn't agree more with the article. I'm seriously starting to believe I was literally in love with the game. I've tried to go back so many times but it's just not the same post-UO3D, even with the classic engine. The game's just changed too much. Pre-trammel and even the first year post-trammel were the glorious days in which UO claimed (and in my eyes, still owns) the title of "best MMOG ever."
I miss you, UO.
Blizzard will today only makes games they know will earn moneys, things were different 12 years ago but this is something that happens with most companys that becomes to big. Also they lost Jeff Strain who kinda was a pioneer and wasn't scared of trying new things like Diablo who were rather different at the time.
So Blizzard can well make a sandbox game but only after someone else have a successful one running, Morhaime would not take the chanse otherwise because a Blizzard MMO today will cost 100K million dollars at least to make. A total failure would really hurt Blizzard, both in terms of cash and hurting the brand.
No, the hope of the sandbox fans are right now with other companies, like CCP. CCP will present their next game late this month, it is most likely "World of darkness online". If it will be a sandbox, a themepark or something else is still anyones guess but it is likely that it will at least have many sandbox features. It will however also likely have many RPG features (something that is rare if not non existing in a MMO) since it is made together with the pen and paper RPG maker White wolf.
As I see it there are other way than themparks and sandboxes also and mixes of both those and other types of games. A MMO doesn't really have to either be like EQ/Wow or Eve. In Wow your only freedom is to not take a quest if you think it is boring, I don't see the future of gaming in that.
$100 Billion to make a game? Damn I can't wait until Blizz releases it :P
On our server, in UO, we had a rather large guild dedicated to stopping gankers/griefers/whatever. What enabled this? Instant teleportation to a location of the players choosing [and of course the lack of long term power-up goals]. The community took care of itself even if the occasional "murder" was required to stop the more annoying members (exploiters and/or griefers) of the populace.
I want my instant teleports to virtually anywhere in the world back. The players cannot do the "police" work when it takes 30 to 60 minutes to get places and players get rather bored when forced to sit around doing nothing but babysitting to protect against griefing. Mechanics will always fail in protecting against griefing. Give players the tools to handle such things. More sandbox please.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
Here's the thing, will today's anti-social, instant gradification mmo players actually give DF a chance to live long enough to become the next uo?
Playing: EvE, Ryzom
I just gave up on these new MMO's and went back to UO. I like the freedom to do what I want.
Here's the thing, will today's anti-social, instant gradification mmo players actually give DF a chance to live long enough to become the next uo?
You are making the quite unwarranted assumption that the darkfall Dev's are capable of creating something on the order of the original UO. Given the sorry state of the game as it exists, what makes you believe that they have the ability(let alone motivation) to advance to that point? The reality is that darkfall is very likely to remain a gankfest niche game, which will slowly fade out as so many before it have.
I was thinking the same thing and thats because SWG when it was first in development had a lot of ex-uo developers on its team. Its a shame that SOE beat the UO out of SWG because in my mind its what made that game great. I agree with Dana however... we need a new game that fits that bill.
It might be almost impossible to go back to what UO was doing and make a game with absolute freedom. I would take partial freedom over what we have today and the main problem is the reliance on quests. Before the quest phase started, games like EQ and Asherons Call offered quite a bit of freedom in the fact that people were allowed to level where and how they wanted. People became jaded with camping places for hours, but the thing is people could choose to move to wherever they liked. The game didn't demand they be there. Exploration plays another key role in this. MMO's today are typically designed where if you do every quest given to you, you see every part of the world. Exploration is no longer rewarded because the places you might find are the places the game eventually leads you to anyways. There is no mystery. Everyone knows everything even before they play it.
Dev's seem to think "Hey!!! MMO's are about bringing people together.". Then they use a level system that segregates the community into nice little slices. Lvl 20-24,25-29,30-34 and so on. Making sure that if a friend starts playing after or before you you wont be able to play together unless you make a new toon. Punishing you for having a friend join the game. A few exceptions, of course, but not enough imho.
New player's are then often attacked and berated going through the "group" content. Usually by the alternate characters of some kid who's ran toon after toon to max level, for not knowing about some detail of the games mechanics.
Then you rely on expansions to place more of the same content in for the people that have been around awhile. Rehashing the "go here, kill this, get this item(maybe), repeat x20, run back then do it all again" quests we had to run to be "leet" in the first place. Maybe with a few extra bells n whistles, but a dog's still a dog.
I dont get it. /shrug
By far the best thing about a sandbox game is the community freedom. You shouldn't have to push people into enjoying themselves. If what you made is fun, people will do it. If not, fix it or try again. When's the last time you ordered a burger and they said you had to have extra pickle because they think it tastes better. Seems like every other industry work's for their customer. Movies, t.v. have groups telling them if their stuff is good or bad. They don't like it, it doesn't go through. A musician writes a song no one likes, he/she tries again.
I haven't actually listened to "You'll do it and like it!" since I was 8 years old. And they want me to pay for it. lol.
Good summery of sandbox’s potential, with a nod that it may have not been as rosy as some people remember.
Some of the things he mentioned had a place in any game, what theme park would not benefit from a ‘trend’ like an invasion from the north? Giving the players a focus occasionally in any MMO would work well.
I think what has been forgotten though is how much all the old MMO’s depended on their communities of players. Without being able to revive that feeling of community a new sandbox game is going nowhere.
The expectations of a MMO for the younger generation are now vastly different. Instant gratification soloing and attention span of a four year old casualness are the order of the day. How many of those could we expect to bring on board? But I question if we need them, adventure games were never for pre teens, they once sold well. The market for an older players game is out there, it would just take a company the guts to want a slice of that pie and make something for it.