-Most- people have a hard time wrapping their heads around a sandbox game. Just go look at threads in Eve the common factor is, "what is there to -do-??" Well in Eve there's plenty to do. There's deadspace plexes, missions, mining, piracy and so on that you -can- start doing on day one. The main determining factor on what you can do and how successful you'll be at it right on your day one is determined by how you create your character. From there it's determined by how much of a social creature you are. If you start up Eve with a bunch of friends and at least one of you has done a little research then there's a lot you can go out and do. That is the basic spirit of a sandbox - there is a bunch of stuff to do, but -you- have to decide what it is that you want to do. Once you've figured out what it is you want to do you just go do it. L1 plexes are designed to be done by frigs and you can go at them on day one.
This is an awfully broad definition. By this, if you removed quest givers from WOW and turned on FFA PVP, it would be a sandbox. You could mine and craft, or kill monsters, or join up with a group of people to explore a dungeon. With the exception of a handful of quests easily done via other means, you wouldn't need to change much at all. Hell, other than a few quests to unlock class abilities, you can level to 80 in WOW entirely by self directed means. Go kill whatever monsters you want. (By the same token, you can play EVE as a purely quest given game by just sticking to highsec space and taking missions. Because of how the skill system works, you'd be just as skilled, in game mechanics, as someone who jumped into PVP.)
Very few succesful games FORCE you onto a path. The path is there, but you can walk away from it. Everquest 2 used to have a mountain of zone-unlock quests and level-limited zones, but over the years they've dropped them.
Even in more "sandboxy" games, there are usually leveling/skill-up guides, optimal builds, and so on, published by players. What's the difference, really, between some NPC saying "Go kill 50 wolves. They're north of here. I'll mark it on your map." and reading a guide online which says, "The best way to work up your skills is to kill wolves. They're north of the starting zone at 56,19.", except that a few people may feel that "researching" online is somehow more sophisticated than doing what the NPC says?
SWG was probably the most sandbox game I've played, but contrary to what you said, its population was not growing pre-CU, but shrinking; CU made it shrink faster and NGE made it collapse. I began playing it on Day 1 and continued until the time when they released those frackin' holocubes that made everyone drop their profession and macro dance in the cantinas in order to become a "Jedi". During that time, well before CU, I watched every city shrink, watched worlds go from overcrowded to empty, watch the player base contract more and more, saw endless ghost towns of abandoned houses and empty shops and smoking harvesters. (At least the harvesters despawned back then, I understand they don't anymore.)
Sandbox isn't popular. People want to know what to do and have defined goals and stages. A well designed game gives you a path, but allows an experienced player to wander off it.
But, more importantly to this thread, what most people MEAN when they say "sandbox" is "FFA PVP with full looting". And that style of play is probably never going to be popular enough to justify an A-list MMORPG. It was tried in the earliest days of the genre because a lot of the developers came from the MU* world or the nascent LAN FPS world and didn't think about other possible playstyles. Once it became obvious that most people preferred a game that reminded them more of "Lord of the Rings" than "Lord of the Flies", that playstyle was either consigned to a ghetto server or simply left unsupported. (When did they take Priests of Discord out of EQ1?)
PotD in my opinion...
Agree 100%.
Interestingly, I've done both of those things in your first 'graph(though the WoW bit was in LotRO). And yeah, I remember those SWG guides.
I also remember that in order to compete in PvP, I couldn't be what I wanted to be(pistoleer/smuggler). I had to be a combination involving master Rifleman and/or Teras Kasi because the PvP game was ridiculously balanced toward them. Strange how the sandbox folks forget that lack of "quality" in those old games. Hindsight is 20/20, but with rose-coloured glasses.
Anyhoo, there you have it. Linear progression, even in a relatively sandbox game.
From reading this forum, it seems the MMORPG community or hardcore players from older MMORPGs, want new Sandbox MMOs.
But when a company gets the funding to make such a game, to appeal to this population----- They some how fail, and get little support from the Hardcore crowd, which are the people screaming for these Sandbox games in the first place. the only popular Sandbox mmos out there of the new age, are Sci-Fi bases(EvE). Where the Fantasy subgenre support? Darkfall?
So far, I heard, World of Warcraft as a reason for the unsuccessful cycle. But what other reason could be out there, for most of the developers with funding to make Sandbox games that, Fail || doesn’t appeal to the "Hardcore old school MMORPG Sandbox Wanting Fanboys"?
Because sandbox MMOs allow you the freedom to fail. Most people can't take being forced to face that they're not an awesome super-hero WINNAR!!!!! from the minute that they log in. There will be a lot of dancing around this core fact and a lot of name calling and mud-slinging to try and disguise it, but that's what it boils down to in the end; just this and nothing else of note.
Most people dont want to play a game that they can actually lose. Most people can't handle that level of freedom. Most people can't stand to be forced to accept that someone else is better than them (in-game).
From reading this forum, it seems the MMORPG community or hardcore players from older MMORPGs, want new Sandbox MMOs.
The MMORPG.com community is in no way representative of the MMORPG community. I do not say that as if it were a bad thing, by the way.
I wholly believe that if you took MMORPG.com's finest and locked them in a dev studio with a 20 million dollar budget, they could probably make a sandbox game that many of the MMORPG.com players would enjoy playing for years and years.
The majority of MMO gamers, though, would probably rather chew glass than suffer through an hour of it.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
This. Darkfall lacked crafting content, proper player housing and was solely based around ffa pvp, this isn't the main attraction for me, and surely applies to many others as well.
FFA PVP is like a turd in the sandbox, makes you want to run away! The vast majority do NOT want FFA losing an item and coin is fine, but to lose everything you work hard to get just sucks. And yes make games more crafter oriented also will help.
Not everyone is of the artistic type. In fact, while most dream of it, when placed in the situation, most people prefer to be the spectator instead of the actor.
Most people prefer to have a playground like World of Warcraft, Aion and the likes instead of an empty planet with a bunch of tools to build their own content.
Put 20 kids in a giant sandbox with all the tools to build whatever they want and don't say a word. Half of them will be bored to death, a few will seclude themselves in a corner and maybe 2 or 3 will start playing together and creating that amazing universe.
Once their universe is created; a few others will join in the group.
Put 20 kids in an amusement park with clowns cheering the same generic stuff and you'll see at least 15+ enjoying the day while a very small portion will be dying for this day to end.
The majority of the people are followers, not leaders or creators. Most grew up with a themed toys while only a few only had what they made as a toy.
Either one, doesn't make you better then the other, it's simply a matter of perception.
EDIT: Got to agree that many "Sandbox" are not really that awesome... Darkfall being one of the worse I've seen in years. You have a certain freedom and yes it is a sandbox but it is a horrible sandbox. I still enjoyed it for the time being but eventually, I left and went back to older games.
This. Darkfall lacked crafting content, proper player housing and was solely based around ffa pvp, this isn't the main attraction for me, and surely applies to many others as well.
FFA PVP is like a turd in the sandbox, makes you want to run away! The vast majority do NOT want FFA losing an item and coin is fine, but to lose everything you work hard to get just sucks. And yes make games more crafter oriented also will help.
That's because most players are the biggest wusses around...beta males IMO
The essence of the definition is that the game has very "open" mechanics that allow players to generate their own content through interaction; as opposed to a "themepark" game where the content is totally dev provided and you "ride" through it.
What does that MEAN, exactly?
If you mean there are scenario buidling tools, which I don't think you do, then COH/V is now a sandbox game.
Do you mean any game with player housing and crafting? Then there's a lot of sandbox games.
No game I'm aware of allows, say, the creation or destruction of "baseline" world geometry -- if the developers put in a city, the players can't tear it down, though they may be able to build other cities. In SWG, you couldn't kill Luke or Darth -- at least not permanently. I can't remember if you could even target them, but I think not.
If you mean that there's content of various levels of difficulty and players are "led" to areas of appropriate content, I can only think of two traits a hypothetical "sandbox" game has that most "theme park" MMOs do not -- non instanced housing (player cities, etc) and FFA PVP.
You seem to be conflating the option of following quest chains with being *compelled* to follow them. If the content of two games (monsters, loot, crafting, etc) is identical, but one has a bunch of guys with glowing punctuation suggesting you go here or there (but doesn't compel you or lock out content), and one just lets you wander until you find what you want to kill, what's the real distinction?
First off, you seem to be under the impression that something is either a "pure" sandbox game or not one at all. Nothing is that binary, it's a scale and most of the things you mention are *elements* which can be used in making something more of a "sandbox" game. Btw, most people agree that a "pure" sandbox would fail miserable; there needs to be a foundation of a solid "themepark" or traditional pve system under it all to build off of.
CoH/CoV in its fully evolved form has become more of sandbox game; many of the elements added since Cryptic sold it off are definately "sandboxish".
A robust crafting system is certainly part of a sandbox, as is a player driven/dominated economy. Player housing can be a sandbox element if it is done like old-SWG did, done as standalone duplicate side instances like most do now it's nothing.
The key element to something being a "sandbox" component is that it encourages player interaction with each other as opposed to the player interaction with something dev-placed. (Doesn't mean the dev has no part in it, they have to provide the tools, but the primary interaction is player to player)
So, it includes (but is by no means limited to): PvP systems, crafting, economics/vendors/merchants, player housing/cities, politics/alliances/guilds/families, player-created quests/dungeons/points of interest. A degree of permanence, persistent alteration of the game world is sandboxy. Even dev-designed "dynamic" quests with sufficient options/variant paths could be "sandboxish"...traditional quests, with or without glowing exclamation points and quest trackers; are "themepark" elements.
Frankly that last bit of yours makes me think that you have no clue what I am talking about, haven't read a whole lot about "sandbox" games and/or just like trying to infer a whole lot from my post that wasn't there.
EVE has 300k subscriptions, not 150k, which is a pretty huge difference than how you put it. IMO, that goes to show that a 'niche' game can have success outside of its niche audience, because 300k to me is no longer niche when it begins to appeal to more people than several AAA non-sandbox titles. Developers should start realizing that if they make a POLISHED game that delivers at least mostly on what it advertises (instead of being released bug-ridden and practically broken with a lack of features that would make the game -truly- sandbox *cough Darkfall*)
As of now, 'sandbox' is largely associated with broken games or games that ripped people off, because there is only one success story out of the bunch.
IMO - a true sandbox is where the world is really a functioning world. Not just a group of areas you stay in for a while while you're doing quests, until you move to the next area to do the same thing. A sandbox should simply be as close to a world as possible, where the features all rely on one another, yet no one feature tries to be the dominant one (IE; raiding, battlegrounds)
It doesn't necessarily have to do with what features the game has.. IE - FFAPvP seems to be associated with sandbox. Well I really don't think that makes a game a sandbox. In this regard, I don't think Darkfall is a very well executed sandbox at all. It has a sole focus, that being PvP with everything coming second. It is just as theme park as the rest of them until it gets better PvE and crafting.
Instead, I think FFAPvP should simply be a feature of sandbox games. Just as quests are just a feature. Raids should just be a feature.. something to do, and not the end-all "get all the awesome gear you can before everyone else gets it" like it currently is. Quests should be QUESTS, not "Kill X and return here". Quests from games like Asheron's Call were REAL quests.. Could take you months to collect pieces for a quest to get some awesome armor, or to finally get access to this dungeon where you'd get to fight one of the major storyline villains. The dungeons had puzzles, rolling balls of death.. platforms you had to jump on, pits of acid to jump over. etc..
In EVE, the economy is reliant on both PvP and PvE, and likewise PvPers and PvEers rely heavily on a working economy in order to buy things for themselves and be able to make money selling things.
To sum up this sort of 'rant' - Sandbox games should be polished, because a proper sandbox game should have features that all work together to make the game function. No one feature should be the focus of the game, and really, it should feel like a -world-, not a game. EVE -feels- like a universe. The single server thing is, IMO, necessary for a true sandbox.
The next step to sandboxes in the fantasy genre is a planet. A single planet which can be entirely explored, settled, conquered, complete with its own unique lore, creatures, races, etc.. It shouldn't be a game BASED on conquering, but should instead be a world where it just so happens that people fight a lot and cities and regions change hands. The main focus of the game should instead be the world itself.. where those things are an accepted part of what goes on, in addition to whatever small or large-scale raids against high-end mobs might take place.. etc..
I hope I've made some sense.
Don't get me wrong I think EveOnline is a great and unique space game, but I have always found it hard to square the 300K subs with the 53,850 players occupying the in-game universe simultaneously numbers they put out also. I think it niche and some play it very casually. Consequently, I think that although Eve Online is great it is not going to break the mold of modern mmo, especially as it is quite old, though of course patched significantly from original release.
Don't get me wrong I think EveOnline is a great and unique space game, but I have always found it hard to square the 300K subs with the 53,850 players occupying the in-game universe simultaneously numbers they put out also.
Out of curiosity, is it that you think the number of subs is false or the ratio of subs to accounts online is false?
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
I don't see a single thing wrong with the numbers. It is an international game, not one with EU servers and US servers.. etc.. So prime times are going to be different depending on where in the world people live. The 50k+ number they said as their concurrent users is perfectly possible. If it had 300k users in the US alone, the concurrent users would likely be MUCH higher. But it's not.. so what's hard to 'square'?
Edit: Also, they even have roughly 2-3k trial accounts active at a time, and -don't- put those numbers in their figures. I don't see why CCP has given any reason to make people think their numbers are wrong in any way. It's not like they're spouting -amazing- figures. Just good ones, and consistent ones. They've been gaining subscriptions consistently since the game's release.
Sandbox means clients can create their own content and they have a wide variety of choices in the game. FFA PvP adds choice and self created content, but that is not the only way to do it! Definitely not. In fact it also adds limits to peoples choices in game, because it can often prevent players from interacting with each other and it puts heavy pressure on players to focus on combat. If you are in a game that is FFA PvP, chances are you will be constantly pressured to do whatever gets you the best combat gear/highest level/ect. Well, that is limiting player choices by pressuring players to be combat centric.
EVE is a good sandbox, but it also has a lot of limits. When I played it I just felt too much pressure to become rich and powerful. I just didnt see the fun in it. As opposed to a better sandbox, pre-CU SWG, where I didn't feel pressure to do anything that I didn't want to do, I felt more like I could do whatever and have fun and not be looked down on by the community as a newbie or something like you see in so many MMOs.
SWG was such a big IP there was a lot of pushback against its sandbox style from 'mainstream' linear gamers who wanted the game spoonfed to them like a movie, and to top if off there were a lot of bugs and missing features. Still I see it now as what a sandbox could be- No pressure to do one thing or another- a lot of choices- a lot of opportunities to create your own style and content.
A bit later though WoW came out, got a shitload of subscriptions, and ever since no developer has the balls to play in the sandbox. Hardcore games like Darkfall do provide a niche for PvPers but it doesnt provide the level of choice that a full sandbox would, so I would put it somewhere in between with EVE. Games like second life provide such a sandbox that they are hard to work with and not cohesive (ie sharded from area to area with no overall feel or storyline), which can push people away. Thats why people like me felt so drawn to SWG, which was cohesive yet also provided enough choices to make me feel excited.
I don't see a single thing wrong with the numbers. It is an international game, not one with EU servers and US servers.. etc.. So prime times are going to be different depending on where in the world people live. The 50k+ number they said as their concurrent users is perfectly possible. If it had 300k users in the US alone, the concurrent users would likely be MUCH higher. But it's not.. so what's hard to 'square'? Edit: Also, they even have roughly 2-3k trial accounts active at a time, and -don't- put those numbers in their figures. I don't see why CCP has given any reason to make people think their numbers are wrong in any way. It's not like they're spouting -amazing- figures. Just good ones, and consistent ones. They've been gaining subscriptions consistently since the game's release.
I currently play (and actually right now am playing) Eve. Most of the time when I log on at night there are 50k or so people logged on. Sometimes I log in throughout the day to sell things on my trader and I still usually never see that number below about 26k.
To be perfectly honest I wouldn't care if there weren't 300k subscribers. Seeing a fairly consistent number of people throughout ALL primetimes (prime time in my TZ, in gmt 0, etc.) is still impressive. And every single one of those people are on ONE server. I love it because if something major happens then you'll know about it. It creates a real sense of a world. Whenever a major war starts up, you know the one where tens of billions of isk are lost throughout, then you'll hear about it and be affected by it to some degree. When the few MAJOR conflicts popped up, the ones where hundreds of cap ships get destroyed then that affects the economy everywhere.
I wish more mmo's were able to be put on at least larger servers. Where concurrent users exceed 8-10k and still have everything run reasonably smooth. Keep in mind that Eve is very instanced. Each of the hundreds of systems are instanced....maybe not instanced.....they're ehhh, segmented. I'm not an IT guy so I'm not sure exactly what technology is at work in Eve, but from what I've been told by people who are it's all quite impressive.
The real problem with translating that to a world like Aion is that Eve has relatively few objects per system. And even then the major trade hubs are, from what I've been told, their own servers. For those familiar with Jita (a major, major trade hub) that has it's own server. I'm glad Eve is growing steadily, but I have to wonder what is going to happen over time. Will CCP be able to continue to have only one meta server? Will they be able to continue to improve their tech to support more and more concurrent users?
Given how much time and effort they have to devote to just one meta server then would they even be able to operate two? If there was ever a game that operated off of meta-servers like Eve that ever got to the seeming mythic-like proportions of WoW with millions upon millions of players how many servers would they need and would it be even doable from a manpower perspective?
Sandbox means clients can create their own content and they have a wide variety of choices in the game. FFA PvP adds choice and self created content, but that is not the only way to do it! Definitely not. In fact it also adds limits to peoples choices in game, because it can often prevent players from interacting with each other and it puts heavy pressure on players to focus on combat. If you are in a game that is FFA PvP, chances are you will be constantly pressured to do whatever gets you the best combat gear/highest level/ect. Well, that is limiting player choices by pressuring players to be combat centric. EVE is a good sandbox, but it also has a lot of limits. When I played it I just felt too much pressure to become rich and powerful. I just didnt see the fun in it. As opposed to a better sandbox, pre-CU SWG, where I didn't feel pressure to do anything that I didn't want to do, I felt more like I could do whatever and have fun and not be looked down on by the community as a newbie or something like you see in so many MMOs. SWG was such a big IP there was a lot of pushback against its sandbox style from 'mainstream' linear gamers who wanted the game spoonfed to them like a movie, and to top if off there were a lot of bugs and missing features. Still I see it now as what a sandbox could be- No pressure to do one thing or another- a lot of choices- a lot of opportunities to create your own style and content. A bit later though WoW came out, got a shitload of subscriptions, and ever since no developer has the balls to play in the sandbox. Hardcore games like Darkfall do provide a niche for PvPers but it doesnt provide the level of choice that a full sandbox would, so I would put it somewhere in between with EVE. Games like second life provide such a sandbox that they are hard to work with and not cohesive (ie sharded from area to area with no overall feel or storyline), which can push people away. Thats why people like me felt so drawn to SWG, which was cohesive yet also provided enough choices to make me feel excited.
What I am about to say is likely unprovable today because, simply, the data likely no longer exists. There may be some sheet buried away in an accountants files somewhere, but who knows. In it's prime SWG had close to or over about 600-750k subscribers. I say this because when the initial mass exodus occured it was widely reported that over 500k people left. Today I believe there are no more than about 60k subscribers to SWG....10% of it's prime.
This is all specifically due to listening to 'mainstream' gamers. The problem with 'mainstream' gamers is that they're fickle. These are the people that are used to playing a game from a starting point and then eventually reaching an end point. People who are used to being able to beat a game. The problem is that with a REAL mmo there is no end. There is no beating it. Well, mainstream gamers don't like that.
Games like WoW get away with it simply because you have levels and other stuff you can 'achieve' so it feels like you beat something. Though, point of fact, you never actually beat it. Throw these same people into the world of a sandbox where there is no real beginning and not even really any sort of even a fake end and they don't know what to do with themselves. Call it a very broad statement if you want. It is, I won't deny that, but it's true.
A REAL sandbox game (not even an mmo here) has a vague beginning. Then there is a whole bunch of content (stuff to do) planted about the game world. You can choose what it is you want to do and when you want to do it. There are some limiting factors such as terrain or 'stronger' mobs, but that's pretty much it. That's basically how the early days of mmo's were.
Somewhere along the lines things changed, but at this point I would hardly say evolved. Instead of things becoming even more open and free they've become more and more restricted. The world of gaming is authored just as much by us as consumers as it is by us, creators. Similarly we are authored by games themselves.
If you ask 10 fans of sandbox gaming what the definition of a sandbox is, you will get 13 different answers (people with multiple personalities love sandbox games). Then you get into the genre of the game, fantasy, SciFi, post apocalyptic...toss in the pvp...ffa...no pvp.....crafter dependant economy......
I don't believe the love of sandbox gaming is as deep as you might think it is, then when you add in different tastes wrt the afore mentioned variables.....most games are locked up at the start stage. Just because someone like sandbox games it doesn't mean they like the same kind of sandbox you might.
If you ask 10 fans of sandbox gaming what the definition of a sandbox is, you will get 13 different answers ..blah...blah
If you ask 10 people on the street to make up statistics, you will get 13 different answers too!
People will list different elements of a "sandbox" game because there are so many ways it can be done and many different elements it could use. Of course different gamers like some of them more than others, but the core elements of player interaction and persistant world change are there.
Are the people who really want a "sandbox" game the majority of the playerbase? Probably not, but who knows? I think there are more than enough of us out there to support a game or two if anyone got it even half right. I suspect more gamers than you think would enjoy playing a game where their actions actually had some lasting impact on the game world.
PS As a total aside; EVE has benefitted greatly from slow growth over time. Even with the wonderful job they do with server management and the inherent scattering of players, they would be hammered if they were just starting up and had 12k+ players trying to log into and start in the 4 factional newbie zones. That 50k+ concurrent users works because of how diffuse EVE gameplay is.
Because sandbox MMOs allow you the freedom to fail. Most people can't take being forced to face that they're not an awesome super-hero WINNAR!!!!! from the minute that they log in. There will be a lot of dancing around this core fact and a lot of name calling and mud-slinging to try and disguise it, but that's what it boils down to in the end; just this and nothing else of note. Most people dont want to play a game that they can actually lose. Most people can't handle that level of freedom. Most people can't stand to be forced to accept that someone else is better than them (in-game).
Yup.
90% of the people will never be in the top 10%. Do the math; you'll see I'm right.
So why should those 90% continue to pay money to be someone else's bitch?
(And unless EQ1, FFXI, Vanguard as originally designed, and plenty of other games with harsh death penalties are all sandboxes, dislike of losing isn't the issue. Rather, it's dislike of losing when you know there's no chance of winning. PVP tends to be won by those with an inordinate amount of time to devote to the game, who keep on top of the can't-lose build of the week, and who invest considerable real-world resources (second accounts for mules or spies, etc) in the game. A lot of people can't or won't make that commitment, and, without it, they will never win regularly enough to make it worth paying a monthly fee -- or, hell, even for free, as there's plenty of F2P games they can be at least *competent* at, if not great. The problem is, with PVP-centric games, you are either great -- or you effectively can't play. Eventually, even the dimmest bulb clues in that he won't catch up, and quits.)
I am by no means bashing sandbox games. I'm just saying that the very points individuals enjoy about them are the same points that prevent the whole "sandbox" audience from coming together behind on title. I don't believe I quoted any stats (unless you take the 13 thing serious, which I would then find concerning). An example was that I enjoyed SWG at one point in time ( which could be called a sandbox), but though I don't mind the concept of EVE, I have never been able to get into it.
I suspect more gamers than you think who would enjoy a well made, well tested MMORPG that did something different, whether its classified as a sandbox or not. There are some IPs I think would be excellent sandbox games, others I would view as more themepark based. I enjoy both. I didn't know that I was required to pick sides.
I wholly believe that if you took MMORPG.com's finest and locked them in a dev studio with a 20 million dollar budget, they could probably make a sandbox game that many of the MMORPG.com players would enjoy playing for years and years.
I wholly believe that if you did that, it would take less than an hour before they were strangling each other.
My theory on the matter... Not everyone is of the artistic type. In fact, while most dream of it, when placed in the situation, most people prefer to be the spectator instead of the actor. Most people prefer to have a playground like World of Warcraft, Aion and the likes instead of an empty planet with a bunch of tools to build their own content. Put 20 kids in a giant sandbox with all the tools to build whatever they want and don't say a word. Half of them will be bored to death, a few will seclude themselves in a corner and maybe 2 or 3 will start playing together and creating that amazing universe. Either one, doesn't make you better then the other, it's simply a matter of perception.
I have yet to encounter ANY online game which even comes close to providing meaningful tool to create my own content, as compared to paper&pencil RPGs, which I've been playing for 30+ years now. Every game which promises such things quickly falls well short, and often comes across as not so much as sandbox as an amusement park the rides don't work and the staff has quit, and you're handed a box of wrenches and a clown mask and told to "Make your own fun!".... though the cost of admission is still just as high as it is to Disneyland.
If you try to pin people down to concrete examples of what they mean by "Make your own content", most of the time, it is some variant of "Well, this one time, me and this guy were, like, bored, so we found this spot in, like, Yew where the guards couldn't teleport 'cause it was broken, so me and him stood there and we shot fireballs at people and if they shot back the guards would come and kill THEM and then I got my kid brother to bring on his blue mule and loot all the bodies and that was totally fun and then they patched it 'cause all the little carebears cried 'cause they're all wimps and just can't deal with losing. They suck."
Bingo! It's not a matter of sandbox games failing because they are sandbox games. They fail because they don't work worth a damn and are frustrating as hell to play (e.g. StarWars Galaxies at release and after every one of their massive game revamps, and DarkFall at release).
For some bizarre reason companies think that the sandbox model is to blame. Why not try releasing one that isn't flat out busted? EVE had a troubled release, I'm told, but they seemed to listen hard to the players and fix the real bugs and issues in a timely manner. Just imagine if a sandbox game actually released in a polished state. To be quite honest, I've simply never seen that and I've been following these games for many years now.
I wholly believe that if you took MMORPG.com's finest and locked them in a dev studio with a 20 million dollar budget, they could probably make a sandbox game that many of the MMORPG.com players would enjoy playing for years and years.
I wholly believe that if you did that, it would take less than an hour before they were strangling each other.
I'd pay good money to watch that.
Lol. Forums certainly can be hostile places at times :P.
Having said that, I'm part of an open source project that is developing an amazing sandbox game. It's a fantasitc community effort and experience. The game is being made on a shoe-string budget, and all of the work is done by volunteer programmers, testers, community folks that simply love games and enjoy working/playing with other gamers.
Frankly, it puts a lot of the junk pushed out by high budget companies to shame. The server for beta testing is maxed out in terms of population. It's like trying to get into WoW at peak times, just to test the thing. Funny thing is, in its current state it works a helluva lot better than many games that have been out for years.
So, it includes (but is by no means limited to): PvP systems, crafting, economics/vendors/merchants, player housing/cities, politics/alliances/guilds/families, player-created quests/dungeons/points of interest. A degree of permanence, persistent alteration of the game world is sandboxy. Even dev-designed "dynamic" quests with sufficient options/variant paths could be "sandboxish"...traditional quests, with or without glowing exclamation points and quest trackers; are "themepark" elements.
Any examples? Or is this a shadow on Plato's cave?
Most games have some of those things; I can't think of a game with all of them.
As a general rule, the more power you give to the players, the more risks you are taking, as it can become very easy for a small minority of players to drive off the paying majority. You might notice I keep emphasizing $$$MONEY$$$ in my posts. If you can't come up with a game concept which will attract enough players to pay for the development costs, you're basically hoping you'll with the lottery.
There are also a lot of technical issues involved with persistance, such as the fact players AREN'T persistent. Both dealing with things when a player is offline (should you be able to burn down his house when he's not there to fight you?) or quits/cancels are complex. (If you're a day late without fee, do you lose your house? A week? A month?) Obviously, none of these issues are, by themselves, insoluble -- but with each and every game design issue, you need to ask "Are the costs of implementing this less than the revenue which will be added by having this feature?" If not, you have to say no and move on.
Another point, more generally, is that if you tell people "You can do what you want!", what they want to do is "Make my numbers bigger!" If the best way to raise, say, magic skill is to stand in one place and cast a buff spell on yourself, over and over, they will do that. If you get the same XP per second by killing one kind of monster in one area as you do exploring and killing, people will do that. The fastest road to "the top", whatever that is, with the least effort,will be quickly found and quickly imitated. I've read plenty of interviews with Raph Koster and some of the other designer of UO and SWG, the classic "sandbox" games, and been on a few developer mailing lists. There is often a lot of content put into these games -- cool locations, nifty easter eggs, unusual tricks -- but 99% of the player base ignores them, because there's no reward, and without reward, most people don't act.
Comments
This is an awfully broad definition. By this, if you removed quest givers from WOW and turned on FFA PVP, it would be a sandbox. You could mine and craft, or kill monsters, or join up with a group of people to explore a dungeon. With the exception of a handful of quests easily done via other means, you wouldn't need to change much at all. Hell, other than a few quests to unlock class abilities, you can level to 80 in WOW entirely by self directed means. Go kill whatever monsters you want. (By the same token, you can play EVE as a purely quest given game by just sticking to highsec space and taking missions. Because of how the skill system works, you'd be just as skilled, in game mechanics, as someone who jumped into PVP.)
Very few succesful games FORCE you onto a path. The path is there, but you can walk away from it. Everquest 2 used to have a mountain of zone-unlock quests and level-limited zones, but over the years they've dropped them.
Even in more "sandboxy" games, there are usually leveling/skill-up guides, optimal builds, and so on, published by players. What's the difference, really, between some NPC saying "Go kill 50 wolves. They're north of here. I'll mark it on your map." and reading a guide online which says, "The best way to work up your skills is to kill wolves. They're north of the starting zone at 56,19.", except that a few people may feel that "researching" online is somehow more sophisticated than doing what the NPC says?
SWG was probably the most sandbox game I've played, but contrary to what you said, its population was not growing pre-CU, but shrinking; CU made it shrink faster and NGE made it collapse. I began playing it on Day 1 and continued until the time when they released those frackin' holocubes that made everyone drop their profession and macro dance in the cantinas in order to become a "Jedi". During that time, well before CU, I watched every city shrink, watched worlds go from overcrowded to empty, watch the player base contract more and more, saw endless ghost towns of abandoned houses and empty shops and smoking harvesters. (At least the harvesters despawned back then, I understand they don't anymore.)
Sandbox isn't popular. People want to know what to do and have defined goals and stages. A well designed game gives you a path, but allows an experienced player to wander off it.
But, more importantly to this thread, what most people MEAN when they say "sandbox" is "FFA PVP with full looting". And that style of play is probably never going to be popular enough to justify an A-list MMORPG. It was tried in the earliest days of the genre because a lot of the developers came from the MU* world or the nascent LAN FPS world and didn't think about other possible playstyles. Once it became obvious that most people preferred a game that reminded them more of "Lord of the Rings" than "Lord of the Flies", that playstyle was either consigned to a ghetto server or simply left unsupported. (When did they take Priests of Discord out of EQ1?)
PotD in my opinion...
Agree 100%.
Interestingly, I've done both of those things in your first 'graph(though the WoW bit was in LotRO). And yeah, I remember those SWG guides.
I also remember that in order to compete in PvP, I couldn't be what I wanted to be(pistoleer/smuggler). I had to be a combination involving master Rifleman and/or Teras Kasi because the PvP game was ridiculously balanced toward them. Strange how the sandbox folks forget that lack of "quality" in those old games. Hindsight is 20/20, but with rose-coloured glasses.
Anyhoo, there you have it. Linear progression, even in a relatively sandbox game.
Because sandbox MMOs allow you the freedom to fail. Most people can't take being forced to face that they're not an awesome super-hero WINNAR!!!!! from the minute that they log in. There will be a lot of dancing around this core fact and a lot of name calling and mud-slinging to try and disguise it, but that's what it boils down to in the end; just this and nothing else of note.
Most people dont want to play a game that they can actually lose. Most people can't handle that level of freedom. Most people can't stand to be forced to accept that someone else is better than them (in-game).
Give me liberty or give me lasers
The MMORPG.com community is in no way representative of the MMORPG community. I do not say that as if it were a bad thing, by the way.
I wholly believe that if you took MMORPG.com's finest and locked them in a dev studio with a 20 million dollar budget, they could probably make a sandbox game that many of the MMORPG.com players would enjoy playing for years and years.
The majority of MMO gamers, though, would probably rather chew glass than suffer through an hour of it.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
This. Darkfall lacked crafting content, proper player housing and was solely based around ffa pvp, this isn't the main attraction for me, and surely applies to many others as well.
FFA PVP is like a turd in the sandbox, makes you want to run away! The vast majority do NOT want FFA losing an item and coin is fine, but to lose everything you work hard to get just sucks. And yes make games more crafter oriented also will help.
My theory on the matter...
Not everyone is of the artistic type. In fact, while most dream of it, when placed in the situation, most people prefer to be the spectator instead of the actor.
Most people prefer to have a playground like World of Warcraft, Aion and the likes instead of an empty planet with a bunch of tools to build their own content.
Put 20 kids in a giant sandbox with all the tools to build whatever they want and don't say a word. Half of them will be bored to death, a few will seclude themselves in a corner and maybe 2 or 3 will start playing together and creating that amazing universe.
Once their universe is created; a few others will join in the group.
Put 20 kids in an amusement park with clowns cheering the same generic stuff and you'll see at least 15+ enjoying the day while a very small portion will be dying for this day to end.
The majority of the people are followers, not leaders or creators. Most grew up with a themed toys while only a few only had what they made as a toy.
Either one, doesn't make you better then the other, it's simply a matter of perception.
EDIT: Got to agree that many "Sandbox" are not really that awesome... Darkfall being one of the worse I've seen in years. You have a certain freedom and yes it is a sandbox but it is a horrible sandbox. I still enjoyed it for the time being but eventually, I left and went back to older games.
Open PVP doesn't mean Sandbox btw...
This. Darkfall lacked crafting content, proper player housing and was solely based around ffa pvp, this isn't the main attraction for me, and surely applies to many others as well.
FFA PVP is like a turd in the sandbox, makes you want to run away! The vast majority do NOT want FFA losing an item and coin is fine, but to lose everything you work hard to get just sucks. And yes make games more crafter oriented also will help.
That's because most players are the biggest wusses around...beta males IMO
What does that MEAN, exactly?
If you mean there are scenario buidling tools, which I don't think you do, then COH/V is now a sandbox game.
Do you mean any game with player housing and crafting? Then there's a lot of sandbox games.
No game I'm aware of allows, say, the creation or destruction of "baseline" world geometry -- if the developers put in a city, the players can't tear it down, though they may be able to build other cities. In SWG, you couldn't kill Luke or Darth -- at least not permanently. I can't remember if you could even target them, but I think not.
If you mean that there's content of various levels of difficulty and players are "led" to areas of appropriate content, I can only think of two traits a hypothetical "sandbox" game has that most "theme park" MMOs do not -- non instanced housing (player cities, etc) and FFA PVP.
You seem to be conflating the option of following quest chains with being *compelled* to follow them. If the content of two games (monsters, loot, crafting, etc) is identical, but one has a bunch of guys with glowing punctuation suggesting you go here or there (but doesn't compel you or lock out content), and one just lets you wander until you find what you want to kill, what's the real distinction?
First off, you seem to be under the impression that something is either a "pure" sandbox game or not one at all. Nothing is that binary, it's a scale and most of the things you mention are *elements* which can be used in making something more of a "sandbox" game. Btw, most people agree that a "pure" sandbox would fail miserable; there needs to be a foundation of a solid "themepark" or traditional pve system under it all to build off of.
CoH/CoV in its fully evolved form has become more of sandbox game; many of the elements added since Cryptic sold it off are definately "sandboxish".
A robust crafting system is certainly part of a sandbox, as is a player driven/dominated economy. Player housing can be a sandbox element if it is done like old-SWG did, done as standalone duplicate side instances like most do now it's nothing.
The key element to something being a "sandbox" component is that it encourages player interaction with each other as opposed to the player interaction with something dev-placed. (Doesn't mean the dev has no part in it, they have to provide the tools, but the primary interaction is player to player)
So, it includes (but is by no means limited to): PvP systems, crafting, economics/vendors/merchants, player housing/cities, politics/alliances/guilds/families, player-created quests/dungeons/points of interest. A degree of permanence, persistent alteration of the game world is sandboxy. Even dev-designed "dynamic" quests with sufficient options/variant paths could be "sandboxish"...traditional quests, with or without glowing exclamation points and quest trackers; are "themepark" elements.
Frankly that last bit of yours makes me think that you have no clue what I am talking about, haven't read a whole lot about "sandbox" games and/or just like trying to infer a whole lot from my post that wasn't there.
EVE has 300k subscriptions, not 150k, which is a pretty huge difference than how you put it. IMO, that goes to show that a 'niche' game can have success outside of its niche audience, because 300k to me is no longer niche when it begins to appeal to more people than several AAA non-sandbox titles. Developers should start realizing that if they make a POLISHED game that delivers at least mostly on what it advertises (instead of being released bug-ridden and practically broken with a lack of features that would make the game -truly- sandbox *cough Darkfall*)
As of now, 'sandbox' is largely associated with broken games or games that ripped people off, because there is only one success story out of the bunch.
IMO - a true sandbox is where the world is really a functioning world. Not just a group of areas you stay in for a while while you're doing quests, until you move to the next area to do the same thing. A sandbox should simply be as close to a world as possible, where the features all rely on one another, yet no one feature tries to be the dominant one (IE; raiding, battlegrounds)
It doesn't necessarily have to do with what features the game has.. IE - FFAPvP seems to be associated with sandbox. Well I really don't think that makes a game a sandbox. In this regard, I don't think Darkfall is a very well executed sandbox at all. It has a sole focus, that being PvP with everything coming second. It is just as theme park as the rest of them until it gets better PvE and crafting.
Instead, I think FFAPvP should simply be a feature of sandbox games. Just as quests are just a feature. Raids should just be a feature.. something to do, and not the end-all "get all the awesome gear you can before everyone else gets it" like it currently is. Quests should be QUESTS, not "Kill X and return here". Quests from games like Asheron's Call were REAL quests.. Could take you months to collect pieces for a quest to get some awesome armor, or to finally get access to this dungeon where you'd get to fight one of the major storyline villains. The dungeons had puzzles, rolling balls of death.. platforms you had to jump on, pits of acid to jump over. etc..
In EVE, the economy is reliant on both PvP and PvE, and likewise PvPers and PvEers rely heavily on a working economy in order to buy things for themselves and be able to make money selling things.
To sum up this sort of 'rant' - Sandbox games should be polished, because a proper sandbox game should have features that all work together to make the game function. No one feature should be the focus of the game, and really, it should feel like a -world-, not a game. EVE -feels- like a universe. The single server thing is, IMO, necessary for a true sandbox.
The next step to sandboxes in the fantasy genre is a planet. A single planet which can be entirely explored, settled, conquered, complete with its own unique lore, creatures, races, etc.. It shouldn't be a game BASED on conquering, but should instead be a world where it just so happens that people fight a lot and cities and regions change hands. The main focus of the game should instead be the world itself.. where those things are an accepted part of what goes on, in addition to whatever small or large-scale raids against high-end mobs might take place.. etc..
I hope I've made some sense.
Don't get me wrong I think EveOnline is a great and unique space game, but I have always found it hard to square the 300K subs with the 53,850 players occupying the in-game universe simultaneously numbers they put out also. I think it niche and some play it very casually. Consequently, I think that although Eve Online is great it is not going to break the mold of modern mmo, especially as it is quite old, though of course patched significantly from original release.
Out of curiosity, is it that you think the number of subs is false or the ratio of subs to accounts online is false?
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
I don't see a single thing wrong with the numbers. It is an international game, not one with EU servers and US servers.. etc.. So prime times are going to be different depending on where in the world people live. The 50k+ number they said as their concurrent users is perfectly possible. If it had 300k users in the US alone, the concurrent users would likely be MUCH higher. But it's not.. so what's hard to 'square'?
Edit: Also, they even have roughly 2-3k trial accounts active at a time, and -don't- put those numbers in their figures. I don't see why CCP has given any reason to make people think their numbers are wrong in any way. It's not like they're spouting -amazing- figures. Just good ones, and consistent ones. They've been gaining subscriptions consistently since the game's release.
Sandbox means clients can create their own content and they have a wide variety of choices in the game. FFA PvP adds choice and self created content, but that is not the only way to do it! Definitely not. In fact it also adds limits to peoples choices in game, because it can often prevent players from interacting with each other and it puts heavy pressure on players to focus on combat. If you are in a game that is FFA PvP, chances are you will be constantly pressured to do whatever gets you the best combat gear/highest level/ect. Well, that is limiting player choices by pressuring players to be combat centric.
EVE is a good sandbox, but it also has a lot of limits. When I played it I just felt too much pressure to become rich and powerful. I just didnt see the fun in it. As opposed to a better sandbox, pre-CU SWG, where I didn't feel pressure to do anything that I didn't want to do, I felt more like I could do whatever and have fun and not be looked down on by the community as a newbie or something like you see in so many MMOs.
SWG was such a big IP there was a lot of pushback against its sandbox style from 'mainstream' linear gamers who wanted the game spoonfed to them like a movie, and to top if off there were a lot of bugs and missing features. Still I see it now as what a sandbox could be- No pressure to do one thing or another- a lot of choices- a lot of opportunities to create your own style and content.
A bit later though WoW came out, got a shitload of subscriptions, and ever since no developer has the balls to play in the sandbox. Hardcore games like Darkfall do provide a niche for PvPers but it doesnt provide the level of choice that a full sandbox would, so I would put it somewhere in between with EVE. Games like second life provide such a sandbox that they are hard to work with and not cohesive (ie sharded from area to area with no overall feel or storyline), which can push people away. Thats why people like me felt so drawn to SWG, which was cohesive yet also provided enough choices to make me feel excited.
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I currently play (and actually right now am playing) Eve. Most of the time when I log on at night there are 50k or so people logged on. Sometimes I log in throughout the day to sell things on my trader and I still usually never see that number below about 26k.
To be perfectly honest I wouldn't care if there weren't 300k subscribers. Seeing a fairly consistent number of people throughout ALL primetimes (prime time in my TZ, in gmt 0, etc.) is still impressive. And every single one of those people are on ONE server. I love it because if something major happens then you'll know about it. It creates a real sense of a world. Whenever a major war starts up, you know the one where tens of billions of isk are lost throughout, then you'll hear about it and be affected by it to some degree. When the few MAJOR conflicts popped up, the ones where hundreds of cap ships get destroyed then that affects the economy everywhere.
I wish more mmo's were able to be put on at least larger servers. Where concurrent users exceed 8-10k and still have everything run reasonably smooth. Keep in mind that Eve is very instanced. Each of the hundreds of systems are instanced....maybe not instanced.....they're ehhh, segmented. I'm not an IT guy so I'm not sure exactly what technology is at work in Eve, but from what I've been told by people who are it's all quite impressive.
The real problem with translating that to a world like Aion is that Eve has relatively few objects per system. And even then the major trade hubs are, from what I've been told, their own servers. For those familiar with Jita (a major, major trade hub) that has it's own server. I'm glad Eve is growing steadily, but I have to wonder what is going to happen over time. Will CCP be able to continue to have only one meta server? Will they be able to continue to improve their tech to support more and more concurrent users?
Given how much time and effort they have to devote to just one meta server then would they even be able to operate two? If there was ever a game that operated off of meta-servers like Eve that ever got to the seeming mythic-like proportions of WoW with millions upon millions of players how many servers would they need and would it be even doable from a manpower perspective?
What I am about to say is likely unprovable today because, simply, the data likely no longer exists. There may be some sheet buried away in an accountants files somewhere, but who knows. In it's prime SWG had close to or over about 600-750k subscribers. I say this because when the initial mass exodus occured it was widely reported that over 500k people left. Today I believe there are no more than about 60k subscribers to SWG....10% of it's prime.
This is all specifically due to listening to 'mainstream' gamers. The problem with 'mainstream' gamers is that they're fickle. These are the people that are used to playing a game from a starting point and then eventually reaching an end point. People who are used to being able to beat a game. The problem is that with a REAL mmo there is no end. There is no beating it. Well, mainstream gamers don't like that.
Games like WoW get away with it simply because you have levels and other stuff you can 'achieve' so it feels like you beat something. Though, point of fact, you never actually beat it. Throw these same people into the world of a sandbox where there is no real beginning and not even really any sort of even a fake end and they don't know what to do with themselves. Call it a very broad statement if you want. It is, I won't deny that, but it's true.
A REAL sandbox game (not even an mmo here) has a vague beginning. Then there is a whole bunch of content (stuff to do) planted about the game world. You can choose what it is you want to do and when you want to do it. There are some limiting factors such as terrain or 'stronger' mobs, but that's pretty much it. That's basically how the early days of mmo's were.
Somewhere along the lines things changed, but at this point I would hardly say evolved. Instead of things becoming even more open and free they've become more and more restricted. The world of gaming is authored just as much by us as consumers as it is by us, creators. Similarly we are authored by games themselves.
It's time for people to go back to square one.
Because the masses are simple, and they want simple shallow games where everything is handed to them, and there is no actual deep content. See- WoW.
Darkfall Travelogues!
If you ask 10 fans of sandbox gaming what the definition of a sandbox is, you will get 13 different answers (people with multiple personalities love sandbox games). Then you get into the genre of the game, fantasy, SciFi, post apocalyptic...toss in the pvp...ffa...no pvp.....crafter dependant economy......
I don't believe the love of sandbox gaming is as deep as you might think it is, then when you add in different tastes wrt the afore mentioned variables.....most games are locked up at the start stage. Just because someone like sandbox games it doesn't mean they like the same kind of sandbox you might.
If you ask 10 people on the street to make up statistics, you will get 13 different answers too!
People will list different elements of a "sandbox" game because there are so many ways it can be done and many different elements it could use. Of course different gamers like some of them more than others, but the core elements of player interaction and persistant world change are there.
Are the people who really want a "sandbox" game the majority of the playerbase? Probably not, but who knows? I think there are more than enough of us out there to support a game or two if anyone got it even half right. I suspect more gamers than you think would enjoy playing a game where their actions actually had some lasting impact on the game world.
PS As a total aside; EVE has benefitted greatly from slow growth over time. Even with the wonderful job they do with server management and the inherent scattering of players, they would be hammered if they were just starting up and had 12k+ players trying to log into and start in the 4 factional newbie zones. That 50k+ concurrent users works because of how diffuse EVE gameplay is.
Yup.
90% of the people will never be in the top 10%. Do the math; you'll see I'm right.
So why should those 90% continue to pay money to be someone else's bitch?
(And unless EQ1, FFXI, Vanguard as originally designed, and plenty of other games with harsh death penalties are all sandboxes, dislike of losing isn't the issue. Rather, it's dislike of losing when you know there's no chance of winning. PVP tends to be won by those with an inordinate amount of time to devote to the game, who keep on top of the can't-lose build of the week, and who invest considerable real-world resources (second accounts for mules or spies, etc) in the game. A lot of people can't or won't make that commitment, and, without it, they will never win regularly enough to make it worth paying a monthly fee -- or, hell, even for free, as there's plenty of F2P games they can be at least *competent* at, if not great. The problem is, with PVP-centric games, you are either great -- or you effectively can't play. Eventually, even the dimmest bulb clues in that he won't catch up, and quits.)
I am by no means bashing sandbox games. I'm just saying that the very points individuals enjoy about them are the same points that prevent the whole "sandbox" audience from coming together behind on title. I don't believe I quoted any stats (unless you take the 13 thing serious, which I would then find concerning). An example was that I enjoyed SWG at one point in time ( which could be called a sandbox), but though I don't mind the concept of EVE, I have never been able to get into it.
I suspect more gamers than you think who would enjoy a well made, well tested MMORPG that did something different, whether its classified as a sandbox or not. There are some IPs I think would be excellent sandbox games, others I would view as more themepark based. I enjoy both. I didn't know that I was required to pick sides.
I wholly believe that if you did that, it would take less than an hour before they were strangling each other.
I'd pay good money to watch that.
Because the few that have tried have it stuck in their head that a sandbox mmo must have ffa pvp with full loot.
I have yet to encounter ANY online game which even comes close to providing meaningful tool to create my own content, as compared to paper&pencil RPGs, which I've been playing for 30+ years now. Every game which promises such things quickly falls well short, and often comes across as not so much as sandbox as an amusement park the rides don't work and the staff has quit, and you're handed a box of wrenches and a clown mask and told to "Make your own fun!".... though the cost of admission is still just as high as it is to Disneyland.
If you try to pin people down to concrete examples of what they mean by "Make your own content", most of the time, it is some variant of "Well, this one time, me and this guy were, like, bored, so we found this spot in, like, Yew where the guards couldn't teleport 'cause it was broken, so me and him stood there and we shot fireballs at people and if they shot back the guards would come and kill THEM and then I got my kid brother to bring on his blue mule and loot all the bodies and that was totally fun and then they patched it 'cause all the little carebears cried 'cause they're all wimps and just can't deal with losing. They suck."
Bingo! It's not a matter of sandbox games failing because they are sandbox games. They fail because they don't work worth a damn and are frustrating as hell to play (e.g. StarWars Galaxies at release and after every one of their massive game revamps, and DarkFall at release).
For some bizarre reason companies think that the sandbox model is to blame. Why not try releasing one that isn't flat out busted? EVE had a troubled release, I'm told, but they seemed to listen hard to the players and fix the real bugs and issues in a timely manner. Just imagine if a sandbox game actually released in a polished state. To be quite honest, I've simply never seen that and I've been following these games for many years now.
I wholly believe that if you did that, it would take less than an hour before they were strangling each other.
I'd pay good money to watch that.
Lol. Forums certainly can be hostile places at times :P.
Having said that, I'm part of an open source project that is developing an amazing sandbox game. It's a fantasitc community effort and experience. The game is being made on a shoe-string budget, and all of the work is done by volunteer programmers, testers, community folks that simply love games and enjoy working/playing with other gamers.
Frankly, it puts a lot of the junk pushed out by high budget companies to shame. The server for beta testing is maxed out in terms of population. It's like trying to get into WoW at peak times, just to test the thing. Funny thing is, in its current state it works a helluva lot better than many games that have been out for years.
Any examples? Or is this a shadow on Plato's cave?
Most games have some of those things; I can't think of a game with all of them.
As a general rule, the more power you give to the players, the more risks you are taking, as it can become very easy for a small minority of players to drive off the paying majority. You might notice I keep emphasizing $$$MONEY$$$ in my posts. If you can't come up with a game concept which will attract enough players to pay for the development costs, you're basically hoping you'll with the lottery.
There are also a lot of technical issues involved with persistance, such as the fact players AREN'T persistent.
Both dealing with things when a player is offline (should you be able to burn down his house when he's not there to fight you?) or quits/cancels are complex. (If you're a day late without fee, do you lose your house? A week? A month?) Obviously, none of these issues are, by themselves, insoluble -- but with each and every game design issue, you need to ask "Are the costs of implementing this less than the revenue which will be added by having this feature?" If not, you have to say no and move on.
Another point, more generally, is that if you tell people "You can do what you want!", what they want to do is "Make my numbers bigger!" If the best way to raise, say, magic skill is to stand in one place and cast a buff spell on yourself, over and over, they will do that. If you get the same XP per second by killing one kind of monster in one area as you do exploring and killing, people will do that. The fastest road to "the top", whatever that is, with the least effort,will be quickly found and quickly imitated. I've read plenty of interviews with Raph Koster and some of the other designer of UO and SWG, the classic "sandbox" games, and been on a few developer mailing lists. There is often a lot of content put into these games -- cool locations, nifty easter eggs, unusual tricks -- but 99% of the player base ignores them, because there's no reward, and without reward, most people don't act.
sandboxes just don't appeal to the masses cause well its essentially a niche genre