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You "ThemeParkers" just don't get it
Rekindle
Member UncommonPosts: 1,206
What is the single reason that there are so many wow clone theme park games out there? The answer is : Because people play them.
When us older farts (I'm only 35 hehe) first sat down to play mmos in the early days it wasn't to play some mouse on a wheel spinning after gear crap. For many of us, including the developers, it was the pnp Dungeons and Dragons finally actualized. Sure the UI was clunky but there was some aspect of it that made you feel like you were part of the environment. Most new developers probably haven't even seen a D20 
Gear was part of it indeed. I had one silver broadsword in UO for a long time. One. I protected that thing until I lost it at the bottom of dungeon Deceit. I got pk'd down there. He cast wall of stone on me while I was fighting a lich lord. Thats right: I lost something in the game world and I still remember "where" and "when" in the game world it happend. That memory stayed with me because it represented the loss of something gained. UO remains the only game world where I traded a house I owned for a wooden chair because it was broken and therefore "rare".
In the beginning I thought the sky was going to be the limit. The worlds that would come. The cool things that they'd do. Hey game devs: where is Recall V2.0 and Gatetravel? Where is treasure hunting? Anyone with 1 year experience could spawn a map, a shovel and a chest spawn point. Where is sailing like in UO and housing and everythign else? I'll tell you where 10 ++ years in the past and its your fault for subscribing to this stuff Please cite the page in the wow book of all things where it says rare items or unique items must not spawn.
Now its all this free to play nonsense which wouldn't be a scam if it didn't FEEL like a scam and if they werent trying to hide the fact you don't get something for nothing.
In my mind MMOs were never going to be cooperative single player RPG games. They were meant to be game worlds with an ecosystem made up of various parts but primarily influenced by the players. Sandbox means: here is a bucket of toys, go play with them.
What the hell has happened to this industry? Its gone completely fubar. All I can say is thank god for Eve Online. The one place where I still clearly remember when and where I loose stuff. The one place where I feel the player has the upper hand in how to participate in content and the one place that promises to give me a good ass kicking for my missteps. In Eve sometimes there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The best thing that can happen to this industry is for there to be a seperation in ideology. I dont want to be called a mmorpg gamer anymore and any game that offers fedx and kill as its primary entertainment can go. I believe its time for a new paradigm that seperates those that understand the properties of what goes into making good virtual worlds and those that think that World of Warcraft is the Rosetta Stone of online interactive game play.
I dont really mean to offend people who enjoy theme park games. It is a style, and its a valid one but it represents a level of creative indulgence I've experience already. I find that sandbox , free to roam worlds offer the most intresting experiences because by nature human behaviour is unpredictable whereas games on rails always have predictable outcomes.
The last 10 years of gaming has been spent developing hatred for what the genre has become. You can say how innovative the graphics engines have become but if you boil game play down it hasn't changed. The level wheel has been perfected to be the perfect result of scripted programming instead of the otherway around.
anyway have a nice day.
Comments
Amen
"EVE is likely the best MMORPG that you've never really understood or played" - Kyleran
Man I know the feeling
I stumbled on UO and loved it from teh get go, I still recall running into Deceit to help a friend get his loot back, I grabbed all his loot and tried to run
Forgetting I had fullish loot myself i was too encumbered to move, I got killed so quick I ran outside and went OooooOoOOooOO OOooOOooOoOooOoooO to anyone walking past
My pride was getting my 2 storey sandstone Villa down and decorating it, or farming Nobles after mezzing them and taking tehm to teh docks for a game of 'Sheath my Sword'
ahhh happy days, a loss of gear was not the end of the world, shame that recent games with PvP just descend into huge gankfest
I am actually gonna log into a Free Shard on UO tonight and try and remember how to play the game
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ab/Norsefire-logo.png
You guys know UO is still around and recently launched an expansion right?
In this day and age, the genre is putting too much emphasis on the GAMEPLAY.
I know.
Games emphasizing gameplay? What dark times we live in, my friend. This is nonsense.
What is a sandbox?
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I say second life is a sandbox. Why? Because you can do anything in Second Life. You want a new face? Make a new face. You want to run a bar on the beach? You can do that too.
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Why do you say Eve is a sandbox? Can you build a bar on the beach in Eve and serve drinks?
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
Not much else I can add, I feel pretty much the same way.
No, I don't blame the folks who enjoy theme park style games, I did too at one time but have grown bored with the model as they all end up pretty much the same.
I do wish there would be a new, well funded effort to deliver a quality sand box game but so far no large Development group has been willing to risk varying from the EQ-WOW model.
Perhaps if enough games trying to copy WOW continue to perform with lackluster results someone will decide to take a chace and do something "different' by going back to the old ways.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I was kinda hoping, during my year and a half away, that WAR and AoC would have been enough to do that... apparantly not...
"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." - Henry Ford
Second Life is the most extreme sandbox in the universe. You want to fly an airplane? do it. you want an airplane> make it. You want to have 7 arms and eat trees, technically that is possible. The issue is that you have to make EVERYTHING yourself or find someone who made it already. Also Second Life isn't really an MMORPG, it is more like an MMO Social Experiment.
The sandbox he was refering to is the kind where you are given a non-linear game where there are tools to give you a variety of gameplay possibilities within the context of the game.
To OP, you could always try Mortal Online.
It's so galling when people like things that you don't, isn't it? I mean, the nerve of those people.
There are sandbox games out there - play them.
Given the tone of your post, however, that doesn't appear to be your point/desire. Looks like you think your chosen gamestyle is the "right" one, and therefore should be "winning" (whatever the hell that would mean).
I've yet to see a game company that doesn't want to make money. If it looked like a AAA sandbox would make big money, some major studio somewhere would be on it.
Oh, and I agree with most of the posts above - most forums, especially those at MMORPG.com, are garbage.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
[quote]Originally posted by uquipu Why do you say Eve is a sandbox? Can you build a bar on the beach in Eve and serve drinks? [/b][/quote]
Not yet, but Soon:
Dungeons and Dragons (TV Show)
Dungeons & Dragons premiered on September 17, 1983 on CBS and ran for two seasons. The main characters were real-world people who rode the new D&D roller coaster at the local theme park and somehow got transported by the Dungeon Master to a fantasy world. Each of the main characters had a personal magic item, and a vast majority of the show's plots revolved around the evil Venger trying (and failing) to get their items so that he could become all-powerful......
I just love when people draw the D&D card when it comes to computer games.... *sigh*
I play D&D since more than two decades now and I can tell you that it is as near to a theme park as it can be. D&D is pure entertainment and players want to be entertained as good as possible. As a DM you cut out all the boring stuff (and with 1e or even brown box D&D that was possible without a problem) and let the players have a good time at the table. I never saw players that had fun in playing out mining, gathering food, repairing items, etc, at the table, never ever. This stuff is handwaved in a matter of seconds at the table 99% of the time.
They want to do the big stuff like fighting the nasty monster in the dungeon or sneak through town to rescue the damsel in distress. All this Roleplaying mumbojumbo only got into the game at a later time. When D&D had its golden age in the late 70s and early 80's it was about "Get in - kill it - survive it - get the phat loot - get out - brag about it" and the harder it got the better it was.
You guys yelling and lamenting about "sandbox vs. theme park" either do not or do not want to understand the real difference between the two terms. Because essentially both terms belong to each other. You know what D&D is? A sandbox theme park...think about it.
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Remember, remember the 5th of November
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The industry has come to realize where the money is. Im not disagreeing with you at all, im just looking at it from the business angle. A lot of people are playing todays MMO's that would be intimidated by the games that you desribe. Easy mode sells and sells even more if a CS is envolved to make it even easier. I dont like what im seeing either but it seems to be the way its trending and I dont see it getting any better in the foreseeable future. I think a good sandbox game would make a profit just not enough profit to satisfy big business which is now running the genre. Games are still made by gamers but the suits are pulling the strings.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
It is a matter of money, but not in the same way you think it is. Sandbox games are hard to implement because what your player base does is unpredictable. So your code must be MUCH more robust which essentially means more expensive. Investment of an AAA sandbox would be so outrageously large that the risk of not getting the cost back might be too high and thus the AAA sandbox is not made.
To be honest, you're placing blame on the wrong group. The "themeparkers" are simply playing a game that they find fun, whatever themepark mmo they just so happened to be playing. However, it's the developers, publishers and investors that are pushing for all mmorpgs to be themeparks. It's believed that themepark mmos are more popular, and the data does seem to support that idea, but there hasn't really been a sandbox that's been released with a high level of polish.
Typically, you only get one chance to make a first impression. In the mmorpg genre, this is especially true. Even after games have gone and corrected the many issues that plagued the release, they've never become as popular as they could have or even should have been.
Until we have a sandbox game that releases feature complete, with only minor issues, we're going to keep getting the same games we have been for the past five years.
I agree with the OP. Not much more I can add. I'm starting to think that maybe MMORPGs are sort of dying out in general. There is just a lack of new large titles now it seems. I think it's safe to say there is a nice chunk of playerbase out there that want the UO experience...but don't need the FPS gameplay or high end graphics with ragdolls etc. that seems to have to be included in games now adays.
Maybe it's time for us to create an MMO together...who wants in?!
Disclaimer: This is not a troll post and is not here to promote any negative energy. Although this may be a criticism, it is not meant to offend anyone. If a moderator feels the post is inappropriate, please remove it immediately before it is subject to consideration for a warning. Thank you.
So you leave Eve's training ground.
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You go get a mission from the theme park owners. You perform missions.
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Or you go mine an asteroid that the theme park owners set up for you to mine.
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Or you go out and explore space. The theme park owners set up space for you to explore.
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You progress your toon along lines that the theme park owners set up.
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All this before you joined the game.
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Where is the freedom?
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
... Is this a joke? Thats like saying real life is a themepark because there are minerals in the ground for us to dig up.
Just because I am not programming my own MMO everytime I want a new feature doesn't mean its not a sandbox.
Themepark games are a step backward in innovation. I'm more frustrated with the developers but the mass of players responsible for proping up this type of game are at fault too.
There are sandbox games out there and yes I'm playing them but that doesn't mean we can't hope/wish talk about things to come.
Given that people who enjoy wow clone thempark style games are the majority it would be folly to think that I'm right and everyone else is wrong. Just because I think wow clones are crap doesn't mean I don't have the objectivity to identify that many people disagree with me.
The points that themeparkers dont get are the ones that don't get implemented in games.
I'm not denying the roll of repetitive content in games. My "~" key on most keyboards was worn out back in the day. This was my use item button in UO. In order to acquire the supplies I needed I had to use-item a lot.
UO had a very repetitive aspect to it. So does Eve but this repetition is not the corner stone of the game's offering. Using a computer will invariably result in repetitiion. Games are no different.
As for your suggestion that I progress my toon along the lines the owners set up I'd agree. But you won't have anyone in Eve telling you they have a lvl 54 miner or a lvl 30 explorer.
Is Eve perfect? Well I wouldnt be here right now if it were (or maybe its because the servers are off) but if we put the freedom enablers of Eve on a chart then you'd see why. Its clear that Eve devs, at least in the beginning, were ex-UO.
Second Life is one ultimate sandbox. But it's not a MMO game, even if it has games you can play in it, Second Life is the example of a virtual world.
I wish that MmoRpg's had some more of that, it would be awesome. a few years ago there was this big talk about 'player generated content' as being one of the trends of the future - I think that discussion arose with AC2 and such - but that potential hasn't been realised, instead MMORPG's have moved towards players getting pampered and taken by the hand to be entertained. A shame.
So none of the MMORPG's - afaik - has the sandbox flexibility and freedom of Second Life, but there are some MMO's that have more sandbox type gameplay elements and sandbox feel than others, like a fully functional player driven economy, freedom in building player settlements, and more room and freedom to manoeuver in the MMO world and leave your impact upon its world as players.
I'd rate EVE Online among those.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I never saw Theme Park and Sandbox as dualities, and I think that is wrong thinking. Every cool game I know has theme park AND sandbox elements. Generally, the question whether a game is sandbox or theme park really is of no significance to me. I played all those Sims and Sim games which are sandboxes and I played story driven adventures and RPGs. I can enjoy both. No, I really don' think the question of Theme Park VS Sandbox has the relevance which is claimed here.
I DO agree games devolved. They lost complexity. But it's not the theme park which is to blame or sandbox is the magic answer. It is complexity and creativity which is absent. If those are in a game, I don't care how "free" I am in the game. Those coordinates which are so often a matter of debate here and IMVPO just a misleading focus.
One of the main reasons is, once games were visions of a handful of people. Today we have stock holders and bean counters tailoring games for a presumed taste of the masses, and of course creativity dies on that road. Creativity isn't democratic. It's born of the dominance of one or two designers who have all in their hands.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Well, some say World of Warcraft is a sandbox once you reach level 80... Themepark or Sandbox are definitions widely overused to praise or complain about something. I think that's what he was trying to say.
I also find it funny when one state "us, veteran gamers" to support an opinion, when in fact, we're playing/having fun in MMOs for such a wide variety of reasons... 'Veteran gamers' are far from homogeneous.
Hey I thought super mario bros. 3 was the best game ever invented but you don't see me yearning back into those times and wishing i was playing it instead of a game like bayonetta which i have just as much fun playing now.
I'm sorry that you guys don't get that innovation brings changes. I played ultima online and while fun, I can't say I had more fun in UO than I did playing WoW or WAR. Besides how fun can UO be if you guys are not playing it anymore? I still bust out starcraft and it's the same age as UO. Worse i still bust out snes games which are much older, so it's not like technology was as issue.
I think the real problem is that we have people that don't embrace innovation. It's like a sterotypical grandfather who says 'when i was your age'. I think the problem is that you will never be fulfilled because you don't know how to adopt.
P.S. I'm an 'older' gamer too and I like non-'sandmox' mmo's as well as the 'sandbox' ones.
How exactly? If it is the style of game they enjoy what are they actually at fault for? Playing something they enjoy? How dare they!
Guess it's just me but I like both game archetypes myself. Sandbox does tend to be more interesting at times for me personally and I have seen it have a better community at times, but frankly I rather enjoy themepark oriented games too.
It would be nice if there were more sandbox themed games out there for those that enjoy them but not real sure how you can blame or fault players from supporting something they enjoy. Just because you don't find something entertaining doesn't mean other don't as well or that they shouldn't.
What really gets me is the absolute reluctance the zealots on both sides far as true themepark players and sandbox players refuse to have any middle ground far as saying a game should have both elements present in it. That would be the ultimate game for me. One where you could shape the world by your actions and those of others as well as have themepark designs to have some lore and story in place for those that enjoy it or for times you just want to get some friends together and do some good 'ole dungeon running. Of course, the usual responses from them when suggesting that are either: A) IInconceivable! 'or'
I don;t want that shit in my game! If they want (game X) then let them play a game catering towards that!
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
The difference between themepark and sandbox is the framework of the game, and the resulting goals.
People often overblow the "wide-open, I can do anything" claims about sandbox games - for which probably only Second Life comes the closest. In general, sandbox games to this point have NOT been anywhere near as freeform as people claim. There isn't much more unpredictability in a sandbox game, no matter the claims, because you still can't do anything for which "tools" have not been provided to use within the framework of the game.
Sure, a massive sandbox with an extremely sophisticated framework and tools would cost a lot. The same is true of a massive themepark game with an extremely sophisticated thempark framework.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.