And that is the entire point of my post. One poster states in a sandbox the focus of the game is on the world and in a themepark is about the player and some story. In eve I'll always just be a pilot even if I do become famous for a certain action ultimately the game is never really about me. There is no main bad guy in eve that needs to be vanquished by my hands, there's no story that leads me to that. It's the way sandbox games are designed as world simulations that keeps them from being accepted by the masses. Too bad they don't realize how awesome being apart of a world like that could be.
As a child, which do you think you would get bored with first:
Going to the same themepark every day...
Taking all your toys into the sandbox...
For many folks, have to ask - what changed?
That depends how good and big is the themepark and how many hours a day ar eyou playing int he Themepark?If your in the Themepark 24/7 then sure it your going to see everything pretty fast and it would get tiring pretty qucikly but I'm pretty sure just playing in a sandbox 24/7 you'll probably experience the same thing.Now if your onyl going to the themepark once a day you might do different things every day or different rides,games of chance and food vendors every day.
Now to the sandbox...it sounds good and can probably be just as much fun as the themepark for a few hours a day but you don't get to bring all your toys,you cna only use the toys the maker of the sandox chooses to make available to you adn whilst some of these toys are great, a lot of the time a few of them are boring or only appeal to a small group and some don't work at all.
As a child, were you more likely to make friends at the themepark or in the sandbox? Did you talk more with strangers in the sandbox or at the themepark?
Well your first analogy was about having fun and nto being bored but now you want to change to discussing which is more social...well ok...you can be social and anitsocial in both a themepark and a sandbox depnding on your personality and mood.
is it more fun to visit a themepark solo or with friends?Do you have more fun ont he rides by yourself or with others along for the ride and friends in particular?
Both the sandbox and the thempark can be social events but in bot hit's dependant on the people there at the time especially when you were a child because children tend to socialize more readily without being wary.
I can enjoy and make friends in either a Sandbox or a Themepark and enjoy playing in both as long as they are well made,supported and interesting but being a Sandbox ro a Themepark does not assure any of that.
Sandbox games are about earning the right to be well-known. A good sandbox game should make players stand out naturally through their actions. There isn't a player in EVE who doesn't know who SirMolle or The Mittani are. Or you've been living under an asteroid if you don't.
People make their own stories, and that's how it should be. You are a part of a world, not the focus of the world. And in EVE's case, people can be MAJOR parts of the universe. Asheron's Call is an example of a hybrid. And I distinctly remember certain people on various servers getting major recognition across the player base.
I do not recognize either of those names. Have not been living under an asteroid. Been playing off and on for over 5 years.
Then again, aside from a few spammers/scammers in Heim or Metro...and a few folks from the various militia - do not really know anybody.
Guess that would be one of those things folks are talking about though - can do your own thing for the most part, even in a game as steeped with PvP as EVE.
No, you've definitely been living under an asteroid. It's posts like that that make me honestly doubt the validity of your opinions and critiques of the game. As much as you post on this site alone, I refuse to believe those names are completely unknown to you. If you've ever posted on the official EVE forums, then I DEFINITELY refuse to believe it.
I'm not even saying this to seem like a 'know-it-all'. Those two names are hands down, the most easily recognizable names in EVE, next to Chribba perhaps. I could see it from someone who's never posted on a forum for the game, or very rarely talks EVE outside the game, but for someone to play for 5 years and have such seemingly informed opinions on the game, and never hear those names is absurd.
You apparently don't keep up on the game as well as I thought, so I really can't imagine you know what the community 'wants' when it comes to certain controversial features.
Sandbox games are about earning the right to be well-known. A good sandbox game should make players stand out naturally through their actions. There isn't a player in EVE who doesn't know who SirMolle or The Mittani are. Or you've been living under an asteroid if you don't.
People make their own stories, and that's how it should be. You are a part of a world, not the focus of the world. And in EVE's case, people can be MAJOR parts of the universe. Asheron's Call is an example of a hybrid. And I distinctly remember certain people on various servers getting major recognition across the player base.
I do not recognize either of those names. Have not been living under an asteroid. Been playing off and on for over 5 years.
Then again, aside from a few spammers/scammers in Heim or Metro...and a few folks from the various militia - do not really know anybody.
Guess that would be one of those things folks are talking about though - can do your own thing for the most part, even in a game as steeped with PvP as EVE.
No, you've definitely been living under an asteroid. It's posts like that that make me honestly doubt the validity of your opinions and critiques of the game. As much as you post on this site alone, I refuse to believe those names are completely unknown to you. If you've ever posted on the official EVE forums, then I DEFINITELY refuse to believe it.
I'm not even saying this to seem like a 'know-it-all'. Those two names are hands down, the most easily recognizable names in EVE, next to Chribba perhaps. I could see it from someone who's never posted on a forum for the game, or very rarely talks EVE outside the game, but for someone to play for 5 years and have such seemingly informed opinions on the game, and never hear those names is absurd.
You apparently don't keep up on the game as well as I thought, so I really can't imagine you know what the community 'wants' when it comes to certain controversial features.
I have no clue who those folks are.....dont claim to as I have never played EVE.
I did play EQ1 though, and everyone knew who Furor and Thott were, and each persons guild(Fires of Heaven and Afterlife respectively). You can make a name for yourself in any game. For folks to claim it is a sandbox only feature is silly.
I am of the opinion if you enjoy the roleplay aspect in old PNP gaming, then sandboxes are right up your alley. PNP gaming though isnt mainstream, and it was divided between those that enjoyed roleplay vs those that enjoyed ROLLplay(IE the folks that enjoyed the fighting the most....something I read in a DnD manual).
No style is 'wrong" per say...it is just what folks enjoy.
I am of the ROLLplay camp. I enjoy a good story to go with my gaming, but that is where it stops. It has no reflection on a persons mental aptitude and/or maturity as some wish to allude to.
I would actually go the route of stating sandboxers can be just as immature as those they wish to insult in the themepark camp. If not more so. Themeparkers arent the ones desperate to get games made for them.
Rockgod nailed it on the head thougth...you could be supporting the sandboxes out there, yet there is always a "reason" to not do as such. Companies see this lack of support, so who in their right mind would ever consider a AAA sandbox? Couple that with the antics shown on msg brds, and there is no way I would ever target that niche of gamer.
EVE is the only sandbox success story, and they were forced to limit the FFA PVP. Combined with the fact folks can exchange ISK for gametime thru ingame mechanics(which is a great idea BTW), they have been able to keep above 300k subs for an extended duration. Something no other NA P2P MMO sandbox has done.
IMO a game like EQ is as sandboxey as you need to get if you want to be mainstream. When you add forced dependancy on crafters, and worldwide FFA PVP, your target audience dwindles.This PVE gamer is looking to kill mobs, and collect items/money. Not farm money to keep buying the same item. And most of all not looking to be lambs for slaughter.
I pay to play....not be someone elses content.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Most people do not really want to build things and create their own stuff from scratch. To be sure those people exist. They are just relatively rare.
Their are all sorts of hobbyists out there who build their own things of various sorts. However they want to build their OWN things.
Honestly if I wanted a sandbox I would make my own MMORPG. As a computer scientist I could do so, it would be a large project but other than my inability to do the art its doable.
Most people want some amount of customization and creative outlet but they do not want the extra burden of creating things for themselves. A minority of people get a big kick out of creating stuff for themselves.
I have seen a TV program where some people built their own trebuchet (counter-weight catapult). Most people would never do that and have no desire to do. But there are a ton of people who would like to play with that trebuchet.
Not only that but who is to say these hobbyists who had enough of an obsession to put in that kind of work would necessarily get all jazzed up to build cabinets or whatever else?
Not only are sandbox games catering to a smaller audience. They are catering to an audience with highly personalized tastes that are extremely hard to target. Being a sandbox is not enough you also must let them build what they want. You can give people some wood and a hammer and nail. One guy builds a trebuchet, one builds some cabinets. But almost no MMORPG works that way or can.
The word "hero" isn't helping because it clearly means different things to different people.
In my limited experience (but one that included EVE) sandboxes tend not to be ideal for people without long consecutive periods of time to spend. Not if you like playing with other people.
I love sandboxes in theory, but themeparks tend to be more casual friendly I think.
Sandbox games are about earning the right to be well-known. A good sandbox game should make players stand out naturally through their actions. There isn't a player in EVE who doesn't know who SirMolle or The Mittani are. Or you've been living under an asteroid if you don't.
People make their own stories, and that's how it should be. You are a part of a world, not the focus of the world. And in EVE's case, people can be MAJOR parts of the universe. Asheron's Call is an example of a hybrid. And I distinctly remember certain people on various servers getting major recognition across the player base.
I do not recognize either of those names. Have not been living under an asteroid. Been playing off and on for over 5 years.
Then again, aside from a few spammers/scammers in Heim or Metro...and a few folks from the various militia - do not really know anybody.
Guess that would be one of those things folks are talking about though - can do your own thing for the most part, even in a game as steeped with PvP as EVE.
No, you've definitely been living under an asteroid. It's posts like that that make me honestly doubt the validity of your opinions and critiques of the game. As much as you post on this site alone, I refuse to believe those names are completely unknown to you. If you've ever posted on the official EVE forums, then I DEFINITELY refuse to believe it.
I'm not even saying this to seem like a 'know-it-all'. Those two names are hands down, the most easily recognizable names in EVE, next to Chribba perhaps. I could see it from someone who's never posted on a forum for the game, or very rarely talks EVE outside the game, but for someone to play for 5 years and have such seemingly informed opinions on the game, and never hear those names is absurd.
You apparently don't keep up on the game as well as I thought, so I really can't imagine you know what the community 'wants' when it comes to certain controversial features.
See, I recognize the name Chribba. EVE Search and his goober mining fleet. As for the EVE forums, I have never found much use for them - they are rampant with fanbois or people RPing stuff that is meaningless to somebody not involved.
A quick Google of SirMolle brings up BoB. Mittani brings up GoonSwarm. I have been in my one real person at times multiple accounts corp since week one. Yep, never been bothered with BoB nor GoonSwarm, etc. Had heard of them, heck, dealt with Goonies back in Shadowbane... but as for who the people were in either in EVE, did not matter.
See, if you had mentioned Ushra'Khan, Star Fraction, CVA, and certain things like that - well, then I might have been able to follow along. Heretics, FailedDiplomacy, BANE, Final Agony, etc, etc. The people over in the area of space I live - have not been more than 20 or so jumps outside of Rens in forever. Never been in a fleet with over 70 or so people in it. Have a 22:1 ISK/Kill ratio. Nerdragequit over the ninja salvaging thing once (and if anybody is reading this, I highly suggest you never nerdragequit in EVE - it is far too easy to destroy billions worth of iskies and things you just cannnot get anymore or things that are very expensive to get back). If not for the account expiring before I could complete the term, I probably would never have gone back.
The people I think people should know, would not be the people you think folks should know. Null space never did it for me, but have been mucking around in FW since it started. Folks on the MinMil or the Ama boards - sure, those are my day to day encounters.
...as for speaking on what folks want, yep - that is based on all the complaints about things not being addressed in favor of development of fluff. The same stuff that came up in the CSM meeting notes, etc - that has been discussed over the years. It has been from being around over the years as CCP gets a nifty idea up their butts, squirts it out, and then abandons it...
That is along the lines of what has been said about sandboxes...
...then again, even in themeparks I've never really cared about the big guilds and the like.
Had a friend from my old Half-Life clan that went one way while the rest of us went another, cause he believed that accomplishments in WoW mattered - the rest of us just did not take it that seriously. It was a shame.
The way you talk about BoB, Goonies, etc - seems like you think they matter as well. It is just a game...
...but EVE definitely avoided one of the issues of Shadowbane. The SB world was too small. It did not really take that long for an alliance to take over the world. Think that is part of the reason that so many folks left around the ToO beta for games like EVE and WoW... though the reasons were different, it could not happen.
All this talk of EVE has me tempted to resub. It's been almost three months now since I last quit... there's just something about muddling around in EVE that can be both relaxing and exciting as long as you do not let it become a job.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
As a child, which do you think you would get bored with first:
Going to the same themepark every day...
Taking all your toys into the sandbox...
For many folks, have to ask - what changed?
That depends how good and big is the themepark and how many hours a day ar eyou playing int he Themepark?If your in the Themepark 24/7 then sure it your going to see everything pretty fast and it would get tiring pretty qucikly but I'm pretty sure just playing in a sandbox 24/7 you'll probably experience the same thing.Now if your onyl going to the themepark once a day you might do different things every day or different rides,games of chance and food vendors every day.
Now to the sandbox...it sounds good and can probably be just as much fun as the themepark for a few hours a day but you don't get to bring all your toys,you cna only use the toys the maker of the sandox chooses to make available to you adn whilst some of these toys are great, a lot of the time a few of them are boring or only appeal to a small group and some don't work at all.
As a child, were you more likely to make friends at the themepark or in the sandbox? Did you talk more with strangers in the sandbox or at the themepark?
Well your first analogy was about having fun and nto being bored but now you want to change to discussing which is more social...well ok...you can be social and anitsocial in both a themepark and a sandbox depnding on your personality and mood.
is it more fun to visit a themepark solo or with friends?Do you have more fun ont he rides by yourself or with others along for the ride and friends in particular?
Both the sandbox and the thempark can be social events but in bot hit's dependant on the people there at the time especially when you were a child because children tend to socialize more readily without being wary.
I can enjoy and make friends in either a Sandbox or a Themepark and enjoy playing in both as long as they are well made,supported and interesting but being a Sandbox ro a Themepark does not assure any of that.
Was not a case of trying to twist things around - just a case of presenting some of the varying sides of the issue. Fun vs. boredom, socializing vs. solo, etc, etc.
I still do not think that what people want is EITHER a sandbox or a themepark, but rather a game that includes elements of both - yet, people keep blathering on about them in some idiotic didactic manner.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
I believe that people have different tastes and like to do different things. I also think that most people like variation. If I´m right, that means not everyone care about being the hero, not everyone want to kill monsters all day long, and not everyone want to run errands for NPCs. Thats all I have to know to also know that a sandbox type of MMORPG could work just fine.
SWG was a sandbox in that meaning you had the choice to play in different ways. Still it was comparable in popularity to its themepark competitors. If you think that SWG was less popular or failed in its design, was it because people could play as an ordinary person like uncle Owen? Did it upset you, and made you leave the game, because that other guy wasnt the hero too, like you? Did all the uncle Owens for some reason prevent you from feeling or acting heroic yourself? Or do you think it failed because not enough other players wanted to be uncle Owen? Did the games main problem was lack of uncle Owens? I dont believe that.
Could it instead be other reasons for leaving? Like tons of bugs and broken skills and promises that never got fixed, unbalanced stats on buffs, armors and abilities, lack of suitable group content, or that you had to do tons of repetive and meaningless jedi grind? What game could possibly expect to be super successfull under those circumstances, sandbox or not? Does it mean that a sandbox can never work, or that its a design who are proven to not have any potential or demand for?
I dont agree on the "people want to be the hero" argument at all. It feels more like a mantra themepark game developers keep repeating in their blogs and interviews, and who have transfererd over as an empirical fact to this forum. In my experience other players do not seems to care that much about being the hero. Nor does it appear to reflect on peoples behavior in game. They just do what the game offer without question, as noone really have much of an option other than to be "the chosen one". If anything, I think people want to be able to make themself a name - that a player want to be remembered and noticed by other players for their actions. May it be because they craft such great armors, are so helpful, or dangerous in pvp. Not because they have saved the world from a imaginary threat, like everyone else.
Not being the hero is kinda the point in MMORPGs, or atleast was. Because if you have 1000 heroes then noone is really a hero are they.
No, the main reason it wont appeal to the masses is because the masses are well... lazy and not dedicated enough. They dont have the mental capacity to become successful in a sandbox game which is significantly more dificult than your average, dev-handheld, themepark MMORPG where everyone can be successful with minimal effort.
Thempark -> Easy Mode
Sandbox -> Easy to get started, difficult to master
Sandbox will never work untill they add "spades" a "bucket" and a few other bits and pieces to play around with. So far all the sandbox games i have eagerly awaited have been let down due to them being too sandboxy!
A game with nothing to do but imagination is not worth the electricity bill it takes to run it.....if i want to use my imagination i shut my eyes and dream......believe me i come up with far better than Darkfall etc!
The key word is "BALANCE"
EQ is still the most sandboxy i game i have ever played....a huge world that you could go wherever you wanted....you could explore, craft, fight or even just socilaise. What they did was give you lots of choices and they then they just left you alone to go and do what you wanted. Balance and content is what is important to me
Sorry EQ is less than a sandbox than EvE. Like I said UO (and Second Life now that I think about it) are the only games I would consider true sandbox games. If you have to base progression on some sort of combat, then your world will revolve around combat. Crafting will be a slave to it, your avatar will be a slave to it, the whole virtual world would be a slave to how well you can fight. Not think, not imagine, not live. Fight. And if you don't learn how to fight bigger and badder mobs, you don't get the "mats" to progress further. Ridiculous.
Now don't get me wrong, combat progression is needed for certain roles. Hunters, adventurers and other thrill seekers. But in UO I could progress my character without even killing a single thing. Thief, begger, scribe, alchemist, builder. cook, blacksmith, bard, cartographer, you name it. It didn't revolve around welding a blade. In EQ you have to level your character to get better mats. You also have to do this in damn near every last mmo released after UO.
And EvE....ugh...if you still insist that EvE is sandbox/boxy/box-like then you have to include:
Because all of them have player driven economies, PvP, crafting and large worlds. These are not sandboxes to me, they are space simulators. The difference being that sandboxes are ground-based and space simulators are space-based. Unless of course you don't have to pilot and can take a shuttle, land on a planet and be a ressource miner that delivers his goods to a space port and never have to set foot in space again. Then you have a sandbox with vast potential to reach beyond one world. If only anyone could make a game like that....
I dont dissagree with you at all friend.
I only played EvE a little and didnt find it interesting enough to hold me. And i do agree to be a true sandbox you need more ways to level other than combat.
What i meant about EQ was more of a combat sandbox i suppose. for instance i could choose to go to a huge number of places to level at any given stage during my delelopment. i could go exploring any outdoor zone at any particular level...dreadlands at 20? yes i could!....explore a lower guk dungeon at 15?....no chance...dungeons were unforgiving in EQ, just like they should be in any game...but thats another arguement
A sandbox game does not need to have "nothing to follow" to be a good game...it needs to have directions to go without restrictions. Any sandpit i ever went in as a child was never empty! even the beach had, water, sand, stones and more to make my own adventures with. Darkfall? an empty world to walk around doing nothing....thats not a sandpit to me....its an empty box!
I just wanted to pipe in on this.. Many of you are correct, and some are wrong, in my opinion.. As a few posters have said or hinted to.. I think the BASE difference between sandbox and themepark games is the social aspect.. For me, to enjoy a sandbox game YOU must be socialable.. Sandbox games will give you an empty feeling if you strive to be a hermit all your cyber life.. Yes, there are exceptions to that rule.. In fact you can make it work for you as getting a reputation for being he professional hermit.. However as I said, that is rare.. Generally speaking, if you wish to enjoy sandox games, you better learn to play well with others..
One gent said earlier.. Where are you more able to make friends.. 1) at a themepark full of strangers, or 2) a sandbox with dozens playing within it? Most of the mmo gamers in todays market aren't real mmo gamers, they are console "solo" gamers with lil desire to be social.. Which is a huge market.. There are more console games sold every year then any MMORPG ever sold, so naturally todays Devs want to target that market.. IMO.. you can look at games like WoW for example, which is northing more then Diablo 2 in mmo clothing.. It plays as a solo console game with "lobby" instance grouping..
Because all of them have player driven economies, PvP, crafting and large worlds. These are not sandboxes to me, they are space simulators. The difference being that sandboxes are ground-based and space simulators are space-based. Unless of course you don't have to pilot and can take a shuttle, land on a planet and be a ressource miner that delivers his goods to a space port and never have to set foot in space again. Then you have a sandbox with vast potential to reach beyond one world. If only anyone could make a game like that....
I only played EvE a little and didnt find it interesting enough to hold me. And i do agree to be a true sandbox you need more ways to level other than combat.
A sandbox game does not need to have "nothing to follow" to be a good game...it needs to have directions to go without restrictions. Any sandpit i ever went in as a child was never empty! even the beach had, water, sand, stones and more to make my own adventures with. Darkfall? an empty world to walk around doing nothing....thats not a sandpit to me....its an empty box!
@Ramonski7 That you don't like EVE does not make it any less of a sandbox. Someone saying it's not a sandbox because it's not on the ground is purely your own personal perspective and not what many consider to be the case. How about I say that only mmo's set in a desert setting are real sandboxes, that everything else is a planet simulator? The term sandbox denotes freedom for the player, not purely the physical environment in which the player operates.
@Telil I'm not sure if you are saying that EVE requires combat to 'skill up in' so I apologise if i've misread your comments but you clearly do not need to enter combat in EVE to skill up. Hell you can avoid combat altogether and still progress, many do.
As for Darkfall being empty, well in your opinion maybe; whilst the game could well do with some added content for pvers (which is indeed coming in the next few weeks with the xpac), many players focus on pvp in that game and as such it's not simply an empty box to us.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
People keep forgetting (or are unwilling to admit it) that we are wired differently.
It has nothing to do with being told what to do. It has everything to do with a conscious choice of how one wants to spend their time.
People who are invested in forging a world are the prime audience for a sandbox. These are the people who are very much engaged in the social part of the game and the player interactions. People who want to do quests and engage in pre-made content are there for entertainment.
And they are both very differnet experiences.
Well said, but would you translate that into being "there is a larger market of people who are casual compared to hardcore"?
It is more than possible that there are more casual players than hard core players.
The problem with "gamers" (or any demographic of people who have something they are passionate about) is that they tend to see the world solely through their eyes.
that's why I keep seeing the "people are unimaginiative and have to have their hands held".
It's essentially Plato's "Philosopher Priests". The argument being that only the Philosophers are enlightented enough to govern and everyone else should just stay in their own caste and not worry about higher thinking.
So essentially we have a self proclaimed group of people who "know better".
People have imaginations. They use their imaginations all the time. Whether it's to fantasize about that person they see on the bus or to take them away from their dull dreary job while imagining having won the lottery.
but not every person wants to dress up as cos-play or sit down in front of a computer and play video games or spend time wandering and crafting and spending effort making and trading things and fighting over imaginary territory.
That's why my friend felt that SWG was like a second job. He was playing the sandbox. He was playing it how one plays sandboxes as he was a crafter in demand and was keeping track of orders and making things for people, figuring out the market, etc. Then he realized that with the effort he was putting into the game he could just as well make his own business and make REAL money.
He's not interested in doing that but that was his thought. So he discovered everquest and that game was more to his liking.
People have to realize that setting someone in front of a computer and telling them they can do whatever they want is not necessarily great game play.
Why?
Because they have to "want" to be a crafter/explorer/politician/entertainer/warrior etc at the outset. And saying to someone that they are going to spend their time "living" in this world feels flat to me because if they are not driven to "live" in an imaginary world all it is going to be is drudgery.
Games with quests give people a spine to which they can afix their entertainment. Games that make you seek out an existence are games where people have to WANT to seek out that existence. And that goes back to my original statement that people are wired differently and that it's a hard sell to convince someone that existing in an "imaginary" world and figuring things out on your own is fun.
Some people like to, in real life, be adventurers and go out into the bush and live off the land. and some people just want to learn about the bush from their guided tour.
Has nothign to do with the quality of the person and everything to do with how they like to experience things.
Though I wonder if our hardcore sandbox people would be out in the jungle or bush or "wherever" and living off of the land or if they tend to hike in the national parks.
And what they would say if one of these world traveler adventureres said that they weren't really experiencing nature and that they were playing it safe.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
As a child, which do you think you would get bored with first:
Going to the same themepark every day...
Taking all your toys into the sandbox...
For many folks, have to ask - what changed?
That depends how good and big is the themepark and how many hours a day ar eyou playing int he Themepark?If your in the Themepark 24/7 then sure it your going to see everything pretty fast and it would get tiring pretty qucikly but I'm pretty sure just playing in a sandbox 24/7 you'll probably experience the same thing.Now if your onyl going to the themepark once a day you might do different things every day or different rides,games of chance and food vendors every day.
Now to the sandbox...it sounds good and can probably be just as much fun as the themepark for a few hours a day but you don't get to bring all your toys,you cna only use the toys the maker of the sandox chooses to make available to you adn whilst some of these toys are great, a lot of the time a few of them are boring or only appeal to a small group and some don't work at all.
As a child, were you more likely to make friends at the themepark or in the sandbox? Did you talk more with strangers in the sandbox or at the themepark?
Well your first analogy was about having fun and nto being bored but now you want to change to discussing which is more social...well ok...you can be social and anitsocial in both a themepark and a sandbox depnding on your personality and mood.
is it more fun to visit a themepark solo or with friends?Do you have more fun ont he rides by yourself or with others along for the ride and friends in particular?
Both the sandbox and the thempark can be social events but in bot hit's dependant on the people there at the time especially when you were a child because children tend to socialize more readily without being wary.
I can enjoy and make friends in either a Sandbox or a Themepark and enjoy playing in both as long as they are well made,supported and interesting but being a Sandbox ro a Themepark does not assure any of that.
Was not a case of trying to twist things around - just a case of presenting some of the varying sides of the issue. Fun vs. boredom, socializing vs. solo, etc, etc.
I still do not think that what people want is EITHER a sandbox or a themepark, but rather a game that includes elements of both - yet, people keep blathering on about them in some idiotic didactic manner.
That I can agree with and a game that can combine the advantages of both types will probably be huge.I jsut disagree with people propose that only one way can produce a great MMO based on their own prejudices and beliefs and/or think that the other is inherently bad and evil.
I also think people love to spout WoW as it is now in their arguements agaisnt themeparks and forget vanilla WoW was a very social game.I cna agree WoW as it has become over the expansions is now very barely an MMORPG and more of Lobby game but that's not what it was when it originally became so successful.
It is more than possible that there are more casual players than hard core players.
The problem with "gamers" (or any demographic of people who have something they are passionate about) is that they tend to see the world solely through their eyes.
that's why I keep seeing the "people are unimaginiative and have to have their hands held".
It's essentially Plato's "Philosopher Priests". The argument being that only the Philosophers are enlightented enough to govern and everyone else should just stay in their own caste and not worry about higher thinking.
So essentially we have a self proclaimed group of people who "know better".
People have imaginations. They use their imaginations all the time. Whether it's to fantasize about that person they see on the bus or to take them away from their dull dreary job while imagining having won the lottery.
but not every person wants to dress up as cos-play or sit down in front of a computer and play video games or spend time wandering and crafting and spending effort making and trading things and fighting over imaginary territory.
That's why my friend felt that SWG was like a second job. He was playing the sandbox. He was playing it how one plays sandboxes as he was a crafter in demand and was keeping track of orders and making things for people, figuring out the market, etc. Then he realized that with the effort he was putting into the game he could just as well make his own business and make REAL money.
He's not interested in doing that but that was his thought. So he discovered everquest and that game was more to his liking.
People have to realize that setting someone in front of a computer and telling them they can do whatever they want is not necessarily great game play.
Why?
Because they have to "want" to be a crafter/explorer/politician/entertainer/warrior etc at the outset. And saying to someone that they are going to spend their time "living" in this world feels flat to me because if they are not driven to "live" in an imaginary world all it is going to be is drudgery.
Games with quests give people a spine to which they can afix their entertainment. Games that make you seek out an existence are games where people have to WANT to seek out that existence. And that goes back to my original statement that people are wired differently and that it's a hard sell to convince someone that existing in an "imaginary" world and figuring things out on your own is fun.
Some people like to, in real life, be adventurers and go out into the bush and live off the land. and some people just want to learn about the bush from their guided tour.
Has nothign to do with the quality of the person and everything to do with how they like to experience things.
Though I wonder if our hardcore sandbox people would be out in the jungle or bush or "wherever" and living off of the land or if they tend to hike in the national parks.
And what they would say if one of these world traveler adventureres said that they weren't really experiencing nature and that they were playing it safe.
I agree with your analogy, but you seem to be missing something in the extension of it. Many more people prefer to take a 'guided tour' or follow the beaten path in all aspects of life as in gaming. That they do this doesn't immediately mean they are dullards in anyway, although it does point to them being somewhat unadventurous shall we say. But for those people who do go off the beaten track, who do take the time to explore things/attempt things that few others have tried, then you can be sure that the potential for them is greater then for those who restrict themselves.
This holds up for sandboxes, some people don't want a 'second job' in a game, some don't want to have to take the time to socialise in a game and for them themeparks are ideal. But the potential inherent within the sandbox is greater should you decide to take that path.
Potential in mmo's is an important thing.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Originally posted by Rockgod99 I know this is obvious to most of us old timers but I figured i'd dash the dreams of the newbies that think a AAA sandbox will ever release. People want to be a hero in a mmorpg, in a sandbox your this insignificant little nothing skilling up to be a even better nothing. Kind of like real life. Not many will pay for that type of simulation... Now you know.
I would disagree whole heartedly. I think the reason they've never done as well is they chronically have horrible performance, a ui only a mother could love, and are not as well designed (because of lack of money) as your typical linear quest driven mmo with a hybrid pvp/raid end game.
Originally posted by Rockgod99 I know this is obvious to most of us old timers but I figured i'd dash the dreams of the newbies that think a AAA sandbox will ever release. People want to be a hero in a mmorpg, in a sandbox your this insignificant little nothing skilling up to be a even better nothing. Kind of like real life. Not many will pay for that type of simulation... Now you know.
I would disagree whole heartedly. I think the reason they've never done as well is they chronically have horrible performance, a ui only a mother could love, and are not as well designed (because of lack of money) as your typical linear quest driven mmo with a hybrid pvp/raid end game.
That's the end result of no AAA developer making a sandbox. And why haven't they created one? Because sandbox design it self isnt appealing for the masses and no AAA dev is going to waste resources creating a mmo for such a niche group of players.
The biggest problem i have with sandbox games is the following:
The world itself seems rather dead: yes i know i can make up my own stories but it still has to be in this world and it will be the same thing. I went and kill this creature, i went into this cave and killed that creature. I got a very good imagination i think. But the world itself feels more empty to me then one with alot of npcs and stories that are "on the rails".
It feels like i'm placed in this world where the npc walk around and sell stuff but nothing really happens. I can't walk over and start building a house. I have to fight creatures (i'm taking MO as a reference.)
Theres no real army to fight for if i want to. I"m just one guy or girl in a world fighting monsters.
Most combat oriented MMO do tend to fall into either ganking or one side wins. It's not balanced to me.
Besides most people like to be entertained by a good story and not have to make everything up on their own. I make up stories all the time in my head but for some reason when i start a game i can't be bothered and 'im bored within 5 mins. Yeah i'm not giving the game the chance it needs. But thats because the game isn't hooking me into it's game play.
I think one of my teachers said once that you need to "grab" your audience in the first few lines or you lose a lot of potential readers.
I think thats the problem why sandbox games can't get people. You are dropped into the world and told make your own adventure. Theres no hook line or sinker.
Your post holds well against today's sandbox attempts....but it does not hold up against games like UO in it's golden era. The world is never dead...you couldn't move 2 screens without seeing random animals or random orc camp spawns etc. Since there was no automatic fast-travel aside from marking your own runes, you had to know where you are...and navigating became fun. Most of the NPCs where in town, yes. But there were wandering healers and other NPCs from time to time that wandered for different reasons. More importantly in regards to story:
You do not have to make up your own stories in a really good sandbox game! Why? Because what actually happened is the story! What happened at your log cabin that night when you were logged into your tailor holding a candle and just chilling and making clothes when you witnessed your neighbor trying to trap in people and murder them inside their house. Then, you grabbed your fighter and went out to challenge him and had a battle for the ages on your front lawn!
Or hell, maybe even on your blacksmith you made a huge profit in-town selling one day. That's enough on it's own for a story. UO (or even other sandboxes like SWG) were about what actually happened...not pretending you were the hero of the world.
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That's the end result of no AAA developer making a sandbox. And why haven't they created one? Because sandbox design it self isnt appealing for the masses and no AAA dev is going to waste resources creating a mmo for such a niche group of players.
Yes they would. Blizzard did create WoW after all, with was a ninche market when they decided to create the game. It's called taking risks, shamefully in the current climate you will not see it as much, but that is what blizzard did. They would have been a lot saver creating a new diablo or Starcraft as they know this would be profitable.
Also a ninche like the sandbox crowd might be a risk worth taking. It is not just about the amount of subscribers, but also about the competition you would have. If a company would pump million into a sandbox project they might actually get more subscribers then they would have gotten if they developed a mainsteam game.
The genre certainly wasn't niche back before wow. UO, Eq, Daoc and Swg had quite a few subs. Wow is a freak of nature. If you look at pre wows average sub numbers and post wows sub numbers for the genre it's exactly the same floating around 150k subs. Niche is a game like ryzom that struggles with 3k to 5k subs of DFO with 10k. The genre as a whole wasn't niche then. Blizzard took what was popular (eq,daoc) and just improved on it. Sandbox games arent popular so that won't happen like it did with themeparks. You have a better chance of hell freezing over than someone like Blizzard making a sandbox mmo.
I'd say I'm about as old timer as you can get and sandboxes are pretty shit to me.
Not because of the gameplay, but because most of them released nowhere near finished and promise things that never happen.
Only Indy developers make sandbox games and all are underfunded and have idiot PR people over hyping their products.
SWG wasn't sandbox at release? Ultima Online isn't a sandbox?
You can't get much bigger or "NON-indy" than SoE and EA.
I agree with caalem.
The vast majority of sandbox MMOs are released way too early and fail to deliver on the features that their fans were expecting to be present at release. Although you could make the same statement about non-sandbox MMOs as well.
It's a problem with MMOs in general, not just sandbox MMOs... they are released before they should be. They always take more money and more time than the Devs. anticipate. Hence the early release... there seem to be few exceptions.
These are dead...
Roma Victor (soon to be shut down)
Shadowbane
Dark and Light
SWG (Original)
These are still kicking... and perhaps will succeed, time will tell.
DarkFall
Mortal Online
Saga of Ryzom
Wurm Online
Istaria/Horizons (I think this game is still alive...)
These are the successes of the Sandbox MMO genre.
Ultima Online
EvE
Second Life
Runescape
These are "hybrid" MMOs, but have sandbox qualitites.
Ultima Online was created by Origin Systems and Swg by Verant Interactive both were Indy development houses. Origin was acquired by EA later on and SoE only published Swg at first before fully taking over and destroying that game.
Funny how both games were virtually stripped of what they originally were once EA and SoE took over. Again we have never had a AAA sandbox and never will
Sandboxy games, games that are more player-centric in entertainment, lets say a more player-centric ecosystem throughout much of the game and game-mechanics, are less appealing to a majority.
A more sandboxy world is one in which the players are the center of construction, interaction, character growth, social interaction towards community reliance, massively-multiplayer emphasis as opposed to solo-emphasis.
As with most AAA successful titles, most people want to punch a time-clock, want to be handed a competitive advantage rather than earn it. Most people will rather accept entitlements within a relaxing and safe environment, rather than accomplish events, tasks, challenges, without having to encounter the unexpected dynamic opposing player as an obsticle or potential competitor.
Most players in the mmorpg genre are not that competitive, and understand that they would prefer the welfare of a game that provides for them in-game with as little effort or mental acuity as possible. These folks prefer brief and predictable player encounters in short sperts, within tightly scripted and caged environments that have little to no effect on their npc-centric game-play world.
I use the word sandboxy as opposed to sandbox. A tale in the desert is more of a sandbox, EVE is more sandboxy, and World of Warcraft is more themepark.
Funny how EVE, as a sandboxy game, is either as or more successful than other supposed AAA mmorpgs, other than WoW and Aion. However, there are way more themepark-aligned mmorpgs for masses to distribute themselves across than sandboxy games also.
Striving for Silver Stars since Gold is so effeminate.
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Too bad they don't realize how awesome being apart of a world like that could be.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Well your first analogy was about having fun and nto being bored but now you want to change to discussing which is more social...well ok...you can be social and anitsocial in both a themepark and a sandbox depnding on your personality and mood.
is it more fun to visit a themepark solo or with friends?Do you have more fun ont he rides by yourself or with others along for the ride and friends in particular?
Both the sandbox and the thempark can be social events but in bot hit's dependant on the people there at the time especially when you were a child because children tend to socialize more readily without being wary.
I can enjoy and make friends in either a Sandbox or a Themepark and enjoy playing in both as long as they are well made,supported and interesting but being a Sandbox ro a Themepark does not assure any of that.
No, you've definitely been living under an asteroid. It's posts like that that make me honestly doubt the validity of your opinions and critiques of the game. As much as you post on this site alone, I refuse to believe those names are completely unknown to you. If you've ever posted on the official EVE forums, then I DEFINITELY refuse to believe it.
I'm not even saying this to seem like a 'know-it-all'. Those two names are hands down, the most easily recognizable names in EVE, next to Chribba perhaps. I could see it from someone who's never posted on a forum for the game, or very rarely talks EVE outside the game, but for someone to play for 5 years and have such seemingly informed opinions on the game, and never hear those names is absurd.
You apparently don't keep up on the game as well as I thought, so I really can't imagine you know what the community 'wants' when it comes to certain controversial features.
I have no clue who those folks are.....dont claim to as I have never played EVE.
I did play EQ1 though, and everyone knew who Furor and Thott were, and each persons guild(Fires of Heaven and Afterlife respectively). You can make a name for yourself in any game. For folks to claim it is a sandbox only feature is silly.
I am of the opinion if you enjoy the roleplay aspect in old PNP gaming, then sandboxes are right up your alley. PNP gaming though isnt mainstream, and it was divided between those that enjoyed roleplay vs those that enjoyed ROLLplay(IE the folks that enjoyed the fighting the most....something I read in a DnD manual).
No style is 'wrong" per say...it is just what folks enjoy.
I am of the ROLLplay camp. I enjoy a good story to go with my gaming, but that is where it stops. It has no reflection on a persons mental aptitude and/or maturity as some wish to allude to.
I would actually go the route of stating sandboxers can be just as immature as those they wish to insult in the themepark camp. If not more so. Themeparkers arent the ones desperate to get games made for them.
Rockgod nailed it on the head thougth...you could be supporting the sandboxes out there, yet there is always a "reason" to not do as such. Companies see this lack of support, so who in their right mind would ever consider a AAA sandbox? Couple that with the antics shown on msg brds, and there is no way I would ever target that niche of gamer.
EVE is the only sandbox success story, and they were forced to limit the FFA PVP. Combined with the fact folks can exchange ISK for gametime thru ingame mechanics(which is a great idea BTW), they have been able to keep above 300k subs for an extended duration. Something no other NA P2P MMO sandbox has done.
IMO a game like EQ is as sandboxey as you need to get if you want to be mainstream. When you add forced dependancy on crafters, and worldwide FFA PVP, your target audience dwindles.This PVE gamer is looking to kill mobs, and collect items/money. Not farm money to keep buying the same item. And most of all not looking to be lambs for slaughter.
I pay to play....not be someone elses content.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Most people do not really want to build things and create their own stuff from scratch. To be sure those people exist. They are just relatively rare.
Their are all sorts of hobbyists out there who build their own things of various sorts. However they want to build their OWN things.
Honestly if I wanted a sandbox I would make my own MMORPG. As a computer scientist I could do so, it would be a large project but other than my inability to do the art its doable.
Most people want some amount of customization and creative outlet but they do not want the extra burden of creating things for themselves. A minority of people get a big kick out of creating stuff for themselves.
I have seen a TV program where some people built their own trebuchet (counter-weight catapult). Most people would never do that and have no desire to do. But there are a ton of people who would like to play with that trebuchet.
Not only that but who is to say these hobbyists who had enough of an obsession to put in that kind of work would necessarily get all jazzed up to build cabinets or whatever else?
Not only are sandbox games catering to a smaller audience. They are catering to an audience with highly personalized tastes that are extremely hard to target. Being a sandbox is not enough you also must let them build what they want. You can give people some wood and a hammer and nail. One guy builds a trebuchet, one builds some cabinets. But almost no MMORPG works that way or can.
This is the way it is.
The word "hero" isn't helping because it clearly means different things to different people.
In my limited experience (but one that included EVE) sandboxes tend not to be ideal for people without long consecutive periods of time to spend. Not if you like playing with other people.
I love sandboxes in theory, but themeparks tend to be more casual friendly I think.
See, I recognize the name Chribba. EVE Search and his goober mining fleet. As for the EVE forums, I have never found much use for them - they are rampant with fanbois or people RPing stuff that is meaningless to somebody not involved.
A quick Google of SirMolle brings up BoB. Mittani brings up GoonSwarm. I have been in my one real person at times multiple accounts corp since week one. Yep, never been bothered with BoB nor GoonSwarm, etc. Had heard of them, heck, dealt with Goonies back in Shadowbane... but as for who the people were in either in EVE, did not matter.
See, if you had mentioned Ushra'Khan, Star Fraction, CVA, and certain things like that - well, then I might have been able to follow along. Heretics, FailedDiplomacy, BANE, Final Agony, etc, etc. The people over in the area of space I live - have not been more than 20 or so jumps outside of Rens in forever. Never been in a fleet with over 70 or so people in it. Have a 22:1 ISK/Kill ratio. Nerdragequit over the ninja salvaging thing once (and if anybody is reading this, I highly suggest you never nerdragequit in EVE - it is far too easy to destroy billions worth of iskies and things you just cannnot get anymore or things that are very expensive to get back). If not for the account expiring before I could complete the term, I probably would never have gone back.
The people I think people should know, would not be the people you think folks should know. Null space never did it for me, but have been mucking around in FW since it started. Folks on the MinMil or the Ama boards - sure, those are my day to day encounters.
...as for speaking on what folks want, yep - that is based on all the complaints about things not being addressed in favor of development of fluff. The same stuff that came up in the CSM meeting notes, etc - that has been discussed over the years. It has been from being around over the years as CCP gets a nifty idea up their butts, squirts it out, and then abandons it...
That is along the lines of what has been said about sandboxes...
...then again, even in themeparks I've never really cared about the big guilds and the like.
Had a friend from my old Half-Life clan that went one way while the rest of us went another, cause he believed that accomplishments in WoW mattered - the rest of us just did not take it that seriously. It was a shame.
The way you talk about BoB, Goonies, etc - seems like you think they matter as well. It is just a game...
...but EVE definitely avoided one of the issues of Shadowbane. The SB world was too small. It did not really take that long for an alliance to take over the world. Think that is part of the reason that so many folks left around the ToO beta for games like EVE and WoW... though the reasons were different, it could not happen.
All this talk of EVE has me tempted to resub. It's been almost three months now since I last quit... there's just something about muddling around in EVE that can be both relaxing and exciting as long as you do not let it become a job.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Was not a case of trying to twist things around - just a case of presenting some of the varying sides of the issue. Fun vs. boredom, socializing vs. solo, etc, etc.
I still do not think that what people want is EITHER a sandbox or a themepark, but rather a game that includes elements of both - yet, people keep blathering on about them in some idiotic didactic manner.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
I believe that people have different tastes and like to do different things. I also think that most people like variation. If I´m right, that means not everyone care about being the hero, not everyone want to kill monsters all day long, and not everyone want to run errands for NPCs. Thats all I have to know to also know that a sandbox type of MMORPG could work just fine.
SWG was a sandbox in that meaning you had the choice to play in different ways. Still it was comparable in popularity to its themepark competitors. If you think that SWG was less popular or failed in its design, was it because people could play as an ordinary person like uncle Owen? Did it upset you, and made you leave the game, because that other guy wasnt the hero too, like you? Did all the uncle Owens for some reason prevent you from feeling or acting heroic yourself? Or do you think it failed because not enough other players wanted to be uncle Owen? Did the games main problem was lack of uncle Owens? I dont believe that.
Could it instead be other reasons for leaving? Like tons of bugs and broken skills and promises that never got fixed, unbalanced stats on buffs, armors and abilities, lack of suitable group content, or that you had to do tons of repetive and meaningless jedi grind? What game could possibly expect to be super successfull under those circumstances, sandbox or not? Does it mean that a sandbox can never work, or that its a design who are proven to not have any potential or demand for?
I dont agree on the "people want to be the hero" argument at all. It feels more like a mantra themepark game developers keep repeating in their blogs and interviews, and who have transfererd over as an empirical fact to this forum. In my experience other players do not seems to care that much about being the hero. Nor does it appear to reflect on peoples behavior in game. They just do what the game offer without question, as noone really have much of an option other than to be "the chosen one". If anything, I think people want to be able to make themself a name - that a player want to be remembered and noticed by other players for their actions. May it be because they craft such great armors, are so helpful, or dangerous in pvp. Not because they have saved the world from a imaginary threat, like everyone else.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxfzm9dfqBw
Bicycle repair man FTW
Not being the hero is kinda the point in MMORPGs, or atleast was. Because if you have 1000 heroes then noone is really a hero are they.
No, the main reason it wont appeal to the masses is because the masses are well... lazy and not dedicated enough. They dont have the mental capacity to become successful in a sandbox game which is significantly more dificult than your average, dev-handheld, themepark MMORPG where everyone can be successful with minimal effort.
Thempark -> Easy Mode
Sandbox -> Easy to get started, difficult to master
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I dont dissagree with you at all friend.
I only played EvE a little and didnt find it interesting enough to hold me. And i do agree to be a true sandbox you need more ways to level other than combat.
What i meant about EQ was more of a combat sandbox i suppose. for instance i could choose to go to a huge number of places to level at any given stage during my delelopment. i could go exploring any outdoor zone at any particular level...dreadlands at 20? yes i could!....explore a lower guk dungeon at 15?....no chance...dungeons were unforgiving in EQ, just like they should be in any game...but thats another arguement
A sandbox game does not need to have "nothing to follow" to be a good game...it needs to have directions to go without restrictions. Any sandpit i ever went in as a child was never empty! even the beach had, water, sand, stones and more to make my own adventures with. Darkfall? an empty world to walk around doing nothing....thats not a sandpit to me....its an empty box!
I just wanted to pipe in on this.. Many of you are correct, and some are wrong, in my opinion.. As a few posters have said or hinted to.. I think the BASE difference between sandbox and themepark games is the social aspect.. For me, to enjoy a sandbox game YOU must be socialable.. Sandbox games will give you an empty feeling if you strive to be a hermit all your cyber life.. Yes, there are exceptions to that rule.. In fact you can make it work for you as getting a reputation for being he professional hermit.. However as I said, that is rare.. Generally speaking, if you wish to enjoy sandox games, you better learn to play well with others..
One gent said earlier.. Where are you more able to make friends.. 1) at a themepark full of strangers, or 2) a sandbox with dozens playing within it? Most of the mmo gamers in todays market aren't real mmo gamers, they are console "solo" gamers with lil desire to be social.. Which is a huge market.. There are more console games sold every year then any MMORPG ever sold, so naturally todays Devs want to target that market.. IMO.. you can look at games like WoW for example, which is northing more then Diablo 2 in mmo clothing.. It plays as a solo console game with "lobby" instance grouping..
@Ramonski7 That you don't like EVE does not make it any less of a sandbox. Someone saying it's not a sandbox because it's not on the ground is purely your own personal perspective and not what many consider to be the case. How about I say that only mmo's set in a desert setting are real sandboxes, that everything else is a planet simulator? The term sandbox denotes freedom for the player, not purely the physical environment in which the player operates.
@Telil I'm not sure if you are saying that EVE requires combat to 'skill up in' so I apologise if i've misread your comments but you clearly do not need to enter combat in EVE to skill up. Hell you can avoid combat altogether and still progress, many do.
As for Darkfall being empty, well in your opinion maybe; whilst the game could well do with some added content for pvers (which is indeed coming in the next few weeks with the xpac), many players focus on pvp in that game and as such it's not simply an empty box to us.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
It is more than possible that there are more casual players than hard core players.
The problem with "gamers" (or any demographic of people who have something they are passionate about) is that they tend to see the world solely through their eyes.
that's why I keep seeing the "people are unimaginiative and have to have their hands held".
It's essentially Plato's "Philosopher Priests". The argument being that only the Philosophers are enlightented enough to govern and everyone else should just stay in their own caste and not worry about higher thinking.
So essentially we have a self proclaimed group of people who "know better".
People have imaginations. They use their imaginations all the time. Whether it's to fantasize about that person they see on the bus or to take them away from their dull dreary job while imagining having won the lottery.
but not every person wants to dress up as cos-play or sit down in front of a computer and play video games or spend time wandering and crafting and spending effort making and trading things and fighting over imaginary territory.
That's why my friend felt that SWG was like a second job. He was playing the sandbox. He was playing it how one plays sandboxes as he was a crafter in demand and was keeping track of orders and making things for people, figuring out the market, etc. Then he realized that with the effort he was putting into the game he could just as well make his own business and make REAL money.
He's not interested in doing that but that was his thought. So he discovered everquest and that game was more to his liking.
People have to realize that setting someone in front of a computer and telling them they can do whatever they want is not necessarily great game play.
Why?
Because they have to "want" to be a crafter/explorer/politician/entertainer/warrior etc at the outset. And saying to someone that they are going to spend their time "living" in this world feels flat to me because if they are not driven to "live" in an imaginary world all it is going to be is drudgery.
Games with quests give people a spine to which they can afix their entertainment. Games that make you seek out an existence are games where people have to WANT to seek out that existence. And that goes back to my original statement that people are wired differently and that it's a hard sell to convince someone that existing in an "imaginary" world and figuring things out on your own is fun.
Some people like to, in real life, be adventurers and go out into the bush and live off the land. and some people just want to learn about the bush from their guided tour.
Has nothign to do with the quality of the person and everything to do with how they like to experience things.
Though I wonder if our hardcore sandbox people would be out in the jungle or bush or "wherever" and living off of the land or if they tend to hike in the national parks.
And what they would say if one of these world traveler adventureres said that they weren't really experiencing nature and that they were playing it safe.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
That I can agree with and a game that can combine the advantages of both types will probably be huge.I jsut disagree with people propose that only one way can produce a great MMO based on their own prejudices and beliefs and/or think that the other is inherently bad and evil.
I also think people love to spout WoW as it is now in their arguements agaisnt themeparks and forget vanilla WoW was a very social game.I cna agree WoW as it has become over the expansions is now very barely an MMORPG and more of Lobby game but that's not what it was when it originally became so successful.
I agree with your analogy, but you seem to be missing something in the extension of it. Many more people prefer to take a 'guided tour' or follow the beaten path in all aspects of life as in gaming. That they do this doesn't immediately mean they are dullards in anyway, although it does point to them being somewhat unadventurous shall we say. But for those people who do go off the beaten track, who do take the time to explore things/attempt things that few others have tried, then you can be sure that the potential for them is greater then for those who restrict themselves.
This holds up for sandboxes, some people don't want a 'second job' in a game, some don't want to have to take the time to socialise in a game and for them themeparks are ideal. But the potential inherent within the sandbox is greater should you decide to take that path.
Potential in mmo's is an important thing.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Gamers on average spend the majority of their free time playing games instead of partaking in a physical activity. We're a lazy group already.
I would disagree whole heartedly. I think the reason they've never done as well is they chronically have horrible performance, a ui only a mother could love, and are not as well designed (because of lack of money) as your typical linear quest driven mmo with a hybrid pvp/raid end game.
Shadus
I would disagree whole heartedly. I think the reason they've never done as well is they chronically have horrible performance, a ui only a mother could love, and are not as well designed (because of lack of money) as your typical linear quest driven mmo with a hybrid pvp/raid end game.
That's the end result of no AAA developer making a sandbox. And why haven't they created one? Because sandbox design it self isnt appealing for the masses and no AAA dev is going to waste resources creating a mmo for such a niche group of players.Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Your post holds well against today's sandbox attempts....but it does not hold up against games like UO in it's golden era. The world is never dead...you couldn't move 2 screens without seeing random animals or random orc camp spawns etc. Since there was no automatic fast-travel aside from marking your own runes, you had to know where you are...and navigating became fun. Most of the NPCs where in town, yes. But there were wandering healers and other NPCs from time to time that wandered for different reasons. More importantly in regards to story:
You do not have to make up your own stories in a really good sandbox game! Why? Because what actually happened is the story! What happened at your log cabin that night when you were logged into your tailor holding a candle and just chilling and making clothes when you witnessed your neighbor trying to trap in people and murder them inside their house. Then, you grabbed your fighter and went out to challenge him and had a battle for the ages on your front lawn!
Or hell, maybe even on your blacksmith you made a huge profit in-town selling one day. That's enough on it's own for a story. UO (or even other sandboxes like SWG) were about what actually happened...not pretending you were the hero of the world.
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Yes they would. Blizzard did create WoW after all, with was a ninche market when they decided to create the game. It's called taking risks, shamefully in the current climate you will not see it as much, but that is what blizzard did. They would have been a lot saver creating a new diablo or Starcraft as they know this would be profitable.
Also a ninche like the sandbox crowd might be a risk worth taking. It is not just about the amount of subscribers, but also about the competition you would have. If a company would pump million into a sandbox project they might actually get more subscribers then they would have gotten if they developed a mainsteam game.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
SWG wasn't sandbox at release? Ultima Online isn't a sandbox?
You can't get much bigger or "NON-indy" than SoE and EA.
I agree with caalem.
The vast majority of sandbox MMOs are released way too early and fail to deliver on the features that their fans were expecting to be present at release. Although you could make the same statement about non-sandbox MMOs as well.
It's a problem with MMOs in general, not just sandbox MMOs... they are released before they should be. They always take more money and more time than the Devs. anticipate. Hence the early release... there seem to be few exceptions.
These are dead...
Roma Victor (soon to be shut down)
Shadowbane
Dark and Light
SWG (Original)
These are still kicking... and perhaps will succeed, time will tell.
DarkFall
Mortal Online
Saga of Ryzom
Wurm Online
Istaria/Horizons (I think this game is still alive...)
These are the successes of the Sandbox MMO genre.
Ultima Online
EvE
Second Life
Runescape
These are "hybrid" MMOs, but have sandbox qualitites.
Asheron's Call
Fallen Earth
SWG (current)
(And yes... the above are in my opinion).
Funny how both games were virtually stripped of what they originally were once EA and SoE took over. Again we have never had a AAA sandbox and never will
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
I'd like to interject a bit of thought.
Sandboxy games, games that are more player-centric in entertainment, lets say a more player-centric ecosystem throughout much of the game and game-mechanics, are less appealing to a majority.
A more sandboxy world is one in which the players are the center of construction, interaction, character growth, social interaction towards community reliance, massively-multiplayer emphasis as opposed to solo-emphasis.
As with most AAA successful titles, most people want to punch a time-clock, want to be handed a competitive advantage rather than earn it. Most people will rather accept entitlements within a relaxing and safe environment, rather than accomplish events, tasks, challenges, without having to encounter the unexpected dynamic opposing player as an obsticle or potential competitor.
Most players in the mmorpg genre are not that competitive, and understand that they would prefer the welfare of a game that provides for them in-game with as little effort or mental acuity as possible. These folks prefer brief and predictable player encounters in short sperts, within tightly scripted and caged environments that have little to no effect on their npc-centric game-play world.
I use the word sandboxy as opposed to sandbox. A tale in the desert is more of a sandbox, EVE is more sandboxy, and World of Warcraft is more themepark.
Funny how EVE, as a sandboxy game, is either as or more successful than other supposed AAA mmorpgs, other than WoW and Aion. However, there are way more themepark-aligned mmorpgs for masses to distribute themselves across than sandboxy games also.
Striving for Silver Stars since Gold is so effeminate.