OP you're assuming that half of the MMO players would rather be thrown in a world instead of have some kind of guidance in it? In the age of the ingame quest GPS locators? Seriously?
Exactly this. People are just generally getting dumber period.
In my hardcore raiding guild in WOW, while leveling through cata on release (I was first to 85 in my guild), more then half of the guildies, all hardcore raiders, were asking me how to complete a lot of quests, where to go etc... even with ingame quest GPS locators.
I love sandbox mmo's more then themepark by a longshot (playing eve, and in a couple days Xsyon), but in no way is 50% of the mmo population, will be able create entertainment in a sandbox mmo. They can't even finish quests designed with language, and guidance a 7-8 year old can read and follow. They are literally dumb.
There is a huge market for themepark mmo's and that wont go away and will always have the much larger majority of the mmo population, and for that, im thankful. I do not want to be in the same mmo with people that need help with WOW leveling quests. Let them stay in their themepark mmo. I want my more complicated, more community orientated sandbox with others that are able to play them, however small the community is.
I'm actually a little shocked in what you said, I remember turning the gps thing off sometimes just to add challenge, but that alone is challenging for people? LOL. It just begs the question: What video games did all these people play before? I mean the only genres that literally told you where to go are racing games and fighting games, lol. Maybe humans are getting dumber as a whole, too much instant gratification I guess.
Honestly, not too long ago I thought a sandbox game could be big, not wow big or 5 million big, but 1 million, and that hybrids where the future, now I'm losing faith in humans. Themepark lovers, look at your games and enjoy them, because at this rate what you enjoy with these games will be gone too.
The reason I didnt mentioned EVE, Fallen Earth, Darkfall, etc is because they dont fit my description of "polished AAA sandbox".
Those are nowhere near good enough, or close enough to what I originally talked about.
Its taken a while but eve is pretty polished. It just doesn't satisfy the viceral desire of running through wild environments and swinging 3 feet of steel into someone.
It also does not satisfy the desires of the 'pure builder' sandboxers who do not consider FFA PvP to be much of a feature. So it is getting squeezed from both sides of the spectrum.
What do you mean by pure builder? EvE has quite a bit more to it than ffa pvp. The crafting system is deep and intricately tied to the economy. EvE is one of the most feature rich mmo's out there. I'll just grant its not new-user-friendly in that it doesn't hold your hand at the beginning.
I mean a player who likes to build things and expand on them. This kind of player really does not care about other players coming in and destroying things they have built up. They value cooperation and constructive competition over destructive competition.
When I first played EVE years ago, my dream was to go out into an unexplored region of space, build a small base there, mine rare minerals and then use it to build and industrial power base. The lack of player owned structures back then made that impossible and it also quickly became apparent that such an enterprise would simply become fodder for the pirates and the agressive 0.0 corporations.
I think the Community here unnecessarily polarizes itself on these issues. I doubt the vast majority of MMO players care (or even know) what a theme park game is, or what a sandbox game is. All they want is a good game.
It is my belief that the best games to come will endeavor to incorporate all of these aspects (PvP, PvE, Sandbox, Theme park) seamlessly into a well-polished world.
The reason I didnt mentioned EVE, Fallen Earth, Darkfall, etc is because they dont fit my description of "polished AAA sandbox".
Those are nowhere near good enough, or close enough to what I originally talked about.
Its taken a while but eve is pretty polished. It just doesn't satisfy the viceral desire of running through wild environments and swinging 3 feet of steel into someone.
It also does not satisfy the desires of the 'pure builder' sandboxers who do not consider FFA PvP to be much of a feature. So it is getting squeezed from both sides of the spectrum.
What do you mean by pure builder? EvE has quite a bit more to it than ffa pvp. The crafting system is deep and intricately tied to the economy. EvE is one of the most feature rich mmo's out there. I'll just grant its not new-user-friendly in that it doesn't hold your hand at the beginning.
I mean a player who likes to build things and expand on them. This kind of player really does not care about other players coming in and destroying things they have built up. They value cooperation and constructive competition over destructive competition.
When I first played EVE years ago, my dream was to go out into an unexplored region of space, build a small base there, mine rare minerals and then use it to build and industrial power base. The lack of player owned structures back then made that impossible and it also quickly became apparent that such an enterprise would simply become fodder for the pirates and the agressive 0.0 corporations.
I understand your desire but I submit that if you want to do that in a multiplayer environment that precludes those other players from interfering, then a mmorpg sandbox isn't really what you're looking for.
a polished sandbox would get maybe 500k players tops. and i dont think it could retain half of them as time goes by.
You are making a misstake and assumes that a sandbox have to be exactly like older sandboxes.
Before Wow no one thought a MMO could have a million subs either. A modern sandbox game with more people than that would have to be very different from FFA full loot PvP, that is true. But that is not really what makes a sandbox into a sandbox.
Player created content is a a fine game with that could get a lot more players. In fact one of the masters of sandbox games are making their first MMO right now, Bethesda. Games like Oblivion and Daggerfall have sold millions so I don't see why an online version of them wont do good unless they mess up.
Elder scrolls online (I am assuming that is what they are making) should easily be able to keep that number of players, the IP have millions of fans and here we actually have a large competent company making the game, not some small indie company with little or no experience.
Well, the expectations of the sandbox fanboys seem pretty unrealistic to me. Some of them come and talk about what MMOs should be but they don't even know if it's possible given the current state of technology. They want to something that mimicks real life and not a game lol.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
a polished sandbox would get maybe 500k players tops. and i dont think it could retain half of them as time goes by.
You are making a misstake and assumes that a sandbox have to be exactly like older sandboxes.
Before Wow no one thought a MMO could have a million subs either. A modern sandbox game with more people than that would have to be very different from FFA full loot PvP, that is true. But that is not really what makes a sandbox into a sandbox.
Player created content is a a fine game with that could get a lot more players. In fact one of the masters of sandbox games are making their first MMO right now, Bethesda. Games like Oblivion and Daggerfall have sold millions so I don't see why an online version of them wont do good unless they mess up.
Elder scrolls online (I am assuming that is what they are making) should easily be able to keep that number of players, the IP have millions of fans and here we actually have a large competent company making the game, not some small indie company with little or no experience.
Do you have a link for this? Cause I think there were only rumours that Bethesda are making an MMO but it was never confirmed and it was a long time ago. The next game in the series Skyrim is gonna be released on the 11.11.11
I love the Elder Scrolls Series but I don't see why Bethesda would want to make an MMO.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Do you have a link for this? Cause I think there were only rumours that Bethesda are making an MMO but it was never confirmed and it was a long time ago. The next game in the series Skyrim is gonna be released on the 11.11.11
I love the Elder Scrolls Series but I don't see why Bethesda would want to make an MMO.
It was all over the forum in 2007 when they hired in their MMO department but that it is a ES MMO is just speculations, they could use another IP as well.
Mythic Founder Heads Bethesda Parent Company's New MMO Studio
by Rainier on Aug. 1, 2007 @ 6:04 p.m. PDT
Bethesda Softworks parent company ZeniMax Media announced the creation of ZeniMax Online Studios. The division will be headed by Matt Firor, a well-known expert in the field of online gaming, and will focus on the MMO market segment.
Firor was one of the founders of Mythic Entertainment, where he worked for over 10 years on MMO titles. At Mythic he was the producer of the worldwide #1 smash hit Dark Age of Camelot, a MMORPG considered one of the most influential online games of all time. When he left Mythic in 2006, Firor was responsible for all development projects at the company. For the past year, he has been a consultant in the online gaming industry, advising leading publishers interested in entering the online market.
“This could not be a more perfect opportunity for me,” said Matt. “I am extremely impressed with ZeniMax and Bethesda Softworks management – their development philosophy closely matches my own, with an emphasis on quality, innovation, and craftsmanship. I am eager to get back to what I love – the development of cutting edge MMOG titles.”
“We are excited about the opportunities we have in the online gaming space and felt that Matt is the perfect person to lead this effort,” said James Leder, COO of ZeniMax Media. There are relatively few people who have the actual experience and knowledge that comes from having created a successful MMO, and Matt is the real deal. We feel fortunate to have him join our group.”
Firor is a graduate of George Washington University and has worked in the gaming industry for 17 years. He has lectured at the University of Virginia and Massachusetts Institute of Technology on game development topics, and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences. Firor has written articles for Game Developer Magazine and was a regular columnist covering online game development for the Korean gaming magazine “Onplayer
Well, the expectations of the sandbox fanboys seem pretty unrealistic to me. Some of them come and talk about what MMOs should be but they don't even know if it's possible given the current state of technology. They want to something that mimicks real life and not a game lol.
Damn right.
But most of us settle for a fun and well made game, sadly we rarely get that either.
Well, the expectations of the sandbox fanboys seem pretty unrealistic to me. Some of them come and talk about what MMOs should be but they don't even know if it's possible given the current state of technology. They want to something that mimicks real life and not a game lol.
I don't think mimicking RL is what they want.
Thinking of game mechanics RL sucks ass: awful skill grind, permadeath and the graphics are admittedly quite good, but the setting is boring like hell.
Also the term sandbox is not a fixed set of features but a general idea. It circumscribes the amount of freedom, players have for their game decisions.
Think of DAoC: fix classes, fix skills, level-based, fix factions, BUT you could conquer and hold territory and it was persistant as long as it was not reconquered (unlike battlegrounds in WOW which had no "world" consequence after the end of the match).
So DAoC had some sandboxish tendencies.
Now imagine this with no classes, but freely pickable skills (with some constraints), maybe some default factions, but players can also create their own factions and conquer territory and objectives, but also settle new land and build castles, villages etc. Back this up with a crafting and economy system, where in theory everything can be created by players, provided they have access to the required ressources (e.g. an iron mine) and you would have a daoc that is vastly more sandboxish. Notice i didn't mention full pvp or full oot, these are just some more features for a sandbox game, but surely not the only ones or even the most important.
So why shouldn't this be possible with current technology? In fact there are games that feature most of this stuff (Darkfall). Eve Online has all this but I take it as an exception since it is sci-fi and I am sure the OP was thinking about a fantasy or at least "ground-based" type of game.
But there are challenges.
In my opinion what current SB games lack most is giving the player a red thread. Mostly you have a tutorial and then you are left alone in a "now you can do what you want, fly little bird" fashion. But since you are new, you have no idea, what can be done, probably should be done, and you feel lost at some point. People like to have a reason to do things, quests give you that reason, allthough for most games the reasons are just fake stories with no real meaning.
One buzzword here is "dynamic quest engine" that is able to create quests for the current game state, that are not too shallow. But as of today in most games there are 4 archetypes of quests (kill, kill+loot, find, ferry) the only difference is the "packaging" which is handwritten and manually designed in themepark games. But who still reads all the fake motivation behind a quest in the last third of a game? I don't. And concerning consequences, they don't neccessarily have to be tied directly to your action, but might be visible in the long run. For example if lots of players take quests to fight a goblin tribe in a certain valley, and now this tribe gets weaker and weaker and after a week or so is annihilated or migrates to somewhere else, and your uestgivers say "hey great work, but now everything is fine here, we don't need you anymore, but you should go to the city of XYZ, the have problems with ABC" that would be enough concequence and further direction for my taste.
And i don't see, why this couldn't be technically possible. So there could be sandbox games which have lot's of quests, i.e. pve content, unlike the current specimen of the sub-genre which generally lack in the pve department.
Another challenge is if you want a singular world without server shards, like eve online offers. that is a huge sandbox feature, but not neccessary.
Problem with your theory is that a lot of WoW players don't want any other MMO, ever, period. There are plenty who will play WoW and never touch another MMO. It's an anomolie and the only thing that will kill WoW is time or a very bad series of decisions from Blizz.
couldnt agree morethe death of WOW will only be a self induced one.
More than Half its player Base are still into Cartoons, which is why they feel comfortable in wow.
In something like EvE the player base from what I have seen personaly, seem to be mostly above the age of 21, serious I have rarely meet anyone below that age tbh and I have been In a few corps as recuritment officer, and started 2 of my own.
Sadly gaming is dominated by kids, just enjoy any game you like and stick with it if you like it that much, nvm the numbers or which is populated more.
a polished sandbox would get maybe 500k players tops. and i dont think it could retain half of them as time goes by.
You are making a misstake and assumes that a sandbox have to be exactly like older sandboxes.
Before Wow no one thought a MMO could have a million subs either. A modern sandbox game with more people than that would have to be very different from FFA full loot PvP, that is true. But that is not really what makes a sandbox into a sandbox.
Player created content is a a fine game with that could get a lot more players. In fact one of the masters of sandbox games are making their first MMO right now, Bethesda. Games like Oblivion and Daggerfall have sold millions so I don't see why an online version of them wont do good unless they mess up.
Elder scrolls online (I am assuming that is what they are making) should easily be able to keep that number of players, the IP have millions of fans and here we actually have a large competent company making the game, not some small indie company with little or no experience.
I just hope Bethesda got some good QA cause their past Elder4 was a technically attrocious game. I picked it up after the GOTY edition came out with all the goodies but I know a lot of my friends who couldn't play it unitl the 3rd(?) patch.. i think. Been so long. >_>
One thing I truely hope Bethesda solves is the 'player power' differential between Single and Multi. Where in Single player the player has a lot of control on what changes, in multi you can't really have that which limits the whole 'sandboxy' aspect.
EVE gets around this by limiting what 'one' char can do which is where all the metagame/Corp stuff comes from.
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Well, the expectations of the sandbox fanboys seem pretty unrealistic to me. Some of them come and talk about what MMOs should be but they don't even know if it's possible given the current state of technology. They want to something that mimicks real life and not a game lol.
I don't think mimicking RL is what they want.
Thinking of game mechanics RL sucks ass: awful skill grind, permadeath and the graphics are admittedly quite good, but the setting is boring like hell.
Also the term sandbox is not a fixed set of features but a general idea. It circumscribes the amount of freedom, players have for their game decisions.
Think of DAoC: fix classes, fix skills, level-based, fix factions, BUT you could conquer and hold territory and it was persistant as long as it was not reconquered (unlike battlegrounds in WOW which had no "world" consequence after the end of the match).
So DAoC had some sandboxish tendencies.
I get what you are saying and I agree. But the impact you have on the world does not affect your freedom in anyway. This impact on the world is in all single player and even multiplayer games, basically most games but MMOs. However, I find that what all sandbox games did was the easy way out. Having consequential PvP is much much easier to do than implementing a meaningful PvE. UO, DaoC etc. all these games didn't have meaningful PvE.
Now imagine this with no classes, but freely pickable skills (with some constraints), maybe some default factions, but players can also create their own factions and conquer territory and objectives, but also settle new land and build castles, villages etc. Back this up with a crafting and economy system, where in theory everything can be created by players, provided they have access to the required ressources (e.g. an iron mine) and you would have a daoc that is vastly more sandboxish. Notice i didn't mention full pvp or full oot, these are just some more features for a sandbox game, but surely not the only ones or even the most important.
Again this is all PvP talk. I have played sandbox games. I know the idea of class free systems. The elder scrolls series is a perfect example of a good open ended sandbox game.
However, I don't think the skill based system is superior or anymore innovative than its class based counterpart. I have played such games and at the end of the day you have only a handful of vialbe skill combinations. As you said it is all about choices. But these choices need to be meaningful. Say you need to choose between A, B, C or D. If b,c and d are very subpar/inferior etc to A, then you don't have meaningful options. You just have a bad choice and good one. However, if all four choices are viable and have different strentth/weaknesses/purposes etc, then that's fantastic. Look at Guild Wars 1. There are over 1500 skills in that game but some of them are useless or are very specific to a certain situation. Same thing happened to UO/Morrowind/Oblivion. Some of the choices are only there for giggles. That's fine but this does not promote freedom of choice!
So why shouldn't this be possible with current technology? In fact there are games that feature most of this stuff (Darkfall). Eve Online has all this but I take it as an exception since it is sci-fi and I am sure the OP was thinking about a fantasy or at least "ground-based" type of game.
But there are challenges.
In my opinion what current SB games lack most is giving the player a red thread. Mostly you have a tutorial and then you are left alone in a "now you can do what you want, fly little bird" fashion. But since you are new, you have no idea, what can be done, probably should be done, and you feel lost at some point. People like to have a reason to do things, quests give you that reason, allthough for most games the reasons are just fake stories with no real meaning.
This is crucial actually. But the indie sandboxy games fail to realise this. You can't give a one hour tutorial and then say go read on the internet.
One buzzword here is "dynamic quest engine" that is able to create quests for the current game state, that are not too shallow. But as of today in most games there are 4 archetypes of quests (kill, kill+loot, find, ferry) the only difference is the "packaging" which is handwritten and manually designed in themepark games. But who still reads all the fake motivation behind a quest in the last third of a game? I don't. And concerning consequences, they don't neccessarily have to be tied directly to your action, but might be visible in the long run. For example if lots of players take quests to fight a goblin tribe in a certain valley, and now this tribe gets weaker and weaker and after a week or so is annihilated or migrates to somewhere else, and your uestgivers say "hey great work, but now everything is fine here, we don't need you anymore, but you should go to the city of XYZ, the have problems with ABC" that would be enough concequence and further direction for my taste.
In 99% of games you end up killing stuff. So what? It's all about fun. Diablo was a great example of this. You only kill monsters in that game. However, that game was ridiculously fun. They actually spent more time designing the death animations of mobs than on the mobs themselves because you had mobs dying all the time.
In ME/DAO/BG etc the quests are of these 4 'archetypes' of quests. But the story was engaging, interesting and your actions had an impact on the world. You also had lots of choices. Quests without dialogues suck hard!
About the goblin tribe example, this is not enough for me. I don't see how this makes it important or feels rewarding in any way. Enough consequence? Not really. For an MMO player who doesn't play anything else, this might might be enough but for me it's the same old boring MMO crap.
Sims is a great example of a sandbox game. And there is no killing!
And i don't see, why this couldn't be technically possible. So there could be sandbox games which have lot's of quests, i.e. pve content, unlike the current specimen of the sub-genre which generally lack in the pve department.
There we have it. I don't like sandbox MMOs because of this! You don't have PvE in those games. You just have a developer who says ' hey our players will 'create' content for them we simply give them the tools!' This is what I call laziness. If you wanted to develop an amazing game, your game should have lots of sandbox toools with which people can play and do their own stuff. However, IN ADDITION you need a lot of developer generated content. The games you mentioned don't have much PvE content and have FFA PvP and proclaim that they give you freedom. That's true because there is nothing in their world! It void of any life.
Another challenge is if you want a singular world without server shards, like eve online offers. that is a huge sandbox feature, but not neccessary.
This is simply not possible. Imagine of WoW had only 1 server. They would need a huge landmass. So you can end up with either:
A. having too many people, your world is too overpopulated
B. having a huge landmass and people barely see each other.
This is all dependent on your game's population.
And how do you create a huge landmass without throwing away a ridiculous amount of money. I don't want to play a randomly generated game. When you have a game like Daggerfall, everything feels sooooooo generic and you're like oooh I've seen this before. This is not kewl.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
So much good stuff in that post, but I wanted to comment on a couple items.
Originally posted by fivoroth There we have it. I don't like sandbox MMOs because of this! You don't have PvE in those games. You just have a developer who says ' hey our players will 'create' content for them we simply give them the tools!' This is what I call laziness. If you wanted to develop an amazing game, your game should have lots of sandbox toools with which people can play and do their own stuff. However, IN ADDITION you need a lot of developer generated content. The games you mentioned don't have much PvE content and have FFA PvP and proclaim that they give you freedom. That's true because there is nothing in their world! It void of any life.
It really depends on the kind of tools you are talking about. Your typical sandbox tools such as those in DF and UO are very lazy substitutes for content.
On the other hand, true content generation tools that let players create quests, stories, dungeon layouts, place MOB's and NPC's, etc. That could be the kind of sandbox tool that would never get old. The trick is to integrate the player made content into the game world in a way that wouldn't break the world consistency with over-instancing and player segregation. I think it can be done though. Its really the only option we have that could provide unlimited content and completely eliminate the need for grindy parts of MMOG's.
As an alternative, consider the content generation of Oblivion and the upcoming Skyrim. Quests are generated on the fly, dungeons populated automatically. The content generation system just needs to be complex enough to prevent all the content from feeling generic and samey. With the right tech it could work. Roguelikes and Diablo-likes have been doing this stuff for decades.
Originally posted by fivoroth Another challenge is if you want a singular world without server shards, like eve online offers. that is a huge sandbox feature, but not neccessary.
This is simply not possible. Imagine of WoW had only 1 server. They would need a huge landmass. So you can end up with either: A. having too many people, your world is too overpopulated B. having a huge landmass and people barely see each other. This is all dependent on your game's population. And how do you create a huge landmass without throwing away a ridiculous amount of money. I don't want to play a randomly generated game. When you have a game like Daggerfall, everything feels sooooooo generic and you're like oooh I've seen this before. This is not kewl.
You hit the nail on the head with Daggerfall. It was generic, but that is because of the way it was developed and the limitations of its time period. Drawing from games like Minecraft for terrain generation and Skyrim/roguelikes (Din's Curse?) for quest and story content. I am talking about something new, something that would build on the shortcomings, limitations, and mistakes of the past rather than reproducing them.
If there were as much effort put into automatic content generation as there is in manual content creation then it could be really cool.
WoW numbers? In a sandbox style game that by it's design would push away the majority of people who just dabble in games. I HOPE there are NOT ENOUGH people in the world so devoid of RL accomplishments and responsibilities to get 10 million people playing such a game.
What kind of skewed, ego-centric mindset makes a RL socially/athletically failing person believe that there are SO MANY other peoiple who want to leave the ins and outs of a world with warm bodies and tactile rewards for a fantasy world of the sandbox sort?
Think about the numberr of people who sat at the "nerd" table in your cafetaria. Remember being an outsider? Yeah, it's because most people are TRYING to be mainstream because mainstream has real benefits IRL. Most of them fail at being cool or fitting in or at being intelligent or whatever other pursuit there is, but they fail around other warm and sometimes very attractive or imaginiative bodies.
I, personally, would love to play a game that has a lore framework and then lives with the people's actions and the intervention of the developers mostly on a higher level. That would be great!
But the kind of sandbox game I am afraid people are asking for is more like an excuse to dig in for 100s of hours and have a real impact on the world.
3 Things that I see as factors which would contribute significantly to holding nubers below WoW:
1. The time it would take to really be an impact on that kind of world would be debilitating to RL pursuits.
2. Millions of people may not be able to agree on a decent fantasy setting with decent race possibilities. (Example: Lots of people would censure themselves for dabbling in something embarrassing and nerdy as playing with elves. But I personally would be bored to hell with a game without them. WoW in some ways gets away with this in that it is cartoony and therefore doesn't on any level take itself seriously - It mocks alongside the mockers).
3. Player driven content would be terrible, because it would be hard to separate the impact of the worlds most slothful, embarrassing, low IQ moron from the inspired creative people - because that slothful, moron and his legion of like-minded and thier juvenile humor/approach to politics/whatever else you can think of would crowd out the good.
That is a very short idea as to why hitting WoW numbers in a sandbox seems unachievable.
As far as one huge world goes, there seems to be two major criticisms.
1) Spreads the players out too much.
Ironforge. If you have reasons and needs in the game for players to coelesce, they will. How many "Ironforges" are there in WoW? Add a system that connects the dots, trade routes and safe havens along the way, player owned properties, centers of activities, all connected, and you have a "worldly" civilized hub. Allow it to expand or contract naturally by the player's actions, and it's interesting. Something many players would want to take part in, especially if they can build with customization and purpose.
All you need is a means to allow players to quickly leave that hub, and come back, so they can explore and return quickly. Spells and magic items (or sci-fi equivalents) allow for this.
2) Overpopulated, run out of space.
If you design a world that can be expanded on, no problem. Suppose your world is a huge land mass. It's blocked by an impassable mountain range on one side, impassable icy seas to the north, impassable firey seas to the south, and if you sail the other direction you end up in a foggy zone of eternal aimless sailing. Now you can cause an opening of one type or another anywhere, and add more lands, and more blockages at the "end of the known world".
And if a world (population) starts to shrink after some years, you can always move backwards.
Again this is all PvP talk. I have played sandbox games. I know the idea of class free systems. The elder scrolls series is a perfect example of a good open ended sandbox game.
However, I don't think the skill based system is superior or anymore innovative than its class based counterpart. I have played such games and at the end of the day you have only a handful of vialbe skill combinations. As you said it is all about choices. But these choices need to be meaningful. Say you need to choose between A, B, C or D. If b,c and d are very subpar/inferior etc to A, then you don't have meaningful options. You just have a bad choice and good one. However, if all four choices are viable and have different strentth/weaknesses/purposes etc, then that's fantastic. Look at Guild Wars 1. There are over 1500 skills in that game but some of them are useless or are very specific to a certain situation. Same thing happened to UO/Morrowind/Oblivion. Some of the choices are only there for giggles. That's fine but this does not promote freedom of choice!
IMO balance, while it is of course important in general - is mainly important for combat and especially for PvP, since egos are involvd here. I agree that combat-related skills or classes MUST be balanced. But as you say, MMOGs - and especially SB MMOGs - MUST NOT be about combat only. I see less priority in balancing other skills, like crafting, social or exploring. In an ingame economy that is worth the term "economy" these things should balance out via availability of products, services etc. I could imagine a hybrid system where you have a set of combat classes (like warrior, mage, etc) and a set of supplementary skills or professions or even classes, allthough i prefer skills. This is less about innovation (UO had it) it is more about freedom of choice. A skill system that ends up with a small number of subsets of must-haves is as bad as a class system with 1-3 uber classes. No arguing here.
This is crucial actually. But the indie sandboxy games fail to realise this. You can't give a one hour tutorial and then say go read on the internet.
And it is the main reason why existing SB MMOGs have a small audience. A game that pays more attention to this might have a much higher success. Btw I doubt a market share of 50% but a game with maybe 1 mio of subscriptions should be doable. Ppl seem to forget that you dont need 10 mio subs to be deemed "successful" these days. WoW is still the exception and not the rule.
In 99% of games you end up killing stuff. So what? It's all about fun. Diablo was a great example of this. You only kill monsters in that game. However, that game was ridiculously fun. They actually spent more time designing the death animations of mobs than on the mobs themselves because you had mobs dying all the time.
Killing stuff is not enough to have a world that feels alive and breathing. I often have a moment in games where i am tired of killing and want to do something else, but there is nothing to do (e.g. bc crafting sucks). You definately need a complex crafting and economy system. And some sort of building (like have your own horse ranch). This serves both as supplement to fighting and there are many ways how the economy can give incentives for PvE and PvP activities. I don't mean mere mob-farming, think in more abstract levels: get access to territory, economically viable ressources, competing factions, protect trade routes (caravans), etc etc. Embedded in a quest ystem. All these things would give the killing an actual reason, unlike those ffa full loot pvp gank-fests.
About the goblin tribe example, this is not enough for me. I don't see how this makes it important or feels rewarding in any way. Enough consequence? Not really. For an MMO player who doesn't play anything else, this might might be enough but for me it's the same old boring MMO crap.
Well, of course I want loot and quest rewards as well, but it is indefinetly better than having these goblins spawn again and again for years, no? Or what do you want specifically?
There we have it. I don't like sandbox MMOs because of this! You don't have PvE in those games. You just have a developer who says ' hey our players will 'create' content for them we simply give them the tools!' This is what I call laziness. If you wanted to develop an amazing game, your game should have lots of sandbox toools with which people can play and do their own stuff. However, IN ADDITION you need a lot of developer generated content. The games you mentioned don't have much PvE content and have FFA PvP and proclaim that they give you freedom. That's true because there is nothing in their world! It void of any life.
I agree, in previous games these tools are "you can kill and loot anyone" and that's it. that exchanged with "no pve". of course it sucks
Another challenge is if you want a singular world without server shards, like eve online offers. that is a huge sandbox feature, but not neccessary.
This is simply not possible. Imagine of WoW had only 1 server. They would need a huge landmass. So you can end up with either:
A. having too many people, your world is too overpopulated
B. having a huge landmass and people barely see each other.
This is all dependent on your game's population.
And how do you create a huge landmass without throwing away a ridiculous amount of money. I don't want to play a randomly generated game. When you have a game like Daggerfall, everything feels sooooooo generic and you're like oooh I've seen this before. This is not kewl.
You don't necessarily need a huge landmass (in fact that would be a stupid idea), you can have a world of islands, archipelagoes etc. You can have a system that restrict's access to places. If a tavern is full, it's full! same for a city. if a landmass is overpopulated, let the system reduce transport routes or raise transport fees, etc. and if it get's too laggy, people will leave/stay away. but IT IS a technical challenge, no doubt.
I want a huge world with quiet places, real wildernis, only my group and a lot of game to hunt (unlike overcrowded places) there again the economy system is important. in darkfall there were quite places, only there was nothing! cities will serve as trade hubs, i hunt in the wilderness and sell in the crowded cities. they will be full enough. but currently it is the opposite: roaming hordes everywhere, even in places which are considered to be forsaken. unless the game is dead already. And let it be autogenerated to "SOME" extend. rather i want a lonly, generic island where i can place my hut, than another world with manually designed mushrooms in the woods and ten ppl behind each mushroom killing stupid mobs which spawn just there to be killed. let them design cities and landmarks and autogenerate the rest.
Wow is a bad example btw. Of course i dont want 14 mio players in one world. But some 10 to 100k would be ok.
That being said, there is no way that a sandbox (regardless of polish and financial backing) would gain a significant portion of market share of the overall mmo playerbase, because (as is evident in this thread alone) most are casuals who shy away from ffa mechanics and risk.
Sandboxs have nothing to do with FFA mechanics and risk. Those are entirely separate concepts which are not exclusive.
You may have a sandbox without FFA PvP or risk. Of course, I think risk should be in every game.
Just not EQ1 risk, which isn't actually risk, but archaic gameplay veiled as challenge.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
That being said, there is no way that a sandbox (regardless of polish and financial backing) would gain a significant portion of market share of the overall mmo playerbase, because (as is evident in this thread alone) most are casuals who shy away from ffa mechanics and risk.
Sandboxs have nothing to do with FFA mechanics and risk. Those are entirely separate concepts which are not exclusive.
You may have a sandbox without FFA PvP or risk. Of course, I think risk should be in every game.
Just not EQ1 risk, which isn't actually risk, but archaic gameplay veiled as challenge.
Actually it is somewhat debatable as to whether a true sandbox can impose limits on pvp mechanics (not ofc including risk mechanics to the actual aggressors like in EVE).
There seems to be some confusion between an open world game and a sandbox game. The former can ofc be pve centric and in terms of travelling and exploring does indeed offer more freedom than instanced, themepark games. But a sandbox game is far more than simply an open world, it is an open world where the ruleset is also primarily 'open', with the players themselves deciding what goes and where.
A sandbox game may try and make safer areas by placing npcs or having a rating system, but it does not impose strict rules wich prevent players from pvping, it simply adds a risk element for those that choose to do so.
Can you pve anywhere in a true sandbox? Ofc, but then should you want to and should you decide you can face the risks you can also pvp anywhere as well. This can only be accomplished in a FFA system which by its very nature leads to a higher risk game (in terms of player death, not necessarily death penalities/full looting etc).
At the end of the day a sandbox mmo is one which allows people to build whatever castle they like, in whatever way they like, but it also allows for people knocking down those castles.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
The reason I didnt mentioned EVE, Fallen Earth, Darkfall, etc is because they dont fit my description of "polished AAA sandbox".
Those are nowhere near good enough, or close enough to what I originally talked about.
Its taken a while but eve is pretty polished. It just doesn't satisfy the viceral desire of running through wild environments and swinging 3 feet of steel into someone.
It also does not satisfy the desires of the 'pure builder' sandboxers who do not consider FFA PvP to be much of a feature. So it is getting squeezed from both sides of the spectrum.
Yeah, and EVE is sci-fi without fluid action twitch gameplay as well. Its niche. AAA polished sandbox is not niche.
The reason I didnt mentioned EVE, Fallen Earth, Darkfall, etc is because they dont fit my description of "polished AAA sandbox".
Those are nowhere near good enough, or close enough to what I originally talked about.
Its taken a while but eve is pretty polished. It just doesn't satisfy the viceral desire of running through wild environments and swinging 3 feet of steel into someone.
It also does not satisfy the desires of the 'pure builder' sandboxers who do not consider FFA PvP to be much of a feature. So it is getting squeezed from both sides of the spectrum.
Yeah, and EVE is sci-fi without fluid action twitch gameplay as well. Its niche. AAA polished sandbox is not niche.
'Pure builder' sandboxers are not (as far as I am concerned) pure sandboxers anyway and are by their own nature a niche population in their own right.
Most mmo's do not have 'fluid action twitch gameplay' by the very fact that the vast majority have auto-lock and do not require fps style manual aiming and movement characteristics.
A true sandbox, not some half assed pve only variant is by it's very nature 'niche' regardless of whether or not it is so highly polished you can't see the screen for the reflections.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
The reason EVE doesn't have a massive market base is because, essentially, you're a god damn spaceship. Most people don't like sci-fi MMOs on the whole, nevermind ones where you're just a spaceship.
Comments
I'm actually a little shocked in what you said, I remember turning the gps thing off sometimes just to add challenge, but that alone is challenging for people? LOL. It just begs the question: What video games did all these people play before? I mean the only genres that literally told you where to go are racing games and fighting games, lol. Maybe humans are getting dumber as a whole, too much instant gratification I guess.
Honestly, not too long ago I thought a sandbox game could be big, not wow big or 5 million big, but 1 million, and that hybrids where the future, now I'm losing faith in humans. Themepark lovers, look at your games and enjoy them, because at this rate what you enjoy with these games will be gone too.
-I want a Platformer MMO
I mean a player who likes to build things and expand on them. This kind of player really does not care about other players coming in and destroying things they have built up. They value cooperation and constructive competition over destructive competition.
When I first played EVE years ago, my dream was to go out into an unexplored region of space, build a small base there, mine rare minerals and then use it to build and industrial power base. The lack of player owned structures back then made that impossible and it also quickly became apparent that such an enterprise would simply become fodder for the pirates and the agressive 0.0 corporations.
Where exactly do you get this AAA term? Is there some metric provided by an objective organization to analyze the trends and qualities of MMOs?
I think the Community here unnecessarily polarizes itself on these issues. I doubt the vast majority of MMO players care (or even know) what a theme park game is, or what a sandbox game is. All they want is a good game.
It is my belief that the best games to come will endeavor to incorporate all of these aspects (PvP, PvE, Sandbox, Theme park) seamlessly into a well-polished world.
I understand your desire but I submit that if you want to do that in a multiplayer environment that precludes those other players from interfering, then a mmorpg sandbox isn't really what you're looking for.
a polished sandbox would get maybe 500k players tops. and i dont think it could retain half of them as time goes by.
You are making a misstake and assumes that a sandbox have to be exactly like older sandboxes.
Before Wow no one thought a MMO could have a million subs either. A modern sandbox game with more people than that would have to be very different from FFA full loot PvP, that is true. But that is not really what makes a sandbox into a sandbox.
Player created content is a a fine game with that could get a lot more players. In fact one of the masters of sandbox games are making their first MMO right now, Bethesda. Games like Oblivion and Daggerfall have sold millions so I don't see why an online version of them wont do good unless they mess up.
Elder scrolls online (I am assuming that is what they are making) should easily be able to keep that number of players, the IP have millions of fans and here we actually have a large competent company making the game, not some small indie company with little or no experience.
Well, the expectations of the sandbox fanboys seem pretty unrealistic to me. Some of them come and talk about what MMOs should be but they don't even know if it's possible given the current state of technology. They want to something that mimicks real life and not a game lol.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Do you have a link for this? Cause I think there were only rumours that Bethesda are making an MMO but it was never confirmed and it was a long time ago. The next game in the series Skyrim is gonna be released on the 11.11.11
I love the Elder Scrolls Series but I don't see why Bethesda would want to make an MMO.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
It was all over the forum in 2007 when they hired in their MMO department but that it is a ES MMO is just speculations, they could use another IP as well.
Mythic Founder Heads Bethesda Parent Company's New MMO Studio
by Rainier on Aug. 1, 2007 @ 6:04 p.m. PDT
Bethesda Softworks parent company ZeniMax Media announced the creation of ZeniMax Online Studios. The division will be headed by Matt Firor, a well-known expert in the field of online gaming, and will focus on the MMO market segment.
Firor was one of the founders of Mythic Entertainment, where he worked for over 10 years on MMO titles. At Mythic he was the producer of the worldwide #1 smash hit Dark Age of Camelot, a MMORPG considered one of the most influential online games of all time. When he left Mythic in 2006, Firor was responsible for all development projects at the company. For the past year, he has been a consultant in the online gaming industry, advising leading publishers interested in entering the online market.
“This could not be a more perfect opportunity for me,” said Matt. “I am extremely impressed with ZeniMax and Bethesda Softworks management – their development philosophy closely matches my own, with an emphasis on quality, innovation, and craftsmanship. I am eager to get back to what I love – the development of cutting edge MMOG titles.”
“We are excited about the opportunities we have in the online gaming space and felt that Matt is the perfect person to lead this effort,” said James Leder, COO of ZeniMax Media. There are relatively few people who have the actual experience and knowledge that comes from having created a successful MMO, and Matt is the real deal. We feel fortunate to have him join our group.”
Firor is a graduate of George Washington University and has worked in the gaming industry for 17 years. He has lectured at the University of Virginia and Massachusetts Institute of Technology on game development topics, and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences. Firor has written articles for Game Developer Magazine and was a regular columnist covering online game development for the Korean gaming magazine “Onplayer
This is one quote, google it and you find more.
Damn right.
But most of us settle for a fun and well made game, sadly we rarely get that either.
I don't think mimicking RL is what they want.
Thinking of game mechanics RL sucks ass: awful skill grind, permadeath and the graphics are admittedly quite good, but the setting is boring like hell.
Also the term sandbox is not a fixed set of features but a general idea. It circumscribes the amount of freedom, players have for their game decisions.
Think of DAoC: fix classes, fix skills, level-based, fix factions, BUT you could conquer and hold territory and it was persistant as long as it was not reconquered (unlike battlegrounds in WOW which had no "world" consequence after the end of the match).
So DAoC had some sandboxish tendencies.
Now imagine this with no classes, but freely pickable skills (with some constraints), maybe some default factions, but players can also create their own factions and conquer territory and objectives, but also settle new land and build castles, villages etc. Back this up with a crafting and economy system, where in theory everything can be created by players, provided they have access to the required ressources (e.g. an iron mine) and you would have a daoc that is vastly more sandboxish. Notice i didn't mention full pvp or full oot, these are just some more features for a sandbox game, but surely not the only ones or even the most important.
So why shouldn't this be possible with current technology? In fact there are games that feature most of this stuff (Darkfall). Eve Online has all this but I take it as an exception since it is sci-fi and I am sure the OP was thinking about a fantasy or at least "ground-based" type of game.
But there are challenges.
In my opinion what current SB games lack most is giving the player a red thread. Mostly you have a tutorial and then you are left alone in a "now you can do what you want, fly little bird" fashion. But since you are new, you have no idea, what can be done, probably should be done, and you feel lost at some point. People like to have a reason to do things, quests give you that reason, allthough for most games the reasons are just fake stories with no real meaning.
One buzzword here is "dynamic quest engine" that is able to create quests for the current game state, that are not too shallow. But as of today in most games there are 4 archetypes of quests (kill, kill+loot, find, ferry) the only difference is the "packaging" which is handwritten and manually designed in themepark games. But who still reads all the fake motivation behind a quest in the last third of a game? I don't. And concerning consequences, they don't neccessarily have to be tied directly to your action, but might be visible in the long run. For example if lots of players take quests to fight a goblin tribe in a certain valley, and now this tribe gets weaker and weaker and after a week or so is annihilated or migrates to somewhere else, and your uestgivers say "hey great work, but now everything is fine here, we don't need you anymore, but you should go to the city of XYZ, the have problems with ABC" that would be enough concequence and further direction for my taste.
And i don't see, why this couldn't be technically possible. So there could be sandbox games which have lot's of quests, i.e. pve content, unlike the current specimen of the sub-genre which generally lack in the pve department.
Another challenge is if you want a singular world without server shards, like eve online offers. that is a huge sandbox feature, but not neccessary.
couldnt agree morethe death of WOW will only be a self induced one.
Another thing about WoW,
More than Half its player Base are still into Cartoons, which is why they feel comfortable in wow.
In something like EvE the player base from what I have seen personaly, seem to be mostly above the age of 21, serious I have rarely meet anyone below that age tbh and I have been In a few corps as recuritment officer, and started 2 of my own.
Sadly gaming is dominated by kids, just enjoy any game you like and stick with it if you like it that much, nvm the numbers or which is populated more.
I just hope Bethesda got some good QA cause their past Elder4 was a technically attrocious game. I picked it up after the GOTY edition came out with all the goodies but I know a lot of my friends who couldn't play it unitl the 3rd(?) patch.. i think. Been so long. >_>
One thing I truely hope Bethesda solves is the 'player power' differential between Single and Multi. Where in Single player the player has a lot of control on what changes, in multi you can't really have that which limits the whole 'sandboxy' aspect.
EVE gets around this by limiting what 'one' char can do which is where all the metagame/Corp stuff comes from.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
So much good stuff in that post, but I wanted to comment on a couple items.
It really depends on the kind of tools you are talking about. Your typical sandbox tools such as those in DF and UO are very lazy substitutes for content.
On the other hand, true content generation tools that let players create quests, stories, dungeon layouts, place MOB's and NPC's, etc. That could be the kind of sandbox tool that would never get old. The trick is to integrate the player made content into the game world in a way that wouldn't break the world consistency with over-instancing and player segregation. I think it can be done though. Its really the only option we have that could provide unlimited content and completely eliminate the need for grindy parts of MMOG's.
As an alternative, consider the content generation of Oblivion and the upcoming Skyrim. Quests are generated on the fly, dungeons populated automatically. The content generation system just needs to be complex enough to prevent all the content from feeling generic and samey. With the right tech it could work. Roguelikes and Diablo-likes have been doing this stuff for decades.
You hit the nail on the head with Daggerfall. It was generic, but that is because of the way it was developed and the limitations of its time period. Drawing from games like Minecraft for terrain generation and Skyrim/roguelikes (Din's Curse?) for quest and story content. I am talking about something new, something that would build on the shortcomings, limitations, and mistakes of the past rather than reproducing them.
If there were as much effort put into automatic content generation as there is in manual content creation then it could be really cool.
WoW numbers? In a sandbox style game that by it's design would push away the majority of people who just dabble in games. I HOPE there are NOT ENOUGH people in the world so devoid of RL accomplishments and responsibilities to get 10 million people playing such a game.
What kind of skewed, ego-centric mindset makes a RL socially/athletically failing person believe that there are SO MANY other peoiple who want to leave the ins and outs of a world with warm bodies and tactile rewards for a fantasy world of the sandbox sort?
Think about the numberr of people who sat at the "nerd" table in your cafetaria. Remember being an outsider? Yeah, it's because most people are TRYING to be mainstream because mainstream has real benefits IRL. Most of them fail at being cool or fitting in or at being intelligent or whatever other pursuit there is, but they fail around other warm and sometimes very attractive or imaginiative bodies.
I, personally, would love to play a game that has a lore framework and then lives with the people's actions and the intervention of the developers mostly on a higher level. That would be great!
But the kind of sandbox game I am afraid people are asking for is more like an excuse to dig in for 100s of hours and have a real impact on the world.
3 Things that I see as factors which would contribute significantly to holding nubers below WoW:
1. The time it would take to really be an impact on that kind of world would be debilitating to RL pursuits.
2. Millions of people may not be able to agree on a decent fantasy setting with decent race possibilities. (Example: Lots of people would censure themselves for dabbling in something embarrassing and nerdy as playing with elves. But I personally would be bored to hell with a game without them. WoW in some ways gets away with this in that it is cartoony and therefore doesn't on any level take itself seriously - It mocks alongside the mockers).
3. Player driven content would be terrible, because it would be hard to separate the impact of the worlds most slothful, embarrassing, low IQ moron from the inspired creative people - because that slothful, moron and his legion of like-minded and thier juvenile humor/approach to politics/whatever else you can think of would crowd out the good.
That is a very short idea as to why hitting WoW numbers in a sandbox seems unachievable.
Someone please make a good MMO.
As far as one huge world goes, there seems to be two major criticisms.
1) Spreads the players out too much.
Ironforge. If you have reasons and needs in the game for players to coelesce, they will. How many "Ironforges" are there in WoW? Add a system that connects the dots, trade routes and safe havens along the way, player owned properties, centers of activities, all connected, and you have a "worldly" civilized hub. Allow it to expand or contract naturally by the player's actions, and it's interesting. Something many players would want to take part in, especially if they can build with customization and purpose.
All you need is a means to allow players to quickly leave that hub, and come back, so they can explore and return quickly. Spells and magic items (or sci-fi equivalents) allow for this.
2) Overpopulated, run out of space.
If you design a world that can be expanded on, no problem. Suppose your world is a huge land mass. It's blocked by an impassable mountain range on one side, impassable icy seas to the north, impassable firey seas to the south, and if you sail the other direction you end up in a foggy zone of eternal aimless sailing. Now you can cause an opening of one type or another anywhere, and add more lands, and more blockages at the "end of the known world".
And if a world (population) starts to shrink after some years, you can always move backwards.
Once upon a time....
Sandboxs have nothing to do with FFA mechanics and risk. Those are entirely separate concepts which are not exclusive.
You may have a sandbox without FFA PvP or risk. Of course, I think risk should be in every game.
Just not EQ1 risk, which isn't actually risk, but archaic gameplay veiled as challenge.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
Actually it is somewhat debatable as to whether a true sandbox can impose limits on pvp mechanics (not ofc including risk mechanics to the actual aggressors like in EVE).
There seems to be some confusion between an open world game and a sandbox game. The former can ofc be pve centric and in terms of travelling and exploring does indeed offer more freedom than instanced, themepark games. But a sandbox game is far more than simply an open world, it is an open world where the ruleset is also primarily 'open', with the players themselves deciding what goes and where.
A sandbox game may try and make safer areas by placing npcs or having a rating system, but it does not impose strict rules wich prevent players from pvping, it simply adds a risk element for those that choose to do so.
Can you pve anywhere in a true sandbox? Ofc, but then should you want to and should you decide you can face the risks you can also pvp anywhere as well. This can only be accomplished in a FFA system which by its very nature leads to a higher risk game (in terms of player death, not necessarily death penalities/full looting etc).
At the end of the day a sandbox mmo is one which allows people to build whatever castle they like, in whatever way they like, but it also allows for people knocking down those castles.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Yeah, and EVE is sci-fi without fluid action twitch gameplay as well. Its niche. AAA polished sandbox is not niche.
'Pure builder' sandboxers are not (as far as I am concerned) pure sandboxers anyway and are by their own nature a niche population in their own right.
Most mmo's do not have 'fluid action twitch gameplay' by the very fact that the vast majority have auto-lock and do not require fps style manual aiming and movement characteristics.
A true sandbox, not some half assed pve only variant is by it's very nature 'niche' regardless of whether or not it is so highly polished you can't see the screen for the reflections.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
The reason EVE doesn't have a massive market base is because, essentially, you're a god damn spaceship. Most people don't like sci-fi MMOs on the whole, nevermind ones where you're just a spaceship.