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Are they sandboxes?
tochicool
Member Posts: 153
I'm talking about games like ROBLOX, Blockland, Minecraft .etc
If you haven't ever played any of those above try ROBLOX; it's free with quick installation.
Basically, you can build your own game and share it to a community to play. Are they really "sandboxes"? Or are they just sandparks or even themeparks.
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Comments
Isn't minecraft almost the definition of a pure sandbox?
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
In a Sandbox you are supposed to be able to do whatever you like.
In Minecraft you are very restricted, you can do basically nothing but make and destroy blocks.
I think it's different.
It's accualy very hard to categorise games like these
FEEL THE FULL
FREE-TO-FLAME
FANTASY.
Well you're basically restricted in any game you play. For example, Oblivion is a sandbox, and yet you can't build a house or run a country. It's a sandbox because it's non-linear and provides a lot of undirected play.
Minecraft is the same. You may not be able to cast spells or go on quests, but the amount of customization it offers in the building of things is immense. And it definitely is non-linear and undirected...even to the point of not having any explicit goals.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
i would consider minecraft a sandbox, even though there are things you can't do. i would consider a tale in the desert to be sandbox games as well although you can't do combat, etc...
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Currently Playing EVE, ESO
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First of all, I can only speak for Minecraft.
I think it's pretty close to what we understand a sandbox to be. Of course there are rules and restrictions... these apply in absolutely any environment, no matter if it is virtual or real. But the fact that you are not handheld in any way and you can create pretty impressive stuff that wasn't even imagined by the individual that created the game pretty much makes it a good old fashion sandbox.
It is a fairly simple one though. It's almost literally a sandbox like the ones we liked playing in when we were little. It lacks a lot of other important systems that games like EVE for example have: trading, corporations / alliances, multiple possible life paths (pirate, bounty hunter, trader, etc), character advancement etc. Like I said, I don't think this makes EVE more of a sandbox than Minecraft, but it does make it more complex.
http://titanfocus.info - news, predictions and place for discussions about Blizzard's upcoming next-gen MMO.
By your definition sandboxes are the actual game engine. things like 'Source' or 'Unreal Engine' and that would make it no longer a game. There will always be some type of restriction to a sandbox game.
You could also chose not to categorise them. Unless you want to come up with a new category everytime you find something that doesnt fit into excisting categories. I mean whats the point if you call some game a Themishsandparkforest, if the first question you have to answer is what a Themishsandparkforest is. While you couldve been explaining already what the game is about instead of making up new words.
Or worse, instead of talking about the game itself, you have to defend why that game falls into some category instead. Simply because you decided to put the game into a category that already excists but doesnt really fit.
Non-Functional Definition of Sandbox: Pure player expression/authorship. Pure player expression activities are not games. They're things like painting or C++.
Functional (commonly used) Definition of Sandbox: a game with strong avenues for player expression/authorship. Games like Minecraft and EVE may have rules, but they still give players a substantial ability to leave their mark upon the worlds.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think Second Life has that taken already. You can do ANYTHING in that game, granted, if you know how to code it.
Edit: And to answer the question, yes, they are. HOWEVER, I consider anything that isn't a MMO that is sandbox-y to just be an open-ended game. I think the true potential in a real sandbox game lies in the potentiality of a MMO.
I notice that when I personally use the word sandbox, I still expect there to be some gameplay. I don't group Minecraft's creative mode (infinite resources) or peaceful mode (no monsters) as being a "sandbox game" because there's too little game to it - the player has too much control. Similarly, based on what I know of Second Life, I also omit it.
Given how overloaded with meanings the word "sandbox" is, I should probably just stop using the word and find some different term to cut down on the number of dictionary debates I accidently get myself into.
The underlined, italized part is blasphemy, BLASPHEMY! Player control is the central domga of sandbox games. I believe, for the most part, the more power the player has to shape and develop the world the developers created, the better.
Replies like that are why I think I should probably get myself a different word
What interests me is the integrity of the world simulation. I want to see the player to be free to act within the physics/metaphysics of the world, but also for the player to be constrained by those same physics. Too much player freedom is actually destructive to the atmosphere of the game - it's freedom within constraints that I feel is important.
Me too... I try to never use the "S" word. Free-roaming, player driven, virtual environment simulation.
I believe allowing the players to change the (meta)physics of an open-ended video game as a test simulation of how they are going to eventually do it in the real world. You can learn a lot about a person from running a simulation that will test his abilities to be a competent deity.
Or pay for it.
I agree, SL is the only game with no restrictions. Well theres certain things you can't do that users are constantly asking for, but thats only in terms of fuctions and how things are done and not what things can be done. With the support of meshes, it will be even crazier. I never really used the term sandbox before. I just consider games open world instead.
For an mmo there just has to be limits. If players could do half the things they could in Second Life, the game would look horrible, be filled spam/adverts, be filled endless adult content etc. A lot of people wouldn't even pay attention to theme of the mmo, which I imagine, wouldn't set well at all for a lot of people to have their lore ruined. So even i you can build a house in a game, you're limited to what ever the game devs made. You might be able to choose different styles of place down a premade plant, but you still didnt design anything.
I think something like Oblivion becomes a "sandbox" when you add mods to the equation, because then with a good enough PC, the script extenders, etc, you truely can do everything with oblivion and fallout3/new vegas.
I'm wondering though, if people would consider a game a "sandbox" if hey have the freedom to do things other than combat and have open world pvp. I've yet to see a game (browser games not included) that has optional combat progression and non-combat progression, they always seem to require everyone be involved in battle in some way.
I saw an interview with one of the founding fathers of MMOs, Richard Bartle. He said that the good future of MMOs is if players could create their own MMOs to play with their friends. He stated that yes, 90% of them would suck for the reasons stated above, BUT there could be treasures within all of those player-generated MMOs and at least the content would be totally viable to a niche set of friends.
What about an open-source engine that simply asks the user, or player, questions on how the engine should render the MMO? It would cover the most basic designs at first, and eventually get more in-depth to include either lore (theme parks) or tools to create lore (sandboxes).
Create an engine like that and sell it as a game-development tool to players and they could have a lot of fun creating their own games. In fact, the good ones could even be bought and sold at an online marketplace like Steam.
The possibility of innovation is immense in something like this, and I think it is the anti-niche that could attract almost anyone with spare time on their hands.
Anyone agree with me?
Thanks for the definitions for Sandbox guys. Good to have them around, I should probably take them down so I can throw them about this site more.
Yeah those games are sandboxes. If you want a big example of a Sandbox, see Haven & Hearth.
On a new character, when out of the very first room where you're given clothes, you're thrown into the middle of nowhere in the humongous world. Seriously. You get lucky if there are trees around, and if not you better go effing find some or you won't last the first few days in-game. There is permadeath and you need to eat or starve to death. The first pieces of starting-bread won't last long.
You get exp by basically demolishing the surroundings. Grabbing branches off trees, building things with your sticks, leaves, till you get an axe and cut down trees. With more exp you get levels and then can choose skills to develop. FIGHTING in this game has to be learned by skills, at the start you can't do anything, not even attack a bunny.
If you get seeds and can farm up something you'll be one of the lucky ones. Otherwise you might desperately scramble for a fishing rod and then try to find a river, with fish in it.
It's glorious. What you might consider end-game, like when you've learned all skills, can really be enchanced by joining a Community, a group of players who have gone so far they can construct a city and are running it smoothly.
Agreement.
Its Cryptic so who knows how it will actually work, but supposedly the new Neverwinter D&D mmo (or online coop or whatever) will allow people to make their own content and place it in game.
There's something there, but to call it anti-niche is extreme.
The main issue is specialization. Designers have a specialization advantage by designing constantly.
It applies to basically everything. Cars, Computers, Books, Plates/Bowls: you could design and make any of these things yourself, but it's much more efficient to let specialists design and produce these items. This saves us time to work on our own design specializations, allowing us to perfect our own craft that much more.
Perhaps a midget has niche tastes and typical car design isn't cutting it (because it's design for the masses.) That midget is certainly able to create his own car -- and with the right knowledge could probably produce something superior, for him, to anything on the market. But for the majority of people, specialization lets us all be considerably more efficient with our time even if it means consuming other peoples' products rather than things we custom-made for ourselves.
Players with niche tastes are that midget. For them, current games might simply not be enough. Of course, expecting their self-created niche game to also be an MMO is a little like the midget expecting to mass produce his Midget Mobile and sell it for profit -- it just isn't going to happen, because that's not what most people want. (Even though some of us may buy Midget Mobiles for hilarities' sake.)
There's certainly low-hanging fruit to be leveraged in terms of user-generated content. We're still in the infancy of exploring the types of authorship and expression players can have. As games explore that boundary they'll inevitably smush into the diminishing returns of efficiency and specialization as they start to require players to create everything for themselves.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver