Because for some reason, most sandbox MMOs are cloned free for all pvp games based off UO. Which greatly limits my freedom, as I want a choice to PvP or not.
Only sandbox games I've liked are SWG and Ryzom. Great PvE, and with SWG had PvP if I so chose to do that
Open PVP is awful (before accounting for full-loot PVP, which makes it even worse)
Sandboxes are empty. They're big worlds, with a few things to do, but very little gameplay.
Sandboxes work best as singleplayer or small-scale multiplayer, where your impact on the world can be large without disrupting others' experience (and without being disrupted in return.)
Sandboxes thus far have had really shitty moment-to-moment gameplay. (Like EVE where you spend most of your time AFK traveling or AFK mining or falling asleep in combat (where you can almost AFK, but not quite.))
ATITD and Haven & Hearth have been the most acceptable sandboxes I've tried, mostly because they avoid terrible mechanics (open PVP) and actually focus on making the moment-to-moment crafting have a little depth (or at least have variety.)
That's really the path to a successful sandbox: making the moment-to-moment crafting (or whatever) so fun that you just want to stay in the game playing it. With EVE or Darkfall you have these big, shallow wastes of time instead.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Open PVP is awful (before accounting for full-loot PVP, which makes it even worse)
Sandboxes are empty. They're big worlds, with a few things to do, but very little gameplay.
Sandboxes work best as singleplayer or small-scale multiplayer, where your impact on the world can be large without disrupting others' experience (and without being disrupted in return.)
Sandboxes thus far have had really shitty moment-to-moment gameplay. (Like EVE where you spend most of your time AFK traveling or AFK mining or falling asleep in combat (where you can almost AFK, but not quite.))
That's really the path to a successful sandbox: making the moment-to-moment crafting (or whatever) so fun that you just want to stay in the game playing it. With EVE or Darkfall you have these big, shallow wastes of time instead.
You and I must play different versions of EVE.
They can adjust a game all day, but they can't help the issue between the keyboard and the chair. Played: UO, DAoC, AC, WoW, EVE, TR, WAR, Aion, Rift, SWTOR, GW2, TSW, ESO, Elite:D Play EVE for free for 21 days
Naa, there are always people who will argue specifics to degrees that are beyond the general ideals of anything. That doesn't matter. It's an excuse.
I don't agree; If your customers can't agree on what the basic semantic constuct means, they can't agree to buy your game.
Poor Bob's so confused about which MMO he's supposed to be building, no chance his boss is going to OK the money for it.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
UO, Eve Online and SWG are only true sandbox MMOs ever released.
Rest have been half arsed indie MMOs that have just explained lack of content for being "Sandbox"
This and the misimplementation of meaningless pvp with no risk-reward balance demanding much more time and passion from the builders and defenders than the destroyers who, if fail, simply come another day.
The builders and destroyers are the same people in a real sandbox.
SWG was amazing in things you could do, build on the map, houses, harvestors, bases, towns. I liked this because I could RP a crafter more than just sitting at a crafting table and rinsing and repeating. I dont think any other game ever got as complex as the old system was. It did get watered down with the NGE, but thier where some things added in that I did like.
Problem with SWG sandbox is was they built it then never did anything with it for years. They could have done so much with that game, it truely is a example of regrets in the MMO gaming world. Not saying it was perfect at start thier could have been much more done in the planning that would have made it work much better.
The problems with a sandbox is it is a complex game model that does take alot of thought and you need it to be almost perfect or the whole thing starts to drift. Example: the game economy is probably the hardest thing to manage for a developer. EVE like SWG was; is based on combat missions for income. EVE is the bank, they pay out money for missions. Problem with that is players start to feel thier working for the crafters.
After a time the crafters get so bloated with credits they become hated by the combat pve players. EVE countered this with PLEX the crafters can convert the money into game time. Credits in EVE in theory come in and go out, SWG never had a credit sink like this. Game inflation was a major problem in SWG, by the end of the game things you used to buy cheap costed a great deal.
Their wasnt any incentive to craft in SWG after the NGE, thier was no more decay which made it a one time sale. As new player numbers decreased so did the number of crafters decrease. Game balance is a tuff thing for sandbox games; and that is the reason I think thier are not more of them out thier. And why it becomes less and less fun for players if the game itself is broken or slowly becomes broken over time.
Someday someone will make a working sandbox, as game engines become more complex in that it becomes easier for developers to make complex game models you might see something that hits the spot for all those that are waiting for a good sandbox.
I voted for the reason of FFA PvP but really it is the poor quality and lack of fun that drives me away. I've played some with FFA PvP but it must have a way to avoid PvP if you want up until you can compete with others. MO and DF at day 1 have their newcomers driven away from the community by gankers unless you join a guild and level in seclusion. FFA PvP can work with enough rules and restrictions but the ones that don't give it a horrible rep. Just like open world PvP. You could still have a light death penality but it is dinished if you died in an unfair fight.
I only play one sandbox, EVE. To me, it's the best MMO out there, and not just because it's a sandbox. And to everyone who says EVE is a "gankfest", it's not--I've been ganked a total of 2 times in 6 years, which is way less than in most other games I've played.
The division of hi-sec, lo-sec, and null sec is a great approach to way to divide those who don't want to pvp regularly from those who do, without totally removing an element of danger necessary in such a free-form game.
this is the first key-succes-factor for a sandbox. you have to divide the world into huge areas for PVE only and full PvP. if not, most people wont play it. your game will become deserted and your PvP guilds will not get enough recruits. you would be astonished, how many people finally try and play PvP even if they started the game just in order to play the PVE-content in their huge safe-zones.
the second key succes-factor is quality & functionality. the feature-list of these indygames are looking great. but most of it will never be implemented or is buggy as hell. EVE started with much less features than today and of course it had bugs. but overall it was sufficient to stay in game and have fun. from this point EVE growed steadily.
so the road to success for an AAA-sandbox is clear. unfortunately no company had tried to do it in the last decade. well, you could count EVE as AAA in the menawhile, even if it did not start as one.
this opinion fits very well to the result of the poll above.
Seconded. Also an Eve vet here. And I do occasionally try to find other games...it's a shame that pretty much every other "sandbox" MMO I've tried or looked up is pretty much a hulking glob of radioactive donkey shit, for virtually every reason listed on the poll.
Open PVP is awful (before accounting for full-loot PVP, which makes it even worse)
Sandboxes are empty. They're big worlds, with a few things to do, but very little gameplay.
Sandboxes work best as singleplayer or small-scale multiplayer, where your impact on the world can be large without disrupting others' experience (and without being disrupted in return.)
Sandboxes thus far have had really shitty moment-to-moment gameplay. (Like EVE where you spend most of your time AFK traveling or AFK mining or falling asleep in combat (where you can almost AFK, but not quite.))
That's really the path to a successful sandbox: making the moment-to-moment crafting (or whatever) so fun that you just want to stay in the game playing it. With EVE or Darkfall you have these big, shallow wastes of time instead.
You and I must play different versions of EVE.
No kidding. From the sounds of it all he did was mining and missioning, and AFK missioning at that.
Axehilt, if what I just said was true, newsflash: that's perhaps 10% of what is in Eve. You can't make a grand sweeping statement about the entirety of a game when you've only played a tiny fraction of what it has to offer.
Naa, there are always people who will argue specifics to degrees that are beyond the general ideals of anything. That doesn't matter. It's an excuse.
I don't agree; If your customers can't agree on what the basic semantic constuct means, they can't agree to buy your game.
Poor Bob's so confused about which MMO he's supposed to be building, no chance his boss is going to OK the money for it.
You make a good point but so does Amaranthar.
You talk about perception in a sense where the Devs are trying to make a game up to the expectations of the players, but that only shows that many Devs do not know themselves what it should be and are trying to identify it through the players.
Did Richard Garriot (and associate Devs) browse MMORPG forums to find out what the players wanted when he made UO?
No he just made it as he felt it, from his own insight, and people liked it because it felt alive.
So this is where I agree with Amaranthar, a Dev wishing to make a Sandbox will make a good one, the ones that have been made and have given a bad name to the Type of MMO is because, in my opinion, were made by Devs that were after money and tried to cater to what players wanted.
Now I am not saying to not be transparent with players and not listen to player suggestions or even get some ideas from them on how to approach things, good ideas do not fall from the sky anyways, good ideas come when ideas have sex together so it is good to expose discuss and get ideas from many places, but you also need to have some passion and a vision about what you want to create.
And frankly maybe the simple truth is that many of todays Devs just do not wish to make a Sandbox game, otherwise they would be able to sell their ideas and concepts to Investors.
- Duke Suraknar - Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
Open PVP is awful (before accounting for full-loot PVP, which makes it even worse)
Sandboxes are empty. They're big worlds, with a few things to do, but very little gameplay.
Sandboxes work best as singleplayer or small-scale multiplayer, where your impact on the world can be large without disrupting others' experience (and without being disrupted in return.)
Sandboxes thus far have had really shitty moment-to-moment gameplay. (Like EVE where you spend most of your time AFK traveling or AFK mining or falling asleep in combat (where you can almost AFK, but not quite.))
That's really the path to a successful sandbox: making the moment-to-moment crafting (or whatever) so fun that you just want to stay in the game playing it. With EVE or Darkfall you have these big, shallow wastes of time instead.
You and I must play different versions of EVE.
No kidding. From the sounds of it all he did was mining and missioning, and AFK missioning at that.
Axehilt, if what I just said was true, newsflash: that's perhaps 10% of what is in Eve. You can't make a grand sweeping statement about the entirety of a game when you've only played a tiny fraction of what it has to offer.
Whats the other 90%?
Im not trying to be cute here but ask out of curiosity as I had the same experience with EVE Axehilt had.
What do I need to do in EVE for it to be fun?
Also, why is it not made clear that what I'm experiencing is only 10% and where I get the other 90% of the game?
The components in sand box gameplay that I enjoy are offered by themepark games as well if one is willing to look for it. While sand box only seems to mean that there is not going to be any kind of world content at all.
Im not trying to be cute here but ask out of curiosity as I had the same experience with EVE Axehilt had.
What do I need to do in EVE for it to be fun?
Also, why is it not made clear that what I'm experiencing is only 10% and where I get the other 90% of the game?
Is there some tutorial I'm missing?
It depends on what you want to do. Check out this link for an idea of some of the things that you can do in EVE.
There are ingame tutorials and out-of-game tutorials that can help you get started, depending on what you want to do. Here are just a couple of the oof game tutorials, and there are many, many others that are available:
Contact me ingame I can help you get going with ISK and whatever else that you need.
They can adjust a game all day, but they can't help the issue between the keyboard and the chair. Played: UO, DAoC, AC, WoW, EVE, TR, WAR, Aion, Rift, SWTOR, GW2, TSW, ESO, Elite:D Play EVE for free for 21 days
No kidding. From the sounds of it all he did was mining and missioning, and AFK missioning at that.
Axehilt, if what I just said was true, newsflash: that's perhaps 10% of what is in Eve. You can't make a grand sweeping statement about the entirety of a game when you've only played a tiny fraction of what it has to offer.
Well we covered that I'm not interested in terrible PVE (AFK travel, AFK mining, mostly-AFK missioning.)
But I'm also not interested in terrible PVP (zerging and progression-whoring, with player decisions being almost meaningless.)
And I'm certainly not interested in terrible PVP where the penalty for losing is that you're forced to engage in terrible PVE to recoup money and ships.
That's the root of EVE's niche appeal. Most people just want good games which freely offer great moment-to-moment gameplay, and (perhaps most importantly) focus on player decisions every session.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Well we covered that I'm not interested in terrible PVE (AFK travel, AFK mining, mostly-AFK missioning.)
But I'm also not interested in terrible PVP (zerging and progression-whoring, with player decisions being almost meaningless.)
And I'm certainly not interested in terrible PVP where the penalty for losing is that you're forced to engage in terrible PVE to recoup money and ships.
That's the root of EVE's niche appeal. Most people just want good games which freely offer great moment-to-moment gameplay, and (perhaps most importantly) focus on player decisions every session.
I disagree with your assessment of both pve and pvp in EVE, so we'll have to agree to disagree.
They can adjust a game all day, but they can't help the issue between the keyboard and the chair. Played: UO, DAoC, AC, WoW, EVE, TR, WAR, Aion, Rift, SWTOR, GW2, TSW, ESO, Elite:D Play EVE for free for 21 days
The components in sand box gameplay that I enjoy are offered by themepark games as well if one is willing to look for it. While sand box only seems to mean that there is not going to be any kind of world content at all.
No one ever mentions EQ2. Its 75% themepark with 25% sandbox. Crafting and housing, but now they added in design your own dungeon so maybe 70-30.
No kidding. From the sounds of it all he did was mining and missioning, and AFK missioning at that.
Axehilt, if what I just said was true, newsflash: that's perhaps 10% of what is in Eve. You can't make a grand sweeping statement about the entirety of a game when you've only played a tiny fraction of what it has to offer.
Well we covered that I'm not interested in terrible PVE (AFK travel, AFK mining, mostly-AFK missioning.)
But I'm also not interested in terrible PVP (zerging and progression-whoring, with player decisions being almost meaningless.)
And I'm certainly not interested in terrible PVP where the penalty for losing is that you're forced to engage in terrible PVE to recoup money and ships.
That's the root of EVE's niche appeal. Most people just want good games which freely offer great moment-to-moment gameplay, and (perhaps most importantly) focus on player decisions every session.
While I agree with the ideal of "great moment to moment game play", I don't think it's required to be in the form of instant ready quests all the time. I'm just sayin', I don't know exactly how you mean that.
And I wanted to throw in also that player decisions might be better put as player self direction. Choice to play what you want, to set your own goals, as in "self directed".
Naa, there are always people who will argue specifics to degrees that are beyond the general ideals of anything. That doesn't matter. It's an excuse.
I don't agree; If your customers can't agree on what the basic semantic constuct means, they can't agree to buy your game.
Poor Bob's so confused about which MMO he's supposed to be building, no chance his boss is going to OK the money for it.
You make a good point but so does Amaranthar.
You talk about perception in a sense where the Devs are trying to make a game up to the expectations of the players, but that only shows that many Devs do not know themselves what it should be and are trying to identify it through the players.
Did Richard Garriot (and associate Devs) browse MMORPG forums to find out what the players wanted when he made UO?
No he just made it as he felt it, from his own insight, and people liked it because it felt alive.
So this is where I agree with Amaranthar, a Dev wishing to make a Sandbox will make a good one, the ones that have been made and have given a bad name to the Type of MMO is because, in my opinion, were made by Devs that were after money and tried to cater to what players wanted.
Now I am not saying to not be transparent with players and not listen to player suggestions or even get some ideas from them on how to approach things, good ideas do not fall from the sky anyways, good ideas come when ideas have sex together so it is good to expose discuss and get ideas from many places, but you also need to have some passion and a vision about what you want to create.
And frankly maybe the simple truth is that many of todays Devs just do not wish to make a Sandbox game, otherwise they would be able to sell their ideas and concepts to Investors.
Add WoW to the list of those who didn't let player arguments stop them. EQ had all sorts of arguements over how to fix their issues, but Blizzard just went ahead and found their own answers, did it very well for a Themepark design, and reaped the harvest.
Hell, if everyone "didn't" because they couldn't get an idea from conflicting arguments, we'd never get anywhere with anything. It takes those uncommon leaders, those rare people with inspirations, to make things better than before. This industry, sadly, is empty of inspiration and full of fixation on what's been done.
So basically out of the 100+ votes so far, most people don't like that indie developers make sandboxes because quality suffers and people don't like the FFA full-loot PvP.
Unfortunately it's unlikely that a big company will create a sandbox because the target audience is not as big as the casual/solo-friendly crowd. That's the reason indie developers are the only ones willing to risk thinking outside the box when it comes to MMORPG's these days. I believe SOE is the only big company that created a sandbox with success (and then totally ruined it just like they seem to do with everything).
CCP started out as a small "indie" developer and grew because of the consistent forward progress that they made, EVE Online is the only MMO sandbox that continues to grow as time goes on (that I'm aware of). I think bugs kill a lot of the fun for sandbox games for people, but some people learn to live with the bugs (hence why most sandboxes have low pops but loyal playerbases).
I guess I'm trying to say I understand and if you missed the initial MMORPG's of the genre then you most likely missed the boat for good sandbox games. Although for those of us that played some of the original MMO's, we desperately seek a game with social interaction; whether it's pvp or putting trust in other players by trading at the risk of losing your stuff. Simply put, a lot of sandboxes will not be for the new generation of MMO gamers since they rely heavily on game mechanics to make them feel safe and secure.
Free-for-All PvP speaks to a very specific crowd. If you get your kicks from doing bad things and being known for those things then this is you. If you don't like having to constantly look around in-game just to make sure no one is following you or about to attack you then this type of system is not for you(obviously).
The thing I enjoy about this system that is in most sandbox games is the fear of being attacked at any time and doing the same to someone else. It also gives you a sense of feeling that you don't wanna be alone when you're wandering around in the world, so being in a guild or having friends to roll with in game means the players create their own safety. When you go out by yourself, you know the risks so generally you wouldn't take anything you don't wanna lose.
Honestly, I could do without the full loot aspect of FFA PvP but it's not a deal breaker for me like it is with most people. I'm actually surprised in every game I have played that PvP is just something most people don't even wanna participate in. It baffles me that so many people are so non-competitive natured.
All-in-all I understand that sandboxes will most likely never be something the masses want to play and I'm okay with that. But like other people I do hope that a decent sized developer will create a new sandbox that is practically bug free with original ideas whilst giving players plenty of freedom.
TL;DR - It is like I said earlier in my post the sandbox feels like it is full of gravel and not sand.
I don’t think it is mostly the full loot PvP thing only although many sandboxes seem to want to make it that way. Mostly because as a teen, the developers spent more time in those types of games than in a game that had exploration and adventure as the prime goal. They are stuck in a rut of ‘this is the way it has to be since it has always been that way’.
The other thing is that most of these developers want to make it TOO DAMN DIFFICULT. They want to add so much realism that the game play suffers like the weather effects your stats, running wears you out fast, weapons degrade to fast and so on. The combat is to long and many times just outright boring because the skills lack anything other than some pretty lights. Sometimes they add perma-death without taking into consideration the arggo ranges of monsters, the fact it is multi-player and online there is lagg to deal with and they make it almost impossible to complete without a skill spreadsheet and major research into the game mechanics. I totally hate D&D being introduced into the MMORPG!
Speaking of game mechanics, developers (mostly indies) don’t completely research exploits and close the holes of potential problems and in some cases don’t have any kind of sanity check on what the equation will do so exploits are so common they ruin the name of sandbox. Macro leveling is rampant because the player is to damn bored to level themselves. All they want to do over power everyone else and in some cases just ruin anyone's adventure because it is after all a sandbox. Unless you require real name, address and bank reference to play with, that being displayed, many see these games as a private toilet to piss in so you need to take into account the means to deal with these people and it has to effect their game play so they either leave or shape up.
In many minds the sandbox says it has nothing and you make your own quest but the vast majority don’t want to so there has to be direction. Problem is the direction is one sided and never yet have I seen a online game where one action changed the outcome of the world or for that matter a group working together change the world.
The crafting is so complex that you need a masters degree in engineering to make anything useful. If the amount of materials required exceeds a play session then the players start feeling like it is a second job. In many sandbox and even theme parks this is true.
The result of all above is instanced running, on rails quest hub hopping because it is better than being bombarded with useless gravel.
I like to drop into adventure and take risks but I also want some type of drastic consequence so I fit into the same category somewhat but I also want the adventure to be fast paced with with a goal in mind and several avenues open to complete the goal instead of railroaded into one ending. I came to the conclussion several weeks ago that MMORPGs are not my cup of tea and ARPGs make much more fitting to my game play. I will be lost in D3 now because it meets most of my requirements.
Comments
Because for some reason, most sandbox MMOs are cloned free for all pvp games based off UO. Which greatly limits my freedom, as I want a choice to PvP or not.
Only sandbox games I've liked are SWG and Ryzom. Great PvE, and with SWG had PvP if I so chose to do that
Other:
Open PVP is awful (before accounting for full-loot PVP, which makes it even worse)
Sandboxes are empty. They're big worlds, with a few things to do, but very little gameplay.
Sandboxes work best as singleplayer or small-scale multiplayer, where your impact on the world can be large without disrupting others' experience (and without being disrupted in return.)
Sandboxes thus far have had really shitty moment-to-moment gameplay. (Like EVE where you spend most of your time AFK traveling or AFK mining or falling asleep in combat (where you can almost AFK, but not quite.))
ATITD and Haven & Hearth have been the most acceptable sandboxes I've tried, mostly because they avoid terrible mechanics (open PVP) and actually focus on making the moment-to-moment crafting have a little depth (or at least have variety.)
That's really the path to a successful sandbox: making the moment-to-moment crafting (or whatever) so fun that you just want to stay in the game playing it. With EVE or Darkfall you have these big, shallow wastes of time instead.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You and I must play different versions of EVE.
They can adjust a game all day, but they can't help the issue between the keyboard and the chair.
Played: UO, DAoC, AC, WoW, EVE, TR, WAR, Aion, Rift, SWTOR, GW2, TSW, ESO, Elite:D
Play EVE for free for 21 days
I don't agree; If your customers can't agree on what the basic semantic constuct means, they can't agree to buy your game.
Poor Bob's so confused about which MMO he's supposed to be building, no chance his boss is going to OK the money for it.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
SWG was amazing in things you could do, build on the map, houses, harvestors, bases, towns. I liked this because I could RP a crafter more than just sitting at a crafting table and rinsing and repeating. I dont think any other game ever got as complex as the old system was. It did get watered down with the NGE, but thier where some things added in that I did like.
Problem with SWG sandbox is was they built it then never did anything with it for years. They could have done so much with that game, it truely is a example of regrets in the MMO gaming world. Not saying it was perfect at start thier could have been much more done in the planning that would have made it work much better.
The problems with a sandbox is it is a complex game model that does take alot of thought and you need it to be almost perfect or the whole thing starts to drift. Example: the game economy is probably the hardest thing to manage for a developer. EVE like SWG was; is based on combat missions for income. EVE is the bank, they pay out money for missions. Problem with that is players start to feel thier working for the crafters.
After a time the crafters get so bloated with credits they become hated by the combat pve players. EVE countered this with PLEX the crafters can convert the money into game time. Credits in EVE in theory come in and go out, SWG never had a credit sink like this. Game inflation was a major problem in SWG, by the end of the game things you used to buy cheap costed a great deal.
Their wasnt any incentive to craft in SWG after the NGE, thier was no more decay which made it a one time sale. As new player numbers decreased so did the number of crafters decrease. Game balance is a tuff thing for sandbox games; and that is the reason I think thier are not more of them out thier. And why it becomes less and less fun for players if the game itself is broken or slowly becomes broken over time.
Someday someone will make a working sandbox, as game engines become more complex in that it becomes easier for developers to make complex game models you might see something that hits the spot for all those that are waiting for a good sandbox.
I voted for the reason of FFA PvP but really it is the poor quality and lack of fun that drives me away. I've played some with FFA PvP but it must have a way to avoid PvP if you want up until you can compete with others. MO and DF at day 1 have their newcomers driven away from the community by gankers unless you join a guild and level in seclusion. FFA PvP can work with enough rules and restrictions but the ones that don't give it a horrible rep. Just like open world PvP. You could still have a light death penality but it is dinished if you died in an unfair fight.
I dont play sandboxes because....
The players suck. 99% of sanboxes are all about FFA Open World PvP with Full Loot, which attracts the wrong kinda crowd for me to have fun.
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
Seconded. Also an Eve vet here. And I do occasionally try to find other games...it's a shame that pretty much every other "sandbox" MMO I've tried or looked up is pretty much a hulking glob of radioactive donkey shit, for virtually every reason listed on the poll.
Where's the any key?
No kidding. From the sounds of it all he did was mining and missioning, and AFK missioning at that.
Axehilt, if what I just said was true, newsflash: that's perhaps 10% of what is in Eve. You can't make a grand sweeping statement about the entirety of a game when you've only played a tiny fraction of what it has to offer.
Where's the any key?
You make a good point but so does Amaranthar.
You talk about perception in a sense where the Devs are trying to make a game up to the expectations of the players, but that only shows that many Devs do not know themselves what it should be and are trying to identify it through the players.
Did Richard Garriot (and associate Devs) browse MMORPG forums to find out what the players wanted when he made UO?
No he just made it as he felt it, from his own insight, and people liked it because it felt alive.
So this is where I agree with Amaranthar, a Dev wishing to make a Sandbox will make a good one, the ones that have been made and have given a bad name to the Type of MMO is because, in my opinion, were made by Devs that were after money and tried to cater to what players wanted.
Now I am not saying to not be transparent with players and not listen to player suggestions or even get some ideas from them on how to approach things, good ideas do not fall from the sky anyways, good ideas come when ideas have sex together so it is good to expose discuss and get ideas from many places, but you also need to have some passion and a vision about what you want to create.
And frankly maybe the simple truth is that many of todays Devs just do not wish to make a Sandbox game, otherwise they would be able to sell their ideas and concepts to Investors.
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
In my case I don't really care if a game is a sandbox or themepark as long as it is good.
But most sandboxes have lacked a lot in polish so right now I don't play any. If a good sanbox releases I will play it (WoDO).
Whats the other 90%?
Im not trying to be cute here but ask out of curiosity as I had the same experience with EVE Axehilt had.
What do I need to do in EVE for it to be fun?
Also, why is it not made clear that what I'm experiencing is only 10% and where I get the other 90% of the game?
Is there some tutorial I'm missing?
Don't get your hopes up on WoD...
It depends on what you want to do. Check out this link for an idea of some of the things that you can do in EVE.
There are ingame tutorials and out-of-game tutorials that can help you get started, depending on what you want to do. Here are just a couple of the oof game tutorials, and there are many, many others that are available:
- Beginner's Guide
- Exploration
- Planetary Interaction
Contact me ingame I can help you get going with ISK and whatever else that you need.
They can adjust a game all day, but they can't help the issue between the keyboard and the chair.
Played: UO, DAoC, AC, WoW, EVE, TR, WAR, Aion, Rift, SWTOR, GW2, TSW, ESO, Elite:D
Play EVE for free for 21 days
Well we covered that I'm not interested in terrible PVE (AFK travel, AFK mining, mostly-AFK missioning.)
But I'm also not interested in terrible PVP (zerging and progression-whoring, with player decisions being almost meaningless.)
And I'm certainly not interested in terrible PVP where the penalty for losing is that you're forced to engage in terrible PVE to recoup money and ships.
That's the root of EVE's niche appeal. Most people just want good games which freely offer great moment-to-moment gameplay, and (perhaps most importantly) focus on player decisions every session.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Indirectly I suppose we've pointed out another reason sandbox MMOs shoot themselves in the foot: hiding 90% of their fun.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I disagree with your assessment of both pve and pvp in EVE, so we'll have to agree to disagree.
They can adjust a game all day, but they can't help the issue between the keyboard and the chair.
Played: UO, DAoC, AC, WoW, EVE, TR, WAR, Aion, Rift, SWTOR, GW2, TSW, ESO, Elite:D
Play EVE for free for 21 days
No one ever mentions EQ2. Its 75% themepark with 25% sandbox. Crafting and housing, but now they added in design your own dungeon so maybe 70-30.
While I agree with the ideal of "great moment to moment game play", I don't think it's required to be in the form of instant ready quests all the time. I'm just sayin', I don't know exactly how you mean that.
And I wanted to throw in also that player decisions might be better put as player self direction. Choice to play what you want, to set your own goals, as in "self directed".
Once upon a time....
Don't be a Menace to MMORPG While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood.
Add WoW to the list of those who didn't let player arguments stop them. EQ had all sorts of arguements over how to fix their issues, but Blizzard just went ahead and found their own answers, did it very well for a Themepark design, and reaped the harvest.
Hell, if everyone "didn't" because they couldn't get an idea from conflicting arguments, we'd never get anywhere with anything. It takes those uncommon leaders, those rare people with inspirations, to make things better than before. This industry, sadly, is empty of inspiration and full of fixation on what's been done.
Once upon a time....
Well it's not really about whether you and I agree, and more about this being the fundamental stumbling block to a sandbox being wildly successful.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
TL;DR - It is like I said earlier in my post the sandbox feels like it is full of gravel and not sand.
I don’t think it is mostly the full loot PvP thing only although many sandboxes seem to want to make it that way. Mostly because as a teen, the developers spent more time in those types of games than in a game that had exploration and adventure as the prime goal. They are stuck in a rut of ‘this is the way it has to be since it has always been that way’.
The other thing is that most of these developers want to make it TOO DAMN DIFFICULT. They want to add so much realism that the game play suffers like the weather effects your stats, running wears you out fast, weapons degrade to fast and so on. The combat is to long and many times just outright boring because the skills lack anything other than some pretty lights. Sometimes they add perma-death without taking into consideration the arggo ranges of monsters, the fact it is multi-player and online there is lagg to deal with and they make it almost impossible to complete without a skill spreadsheet and major research into the game mechanics. I totally hate D&D being introduced into the MMORPG!
Speaking of game mechanics, developers (mostly indies) don’t completely research exploits and close the holes of potential problems and in some cases don’t have any kind of sanity check on what the equation will do so exploits are so common they ruin the name of sandbox. Macro leveling is rampant because the player is to damn bored to level themselves. All they want to do over power everyone else and in some cases just ruin anyone's adventure because it is after all a sandbox. Unless you require real name, address and bank reference to play with, that being displayed, many see these games as a private toilet to piss in so you need to take into account the means to deal with these people and it has to effect their game play so they either leave or shape up.
In many minds the sandbox says it has nothing and you make your own quest but the vast majority don’t want to so there has to be direction. Problem is the direction is one sided and never yet have I seen a online game where one action changed the outcome of the world or for that matter a group working together change the world.
The crafting is so complex that you need a masters degree in engineering to make anything useful. If the amount of materials required exceeds a play session then the players start feeling like it is a second job. In many sandbox and even theme parks this is true.
The result of all above is instanced running, on rails quest hub hopping because it is better than being bombarded with useless gravel.
I like to drop into adventure and take risks but I also want some type of drastic consequence so I fit into the same category somewhat but I also want the adventure to be fast paced with with a goal in mind and several avenues open to complete the goal instead of railroaded into one ending. I came to the conclussion several weeks ago that MMORPGs are not my cup of tea and ARPGs make much more fitting to my game play. I will be lost in D3 now because it meets most of my requirements.
No reason to continue development of my sandbox.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.