And yes, if you are saying there is no flying spaghetti monster, you would need to prove that there really isn't one.
But you can't, because you don't have an argument.
Actually the burden of proof lies on the one making the outrageous claim...and anyone saying there IS a flying spaghetti monster needs to prove it...not the people saying there isnt one.
Sorry...but you made a poor example.
Anyway. With this...the sandbox claim...the burden of prood does lay with those saying the sandbox crowd is massive because historically there have been no sandbox games with a population anywhere near the biggest themepark games.
BTW...I prefer sandbox games...just not sandbox games made by Raph Koster.
Nobody made a claim.
OP mad up a hypothetical claim, he has the burden of proof.
Nobody made the argument that there -is- a spaghetti monster (massive sandbox crowd, whatever "massive" means) first. i.e. the OP assumed someone made that argument, or he made up the argument to burn it (strawman).
If i say "there are no green men on alpha centauri!" i need to prove that.
If i react to someone saying "there are green men on alpha centauri" by saying "i dont believe you", then the burden of proof lies on the person making the claim that there -are- green men on alpha centauri.
The burden of proof is always on the person making the claim, no matter if the claim is a claim of negative existence, ordinary or extraordinary.
I dont go around denying the existence of random things.
If i say there are no physical elements past Ununoctium (Uuo118), i better prove that.
OP made a strawman, nobody here made an argument that there is a "massive sandbox crowd"
PS: I dont like sandbox games under the hardcore definition of sanbox.
The first mmo's were sandbox but nobody called them as such, the reason they are now called sadboxes is because mmo's went mainstream and became shallow, but some games try to remain true to the original mmo, now called the sandbox. I don't know why the OP feels he has to belittle the original mmo fans, maybe he feels his raid grinds are being threatened.
That's not really true though, M59 wasn't, nor was EQ, of course UO was.You are right that the labels weren't really important back then.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
people like the OP like to be a part of a clique, it makes them feel better about themselves when so many people share the same ideals. i'm guessing this is one of the major factors why wow is so successful. sheep are so easily herded together. they don't want to stick out because "there be wolves about".
The label is useless to begin with. It only adds to the confusion. I rather speak of MMO's with sandbox elements then a sandbox game. Everytime someone claims that some game is a sandbox, someone else says it isn't because it lacks a certain feature they see as mandatory. I keep it simple and talk about a game having sandbox elements when certain restrictions are removed and the gameplay becomes less lineair. But which restrictions need to be removed for that depend on the genre of the game and its lore imo. And if it would still be realistic to expect that a company could develop something like that.
There is no blueprint for what you can call a sandbox game imo. They all have restrictions and a MMORPG for example will need to have even more for it to make it work.
Minecraft works because there is no lore in the world, so it doesnt matter if you blow it up.
People still love themeparks - they just don't like shitty games, thats all.
Just think about the concept of an actual themepark for a moment, they are full of rides & things to do, but could you enjoy spending an entire week in one, a month ?, a year ? sure they may add some new rides in and out but it would still be pretty godamn boring knowing your in the same place doing the same stuff every day. People do indeed love themeparks but they generally only visit them briefly a couple times a year and maybe visit some other parks as well, they arent rolling up to your park every day for 2 years.
Same concept goes for themepark MMO's and Developers cant seem to get it through their heads that building really on rails themepark MMO's (SWTOR being the most recent tragic example) WILL NOT KEEP PLAYERS INTERESTED ! you might have some success if you can pump out content fast enough that you are always ahead of the majority of your players but as we have seen no one not even Blizzard can do that.
For longevity IMHO MMO's need a good blend of themepark (guided content) and sandbox (unguided content) throughout their games so that at end game they have enough to keep players playing without needing to hammer out new content at an impossible rate.
All I got to say is Mortal Online is awesome. Regardless of the bugs. Been playing since it came and will continue to do so until a newer, better, fantasy sandbox comes out.
people like the OP like to be a part of a clique, it makes them feel better about themselves when so many people share the same ideals. i'm guessing this is one of the major factors why wow is so successful. sheep are so easily herded together. they don't want to stick out because "there be wolves about".
The biggest cliche today is trying to be a rebel or the lonewolf. I find those who usually throw around words like Sheep, tend to fall into that "trying hard to be a rebel" category. Popularity is a side effect of something being popular, hardly soemthing to rally against for that reason alone.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I can't speak for anyone but myself and I make no claims of being a typical gamer. I might be respresentive example of a demographic with similar tastes. I might be a unique eccentric. I honestly don't know. All I can say is that I have an honest (armchair) interest in the art of creating fantasy worlds but don't expect to ever see my ideas come to life.
The first mmo's were sandbox but nobody called them as such, the reason they are now called sadboxes is because mmo's went mainstream and became shallow, but some games try to remain true to the original mmo, now called the sandbox. I don't know why the OP feels he has to belittle the original mmo fans, maybe he feels his raid grinds are being threatened.
That's not really true though, M59 wasn't, nor was EQ, of course UO was.You are right that the labels weren't really important back then.
I guess it'd be more accurate to call them sandparks (but I still see them as sandboxes). Labels aside, EQ, M59, AC & Shadowbane all felt a lot closer to sandboxes than themeparks to me. Yeah, EQ for example had level specific areas, but how you ended up there and the rest of the game experience was so explorable, unguided and open it played more like a sandbox than the guided linear progression I associate with themeparks.
If a developer would come along and develop something like EvE Online but without the spaceships and characters to run around with...
Games like DF, MO, etc have failed hard, as they didn't offer any security or PvE-content, simple as that. DF, MO, etc were nothing more then FFA shooters with huge maps basically, but that's not a sandbox. A sandbox needs to provide tools for the players to create content aswell as providing some readily available PvE.
The reason why EvE Online works is, that there's different security-levels to tone down the FFA-PvP. There's rather harsh consequences in unconsential PvP (CONCORD blows you up, you get long-lasting standing-penalties that hinder you to enter high-sec etc) and actually there's quiet alot of PvE-content these days aswell, which you can play in allmost 100% safety.
ArcheAge will really show how many people are interested in sandbox, as ArcheAge would be the first attempt to do something like EvE but with characters instead of spaceships. Playerdriven economy, crafting, housing. FFA PvP for those who want it, totally safe PvE-content for the others and something inbetween the two aswell. Consequences for killing people outside the FFA-zone (standing-penalties, jailtime). Sure, ArcheAge will lack the classless and level-less design from EvE and it'll have storylines to quest through but that doesn't make it a themepark actually. The thing that makes ArcheAge a sandbox tho is, that you'll be able to create your own content if you choose to, building your own empire, controlling the markets, or having the option to kill someone you dislike (given you accept the consequences).
Last but not least, there were three good sandboxes besides EvE... SWG, but that one died due to the stupid devs not polishing the game enough and ofc making the stupid decision to release the NGE. Then there was Neocron that went down the same way as SWG due to the devs being lazy, not improving the game enough, not listening to their playerbase etc. And I'd say that Fallen Earth had the potential to be a good sandbox, but again the devs had no vision to turn it into a diamond. If FE would've had a huge FFA-PvP area, where guilds were to battle it out for the ressources, building their own villages and crafting-facilities etc then it would've attracted tenfold of the subscriptions imho.
Then there's waiting for World of Darkness ofc, but that'll take quiet a while before we'll see it - atleast another two years before the first CB starts.
people like the OP like to be a part of a clique, it makes them feel better about themselves when so many people share the same ideals. i'm guessing this is one of the major factors why wow is so successful. sheep are so easily herded together. they don't want to stick out because "there be wolves about".
The biggest cliche today is trying to be a rebel or the lonewolf. I find those who usually throw around words like Sheep, tend to fall into that "trying hard to be a rebel" category. Popularity is a side effect of something being popular, hardly soemthing to rally against for that reason alone.
Sure there are sheep. They all bought D3 The wolves at Blizzard are an evolved kind that learned not to kill too many sheep (read piss off) so they can eat next time too
But seriously, I think his comment is misplaced in this instance. He simply doesn't know the OP well enough. But in general terms when it comes to advertising for example it is definately about herding the crowd. And to call ppl sheep who just buy a product based on hype factor seems quite fitting then.
I guess it'd be more accurate to call them sandparks (but I still see them as sandboxes). Labels aside, EQ, M59, AC & Shadowbane all felt a lot closer to sandboxes than themeparks to me. Yeah, EQ for example had level specific areas, but how you ended up there and the rest of the game experience was so explorable, unguided and open it played more like a sandbox than the guided linear progression I associate with themeparks.
Yeah they shared little in common with what has come to be known as themeparks, but IMO they also share little with what has become known as Sandbox (well excluding shadowbane) that game did have a lot of sandboxy elements. This is why labels suck lol, too many loose definitions.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Games like DF, MO, etc have failed hard, as they didn't offer any security or PvE-content, simple as that.
DF, MO, etc were nothing more then FFA shooters with huge maps basically, but that's not a sandbox. A sandbox needs to provide tools for the players to create content aswell as providing some readily available PvE.
MO's PvE was pretty non-existent sure, but the next patch is finally supposed to bring the more advanced AI they've wanted since the beginning such as the trolls picking up players and biting their heads off and minotaurs charging into players and knocking them down. Also I disagree that MMO is a FFA shooter, considering it probably has the most elaborate crafting system out there. Lastly I'm not sure people who would be into MO want security. The game is about to add better NPC guards controlled by the new aformentioned AI which will patrol cities and roads and could serve the security purpose you propose. But by no means do I think MO players want to turn the game into a carebear game.
people like the OP like to be a part of a clique, it makes them feel better about themselves when so many people share the same ideals. i'm guessing this is one of the major factors why wow is so successful. sheep are so easily herded together. they don't want to stick out because "there be wolves about".
The biggest cliche today is trying to be a rebel or the lonewolf. I find those who usually throw around words like Sheep, tend to fall into that "trying hard to be a rebel" category. Popularity is a side effect of something being popular, hardly soemthing to rally against for that reason alone.
Sure there are sheep. They all bought D3 The wolves at Blizzard are an evolved kind that learned not to kill too many sheep (read piss off) so they can eat next time too
But seriously, I think his comment is misplaced in this instance. He simply doesn't know the OP well enough. But in general terms when it comes to advertising for example it is definately about herding the crowd. And to call ppl sheep who just buy a product based on hype factor seems quite fitting then.
I didn't say there aren't sheep , only that many who use the word are simply another breed of sheep, ... well that's more or less what I was saying..:). I don't know Istavaan either so mine is possibly out of place as well, it was intended as food for thought though, so it's all good.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Would you mind pointing out the many that have tried and the many that have failed. You can't make a claim without providing some amount of evidence to your claim without backing it up.
So here's my claim.
There is a "massive" crowd who would play a GOOD sandbox game. Studios aren't willing to take the chance, not because they know it won't work, but because the DON'T KNOW if it will work. They don't know because it's not been attempted.
Attempted doesn't mean a game developed by a small, indipendant studio, with little to no experience, and not enough funding to develop a game to launch readiness.
Ryzom: Not a bad game, but not a very good one at it's core. It got a reputation for being more mmoJOB and less MMORPG. Although the game is RP heave, I would say, due to it's fanbase. A relatively unknown game when it released, had financial problems, shut down, got sold, redeveloped, and then reopened as a kind of freemium game.
Face of mankind: A sci-fi 1st/ 3rd person shooter designed to be entirely player driven. Extremely harsh, I died within my first 10 minutes of playing when I tried it many years ago. Since it was designed to be entirely player driven it had zero content, unless players made something. Figuring out what to do was as much work as figuring out how to actually play. Again, the game was rather unknown, had financial problems, got sold, redeveloped, and is now a kind of freemium game.
Darkfall: Who doesn't know what DF is? It's a game about killing each other.
Mortal Online: Like DF, we're all pretty familliar with MO. 18 man development team, with little experience, and not enough money to fully develop the game before it had to launch.
Mabinogi? Lots of people playing it. F2P. Can't really say much about the game. Tried it a few times, couldn't really get into it.
EVE: One of the few games that uses a subscription model, is a dyed in the wool sandbox right down to the economy, puts you in the role of a spaceship, has FFA pvp with full loot, and is one of only a very few MMO's with a subscription fee that has continued to see overall growth in the 9 years it's been live. Let me repeat this. It's one of only a few MMO's with a subscription model that continues to see overall growth in the 9 years it's been live.
In a genre were even WoW has seen a drop in subscribers, were the most expensive MMO produced to date is laying off employees, considered not a priority for development, and has received a lot of speculation that they're losing subscribers, EVE is still growing.
It's not possible to say that a sandbox MMO won't attract a large following. There has not been a QUALITY sandbox mmo in a fantasy setting made sinse UO, that has actually been marketted so that people know about it.
EVE: One of the few games that uses a subscription model, is a dyed in the wool sandbox right down to the economy, puts you in the role of a spaceship, has FFA pvp with full loot, and is one of only a very few MMO's with a subscription fee that has continued to see overall growth in the 9 years it's been live. Let me repeat this. It's one of only a few MMO's with a subscription model that continues to see overall growth in the 9 years it's been live.
Why does everyone who describes EVE leave out the full story and how it reached that level of success? It reached it by support, by true dedicated fan support, that success would be possible for any of these sandboxes if they received support to the extent EVE did. EVE had a very rocky start, it wasn't "developed to release quality" before it launched, it had huge network/game-play issues, and was a total shell of what it became.
People supported it even though it wasn't ready, had huge issues, etc.. because they wanted that game, this is how "indie" works in any other genre or interest. Gamers stopped being supporters and became "every day consumers".
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Sandbox game, as rare as finding a bag of diamonds on the beach
PvE
Sci-fi sandbox game ON LAND, as rare as finding two bags of diamonds on the beach
PvE
All there is, is Anarchy Online (ancient), Ryzom (actually good) and there was SWG, but it died and was murdered
So two 3d sci-fi MMOs, that are sandbox, on land...Or the hundreds of sandbox MMOs as described in the beginning.
And only two fantasy sandbox 3d games with a PvE focus, that being Asheron's Call and Ultima Online...but those are ancient.
DayZ being an exception to a full loot, perma death game that I like...mostly cause I've been wanting a sandbox, open world, multiplayer/online zombie game for many years and it really works...but some consider it MMO and others don't.
Originally posted by ltank Originally posted by YalexyGames like DF, MO, etc have failed hard, as they didn't offer any security or PvE-content, simple as that.DF, MO, etc were nothing more then FFA shooters with huge maps basically, but that's not a sandbox. A sandbox needs to provide tools for the players to create content aswell as providing some readily available PvE.
MO's PvE was pretty non-existent sure, but the next patch is finally supposed to bring the more advanced AI they've wanted since the beginning such as the trolls picking up players and biting their heads off and minotaurs charging into players and knocking them down. Also I disagree that MMO is a FFA shooter, considering it probably has the most elaborate crafting system out there. Lastly I'm not sure people who would be into MO want security. The game is about to add better NPC guards controlled by the new aformentioned AI which will patrol cities and roads and could serve the security purpose you propose. But by no means do I think MO players want to turn the game into a carebear game.
It has nothing to do with turning a game into a Hello-Kitty-Carebear-Land. You just need to offer "safer" zones for the players who are not that much interested in the PvP and rather do some PvE while contributing to the economy etc. That's the reason why EvE is succesful and still going strong after 9 years. You can play EvE and feel like a part of the universe allthough you never engage in PvP. I know tons of crafters and mission-runners who are playing EvE for years in that regard, but they're no carebears, they're valuable players in the system as they contribute to the main-part of the game... the economy.
A player-driven economy is - imho - the most interesting part of a sandbox, all items are crafted by players and all items are prone to being destroyed sooner or later. You could even make a wonderful sandbox without any PvP at all, you just need to make sure, that items are being destroyed as fast as they enter the game, and that all these items require people to gather ressources and craft them, selling them on the market, trading with others etc. The FFA PvP in EvE is one way to destroy massive amounts of items, but you could get the same result with a system of item-decay. Think a minute about it, what would happen, when your items would be completely destroyed after they've taken too much damage over the time. You can only repair an item so often until it breaks and becomes useless junk. To make this work, you just need to change the loot from NPCs. Instead of items they'd drop ressources and the dungeon-bosses would drop epic ressources for the best items to be crafted.
ArcheAge will have an economy working this way, and there'll even be ressources you can grow and harvest instead of farming specific spawn-points. How awesome is that?
But back to your message... You can have both, PvE and FFA-PvP alongside without turning it into Hello Kitty Online. It's proven by EvE Online that it works and ArcheAge will show it aswell.
Just think about the concept of an actual themepark for a moment, they are full of rides & things to do, but could you enjoy spending an entire week in one, a month ?, a year ?
Just think about the concept of an actual sandbox for a moment. They are full of sand and you can create whatever you want, but could you enjoy spending an entire week in one? A month? A year?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Just think about the concept of an actual themepark for a moment, they are full of rides & things to do, but could you enjoy spending an entire week in one, a month ?, a year ?
Just think about the concept of an actual sandbox for a moment. They are full of sand and you can create whatever you want, but could you enjoy spending an entire week in one? A month? A year?
I didnt think I needed to state the obvious in my original post but perhaps you will recall I finished on this note:
Originally posted by TheCrow2k -SNIP-
For longevity IMHO MMO's need a good blend of themepark (guided content) and sandbox (unguided content) throughout their games so that at end game they have enough to keep players playing without needing to hammer out new content at an impossible rate.
I wasnt arguing against themepark at all, I just used it as my main focus because the post I quoted was indicating that everyone loves themeparks and so all MMO's should be themeparks.
EVE: One of the few games that uses a subscription model, is a dyed in the wool sandbox right down to the economy, puts you in the role of a spaceship, has FFA pvp with full loot, and is one of only a very few MMO's with a subscription fee that has continued to see overall growth in the 9 years it's been live. Let me repeat this. It's one of only a few MMO's with a subscription model that continues to see overall growth in the 9 years it's been live.
Why does everyone who describes EVE leave out the full story and how it reached that level of success? It reached it by support, by true dedicated fan support, that success would be possible for any of these sandboxes if they recieved support to the extent EVE did. EVE had a very rocky start, it wasn't "developed to release quality" before it launched, it had huge network/game-play issues, and was a total shell of what it became.
People supported it even though it wasn't ready, had huge issues, etc.. because they wanted that game, this is how "indie" works in any other genre. Gamers stopped being supporters and became "every day consumers".
You have to have an actual game first!
I supported MO for a year. It's still doesn't function correctly, is missing most of it's features, and is riddled with bugs. People are still supporting though, just not me at this phase of it's life. That doesn't mean that 5 years from now it won't finally be a game worth investing in.
You can't expect hundreds of thousands of people to simply pay for something that is incomplete or in a lot of cases, simply not fun. If there is no purpose, no content, or doesn't work properly, it's not going to attract anyone, and no one should be required to support them just because several years from now it MIGHT be worth something.
Nor does that mean there isn't a market for that sort of game. It means that only people with balls enough to take the chance are small indipendant studios who would rather ATTEMPT TO MAKE A GOOD GAME, as apposed to caving in and just rehashing what's been done hundreds of times already.
A themepark has a guaranteed market, it's visible. It's SAFE.
20m people are playing themepark MMO's, and it has more to do with a market that caters to that kind of game, and less to do with there not being a market for sandboxes.
Until a company comes along with real money, real development, real time, and real marketting, you can't say it's not possible.
Imagine if the Wright brothers gave up after the first attempt to fly, because they didn't do it right. It's analogous to the MMO market.
Except for this internet spacship game that continues to grow.
Let me put it this way.
A real sandbox MMO will give you EVERYTHING you find in a themepark. Believe it or not, EVE provides all the same stuff you find in a themepark mmo, but with all of the freedom of a sandbox.
Originally posted by Axehilt Originally posted by TheCrow2kJust think about the concept of an actual themepark for a moment, they are full of rides & things to do, but could you enjoy spending an entire week in one, a month ?, a year ?
Just think about the concept of an actual sandbox for a moment. They are full of sand and you can create whatever you want, but could you enjoy spending an entire week in one? A month? A year?
I enjoyed playing EvE for six years before I became bored of it, the nature of the game that let's you create your own stories, like waging wars against other alliances, playing the market, being the lone wolf looking for PvP around the universe, doing some PvE once in a while, exploring wormholes, crafting for profits, etc, etc, etc... In EvE you write history and make your name heard in so many different ways, and that's something you don't find in a themepark, especially when there's dozens of servers splitting up the community.
OTOH I've never stayed for longer then some six month in a themepark, as I've become bored very quickly after clearing the content, having all the shiny epics, left with nothing to do anymore. Themepark-MMOs are basically nothing else then RPGs with a multiplayer-mode. You play through the game one or two times and that's it.
I supported MO for a year. It's still doesn't function correctly, is missing most of it's features, and is riddled with bugs. People are still supporting though, just not me at this phase of it's life. That doesn't mean that 5 years from now it won't finally be a game worth investing in.
You can't expect hundreds of thousands of people to simply pay for something that is incomplete or in a lot of cases, simply not fun. If there is no purpose, no content, or doesn't work properly, it's not going to attract anyone, and no one should be required to support them just because several years from now it MIGHT be worth something.
Nor does that mean there isn't a market for that sort of game. It means that only people with balls enough to take the chance are small indipendant studios who would rather ATTEMPT TO MAKE A GOOD GAME, as apposed to caving in and just rehashing what's been done hundreds of times already.
A themepark has a guaranteed market, it's visible. It's SAFE.
20m people are playing themepark MMO's, and it has more to do with a market that caters to that kind of game, and less to do with there not being a market for sandboxes.
Until a company comes along with real money, real development, real time, and real marketting, you can't say it's not possible.
Imagine if the Wright brothers gave up after the first attempt to fly, because they didn't do it right. It's analogous to the MMO market.
Except for this internet spacship game that continues to grow.
Let me put it this way.
A real sandbox MMO will give you EVERYTHING you find in a themepark. Believe it or not, EVE provides all the same stuff you find in a themepark mmo, but with all of the freedom of a sandbox.
True it does also take a game people want to support, I have nothing against MO due to my only experience with it being the Open Beta version of it. SO I have no idea how that's actually come along since. It doesn't seem to have many fans at all though.
You're also right that the Genre also caters to the other sub-genre far more.
I'm not saying every game is going to be worth supporting or should be supported. Only that that's how EVE got there, and that I doubt we'll ever see that again in this genre.
I agree with that last part. SWG had more than any themepark has to offer and everything they do offer, in abundance. I doubt we'll see that again for a long time (Waiting on AA for that).
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Just think about the concept of an actual themepark for a moment, they are full of rides & things to do, but could you enjoy spending an entire week in one, a month ?, a year ?
Just think about the concept of an actual sandbox for a moment. They are full of sand and you can create whatever you want, but could you enjoy spending an entire week in one? A month? A year?
I get so tired of this misconception........... have you ever tried building a castle in a sandbox? Never worked out to well without water which is why most people reserved building sand castles on the beach.
The pull of the sandbox was that it offered more possibilities than say a slide a swing or a seesaw. The swing, seesaw and the slide offer few predetermined activities while the sandbox activities were limited only by your imagination. Take your construction toys out and play builder, GI Joes and play war, burry stuff, play pirates and look for burried treasure, etc.
Why you young guys want to take a term we used and turn it into something that doesn't even make sense. I mean sure, if we were reffering to a beach you might have a point..... but again.... try building anything in the sandboxes we had growing up lol.
So now that you are done belittling everyone and their opinion and taste, do you have any arguments besides your "feeling" and the absence of evidence.
Because the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
So if I'm saying that there is no flying spaghetti monster, I need to prove there really isn't one?
The ball is in your court, man. You need to prove that there is one. You need to prove that there is a sandbox crowd worth making an AAA MMORPG.
So are you the almighty godfather of MMOS? Why does anyone have to prove anything to you? Are you some multi-millionaire investor, because last time I checked investors with large capital go about doing their headhunting by different means, not trolling forums.
Gotta love responses like this which totally ignore what the person was responding to and in turn asks these redundant nonsensical questions. I'm a sandbox fan like many here, yet I can see how insignificant we are to the overall genre. We're a niche within a niche you can't get much more drowned out than that, unless you're a mute with no fingers to type with.
"don't feed the trolls"
redundant nonsensical questions in a redundant nonsensical topic. Goes hand -n- hand
Themepark vs Sandbox...... who cares. Do you think when creating UO or EQ the devs were worried about being labeled a sandbox or themepark experience? No, it was about having great gameplay, a massive world with a multitude of players. It's just that simple. Themepark, nor sandbox dictate a great game, engaging gameplay experiences do.
But instead of actual ideas and productive discussions we get ridiculous debates about "this vs that" which continue to segment the genre until it becomes a dilluted cespool of rehashed "next best idea" clone games, We will end up with pay-to-play lobby games. Heck, we even had a thread recently wanting to do away with the whole MASSIVE world in mmos, and instead have instant leveling, and small scale structured pvp instances. A freaking console FPS is what it sounds like to me.
It's the whole "gang mentality" highschool drama that fuels these ridiculous topics backed by a "my game is better than yours" attitude.
Comments
Nobody made a claim.
OP mad up a hypothetical claim, he has the burden of proof.
Nobody made the argument that there -is- a spaghetti monster (massive sandbox crowd, whatever "massive" means) first. i.e. the OP assumed someone made that argument, or he made up the argument to burn it (strawman).
If i say "there are no green men on alpha centauri!" i need to prove that.
If i react to someone saying "there are green men on alpha centauri" by saying "i dont believe you", then the burden of proof lies on the person making the claim that there -are- green men on alpha centauri.
The burden of proof is always on the person making the claim, no matter if the claim is a claim of negative existence, ordinary or extraordinary.
I dont go around denying the existence of random things.
If i say there are no physical elements past Ununoctium (Uuo118), i better prove that.
OP made a strawman, nobody here made an argument that there is a "massive sandbox crowd"
PS: I dont like sandbox games under the hardcore definition of sanbox.
That's not really true though, M59 wasn't, nor was EQ, of course UO was.You are right that the labels weren't really important back then.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
people like the OP like to be a part of a clique, it makes them feel better about themselves when so many people share the same ideals. i'm guessing this is one of the major factors why wow is so successful. sheep are so easily herded together. they don't want to stick out because "there be wolves about".
The label is useless to begin with. It only adds to the confusion. I rather speak of MMO's with sandbox elements then a sandbox game. Everytime someone claims that some game is a sandbox, someone else says it isn't because it lacks a certain feature they see as mandatory. I keep it simple and talk about a game having sandbox elements when certain restrictions are removed and the gameplay becomes less lineair. But which restrictions need to be removed for that depend on the genre of the game and its lore imo. And if it would still be realistic to expect that a company could develop something like that.
There is no blueprint for what you can call a sandbox game imo. They all have restrictions and a MMORPG for example will need to have even more for it to make it work.
Minecraft works because there is no lore in the world, so it doesnt matter if you blow it up.
Just think about the concept of an actual themepark for a moment, they are full of rides & things to do, but could you enjoy spending an entire week in one, a month ?, a year ? sure they may add some new rides in and out but it would still be pretty godamn boring knowing your in the same place doing the same stuff every day. People do indeed love themeparks but they generally only visit them briefly a couple times a year and maybe visit some other parks as well, they arent rolling up to your park every day for 2 years.
Same concept goes for themepark MMO's and Developers cant seem to get it through their heads that building really on rails themepark MMO's (SWTOR being the most recent tragic example) WILL NOT KEEP PLAYERS INTERESTED ! you might have some success if you can pump out content fast enough that you are always ahead of the majority of your players but as we have seen no one not even Blizzard can do that.
For longevity IMHO MMO's need a good blend of themepark (guided content) and sandbox (unguided content) throughout their games so that at end game they have enough to keep players playing without needing to hammer out new content at an impossible rate.
All I got to say is Mortal Online is awesome. Regardless of the bugs. Been playing since it came and will continue to do so until a newer, better, fantasy sandbox comes out.
The biggest cliche today is trying to be a rebel or the lonewolf. I find those who usually throw around words like Sheep, tend to fall into that "trying hard to be a rebel" category. Popularity is a side effect of something being popular, hardly soemthing to rally against for that reason alone.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I can't speak for anyone but myself and I make no claims of being a typical gamer. I might be respresentive example of a demographic with similar tastes. I might be a unique eccentric. I honestly don't know. All I can say is that I have an honest (armchair) interest in the art of creating fantasy worlds but don't expect to ever see my ideas come to life.
I guess it'd be more accurate to call them sandparks (but I still see them as sandboxes). Labels aside, EQ, M59, AC & Shadowbane all felt a lot closer to sandboxes than themeparks to me. Yeah, EQ for example had level specific areas, but how you ended up there and the rest of the game experience was so explorable, unguided and open it played more like a sandbox than the guided linear progression I associate with themeparks.
If a developer would come along and develop something like EvE Online but without the spaceships and characters to run around with...
Games like DF, MO, etc have failed hard, as they didn't offer any security or PvE-content, simple as that.
DF, MO, etc were nothing more then FFA shooters with huge maps basically, but that's not a sandbox. A sandbox needs to provide tools for the players to create content aswell as providing some readily available PvE.
The reason why EvE Online works is, that there's different security-levels to tone down the FFA-PvP. There's rather harsh consequences in unconsential PvP (CONCORD blows you up, you get long-lasting standing-penalties that hinder you to enter high-sec etc) and actually there's quiet alot of PvE-content these days aswell, which you can play in allmost 100% safety.
ArcheAge will really show how many people are interested in sandbox, as ArcheAge would be the first attempt to do something like EvE but with characters instead of spaceships. Playerdriven economy, crafting, housing. FFA PvP for those who want it, totally safe PvE-content for the others and something inbetween the two aswell. Consequences for killing people outside the FFA-zone (standing-penalties, jailtime).
Sure, ArcheAge will lack the classless and level-less design from EvE and it'll have storylines to quest through but that doesn't make it a themepark actually. The thing that makes ArcheAge a sandbox tho is, that you'll be able to create your own content if you choose to, building your own empire, controlling the markets, or having the option to kill someone you dislike (given you accept the consequences).
Last but not least, there were three good sandboxes besides EvE... SWG, but that one died due to the stupid devs not polishing the game enough and ofc making the stupid decision to release the NGE.
Then there was Neocron that went down the same way as SWG due to the devs being lazy, not improving the game enough, not listening to their playerbase etc.
And I'd say that Fallen Earth had the potential to be a good sandbox, but again the devs had no vision to turn it into a diamond. If FE would've had a huge FFA-PvP area, where guilds were to battle it out for the ressources, building their own villages and crafting-facilities etc then it would've attracted tenfold of the subscriptions imho.
Then there's waiting for World of Darkness ofc, but that'll take quiet a while before we'll see it - atleast another two years before the first CB starts.
Sure there are sheep. They all bought D3
The wolves at Blizzard are an evolved kind that learned not to kill too many sheep (read piss off) so they can eat next time too 
But seriously, I think his comment is misplaced in this instance. He simply doesn't know the OP well enough. But in general terms when it comes to advertising for example it is definately about herding the crowd. And to call ppl sheep who just buy a product based on hype factor seems quite fitting then.
Yeah they shared little in common with what has come to be known as themeparks, but IMO they also share little with what has become known as Sandbox (well excluding shadowbane) that game did have a lot of sandboxy elements. This is why labels suck lol, too many loose definitions.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
MO's PvE was pretty non-existent sure, but the next patch is finally supposed to bring the more advanced AI they've wanted since the beginning such as the trolls picking up players and biting their heads off and minotaurs charging into players and knocking them down. Also I disagree that MMO is a FFA shooter, considering it probably has the most elaborate crafting system out there. Lastly I'm not sure people who would be into MO want security. The game is about to add better NPC guards controlled by the new aformentioned AI which will patrol cities and roads and could serve the security purpose you propose. But by no means do I think MO players want to turn the game into a carebear game.
I didn't say there aren't sheep
, only that many who use the word are simply another breed of sheep, ... well that's more or less what I was saying..:). I don't know Istavaan either so mine is possibly out of place as well, it was intended as food for thought though, so it's all good.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Would you mind pointing out the many that have tried and the many that have failed. You can't make a claim without providing some amount of evidence to your claim without backing it up.
So here's my claim.
There is a "massive" crowd who would play a GOOD sandbox game. Studios aren't willing to take the chance, not because they know it won't work, but because the DON'T KNOW if it will work. They don't know because it's not been attempted.
Attempted doesn't mean a game developed by a small, indipendant studio, with little to no experience, and not enough funding to develop a game to launch readiness.
Ryzom: Not a bad game, but not a very good one at it's core. It got a reputation for being more mmoJOB and less MMORPG. Although the game is RP heave, I would say, due to it's fanbase. A relatively unknown game when it released, had financial problems, shut down, got sold, redeveloped, and then reopened as a kind of freemium game.
Face of mankind: A sci-fi 1st/ 3rd person shooter designed to be entirely player driven. Extremely harsh, I died within my first 10 minutes of playing when I tried it many years ago. Since it was designed to be entirely player driven it had zero content, unless players made something. Figuring out what to do was as much work as figuring out how to actually play. Again, the game was rather unknown, had financial problems, got sold, redeveloped, and is now a kind of freemium game.
Darkfall: Who doesn't know what DF is? It's a game about killing each other.
Mortal Online: Like DF, we're all pretty familliar with MO. 18 man development team, with little experience, and not enough money to fully develop the game before it had to launch.
Mabinogi? Lots of people playing it. F2P. Can't really say much about the game. Tried it a few times, couldn't really get into it.
EVE: One of the few games that uses a subscription model, is a dyed in the wool sandbox right down to the economy, puts you in the role of a spaceship, has FFA pvp with full loot, and is one of only a very few MMO's with a subscription fee that has continued to see overall growth in the 9 years it's been live. Let me repeat this. It's one of only a few MMO's with a subscription model that continues to see overall growth in the 9 years it's been live.
In a genre were even WoW has seen a drop in subscribers, were the most expensive MMO produced to date is laying off employees, considered not a priority for development, and has received a lot of speculation that they're losing subscribers, EVE is still growing.
It's not possible to say that a sandbox MMO won't attract a large following. There has not been a QUALITY sandbox mmo in a fantasy setting made sinse UO, that has actually been marketted so that people know about it.
Why does everyone who describes EVE leave out the full story and how it reached that level of success? It reached it by support, by true dedicated fan support, that success would be possible for any of these sandboxes if they received support to the extent EVE did. EVE had a very rocky start, it wasn't "developed to release quality" before it launched, it had huge network/game-play issues, and was a total shell of what it became.
People supported it even though it wasn't ready, had huge issues, etc.. because they wanted that game, this is how "indie" works in any other genre or interest. Gamers stopped being supporters and became "every day consumers".
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Sandbox game A to Z
Full PvP
Full loot
Horrible PvE
Sandbox game, as rare as finding a bag of diamonds on the beach
PvE
Sci-fi sandbox game ON LAND, as rare as finding two bags of diamonds on the beach
PvE
All there is, is Anarchy Online (ancient), Ryzom (actually good) and there was SWG, but it died and was murdered
So two 3d sci-fi MMOs, that are sandbox, on land...Or the hundreds of sandbox MMOs as described in the beginning.
And only two fantasy sandbox 3d games with a PvE focus, that being Asheron's Call and Ultima Online...but those are ancient.
DayZ being an exception to a full loot, perma death game that I like...mostly cause I've been wanting a sandbox, open world, multiplayer/online zombie game for many years and it really works...but some consider it MMO and others don't.
It has nothing to do with turning a game into a Hello-Kitty-Carebear-Land. You just need to offer "safer" zones for the players who are not that much interested in the PvP and rather do some PvE while contributing to the economy etc.
That's the reason why EvE is succesful and still going strong after 9 years. You can play EvE and feel like a part of the universe allthough you never engage in PvP. I know tons of crafters and mission-runners who are playing EvE for years in that regard, but they're no carebears, they're valuable players in the system as they contribute to the main-part of the game... the economy.
A player-driven economy is - imho - the most interesting part of a sandbox, all items are crafted by players and all items are prone to being destroyed sooner or later. You could even make a wonderful sandbox without any PvP at all, you just need to make sure, that items are being destroyed as fast as they enter the game, and that all these items require people to gather ressources and craft them, selling them on the market, trading with others etc.
The FFA PvP in EvE is one way to destroy massive amounts of items, but you could get the same result with a system of item-decay. Think a minute about it, what would happen, when your items would be completely destroyed after they've taken too much damage over the time. You can only repair an item so often until it breaks and becomes useless junk.
To make this work, you just need to change the loot from NPCs. Instead of items they'd drop ressources and the dungeon-bosses would drop epic ressources for the best items to be crafted.
ArcheAge will have an economy working this way, and there'll even be ressources you can grow and harvest instead of farming specific spawn-points. How awesome is that?
But back to your message... You can have both, PvE and FFA-PvP alongside without turning it into Hello Kitty Online. It's proven by EvE Online that it works and ArcheAge will show it aswell.
Just think about the concept of an actual sandbox for a moment. They are full of sand and you can create whatever you want, but could you enjoy spending an entire week in one? A month? A year?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I didnt think I needed to state the obvious in my original post but perhaps you will recall I finished on this note:
I wasnt arguing against themepark at all, I just used it as my main focus because the post I quoted was indicating that everyone loves themeparks and so all MMO's should be themeparks.
You have to have an actual game first!
I supported MO for a year. It's still doesn't function correctly, is missing most of it's features, and is riddled with bugs. People are still supporting though, just not me at this phase of it's life. That doesn't mean that 5 years from now it won't finally be a game worth investing in.
You can't expect hundreds of thousands of people to simply pay for something that is incomplete or in a lot of cases, simply not fun. If there is no purpose, no content, or doesn't work properly, it's not going to attract anyone, and no one should be required to support them just because several years from now it MIGHT be worth something.
Nor does that mean there isn't a market for that sort of game. It means that only people with balls enough to take the chance are small indipendant studios who would rather ATTEMPT TO MAKE A GOOD GAME, as apposed to caving in and just rehashing what's been done hundreds of times already.
A themepark has a guaranteed market, it's visible. It's SAFE.
20m people are playing themepark MMO's, and it has more to do with a market that caters to that kind of game, and less to do with there not being a market for sandboxes.
Until a company comes along with real money, real development, real time, and real marketting, you can't say it's not possible.
Imagine if the Wright brothers gave up after the first attempt to fly, because they didn't do it right. It's analogous to the MMO market.
Except for this internet spacship game that continues to grow.
Let me put it this way.
A real sandbox MMO will give you EVERYTHING you find in a themepark. Believe it or not, EVE provides all the same stuff you find in a themepark mmo, but with all of the freedom of a sandbox.
I enjoyed playing EvE for six years before I became bored of it, the nature of the game that let's you create your own stories, like waging wars against other alliances, playing the market, being the lone wolf looking for PvP around the universe, doing some PvE once in a while, exploring wormholes, crafting for profits, etc, etc, etc... In EvE you write history and make your name heard in so many different ways, and that's something you don't find in a themepark, especially when there's dozens of servers splitting up the community.
OTOH I've never stayed for longer then some six month in a themepark, as I've become bored very quickly after clearing the content, having all the shiny epics, left with nothing to do anymore. Themepark-MMOs are basically nothing else then RPGs with a multiplayer-mode. You play through the game one or two times and that's it.
True it does also take a game people want to support, I have nothing against MO due to my only experience with it being the Open Beta version of it. SO I have no idea how that's actually come along since. It doesn't seem to have many fans at all though.
You're also right that the Genre also caters to the other sub-genre far more.
I'm not saying every game is going to be worth supporting or should be supported. Only that that's how EVE got there, and that I doubt we'll ever see that again in this genre.
I agree with that last part. SWG had more than any themepark has to offer and everything they do offer, in abundance. I doubt we'll see that again for a long time (Waiting on AA for that).
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I get so tired of this misconception........... have you ever tried building a castle in a sandbox? Never worked out to well without water which is why most people reserved building sand castles on the beach.
The pull of the sandbox was that it offered more possibilities than say a slide a swing or a seesaw. The swing, seesaw and the slide offer few predetermined activities while the sandbox activities were limited only by your imagination. Take your construction toys out and play builder, GI Joes and play war, burry stuff, play pirates and look for burried treasure, etc.
Why you young guys want to take a term we used and turn it into something that doesn't even make sense. I mean sure, if we were reffering to a beach you might have a point..... but again.... try building anything in the sandboxes we had growing up lol.
"don't feed the trolls"
redundant nonsensical questions in a redundant nonsensical topic. Goes hand -n- hand
Themepark vs Sandbox...... who cares. Do you think when creating UO or EQ the devs were worried about being labeled a sandbox or themepark experience? No, it was about having great gameplay, a massive world with a multitude of players. It's just that simple. Themepark, nor sandbox dictate a great game, engaging gameplay experiences do.
But instead of actual ideas and productive discussions we get ridiculous debates about "this vs that" which continue to segment the genre until it becomes a dilluted cespool of rehashed "next best idea" clone games, We will end up with pay-to-play lobby games. Heck, we even had a thread recently wanting to do away with the whole MASSIVE world in mmos, and instead have instant leveling, and small scale structured pvp instances. A freaking console FPS is what it sounds like to me.
It's the whole "gang mentality" highschool drama that fuels these ridiculous topics backed by a "my game is better than yours" attitude.