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Define Your Sandbox
sacredfool
Member UncommonPosts: 849
Since i can't find the old thread about it - making a new one. There are hundreds of players who want a sandbox and each has their own definiton of one - tell us what you think a sandbox is!
For something to be a sandbox it needs to have 3 elements:
1) Unrestricted character progression
Characters should not be class locked. While a character might not be able to do everything ingame, they should have the possibility to choose what they want to do. Combat should not be forced, crafting should be a way to advance your character.
2) Player created content in the open world
Characters should be able to conquer zones either through PvE, PvP or both it doesn't matter. Then these zones could be crafted to fit the needs of the players or guilds that control them. For example, a guild could have fighters who conquer and secure the area and crafters who build and produce raw materials. A single player should also have access to content creation - for example a single player fighter could control a larger area then a single player who is a crafter, but the crafter would be able to build more on the land he owns. Someone who choose to fight a bit and craft a bit but not excel at anything would be able to own a medium sized patch of land and build middle tier structures on it.
3) Player driven economy
The items crafted and gained through combat should work together to create an economy where the players decide how much specific items are worth. Level locking them should be avoided, but there could be skill requirements and items tiers. Lower tier items should be used to create higher tier items so that new players can still sell what the find (even if they are not as efficient at obtaining the lower tier items as players who already invested in player created workshops or combat gear).
There would of course need to be some developer defined rules about area control, PvE/PvP objectives, skill progression and resource rarity so I in no way advocate an anarchist "everyone can do whatever they want".
Originally posted by nethaniahSeriously Farmville? Yeah I think it's great. In a World where half our population is dying of hunger the more fortunate half is spending their time harvesting food that doesn't exist.
Comments
My dream sandbox:
- Open world, persistent player created housing (SWG style)
- Realistic Day/Night change and graphics
- Harvesting limited ressources
- Limited mob population and an "in fiction" way how mobs appear ( no simple respawning)
- Growing vegetation, bio cycle of animals hunting and eating each other
- Fishing (limited resources)
- Terraforming in the persistent world
- Limited inventory, amount you can carry depends on weight and size
- Intelligent NPCs doing their business in the game world (working, sleeping, leaving home)
- Persistent mounts (not spawning/vanishing)
- Train animals as mounts
- No quicktravel, only if there is a non immersion breaking in-fiction way
- Territory owning, defending and city building
- Player created quests as well as developer created story line and quests
- No classes, no levels, only skill based training
Secrets of Dragon?s Spine Trailer.. !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwT9cFVQCMw
Best MMOs ever played: Ultima, EvE, SW Galaxies, Age of Conan, The Secret World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2X_SbZCHpc&t=21s
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The Return of ELITE !
See Asheron's Call
Add in Quest Finder
Add a Auction House and Mailbox support
Add mounts
change the combat system to a hybrid action combat with reticule
Add a few more schools of Magic (Nature and Holy)
Improve the Graphics
release to the public
profit!
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
8 split rails approx 4 feet each
30 nails
20 to25 bags of play sand
No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up - Lily Tomlin
^this, simple, short and straight
I agree - RL is the ultimate sandbox!!
My dream sanbox:
I don't a hardcore sandbox (Darkfall / Mortal Online). I yearn for a mild blend.
#1. SWG's crafting and resource harvesting.
#2. SWG's world housing.
#3. SWG's endless clothing apparel.
#4. PoE's deep character creation system...but with added social abilities, e.g., Political gain, musical ability, dancing ability, crafting ability, beautician abillity, gambling ability etc.
#5. A fantastic Player Bounty System.
#6. Vanguard's world size.
#7. LoTRO's playable instruments.
#8. EQ2's aesthetic clothing/armor slots.
#9. Jedi Outcast's Melee Combat.
#10. Call of Duty's Ranged Combat.
#11. 5+ gigantic factions with the ability to create your own or even go rogue.
#12. ArcheAge's ability to create ships, trres, and gardens.
#13. No auction houses.
#14. No enemy name-tags via PvP.
#15. NO INSTANCED PVP - Only faction-based World PvP.
#16. No "Legacy or Destiny" quest line.
etc
ultimate sandbox - yes
sandbox game - not at all
Funny you consider RL as the ultimate sandbox games.
Unfortunaly for me I can't see it that way, I don't have a NASA degree to build spaceships, I can't battle hugh fantasy creature's of course I could fight normal big creature's but one fail might cost me my life. I can not go everywhere I want as there are many restriction to get somewhere.
You see there is so much more that truly can be done in a true sandbox game that can NEVER be done in rl.
But perhaps you might consider TheSims a sandbox game as it tries to mimic real life where most MMORPG's are set in a fantasy/sci-fi/post apocalyptic setting again nothing like real life.
On Topic, Star Wars Galaxies was my perfect "hybrid" sandbox game, I say hybrid cause it still had themeparkish feature's and certain restrictions, but then again the game never became fully polished nor bug free. Still have hopes on ever getting a similar game experiance SWG gave me as no MMORPG has even come close to the great experiance I had with that game, now imagine such a game perhaps different IP, maybe even fantasy based but fully polished and complete bug free with all content and feature's working on release.
Will EQNext bring this to us who long for a good sandbox MMORPG, so far regardless what SOE has done in the past it's still the only game company in the MMORPG segement that has given me the greatest MMORPG memories. Not even the better polished, feature full MMO's of the last few years have beaten that memory....unfortunaly for me.
And if someone might asume I can't addept to today games, I am very much enjoying many of singleplayer/mulitplayer games. But to me a MMORPG should not be a online combat game mostly, from my perspective there are other genre's that do combat far better and I enjoy them for that. I use to enjoy MMORPG because they offered what I couldn't find in normal multiplayer games. And that's still the more sandbox way for me.
To me the biggest issue for seeing a sandbox game actually be succesfull is the lack of patients from many of today's generation of gamers. I mean in the more sandbox type of MMORPG or hybrids where player economy takes time to settle I read so many complaints that people who started at release alreade spoke of the ingame economy s#cks after one or perhaps 2 weeks of playing. Totally naieve in understanding that something like that takes time,
Sorry to much text going slightly off topic. Heineken
again made me do this after a long day work........
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
[2]
The Archeage developer Jake Song said that AA would be the "spiritual sucessor" of Ultima Online, but today i think he exaggerated, althought some tools in the game are allowing "unintended features" (eg : buildings with crates), just like in UO.
With the occasional and unfortunate trace of feline incontinence.
If you dont do stupid things while youre young, youll have nothing to smile about when youre old.
WHen I hear player generated/created content I think constuction site. That being said, CoX had their creation tool and CoX was nothing like a sandbox.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I'm looking forward to trying out AA but one thing that it doesn't have that UO did was player merchants(the vendors we have in UO). I hope it ends up being a game I can stick with for a while, but if I'm not able to find a place for a house that will be quite disappointing, as that is one feature I'm looking forward to most.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
My dream sandbox (Dream because it will never happen):
1. Guided Character Progression: Like a real sandbox, someone always leaves behind their shovel/bucket. Gives me a good idea of what to do with my time and helps me progress my skills. Sometimes people leave improvised tools like a water bottle with the top cut off or even a plastic fork.
2. Structured Crafting: Physics must apply. No tiny characters running around with swords that weigh more than they do. Marked areas where gathering can be done. Don't tell me how to do it, but give me the option to do it myself and fail miserably.
3. Random Hidden Goodies: I used to love digging for goodies in the sandbox. People would hide stuff in it like cups, sticks and occasionally a collar. That was the fun part, finding an unexpected treat amongst the sands. Sometimes the stuff was good, other times I would bury the stuff back again.
4. Player Driven Content/Story: This is probably my most essential requirement in a sandbox game. You cannot have a main quest chain that leads the player from one end of the game and covers everything a player needs to discover. I do not tolerate this in sandbox style games. If a player does not find something that is necessary to progress, their should be plenty of alternative ways of achieving the same goal without even seeing the necessity. If there is going to be a quest chain, make it worth while for the player to embark upon.
5. Offline and Online Gameplay: I cannot see a sandbox being online only, for the fact that the content is user driven. Offline time is for working on content and developing your character for what you want it to be. Online time is for conversing and cooperating/fighting with friends. Keep all content available in both forms of gameplay. Allow for players to switch between the two modes.
I played WoW up until WotLK, played RoM for 2 years and now Rift.
I am F2P player. I support games when I feel they deserve my money and I want the items enough.
I don't troll, and I don't take kindly to trolls.
My idea of sandbox:
1. Freedom - Do what I want, when I want, with the tools provided by developer, and given the restrictions the developer places on me so I cannot ruin another players gameplay experience.
That is all.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
Perfect sandbox game:
Give all subscribers access to the source code and engine functionalities.
I'm hardcore
And a troll
My ideal sandbox has a completely blurred distinction between content creation and play - your actions alter the world as you move through it with the game built on overlapping simulations rather than stories. Play a druid any you can terraform the vegetation as a hobby, play a miner and you will be digging the mines and dungeons that monsters may later inhabit, play a king to map out the zoning where players can build a city, play a monster king to try to expand your spawn zones, play a mad wizard and spend your evenings breading new species of monsters and experimenting with tweaking their AI.
Ill keep saying this because people are getting mislead about archeage, a game btw, that ill play.
Sandboxes do not have quest hubs full of NPC's with yellow exclamation points over their head. Call AA a sandbox all you want but player housing, growing crops, and no defined classes doesnt make the game a sandbox...if im on the rails of a linear quest line...which you WILL be for AA...then it loses the status of sandbox...i dont care how complex crafting gets.
Nice plug for the game though.
Well you can have quests in a true sandbox. But not the kiil ten rats kind.
Something like this: You talk to a miner who with his gang wants to mine some special ore in a tunnel that is guarded by Orcs, your mission should you choose to accept it is to drive the Orcs away from the ore face and keep them away until the miners have got there ore and then withdraw. You will be rewarded for successfull completion of this task. Now the sandbox part, if this mission is completed regularly then the supply of that ore from NPC's will go up (and of items made from it) and the cost will go down. No one does the mission the ore supply dries up and the price skyrockets.
Similar themed quests for other mats and for escorting "trade caravans" through MOB infested areas.
The supply and demand of the economy should be placed in the hands of the players. NPC's should not be infinite suppliers of everything, and they should by and sell according to a market players participate in not DEV set cost tables.
I cant break NDA but the new darkfall did a fantastic job addressing the "questing" and sandbox. Its actually one of the more brilliant things they did.
No the quest in arche age are linear on rails themepark style quest hub. Yes AA does have open ended meta games, which is why i believe its going to be a successful mmorpg past the first month, and possibly the most popular korean mmo in the west having so many of their games fail in this market while being wildly successful at home.
when i say quests, i mean "im a helpless npc standing in front of my farm with 5 other helpless npcs, go kill thos boars, and talk to the guy standing next to me and tell him something for me because im incable of turning my head myself" Then you go to the guy next to him and he tells you he needs roots collected where the boars are 5 feet in front of him. Oh god do i hate themeparks LOL....
But yeah the good sandbox game quests are perhaps not going to have you talking to any npc at all...and if you do hes not going to tell you do to do anything specific for some gold and gear.
Lets be honest here, 70% of the people who walk into a real sandbox say "theres nothing to do but grind" and leave...completely missing the point...newer games are going to have to fid a way to re-wire the brain of these zombies to see past the 15min mark on what they are doing and wondering why there isnt a prize and npc telling them where to go next.