What happened to the MMORPG genre is the same that happened to the entire game scene. Publishers are now run by managers who go for the quick bucks. The game industry is one of the most well earning sectors, even though there is a world wide crisis there are still sold many many games. It happened when the PS2 and Xbox became a very wide success, followed by the PS3 and xbox 360. It attracted a new kind of gamer, the mainstream gamer. These mainstream gamers are the biggest group of gamers these days. The same people who shouted you where a fat virgin nerd 10 years ago if you said you where a gamer are now the same people who call you all kind of names in CoD and look at you as if you are a freak if you say you don't like CoD.
The mainstream gamer brought something else with them. They had the urge to feel good about themselves in games or they wouldn't buy games anymore (words from the publishers back then). So how do you meet their requirements? You make games more easy and on top of that much shorter. Most games aren't so hard to complete anymore on hard mode. Many hard modes these days where the same modes we used to call "medium difficulty" in the good old days. Everything has to be pointed out as well cause we do not want the mainstream gamer to get lost in their game now do we?
Great example is Dragon Age. Dragon Age Origin had many skills too choose from, you could make a warrior who dual wield two swords, you could equip your companions with all kind of armor and weapons to enhance your parties strengths and the combat was rather strategic. The game was a huge success, but ho wait.....The console version of the game didn't work out so great, off course this was natural as the game was made as a PC game and already long in development before the 360 and PS3 where even announced. But the mainstream gamer began to complain (as they are often console gamers, but read careful I'm not saying console gamers are all mainstream gamers), so what happens. EA sees that Dragon Age was a success, but wanted more money. So they forced Bioware to rush out a quick Dragon Age 2, a game that was dumb down like insane. You hardly could customise your characters skills, there where only a hand full compared to Dragon Age Origin cause the mainstream gamer got lost in all the skills and omg they cried so hard they didn't know what too choose and what was the BEST way to play booohooo, equipting your party members was completely removed, yeah you could give them another weapon but often their own weapons where the best they could get so there wasn't much use of giving them another. The combat became a action game and to make it even worse they removed the amazing looking execution animations from DA:O for exploding corpses >.< And the level designs...gods they didn't even try to hide it was just corridor walking, i never felt so clausterphobic in a game as in DA2.
But it doesn't stop with RPG's, shooters, gods how i loved games like Rainbow Six and SWAT 3 and 4 cause they where hard, one shot one kill. You had to think, you had to plan and going in gunblazing resulted more often then not in your own death or the death of innocents. Now a shooter gets minor points by the game press if you don't have some magic auto healing if you rest for three seconds behind one of the many walls. Cause the game press these days are mainstream gamers. People who don't want to die at the same spot more then once. Who see death in a game as a game fault instead of them trying to learn why they keep dying there and find a way around it. But publishers like EA and Activision see this group as the only group they need to please cause its where the most money is. Give them short and easy games so these gamers feel good about themselves and will buy the next game.
In the MMORPG's its the exact same. WoW did something other MMORPG's didn't manage to do as much as WoW did (this is not a fanboy stand of view, its how it went). WoW made the genre popular, and when Activision merged with Vivendi WoW suffered a terribly faith.....Boby Koytick and the need to please only the mainstream gamer. He orderd that WoW had to be more accessable for the mainstream gamer and the rest is history. Seeing WoW generated a huge amount of money each month other publishers wanted to profit from this as well. And in their logics you can only get that if you offer the exact same as the competition cause that is clearly what people want to have....totally forgetting that people aren't gonna leave a highest lvl fully pimped char for a new char in a new game where they gotta work their way up again. So for many MMORPG's the number of subs stayed low. To counter this they looked at other genres and asked the mainstream gamer what they wanted (i assume they asked only the mainstream gamer cause EA keeps saying they asked us gamers our opinion where i never received any question from EA) and noticed that the most important thing is great graphics. But with great graphics comes the instanced bullcrap. Worlds can't be seamless anymore as that would be to demanding for the servers, so byebye nice big worlds where it can take up 2 hours to walk from one corner to the other without ever seeing a loading screen. And you don't really think the mainstream gamer is gonna travel all the way to a dungeon right? Nooooo they want quick access so LFG tools are standard now or the mainstream gamer won't play.
I noticed in this subject that some people said "Fact is that no one will play semi sandbox games once they are released". That is nonsense. People will, the difference is that it would go back to the normal numbers MMORPG's had before WoW. Yeah it won't be a Million+ subs. But is that a problem? Not really, cause frankly look at many of the AAA MMORPG's that came out after WoW, they all started perhaps with a couple of million players, but these days they all have only a couple of thousand perhaps a million at most while being F2P now even. Publishers should take enough with that, cause look at EVE it doesn't have the numbers of WoW, but it been around for many years and has a very loyal player base where most other MMORPG's hardly have a community after 3 months anymore. But the managers who run most publishers want quick money, so to get that you make a standard MMORPG by the template of WoW and EQ, its easy, its basic as you don't really have to add anything extra beside raids and pvp battlegrounds. With instanced zones it also more easy for mainstream gamers to remember where they are and by removing a lot of freedom in exploring you won't have mainstream gamers getting lost so they will enjoy the game a lot more, they also need to have giant arrows and exact quest locations shown on the map so they feel like true explorers in a game that doesn't know exploration anymore.
MMORPG's suffered from the current state of the gaming scene. Unless publishers will stop trying to please just one group of gamers and take enough from the other groups there won't really be any major chance in how MMO's are designed i fear. Maybe a small studio might try it here and there but unless one of the seamless sandbox-ish games becomes a real success that earns millions of profit its just not gonna happen. But i would love them to proof my worries to be wrong.
What happened to the MMORPG genre is the same that happened to the entire game scene. Publishers are now run by managers who go for the quick bucks. The game industry is one of the most well earning sectors, even though there is a world wide crisis there are still sold many many games. It happened when the PS2 and Xbox became a very wide success, followed by the PS3 and xbox 360. It attracted a new kind of gamer, the mainstream gamer. These mainstream gamers are the biggest group of gamers these days. The same people who shouted you where a fat virgin nerd 10 years ago if you said you where a gamer are now the same people who call you all kind of names in CoD and look at you as if you are a freak if you say you don't like CoD.
The mainstream gamer brought something else with them. They had the urge to feel good about themselves in games or they wouldn't buy games anymore (words from the publishers back then). So how do you meet their requirements? You make games more easy and on top of that much shorter. Most games aren't so hard to complete anymore on hard mode. Many hard modes these days where the same modes we used to call "medium difficulty" in the good old days. Everything has to be pointed out as well cause we do not want the mainstream gamer to get lost in their game now do we?
Great example is Dragon Age. Dragon Age Origin had many skills too choose from, you could make a warrior who dual wield two swords, you could equip your companions with all kind of armor and weapons to enhance your parties strengths and the combat was rather strategic. The game was a huge success, but ho wait.....The console version of the game didn't work out so great, off course this was natural as the game was made as a PC game and already long in development before the 360 and PS3 where even announced. But the mainstream gamer began to complain (as they are often console gamers, but read careful I'm not saying console gamers are all mainstream gamers), so what happens. EA sees that Dragon Age was a success, but wanted more money. So they forced Bioware to rush out a quick Dragon Age 2, a game that was dumb down like insane. You hardly could customise your characters skills, there where only a hand full compared to Dragon Age Origin cause the mainstream gamer got lost in all the skills and omg they cried so hard they didn't know what too choose and what was the BEST way to play booohooo, equipting your party members was completely removed, yeah you could give them another weapon but often their own weapons where the best they could get so there wasn't much use of giving them another. The combat became a action game and to make it even worse they removed the amazing looking execution animations from DA:O for exploding corpses >.< And the level designs...gods they didn't even try to hide it was just corridor walking, i never felt so clausterphobic in a game as in DA2.
But it doesn't stop with RPG's, shooters, gods how i loved games like Rainbow Six and SWAT 3 and 4 cause they where hard, one shot one kill. You had to think, you had to plan and going in gunblazing resulted more often then not in your own death or the death of innocents. Now a shooter gets minor points by the game press if you don't have some magic auto healing if you rest for three seconds behind one of the many walls. Cause the game press these days are mainstream gamers. People who don't want to die at the same spot more then once. Who see death in a game as a game fault instead of them trying to learn why they keep dying there and find a way around it. But publishers like EA and Activision see this group as the only group they need to please cause its where the most money is. Give them short and easy games so these gamers feel good about themselves and will buy the next game.
In the MMORPG's its the exact same. WoW did something other MMORPG's didn't manage to do as much as WoW did (this is not a fanboy stand of view, its how it went). WoW made the genre popular, and when Activision merged with Vivendi WoW suffered a terribly faith.....Boby Koytick and the need to please only the mainstream gamer. He orderd that WoW had to be more accessable for the mainstream gamer and the rest is history. Seeing WoW generated a huge amount of money each month other publishers wanted to profit from this as well. And in their logics you can only get that if you offer the exact same as the competition cause that is clearly what people want to have....totally forgetting that people aren't gonna leave a highest lvl fully pimped char for a new char in a new game where they gotta work their way up again. So for many MMORPG's the number of subs stayed low. To counter this they looked at other genres and asked the mainstream gamer what they wanted (i assume they asked only the mainstream gamer cause EA keeps saying they asked us gamers our opinion where i never received any question from EA) and noticed that the most important thing is great graphics. But with great graphics comes the instanced bullcrap. Worlds can't be seamless anymore as that would be to demanding for the servers, so byebye nice big worlds where it can take up 2 hours to walk from one corner to the other without ever seeing a loading screen. And you don't really think the mainstream gamer is gonna travel all the way to a dungeon right? Nooooo they want quick access so LFG tools are standard now or the mainstream gamer won't play.
I noticed in this subject that some people said "Fact is that no one will play semi sandbox games once they are released". That is nonsense. People will, the difference is that it would go back to the normal numbers MMORPG's had before WoW. Yeah it won't be a Million+ subs. But is that a problem? Not really, cause frankly look at many of the AAA MMORPG's that came out after WoW, they all started perhaps with a couple of million players, but these days they all have only a couple of thousand perhaps a million at most while being F2P now even. Publishers should take enough with that, cause look at EVE it doesn't have the numbers of WoW, but it been around for many years and has a very loyal player base where most other MMORPG's hardly have a community after 3 months anymore. But the managers who run most publishers want quick money, so to get that you make a standard MMORPG by the template of WoW and EQ, its easy, its basic as you don't really have to add anything extra beside raids and pvp battlegrounds. With instanced zones it also more easy for mainstream gamers to remember where they are and by removing a lot of freedom in exploring you won't have mainstream gamers getting lost so they will enjoy the game a lot more, they also need to have giant arrows and exact quest locations shown on the map so they feel like true explorers in a game that doesn't know exploration anymore.
MMORPG's suffered from the current state of the gaming scene. Unless publishers will stop trying to please just one group of gamers and take enough from the other groups there won't really be any major chance in how MMO's are designed i fear. Maybe a small studio might try it here and there but unless one of the seamless sandbox-ish games becomes a real success that earns millions of profit its just not gonna happen. But i would love them to proof my worries to be wrong.
Yes, it sucks that the majority of gamers aren't as passionate as you guys about sandboxes, but that's the downside of being a niche market. There are pleanty of games / mechanics I'd love to see either make a comeback or be adopted into an MMO, but I'm not going to complain every time a designer makes a game without them.
First Love Syndrome.
"The game I liked best was [x]. Any game that's not just like [x], at least by 'feel', will never make me happy."
Don't worry, the syndrome is not exclusive to sandboxes.
[x] is usually something encountered at least ten years in the past.
People who sandbox games are easy to make, clearly don't understand programming or anything else to do with game development. I don't either, but at least I try to be logical about it. What I mean is, if you want to make one small event affect the whole world, that is a massive amount of programming. If you have dozens of these type of events going on, then it really would be hard to program.
Sandbox games, with a fully open world, is impossible to program on such a large scale.
Originally posted by Wizardry I would like to see the Sandbox game first,i have not seen one yet and doubt i will for many years to come.They are all linear scripted paint by number games.The closest thing to sandbox right now is NW and the Foundry system but that is still limited to instances and very little content to work with.I have thought about it for many years and it is just VERY tough to ever make a sandbox game.The reason is simple,where would all the user created files get stored?You cannot simply toss out an empty sandbox without adding the sand and the shovel.It is most certainly possible and imo would be THE game to set new standards but is just near impossible to pull off.I was thinking that perhaps anything a player creates would get stored on their computer,however they would have to be online for people to D?l the content.Also they would need unlimited bandwidth to handle all the traffic.SO really how is this possible,i don't see it.Seamless world is possible "to the eye" but it would ALWAYS be a FAKE seamless world,it would still have to have invisible zones.So bottom line is a TRUE seamless Sandbox will never happen in the next 20+ years,unless there is something i am really missing here as i am sure there are a lot of smart people out there that can pull off miracles.
Minecraft is a sandbox game, I think even by your definition. It exists right now, but I think it more supports your point than refutes your point. The bandwidth needed for Minecraft to run effectively is ridiculous compared to other games. It also gets up and running quickly by have a procedurally generated world that only generates as much landmass as needed, when it's needed.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Developers seem to be using a formula in order to create MMOs. All elements are regulated, planned, analyzed and finely tuned leaving little room for the players to bring the world to life. Think about your favorite games from history, which of those games had bugs and class imbalances?
EQ had tons of problems at launch and throughout alot of its inception. The one consistent theme however was that the players pulled the world together and made the community/servers what they were.
I dont think developers want to take risks these days as MMOs require alot of money and resources to develop. Not taking risks and working outside the box is what killed the genre in my opinion.
This isn't a post about what you don't mind or what the majority of people want. I don't really care what most other people want. I know what is fun and what keeps people playing mmorpg's.
So why are there no seamless/semi-instanced open world sandboxish MMORPG's that are fantasy based? I'm talking Eve Online meets EQ meets World of Warcraft meets Shadowbane.
Google those titles if you don't know what they are.
Why haven't companies seen the success of Eve Online and followed suit? WoW is NOT the same game it was 10 years ago, it was a hardcore game back then, atleast the end game. Vanilla is what kept people playing and what paved the way for the 10 million subscribers. down to 9.6 mil now. Eve Online has risen to 500,000 subscribers up 100,000 subscribers from 2012.
So people like to sit and say there isn't a market for these types of MMO's yet, to the contrary, I find there are TONS of people interested. I'm not going to give a "back in the old days it was 5 miles to school up hill both ways" speech, but the panzy ass, easy mode, give out gear like candy shit has to go. These crappy zoned, instanced, theme-park, train-rail MMO's with invisi-barriers and that big mountain or hill to stop you from going off the beaten path. I'm getting tired, sick and tired, of these crap mmo's. People think because a game has awesome graphics now that its an amazing game.
MMO's today are nothing like they were 10-15 years ago when they were being released. People then had huge worlds you can run from one end of the world to the other with no load screens and a million different ways to get there. Epic raids, dungeons and content that when you accomplished something, it felt rewarding and you felt you had conquered something. I mean, for any vanilla players or BC players, was the first time you downed Ragnaros or Nefarian, strike that, Onyxia or Lucifron the same as when you downed Lich King? You'd be lying if you said it felt the same and you know it.
So what happen to the balls these companies use to have? They've catered to people complaining about not getting to engage in end-game content because they don't want to put in time and effort, instead they want to login for an hour or 2 a night and get their purps, raise their ilvls and go to sleep.
It's no longer about the social interactions or the adventure anymore.
When WoW released bg's, it killed world PVP for the most part. Not all of it, but most. LFR/LFD tool killed the world. Now all people do is sit in SW/ORG and q-up for dungeons. Instead of making a game challenging with quality content, they have went the Ford Motor route instead of the Toyota route. Toyota: Quality before quantity, Ford: quantity before quality.
So what does Blizzard do now? Pumps out shit content every year and ahalf that is so stupid easy my 2 year old niece could raid and be good at it. What the hell happened to these games? and why the hell has EVERY mmorpg that has come out since been the same cookie-cutter crap we see from everyone else. SWTOR, AION, AoC, CoH, GW2, and all the other fail shit MMO's that have come out since. Notice anything those mmo's have in common? Most of them? There isn't a single one that is seamless or open world. They are all instanced and zoned beyond belief. Do you really think SWTOR was a bad game because the classes sucked and the content sucked? Fuck no, it sucked because you had a load screen every 5 minutes from one place to another. Your own instancing of quests, i mean wtf? Aion failed for the same reasons, AOC failed because of the learning curve, bugs and the damn train-rail crap it made you do by following the same path. GW2 is such crap compared to Guild Wars 1, it's only Guild Wars by title only.
Why can the MMO developers not look at games like Eve Online and follow them? Why do they insist on copying what WoWis in its current state? They don't copy vanilla WoW, no they copy the same shit every other game company does, except they instance and zone everything and kill the world, then they add "battlegrounds" and destroy world pvp. If you're a care bear and can't deal with getting ganked or griefed, go the fuck home. You're damn right I want to kill lowbies and grief them, I then want your guild mates to come and destroy my ass for ganking you. Player policed servers are the best IMO.
Ask any Eve player here about the griefing and ganking that goes on in Eve...go complain in Eve about ganking. lol..
So why are there no MMO's like this? Why are there no awesome graphic, seamless, sandbox mmorpg's with theme park elements? SWTOR spent half a billion dollars in making that abortion of a game, and they couldnt even make a seamless world? what? $500 million dollars and SWTOR is what we got.
Thats sad, truly sad...
i think is more of the time it takes to make a good sandbox, EVE is what it is because it kept evolving itself all this 10 years, changing graphics, adding more ships, fixing bugs, updating their single server hardware architecture, the most part of content has come with every expansion (they started with only subcap ships as far i have read).
that's something no other developers have made well, maybe the guys of UO. but look at WoW or Lineage II, they just added more content instead of improving what they already have. each expansion a new continent, more gear, more levels to grind, more dungeons/raids and quests. its easier to do that than messing around with fixing the current content.
its more of a compromise with the game, every F2P game that comes to the market these days, add an expansion or two and die, they're like the seeds used by the great food industries, these plants only live a season, instead of the traditional plant that can survive throughout the whole year and produce food.
EVE is the great sandbox game here because CCP has compromised with it, while making other games like WoD and DUST514. but keeping its focus on improving the game instead of adding more content, or adding content every certain timek lust look at the Apocrypha expansion.
Originally posted by Vocadi Developers seem to be using a formula in order to create MMOs. All elements are regulated, planned, analyzed and finely tuned leaving little room for the players to bring the world to life. Think about your favorite games from history, which of those games had bugs and class imbalances?EQ had tons of problems at launch and throughout alot of its inception. The one consistent theme however was that the players pulled the world together and made the community/servers what they were.I dont think developers want to take risks these days as MMOs require alot of money and resources to develop. Not taking risks and working outside the box is what killed the genre in my opinion.
There's a Cracked article about how the superhero movie genre is about to go bust. There's a cycle that happens in movies, where an experimental director or producer actually hits a vein of something and it works, really well. Then the money starts flowing in, but so does the risk aversion. The big producers move from taking risks to recouping investments. This sounds a lot like what happens in the video game industry. Developers hit something that works, and then mine it until they can't mine it any longer, and then the experimentation starts again.
We had a phase of mining out the experimental thing that worked. The genre hasn't died. Far from it. Now we're starting into a phase of looking for something else that works in a big way. MMOFPS? MMORTS? Hybrid Sandbox/Theme Park? Full On Sandbox? What will it be? This is a more exciting time than ever. Of course, I don't have a vested interest in any particular type of game being the next big thing. If someone is banking on something in particular being the "winner", I suppose it's not very exciting and kind of stressful.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Ive played Darkfall 1.0, and its my understanding that in that game you pretty much have to Max out Magic in order to even remotely be competitive in PVP. Magic is not my forte. Almost every fight I got into with my guild in Darkfall it was just magic magic magic.
Well in DF you did have some other options than just being a hybrid character so no you didn't have to max all the magic schools out.. anyway Darkfall is no more and is now Darkfall:UW where you have set classes so its not an issue anymore.
Here's the deal... if you are trying out *other* games, it means your current game really doesn't interest you any more and you are looking for something new. If you truly were engaged in your current game, you wouldn't even try other games.
The reason none of the new games are as engaging is because you have tired of the formula that originally hooked you. I'd be willing to wager that if vanilla WoW were to be released today, you'd have about 15 minutes of interest in it. Why? Because you've played the genre to death. There's very little spin on the genre that they can do that isn't a rehash of something you've already done. You say you want better combat... then what? The game is still the same, only the combat has changed. Do you really think your brain isn't going to pick up on the fact that the game is the same, just the animations have changed?
We're beating a dead horse here... try as you might... you can't go back to the old days... this isn't Back to the Future... there's no wayback machine that will port you back to your youth when things were seemingly better. The reality is, it's not better the second time around, it's just the same. Knowing what you know now would massively alter your experience to the point that it would never be the same.
Time to get the developers to invent a new wheel and stop trying to put a new spin on the same old tires. That's what you are really craving... something so new, it doesn't even have a genre label yet. You know, something so cool that only 10 years ago no one would have ever guessed such a thing would be possible. What we keep getting is things that already exist today just shuffled about.
People who sandbox games are easy to make, clearly don't understand programming or anything else to do with game development. I don't either, but at least I try to be logical about it. What I mean is, if you want to make one small event affect the whole world, that is a massive amount of programming. If you have dozens of these type of events going on, then it really would be hard to program.
Sandbox games, with a fully open world, is impossible to program on such a large scale.
not at all take a look at games like Xsyon.. one person can dig a big hole in the world and that changes it for everyone, someone can build a building or leaves a log on floor everyone can see it.. and this game was made on a very low budget so imagine what someone with real money could get done.
The technology has been around for ages but no one is willing to put real money into it as all the big AAA publishers look at WOWs 9 million players and go yes we want 9 million players as well so we will copy wow.. What they did to do is totally ignore wow and look at the average amount of players that other mmos have and base their game around those numbers.
Anyway because of kickstarter we now have some very good looking sandbox mmos on the way and I for one am looking forward to the next 5 years of MMOs and I am pretty sure we will start seeing less and less wow clones.
People who sandbox games are easy to make, clearly don't understand programming or anything else to do with game development. I don't either, but at least I try to be logical about it. What I mean is, if you want to make one small event affect the whole world, that is a massive amount of programming. If you have dozens of these type of events going on, then it really would be hard to program.
Sandbox games, with a fully open world, is impossible to program on such a large scale.
not at all take a look at games like Xsyon.. one person can dig a big hole in the world and that changes it for everyone, someone can build a building or leaves a log on floor everyone can see it.. and this game was made on a very low budget so imagine what someone with real money could get done.
The technology has been around for ages but no one is willing to put real money into it as all the big AAA publishers look at WOWs 9 million players and go yes we want 9 million players as well so we will copy wow.. What they did to do is totally ignore wow and look at the average amount of players that other mmos have and base their game around those numbers.
Anyway because of kickstarter we now have some very good looking sandbox mmos on the way and I for one am looking forward to the next 5 years of MMOs and I am pretty sure we will start seeing less and less wow clones.
I have played Xyson as well as Tale in the Desert (all the versions). The problem was the learning curve was super high, the things you could do were really simple only, anything really complicated could not be done. Bluntly put, digging a hole - whoop de do - now building a huge city and then having it knocked down and affect everything has not been done and can't be. Yes some have castle sieges but that castle is never abandoned. It is just rebuilt.
"I noticed in this subject that some people said "Fact is that no one will play semi sandbox games once they are released". That is nonsense. People will, the difference is that it would go back to the normal numbers MMORPG's had before WoW"
That is the problem. The cost of making a game that will attract people with the looks and functions people expect now cost more than those limited numbers of people subbing will generate. Then you end up with scaled down graphics that get bashed or buggy/lacking system that gets bashed. Eve has the great chance of actually building up now days people want the Ferrari out of the gate not a pinto that they have to wait for it to be upgraded.
I have played Xyson as well as Tale in the Desert (all the versions). The problem was the learning curve was super high, the things you could do were really simple only, anything really complicated could not be done. Bluntly put, digging a hole - whoop de do - now building a huge city and then having it knocked down and affect everything has not been done.
I think you will find there are some very very large player built cities in Xsyon.
You can do a lot more than just dig a hole btw i was using that as an example of what could be done to change the world for everyone. You can change the way the world looks basically only limited to how big your clan area is.
Cant comment on tale in the desert as i have not played it buy Xsyon does not have a big learning curve at all, its actually quite easy to pick up. its certainly not a perfect game tho as its been done on a very very small budget.
Also what do you mean the things you could do where only simple and nothing complicated could be done? What do you consider complicated ?
Check out some of the multi-story buidings in this video
I have played Xyson as well as Tale in the Desert (all the versions). The problem was the learning curve was super high, the things you could do were really simple only, anything really complicated could not be done. Bluntly put, digging a hole - whoop de do - now building a huge city and then having it knocked down and affect everything has not been done.
I think you will find there are some very very large player built cities in Xsyon.
You can do a lot more than just dig a hole btw i was using that as an example of what could be done to change the world for everyone. You can change the way the world looks basically only limited to how big your clan area is.
Cant comment on tale in the desert as i have not played it buy Xsyon does not have a big learning curve at all, its actually quite easy to pick up. its certainly not a perfect game tho as its been done on a very very small budget.
Also what do you mean the things you could do where only simple and nothing complicated could be done? What do you consider complicated ?
Check out some of the multi-story buidings in this video
So they built a city. Has a city ever been attacked, destroyed and abandoned and let the environment take over? Like in RL. I don't think so. People who talk about Sandbox games as open and living mean just what it says. It is impossible right now. There are Sandbox games, but they all have limits. It is just the players don't see it.
So they built a city. Has a city ever been attacked, destroyed and abandoned and let the environment take over? Like in RL. I don't think so. People who talk about Sandbox games as open and living mean just what it says. It is impossible right now. There are Sandbox games, but they all have limits. It is just the players don't see it.
Well the clan wars have not been added in quite yet but yeah i believe the plan was to allow people to be able to attack other cities. Recently they just added in city upkeep system so now clans need to fund their city otherwise it will decay over time and then the wildlife will take back over.. the game is still in development, but I believe this is the kind of thing the dev wanted to do..
The animals freely roam around the world in xsyon, they can wander into the mists and mutate into big nasty versions as well, if you get killed by a zombie type mob then they will loot your copse and use your gear.
At the end of the day these are games we play and of course they have limits but thats not to say the technology is not there to do what you suggest, its just no one has bothered to try and do it as they are busy making wow clones..
Originally posted by botrytis Originally posted by CaldrinOriginally posted by botrytis
I have played Xyson as well as Tale in the Desert (all the versions). The problem was the learning curve was super high, the things you could do were really simple only, anything really complicated could not be done. Bluntly put, digging a hole - whoop de do - now building a huge city and then having it knocked down and affect everything has not been done.I think you will find there are some very very large player built cities in Xsyon.You can do a lot more than just dig a hole btw i was using that as an example of what could be done to change the world for everyone. You can change the way the world looks basically only limited to how big your clan area is.Cant comment on tale in the desert as i have not played it buy Xsyon does not have a big learning curve at all, its actually quite easy to pick up. its certainly not a perfect game tho as its been done on a very very small budget.Also what do you mean the things you could do where only simple and nothing complicated could be done? What do you consider complicated ?Check out some of the multi-story buidings in this videoSo they built a city. Has a city ever been attacked, destroyed and abandoned and let the environment take over? Like in RL. I don't think so. People who talk about Sandbox games as open and living mean just what it says. It is impossible right now. There are Sandbox games, but they all have limits. It is just the players don't see it.
Take anything to the ultimate extreme and it will eventually fail. People keep bringing up games that meet the criteria of "sandbox", and other people keep moving the bar to show how things aren't possible.
It is not only possible to create a sandbox MMO, the technology already exists and it's in play right now. Technology is not an excuse for seamless sandbox games not existing.
Is lack of technology an excuse for world simulators that mimic the world down to an atomic level not existing? Yes. But that's not a sandbox game, that's a world simulator.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
People are seriously asking where these seamless games from the past are and that they don't exist? Really? Idk... maybe Ultima Online..? Shadowbane? You can say Shadowbane died, but it is so highly loved people are trying to bring it back. Another company is trying to bring it back as Shadowbane 2 (supposedly) at the moment actually. I would drop every game if they brought it back bugs and all.
Originally posted by Superfly999 People are seriously asking where these seamless games from the past are and that they don't exist? Really? Idk... maybe Ultima Online..? Shadowbane? You can say Shadowbane died, but it is so highly loved people are trying to bring it back. Another company is trying to bring it back as Shadowbane 2 (supposedly) at the moment actually. I would drop every game if they brought it back bugs and all.
Sign me up too. Currently playing the "beta" of Asheron's Call 2 for that old-time game feel. The graphics are not great but it is challenging, or at least more so than most of the nerfed games now. There is a population on it, it seems relatively friendly, groups seem to be part of the game.
this is not boring me, and that is important. is it sandbox - perhaps semi in that you apply xp to skills as you go along so the strength of your skills, and the selection of which skills is up to you. Still exploring it.
Take anything to the ultimate extreme and it will eventually fail. People keep bringing up games that meet the criteria of "sandbox", and other people keep moving the bar to show how things aren't possible.
It is not only possible to create a sandbox MMO, the technology already exists and it's in play right now. Technology is not an excuse for seamless sandbox games not existing.
Is lack of technology an excuse for world simulators that mimic the world down to an atomic level not existing? Yes. But that's not a sandbox game, that's a world simulator.
The lack of sandbox MMO is never about technology. It is about supply and demand (or the lack of).
Originally posted by Superfly999 People are seriously asking where these seamless games from the past are and that they don't exist? Really? Idk... maybe Ultima Online..? Shadowbane? You can say Shadowbane died, but it is so highly loved people are trying to bring it back. Another company is trying to bring it back as Shadowbane 2 (supposedly) at the moment actually. I would drop every game if they brought it back bugs and all.
I've been running with the general theme of the thread myself. I think maybe it's that seamless sandbox MMOs aren't the dominant or common type of MMO that gets created.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by Superfly999 People are seriously asking where these seamless games from the past are and that they don't exist? Really? Idk... maybe Ultima Online..? Shadowbane? You can say Shadowbane died, but it is so highly loved people are trying to bring it back. Another company is trying to bring it back as Shadowbane 2 (supposedly) at the moment actually. I would drop every game if they brought it back bugs and all.
Sign me up too. Currently playing the "beta" of Asheron's Call 2 for that old-time game feel. The graphics are not great but it is challenging, or at least more so than most of the nerfed games now. There is a population on it, it seems relatively friendly, groups seem to be part of the game.
this is not boring me, and that is important. is it sandbox - perhaps semi in that you apply xp to skills as you go along so the strength of your skills, and the selection of which skills is up to you. Still exploring it.
I played AC2 from 03-04 and had a 56 ranger when most ppl werent even level 60.
I started playing the re-release of it back in december and have a 54 chanter currently, and its fun dont get me wrong, i just mean an updated newer game.
Comments
nothing else to say.
Avid MMO Player
To the point!
I agree, a mmo could never just suck!
People who sandbox games are easy to make, clearly don't understand programming or anything else to do with game development. I don't either, but at least I try to be logical about it. What I mean is, if you want to make one small event affect the whole world, that is a massive amount of programming. If you have dozens of these type of events going on, then it really would be hard to program.
Sandbox games, with a fully open world, is impossible to program on such a large scale.
Minecraft is a sandbox game, I think even by your definition. It exists right now, but I think it more supports your point than refutes your point. The bandwidth needed for Minecraft to run effectively is ridiculous compared to other games. It also gets up and running quickly by have a procedurally generated world that only generates as much landmass as needed, when it's needed.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Developers seem to be using a formula in order to create MMOs. All elements are regulated, planned, analyzed and finely tuned leaving little room for the players to bring the world to life. Think about your favorite games from history, which of those games had bugs and class imbalances?
EQ had tons of problems at launch and throughout alot of its inception. The one consistent theme however was that the players pulled the world together and made the community/servers what they were.
I dont think developers want to take risks these days as MMOs require alot of money and resources to develop. Not taking risks and working outside the box is what killed the genre in my opinion.
i think is more of the time it takes to make a good sandbox, EVE is what it is because it kept evolving itself all this 10 years, changing graphics, adding more ships, fixing bugs, updating their single server hardware architecture, the most part of content has come with every expansion (they started with only subcap ships as far i have read).
that's something no other developers have made well, maybe the guys of UO. but look at WoW or Lineage II, they just added more content instead of improving what they already have. each expansion a new continent, more gear, more levels to grind, more dungeons/raids and quests. its easier to do that than messing around with fixing the current content.
its more of a compromise with the game, every F2P game that comes to the market these days, add an expansion or two and die, they're like the seeds used by the great food industries, these plants only live a season, instead of the traditional plant that can survive throughout the whole year and produce food.
EVE is the great sandbox game here because CCP has compromised with it, while making other games like WoD and DUST514. but keeping its focus on improving the game instead of adding more content, or adding content every certain timek lust look at the Apocrypha expansion.
There's a Cracked article about how the superhero movie genre is about to go bust. There's a cycle that happens in movies, where an experimental director or producer actually hits a vein of something and it works, really well. Then the money starts flowing in, but so does the risk aversion. The big producers move from taking risks to recouping investments. This sounds a lot like what happens in the video game industry. Developers hit something that works, and then mine it until they can't mine it any longer, and then the experimentation starts again.
We had a phase of mining out the experimental thing that worked. The genre hasn't died. Far from it. Now we're starting into a phase of looking for something else that works in a big way. MMOFPS? MMORTS? Hybrid Sandbox/Theme Park? Full On Sandbox? What will it be? This is a more exciting time than ever. Of course, I don't have a vested interest in any particular type of game being the next big thing. If someone is banking on something in particular being the "winner", I suppose it's not very exciting and kind of stressful.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
SUP
Well in DF you did have some other options than just being a hybrid character so no you didn't have to max all the magic schools out.. anyway Darkfall is no more and is now Darkfall:UW where you have set classes so its not an issue anymore.
Rubbish, ArcheAge is seamless with awesome CryEngine 3 graphics.
Here's the deal... if you are trying out *other* games, it means your current game really doesn't interest you any more and you are looking for something new. If you truly were engaged in your current game, you wouldn't even try other games.
The reason none of the new games are as engaging is because you have tired of the formula that originally hooked you. I'd be willing to wager that if vanilla WoW were to be released today, you'd have about 15 minutes of interest in it. Why? Because you've played the genre to death. There's very little spin on the genre that they can do that isn't a rehash of something you've already done. You say you want better combat... then what? The game is still the same, only the combat has changed. Do you really think your brain isn't going to pick up on the fact that the game is the same, just the animations have changed?
We're beating a dead horse here... try as you might... you can't go back to the old days... this isn't Back to the Future... there's no wayback machine that will port you back to your youth when things were seemingly better. The reality is, it's not better the second time around, it's just the same. Knowing what you know now would massively alter your experience to the point that it would never be the same.
Time to get the developers to invent a new wheel and stop trying to put a new spin on the same old tires. That's what you are really craving... something so new, it doesn't even have a genre label yet. You know, something so cool that only 10 years ago no one would have ever guessed such a thing would be possible. What we keep getting is things that already exist today just shuffled about.
not at all take a look at games like Xsyon.. one person can dig a big hole in the world and that changes it for everyone, someone can build a building or leaves a log on floor everyone can see it.. and this game was made on a very low budget so imagine what someone with real money could get done.
The technology has been around for ages but no one is willing to put real money into it as all the big AAA publishers look at WOWs 9 million players and go yes we want 9 million players as well so we will copy wow.. What they did to do is totally ignore wow and look at the average amount of players that other mmos have and base their game around those numbers.
Anyway because of kickstarter we now have some very good looking sandbox mmos on the way and I for one am looking forward to the next 5 years of MMOs and I am pretty sure we will start seeing less and less wow clones.
I have played Xyson as well as Tale in the Desert (all the versions). The problem was the learning curve was super high, the things you could do were really simple only, anything really complicated could not be done. Bluntly put, digging a hole - whoop de do - now building a huge city and then having it knocked down and affect everything has not been done and can't be. Yes some have castle sieges but that castle is never abandoned. It is just rebuilt.
"I noticed in this subject that some people said "Fact is that no one will play semi sandbox games once they are released". That is nonsense. People will, the difference is that it would go back to the normal numbers MMORPG's had before WoW"
That is the problem. The cost of making a game that will attract people with the looks and functions people expect now cost more than those limited numbers of people subbing will generate. Then you end up with scaled down graphics that get bashed or buggy/lacking system that gets bashed. Eve has the great chance of actually building up now days people want the Ferrari out of the gate not a pinto that they have to wait for it to be upgraded.
I think you will find there are some very very large player built cities in Xsyon.
You can do a lot more than just dig a hole btw i was using that as an example of what could be done to change the world for everyone. You can change the way the world looks basically only limited to how big your clan area is.
Cant comment on tale in the desert as i have not played it buy Xsyon does not have a big learning curve at all, its actually quite easy to pick up. its certainly not a perfect game tho as its been done on a very very small budget.
Also what do you mean the things you could do where only simple and nothing complicated could be done? What do you consider complicated ?
Check out some of the multi-story buidings in this video
So they built a city. Has a city ever been attacked, destroyed and abandoned and let the environment take over? Like in RL. I don't think so. People who talk about Sandbox games as open and living mean just what it says. It is impossible right now. There are Sandbox games, but they all have limits. It is just the players don't see it.
Well the clan wars have not been added in quite yet but yeah i believe the plan was to allow people to be able to attack other cities. Recently they just added in city upkeep system so now clans need to fund their city otherwise it will decay over time and then the wildlife will take back over.. the game is still in development, but I believe this is the kind of thing the dev wanted to do..
The animals freely roam around the world in xsyon, they can wander into the mists and mutate into big nasty versions as well, if you get killed by a zombie type mob then they will loot your copse and use your gear.
At the end of the day these are games we play and of course they have limits but thats not to say the technology is not there to do what you suggest, its just no one has bothered to try and do it as they are busy making wow clones..
I think you will find there are some very very large player built cities in Xsyon. You can do a lot more than just dig a hole btw i was using that as an example of what could be done to change the world for everyone. You can change the way the world looks basically only limited to how big your clan area is. Cant comment on tale in the desert as i have not played it buy Xsyon does not have a big learning curve at all, its actually quite easy to pick up. its certainly not a perfect game tho as its been done on a very very small budget. Also what do you mean the things you could do where only simple and nothing complicated could be done? What do you consider complicated ? Check out some of the multi-story buidings in this video
So they built a city. Has a city ever been attacked, destroyed and abandoned and let the environment take over? Like in RL. I don't think so. People who talk about Sandbox games as open and living mean just what it says. It is impossible right now. There are Sandbox games, but they all have limits. It is just the players don't see it.
Take anything to the ultimate extreme and it will eventually fail. People keep bringing up games that meet the criteria of "sandbox", and other people keep moving the bar to show how things aren't possible.
It is not only possible to create a sandbox MMO, the technology already exists and it's in play right now. Technology is not an excuse for seamless sandbox games not existing.
Is lack of technology an excuse for world simulators that mimic the world down to an atomic level not existing? Yes. But that's not a sandbox game, that's a world simulator.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Sign me up too. Currently playing the "beta" of Asheron's Call 2 for that old-time game feel. The graphics are not great but it is challenging, or at least more so than most of the nerfed games now. There is a population on it, it seems relatively friendly, groups seem to be part of the game.
this is not boring me, and that is important. is it sandbox - perhaps semi in that you apply xp to skills as you go along so the strength of your skills, and the selection of which skills is up to you. Still exploring it.
Currently bored with MMO's.
The lack of sandbox MMO is never about technology. It is about supply and demand (or the lack of).
I've been running with the general theme of the thread myself. I think maybe it's that seamless sandbox MMOs aren't the dominant or common type of MMO that gets created.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Please tell me what your definition of non-intrusive is? And what would be intrusive?
I played AC2 from 03-04 and had a 56 ranger when most ppl werent even level 60.
I started playing the re-release of it back in december and have a 54 chanter currently, and its fun dont get me wrong, i just mean an updated newer game.