Yup, I think most of you envision some 2020 gaming. I don't think you'll see what your asking for, for at least another 5 more years. One step at a time. Take what you can get now my friend. Its the best you can get and atleat 500% better end game sandbox then every MMO out to date.
There is no end game sandbox. Quest hubs and a large instanced world just doesn't equal sandbox. But meh, you can just keep repeating it over and over again. I don't think anyone is actually taking the claim seriously any longer because of what you said constitutes a sandbox earlier.
Like I said, your vision of a sandbox is that of RUST or Dayz, how can an RPG exist in your vision of one. Why don't you make a post and tell us every single thing you want in an MMORPG sandbox so we can understand you better?
A sandbox is where you have an effect of some sort on the actual world (Destroying landscape, building a home, capturing a PVP area(No Cyrodiil is not a Sandbox area either)), not being instanced and viewable to all. Having an open world does not equal a sandbox. Which is why some are responding in this way.
(Look at "The Repopulation" or "Star Wars Galaxies" for an actual sandbox, or at least most people refer to. Sorry, but this is not that.)
(Edit: Can't believe I forgot EVE 0.o(Massive sandbox))
Acording to your description this is a Sandbox then. You have exactly all of those things in this game. The world changes, other players do not see the same world as you see it because of the choices you make on quests. They've said this over and over. Its the phased technology they have.
The only thing that's missing is that you cant build things... lets wait and see if they give us the MOD kit like they did for SKYRIM first on that one.
Branching quest results are not sandbox. That is pre-scripted branching and definitely not sandbox. If there is no building, if gear isn't completely crafted, then it's not a sandbox.
Have they at all hinted at allowing mod kits in this game? They've said yes to UI mods, but that's it. What would make you think they would allow modkits in this game? Cryptic went through the limitations of UGC in an mmo with the Foundry. How has Zeni overcome those things?
I agree. I see nearly zero ways for them to implement modding. Skyrim only had it because it was a single player game...so that's fairly standard practice. The only way they would do this would be to create something exactly like foundry in Neverwinter. However I do not think their engine is good enough (imo) to handle this.
Yup, I think most of you envision some 2020 gaming. I don't think you'll see what your asking for, for at least another 5 more years. One step at a time. Take what you can get now my friend. Its the best you can get and atleat 500% better end game sandbox then every MMO out to date.
There is no end game sandbox. Quest hubs and a large instanced world just doesn't equal sandbox. But meh, you can just keep repeating it over and over again. I don't think anyone is actually taking the claim seriously any longer because of what you said constitutes a sandbox earlier.
Like I said, your vision of a sandbox is that of RUST or Dayz, how can an RPG exist in your vision of one. Why don't you make a post and tell us every single thing you want in an MMORPG sandbox so we can understand you better?
A sandbox is where you have an effect of some sort on the actual world (Destroying landscape, building a home, capturing a PVP area(No Cyrodiil is not a Sandbox area either)), not being instanced and viewable to all. Having an open world does not equal a sandbox. Which is why some are responding in this way.
(Look at "The Repopulation" or "Star Wars Galaxies" for an actual sandbox, or at least most people refer to. Sorry, but this is not that.)
(Edit: Can't believe I forgot EVE 0.o(Massive sandbox))
Acording to your description this is a Sandbox then. You have exactly all of those things in this game. The world changes, other players do not see the same world as you see it because of the choices you make on quests. They've said this over and over. Its the phased technology they have.
The only thing that's missing is that you can build things... lets wait and see if they give us the MOD kit like they did for SKYRIM first on that one.
No, phasing does not equal sandbox. Actually, using phasing to change the world for every player individually is pretty much the antithesis of sandbox.
it is a sandbox, just a players private sandbox.
Remember sim city? (not the most recent one) the world changed based on a players dicisions. That is a sandbox, yet only lets one person affect the sand.
Much the same thing here.
So sandbox, yes.
Sandbox MMO, no.
Yes, Sim City is a sandbox. But in ESO, you can't control what you change. Things change as you go through the story. Once again, no control over it. If you consider WoW a sandbox, then sure, you can consider this game a sandbox as well.
But for the definition commonly used to describe games like EVE, Perpetuum, Xsyon, Minecraft and Wurm there is almost nothing in this game that anyone would call sandbox.
Yup, I think most of you envision some 2020 gaming. I don't think you'll see what your asking for, for at least another 5 more years. One step at a time. Take what you can get now my friend. Its the best you can get and atleat 500% better end game sandbox then every MMO out to date.
There is no end game sandbox. Quest hubs and a large instanced world just doesn't equal sandbox. But meh, you can just keep repeating it over and over again. I don't think anyone is actually taking the claim seriously any longer because of what you said constitutes a sandbox earlier.
Like I said, your vision of a sandbox is that of RUST or Dayz, how can an RPG exist in your vision of one. Why don't you make a post and tell us every single thing you want in an MMORPG sandbox so we can understand you better?
A sandbox is where you have an effect of some sort on the actual world (Destroying landscape, building a home, capturing a PVP area(No Cyrodiil is not a Sandbox area either)), not being instanced and viewable to all. Having an open world does not equal a sandbox. Which is why some are responding in this way.
(Look at "The Repopulation" or "Star Wars Galaxies" for an actual sandbox, or at least most people refer to. Sorry, but this is not that.)
(Edit: Can't believe I forgot EVE 0.o(Massive sandbox))
Acording to your description this is a Sandbox then. You have exactly all of those things in this game. The world changes, other players do not see the same world as you see it because of the choices you make on quests. They've said this over and over. Its the phased technology they have.
The only thing that's missing is that you can build things... lets wait and see if they give us the MOD kit like they did for SKYRIM first on that one.
No, phasing does not equal sandbox. Actually, using phasing to change the world for every player individually is pretty much the antithesis of sandbox.
it is a sandbox, just a players private sandbox.
Remember sim city? (not the most recent one) the world changed based on a players dicisions. That is a sandbox, yet only lets one person affect the sand.
Much the same thing here.
So sandbox, yes.
Sandbox MMO, no.
The farthest I would go would be a sandpark, but even Wildstar has more sandbox features than this, and if instancing a changing world was considered sandbox.....then WoW is a massive sandbox. Which isn't the case.
Yup, I think most of you envision some 2020 gaming. I don't think you'll see what your asking for, for at least another 5 more years. One step at a time. Take what you can get now my friend. Its the best you can get and atleat 500% better end game sandbox then every MMO out to date.
There is no end game sandbox. Quest hubs and a large instanced world just doesn't equal sandbox. But meh, you can just keep repeating it over and over again. I don't think anyone is actually taking the claim seriously any longer because of what you said constitutes a sandbox earlier.
Like I said, your vision of a sandbox is that of RUST or Dayz, how can an RPG exist in your vision of one. Why don't you make a post and tell us every single thing you want in an MMORPG sandbox so we can understand you better?
A sandbox is where you have an effect of some sort on the actual world (Destroying landscape, building a home, capturing a PVP area(No Cyrodiil is not a Sandbox area either)), not being instanced and viewable to all. Having an open world does not equal a sandbox. Which is why some are responding in this way.
(Look at "The Repopulation" or "Star Wars Galaxies" for an actual sandbox, or at least most people refer to. Sorry, but this is not that.)
(Edit: Can't believe I forgot EVE 0.o(Massive sandbox))
Acording to your description this is a Sandbox then. You have exactly all of those things in this game. The world changes, other players do not see the same world as you see it because of the choices you make on quests. They've said this over and over. Its the phased technology they have.
The only thing that's missing is that you cant build things... lets wait and see if they give us the MOD kit like they did for SKYRIM first on that one.
Branching quest results are not sandbox. That is pre-scripted branching and definitely not sandbox. If there is no building, if gear isn't completely crafted, then it's not a sandbox.
Have they at all hinted at allowing mod kits in this game? They've said yes to UI mods, but that's it. What would make you think they would allow modkits in this game? Cryptic went through the limitations of UGC in an mmo with the Foundry. How has Zeni overcome those things?
Yeah I think what your looking for is RUST and Dayz. I don't get the building thing. I don't think most people would love a complete empty world where you build everything from scratch in an MMORPG.
RPG is there for a reason, and there has to be some RPG level to a game, like Quests, IN ESO you DONT HAVE to do Quests, but the fact is, if you play like that, and I wont bash anyone who does, will probably not find a lot of fun adventure other then the beautiful scenery and mobs to kill.
And if you don't want quests in your sandbox then Dayz or RUST is out there, great games, can build and all that stuff, absolutely no quests. Definatly MMO's but not RPG's because they have no storylines or quests in it.
Yup, I think most of you envision some 2020 gaming. I don't think you'll see what your asking for, for at least another 5 more years. One step at a time. Take what you can get now my friend. Its the best you can get and atleat 500% better end game sandbox then every MMO out to date.
There is no end game sandbox. Quest hubs and a large instanced world just doesn't equal sandbox. But meh, you can just keep repeating it over and over again. I don't think anyone is actually taking the claim seriously any longer because of what you said constitutes a sandbox earlier.
Like I said, your vision of a sandbox is that of RUST or Dayz, how can an RPG exist in your vision of one. Why don't you make a post and tell us every single thing you want in an MMORPG sandbox so we can understand you better?
A sandbox is where you have an effect of some sort on the actual world (Destroying landscape, building a home, capturing a PVP area(No Cyrodiil is not a Sandbox area either)), not being instanced and viewable to all. Having an open world does not equal a sandbox. Which is why some are responding in this way.
(Look at "The Repopulation" or "Star Wars Galaxies" for an actual sandbox, or at least most people refer to. Sorry, but this is not that.)
(Edit: Can't believe I forgot EVE 0.o(Massive sandbox))
Acording to your description this is a Sandbox then. You have exactly all of those things in this game. The world changes, other players do not see the same world as you see it because of the choices you make on quests. They've said this over and over. Its the phased technology they have.
The only thing that's missing is that you cant build things... lets wait and see if they give us the MOD kit like they did for SKYRIM first on that one.
Branching quest results are not sandbox. That is pre-scripted branching and definitely not sandbox. If there is no building, if gear isn't completely crafted, then it's not a sandbox.
Have they at all hinted at allowing mod kits in this game? They've said yes to UI mods, but that's it. What would make you think they would allow modkits in this game? Cryptic went through the limitations of UGC in an mmo with the Foundry. How has Zeni overcome those things?
Yeah I think what your looking for is RUST and Dayz. I don't get the building thing. I don't think most people would love a complete empty world where you build everything from scratch in an MMORPG.
RPG is there for a reason, and there has to be some RPG level to a game, like Quests, IN ESO you DONT HAVE to do Quests, but the fact is, if you play like that, and I wont bash anyone who does, will probably not find a lot of fun adventure other then the beautiful scenery and mobs to kill.
And if you don't want quests in your sandbox then Dayz or RUST is out there, great games, can build and all that stuff, absolutely no quests. Definatly MMO's but not RPG's because they have no storylines or quests in it.
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Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Yeah I think what your looking for is RUST and Dayz. I don't get the building thing. I don't think most people would love a complete empty world where you build everything from scratch in an MMORPG. RPG is there for a reason, and there has to be some RPG level to a game, like Quests, IN ESO you DONT HAVE to do Quests, but the fact is, if you play like that, and I wont bash anyone who does, will probably not find a lot of fun adventure.
And if you don't want quests in your sandbox then Dayz or RUST is out there, great games, can build and all that stuff, absolutely no quests. Definatly MMO's but not RPG's because they have no storylines or quests in it.
People actually do find sandbox MMORPGs fun. Sandbox games often do have quests and side things you can do that are created by the developer and not the players. But they also have the sand part of it. ESO does not have that part and so should not be considered one.
And there is nothing wrong with that. Not every game is a sandbox and there is no reason to try and smash that term onto this one.
I am glad you are excited for this title. Really, I am
However, I dare you take your 1st level Nord and veture forth to High Rock. How about heading right out to Summerset Isles?
Being able to "explore" does not a sandbox make. WoW is a sandbox by this definition, as is EQ 1 and many, many other themepark MMOs.
Like Nadia pointed out, I'm curious how long it will take to reach level cap...
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
That's RIGHT!!! MAIN STORYLINE ONLY 5-6 HOURS LONG>>>> Meaning, you can FREE ROAM PLAY and EXPLORE ALL YOU WANT, WHERE YOU WANT and WHEN YOU WANT, FREE to do the SIDE QUEST CHAINS in ANY ORDER just like SKYRIM had.
I'm curious on how long does it take to reach level cap ? days? weeks ?
My money is on players capping out within the first or second day of the game's release/pre-release.
Thats completely impossible.
SandPark, with a capital P.
Lol, we'll see. But I swear if I see a Twitch streamer or Livestreamer hitting level cap in the first 24 hours I'm rubbing it in your face :P
And if you don't want quests in your sandbox then Dayz or RUST is out there, great games, can build and all that stuff, absolutely no quests. Definatly MMO's but not RPG's because they have no storylines or quests in it.
I think you have those 2 backwards, which would explain a lot.
I am glad you are excited for this title. Really, I am
However, I dare you take your 1st level Nord and veture forth to High Rock. How about heading right out to Summerset Isles?
Being able to "explore" does not a sandbox make. WoW is a sandbox by this definition, as is EQ 1 and many, many other themepark MMOs.
Like Nadia pointed out, I'm curious how long it will take to reach level cap...
Why? It doesn't matter how long it takes for the normal person, there will be the few crazies who stay up forever or work 1 character as a team to get to max level as fast as possible, then everyone will go "oh look you can level to max in x amount of days because that person did it!" How long it takes to reach level cap is individualized to each player and their playstyle anyway.
Themepark is associated with certain design features. Themepark is about predefined or guided game play with event hubs and repeatable instances. Some open game play design features aren't within either of those circles. Open game play is about freedom of choice, but doesn't necessarily mean building, creating, and altering. Open game play means a player can choose or combine different activities to play and progress how they want. RPG can be in any or all of those elements and none of those elements implies RPG.
Many games use a combination of those design features. So what design features about ESO are sandbox? I think at best the game can be described as a combination of themepark and open gameplay design features. The PvP certainly looks to be a combination of themepark (predefined factions) and open (can partake in different aspects) designs. Can you build keeps? Can you tear them down? Can you actually change the boundaries of Cyrodil? Not sandbox.
And like I said above, even if it were sandbox so what? Sandbox, by most accounts, doesn't automatically mean a better game experience.
Ok, fair enough, Open game play defined as you just stated is exactly what this game is. I don't however agree with your definition as theme park actually being inside this game. This game has no guided gameplay with event hubs outside of the tutorial and what they mention as intermediate zones. They state that the reason for these things being in the game were to guide you into the features of the game and how to understand the game, and would be a very small fraction of the game. The rest of the game looks 100% what you describe as a Open game play.
Unfortunately, your definition of what a sandbox is, is defiantly not this game. for me, I think it satisfies my definition of a sandbox which you would call Open game play.
Also to me the term themepark as you describe it would be considered the term linear in my definition. I think Nick the dev best explains this as the tutorial and intermediate zone. Which again is a fraction of the gameworld, and how it then Opens up to Open game play by the way you describe it.
Originally posted by AlBQuirky I am glad you are excited for this title. Really, I am :)However, I dare you take your 1st level Nord and veture forth to High Rock. How about heading right out to Summerset Isles?Being able to "explore" does not a sandbox make. WoW is a sandbox by this definition, as is EQ 1 and many, many other themepark MMOs.Like Nadia pointed out, I'm curious how long it will take to reach level cap...
Why? It doesn't matter how long it takes for the normal person, there will be the few crazies who stay up forever or work 1 character as a team to get to max level as fast as possible, then everyone will go "oh look you can level to max in x amount of days because that person did it!" How long it takes to reach level cap is individualized to each player and their playstyle anyway.
While very true, the latest fad is to have leveling done in a "fast as possible" time frame. The last few "new" MMOs I've played had extraordinarily fast leveling in their design.
I don't play MMOs "to get to the end game." I play them for the journey. If that journey is short and sweet, no sense in playing it...
I spent about $100 on Skyrim (DLCs included when they came out) and have put in over 2000 hours playing. I am STILL playing it, over 2 years later. I spent even less on Morrowind, my favorite game of the series thus far, and have even more hours played. Spending $60 on TES:O and $15 every month for a few months of fun is just not worth the initial investment to me. I foresee 3 playable characters, 1 from each faction for replayablity. Not a lot to keep me playing in this world created by ZOS.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
This is taken out of context. For instance, Tera has story quests that you have to travel from different areas to start because they require you to be certain levels to do them. The guy clearly stated IF you could play them all together (you can't) that the story quests alone would be 5-6 hours. It's linear (trust me). This is coming from a guy who is DEFINITELY not a beta tester =P
I think if what your worried about end game being short, I think your going to be pleasantly surprised. End game is the larget part of the game. Your going to get insane amounts of gametime at end game progression. Like I said, 4/5 of the game world is all end game hours your going to be playing, with nonstop content coming up. Just from what I seen from videos and talk, we will NEVER run out of content end game like other MMO's.
A lot of MMO's don't think about actually giving the entire gameworld to END GAME Players. That's why I'm so happy with ESO, is that almost the entire gameworld is END GAME content. When was the last time you seen a game give this large of the gameworld just to end game.
Also look at Cyrodiil alone, is the size of the ENTIRE Oblivion game world, they even used the same map blueprint for it. I hope that gives you a small idea of just how insane amount of hours we are going to have in end game.
Just to give you an idea of how huge this gameworld is, and keeping in mind how much time its going to take you to complete it watch what Nick the ESO dev says.
Originally posted by AlBQuirky I am glad you are excited for this title. Really, I am
However, I dare you take your 1st level Nord and veture forth to High Rock. How about heading right out to Summerset Isles?
Being able to "explore" does not a sandbox make. WoW is a sandbox by this definition, as is EQ 1 and many, many other themepark MMOs.
Like Nadia pointed out, I'm curious how long it will take to reach level cap...
Why? It doesn't matter how long it takes for the normal person, there will be the few crazies who stay up forever or work 1 character as a team to get to max level as fast as possible, then everyone will go "oh look you can level to max in x amount of days because that person did it!" How long it takes to reach level cap is individualized to each player and their playstyle anyway.
While very true, the latest fad is to have leveling done in a "fast as possible" time frame. The last few "new" MMOs I've played had extraordinarily fast leveling in their design.
I don't play MMOs "to get to the end game." I play them for the journey. If that journey is short and sweet, no sense in playing it...
I spent about $100 on Skyrim (DLCs included when they came out) and have put in over 2000 hours playing. I am STILL playing it, over 2 years later. I spent even less on Morrowind, my favorite game of the series thus far, and have even more hours played. Spending $60 on TES:O and $15 every month for a few months of fun is just not worth the initial investment to me. I foresee 3 playable characters, 1 from each faction for replayablity. Not a lot to keep me playing in this world created by ZOS.
Why 3 chars? Make a single char and visit every zone otherwise you will never experience the game as designed by the very same company that created 2000 hours of content for you in the past.
You do know that you can war with masses of other real life humans 24 hours a day in this game right? I just do not understand where you are coming from on the peanuts in price difference between this game and a single player. Then again, i have seen people bitch about a 6 buck Chinese buffet that tasted awesome.
I think the difference would be your forced to do certain zones up to max lvl and only have a few zones left at max lvl to do stuff which boxes you in with most MMO's. In ESO 4/5 of the world will be played at max lvl 50, so you really get the Majority of the Enire game world as a sandbox unlike most MMOs.
4/5 of the game with no character progression? That sounds really boring.
No leveling doesn't mean no character progression. The bulk of the progression in the game will be skill point gathering, not levels.
Very hard question to answer in all fairness. It spans multiple levels, so it really depends on the player. If you could play them all together…? Five – Six hours? This is a WAG.
That's RIGHT!!! MAIN STORYLINE ONLY 5-6 HOURS LONG>>>> Meaning, you can FREE ROAM PLAY and EXPLORE ALL YOU WANT, WHERE YOU WANT and WHEN YOU WANT, FREE to do the SIDE QUEST CHAINS in ANY ORDER just like SKYRIM had.
Maybe even Sandbox?
5-6 hours of Main Storyline. 200+ of linear quest hub driven design.
I fail to see where the open world exploration centric content lays.
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!!!
I must be missing something...How does this prove non-linearity....it could just mean that the bulk of the games PvE is in side quests that go along the main storylines path,this is what SW:TOR did,or that you can explore anywhere you want at any time.
I'm not saying that TESO is Linear or not,I haven't played it to know first hand but I don't see how this constitutes proof at all.
What the OP states doesn't necessarily. If you watch the video, what the Devs say does.
It's not like SWTOR. SWTOR was very much WoW-style quest hubs, led tightly by the main storyline.
ESO is much more like Skyrim / GW2. They both have a main story that guides you around the world, but the bulk of the lvling comes from exploring, discovery, etc. And while the main story can server as a general guide to the world, it doesn't drag you through it.
Not true from my understanding most of the quests still come from hubs or while traveling to the next city. It's still linear and not like Skyrim where you can run off any direction and find points of interest to explore. Some may or may not contain quests. In ESO everything is tied to a quest or a quest giver somewhere else in the world that will guide you to said point of interest. So in in essence it's still very much linear in theme.
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!!!
Originally posted by kyssari Probably been mentioned but I didn't skim the entire 5 pages of the thread but yeah, ESO is nowhere near nonlinear free roam exploration like SKyrim or ANY ES game at all. Theres a traditional leveling system meaning if you wander anywhere to far without leveling first your going to encounter higher level mobs that will melt your face before you even see em coming, they don't scale like in real ES games, that alone will greatly limit your explorability. Add to that the fact you cant enter the 2/3 of the world controlled by the other 2 factions and yeah... free roam exploration what?? You'll find quests by exploring sure but you won't be able to explore higher areas until you lvl up first thus requiring you to progress through each level of area in the typical linear fashion.
Exactly right. Well except for the 2/3'rds areas. They changed it pretty late in development that once you get to level 50 you can explore the other 2 factions territories through 50+ and 50++ zone. The rest of your post is 100% accurate.
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!!!
I think its sad that people break their NDA over this part of the game, and others call the WHOLE game linear over something the DEV's of the GAME have already RELEASED to us and is just a small fraction of the game.
Yup, I think most of you envision some 2020 gaming. I don't think you'll see what your asking for, for at least another 5 more years. One step at a time. Take what you can get now my friend. Its the best you can get and atleat 500% better end game sandbox then every MMO out to date.
Don't rob yourself of the 4/5 of the gameworld as an END GAME sandbox just because you have to go through 1/5 of it as a leveling system.... it would be shame to see you threw away such fun over that 1/5 of what you don't like.
That 2020 game you mentioned was prevalent and common in the early days of MMO's. That is what a great many of us want and are looking forward too but thanks to the success of Blizzard and WoW. The linear, quest driven, hand-holding success of WoW has stagnated the genre for way too long and from what we've seen, ESO doesn't deviate enough from this gamestyle hence the negativity it has received. Well that and it actually deviated from what the original RPG single player series were like. That's the issue I have with the game. Don't tell me that many of the elements of Skyrim couldn't be done because these Devs didn't try. Especially considering many of those elements were present back in the early MMO days, pre 1999.
I think you need to look up the term sandbox and learn what it actually means. ESO is as far from a sandbox as a game can get. Hell it isn't even an open world game from we've been told.
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!!!
Originally posted by Kyleran Theme box or sand park are probably better terms to describe this title, as most still agree it is not really a sand box style mmo by the classic definition.
What features would you say are sandbox-like?
If I get you right you want Every Mob in game to be your level at the START of the game? Is that the only beef you have with it? Before people said you had to follow a main storyline and were outraged, now we find out its only 5-6 hours long. Is 5-6 hours that bad to have to go through, would you consider that linear? Should the game have NO Quests? Is that what you want? Idk you tell me.
No quests would be a huge start.
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!!!
This whole thread is proof that marketing works. However, with an NDA in place, what the developers have to say about the game doesn't mean a whole lot. Put your money where your mouth is and drop the NDA. If what you say is true, the testers will have the same thing to say. If what you say is marketing spin, we'll all know that pretty quickly as well...
Comments
I agree. I see nearly zero ways for them to implement modding. Skyrim only had it because it was a single player game...so that's fairly standard practice. The only way they would do this would be to create something exactly like foundry in Neverwinter. However I do not think their engine is good enough (imo) to handle this.
Yes, Sim City is a sandbox. But in ESO, you can't control what you change. Things change as you go through the story. Once again, no control over it. If you consider WoW a sandbox, then sure, you can consider this game a sandbox as well.
But for the definition commonly used to describe games like EVE, Perpetuum, Xsyon, Minecraft and Wurm there is almost nothing in this game that anyone would call sandbox.
The farthest I would go would be a sandpark, but even Wildstar has more sandbox features than this, and if instancing a changing world was considered sandbox.....then WoW is a massive sandbox. Which isn't the case.
Yeah I think what your looking for is RUST and Dayz. I don't get the building thing. I don't think most people would love a complete empty world where you build everything from scratch in an MMORPG.
RPG is there for a reason, and there has to be some RPG level to a game, like Quests, IN ESO you DONT HAVE to do Quests, but the fact is, if you play like that, and I wont bash anyone who does, will probably not find a lot of fun adventure other then the beautiful scenery and mobs to kill.
And if you don't want quests in your sandbox then Dayz or RUST is out there, great games, can build and all that stuff, absolutely no quests. Definatly MMO's but not RPG's because they have no storylines or quests in it.
..........................Well, I'm out.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
People actually do find sandbox MMORPGs fun. Sandbox games often do have quests and side things you can do that are created by the developer and not the players. But they also have the sand part of it. ESO does not have that part and so should not be considered one.
And there is nothing wrong with that. Not every game is a sandbox and there is no reason to try and smash that term onto this one.
I am glad you are excited for this title. Really, I am
However, I dare you take your 1st level Nord and veture forth to High Rock. How about heading right out to Summerset Isles?
Being able to "explore" does not a sandbox make. WoW is a sandbox by this definition, as is EQ 1 and many, many other themepark MMOs.
Like Nadia pointed out, I'm curious how long it will take to reach level cap...
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
http://tamrielfoundry.com/2014/01/qa-with-paul-sage/ 1:29:44
You can bet there will be people who FLY to 50 as fast as possible!
I think you have those 2 backwards, which would explain a lot.
Why? It doesn't matter how long it takes for the normal person, there will be the few crazies who stay up forever or work 1 character as a team to get to max level as fast as possible, then everyone will go "oh look you can level to max in x amount of days because that person did it!" How long it takes to reach level cap is individualized to each player and their playstyle anyway.
Ok, fair enough, Open game play defined as you just stated is exactly what this game is. I don't however agree with your definition as theme park actually being inside this game. This game has no guided gameplay with event hubs outside of the tutorial and what they mention as intermediate zones. They state that the reason for these things being in the game were to guide you into the features of the game and how to understand the game, and would be a very small fraction of the game. The rest of the game looks 100% what you describe as a Open game play.
Unfortunately, your definition of what a sandbox is, is defiantly not this game. for me, I think it satisfies my definition of a sandbox which you would call Open game play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80mHQNA45js 1:57:33 Nick the ESO dev explains the Linear tutorial and intermediate zone (Themepark part of the game)
Also to me the term themepark as you describe it would be considered the term linear in my definition. I think Nick the dev best explains this as the tutorial and intermediate zone. Which again is a fraction of the gameworld, and how it then Opens up to Open game play by the way you describe it.
I don't play MMOs "to get to the end game." I play them for the journey. If that journey is short and sweet, no sense in playing it...
I spent about $100 on Skyrim (DLCs included when they came out) and have put in over 2000 hours playing. I am STILL playing it, over 2 years later. I spent even less on Morrowind, my favorite game of the series thus far, and have even more hours played. Spending $60 on TES:O and $15 every month for a few months of fun is just not worth the initial investment to me. I foresee 3 playable characters, 1 from each faction for replayablity. Not a lot to keep me playing in this world created by ZOS.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
FOR AIBQUIRKY,
I think if what your worried about end game being short, I think your going to be pleasantly surprised. End game is the larget part of the game. Your going to get insane amounts of gametime at end game progression. Like I said, 4/5 of the game world is all end game hours your going to be playing, with nonstop content coming up. Just from what I seen from videos and talk, we will NEVER run out of content end game like other MMO's.
A lot of MMO's don't think about actually giving the entire gameworld to END GAME Players. That's why I'm so happy with ESO, is that almost the entire gameworld is END GAME content. When was the last time you seen a game give this large of the gameworld just to end game.
Also look at Cyrodiil alone, is the size of the ENTIRE Oblivion game world, they even used the same map blueprint for it. I hope that gives you a small idea of just how insane amount of hours we are going to have in end game.
Just to give you an idea of how huge this gameworld is, and keeping in mind how much time its going to take you to complete it watch what Nick the ESO dev says.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80mHQNA45js 1:26:56
"It is big, it is really big, I have been working on the game for six years and I haven't been everywhere" - Nick Konkle
I think when all is said and done, You'll really love this game.
Why 3 chars? Make a single char and visit every zone otherwise you will never experience the game as designed by the very same company that created 2000 hours of content for you in the past.
You do know that you can war with masses of other real life humans 24 hours a day in this game right? I just do not understand where you are coming from on the peanuts in price difference between this game and a single player. Then again, i have seen people bitch about a 6 buck Chinese buffet that tasted awesome.
No leveling doesn't mean no character progression. The bulk of the progression in the game will be skill point gathering, not levels.
5-6 hours of Main Storyline. 200+ of linear quest hub driven design.
I fail to see where the open world exploration centric content lays.
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!!!
Not true from my understanding most of the quests still come from hubs or while traveling to the next city. It's still linear and not like Skyrim where you can run off any direction and find points of interest to explore. Some may or may not contain quests. In ESO everything is tied to a quest or a quest giver somewhere else in the world that will guide you to said point of interest. So in in essence it's still very much linear in theme.
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!!!
Exactly right. Well except for the 2/3'rds areas. They changed it pretty late in development that once you get to level 50 you can explore the other 2 factions territories through 50+ and 50++ zone. The rest of your post is 100% accurate.
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!!!
I think its sad that people break their NDA over this part of the game, and others call the WHOLE game linear over something the DEV's of the GAME have already RELEASED to us and is just a small fraction of the game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80mHQNA45js 1:57:33 Nick the ESO dev explains the Linear tutorial and intermediate zone (Themepark part of the game)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80mHQNA45js 1:24:00 Nick the dev again.
That 2020 game you mentioned was prevalent and common in the early days of MMO's. That is what a great many of us want and are looking forward too but thanks to the success of Blizzard and WoW. The linear, quest driven, hand-holding success of WoW has stagnated the genre for way too long and from what we've seen, ESO doesn't deviate enough from this gamestyle hence the negativity it has received. Well that and it actually deviated from what the original RPG single player series were like. That's the issue I have with the game. Don't tell me that many of the elements of Skyrim couldn't be done because these Devs didn't try. Especially considering many of those elements were present back in the early MMO days, pre 1999.
I think you need to look up the term sandbox and learn what it actually means. ESO is as far from a sandbox as a game can get. Hell it isn't even an open world game from we've been told.
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!!!
No quests would be a huge start.
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!!!