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Sandbox != No content.
Mrbloodworth
Member Posts: 5,615
Sandbox != No content.
A sandbox having no content is simply not true, however, for a good number of sandboxes this has been true, but that’s not the game types fault, its whoever made it.
The number 1 thing a sandbox provides is tools. User tools. Things like guild tools, Player city tools, User created NPC tools, Player event tools, a real economy (IE: Pigs do not drop ready to wear plate armor). Interdependencies between different players that have different skills.
There can still be story lines (I haven’t seen a sandbox mmo that doesn’t), adventure areas, story arches.
Ryzom is a perfect example of this, the Ryzom ring is a complete tool set for users to create there own instance, and adventures right inside the mmo for others to join. Sandboxes are more akin to DnD, as opposed to "Gamey games" that pull/push you threw a predetermined route of progression/game play.
Sandbox games are all about options, and no restrictions. Want to walk your freshly made toon to the fiery pits of hell? Go for it, you wont find level restrictions on anything, and you can get there if you survive.
Most times Sandboxes are also skill based, or use based systems, as in you make your own "Class" by doing activities that you wish to do...
Go out chopping trees, and each time your tree chopping skill will go up. This means, that instead of by class, you make yourself skill by skill. It is totally possible to be a healing, spear using, chef that has a thing for breading pink ponies.
But it’s a complete misunderstanding that a sandbox game has no content, you can still have quests, adventure areas, ETC... But most of the content is generated by other users, the developers make the art assets, and the tools to support the players TRUELEY shaping the world.
A sandbox having no content is simply not true, however, for a good number of sandboxes this has been true, but that’s not the game types fault, its whoever made it.
The number 1 thing a sandbox provides is tools. User tools. Things like guild tools, Player city tools, User created NPC tools, Player event tools, a real economy (IE: Pigs do not drop ready to wear plate armor). Interdependencies between different players that have different skills.
There can still be story lines (I haven’t seen a sandbox mmo that doesn’t), adventure areas, story arches.
Ryzom is a perfect example of this, the Ryzom ring is a complete tool set for users to create there own instance, and adventures right inside the mmo for others to join. Sandboxes are more akin to DnD, as opposed to "Gamey games" that pull/push you threw a predetermined route of progression/game play.
Sandbox games are all about options, and no restrictions. Want to walk your freshly made toon to the fiery pits of hell? Go for it, you wont find level restrictions on anything, and you can get there if you survive.
Most times Sandboxes are also skill based, or use based systems, as in you make your own "Class" by doing activities that you wish to do...
Go out chopping trees, and each time your tree chopping skill will go up. This means, that instead of by class, you make yourself skill by skill. It is totally possible to be a healing, spear using, chef that has a thing for breading pink ponies.
But it’s a complete misunderstanding that a sandbox game has no content, you can still have quests, adventure areas, ETC... But most of the content is generated by other users, the developers make the art assets, and the tools to support the players TRUELEY shaping the world.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Comments
-In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on Aug/13/08-
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RISING DRAGOON ~AION US ONLINE LEGION for Elyos
Pigs can drop full sets of armor in a sandbox game. You might prefer a different system, but this would not disqualify a game from being a sandbox type in and of itself. If for example the original SWG (pre NGE) had pigs that dropped full sets of plate, it would have still been considered to be a sandbox game.
Sandbox games sometimes have no content. The game closest to a pure sandbox is Second Life. The game comes with no real content, except for what the players make. There is no overall story line, just a bunch of fractured areas and activities made by various players. You can wander from an area where you fly around and shoot each other, to an area where you put on a fuzzy suit with a tail and drink tea, and they have nothing to do with each other.
The problem is the various degrees of whether a game is a sandbox or not. Second Life is pretty close to pure sandbox. Here's some tools, do what you want.
DAoC has sandbox elements, because the players have tools to change things in the world, like who has access to Darkness Falls, but there is also a lot of structure and non-sandbox elements.
Second Life is like, here's a sandbox, hope you have fun. DAoC is like, here's a sandbox, some army men, and you will get a time out if you throw sand in each others eyes, hope you have fun.
Personally, I want nothing to do with a pure sandbox game, because it would have no direction.
The more storyline and content you provide, the LESS sandbox-like your game is. In the example where your skills improve because you use them, that's LESS sandbox-like because you have determined that there are skills and that they increase with use. In a pure sandbox game, I would determine what skills I have, and how they increase, or whether or not I want skills at all.
Take EVE for example. Everyone plays a spaceship. In a pure sandbox game, everyone would be whatever they wanted, whether it was a spaceship, or a pink gorilla. But that's fine with me, since I don't want to play a pink gorilla.
MMORPG Maker
While i said most of the stuff I had posted was not "THE" definition of a sandbox, some of your descriptions are to overbord literal, and do not fit the Game type : Sandbox
There are many "shades" of sandboxes.
SL is , i agree, the purest of sandboxes, but that’s one shade, and you cant say it is without content
, there is more content in that game than any mmo ever made. You are right in many cases however, but as i said, there are many shades.
I just found a great posting of someones time in a Sandbox thats really illistrates what one is, and what you can find.
And yes, its SWG Pre-CU.
We were Exploreres, Adventurers and Soldiers
The game was just out of beta and 40 of my guild started playing. I was one of my group’s “Planet Side” testers/players, having beta tested it. We are 200 strong spread out now over 8-10 different games.
I would tune in the SWG channel on TS and listen, it was amazing to hear the accounts of things across the galaxy as seen through the eyes of noobs. Everyone was a noob. I had to be a part of this.
I got the game and away I went. There were people everywhere. Cantinas were jammed, star ports as well. People running across Dath, no speeders yet. Fighting rancors and nightsisters. Squills and Tuskin Raiders were things to avoid on our home planet. The Corellian plains and the swamps of Talus, filled with big cats and their babies was a great place for the CH, but a dangerous one as well.
The crafting was amazing as well, folks dedicated themselves to mining, harvesting or buying the best resources, looting or buying skill tapes, and the items they made were top shelf. We knew who they were and we haggled for the best price. Weapons, armor, BE clothing, foods, drinks, etc…
The fighting classes would hire out to protect crafters as they tended their harvesters, or just paid us to bring home the best meat or bone, when ever it would be located that month at various places across the galaxy.
The player cites became sophisticated and well thought out. We would hunt in groups to fund the treasury. Recruit top crafters to place their vendors so traffic in town would increase.
Entertainers formed troupes that would travel around and perform at events for hire. Towns would have celebrations, music, fireworks, dancing. The socialization was at its peak.
Bases became focal points for the GCW, defending and attacking, when one went “hot” hundreds of players would be on hand. Theed was a kill zone as was the Bestine-Anchorhead corridor.
Jedi were rare and as the game progressed, more found their way to the Force. But through perma-death, saber TEF and eventually visibility and the BH, showing off with a LS was a bad thing. Removing the BH gank squad made us Jedi more brazen and may have been the first sign of the down hill slide. Jedi should have remained in the shadows.
I remember traveling across many planets and stopping off in camps on a regular basis. Players just out and about were never hard to stumble across. The Master Ranger camp was a sight to see. If they had a dancer, it was a chance to heal up a bit and move on. Before leaving you could often barter for a new pet or some food or drink. Few knew I was a Jedi, it was much safer that way. Regular clothes, carrying a rifle or carbine, with my LS in the tool bar just in case I was not as careful as I thought I was.
Back to a big city, get your speeder, armor and weapon repaired. It was always nice to find a smuggler and get those new items sliced. Stop by the local cantina and enjoy some music and get a mind buff, hit a star port and have a doctor buff you up. Then back out to the open spaces, never far from action.
Player run night clubs sprang up, rented juke boxes, exotic dancers, beauty pageants and just a place to hang out, waiting for the next assault on the enemy or hunting party. At one pageant, with about two hundred in attendance, a beautiful young Jedi was competing, when a BH attacked, the fight spilled out into the street and raged on for 20 minutes before she managed to escape. I cannot imagine a more “Star Warsy” scene then a fight breaking out in a Star Wars bar.
You didn’t have to run around to find PvP, it would always find you if you were not alert. NPC’s could unmask you as well, and many times you would have to fight your way out of town. For a Jedi, that meant visibility for sure. Time to be extra careful. But if laying low was your thing for the moment, there were 100 places to go and things to do. Tend to your factors, restock, shop, socialize, hunt, the Vette, Theme Parks, The Warren, Black Sun Bunker, etc… The server forums served as After Action Reports that made the slow times at work more enjoyable.
New players would seek help, and many did help. Taking them under their wing, showing them the ropes, forging bonds, weaken by the tears of this dying game, and friend’s lists evaporated as gamers left for greener pastures.
You really carved out your own existence, the greatest Star Wars saga ever told, yours… and if you ran the course and wanted a change, you could start over, 31 more times if it suited you.
Many of us have moved on, others stay and pray that the greatness of this game will return. Still others, like me, pay for a month here and there just to check in and see for ourselves.
For me, there is a soothing, surreal feeling when I hear the opening music. I stand above my home on Tatooine, in Storm’s End, a town we forged from the sands in a place called The Valley of the Wind. I watch the twin suns set over the mountains and remember what the game was like. It truly breaks my heart to think of the friends lost and the good times we had, gone forever, like the sands in a storm. I wait a bit longer, check my empty friend’s list and log off.
Yes, we were adventurers, explorers and soldiers, and it was the best of times.
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
I totally and completely agree. A true sandbox lets me do what I want to do. It lets me create the character I want to. It lets me alter the world if I choose too. Complete skill with some control over environment and events and boom, perfect sandbox. It does not mean that there are no quests or content.
You can have both. If WoW was skill based and let you alter the environment it would be a sandbox game. The quests or number of quests have nothing to do with it. Doing the quests are your choice.... and thats what a sandbox is letting the person choose what they want to do, how they develop their character and how they spend their time.
Venge Sunsoar
Not equal
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Using EvE as an example here.
For a sandbox to work you need to create a world as a background [in eve's case set in space with a gate network and some palnets]. And then you need to add some tools [Stations, Market system, NPC goods to help things start etc]. And some toys [Ships guns modules etc].
After a while repalce the npc goods with predomanently player made stuff [ Blueprints and ore and tech 2 as peak goods].
Then you have a sandbox game.
i don't think it will be any different, it will be nice at the begining but will fail after only a short time of getting ruined
Options are always good...but it's the no-restriction part that destroys the fun! It's the well thought out restrictions that make a game fun (i.e. being presented with a challenge and figuring it out and coming up with a solution...which you then post on the internets for all to see...which, in turn, destroys most of the challenge and enables those who would rather skip the challenge and get straight to the yummy parts to do so posthaste.)!
User created content is almost always lame as phuck! Which would you rather have: content created by some random 18 yo with delusions of talent, or content created by a professional who truly has god-given talent and 15 years of experience in the field? I'll choose the latter thank you very much.
Content is King!! And it is the quantity and quality of the content that matters most in a MMOG; unfortunately the costs of creating high quality content are enormous...and so the puny development teams that we see today, with their puny little budgets, just don't have the muscle to pull it off...so we have the "sandbox" game which sluffs the responsibility of content creation off onto the players...which would be cool IF you had a bunch of level designers and talented artists playing the game, if not...yuck!
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
Options are always good...but it's the no-restriction part that destroys the fun! It's the well thought out restrictions that make a game fun (i.e. being presented with a challenge and figuring it out and coming up with a solution...which you then post on the internets for all to see...which, in turn, destroys most of the challenge and enables those who would rather skip the challenge and get straight to the yummy parts to do so posthaste.)!
User created content is almost always lame as phuck! Which would you rather have: content created by some random 18 yo with delusions of talent, or content created by a professional who truly has god-given talent and 15 years of experience in the field? I'll choose the latter thank you very much.
Content is King!! And it is the quantity and quality of the content that matters most in a MMOG; unfortunately the costs of creating high quality content are enormous...and so the puny development teams that we see today, with their puny little budgets, just don't have the muscle to pull it off...so we have the "sandbox" game which sluffs the responsibility of content creation off onto the players...which would be cool IF you had a bunch of level designers and talented artists playing the game, if not...yuck!
The user created content part. You misunderstand me, while its true, even in game like SL , user created content is a large range of quality, I personally don’t like it.
But, be aware, just logging into your toon, in a sand box, and being your toon, in the world, with your ability’s.... you are content.
You are getting hung up on this thinking that its "Lack of funds" or " laziness" is why developers make the tools, they are not "Putting it on the player" to make content... Its a part of the game... You are content, everything you do in thies types of worlds IS content...Undercut someone’s price... you just added to the Market/supply/demand game...
Take the Place able NPC's in SWG (do they still have those lol?), that’s player created content.. don’t like the dialog or quest they made? move along...
You confuse the types of content. Not all player made content comes from a 3d modeling program.
You, simply raiding someone else’s base, is content..Especially for them, you are the mob, the most dynamic type there is.
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
I think it worth saying that near the end of this year eve is getting Person avitars every bit as detailed as what you get in games like vanguard or Everquest 2. So who knows eve may get quite a boost one day.
I don't think this would do it. SWG combined with WoW would be great. But the part about drops I don't believe that would work. One of the lessons learned from Horizons (among many) was that people like loot. The majority really really hated getting that crystal peice then having to 1. find a crafter to make the sword, and 2. wait for the crafter to make the sword. The reward for defeating that opponent should be immediately, or almost immediately apparent. This means that you have to have uber swords of whatever dropping, or able to made quite simply and quickly from that peice ie. no waiting for days on end for the crafter to finish.
The crafters liked it . The adventurers hated it, and they're are more adventurers, than crafters.
Venge Sunsoar
I don't think this would do it. SWG combined with WoW would be great. But the part about drops I don't believe that would work. One of the lessons learned from Horizons (among many) was that people like loot. The majority really really hated getting that crystal peice then having to 1. find a crafter to make the sword, and 2. wait for the crafter to make the sword. The reward for defeating that opponent should be immediately, or almost immediately apparent. This means that you have to have uber swords of whatever dropping, or able to made quite simply and quickly from that peice ie. no waiting for days on end for the crafter to finish.
The crafters liked it . The adventurers hated it, and they're are more adventurers, than crafters.
Venge Sunsoar
This is why I loved SEA's in SWG. Not only did it allow for combat characters to find loot that they didn't need a crafter for, but it also allwoed for the crafter to rely on the combat charater to find the experimentation SEA's.
It was a situation that required interdependancy.
Options are always good...but it's the no-restriction part that destroys the fun! It's the well thought out restrictions that make a game fun (i.e. being presented with a challenge and figuring it out and coming up with a solution...which you then post on the internets for all to see...which, in turn, destroys most of the challenge and enables those who would rather skip the challenge and get straight to the yummy parts to do so posthaste.)!
User created content is almost always lame as phuck! Which would you rather have: content created by some random 18 yo with delusions of talent, or content created by a professional who truly has god-given talent and 15 years of experience in the field? I'll choose the latter thank you very much.
Content is King!! And it is the quantity and quality of the content that matters most in a MMOG; unfortunately the costs of creating high quality content are enormous...and so the puny development teams that we see today, with their puny little budgets, just don't have the muscle to pull it off...so we have the "sandbox" game which sluffs the responsibility of content creation off onto the players...which would be cool IF you had a bunch of level designers and talented artists playing the game, if not...yuck!
The user created content part. You misunderstand me, while its true, even in game like SL , user created content is a large range of quality, I personally don’t like it. Me either!
But, be aware, just logging into your toon, in a sand box, and being your toon, in the world, with your ability’s.... you are content. I solo almost exclusively (I can't get any of my RL friends to play a MMOG, they always say "Those things suck!"), so I make for some really lousy content!
You are getting hung up on this thinking that its "Lack of funds" or " laziness" is why developers make the tools, they are not "Putting it on the player" to make content... Its a part of the game... You are content, everything you do in thies types of worlds IS content...Undercut someone’s price... you just added to the Market/supply/demand game... I never said developers are lazy, please don't put words in my mouth, thank you. Developers almost never have the money to bring their game to fruition so they have to go begging, which, because Venture Capitalists are allergic to risk or anything out of the norm, heavily influences their design decisions.
Take the Place able NPC's in SWG (do they still have those lol?), that’s player created content.. don’t like the dialog or quest they made? move along... Yawn...
You confuse the types of content. Not all player made content comes from a 3d modeling program. Condescension will get you nowhere! Most player created content is lame...period.
You, simply raiding someone else’s base, is content..Especially for them, you are the mob, the most dynamic type there is. I don't join guilds and I don't raid so, again, I make for some awfully boring content!
When you add it up, the player base of sandbox type MMOGs is only a tiny fraction of the total MMOG market...The reason for this is that lame development studios, like CCP, have used the sandbox concept as a way to eliminate 70% of the time and effort that would normally go into the creation of a MMOG world, and so the sandbox concept has gotten a bad name.The ultimate MMOG, imo, would be a hybrid...40% sandbox and 60% class/lvl...err something along those lines.
At the end of the day it will be the asian developers, with their Free2Play non-sandbox cash shop games, who will dominate the MMOG market...they will be the ones who take the sandbox concept to a much higher lvl.
ps...sorry about the color scheme, I just couldn't resist!
I don't think this would do it. SWG combined with WoW would be great. But the part about drops I don't believe that would work. One of the lessons learned from Horizons (among many) was that people like loot. The majority really really hated getting that crystal peice then having to 1. find a crafter to make the sword, and 2. wait for the crafter to make the sword. The reward for defeating that opponent should be immediately, or almost immediately apparent. This means that you have to have uber swords of whatever dropping, or able to made quite simply and quickly from that peice ie. no waiting for days on end for the crafter to finish.
The crafters liked it . The adventurers hated it, and they're are more adventurers, than crafters.
Venge Sunsoar
I understand what you mean here, you want to be rewarded with your prize, or your trophy so to speak. Now.
I can see what they have tried to do here by making the item have to be crafted. Gives crafters and adventurers reason to socialise, brings those crafters away from the tables and into the community. Adds a new task, job, income, and just something else to do rather then grinding away solo leveling their craft level.
For the adventurer, it makes the item all the more valuable. You will respect and care more for your 'sword of destruction' as you had to go to the extemes to get it. It also means you have to take time off the battle fields to socialise with others around you. Also you can have a break every now and then from the life of click-hacking away your entire day in a dungeon of your choosing.
Eve Trial <- Try 14 days of Eve for FREE
Im against SOE
A lot of this comes down to what you regard as content in an MMORPG.
I would say that the most important content in a sandbox game is the structure of the world and the tools given to players to manage the world within tht system.
If the game is going to have any kind of story line, it either needs to keep being added and managed by the developers, or the game must give the players the ability to make enough difference to the game world so as to create the ongoing story themselves by their choices and actions.
The levelling and skill system is pretty much irrelevant to this, although personally I'd support a system that allows for many character development options, but certain mutually exclusive skills so that players need to rely on eachother for certain things.
The sort of things that make a difference are player governments and economies, large amounts of resources and items to craft, the ability to build various buildings, NPC guards and armies that can be manipulated, probably along with an at least partially open PvP environment with tools to aid players to police things themselves.
I would say that probably the ideal game would be largely a sandbox game, but with the developers acting as game masters, making, where possible, adjustments to the game to fit the storyline that the players are developing. So, while for instance, it would be unreasonable to expect the developers to create boats because some players want to attack a city by sea, it would be a fairly easy job to code a few changes in a city's governemnt structure to allow for a new position that the players wanted. They could also throw in various mob attacks or side stories too.
There seems to be discrepancies as to what different people define as content. There is the, let's call it, static content of typical PvE games such as mob spawns, kill quests, and raid instances. Then there is the, let's call it, player-Driven content of 'sandbox' games. I kind of see it as going to see a movie vs heading to the basketball court. With the movie it is always the same until the movie makers release a sequel whereas at the court, the game is always basketball but it never plays out the same way twice.
So the less content a game has, the more you can create for yourself. The more of the game you have to design for yourself. the more sandbox it is.
Pen and paper role play is immensely sandbox, you make the world, you describe it all and populate it all. The opposite of sandbox is a fleshed out and well written game.
The graphics have all been designed, the NPC's written and programmed. The control over the enviroment scripted to facilitate good gameplay.
Having user controlable enviroments, or being able to build your own houses and model your own NPc's IS content. Everybit as much as Capture the Flag games, skill tree's, scripted quests, auction houses and PvP arenas. It's not one or the other. When we say sandbox games have no content, we don't mean that this isn't game content. We mean that this isn't very much game content. That bit is good, but where is the rest of it? Standards have progressed. The bar has been raised.
Sandbox games have these but the other games don't?
The new games have much more of everything. The sandbox factor is still present in many current generation MMOs. Only there is other stuff to do also. That other stuff tends to be more fun and the "sandbox" elements, so amazing in their day, aren't getting played. They are still there. They still exist in new games. You are open to play the game that way. Only not everybody wants to. Now that there are so many, many more extra gameplay features in each title, people in the same game are simply not restricted to it like they used to be. Their options are less limited, not more limited.
There are too many great game writers, highly professional in their work, with a brilliant understanding of what makes a great game for me to need to put in a load of input of my own. Too many exciting ways to have fun in WoW to spend all my time capturing the enemy fortresses. The option is still there...but I have many other equally fun options to fo also. The auction house isn't new anymore, it isn't the defining feature of the game. The latest gimmick, the height of MMO technology, the be all and end all of gaming. It's just par for the course.
People defend sandbox, because it is an old friend. An MMO they grew up with. The champion of a previous generation of MMO's. A game they love/loved. My dad swears that black and white movies are better than colour. It's an emotional thing. That was his heyday.
In it's day, when computer power was somewhat more limited, it was either giant sandbox multiplayer worlds or intrincately scripted single player worlds. Things have evolved. This is no longer the case. It isn't either or, it hasn't been for sometime.
Sandbox isn't dead, it's been assimilated.
Options are always good...but it's the no-restriction part that destroys the fun! It's the well thought out restrictions that make a game fun (i.e. being presented with a challenge and figuring it out and coming up with a solution...which you then post on the internets for all to see...which, in turn, destroys most of the challenge and enables those who would rather skip the challenge and get straight to the yummy parts to do so posthaste.)!
User created content is almost always lame as phuck! Which would you rather have: content created by some random 18 yo with delusions of talent, or content created by a professional who truly has god-given talent and 15 years of experience in the field? I'll choose the latter thank you very much.
Content is King!! And it is the quantity and quality of the content that matters most in a MMOG; unfortunately the costs of creating high quality content are enormous...and so the puny development teams that we see today, with their puny little budgets, just don't have the muscle to pull it off...so we have the "sandbox" game which sluffs the responsibility of content creation off onto the players...which would be cool IF you had a bunch of level designers and talented artists playing the game, if not...yuck!
The user created content part. You misunderstand me, while its true, even in game like SL , user created content is a large range of quality, I personally don’t like it. Me either!
But, be aware, just logging into your toon, in a sand box, and being your toon, in the world, with your ability’s.... you are content. I solo almost exclusively (I can't get any of my RL friends to play a MMOG, they always say "Those things suck!"), so I make for some really lousy content!
You are getting hung up on this thinking that its "Lack of funds" or " laziness" is why developers make the tools, they are not "Putting it on the player" to make content... Its a part of the game... You are content, everything you do in thies types of worlds IS content...Undercut someone’s price... you just added to the Market/supply/demand game... I never said developers are lazy, please don't put words in my mouth, thank you. Developers almost never have the money to bring their game to fruition so they have to go begging, which, because Venture Capitalists are allergic to risk or anything out of the norm, heavily influences their design decisions.
Take the Place able NPC's in SWG (do they still have those lol?), that’s player created content.. don’t like the dialog or quest they made? move along... Yawn...
You confuse the types of content. Not all player made content comes from a 3d modeling program. Condescension will get you nowhere! Most player created content is lame...period.
You, simply raiding someone else’s base, is content..Especially for them, you are the mob, the most dynamic type there is. I don't join guilds and I don't raid so, again, I make for some awfully boring content!
When you add it up, the player base of sandbox type MMOGs is only a tiny fraction of the total MMOG market...The reason for this is that lame development studios, like CCP, have used the sandbox concept as a way to eliminate 70% of the time and effort that would normally go into the creation of a MMOG world, and so the sandbox concept has gotten a bad name.The ultimate MMOG, imo, would be a hybrid...40% sandbox and 60% class/lvl...err something along those lines.
At the end of the day it will be the asian developers, with their Free2Play non-sandbox cash shop games, who will dominate the MMOG market...they will be the ones who take the sandbox concept to a much higher lvl.
ps...sorry about the color scheme, I just couldn't resist!
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me