The opinions of the posters on this site represent a small percentage of actual gamers nation and world wide. While the majority of gamers here prefer EVE to any other game this does not mean that everyone wants this type of game, quite the opposite i would say if you go by subscription trends.
Equally, it does not mean that such posters do NOT speak for the majority of all players.
Subscription trends are irrelevant here. If 99of all cars available were Ford Probes and only 1% were the Ford Mustang, most people would drive Probes; but thayt doesn't mean that's what they want to drive.
Originally posted by YamotaOriginally posted by Sornin
I totally agree - the results cannot be trusted as they reflect the opinions of a small, unrepresentative community of gamers. Also, as you said, EVE voters come out in droves to support their game, while people who play something like WoW do not.
The only vote that matters is the one we make with our money. Thousands of fanboys doing a mass vote to win some silly website award means nothing.
Just curious why you think MMORPG, with 700.000 registered members, is a small and unrepresentative portion of the MMORGP community?
No online portal/forum community is representative, that is why. You can ask the developers of the games themselves who monitor their own forums - fewer than 10% of their accounts regularly read and participate in forums, and even fewer than that moan and groan and cry all the time. Trusting forums and polls within them is stupid as they do not represent the average player. The average player is happy with their game, the average poster is pissed off about balance or some other feature.
Forums are a haven for the embittered populace. MMORPG.com forums are no exception, and if anything is a shining example of a community who tries to rebel against the status quo and deludes itself into thinking this is normal. The posters here tend to be die-hard fans and MMORPG geeks and this is not what the normal MMORPG player is, at all. We are a niche group and thus have niche ideals.
EVE Online is not an example of why sandbox games are the most popular and can be the most profitable. It is an example of a small, devoted player base that, coupled with MMORPG.com's hard-on for anything the opposite of WoW, wins clique-ish popularity contests.
Really, sandbox proposals benefit from ignorance - people like the idea of freedom as freedom is viewed as a good thing while confinement is not. But, when you get down to mechanics and entertainment, throwing out cool buzzwords like "player run economy" and "limitless possibilities" do not help. Why are these things fun? Why should the average gamer be interested? How are these things balanced and achieved?
No company has yet to to make a sandbox game that has achieved mass appeal and become a heavy player in MMORPGs. Star Wars Galaxies did well, but did not even beat the original EverQuest, despite its massive IP and massive marketing push, and its improved graphics. Proponents of sandbox games throw out tons of reasons for this, but reasons do not matter, results do. The style has been attempted, it has failed to become mainstream.
Now, this is not to say a good sandbox game cannot be successful, and maybe even popular. But this poll's results do not support that theory. Until I see a sandbox game actually steal a noticeable share of the MMORPG market, I will not say this format is popular with anyone except enthusiasts.
If putting down harvesters and collecting resources was seriously the only thing you could find to do then you weren't playing the game right. That was the beauty of the old SWG...you could do hundreds of things and they were all "valid" ways to play the game. If harvesting and collecting resources wasn't fun for you there were many, many other options available to you. I had multiple accounts and they were all crafters and pilots. I had no interest at all in ground combat but my time spent crafting and running around in space was as worthwhile as the people who spent all their time doing ground combat.
Isn't that a contradiction when you say you aren't "playing the game right" versus doing anything you want (which is the purpose of sandbox games). Well for me nothing is interesting except crafting and resource harvesting. I eventually tried role playing at the Cantina and it was fun for a "while" but eventually it does get old. That's one of the core problems with sandbox games where the developers don't have to work hard to produce content instead leave the "content" up to the players, unfortunately this does't always work. There are "hundreds" of things you can do unfortunately you're limited to 1 character per server so either you have to buy more accounts to make alts or "respec" to something else to do the rest of the 99 things.
Eve players strike me as being kind of Mac fans. They tend to refuse to admit there's other possibilities that others might prefer, and if you're not in the 'club' they come off as snooty and annoying.
However I'm part of this particular club so I should shut up now.. *hides under a rock*
I totally agree - the results cannot be trusted as they reflect the opinions of a small, unrepresentative community of gamers. Also, as you said, EVE voters come out in droves to support their game, while people who play something like WoW do not.
The only vote that matters is the one we make with our money. Thousands of fanboys doing a mass vote to win some silly website award means nothing.
Not only is that the crassest thing I ever heard it also happens to be true for all elections all the time - the winner of the next US election, for example, will not be a majority of the US population, and they probably won't even win a majority of the proportion that do actually vote. It's called democracy, kid.
Eve players strike me as being kind of Mac fans. They tend to refuse to admit there's other possibilities that others might prefer, and if you're not in the 'club' they come off as snooty and annoying. However I'm part of this particular club so I should shut up now.. *hides under a rock*
When are we gonna stop getting wow clones and get a new sandbox mmo ? Bioware's interviews makes it clear its another wow clone. So does Star Trek (if it even gets launched). The people have spoken developers, we prefer overwhelmingly sandbox MMO's. Its time to rethink those boring linear quest-driven concepts. Eve wins best MMO once again SWG loses hundreds of thousands of players once it dumps its sandbox game for a linear design. The evidence is clear. Why not give the folks what they want ?
This is specious reasoning.
It doesn't mean that sandbox mmos are what players want but that the voters on this site like EVE. You should go into politics.
The NGE making the game linear isn't why SWG lost its appeal to a lot of players what happened was they consolidated all the classes into specific archtypes and totally eliminated some of the classes/profession like the beast masters (tamer) class (that a lot of people has worked their ass off for) that is why many people quit the game. Were they to retain the professions and put structures like the various quests (instead of a terminal based quest system) I think a lot of people would still play it.
For you to name one of the reasons people left SWG as being the end of Creature Handler its very clear you have no clue...
The NGE making the game linear isn't why SWG lost its appeal to a lot of players what happened was they consolidated all the classes into specific archtypes and totally eliminated some of the classes/profession like the beast masters (tamer) class (that a lot of people has worked their ass off for) that is why many people quit the game. Were they to retain the professions and put structures like the various quests (instead of a terminal based quest system) I think a lot of people would still play it.
For you to name one of the reasons people left SWG as being the end of Creature Handler its very clear you have no clue...
That is one of the main reasons and making jedi attainable from the start of the game.
Eve Online has proved that sandbox games can be massively popular if done right and even SWG had alot of subscribers though it got off to a crap start and finish.
About SWG I played the beta and follow the game after release for a good 8 months while the game is interesting at first it became boring when I had to think .
Ah, now you see - I believe your brilliant post put its finger on the distinction between those who don't like sandbox games, people like you, I submit, and people who do. Well done.
The opinions of the posters on this site represent a small percentage of actual gamers nation and world wide. While the majority of gamers here prefer EVE to any other game this does not mean that everyone wants this type of game, quite the opposite i would say if you go by subscription trends.
wow is the exception, not the rule. Blizz has spent 100 million dollars developing and supporting WoW with heavy advertising included.
Unless you plan on spending that kind of money it would be wise to develop your product for your target audience.
40,000 people voted here. Thats a pretty good sample of the core MMO audience. Unless you have the ad budget to reach outside of the MMO audience it would be smart to make a game catered to us.
I said nothing of WoW because it is an exception but the second runner up would have to be LoTR not near the subs but still a profitable game and 40,000 is not enough to make a profitable game. Also out of that 40k how many voted for EVE? Being that EVE won but not unanimously that makes an even smaller player base ie not enough to make a MMO for that crowd.
As for 40k being a good core sample of of your target audience lets consider some numbers and yes this time i am going to include WoW. We'll low ball the WoW subs current to 2.5m LoTR at somewhere around 450k not including F2P games http://www.mmogchart.com/ puts the MMO community at just over 13million gamers now take your 40k as a percentage of 13m you get .31% of the total MMO gaming community (i know that the MMOCHART is from 06 and thus not entirely accurate for today but it gives a good general idea) I would say that that is NOT a good overall snapshot of the MMO gaming community.
When are we gonna stop getting wow clones and get a new sandbox mmo ? Bioware's interviews makes it clear its another wow clone. So does Star Trek (if it even gets launched). The people have spoken developers, we prefer overwhelmingly sandbox MMO's. Its time to rethink those boring linear quest-driven concepts. Eve wins best MMO once again SWG loses hundreds of thousands of players once it dumps its sandbox game for a linear design. The evidence is clear. Why not give the folks what they want ?
Eve fanbois all 15k of them on their little ONE server are like rabid little wolves when it comes to awards or any polls with that games name in it.
Few people in the whole MMORPG genre even play that game but the very few that play it stick together like some extended family.
Bottom line is that when I hear about EVE winning something on here I take it with a grain of salt. When it starts winning game of the year on Spike TV, IGN, or some other gamming site then I will then start taking it serious. Since that means more then the 15k people on that one little server have taken notice of EVE.
Well stated. Let me be clear, I love sandbox and I wish more than anything that developers would start agreeing with me. However, this just isn't the case. WoW, while it is not a sandbox game, is a great game and generates a ton of $ for Blizzard. If people are that willing to dump their money, or in WoW's case, their parent's money, into a game for so many years then it is going to get developers attention. EVE doesn't gross near as much as WoW or even the new disgrace of an MMO that is called LotRO. Overall, I don't blaim them, sandbox games are harder to make and even more difficult to maintain.
I totally agree - the results cannot be trusted as they reflect the opinions of a small, unrepresentative community of gamers. Also, as you said, EVE voters come out in droves to support their game, while people who play something like WoW do not. The only vote that matters is the one we make with our money. Thousands of fanboys doing a mass vote to win some silly website award means nothing.
Not only is that the crassest thing I ever heard it also happens to be true for all elections all the time - the winner of the next US election, for example, will not be a majority of the US population, and they probably won't even win a majority of the proportion that do actually vote. It's called democracy, kid.
This is not an election, kid. This is about whether these results prove sandboxes are superior/popular. Democracy has nothing to do with this, either - that is a form of government, not an election/polling style - quite separate things. You win at being a conceited idiot.
Go take a statistics class and learn about proper polling techniques which can represent a population and can be used to make valid assumptions about their opinions. Things like stratified sampling help, something this poll did not use at all - no forum does. This poll targeted one small segment of the MMORPG community and people are making wild claims based upon its results. A poll that also gave voice to the silent majority might provide valid results.
Ah well, I am just casting pearls before swine at this point.
And how many of those LOTR subscribers are only playing because there are no alternatives ? I personally dont care for Eve so I have no options available.
LOTR is a decent game. But like all linear games it gets boring after a while. Half of the people I know and play with in LOTR are only there on standby mode like me.
We all are still praying for pre-cu classic servers or some other savior sandbox game. And it wasnt all about the combat, many people I knew that played SWG never even equipped a weapon once. That was the beauty of sandbox SWG, you could do so much more than killing rats.
The only current MMO I know of with non-combat options is Second Life and that game is just awful
The NGE making the game linear isn't why SWG lost its appeal to a lot of players what happened was they consolidated all the classes into specific archtypes and totally eliminated some of the classes/profession like the beast masters (tamer) class (that a lot of people has worked their ass off for) that is why many people quit the game. Were they to retain the professions and put structures like the various quests (instead of a terminal based quest system) I think a lot of people would still play it.
For you to name one of the reasons people left SWG as being the end of Creature Handler its very clear you have no clue...
That is one of the main reasons and making jedi attainable from the start of the game.
And you really think that has proved to be a popular and workable solution?
No online portal/forum community is representative, that is why. You can ask the developers of the games themselves who monitor their own forums - fewer than 10% of their accounts regularly read and participate in forums, and even fewer than that moan and groan and cry all the time.
Wha'? Who says that 'no online portal/forum community is representative'/ The last person trying to peddle that bull was Dallas Dickinson of SOE trying to explain that the universally hostile reception of the NGE on all SOE forums was due to an unrepresentative minority - 'the people who are happy with the game', he warbled, 'are playing the game'. Next day, the tidal wave of cancellations started coming in and SOE lost 200,000 players.
Posts like these on forums like these most certainly ARE representative. When I was writing discussion websites for MPs in the UK, we used to work to a simple rule of thumb: 'One email (or call or letter or text) = 5000 people'.
I totally agree - the results cannot be trusted as they reflect the opinions of a small, unrepresentative community of gamers. Also, as you said, EVE voters come out in droves to support their game, while people who play something like WoW do not. The only vote that matters is the one we make with our money. Thousands of fanboys doing a mass vote to win some silly website award means nothing.
Not only is that the crassest thing I ever heard it also happens to be true for all elections all the time - the winner of the next US election, for example, will not be a majority of the US population, and they probably won't even win a majority of the proportion that do actually vote. It's called democracy, kid.
This is not an election, kid. This is about whether these results prove sandboxes are superior/popular. Democracy has nothing to do with this, either - that is a form of government, not an election/polling style - quite separate things. You win at being a conceited idiot.
Go take a statistics class and learn about proper polling techniques which can represent a population and can be used to make valid assumptions about their opinions. Things like stratified sampling help, something this poll did not use at all - no forum does. This poll targeted one small segment of the MMORPG community and people are making wild claims based upon its results. A poll that also gave voice to the silent majority might provide valid results.
Ah well, I am just casting pearls before swine at this point.
You obviously don't know how voting works then. Perhaps your community college didn't cover that subject very well. Good luck to you.
No online portal/forum community is representative, that is why. You can ask the developers of the games themselves who monitor their own forums - fewer than 10% of their accounts regularly read and participate in forums, and even fewer than that moan and groan and cry all the time.
Wha'? Who says that 'no online portal/forum community is representative'/ The last person trying to peddle that bull was Dallas Dickinson of SOE trying to explain that the universally hostile reception of the NGE on all SOE forums was due to an unrepresentative minority - 'the people who are happy with the game', he warbled, 'are playing the game'. Next day, the tidal wave of cancellations started coming in and SOE lost 200,000 players.
Posts like these on forums like these most certainly ARE representative. When I was writing discussion websites for MPs in the UK, we used to work to a simple rule of thumb: 'One email (or call or letter or text) = 5000 people'.
I totally agree! That's a good rule to live by. The trueth is the vocal of the populas is a minority in the aspect that they speak out, but they easily represent a larger mass then just 1, because the majority will simply cancel and won't hear a word from them. The ones that are more vocal will lash out in a way they feel just. So 1 person could easily be comparitive to more then 1.
[ Played ] 2Moons, Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Dark Age of Camelot, Everquest, Everquest II, Guild Wars, HellGate: London, Lord of the Rings Online, Rappelz, RF Online, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, Sword of the New World, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, World of Warcraft, Last Chaos
Originally posted by admriker4 Originally posted by dirtyjoe78 The opinions of the posters on this site represent a small percentage of actual gamers nation and world wide. While the majority of gamers here prefer EVE to any other game this does not mean that everyone wants this type of game, quite the opposite i would say if you go by subscription trends.
wow is the exception, not the rule. Blizz has spent 100 million dollars developing and supporting WoW with heavy advertising included. Unless you plan on spending that kind of money it would be wise to develop your product for your target audience. 40,000 people voted here. Thats a pretty good sample of the core MMO audience. Unless you have the ad budget to reach outside of the MMO audience it would be smart to make a game catered to us.
But no one spammed the WoW forums, and fansites with this vote, now did they?
Im quite sure that the EVE forums and fansite, had their eyes out for this award.
Let's see...how many people are there in America today, and how many out of that number vote.
Fact is a small group voices there opinion and the rest of us go along for the ride. That's how it is in America. This poll was no different. People who cared to vote voted. And the rest are going along for the ride....are we there yet......are we there yet.....are we there yet......are we there yet.....
All developers are looking to produce global products now, even if they seperate server groups to each continent they are still looking to produce MMOs that will sell in every market.
And unfortunately for all you sandbox fans, those games just don't sell in Asia. The top ten MMOs in Asia, all of which have over a million subscribers each, are linear based.
Also last reported accurate subscriber figures for EVE were just over 100k, that put it's behind, WoW, Lotro, EQ2 and probably a few others. I mean Vanguard sold 200k copies at release, even if none of them stuck with it, the fact that it sold more than EVE means people are desperate for linear games.
You're all missing one simple but vital point. EVE is only popular in the western markets. All developers are looking to produce global products now, even if they seperate server groups to each continent they are still looking to produce MMOs that will sell in every market. And unfortunately for all you sandbox fans, those games just don't sell in Asia. The top ten MMOs in Asia, all of which have over a million subscribers each, are linear based. Also last reported accurate subscriber figures for EVE were just over 100k, that put it's behind, WoW, Lotro, EQ2 and probably a few others. I mean Vanguard sold 200k copies at release, even if none of them stuck with it, the fact that it sold more than EVE means people are desperate for linear games.
Actually, I don't think that is quite accurate ]. Eve launched in China in 2006 and got 200,000 registered users on the first day. I am sure that figures have fallen since then but who knows by how much? And, in any case, it is doing a lot better than SOE's SWG Japanese servers which had to close down because of lack of interest.
No company has yet to to make a sandbox game that has achieved mass appeal and become a heavy player in MMORPGs. Star Wars Galaxies did well, but did not even beat the original EverQuest, despite its massive IP and massive marketing push, and its improved graphics. Proponents of sandbox games throw out tons of reasons for this, but reasons do not matter, results do. The style has been attempted, it has failed to become mainstream.
Umm you forgot one major sandbox MMO success - UO - which was one of the original (and VERY popular) sandbox MMOs. It's still going after 10 years of play. Not necessarily in the same form as it was released, but still is a sandbox MMO with a good player base and excellent community.
Whether or not this particular award/poll for Eve PROVES players want sandbox MMOs or not is debatable. The OP's post general stance that players want some good sandbox MMO options is right on though.
Playing WoT now.
Favorite All-Time Games: Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Lord of the Rings Online
The people have spoken developers, we prefer overwhelmingly sandbox MMO's. Its time to rethink those boring linear quest-driven concepts.
24/100 isn't overwhelming and the utter failure of so many sandbox games versus the overwhelming success stories of linear level based games pretty much puts making a sandbox game a huge risk.
Not that I wouldn't like to see more sandbox games. I miss the days of SWG/UO, but I don't think todays players are to much interested in social settings anymore.
Comments
Subscription trends are irrelevant here. If 99of all cars available were Ford Probes and only 1% were the Ford Mustang, most people would drive Probes; but thayt doesn't mean that's what they want to drive.
I totally agree - the results cannot be trusted as they reflect the opinions of a small, unrepresentative community of gamers. Also, as you said, EVE voters come out in droves to support their game, while people who play something like WoW do not.
The only vote that matters is the one we make with our money. Thousands of fanboys doing a mass vote to win some silly website award means nothing.
Just curious why you think MMORPG, with 700.000 registered members, is a small and unrepresentative portion of the MMORGP community?No online portal/forum community is representative, that is why. You can ask the developers of the games themselves who monitor their own forums - fewer than 10% of their accounts regularly read and participate in forums, and even fewer than that moan and groan and cry all the time. Trusting forums and polls within them is stupid as they do not represent the average player. The average player is happy with their game, the average poster is pissed off about balance or some other feature.
Forums are a haven for the embittered populace. MMORPG.com forums are no exception, and if anything is a shining example of a community who tries to rebel against the status quo and deludes itself into thinking this is normal. The posters here tend to be die-hard fans and MMORPG geeks and this is not what the normal MMORPG player is, at all. We are a niche group and thus have niche ideals.
EVE Online is not an example of why sandbox games are the most popular and can be the most profitable. It is an example of a small, devoted player base that, coupled with MMORPG.com's hard-on for anything the opposite of WoW, wins clique-ish popularity contests.
Really, sandbox proposals benefit from ignorance - people like the idea of freedom as freedom is viewed as a good thing while confinement is not. But, when you get down to mechanics and entertainment, throwing out cool buzzwords like "player run economy" and "limitless possibilities" do not help. Why are these things fun? Why should the average gamer be interested? How are these things balanced and achieved?
No company has yet to to make a sandbox game that has achieved mass appeal and become a heavy player in MMORPGs. Star Wars Galaxies did well, but did not even beat the original EverQuest, despite its massive IP and massive marketing push, and its improved graphics. Proponents of sandbox games throw out tons of reasons for this, but reasons do not matter, results do. The style has been attempted, it has failed to become mainstream.
Now, this is not to say a good sandbox game cannot be successful, and maybe even popular. But this poll's results do not support that theory. Until I see a sandbox game actually steal a noticeable share of the MMORPG market, I will not say this format is popular with anyone except enthusiasts.
Isn't that a contradiction when you say you aren't "playing the game right" versus doing anything you want (which is the purpose of sandbox games). Well for me nothing is interesting except crafting and resource harvesting. I eventually tried role playing at the Cantina and it was fun for a "while" but eventually it does get old. That's one of the core problems with sandbox games where the developers don't have to work hard to produce content instead leave the "content" up to the players, unfortunately this does't always work. There are "hundreds" of things you can do unfortunately you're limited to 1 character per server so either you have to buy more accounts to make alts or "respec" to something else to do the rest of the 99 things.
Eve players strike me as being kind of Mac fans. They tend to refuse to admit there's other possibilities that others might prefer, and if you're not in the 'club' they come off as snooty and annoying.
However I'm part of this particular club so I should shut up now.. *hides under a rock*
Not only is that the crassest thing I ever heard it also happens to be true for all elections all the time - the winner of the next US election, for example, will not be a majority of the US population, and they probably won't even win a majority of the proportion that do actually vote. It's called democracy, kid.
Well denial is a part of human nature.
This is specious reasoning.
It doesn't mean that sandbox mmos are what players want but that the voters on this site like EVE. You should go into politics.
The NGE making the game linear isn't why SWG lost its appeal to a lot of players what happened was they consolidated all the classes into specific archtypes and totally eliminated some of the classes/profession like the beast masters (tamer) class (that a lot of people has worked their ass off for) that is why many people quit the game. Were they to retain the professions and put structures like the various quests (instead of a terminal based quest system) I think a lot of people would still play it.
For you to name one of the reasons people left SWG as being the end of Creature Handler its very clear you have no clue...
For you to name one of the reasons people left SWG as being the end of Creature Handler its very clear you have no clue...
That is one of the main reasons and making jedi attainable from the start of the game.
Ah, now you see - I believe your brilliant post put its finger on the distinction between those who don't like sandbox games, people like you, I submit, and people who do. Well done.
wow is the exception, not the rule. Blizz has spent 100 million dollars developing and supporting WoW with heavy advertising included.
Unless you plan on spending that kind of money it would be wise to develop your product for your target audience.
40,000 people voted here. Thats a pretty good sample of the core MMO audience. Unless you have the ad budget to reach outside of the MMO audience it would be smart to make a game catered to us.
I said nothing of WoW because it is an exception but the second runner up would have to be LoTR not near the subs but still a profitable game and 40,000 is not enough to make a profitable game. Also out of that 40k how many voted for EVE? Being that EVE won but not unanimously that makes an even smaller player base ie not enough to make a MMO for that crowd.As for 40k being a good core sample of of your target audience lets consider some numbers and yes this time i am going to include WoW. We'll low ball the WoW subs current to 2.5m LoTR at somewhere around 450k not including F2P games http://www.mmogchart.com/ puts the MMO community at just over 13million gamers now take your 40k as a percentage of 13m you get .31% of the total MMO gaming community (i know that the MMOCHART is from 06 and thus not entirely accurate for today but it gives a good general idea) I would say that that is NOT a good overall snapshot of the MMO gaming community.
Few people in the whole MMORPG genre even play that game but the very few that play it stick together like some extended family.
Bottom line is that when I hear about EVE winning something on here I take it with a grain of salt. When it starts winning game of the year on Spike TV, IGN, or some other gamming site then I will then start taking it serious. Since that means more then the 15k people on that one little server have taken notice of EVE.
Well stated. Let me be clear, I love sandbox and I wish more than anything that developers would start agreeing with me. However, this just isn't the case. WoW, while it is not a sandbox game, is a great game and generates a ton of $ for Blizzard. If people are that willing to dump their money, or in WoW's case, their parent's money, into a game for so many years then it is going to get developers attention. EVE doesn't gross near as much as WoW or even the new disgrace of an MMO that is called LotRO. Overall, I don't blaim them, sandbox games are harder to make and even more difficult to maintain.
Not only is that the crassest thing I ever heard it also happens to be true for all elections all the time - the winner of the next US election, for example, will not be a majority of the US population, and they probably won't even win a majority of the proportion that do actually vote. It's called democracy, kid.
This is not an election, kid. This is about whether these results prove sandboxes are superior/popular. Democracy has nothing to do with this, either - that is a form of government, not an election/polling style - quite separate things. You win at being a conceited idiot.
Go take a statistics class and learn about proper polling techniques which can represent a population and can be used to make valid assumptions about their opinions. Things like stratified sampling help, something this poll did not use at all - no forum does. This poll targeted one small segment of the MMORPG community and people are making wild claims based upon its results. A poll that also gave voice to the silent majority might provide valid results.
Ah well, I am just casting pearls before swine at this point.
And how many of those LOTR subscribers are only playing because there are no alternatives ? I personally dont care for Eve so I have no options available.
LOTR is a decent game. But like all linear games it gets boring after a while. Half of the people I know and play with in LOTR are only there on standby mode like me.
We all are still praying for pre-cu classic servers or some other savior sandbox game. And it wasnt all about the combat, many people I knew that played SWG never even equipped a weapon once. That was the beauty of sandbox SWG, you could do so much more than killing rats.
The only current MMO I know of with non-combat options is Second Life and that game is just awful
For you to name one of the reasons people left SWG as being the end of Creature Handler its very clear you have no clue...
That is one of the main reasons and making jedi attainable from the start of the game.
And you really think that has proved to be a popular and workable solution?
Posts like these on forums like these most certainly ARE representative. When I was writing discussion websites for MPs in the UK, we used to work to a simple rule of thumb: 'One email (or call or letter or text) = 5000 people'.
Not only is that the crassest thing I ever heard it also happens to be true for all elections all the time - the winner of the next US election, for example, will not be a majority of the US population, and they probably won't even win a majority of the proportion that do actually vote. It's called democracy, kid.
This is not an election, kid. This is about whether these results prove sandboxes are superior/popular. Democracy has nothing to do with this, either - that is a form of government, not an election/polling style - quite separate things. You win at being a conceited idiot.
Go take a statistics class and learn about proper polling techniques which can represent a population and can be used to make valid assumptions about their opinions. Things like stratified sampling help, something this poll did not use at all - no forum does. This poll targeted one small segment of the MMORPG community and people are making wild claims based upon its results. A poll that also gave voice to the silent majority might provide valid results.
Ah well, I am just casting pearls before swine at this point.
You obviously don't know how voting works then. Perhaps your community college didn't cover that subject very well. Good luck to you.
Posts like these on forums like these most certainly ARE representative. When I was writing discussion websites for MPs in the UK, we used to work to a simple rule of thumb: 'One email (or call or letter or text) = 5000 people'.
I totally agree! That's a good rule to live by. The trueth is the vocal of the populas is a minority in the aspect that they speak out, but they easily represent a larger mass then just 1, because the majority will simply cancel and won't hear a word from them. The ones that are more vocal will lash out in a way they feel just. So 1 person could easily be comparitive to more then 1.
[ Played ] 2Moons, Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Dark Age of Camelot, Everquest, Everquest II, Guild Wars, HellGate: London, Lord of the Rings Online, Rappelz, RF Online, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, Sword of the New World, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, World of Warcraft, Last Chaos
[ Playing ] Everquest II
[ Waiting ] Aion, Age of Conan
Unless you plan on spending that kind of money it would be wise to develop your product for your target audience.
40,000 people voted here. Thats a pretty good sample of the core MMO audience. Unless you have the ad budget to reach outside of the MMO audience it would be smart to make a game catered to us.
But no one spammed the WoW forums, and fansites with this vote, now did they?
Im quite sure that the EVE forums and fansite, had their eyes out for this award.
Futilez - Mature MMORPG Community
Correcting people since birth.
Fact is a small group voices there opinion and the rest of us go along for the ride. That's how it is in America. This poll was no different. People who cared to vote voted. And the rest are going along for the ride....are we there yet......are we there yet.....are we there yet......are we there yet.....
You're all missing one simple but vital point.
EVE is only popular in the western markets.
All developers are looking to produce global products now, even if they seperate server groups to each continent they are still looking to produce MMOs that will sell in every market.
And unfortunately for all you sandbox fans, those games just don't sell in Asia. The top ten MMOs in Asia, all of which have over a million subscribers each, are linear based.
Also last reported accurate subscriber figures for EVE were just over 100k, that put it's behind, WoW, Lotro, EQ2 and probably a few others. I mean Vanguard sold 200k copies at release, even if none of them stuck with it, the fact that it sold more than EVE means people are desperate for linear games.
http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6152680.html
ROFL
Agreed. Well said ChicagoCub
Umm you forgot one major sandbox MMO success - UO - which was one of the original (and VERY popular) sandbox MMOs. It's still going after 10 years of play. Not necessarily in the same form as it was released, but still is a sandbox MMO with a good player base and excellent community.
Whether or not this particular award/poll for Eve PROVES players want sandbox MMOs or not is debatable. The OP's post general stance that players want some good sandbox MMO options is right on though.
Playing WoT now.
Favorite All-Time Games: Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Lord of the Rings Online
24/100 isn't overwhelming and the utter failure of so many sandbox games versus the overwhelming success stories of linear level based games pretty much puts making a sandbox game a huge risk.
Not that I wouldn't like to see more sandbox games. I miss the days of SWG/UO, but I don't think todays players are to much interested in social settings anymore.
I dislike Sandbox Games
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