I think that having a game with both linear and player-run content would be difficult. Let's look at some common features of linear games:
Classes: In a sandbox game, you should be able to do anything and be anyone you want. In a linear game, you get a short list of choices given to you by the developers. Immediately after meeting you, everyone decides who you are and what they expect you to do. Even if you're allowed to adopt other skills such as crafting, they're always secondary to what you pick when you create the character. I
Unfortunately the reality is that in a sandbox game, you can only develop your charcter in the tree paths that the developer has included. Just as in every other game.
There is now, has never been and never can be a game with infinite possibilites. You are always restricted by the limitations of the code. You always have been, you always wil be.
I don't know of a single MMO where anyone is "forced" to do anything. High level charcters are perfectly able to trade with low level characters.
They choose not to, just as I choose to longer do a paper round to earn my money but have progressed to speculating on the stock exchange. I still can deliver papers or wash cars for a living if I like, but just as in game, I no longer wish to. I have learnt more effective methods of self advancement.
Further more, not only do I no longer earn my money delvering newspapers, but I no longer have any particular interaction with people who do. And I don't want to. Character advancement and progression is a much loved feature in RPG games. There are many multiplayer games that do not use this principle. In Enemy Territory for example, all players have very similar rank and their chosen secondary proffesions, (engineer, medic, assault troop etc) all play well together at all levels. But this isn't RPG.
The fundamental key to the RPG format is character progression. This is a higher principle than "balance" for this formula of game. Quite simply if you are looking for level playing fields you are barking up the wrong genre.
It's not the game that is linear, it is you.
If you feel cheated because other people level faster than you or have progressed faster by following certain paths that you do not enjoy, you still don't have to follow. This isn't a competiton. You haven't been cheated. You have had access to the same options as them. That a game should provide you a different method for achieving the same goal is hardly what I would call linear. In fact it is the opposite of linear. That you are only intrested in following the fast track route is linear.
Player housing is a much called for feature, I think you can expect to see it in more MMO's of the future. However do not expect new games that include player housing to ditch progression tree's/chacater classes or pre-scripted quests and events.
Player worlds must always be restricted. They are forced to be. In the end all the computers have to print the same picture on all the other computers. Once again, they always have been. They are now and they always will be. Player affected area's are limited by the bandwidth available and the programmers ability and time to write the code. There is no "infinite" choice available. Resources are finite.
Lets have a little look at the success of the unrestricted skill system. I'll use as my example the only game I've seen that actaully used one. Matrix online.
At any point in the game, you could respec your character completely you could chop and change your skills and professions by simply reprogramming your self Matrix style. (rememebr the armoury scene from the movie or the kung-fu training uploaded directly to Keanu's head). Did this make for a more intresting character? No. It made for a whole load of identy clones.
As you pointed out earlier, a good proportion of players will all just adopt the method they think will advance them fastest. So they all spec the same.
One of the benefits of a class system which, since Dungeons and Dragons started the whole Role Play game thing off, has been a mainstay of the genre; is that it encourages multiplay. The classes are interdependant and rightly designed to be that way. In Matrix where everyone can do everything there is no team dynamic. No reason to play together at all. No need for interaction and no economy.
Why would I wish to buy something from you, if I can craft it myself?
No. Prescribed roles work. It is a fundamental part of the RPG formula. Ignore it at your peril. Imagine a football game with no goal keeper, no defender, no winger and no striker and you will soon see that it isn't going to be a great game. A game of cricket is not a good game, if everybody decides to bat and no one wants to bowl. Rugby with no dedictaed scrum.
Another of the drawbacks of Matrix was that there was very limited replayability, once you leveled your toon to max level and were then able to be a master of any skill, there simply wasn't anything else left to try.
In my example of Matrix online we can see that this system clearly doesn't work well in a multiplayer enviroment. Despite that all the other developers have seen it, none of them chose to adopt it, and the bulk of MMO players ran from it like the plague. The game was a major flop and is perhaps one of the stalest weakest MMO's on the market.
The innovation suited the rationale of the game and the implimetation was practical, but it ignored the basic formula of all team games and the successful working formula's found in all other RPG's.
MMORPG's evolved. Unrestricted skill tree's got hit by Darwinism. They went the way of the dodo a few years back.
MMOs take more money to make than any other game type...period. investing that much money you are going to go with what works. What works is a goo investment.
Sandbox games have not worked despite the desire for the hardcore MMO players (like myself) who want to play them (the original SWG was great).
If you disagree...ask Blizzard...9 million + subs can't be wrong. If you were pitching a new MMO and you said it was completely different than WoW in every way...you would not even get your foot in the door.
The Sims makes more money than any MMO has. HALO 3 outsold WoW by a lot.
Simply not true. $15 a month multiplied by 9 million. Yes...the Sims may have sold more copies but no way has it made more money. WoW is the 4th best selling PC game of all time...with Starcraft and the Sims (1 and 2) above it...none of those those games have a monthly fee...and WoW has outsold Halo 3 by over 1 million copies.
Do some research before you make assumptions. Also, keep to the topic...sure The Sims is sandbox, butit's not an MMO...and Halo 3 is neither sandbox or MMO.
MMOs take more money to make than any other game type...period. investing that much money you are going to go with what works. What works is a goo investment.
Sandbox games have not worked despite the desire for the hardcore MMO players (like myself) who want to play them (the original SWG was great).
If you disagree...ask Blizzard...9 million + subs can't be wrong. If you were pitching a new MMO and you said it was completely different than WoW in every way...you would not even get your foot in the door.
The Sims makes more money than any MMO has. HALO 3 outsold WoW by a lot.
Simply not true. $15 a month multiplied by 9 million. Yes...the Sims may have sold more copies but no way has it made more money. WoW is the 4th best selling PC game of all time...with Starcraft and the Sims (1 and 2) above it...none of those those games have a monthly fee...and WoW has outsold Halo 3 by over 1 million copies.
Do some research before you make assumptions. Also, keep to the topic...sure The Sims is sandbox, butit's not an MMO...and Halo 3 is neither sandbox or MMO.
That's $15 a month multiplied by 4 million. Chinese people do not pay anthing like as much and Blizzard (Vivendi) does not recive all the profits from the Chinese Franchise, just a lisencing fee. Minus of course the overheads such as super computer rental and bandwidth and 24/7 support staff and 15-25% to the banks for use of their creditcard systems and the on going development costs. etc etc etc.
The bulk of the revenue is still received from box sales.
And the Sims series is still the most profitable game franchise ever. Zelda I believe is no.2.
WoW is indeed in the top ten. It is however the only MMO that is. MMO's are not the most profitable type of computer game at all.
Halo 3 broke the sales records for computer games, ousting The Burning Crusade.
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.
Tinybina said all that needs to be said in this thread.
In War - Victory. In Peace - Vigilance. In Death - Sacrifice.
MMOs take more money to make than any other game type...period.
Not true. WoW - an excellent game but one of the most linear out there - cost about five times more to develop than Eve and pre-NGE SWG, both sandbox in conceot, put together.
Originally posted by hubertgrove Originally posted by spikenog MMOs take more money to make than any other game type...period.
Not true. WoW - an excellent game but one of the most linear out there - cost about five times more to develop than Eve and pre-NGE SWG, both sandbox in conceot, put together.
WoW is a MMORPG, and so is EVE and SWG. What is your point? You are just agreeing with him.
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.
subscription trends is a good indicator but not the overall best. Second Life doesn't use 'subscriptions' but rather we should gauge market share according to revenue earned at the end of the quarter. That way all games can be properly accounted for
MMOs take more money to make than any other game type...period.
Not true. WoW - an excellent game but one of the most linear out there - cost about five times more to develop than Eve and pre-NGE SWG, both sandbox in conceot, put together.
No it didn't.
WoW was built and budgeted to compete financially with those games. It's expected target audience was the same size. 250,000 subs.
okay go to MMOGData.com and click on "Market Share"
Second Life 19% World of Warcraft 26%
Consider for a moment that Second Life uses all player generated content and World of Warcraft is all developer created content these numbers make you wonder
The problem, Second Life is a "trendsetter" meaning it would be very difficult to 'oust' it.
Though I personally don't like WoW, its success can only be good news for us the gamers. It tells companies they can make money on this type of game. I have faith that someone will come up with an MMORPG that will keep my attention eventually, because of this.
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.
Tinybina said all that needs to be said in this thread.
Exept he got his facts wrong deliberatly i suspect. Fact of the matter is he and you are bitter that EvE is more popular.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god." -- Jean Rostand
MMOs take more money to make than any other game type...period.
Not true. WoW - an excellent game but one of the most linear out there - cost about five times more to develop than Eve and pre-NGE SWG, both sandbox in conceot, put together.
WoW is a MMORPG, and so is EVE and SWG. What is your point? You are just agreeing with him.
Because when Spikenogg wrote 'MMOs' in his first sentence, it was obvious that he meant 'Linear MMOs'. As anyone who was not hdrobrachycephalic would have realised.
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 ?
You are forgetting something here Eve Subscriptions barely scratch the surface of wow nore does SWG in any form. MMO's are more about the money than the fun these days lol.
And since most games are of your liking..as in "non sandbox", we see that the majority of players play non sandbox games...
You have loads of them.
All the ye olde sandbox games are still up and running. You can sub if you want to.
You just don't want to play any of them either.
It's all mouth with you sandbox crowd.
Feel free to name some them that are not dated.
There aren't any.
If you want to play a dinosaur, you have to buy a dinosaur.
Thats kind of the thing isant it Baff no one wants to play dinosaurs and if all the other sandbox style games are like that then that means they are not suitable. which is possably one reason for EvE's success.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god." -- Jean Rostand
Thats kind of the thing isant it Baff no one wants to play dinosaurs and if all the other sandbox style games are like that then that means they are not suitable. which is possably one reason for EvE's success.
If people don't want to play dinosaurs, especially dinosaur sandboxes, why are UO and EQ1 still the most popular and profitable vintage MMOs around?
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 ?
You are forgetting something here Eve Subscriptions barely scratch the surface of wow nore does SWG in any form. MMO's are more about the money than the fun these days lol.
I can't imagine why money and fun are mutually exclusive.
People are willing to pay for games that are fun, not for games that aren't.
I'm not saying that sandbox games (whatever that means) can't be fun, but the track record such games has been suspect.
On the bright side, WoW has brought a lot of people into the MMO genre that may never have tried an MMO. Many of those people, including the younger kids as they mature, will likely look for new games in the future that have more depth.
More demand = more supply.
____________________________________________ im to lazy too use grammar or punctuation good
Yes Metal that is just it. Sandbox died. Or rather "just sandbox" died. Now you can have "sandbox and" for the same price.
And that's why.
Eve isn't especially successful. (It's by no means unsuccessful either). Does it currently have any more subs than SWG? I don't think it's the sandbox factor that sells Eve, I think it is the space theme. The dev's are still adding agent missions aren't they? The community is still crying out for more linear content just as they have always been aren't they?
The forums aren't awash with people crying "remove teh linear quests". "No more linear skill progression". Or are they.. I haven't visited for some time now.
Sandbox is a dinosaur. No one wants to play them. Since there is no market for them, no one wants to make them.
Matey won't fix SWG or make his own game because he doesn't want to devote his life to job that won't pay him. If he won't and he is someone that actually wants to play it, why should anyone else? It isn't happening because no one wants it that badly. Not the people who post here. Not the people who play Eve. No one.
In passing many pay lip service to the idea, but that's it. It's all just mouth. Sandbox is teh shizzle because la de da de da.....
Sandbox isn't about the developers making you a new game. The essence of sandbox is that you are making your own game out of nothing.
If you are looking for a new sandbox game, then "sandbox" isn't what you are looking for. You are looking for new pre-scribed content.... the linear bit. The sandbox bit is the part you make yourself. The part you have already got.
The fantasy that a player driven only game could inspire you longterm is over. You tried it and it didn't.
You can't go back in time and make "just sandbox" exciting anymore. It no longer is. You have done what little developer content there was and making your own is too boring.
It's just inertia. The resistance to anything new. Like my 85 year old father insisting he got a better reception for his television in the days of analogue. He didn't. He got less channels too, but in his mind the glory days were always better.
Like the wise man above says, if you want vintage gameplay, play vintage game, there are plenty out there still happily chugging away.
Well, I played WoW for more than 2 years straight, thous were good times, WoW was my first mmo and i truly enjoyed it. Slowly the game became more and more time sink, PVP in instanced place, honor grind (now arena grind) all that for gear. Same goes for raiding, 5 days a week to make some progress - that's nonsense. After releasing Burning Crusade, reputation grind became more and more important; Heroic instance keys, city reputations again for gear. I'm not really sure, maybe I just got tired of WoW and I started to see all these things as boring, perhaps. But long, long time ago city raids existed, world PVP was fun. Now world pvp is all about killing primal farmers. Anyway - I left WoW for good.
Recently I started to play EVE, all I can say it's awesome. Player crafted ships/modules (gear), players can be killed actually. In this game just more things seem to make sense, corporation politics, all that drama, it's fun. I feel like I mean something in this game. Though, it was very hard to "get used to" gameplay and the way all things are in EVE. It's a truly new experience for me. Also, EVE's community is from all over world (Europe, Japanese, Americans etc. etc.) I like that better than playing only with Americans all the time.
As for EVE winning this years award. What's so bad about that? EVE players seem to care about their game more than players who play other mmo's. As someone laughed that EVE has only one server, so? At least that server is populated all the time. Also, I agree that that EVE is most improved game of the year, why? It got new graphical engine + expansion.
Finally, I would like to say that I'm proud of being a part of EVE's community, when I started EVE there were always people who helped me, explained me and educated me, and they are now too. Thanks to them.
P.S Arguing about "Sandbox vs Linear" is a total bullshit. Pure Sanbox is a shit, just like pure linear without sandbox elements, plain and simple.
P.P.S And I voted for EVE on this site when voting was available, and I will in future, because I care about my game
I think that having a game with both linear and player-run content would be difficult. Let's look at some common features of linear games:
Classes: In a sandbox game, you should be able to do anything and be anyone you want. In a linear game, you get a short list of choices given to you by the developers. Immediately after meeting you, everyone decides who you are and what they expect you to do. Even if you're allowed to adopt other skills such as crafting, they're always secondary to what you pick when you create the character. I think it's kind of funny that one of WOW's TV commercials emphasizes its restrictiveness. In a sandbox, Mr. T wouldn't need to hack the game to create a new class. Levels: These affect various player dynamics a number of ways. First, they divide the playerbase. You only have reason to interact with people around your level. Everyone else will hunt in different areas and value different items. You know just by looking at someone whether you can take them in pvp. An exemplar system helps the linear side of the game by letting people quest with people not around their level, but not so much the sandbox side where interactions are a little less predictable. Second, they make it difficult to have a real economy. Higher level characters are objectively better at producing everything than lower level players, and generally can't use anything lower levels can produce, so they have no reason to trade. Lower levels can't stick to trading with each other, because a high level can disrupt that market at will, which may be done with the best of intentions (Hey let's get ourselves a big stack of all those things the newbs are struggling to afford and hand them out for free!). Crafters therefore can't focus on just crafting, since they get shafted on the lower levels. The only thing they can do is focus on the static combat content until they can afford to craft, which makes it a barely profitable hobby rather than a vocation. Furthermore, anything that can be looted or gained from a quest is competition with the player interaction that comes from dealing with crafters. Third, they force people to focus on the static content, if that's the only way to level. Sure, they could make it so there are many different ways to gain xp, but it would be very difficult to balance. Whoever chooses a path different than the one that leads to the fastest xp gain is going to feel shafted. Another thing that linear games need to do is make the terrain static and predesigned. They need to do so in order to make sure the things the quests tell you to find are there. This doesn't go together with a popular sandbox feature, player building. Really, it restricts any impact a player can have on the world. Static content requires a static world. But ok, what if you eliminated all these mechanics and just left an optional story and script? Well, it might work, but it would feel a little strange to have all this among a dynamic player run world without affecting it in any significant way. It would be almost like playing two different games. If it was a story about say, slaying a dragon, you wouldn't be a real life person playing a dragonslayer so much as a real life person playing a fantasy world person playing a dragonslayer. These are my thoughts on the matter. I think SOME compromise between linear and sandbox can be reached, but ultimately they reflect very different visions of what an mmo should be. That's just my opinion. though.
Well said
It's sometimes difficult to describe the differences between "sandbox" and "linear", but I think you mentioned some of the key points.
Classes: Yes, you have MANY more options with a skill system, where as a class system may be restricted to 7 or 10 or 15 classes (with different specs that may or may not be total BS). And, like you said, the non-combat skills (such as crafting) are always secondary in a class system. You can never be "just a crafter".
Levels: I agree, having levels will completely change the design of the game, since EVERYTHING must be designed to work within a level based system.
Economy: I guess you could have a good, player driven economy in a linear MMO, but I don't think it's likely, mostly because of the reasons you listed.
Static content: Another good point. It would be difficult for players to actually change the game world if everything is based around static content. I think this idea gets over looked when people argue about sandbox vs linear.
Originally posted by Gameloading The awards on this website means nothing, CCP, the developer of EVE, always asks it's players to vote for EVE online, making the polls very unbalanced and corrupt.
and why would developers follow a game with barely 200k subscribers when they can follow a game with 9 million subscribers? MMORPG players have all massively shown that they prefer WoW type gameplay. Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa both launched, Auto Assault closed down and Tabula Rasa doesn't really seem to be the cashcow NCsoft hoped it to be. Lotro on the other hand, a game that almost directly clones WoW to the point where they could be considered twins, is doing just fine and is apparently now the 2nd most popular North american MMORPG. It's not really a surprise that developers have the mentality "Don't fix what isn't broke".
It's news to me that campaigning for votes equals corruption. You might as well put SOE in the corrupt category, since they also asked their players to come vote for Everquest (Eq2 I believe)
Oh my, what devils they be, asking for votes!
Plus it is very short sighted to equal quantity with quality. EVE is not perfect, but I doubt anyone here would diss the massive amount of player history that has gone into that game (I'm told SWG pre CU was similiar in that regard) or the significant milestones EVE Online continues to break.
Is it the perfect game, not by a long shot, but it puts the game into the player's hands, and that alone makes it something special.
The "me-too" development mentality is all too common in game design these days. These men who developed EVE took a new direction, and while not matching WOW's pure subscriber base, still thrives and makes new strides with every expansion.
That is worthy of reproduction, and should be reason enough for other devs to take rishs and make something new and fresh.
Who knows, perhaps that game dethrone EVE as game of the year, and that should be reason enough for many here.
Comments
Unfortunately the reality is that in a sandbox game, you can only develop your charcter in the tree paths that the developer has included. Just as in every other game.
There is now, has never been and never can be a game with infinite possibilites. You are always restricted by the limitations of the code. You always have been, you always wil be.
I don't know of a single MMO where anyone is "forced" to do anything. High level charcters are perfectly able to trade with low level characters.
They choose not to, just as I choose to longer do a paper round to earn my money but have progressed to speculating on the stock exchange. I still can deliver papers or wash cars for a living if I like, but just as in game, I no longer wish to. I have learnt more effective methods of self advancement.
Further more, not only do I no longer earn my money delvering newspapers, but I no longer have any particular interaction with people who do. And I don't want to. Character advancement and progression is a much loved feature in RPG games. There are many multiplayer games that do not use this principle. In Enemy Territory for example, all players have very similar rank and their chosen secondary proffesions, (engineer, medic, assault troop etc) all play well together at all levels. But this isn't RPG.
The fundamental key to the RPG format is character progression. This is a higher principle than "balance" for this formula of game. Quite simply if you are looking for level playing fields you are barking up the wrong genre.
It's not the game that is linear, it is you.
If you feel cheated because other people level faster than you or have progressed faster by following certain paths that you do not enjoy, you still don't have to follow. This isn't a competiton. You haven't been cheated. You have had access to the same options as them. That a game should provide you a different method for achieving the same goal is hardly what I would call linear. In fact it is the opposite of linear. That you are only intrested in following the fast track route is linear.
Player housing is a much called for feature, I think you can expect to see it in more MMO's of the future. However do not expect new games that include player housing to ditch progression tree's/chacater classes or pre-scripted quests and events.
Player worlds must always be restricted. They are forced to be. In the end all the computers have to print the same picture on all the other computers. Once again, they always have been. They are now and they always will be. Player affected area's are limited by the bandwidth available and the programmers ability and time to write the code. There is no "infinite" choice available. Resources are finite.
Lets have a little look at the success of the unrestricted skill system. I'll use as my example the only game I've seen that actaully used one. Matrix online.
At any point in the game, you could respec your character completely you could chop and change your skills and professions by simply reprogramming your self Matrix style. (rememebr the armoury scene from the movie or the kung-fu training uploaded directly to Keanu's head). Did this make for a more intresting character? No. It made for a whole load of identy clones.
As you pointed out earlier, a good proportion of players will all just adopt the method they think will advance them fastest. So they all spec the same.
One of the benefits of a class system which, since Dungeons and Dragons started the whole Role Play game thing off, has been a mainstay of the genre; is that it encourages multiplay. The classes are interdependant and rightly designed to be that way. In Matrix where everyone can do everything there is no team dynamic. No reason to play together at all. No need for interaction and no economy.
Why would I wish to buy something from you, if I can craft it myself?
No. Prescribed roles work. It is a fundamental part of the RPG formula. Ignore it at your peril. Imagine a football game with no goal keeper, no defender, no winger and no striker and you will soon see that it isn't going to be a great game. A game of cricket is not a good game, if everybody decides to bat and no one wants to bowl. Rugby with no dedictaed scrum.
Another of the drawbacks of Matrix was that there was very limited replayability, once you leveled your toon to max level and were then able to be a master of any skill, there simply wasn't anything else left to try.
In my example of Matrix online we can see that this system clearly doesn't work well in a multiplayer enviroment. Despite that all the other developers have seen it, none of them chose to adopt it, and the bulk of MMO players ran from it like the plague. The game was a major flop and is perhaps one of the stalest weakest MMO's on the market.
The innovation suited the rationale of the game and the implimetation was practical, but it ignored the basic formula of all team games and the successful working formula's found in all other RPG's.
MMORPG's evolved. Unrestricted skill tree's got hit by Darwinism. They went the way of the dodo a few years back.
Simply not true. $15 a month multiplied by 9 million. Yes...the Sims may have sold more copies but no way has it made more money. WoW is the 4th best selling PC game of all time...with Starcraft and the Sims (1 and 2) above it...none of those those games have a monthly fee...and WoW has outsold Halo 3 by over 1 million copies.The Sims makes more money than any MMO has. HALO 3 outsold WoW by a lot.
Do some research before you make assumptions. Also, keep to the topic...sure The Sims is sandbox, butit's not an MMO...and Halo 3 is neither sandbox or MMO.
Simply not true. $15 a month multiplied by 9 million. Yes...the Sims may have sold more copies but no way has it made more money. WoW is the 4th best selling PC game of all time...with Starcraft and the Sims (1 and 2) above it...none of those those games have a monthly fee...and WoW has outsold Halo 3 by over 1 million copies.The Sims makes more money than any MMO has. HALO 3 outsold WoW by a lot.
Do some research before you make assumptions. Also, keep to the topic...sure The Sims is sandbox, butit's not an MMO...and Halo 3 is neither sandbox or MMO.
That's $15 a month multiplied by 4 million. Chinese people do not pay anthing like as much and Blizzard (Vivendi) does not recive all the profits from the Chinese Franchise, just a lisencing fee. Minus of course the overheads such as super computer rental and bandwidth and 24/7 support staff and 15-25% to the banks for use of their creditcard systems and the on going development costs. etc etc etc.
The bulk of the revenue is still received from box sales.
And the Sims series is still the most profitable game franchise ever. Zelda I believe is no.2.
WoW is indeed in the top ten. It is however the only MMO that is. MMO's are not the most profitable type of computer game at all.
Halo 3 broke the sales records for computer games, ousting The Burning Crusade.
With regards to OT, you brought this up, not me.
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.
Tinybina said all that needs to be said in this thread.
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
Not true. WoW - an excellent game but one of the most linear out there - cost about five times more to develop than Eve and pre-NGE SWG, both sandbox in conceot, put together.
Not true. WoW - an excellent game but one of the most linear out there - cost about five times more to develop than Eve and pre-NGE SWG, both sandbox in conceot, put together.
WoW is a MMORPG, and so is EVE and SWG. What is your point? You are just agreeing with him.
Futilez - Mature MMORPG Community
Correcting people since birth.
subscription trends is a good indicator but not the overall best. Second Life doesn't use 'subscriptions' but rather we should gauge market share according to revenue earned at the end of the quarter. That way all games can be properly accounted for
I remember when the Eve dev's posted links to the polls on this site in their forums and asked all their subscribers to vote.
Imagine if Blizzard had done that. Boy that would have lagged us out.
No it didn't.Not true. WoW - an excellent game but one of the most linear out there - cost about five times more to develop than Eve and pre-NGE SWG, both sandbox in conceot, put together.
WoW was built and budgeted to compete financially with those games. It's expected target audience was the same size. 250,000 subs.
WoW's runaway success took them by suprise.
okay go to MMOGData.com and click on "Market Share"
Second Life 19%
World of Warcraft 26%
Consider for a moment that Second Life uses all player generated content and World of Warcraft is all developer created content these numbers make you wonder
The problem, Second Life is a "trendsetter" meaning it would be very difficult to 'oust' it.
i hate it when people say "WoW" clone
Though I personally don't like WoW, its success can only be good news for us the gamers. It tells companies they can make money on this type of game. I have faith that someone will come up with an MMORPG that will keep my attention eventually, because of this.
But for us Sandbox gamers? We barely have any.
And since most games are of your liking..as in "non sandbox", we see that the majority of players play non sandbox games...
You have loads of them.
All the ye olde sandbox games are still up and running. You can sub if you want to.
You just don't want to play any of them either.
It's all mouth with you sandbox crowd.
Feel free to name some them that are not dated.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
-- Jean Rostand
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.
Tinybina said all that needs to be said in this thread.
Exept he got his facts wrong deliberatly i suspect. Fact of the matter is he and you are bitter that EvE is more popular.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
-- Jean Rostand
Not true. WoW - an excellent game but one of the most linear out there - cost about five times more to develop than Eve and pre-NGE SWG, both sandbox in conceot, put together.
WoW is a MMORPG, and so is EVE and SWG. What is your point? You are just agreeing with him.
Because when Spikenogg wrote 'MMOs' in his first sentence, it was obvious that he meant 'Linear MMOs'. As anyone who was not hdrobrachycephalic would have realised.
But for us Sandbox gamers? We barely have any.
And since most games are of your liking..as in "non sandbox", we see that the majority of players play non sandbox games...
You have loads of them.
All the ye olde sandbox games are still up and running. You can sub if you want to.
You just don't want to play any of them either.
It's all mouth with you sandbox crowd.
Feel free to name some them that are not dated.
There aren't any.If you want to play a dinosaur, you have to buy a dinosaur.
You are forgetting something here Eve Subscriptions barely scratch the surface of wow nore does SWG in any form. MMO's are more about the money than the fun these days lol.
But for us Sandbox gamers? We barely have any.
And since most games are of your liking..as in "non sandbox", we see that the majority of players play non sandbox games...
You have loads of them.
All the ye olde sandbox games are still up and running. You can sub if you want to.
You just don't want to play any of them either.
It's all mouth with you sandbox crowd.
Feel free to name some them that are not dated.
There aren't any.If you want to play a dinosaur, you have to buy a dinosaur.
Thats kind of the thing isant it Baff no one wants to play dinosaurs and if all the other sandbox style games are like that then that means they are not suitable. which is possably one reason for EvE's success.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
-- Jean Rostand
You are forgetting something here Eve Subscriptions barely scratch the surface of wow nore does SWG in any form. MMO's are more about the money than the fun these days lol.
I can't imagine why money and fun are mutually exclusive.
People are willing to pay for games that are fun, not for games that aren't.
I'm not saying that sandbox games (whatever that means) can't be fun, but the track record such games has been suspect.
On the bright side, WoW has brought a lot of people into the MMO genre that may never have tried an MMO. Many of those people, including the younger kids as they mature, will likely look for new games in the future that have more depth.
More demand = more supply.
____________________________________________
im to lazy too use grammar or punctuation good
Yes Metal that is just it. Sandbox died. Or rather "just sandbox" died. Now you can have "sandbox and" for the same price.
And that's why.
Eve isn't especially successful. (It's by no means unsuccessful either). Does it currently have any more subs than SWG? I don't think it's the sandbox factor that sells Eve, I think it is the space theme. The dev's are still adding agent missions aren't they? The community is still crying out for more linear content just as they have always been aren't they?
The forums aren't awash with people crying "remove teh linear quests". "No more linear skill progression". Or are they.. I haven't visited for some time now.
Sandbox is a dinosaur. No one wants to play them. Since there is no market for them, no one wants to make them.
Matey won't fix SWG or make his own game because he doesn't want to devote his life to job that won't pay him. If he won't and he is someone that actually wants to play it, why should anyone else? It isn't happening because no one wants it that badly. Not the people who post here. Not the people who play Eve. No one.
In passing many pay lip service to the idea, but that's it. It's all just mouth. Sandbox is teh shizzle because la de da de da.....
Sandbox isn't about the developers making you a new game. The essence of sandbox is that you are making your own game out of nothing.
If you are looking for a new sandbox game, then "sandbox" isn't what you are looking for. You are looking for new pre-scribed content.... the linear bit. The sandbox bit is the part you make yourself. The part you have already got.
The fantasy that a player driven only game could inspire you longterm is over. You tried it and it didn't.
You can't go back in time and make "just sandbox" exciting anymore. It no longer is. You have done what little developer content there was and making your own is too boring.
It's just inertia. The resistance to anything new. Like my 85 year old father insisting he got a better reception for his television in the days of analogue. He didn't. He got less channels too, but in his mind the glory days were always better.
Like the wise man above says, if you want vintage gameplay, play vintage game, there are plenty out there still happily chugging away.
obviously not...
This is funny topic.
Well, I played WoW for more than 2 years straight, thous were good times, WoW was my first mmo and i truly enjoyed it. Slowly the game became more and more time sink, PVP in instanced place, honor grind (now arena grind) all that for gear. Same goes for raiding, 5 days a week to make some progress - that's nonsense. After releasing Burning Crusade, reputation grind became more and more important; Heroic instance keys, city reputations again for gear. I'm not really sure, maybe I just got tired of WoW and I started to see all these things as boring, perhaps. But long, long time ago city raids existed, world PVP was fun. Now world pvp is all about killing primal farmers. Anyway - I left WoW for good.
Recently I started to play EVE, all I can say it's awesome. Player crafted ships/modules (gear), players can be killed actually. In this game just more things seem to make sense, corporation politics, all that drama, it's fun. I feel like I mean something in this game. Though, it was very hard to "get used to" gameplay and the way all things are in EVE. It's a truly new experience for me. Also, EVE's community is from all over world (Europe, Japanese, Americans etc. etc.) I like that better than playing only with Americans all the time.
As for EVE winning this years award. What's so bad about that? EVE players seem to care about their game more than players who play other mmo's. As someone laughed that EVE has only one server, so? At least that server is populated all the time. Also, I agree that that EVE is most improved game of the year, why? It got new graphical engine + expansion.
Finally, I would like to say that I'm proud of being a part of EVE's community, when I started EVE there were always people who helped me, explained me and educated me, and they are now too. Thanks to them.
P.S Arguing about "Sandbox vs Linear" is a total bullshit. Pure Sanbox is a shit, just like pure linear without sandbox elements, plain and simple.
P.P.S And I voted for EVE on this site when voting was available, and I will in future, because I care about my game
Thanks for reading my post.
It's sometimes difficult to describe the differences between "sandbox" and "linear", but I think you mentioned some of the key points.
Classes: Yes, you have MANY more options with a skill system, where as a class system may be restricted to 7 or 10 or 15 classes (with different specs that may or may not be total BS). And, like you said, the non-combat skills (such as crafting) are always secondary in a class system. You can never be "just a crafter".
Levels: I agree, having levels will completely change the design of the game, since EVERYTHING must be designed to work within a level based system.
Economy: I guess you could have a good, player driven economy in a linear MMO, but I don't think it's likely, mostly because of the reasons you listed.
Static content: Another good point. It would be difficult for players to actually change the game world if everything is based around static content. I think this idea gets over looked when people argue about sandbox vs linear.
It's news to me that campaigning for votes equals corruption. You might as well put SOE in the corrupt category, since they also asked their players to come vote for Everquest (Eq2 I believe)
Oh my, what devils they be, asking for votes!
Plus it is very short sighted to equal quantity with quality. EVE is not perfect, but I doubt anyone here would diss the massive amount of player history that has gone into that game (I'm told SWG pre CU was similiar in that regard) or the significant milestones EVE Online continues to break.
Is it the perfect game, not by a long shot, but it puts the game into the player's hands, and that alone makes it something special.
The "me-too" development mentality is all too common in game design these days. These men who developed EVE took a new direction, and while not matching WOW's pure subscriber base, still thrives and makes new strides with every expansion.
That is worthy of reproduction, and should be reason enough for other devs to take rishs and make something new and fresh.
Who knows, perhaps that game dethrone EVE as game of the year, and that should be reason enough for many here.