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Blind pre order purchasers review
ichimoku22
Member Posts: 13
Let me start by saying that though I have been aware of this game for a while I have not been tracking it and had no intention of buying it. After a nights worth o reading all the features and whatnots, I started talking to some friends about it and by the end of the night we were foaming at the mouth for some pirate action. Then we saw the SoE tag and backed the hell up to reconsider...
We are down to the bone sony haters. Since the days of EQ and the PS2 disk read errors we have strived to avoid anything sony that we possibly can ( my exception is the team ico games.) Even my wife hates on sony and shes japanese and from tokyo, I guess sony has haters in japan too, and they reference the compnay as "Kuso"ny, Kuso is japanese for shit.
I read over and over that flying labs has plenty of cash, will not sell out, has no intention of letting sony have any say in development, yadda yadda, etc. but still i didn't believe it. I wrestled with this decision for one more day and thought what the hell. If anything else I'll be supporting a game thats not another fantasy clone and I want to see MMO growth in that direction so if the game sucks at least I have that. It was the right choice to make, this game is a solid, enjoyable, kusony stink free game.
The start of the game is a rocky start, and its complexity is vast enough to warrant a larger tutorial but if your brave enough to think a little bit for yourself and can function without a allakhazham or wowhead to guide you thru everything you will be rewarded with a solid gaming experience. It takes elements from Eve and WoW and mixes it up with REAL TIME naval combat. What this means is strategy takes up a larger part of the combat pie, and levels and gear take a back seat as the supporting cast. If you don't think about what your doing you will be eaten alive by lower level, undergeared players who are thinking and if your one of those players it feels fantastic.
I'd say the big hook for me was the Eve elements reworked to better fit my playstayle. Instead of time equalling your character level, time is tied to your crafting productivity. You don't go out and mine iron, you tell your staff to do it and the amount of time you have saved up is how much iron you get. Leveling works like WoW with an xp bar, ranks/levels, talent points, quests, etc. And while it can feel like somewhat of a grind, your usually having enough fun in naval combat that you dont even notice. Yes there are "grind" quests that are uninspired and boring, but there are plenty of well written, unpredictable quests that are much much more then go here and kill x. This not a " push these buttons when this happens" game, this is a "If I turn here, I can catch the wind to get behind his firing arc, ram his flank and bring his weakened side around to my partners full cannon load" combat.
The biggest drawback is the avatar combat. It feels loose and uninspired, tacked on if you will. I understand that this made it late in the dev cycle but since everyone has a high expectation on what one on one combat is suppose to feel like, people will turn their nose up at this no matter what. Simply put, yes it gets better later on but it will never be as good as games based ONLY on avatar/character based combat. For those that get into the ship on ship action, this is something that is easily forgiven, for those that want to swordfight, go play something else, you wont be satisfied here. It's not terrible, but its nothing to write home about.
All in all i am happy with my preorder, everyday I learn more and get deeper into the game. Its a rough cut to be sure but I'm sure with more polish and a few months of dev lovins this will be a solid title. The learning curve is harsh enough to weed out a lot of the WoW kiddies so I look forward to about 2 weeks of "OMG you sux at cannons" till they get washed out and slowly players like myself who wanted to love eve but just couldn't get a foothold in the game will find their ways here.
Key points I've noticed so far
-Fast WoW leveling with vroad talent choices that diversify characters.
-Avatar customizability for people that love to look at themselves
-PvP endgame a la eve, complete with conquerable ports and a seizable carribean
-PvE endgame featuring ghost ships, bermuda triangle legends, and vodoo
-Stunning graphics
-player diven economy and fantastic crafting a la eve
Final note: Don't miss a great game because of the sony tag, I was pretty much flipping a coin whether or not to try it and its totally worth it. This isn't vanguard, and the kusony stench stops at the log in screen.
Comments
Nice review. Thanks.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Sometimes i am shocked when i find a well written post in here. well said...hope to see you in game.
I also was hesitant to try PotBS, however since it is part of the station access I decided to fork over the cash for the pre-order.
There is no need for me to give a review on this because I will personally agree with EVERYTHING the OP has said about this game.
It is a great game with a brand new feel on the MMO take with the navy ship battles, if this game was nothing but real time naval battles it is worth the fee to me. I played in the water for 4 hours straight and never got bored once. I also did MANY of the quest on the avatar side, like the OP stated the avatar fighting is very dry and bland and could use a good tweeking to making it more interesting, however it gets the job done, and many of the quest take you right out to sea for some good ol ship on ship or in most cases your 1 ship against 3-4 enemy ships for some cannon blasting goodness. All in all with some time after release and the devs putting some good spit shine polish on the game, it will be very solid and will be a huge success for those willing to give it a shot.
This is a game, that with some time to develope and grow, I would easily stop playing all other MMO's to focus on this game. It is just that much fun.
WoW type players who like the grind or the raid oriented games prolly will not like this game very much, players who like to dig deep in some lore, like personal growth in thier characters, like to be known as a skilled player as an individual, will feel right at home in PotBS.
It is worth the time, if your on the borderline of playing it but not sure, give it a shot, I don't think you will be disappointed.
Well written!
There was really a big shock wave going through the community and beta testers when we learned SOE would be involved in the distribuition. But Flying Lab has been a great and very communicative dev company and they really care for this game, are dedicated and in for the long run. As a SOE hater myself I finally decided to stick with PotBS.
I would like to add:
-join a society with mature and experienced gamers or form one! That makes this game much more fun and rewarding. And it helps alot with getting new ships, ammo, consumables etc...and doing missions together!
-port battles are still not in but can be fun and very intense. In beta we had intense port battles that lasted up to a hour RL time. We saw fleets, outnumbered and outlevelled, but well organised, win against a bigger higher level, but disorganised, fleet! To get a glimpse...some of the footage of my little video in my sig was taken from different port battles during closed beta.
-the nations with the better cooperation in setting up the economy, shipbuilding and port battle tactics will win port battles and maybe later complete server victory!
-----------------------------------
Life is too short to play bad games.
Great review i think. Im not so sure about the comparisons with WOW but i definately agree with you about the EVE similarities. ive been playing the game for a week now and i can already see where the main emphasis of the game is heading and that is PVP. Like eve PVP will have a massive impact on the game dynamics with ports changing hands and possibly whole areas of ocean being no go areas. its fun and exciting.
Also the economy in this game is shaping up fantastically. it is a whole game in itself. complicated enough for great satisfaction but not so difficult that it puts you off.
but finally i couldnt agree with you more about the land based missions and the hand to hand combat IT SUCKS!!!. its a real shame as i think it really lets down what would otherwise be a fantastic game!
If someone is talking in general chat in a language you dont understand, chances are they're not talking to you. So chill out and stop bitching about it!
Thank you Ichimoku22
Your post made me actually sign up for an account at MMORPG.com so I could reply to it.
Your experience is almost exactly the same to mine. I was scared at first to try the game, and didn't really get involved in beta (as I don't with most games as beta is never a good example of how a game will be). I purchased the pre-order on a whim one day simply because I had grown tired of EVE and TR that day and wanted to try something new. I waited 2 days till the pre-boarding began and I knew I had found the game I had been looking for years to find.
I have played UO/EQ/COX/SWG/EVE/GW/WOW/LOTRO, etc. Basically you name the game and chances are I have played it. I hardly ever post on forums and refuse to read most of the threads in this forum as they are simply a waste of my time. I am not a PoTBS fanboi and I agree there is work to be done, but from someone has played EVE since the day it came out till now, I can faithfully say this game has HUGE potential to be an EVE killer.
Eve had painted itself into a corner with recent pvp changes and the whole Legacy of older aliances owning space. Not to mention giving the average player a million tools to avoid any form of pvp even when in areas of the game (0.0 space) that should be for pvp. This game changes all that and blends the pvp and pve much better, and with the war system that resets every 6 weeks they have found a way to fix eve's massive alliance legacy problem. I have played EVE (the sandbox MMO) for over 4 years and I can safely say I have basically done it all. Large Alliance, Small Alliance, Piracy, Industry, PVE, PVP (over 12,000 recorded kills) ... and the game has hit a wall.
When I read about the system for player econmy, pvp, port ownership, ship combat, even avatar combat I knew this game was going to do SandBox gameplay the right way. And so far it has.
Thank you again for a good review of what I think is a great game!
I hate stupid people.
This thing has nothing to do with EvE... Its instanced, dull, boring.. EvE was freedom at highest point, on PoBS I felt tight as never on a MMO, just because the instances and zones.. For godsake, to make a mission IN THE ISLAND YOU ARE you need to speak with a NPC to be transported on an instance (which is told to you to be the same island where you spoke to the NPC)!!! EvE tried to make all realistic and its profundly complex. In here the parrot is glued on your shoulder and you are teleported with your crew to the SAME scenario over and over again to battle the ships in the same way as you battled 500 times before... Not mentioning the FANTASTIC avatar fight...
As you can see there are PotBS solo gamers out there as well as huge guilds participating in this new mmo. This game at best is group orientated and as I stated in a previous post. If your thinking of soloing the seas without a guild and friends, well you might just want to dock your ship and sell your stuff on the AH and wait for the next mmorpg to satisfy your needs as a solo artist.
Now in my opinion, you wont like this game if you dont like grouping and furthermore your not going to get the same kind of experience I am having, since I am in a guild that is heavily hitting PotBS. We have been building Spains Economy and gearing up our guild members.
We managed to help some members achieve level 21 already and we have been working as a guild should. To anyone that is looking for a game thats like WoW or EQ2 (even though I love both these games in the past), you might as well back off and wait till another mmorpg comes out.
Here are a few guilds you want to look into, if anyone decides they like PotBS.
http://www.guildcafe.com/guilds/Pirates-of-the-Burning-Sea
I mentioned EVE in my post simply because its the same "STYLE" of MMO as PoTBS. Free roaming, allowing you to do as you please, ie get into the social aspect, or pvp, or pve or economy or whatever. You decide to attack PoTBS and compare the instances of missions in it to the "FREEDOM" of EVE?
EVE PVE = Dock at station (Which the interior of look like every single station in space!) accept mission from an agent with little to no back story to kill x ships at x location. Warp to location (where you are solo, that was spawned for you to do the mission in, ie an instance of black space, and shoot ships) return to agent, collect little to no reward, rinse, repeat....
EVE PVP = Depending on your social group, but since most say roaming gangs is the best pvp ill summarise it: Form group, wait while everyone debates for hours if you should go heavy remote rep turtle gang, or Nanofiber Speed Gang, Go 50 to 100 jumps in 1 direction through empty systems and each system you enter has only a chinese gold farmer, or locals who now have STANDINGS in local and warp to saftey and log off as you enter system. After 100 jumps and most of the gang has logged off along the way, you turn around and head 100 jumps back home, only to run into a 100 man group that formed up when you passed by earlier and your now outnumbered 10 to 1 on a gate. You scout said gate and decide not to jump into suicide, and everyone logs off. 100 man group sits on gate for 2 hours waiting for you to log back in. WEEE im not saying the pvp in eve is bad, the pvp is good, just you only get to pvp 3%-5% of the time, the other 95%-97% of the time its boring as can be. I have played eve for over 4 years and this games port contention plus pirate vs nation vs nation system is going to make people actually pvp, instead of sit in stations and twirl the camera around their ship (ie the station game).
PoTBS PVE/PVP = Player driven economy that requires you to pass through PVP zones (on the 22nd) putting yourself at risk to build items and do missions. PVP and PVE blended together to create a much better system than eve imho (and I have played eve for over 4 years and know a little bit about it, lol).
EVE and PoTBS are both SANDBOX style games, just one does a better job of blending what you do in the sandbox into a more enjoyable experience (potbs). And the avatar combat is actually pretty good as you level up and get some decent skills for it. CCP (makers of eve) are just getting around after years to adding avatar stuff to eve, and its not gonna be 1% as intresting as the stuff you can do in PoTBS.
Again, if your looking for something new, or a change of pace as a eve player that is tired of the same old same old in eve (I still play eve, but like PoTBS better) then give this game a try! (not a fanboi, just tired of the bitching posts here about not getting to explore or the cost of cannon balls or the avatar combat)
I hate stupid people.
free roaming? On PoBS? ITs all instanced, my friend... You cant go to pos y to pos x in this game... I dare you to try to leave your city and roam to the jungles...
Sandbox?!?! Are you kidding me? ITs all the same thing, again and again... There is NPC mission or roam the sea... EvE have so much things that you cant even start ... This thing is level-based, EvE is skill-based, you do wharever you want to do... I want to see, in this ´sandbox´ of yours a pirate be an england or help the english against other pirates...
um...POTBS is the definition of exactly what ISN'T a sandbox game.
I said this once before. I challenge anyone to say EVE's missions are better than PotBS .... please. And yes I played EVE for 2 years.
LOL - Um, okay...roam the jungles...no I can't do that, but I can go anywhere on the map to any point, that is water or town...and most of the towns I can run around and enter buildings and there are more things to do in towns than stations in eve...think you failed to make a point there.
Second, SANDBOX? yes, hell this game has sand in it, that should make it sandbox right there!, lol. NPC misison, or hunt NPC's roaming, or craft or PVP nation vs nation or gank as a pirate... yes, I agree, thats your options in the game, but wait, here is your options in eve:
NPC missions (THEY ARE INSTANCES in eve btw, just people can enter them as your doing them, ie pirates can gank you in low sec or zero zero missions by probing you out)
NPC Roam and kill rats in belts. or instances found with scanner.
Craft, same thing, just a much crappier system that only rewards people with original T2 bpo's. Or Super capital ship producers. The little guy can't make money crafting.
PVP, the pvp in eve has no purpose, you don't ever have to enter low sec or zero zero if you don't want to, and even if you do there are many tools at your disposal to avoid pvp. Sure you can be ganked in high sec by a suicide gank, but the majority of the fights in eve are very consensual because if you don't want to fight you don't have to get caught. And the METAGAME of pvp in eve has shifted and now unless you outnumber someone, you hardly fight, so most of the pvp is quite rare.
Oh, 1 thing eve has that Pirates does not! - MINNING! omg, sit in 1 place and shoot minning lazers at rocks, omg, sandbox! so many things!...
A review:
Sandbox Options in
EVE:
NPC MISSIONS in instances (they are instances just different style)
NPC Kill Rats in Belts/Explorations Instances (that are hardly explorable)
CRAFT T1 Items for no profit, or T2 invention for very little profit.
PVP Roam/Piracy/Or Aliance Blobfare
MINE = watch paint dry
or
Sit in a station that is identical to every station in the entire game
Pirates:
All of the above except you don't have to mine, the crafting system is much better, and the pvp system has a real purpose (port battles/contention,6 weeks and it resets, not like eve's ingrained massive alliances that never have to fight anymore)
I hate stupid people.
No level based game can be sandbox... I think you are just wrong about what is a sandbox game.
Sandbox game is a kind of game where you can do wharever you want, not being tight to one class, for example. thats why a level based game isnt a sandbox and a skill based is.
EvE is a sandbox game (as it was SWG and UO) because you can do and go wharever you want, not because the missions are this way or the other way... you dont need to kill anything to improve your char on the way you want.
Other games have some degree of sandbox, but its not a complete sandbox, as AoC promises, for example... why taht? Because you can, at least, go wharever you want to go...
Another example? You want to kill someone on avatar fight but dont want to border a ship? You cant, unless you get an avatar mission, and this mission involves avatars. You just cant go in the jungle and kill anyone on sight. There is no jungle...
PoBS its the exactly contrary of a sanbox game.
For start, its level based. I will give an example of freedom... I am on LOTRO, I am doing a mission in here, lets say killing lynx... But I also need to kill bears, which are a lot harder... I can do that in the way I want, I just kill a linx here and the bear near... I can kill others in other places... I can even ask for help in the middle of the battle or be helped by a passerby... Thats an minor aspect of freedom. On PoBS none of this is possible.
On EvE I go for mining.. But then rats appear!!! Gosh, what to do?!?! Well, there is a ship who help me on this, I thank him BLASTING HIM!! hehehe... Ouch, the Concords have got me, I may escape!! I did!!! Ok, nothing like this is possible on PoBS, you go to a mission, you do a mission, like all missions and then you leave it for the next one exactly the same... You cant even beat a ship and return later to kill the other 3 left!!! You dont have much choice, you speak with the NPC and is teletransported to some place diminutive instance, it always work like this...
oh for god's sake, enough with this argument.
POTBS is absolutely not a sandbox game. It's pretty close to the opposite of a sandbox game.
If you disagree, it's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of you not knowing the definition of the term.
Accodring to Wiki.. so you see.. it is generally up to who is playing and how they perceive it...
A sandbox game (or a video game with an optional sandbox mode) is a video game with an open-ended and non-linear style of gameplay, or a mode of gameplay within a game that is more often played in a goal-directed manner. The sandbox analogy is used to describe this style of gaming because, as with a physical sandbox, the user is simply allowed to do what he or she wishes (with the available game elements and within the limitations of the game engine — the metaphoric toys within, and boundaries of, the sandbox). This free-form experimentation is either an end unto itself — in contrast to competing models of gaming — or is a variant modality that has no effect on more traditional or usual play of the same game, such as scores, game level advancement milestones, player rankings, etc. Just as a real-world sandbox can be smoothed out and resculpted again and again, so the sandbox game or game mode can be played and explored repeatedly without a linear "plot" or a particular set of expectations, nor any lasting gameplay consequences.
Role-playing games, including MMORPGs, and various other types of games can be sandbox games as well. The best selling PC game of all time, The Sims[1], is a sandbox-style creation (though its predecessor, SimCity, has been described as merely open-ended[2]). Space trading and combat simulators, such as Elite[3][4] and Freelancer[5][3], are examples of sandbox games.
More "traditional" goal-oriented video games sometimes offer a sandbox mode, usually an option that allows the player more freedom by lifting some of the normal rules of gameplay. For example, the player may no longer have to worry about restricting resource requirements (such as having enough money to complete an action), nor be required to complete storyline goals. The "god mode" and level editors offered by many combat games effectively convert them into sandboxes, allowing the player to explore every cranny of the game map without having to fend off enemies.
Common features of sandbox-style video gaming
[edit] Open-ended gameplay
A subset of sandbox games are those that feature open-ended gameplay, one that does not usually have a specific, predefined ending, or set of endings. The terms non-linear and freeform are also used to refer to this type of game. Often "tycoon" games will be open-ended, as will some god games.
Before the 32/64-bit era of computer and video games true open-ended games were rare due to the physical limitations of late 20th century technology. However, in the late 1990s open-ended CRPGs and strategy games began to become fiercely popular amongst the gaming community because of the sense of freedom and hours of replayability they often awarded the player.
These earlier open-ended games allowed players to make limited decisions on how they played the game, but were still restrictive in certain aspects. Many were confined to particular storylines or suffered from lingering sequencing (where a player is forced to complete a task in order to continue anything else in the game) by the developers. As was mentioned previously, this was mostly due to the amount of memory true open-ended games required, and the technological limitations of the time.
[edit] GTA clones
GTA clone is a term used by video game critics and players to refer to the many titles released following the massive success of Grand Theft Auto III (GTA III) in 2001, which emulated, or at least attempted to, the gameplay functions of GTA III or other later games from the Grand Theft Auto series. Specifically, a GTA Clone is typically an action sandbox video game that usually contains a large free-roaming map that can be explored on foot or in a vehicle, with missions and side-missions displayed on a mini-map for the player. However, game critics are often quick to label a game "GTA clone", and as such, it is often used in a derogatory way (See this review for an example).
Many critics note the release of Grand Theft Auto III as a revolutionary moment in the history of videogames, much like the release of Doom nearly a decade earlier.[6] Rather than inventing new forms of gameplay, the Grand Theft Auto series added a three dimensional game engine, combined existing elements and fused them together into an entirely new experience (however, some critics believe that accolade should go to DMA Design's earlier, less-popular game Body Harvest, of which GTA III itself is a clone, or even to the earlier Quarantine). The free-roaming world, intense violence, criminal plotline, and freedom of choice found in GTA III was extremely popular. As was the case with Doom, game developers quickly began to "clone" the game style of GTA.
Several of these "clones" offered original gameplay scenarios and attempted to create their own interpretation of the "free-roam" gameplay of GTA, with some games being more serious and realistic. However, others simply attempted to capitalize on the success of GTA, and "borrowed" wholesale from the gameplay (free roam environment, ability to use any vehicle/weapon, etc.), story (generally criminal in nature, full of seedy characters), and themes found in GTA, without offering anything new, such as in the case of the Gameloft game Gangstar: Crime City, which is strikingly similar to the Grand Theft Auto III-era games when it comes to gameplay and overall concept. It also must be noted many "clones" were made in part because Rockstar Games initially made GTA III a PlayStation 2 exclusive.
Saints Row, a well thought of GTA clone, did introduce and upgrade several features from GTA and is even getting a sequel, Saints Row 2, that includes more features never used in previous GTA Games. Furthermore many of the elements introduced in the later GTA games such as arcade games, real time clocks and weather were first seen in Shenmue in 1999.
Or just goto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox_%28video_games%29
Its as easy as that, instead of people on this website trying to define it.
Now, for those off you who DIDN'T read the excellent review by an Open beta player who mentioned the GTAness of PotBS then here's the link http://mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/161733
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
1. Quoting wiki as a reference is always in bad form.
2. You could have simply posted "A sandbox game (or a video game with an optional sandbox mode) is a video game with an open-ended and non-linear style of gameplay, or a mode of gameplay within a game that is more often played in a goal-directed manner. The sandbox analogy is used to describe this style of gaming because, as with a physical sandbox, the user is simply allowed to do what he or she wishes"
This is a linear game. It isn't open ended. It's instanced, it's level based, it's linear quests, it posesses a central storyline.
It is not a sandbox game.
But I did it anyways, got a problem? Or maybe its just me...
1: Not linear, you dont need to do quests, or level up, you can do everything in the game in your starting ship, including pvp with lvl 50's.
2: Its as open ended as EVE, when you reach about 25million skill points, (almost 2 years) you can fly just about any ship of your race, now your free to do anything, but still within the confines of the game physics. Same thing in pirates, want to craft, want to run a large guild, want to run repeateable raid style missions or boss missions, want to pvp all day, ie open ended.
3. Just beacuse it has instances does not make it sandbox, eve as instances, and you seem to think eve is a sandbox game. EVE also has almost a more linear method with skill based lvl system. If you focus your skill trainging towards science and invention your terrible or absolutley useless at pvp, in pirates I have seen free traders (technically the crafting carebear class) kill people in pvp. So no, your not bound to do only 1 thing.
I think the problem here is you guys only did missions in pirates, never joined a decent society, never got involved int he raiding of high end convoys for loot never experienced anything other than some very well scripted missinos in a storyline to help people like you progress to the more fun stuff. Being only players of games with towns with people with quests above their heads, thats all you did.
There is more to the game if you look, you simply did not, therefore it seems linear to you. Apply your same method of thinking to any game you can think of and you will see most games are not truely sandbox, but this does fall within the defenition of a sandbox style, even if you don't think so.
I hate stupid people.
Actually, I've never said Eve was a sandbox game either...
And again, I'll simply repeat the facts:
"This is a linear game. It isn't open ended. It's instanced, it's level based, it's linear quests, it posesses a central storyline."
A sandbox game on MMOs is different from a sandbox on offline game. If the wiki definition of sandbox goes to MMO then EVERY MMO is sandbox, including the mostly closed in-game as DDO and PoBS...
sandbox on MMOs is another level, since every MMO is non-linear as GTA or Sims, I cant remeber a single MMO who is linear and is called MMO.
That said, lets see what sandbox means on MMOs.
To define a word or something you need to have a few parameters. To define sandbox on MMO you need first to aknowledge what is sandbox on MMO. Well, sandbox means freedom to do wharever you want. That said, lets find the games who mostly let you do wharever you want on MMO to help to define sandbox on MMOS (having in mind that sandbox means freedom in any way, in offline games or MMOs)
1. SWG - Its a sandbox because its a skill based(that means you dont have a linear improvement of character, any game who is linear , level based therefore IS not a sandbox on MMO terms. Also you can freelly roam wharever you wish (therefore any game where you cant go here or there is not a sandbox game), it doesnt have classes, you be what you want to be...
2. EvE - Althought you cant go to space stations, the skill-based system thrashes the linear thing of the game. You may be wharever you want to be at any time of the game, you can customize your char as you were on a sandbox... It doesnt have classe, you pick what you want to be in skills. You can, at some degree, free roam also. Therefore, mostly because the skill system and the different levels of gameplay, I do consider EvE a sandbox.
3. UO - Read about SWG...
Now lets see the contrary of sandbox...
1. PoBS - You cant leave your city, you cant go to the islands, you are level based, therefore you have low customization of your character, you cant go to the mission as in any sandbox game, you need to speak with a NPC and be 'magically' teleported there, you have to improve levels at the same way, always (mission or grinding), the missions are all the same scenario, you cant leave the place of the mission without leaving the mission and losing it, starting from zero. its unrealistic on the way it proposes to be...
2. DDO - read above
The first post was nice.
The rest of these posts are quite boring. How long can people keep rehashing an ancient argument over what is or what is not a 'sandbox' game?
I'll tell you: Forever.
-SGC Special Ops
http://stargate.mgm.com/specialops/link.php?urlid=48&id=7871
http://stargate.mgm.com/specialops/link.php?urlid=49&id=7871
I've been a big fan of two MMOs ever, one is DDO and one was pre-CU SWG. I'm one of DDO's biggest fans, however in a post right on this website I made it clear for people considering the game...
IT IS NOT A SANDBOX GAME.
You'll know a sandbox game if you play one (pre-CU SWG). I don't think being a sandbox game is a requirement to make a game good, clearly as a DDO fan. I do think representing a game in pre-release as a sandbox game when it isn't even close is bad form though.