This is probably one of the best reviews i read, expressing the current sad state of linear fetch quest mmorpgs pioneered by blizzard. Unfortunately based on all the replies from the wow-era players, most dont have a clue what the author was even talking about.
Admriker4, i agree only 3 mmorpgs that came close - UO, SWG, and EVE. Imo UO achieved a true free market player driven world before it was ruined by the later expansions. SWG had so much potential to be the next UO, before soe completely killed it. Eve is great, too bad i am not that into space type mmorpg either.
It's really sad the current state of mmorpgs, once the developers see the success of WoW, every single mmorpg since then is a copycat of the quest driven linear progression model of wow. But it's only a great system the first time you play it (part of the reason why wow was so popular). You basically going through the soulless game quest after quest like a zombie, until maxed out in a few months, then just sit around doing raid/pvp until the expansion or quit from boredom.
There is nothing on the horizon that suggest any change either, the next big thing warhammer looks to be exactly the same type of game with a better pvp/raid system at the endgame.
Is it too much to ask just to have 1 free world sandbox mmorpg for the old players who desire long term character development and progression over instant gratification?
Originally posted by admriker4
I finally got in last night to play Age of Conan. It reminds me of every single MMO Ive played recently. Lots and lots of quests (too many to be honest), interesting storyline, fun combat, great soundtrack, and beautiful graphics.
Having said that, AoC is just another amusement park carnival with fixed rides. Its amazing the 1st time you try the rides. Its a blast the second time. The 3rd time, meh its okay. By the 5th time your throwing up that cotton candy and hot dog you bought from that seedy looking carny.
This will nearly always be the case with this type of MMO. Linear focus with a high concentration of quests means the game is basically a book or a movie. Its purpose unlike sandbox MMO's is to provide the entertainment, to tell a story. In essence, its an attractive ride with pretty colors.
Like all RPG MMO of this genre, that story can only be read a few times. After a while, it gets really really old. You'll notice that there are already several threads asking if the newbie area has to be repeated with alts !
There are plenty of great rpg out there but people arent playing them again and again and again. So why would a developer think making an MMO of this type would be a good idea ? Especially considering that MMO's are supposed to have long-term appeal ? This leads to another problem, keeping up.
Since the latest MMORPG's are amusement park rides, the developers are always working on the latest ride. If they take too long getting new rides into the park, players will move on to the next playground. And when a new ride is added, the players will feast on it like its a last meal and quickly ask whats next.
In the end the ride cant ever hope to keep up with player's demands.
To make an analogy...
Linear MMO's are like this, giving the player a fish to eat. You have to constantly give him fish or he will go elsewhere begging for more fish. See WoW, LOTR, Age of Conan, and several other similiar MMO's
Sandbox MMO's give the player a fishing pole, the bait, maybe a soda to cool off, and an instructor to show how to fish. After that, the player is on his own but he has the necessary tools / skills to get all the fish he needs.
I like Age of Conan. Its pretty to look at. The combat is fun. But its not going to be my home for the next several years.
You need to quit worrying about the future and enjoy the moment!!! you will never be happy if you dont enjoy the moment!!!!!!!!!! This is the key to life!!!! and no im not high!!!!!!
I am enjoying the game (or moment as you stated). However that moment will quickly be over since its a linear game. Had Funcom made it sandbox style, I might be around to enjoy the "moment" for years and years
Thank you for your attempt to explain to these people that another type of MMO does indeed exist. Not having an NPC standing there telling these people what to do, I don't know how they would survive to enjoy themselves. Age of Conan was hailed as some to be the game that would kill WoW. Fifteen minutes into the game I found myself crying. Crying I was laughing so hard at these people (myself included) that put their faith into this.....below par game (sadly WoW has established itself as the par). I feel screwed, but alas... I will take some of the above advice and continue playing before writing a complete novel about how bad the game is.
I've recently started playing EVE and while their time-based progression system isn't very newbie friendly, for veteran players I can certainly see why it is appealing and I am playing the game because it appears EVE cares more about their veteran community than attracting a new audience. The game is appealing because you can choose to have missions given to you or you can choose to go about your own way of making ISK.
WoW was a good game. I don't believe any linear MMO will ever compete with WoW as long as Blizzard doesn't screw it up. WoW seems to have everything pretty close to perfect for those that enjoy that gamestyle (which I did for over a year). After going through my third character however, I realized I was replaying months and months of my life all to simply change my class - something I can do in a sandbox MMOsin weeks, days, or even hours.
Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU and even a little post-CU) was the ideal example of a sandbox game. I knew a guy who played the game for 2 years and guess how many mobs he killed in his entire time playing? ZERO. Most of you can't even fathom the idea of being able to spend hours a day tending harvesters, factories, and your shops, stocking them with armor, weapons, food, buildings, and more and enjoying it. The idea of obtaining a special weapon and not having it last forever, most of you would've quit right there. I got excited about Conan's player cities until I read further. Even player cities, something that sounds like a perfect "build it how you want to build it" have huge restrictions on location placement of buildings.
I played SWG from a few months after release until the day the NGE was released. What is sad is the state that SOE released and left the game in. Lie after lie, change after change, I watched the life get sucked out of that game. I know most of you are sick of the SWG sob stories (myself included) so I will save that for the Refugee forum.
It is terrible but most of you will never even realize that there... is... another...
thanks for the post in support ! You got me rethinking of trying EVE again (i played it once for about a week 2 yrs ago).
SWG will always be a painful reminder as long as developers refuse to make us another virtual sandbox world. I often think about my old shop and the events held like weddings, pvp contests with prizes, it was a real-life community and I miss it
The things people did, it encouraged creativity, cleverness, and teamwork to accomplish some of the player ran events. Games like WoW and AoC sadly don't even allow someone to think outside the box. I remember going back after a few months of the NGE for a day to check my friend's list. It was a sad sight to see my once large and active list, show everyone I knew as "offline" and I knew that mean't they were gone.
I too tried EVE awhile back and thought I would enjoy the game but realized how much time had to be invested in training the skills before you could really experience the game so I stopped playing, but kepting training. I guess the money invested and time spent is paying off, now that I'm enjoying getting past the simple beginnings.
What are you talking about, dont allow you to think outside the box?
I thought outside the box plenty of times in WoW and games like EQ2, and Vanguard.
For example in WoW I devised a battle royal at the arena to determine a guild "Champion" which eneded up spoiling over to a bloodfest between he horde. All player all my guild.
Your elitist attitude, is what drives people away from many activities and games,
This is probably one of the best reviews i read, expressing the current sad state of linear fetch quest mmorpgs pioneered by blizzard. Unfortunately based on all the replies from the wow-era players, most dont have a clue what the author was even talking about.
Admriker4, i agree only 3 mmorpgs that came close - UO, SWG, and EVE. Imo UO achieved a true free market player driven world before it was ruined by the later expansions. SWG had so much potential to be the next UO, before soe completely killed it. Eve is great, too bad i am not that into space type mmorpg either. It's really sad the current state of mmorpgs, once the developers see the success of WoW, every single mmorpg since then is a copycat of the quest driven linear progression model of wow. But it's only a great system the first time you play it (part of the reason why wow was so popular). You basically going through the soulless game quest after quest like a zombie, until maxed out in a few months, then just sit around doing raid/pvp until the expansion or quit from boredom. There is nothing on the horizon that suggest any change either, the next big thing warhammer looks to be exactly the same type of game with a better pvp/raid system at the endgame. Is it too much to ask just to have 1 free world sandbox mmorpg for the old players who desire long term character development and progression over instant gratification?
Originally posted by admriker4
I finally got in last night to play Age of Conan. It reminds me of every single MMO Ive played recently. Lots and lots of quests (too many to be honest), interesting storyline, fun combat, great soundtrack, and beautiful graphics.
Having said that, AoC is just another amusement park carnival with fixed rides. Its amazing the 1st time you try the rides. Its a blast the second time. The 3rd time, meh its okay. By the 5th time your throwing up that cotton candy and hot dog you bought from that seedy looking carny.
This will nearly always be the case with this type of MMO. Linear focus with a high concentration of quests means the game is basically a book or a movie. Its purpose unlike sandbox MMO's is to provide the entertainment, to tell a story. In essence, its an attractive ride with pretty colors.
Like all RPG MMO of this genre, that story can only be read a few times. After a while, it gets really really old. You'll notice that there are already several threads asking if the newbie area has to be repeated with alts !
There are plenty of great rpg out there but people arent playing them again and again and again. So why would a developer think making an MMO of this type would be a good idea ? Especially considering that MMO's are supposed to have long-term appeal ? This leads to another problem, keeping up.
Since the latest MMORPG's are amusement park rides, the developers are always working on the latest ride. If they take too long getting new rides into the park, players will move on to the next playground. And when a new ride is added, the players will feast on it like its a last meal and quickly ask whats next.
In the end the ride cant ever hope to keep up with player's demands.
To make an analogy...
Linear MMO's are like this, giving the player a fish to eat. You have to constantly give him fish or he will go elsewhere begging for more fish. See WoW, LOTR, Age of Conan, and several other similiar MMO's
Sandbox MMO's give the player a fishing pole, the bait, maybe a soda to cool off, and an instructor to show how to fish. After that, the player is on his own but he has the necessary tools / skills to get all the fish he needs.
I like Age of Conan. Its pretty to look at. The combat is fun. But its not going to be my home for the next several years.
Us "old players" number far less than the new players, and we all pay the same amount per month.
You need to quit worrying about the future and enjoy the moment!!! you will never be happy if you dont enjoy the moment!!!!!!!!!! This is the key to life!!!! and no im not high!!!!!!
I am enjoying the game (or moment as you stated). However that moment will quickly be over since its a linear game. Had Funcom made it sandbox style, I might be around to enjoy the "moment" for years and years
Thank you for your attempt to explain to these people that another type of MMO does indeed exist. Not having an NPC standing there telling these people what to do, I don't know how they would survive to enjoy themselves. Age of Conan was hailed as some to be the game that would kill WoW. Fifteen minutes into the game I found myself crying. Crying I was laughing so hard at these people (myself included) that put their faith into this.....below par game (sadly WoW has established itself as the par). I feel screwed, but alas... I will take some of the above advice and continue playing before writing a complete novel about how bad the game is.
I've recently started playing EVE and while their time-based progression system isn't very newbie friendly, for veteran players I can certainly see why it is appealing and I am playing the game because it appears EVE cares more about their veteran community than attracting a new audience. The game is appealing because you can choose to have missions given to you or you can choose to go about your own way of making ISK.
WoW was a good game. I don't believe any linear MMO will ever compete with WoW as long as Blizzard doesn't screw it up. WoW seems to have everything pretty close to perfect for those that enjoy that gamestyle (which I did for over a year). After going through my third character however, I realized I was replaying months and months of my life all to simply change my class - something I can do in a sandbox MMOsin weeks, days, or even hours.
Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU and even a little post-CU) was the ideal example of a sandbox game. I knew a guy who played the game for 2 years and guess how many mobs he killed in his entire time playing? ZERO. Most of you can't even fathom the idea of being able to spend hours a day tending harvesters, factories, and your shops, stocking them with armor, weapons, food, buildings, and more and enjoying it. The idea of obtaining a special weapon and not having it last forever, most of you would've quit right there. I got excited about Conan's player cities until I read further. Even player cities, something that sounds like a perfect "build it how you want to build it" have huge restrictions on location placement of buildings.
I played SWG from a few months after release until the day the NGE was released. What is sad is the state that SOE released and left the game in. Lie after lie, change after change, I watched the life get sucked out of that game. I know most of you are sick of the SWG sob stories (myself included) so I will save that for the Refugee forum.
It is terrible but most of you will never even realize that there... is... another...
thanks for the post in support ! You got me rethinking of trying EVE again (i played it once for about a week 2 yrs ago).
SWG will always be a painful reminder as long as developers refuse to make us another virtual sandbox world. I often think about my old shop and the events held like weddings, pvp contests with prizes, it was a real-life community and I miss it
The things people did, it encouraged creativity, cleverness, and teamwork to accomplish some of the player ran events. Games like WoW and AoC sadly don't even allow someone to think outside the box. I remember going back after a few months of the NGE for a day to check my friend's list. It was a sad sight to see my once large and active list, show everyone I knew as "offline" and I knew that mean't they were gone.
I too tried EVE awhile back and thought I would enjoy the game but realized how much time had to be invested in training the skills before you could really experience the game so I stopped playing, but kepting training. I guess the money invested and time spent is paying off, now that I'm enjoying getting past the simple beginnings.
What are you talking about, dont allow you to think outside the box?
I thought outside the box plenty of times in WoW and games like EQ2, and Vanguard.
For example in WoW I devised a battle royal at the arena to determine a guild "Champion" which eneded up spoiling over to a bloodfest between he horde. All player all my guild.
Your elitist attitude, is what drives people away from many activities and games,
-Jive
Arenas were a good addition to WoW to allow for some change. Despite doing thousands of arena matches, you always had many different combinations and types of gameplay you had to face.
My "elitest" attitude is what drives people like you away from the games I enjoy. Mission Accomplished!
1. Those games you listed soley concetrate on simulating crafting/working, mmorpgs focus on multiple aspects. Like I said before you can craft soley if you want but you will only get a small portion of the game and in my personal opinion id rather do everything the game has to offer. To a degree, I think we agree here. The real divide comes from me thinking that each element should be contain enough immersion potential to not only make you want to do those things, but offer you a way to do them exclusively and not feel like you are wasting time. Crafting in WoW always felt like a waste of time to me, because I knew for a fact that near none of what I could ever make would be useful to me at all. Not even so much as useful in a cosmetic sense. It was trash compared to everything else. Only two of their professions ever amounted to anything...and it didn't leave you with the feeling you had crafted your own piece of the virtual world (which is the big draw for most craft-happy people). 2. Real time Housing isn't something that is simply added to a game. It is very complicated and can mess with the game world. So far the only games to implement them have a lot of empty spaces/worlds. Instanced housing is a great edition but Real time Housing brings so many problems that I personally think its not worth it. (And I personally found Animal Crossing incredibly boring) You enjoy combat more, and there isn't anything wrong with that. Real time housing IS a big deal to add...and realistically it can only truly work in a system which allows people to blow em up. If the house is to be nothing more than cosmetic (and perhaps a minor storage) then instancing all the way. That, or devise zones dedicated to it, rather than actual content. (For 1. and 2., singleplayer games can't really be compared to mmos) I couldn't disagree more. I think the major problem we HAVE in MMO gaming is that we too often ignore great game play mechanics used in other outlets. Single Player games have much they could offer the online world that we are denying for no reason at all. When I talk about how stagnate this genre is...this is a prime example of why. We have it set in our minds that MMO's should BE this way...and that we shouldn't use ideals that are great from other genres. But I can immediately think of one quick example of why this isn't true at all. I love platform games, I do. Perfect World actually had me playing for quite a bit due entirely to its almost platform nature in some aspects. Several quests the game gives you are to grab items for people located in out-of-reach spots that you have to jump and double jump up interesting landscapes and buildings to get. The act of figuring out how to navigate vertical building walls to achieve this was GREAT fun. IN fact, it was easily the most enjoyable questing I have ever done. That is a perfect example of single player games finding their influence cast upon this genre in a way which moves us FORWARD...rather than sitting stagnate in the days of EQ for gods sake. Allowing people to farm and harvest like they do in Harvest Moon would be great...allowing us to platform like Mario, fun...to innovate combat as Devil May Cry did, amazing. With the exception of DMC combat...none of those would actually hurt performance in any way. Its these kinds of ideals that the genre needs to stay fresh, because right now its falling down a pretty deep well. 3. Almost every mmorpg has a leveling system or maybe disguised as a ranking system. Heck even a lot of single player rpgs have them because they keep you hooked. Why do you think even most online FPS are recently adding rank levels, because they keep you wanting more. Im not saying levels are necessary but the OP makes them sound like a bad thing. Its not that levels are a bad thing...its that the implementation of them sets a precedence that must be followed. By including them as progression (usually HORRIBLY backed by a gear progression as well) you force players into a singular path through which they can explore the game. We are being marketed online worlds...but they just aren't. They are single player games with other people. There is no world, there are stages that you can go back to for no real reason. How many times have you revisited a lowbie zone in an MMO for anything actually useful? Its linear...and being linear makes the world not only less open, but less accessible. I think people are wising up to this, because ever since WoW very few of these structures have found any success. 4. I am a bit confused on what you are saying for this one but what I mean by decay is just paying a repair bill and I think that adds some immersion. I assumed decay to be actual item loss after a certain amount of wear. If its just repair bills you're talking about, then I apologize. All that is amounts to nothing more than a time sink and band aid fix to what will always be a massively inflating economy.
You need to quit worrying about the future and enjoy the moment!!! you will never be happy if you dont enjoy the moment!!!!!!!!!! This is the key to life!!!! and no im not high!!!!!!
I am enjoying the game (or moment as you stated). However that moment will quickly be over since its a linear game. Had Funcom made it sandbox style, I might be around to enjoy the "moment" for years and years
Thank you for your attempt to explain to these people that another type of MMO does indeed exist. Not having an NPC standing there telling these people what to do, I don't know how they would survive to enjoy themselves. Age of Conan was hailed as some to be the game that would kill WoW. Fifteen minutes into the game I found myself crying. Crying I was laughing so hard at these people (myself included) that put their faith into this.....below par game (sadly WoW has established itself as the par). I feel screwed, but alas... I will take some of the above advice and continue playing before writing a complete novel about how bad the game is.
I've recently started playing EVE and while their time-based progression system isn't very newbie friendly, for veteran players I can certainly see why it is appealing and I am playing the game because it appears EVE cares more about their veteran community than attracting a new audience. The game is appealing because you can choose to have missions given to you or you can choose to go about your own way of making ISK.
WoW was a good game. I don't believe any linear MMO will ever compete with WoW as long as Blizzard doesn't screw it up. WoW seems to have everything pretty close to perfect for those that enjoy that gamestyle (which I did for over a year). After going through my third character however, I realized I was replaying months and months of my life all to simply change my class - something I can do in a sandbox MMOsin weeks, days, or even hours.
Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU and even a little post-CU) was the ideal example of a sandbox game. I knew a guy who played the game for 2 years and guess how many mobs he killed in his entire time playing? ZERO. Most of you can't even fathom the idea of being able to spend hours a day tending harvesters, factories, and your shops, stocking them with armor, weapons, food, buildings, and more and enjoying it. The idea of obtaining a special weapon and not having it last forever, most of you would've quit right there. I got excited about Conan's player cities until I read further. Even player cities, something that sounds like a perfect "build it how you want to build it" have huge restrictions on location placement of buildings.
I played SWG from a few months after release until the day the NGE was released. What is sad is the state that SOE released and left the game in. Lie after lie, change after change, I watched the life get sucked out of that game. I know most of you are sick of the SWG sob stories (myself included) so I will save that for the Refugee forum.
It is terrible but most of you will never even realize that there... is... another...
thanks for the post in support ! You got me rethinking of trying EVE again (i played it once for about a week 2 yrs ago).
SWG will always be a painful reminder as long as developers refuse to make us another virtual sandbox world. I often think about my old shop and the events held like weddings, pvp contests with prizes, it was a real-life community and I miss it
The things people did, it encouraged creativity, cleverness, and teamwork to accomplish some of the player ran events. Games like WoW and AoC sadly don't even allow someone to think outside the box. I remember going back after a few months of the NGE for a day to check my friend's list. It was a sad sight to see my once large and active list, show everyone I knew as "offline" and I knew that mean't they were gone.
I too tried EVE awhile back and thought I would enjoy the game but realized how much time had to be invested in training the skills before you could really experience the game so I stopped playing, but kepting training. I guess the money invested and time spent is paying off, now that I'm enjoying getting past the simple beginnings.
What are you talking about, dont allow you to think outside the box?
I thought outside the box plenty of times in WoW and games like EQ2, and Vanguard.
For example in WoW I devised a battle royal at the arena to determine a guild "Champion" which eneded up spoiling over to a bloodfest between he horde. All player all my guild.
Your elitist attitude, is what drives people away from many activities and games,
-Jive
Arenas were a good addition to WoW to allow for some change. Despite doing thousands of arena matches, you always had many different combinations and types of gameplay you had to face.
My "elitest" attitude is what drives people like you away from the games I enjoy. Mission Accomplished!
Originally posted by admriker4 Linear MMO's are like this, giving the player a fish to eat. You have to constantly give him fish or he will go elsewhere begging for more fish. See WoW, LOTR, Age of Conan, and several other similiar MMO's Sandbox MMO's give the player a fishing pole, the bait, maybe a soda to cool off, and an instructor to show how to fish. After that, the player is on his own but he has the necessary tools / skills to get all the fish he needs.
This is the exact problem I see in the genre and largely it was caused by EQ1 trouncing UO and AC (a true sandbox and a limited sandbox.) Followed by the subsequent failure of SWG to get a serious customer base. Then WOW came along and trounced EQ1 and now everyone copies it (except vanguard who went back and copied EQ1 yet again to prove they could get trounced worse than anyone else.) It's a problem we're going to see in the game industry over and over and over until someone gets a sandbox game that is a smash hit. This industry hardly ever innovates (they add polish and incremental betterment) it just copies whoever is the leader and tries to take their market share. For examples look at the mmo industry, the diablo clones, the c&c/starcraft clones, the doom clones, the etc etc etc. Hell you see it in the movie industry too, "Ooh superheroes movies are doing good!" ->flood market with every superhero movie you can find... even the epically lame ones. I understand why they do it, I just hate the end result... 1 innovation and 10 years of copying. Repeat ad infinitum.
So which sandbox MMOs are currently examples of your definition of eternal gaming bliss, OP?
EVE Online is the closest MMO to this. Love or hate it its now surpassing 5 years when the average life span is 18 months for a lot of MMOs. People and corporations are the main content in this game so the developers just need to keep pumping out tools rather than 'linear storylines'.
I have to agree with the OP but maybe due to my age I am just a lot more patient these days. Even if the game is linear and a nice show ride I take it for what it is and play through it if I am still enjoying it. I still play Tabula Rasa after 6 months because I want to play through to level 50 and PAU, its not a sandbox game, its not ground breaking (some cool stuff though) but I enjoy the storyline, gameplay and graghics are great. Is it my home for the next 5 years? No. However as long as I am enjoying the game I will keep playing.
On that note it would be nice to see a true 'EVE' like fantasy game where players make the world....Darkfall is the only one I can see.
Sandbox needs people, no people = no game. Very risky business model but if you get it right you have an ever growing fanbase and a culture develop in-game rather than people just finishing a great journey and moving on to the next one.
EVE Online the journey is survival, victories and more than not a great deal of loss. No levels as well so the end game is what you make out of it.
I can remember helping someone out who was having trouble with a few mobs, after we got to chatting he asked if I would like to have his pets as he had decided to change his class to Smuggler ( NOT make a new alt, just change his class!) amongst them were his rares that had taken weeks to hunt down and find.
Then he asked if I would like to see his house which was full of awesome trophies collected overtime, furniture, pictures, animal heads, armour, weapons and many more items.
Later we headed out to a party being held on an island in the middle of a lake, there were fishing competitions, dancing and great musicians also a real variety of player made social clothes..
Someone said they were starting a tailoring shop and needed fur, so everyone jumped into their vehicles and headed out for a hunt, level didn’t matter, class didn’t matter anyone could join in.
Player made robots collected the fur and every so often we would stop, sit around a campfire, rebuff and generally socialize and plan new events and raids.
Everyone got xp, even the music makers yet no NPC has told us what to do, we were doing what we wanted not what we were told and it was amazing fun. That is the real difference between linear and sandbox.
I am not saying linear games are not fun but unless you have experienced a GOOD sandbox, when it is working well it is hard to make comparisons.
I think the OP has made a valid statement and we shouldn’t argue amongst ourselves but try to get the developers to create the best gaming experience possible.
People just don't know Wow anymore. If there is any PERSONAL sandbox MMORPG at the moment it is the Wow end game. Wow has so many options in that endgame which were not present in the old Wow, The player can freely decide now what aspect of the game he wants to develop. It's HE who decides how he plays, no longer the system. Grind is practically gone in Wow, because if the player only plays what he likes, he never even thinks of a grind.
Good god you can't be serious. If wow is a sandbox game then the definition of it needs rewriting. And what aspects of that game are you free to develop then? I don't see a huge range of diversity in what you can do. It's just awfully simplistic ( hence it's popularity ), easy and as linear as it gets.
Where's the player housing? The actual virtual communities? Where's the diversity in crafting because everyone looks the same, everyone can craft the same item with the same stats with the same appearance. Where's the feeling of purpose in the game? The purpose of WOW is just to kill x amount of mobs to get x amount of level to then get x amount of rep to then do the same old stuff on a harder level to see the same old loot drops in the same old places. Just rinse and repeat.
Grinding isn't gone at all. It's just a grind game and to try and claim otherwise is very naive. Want gear? Gring Karazhan every week to get your gear or grind motes to craft the same stuff the guy next to you is wearing. Then grind the early 25 mans for the same old stuff. Done with that? Go do the dailies everyone else is doing - and help the Sunwell armorsmith unlock her armoury so you can get your nice little rep rewards.
Meh point made - I enjoyed wow, but I wont defend it when people try and portray it as something it most certainly isn't.
I finally got in last night to play Age of Conan. It reminds me of every single MMO Ive played recently. Lots and lots of quests (too many to be honest), interesting storyline, fun combat, great soundtrack, and beautiful graphics. Having said that, AoC is just another amusement park carnival with fixed rides. Its amazing the 1st time you try the rides. Its a blast the second time. The 3rd time, meh its okay. By the 5th time your throwing up that cotton candy and hot dog you bought from that seedy looking carny. This will nearly always be the case with this type of MMO. Linear focus with a high concentration of quests means the game is basically a book or a movie. Its purpose unlike sandbox MMO's is to provide the entertainment, to tell a story. In essence, its an attractive ride with pretty colors. Like all RPG MMO of this genre, that story can only be read a few times. After a while, it gets really really old. You'll notice that there are already several threads asking if the newbie area has to be repeated with alts ! There are plenty of great rpg out there but people arent playing them again and again and again. So why would a developer think making an MMO of this type would be a good idea ? Especially considering that MMO's are supposed to have long-term appeal ? This leads to another problem, keeping up. Since the latest MMORPG's are amusement park rides, the developers are always working on the latest ride. If they take too long getting new rides into the park, players will move on to the next playground. And when a new ride is added, the players will feast on it like its a last meal and quickly ask whats next. In the end the ride cant ever hope to keep up with player's demands. To make an analogy... Linear MMO's are like this, giving the player a fish to eat. You have to constantly give him fish or he will go elsewhere begging for more fish. See WoW, LOTR, Age of Conan, and several other similiar MMO's Sandbox MMO's give the player a fishing pole, the bait, maybe a soda to cool off, and an instructor to show how to fish. After that, the player is on his own but he has the necessary tools / skills to get all the fish he needs. I like Age of Conan. Its pretty to look at. The combat is fun. But its not going to be my home for the next several years.
I feel with ya, OP, not only in AoC - as far as I saw it in beta - but in many new MMOs. Lotro is just the same, a fun amusement park one time playing through then bye bye. I miss my good olde SWG days of open world and sandbox. I mean I love and want good quests and stories but not so linear leading players like through Disney World...
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I can remember helping someone out who was having trouble with a few mobs, after we got to chatting he asked if I would like to have his pets as he had decided to change his class to Smuggler ( NOT make a new alt, just change his class!) amongst them were his rares that had taken weeks to hunt down and find.
Then he asked if I would like to see his house which was full of awesome trophies collected overtime, furniture, pictures, animal heads, armour, weapons and many more items.
Later we headed out to a party being held on an island in the middle of a lake, there were fishing competitions, dancing and great musicians also a real variety of player made social clothes..
Someone said they were starting a tailoring shop and needed fur, so everyone jumped into their vehicles and headed out for a hunt, level didn’t matter, class didn’t matter anyone could join in. Player made robots collected the fur and every so often we would stop, sit around a campfire, rebuff and generally socialize and plan new events and raids.
Everyone got xp, even the music makers yet no NPC has told us what to do, we were doing what we wanted not what we were told and it was amazing fun. That is the real difference between linear and sandbox.
I am not saying linear games are not fun but unless you have experienced a GOOD sandbox, when it is working well it is hard to make comparisons.
I think the OP has made a valid statement and we shouldn’t argue amongst ourselves but try to get the developers to create the best gaming experience possible.
thats beautiful and brings back many great memories in SWG for me as well. We werent on a level grind treadmill. We didnt have 28 quests to finish before moving on to the next zone to get even more quests. We had the freedom to do whatever the hell we wanted too.
I dont recall ever having evenings like that in any linear MMO. Everyone is too busy following their Linear scripts the devs wrote for them.
They are few and far between. They will only be developed by true devotees, driven by vision and implementation.
I, too, would much rather prefer the game play of a sandbox type mmorpg. That was the potential me and my friends realised when we discovered they genre with EQ1. We all were ensnared by thought of “living” in a virtual fantasy world filled with danger and glory, where our own choices would, at the very least, affect our own characters – good or bad, depending on our wisdom and creativeness.
The main way of achieving this kind of play should be to give players the tools and mechanics, and not more quests – which would later with EQ2 and WOW become pretty obvious, cater to a totally different gaming experience.
It is pretty ironic that a game as EQ1, which in several regards has been the design model for upcoming quest-based mmorpg’s, was in different respects a sandbox play. That was, however, mainly a (unaware) consequence by the lack of quests.
In early EQ1 character progression; there were simply not enough of quests to paint a clear path of levelling. Instead, players (characters) hade to find their own story and their own path, and – slightly less romantic put – they had to find their own suitable grinding spot and spend hours upon hours to reach that level cap and waiting for that Ancient Cyclops to spawn.
I remember in early advertising of EQ2 from SOE, where they proudly stated that the game would have “more than 1000 quests”… In those days that sounded marvellous – no more time consuming grind; players would only set about the core and cream of rpg game play: story-driven and quest-based character development! All epic; all tailored to you; the one game to rule them all for sure.
That idea for me of “ideal mmorpg-design” changed rather fast though, when EQ2 (and WOW) were up and running. Because running was what I found myself mostly to do; running between a myriad quest-givers, all very generic and the vast majority with virtually now story at all to tell – “kill ten of that”, “deliver that to that” etc. And to what end? To simply maximise my characters level and equipment?
There sure is a vast room for new thinking in the (game) design of mmorpg’s. Perhaps it is not FunCom that will deliver them, but some will given that the market expands and the room for niches increases.
When I was a kid, we didnt have computer games. We played with Rocks! and to us PVP was us throwing them at each other and we LOVED IT! and the game never ended. People are so spoiled today and lack imagination! I miss my rocks.. =(
We didnt have Radios or TVs or even books. We just made up our own stories in our heads. People are too lazy today and expect some external device to entertain them. Pathetic!
Bring back Liberty, Freedom, & The Constition. Save America from Corporatism. -RonPaul2008
I'd just like to pip in again and this time point out that imo some of you guys are confusing two quite separate dichotomies....
1) class-based vs skill-based MMOS
and
2) linear quest-based vs sandbox MMOS
The first dichotomy deals with the RPG system (which is used to simulate character abilities in the world (like D20, GURPS etc)) while the second is about the way the game world is set up.
You can have a level-and-class MMO that is completely sandbox and you can have a MMO without levels and classes that is completely linear and story driven.
Personally I'd prefer a sandbox, skill-based game but it is quite possible to have a 100% class/level based game that takes place in a 100% sandbox world.
In addition "sandbox" doesn't have to mean that the game has no NPC content at all. In fact, I can envision a game which takes place in an NPC AI driven dynamic world where players may influence the way this "god AI" changes the game state and are given quests based on the needs of the said AI (or AIs). That could be a possible mode of further evolution of sandbox games... In fact I hear that GTA4 actually has something smilar though very rudimentary under its hood and the players absolutely love it.
If you want sandbox you can always play pen and paper dungeons and dragons
But I agree with you, but some people can't handle the sandbox and like to have linerity which to those people you should go to these MMOS. i never liked EVE it seemed to me boring and complicated, maybe that makes me more of a linear type of gamer. I don't mind that.
In response to the guy who said he loved moding out his online house. I can totally agree with that. I think a game idea to take the throne from The Sims would be a home design game that took a really great FPS engine like the Unreal engine, but made a simple way to build any custom home you wanted, and fully customize the colors, textures, patterns, lighting, and thousands of styles of furniture With new ones being added as downloadable content. And then you could connect online and invite others into your home or visit people in there homes. Make the TVs/Radios in the homes actually connect to the web and be able to access web videos or music streams. With entire neighborhoods built this way and connected by hubs of roads, we'd see the beginnings of the first fully 3D cyberspace.
And dont tell me Im describing HOME for ps3. I said Totally customizeable and with near photorealistic graphics. You could design your own home perfectly for instance in the game. Sims kinda does this, and it may get there eventually in Sims 3 or 4.
Bring back Liberty, Freedom, & The Constition. Save America from Corporatism. -RonPaul2008
In addition "sandbox" doesn't have to mean that the game has no NPC content at all. In fact, I can envision a game which takes place in an NPC AI driven dynamic world where players may influence the way this "god AI" changes the game state and are given quests based on the needs of the said AI (or AIs). That could be a possible mode of further evolution of sandbox games... In fact I hear that GTA4 actually has something smilar though very rudimentary under its hood and the players absolutely love it.
The day they can put a gameworld like GTAIV in a massively online format. Will be the day all other prior MMOs lose all their subscribers. Great point made though. GTAIV doesnt need levels or even skills, and you could play it for years endlessly. All it would need is growing aspects of customizeablity, being able to deck out your home, buy bigger nicer homes and even furniture, trophies, and such. Guilds would be gangs, and gangs could control parts of cities. I could also see tons of people role playing Drug Dealers, Prostitutes, Gamblers, Weapons Dealers, Undercover Cops, Bounty Hunters, Hitmen, etc.
The dynamic AI would control would control npcs & could still have quests and scripted events but you wouldnt have to do the quests, and I could imagine that many peoples quests would dynamically overlap, and class with other people quests and make a very wild city indeed! Or you could make your own as well. GTA IV already has the most amazing multiplayer I've ever seen in a full city with all the dynamic AI npcs running intact. It would already be an amazing MMO if there wasnt a small cap on number of players. Maybe in 5 years we'll be there. I hear the game APB being made now by one of the designers of GTA will do alot of what I described, but again it wont be Massively Online, and still be limited by the amount of players in one instance. But it will have tons of customizeability.
Bring back Liberty, Freedom, & The Constition. Save America from Corporatism. -RonPaul2008
When I was a kid, we didnt have computer games. We played with Rocks! and to us PVP was us throwing them at each other and we LOVED IT! and the game never ended. People are so spoiled today and lack imagination! I miss my rocks.. =(
We didnt have Radios or TVs or even books. We just made up our own stories in our heads. People are too lazy today and expect some external device to entertain them. Pathetic!
Good review from what little I saw of the game in beta. My cure for this situation is to just play in 3 or 4 hours a week. With a lifetime membership ( LoTRO) I don't feel as if I am wasting my money if I don't play daily.
Also now I remembered that the true value of this type game was the socialization. When log in to LoTRO now it is more to shoot the breeze in guild chat more than it is to level a alt or grind virtual coin with my lvl 50's. I have know most of the people since early EQII and I feel as if I know them and their families almost like they are neighbors by now..
By the way some good sanbox MMO's in my opinion would be EvE, UO, and the original SWG.
LOTR is a pretty decent game. Best graphics around and fun to play. Having said that, I would have preferred the Middle Earth Online (MEO) version that Sierra had envisioned. Linear games with levels and focused questing is like an amusement park. The rides are fun and cotton candy and soda are great at first. By after a few months, the ride loses its appeal to me. sandbox MMO virtual worlds have long-term appeal (see Ultima, 10 years old 2d game and its still going)
Long term appeal for how many people? 20K? 50k?
Grindfests appeal to a small minority of people... and that's the reason there are so few of them.
A game with quests will hold me for months. A grindfest will hold me for hours, maybe a few days.
You are obivous a troll and have never played a sandbox mmorpg.
World of warcraft is by example a grind fest. Sandbox mmorpg's that are well designed but still have a story line and quests ( a bit linear) have more diversity , the control is in player hands and diversity is far more while grinding is far less.
World of warcraft gets much faster boring ( the anology of themepark rides) what blizzard did is creating boring time sinks ala a stupid grind , a job.
But trolls like you don't understand that and think World of warcraft is the perfect game.
----------------------------------------------------------- the old days, the days of gold.
representer of euhporium, shade/amity , high member of the council.
played
UO,M59,EVE,L2,AC,GW,WOW,LOTRO,SWG pre cu/nge,COH/COV, VG,TR,L1, POTBS,Neocron 1 and 2, DAOC pre TOA and age of conan
playing: EVE ONLINE Waiting for Earthrise, FE, bioware mmo, guild wars 2, DFO , mortal online , the chronicles of spellborn
I agree with everyone that you need to experience more of the game. I honestly don't think Sandbox MMO's exist. I had my doubts about AoC but it delivered, so far... I have to see the end game to even attemp to review this game.
EVE is sandbox. Fallen Earth and I think Darkfall in development are both sandbox.
And Ive seen the end of this game's content already in LOTR, WoW, and the many other linear MMO's around. It will be players jumping through hoops like raiding and sieges for gear. Been there, done that...
Folks are already asking on the forums if they can skip past the 1-20 tutorial because theyve read the book and dont want to do it again. The ride is already getting boring.
The same could be said about a "sand box" MMO, except instead of wanting to skip the starter levels, you'd want to skip all experience grinding since there isn't a quest structure to give you motivation.
In sandbox games you don''t have to do that. You don't have to create a new alt always because there is always something to do. A well created sandbox mmo that also has some linaer elements like quests and story line and some dungeons is perfect because , the world is always changing, you can achieve som,ething, this isn't possible in linear mmo's. In linear mmo's, people say they achieve something but it isn't, it is just a static thing that improves you but it did not affect the world or anyhing. In sandbox mmo's or games, you have freedom and you make your own decisions while in linear games , the game makes decisions and gets much faster stale and causes much faster a boredom for that player.
----------------------------------------------------------- the old days, the days of gold.
representer of euhporium, shade/amity , high member of the council.
played
UO,M59,EVE,L2,AC,GW,WOW,LOTRO,SWG pre cu/nge,COH/COV, VG,TR,L1, POTBS,Neocron 1 and 2, DAOC pre TOA and age of conan
playing: EVE ONLINE Waiting for Earthrise, FE, bioware mmo, guild wars 2, DFO , mortal online , the chronicles of spellborn
Comments
This is probably one of the best reviews i read, expressing the current sad state of linear fetch quest mmorpgs pioneered by blizzard. Unfortunately based on all the replies from the wow-era players, most dont have a clue what the author was even talking about.
Admriker4, i agree only 3 mmorpgs that came close - UO, SWG, and EVE. Imo UO achieved a true free market player driven world before it was ruined by the later expansions. SWG had so much potential to be the next UO, before soe completely killed it. Eve is great, too bad i am not that into space type mmorpg either.
It's really sad the current state of mmorpgs, once the developers see the success of WoW, every single mmorpg since then is a copycat of the quest driven linear progression model of wow. But it's only a great system the first time you play it (part of the reason why wow was so popular). You basically going through the soulless game quest after quest like a zombie, until maxed out in a few months, then just sit around doing raid/pvp until the expansion or quit from boredom.
There is nothing on the horizon that suggest any change either, the next big thing warhammer looks to be exactly the same type of game with a better pvp/raid system at the endgame.
Is it too much to ask just to have 1 free world sandbox mmorpg for the old players who desire long term character development and progression over instant gratification?
I am enjoying the game (or moment as you stated). However that moment will quickly be over since its a linear game. Had Funcom made it sandbox style, I might be around to enjoy the "moment" for years and years
Thank you for your attempt to explain to these people that another type of MMO does indeed exist. Not having an NPC standing there telling these people what to do, I don't know how they would survive to enjoy themselves. Age of Conan was hailed as some to be the game that would kill WoW. Fifteen minutes into the game I found myself crying. Crying I was laughing so hard at these people (myself included) that put their faith into this.....below par game (sadly WoW has established itself as the par). I feel screwed, but alas... I will take some of the above advice and continue playing before writing a complete novel about how bad the game is.
I've recently started playing EVE and while their time-based progression system isn't very newbie friendly, for veteran players I can certainly see why it is appealing and I am playing the game because it appears EVE cares more about their veteran community than attracting a new audience. The game is appealing because you can choose to have missions given to you or you can choose to go about your own way of making ISK.
WoW was a good game. I don't believe any linear MMO will ever compete with WoW as long as Blizzard doesn't screw it up. WoW seems to have everything pretty close to perfect for those that enjoy that gamestyle (which I did for over a year). After going through my third character however, I realized I was replaying months and months of my life all to simply change my class - something I can do in a sandbox MMOsin weeks, days, or even hours.
Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU and even a little post-CU) was the ideal example of a sandbox game. I knew a guy who played the game for 2 years and guess how many mobs he killed in his entire time playing? ZERO. Most of you can't even fathom the idea of being able to spend hours a day tending harvesters, factories, and your shops, stocking them with armor, weapons, food, buildings, and more and enjoying it. The idea of obtaining a special weapon and not having it last forever, most of you would've quit right there. I got excited about Conan's player cities until I read further. Even player cities, something that sounds like a perfect "build it how you want to build it" have huge restrictions on location placement of buildings.
I played SWG from a few months after release until the day the NGE was released. What is sad is the state that SOE released and left the game in. Lie after lie, change after change, I watched the life get sucked out of that game. I know most of you are sick of the SWG sob stories (myself included) so I will save that for the Refugee forum.
It is terrible but most of you will never even realize that there... is... another...
thanks for the post in support ! You got me rethinking of trying EVE again (i played it once for about a week 2 yrs ago).
SWG will always be a painful reminder as long as developers refuse to make us another virtual sandbox world. I often think about my old shop and the events held like weddings, pvp contests with prizes, it was a real-life community and I miss it
The things people did, it encouraged creativity, cleverness, and teamwork to accomplish some of the player ran events. Games like WoW and AoC sadly don't even allow someone to think outside the box. I remember going back after a few months of the NGE for a day to check my friend's list. It was a sad sight to see my once large and active list, show everyone I knew as "offline" and I knew that mean't they were gone.
I too tried EVE awhile back and thought I would enjoy the game but realized how much time had to be invested in training the skills before you could really experience the game so I stopped playing, but kepting training. I guess the money invested and time spent is paying off, now that I'm enjoying getting past the simple beginnings.
What are you talking about, dont allow you to think outside the box?
I thought outside the box plenty of times in WoW and games like EQ2, and Vanguard.
For example in WoW I devised a battle royal at the arena to determine a guild "Champion" which eneded up spoiling over to a bloodfest between he horde. All player all my guild.
Your elitist attitude, is what drives people away from many activities and games,
-Jive
How did you get into EA? And you already played through so many times that you feel the need to throw up? Wow, you're fast.
Nice find, these people sicken me with their lies.
-Jive
Us "old players" number far less than the new players, and we all pay the same amount per month.
I am enjoying the game (or moment as you stated). However that moment will quickly be over since its a linear game. Had Funcom made it sandbox style, I might be around to enjoy the "moment" for years and years
Thank you for your attempt to explain to these people that another type of MMO does indeed exist. Not having an NPC standing there telling these people what to do, I don't know how they would survive to enjoy themselves. Age of Conan was hailed as some to be the game that would kill WoW. Fifteen minutes into the game I found myself crying. Crying I was laughing so hard at these people (myself included) that put their faith into this.....below par game (sadly WoW has established itself as the par). I feel screwed, but alas... I will take some of the above advice and continue playing before writing a complete novel about how bad the game is.
I've recently started playing EVE and while their time-based progression system isn't very newbie friendly, for veteran players I can certainly see why it is appealing and I am playing the game because it appears EVE cares more about their veteran community than attracting a new audience. The game is appealing because you can choose to have missions given to you or you can choose to go about your own way of making ISK.
WoW was a good game. I don't believe any linear MMO will ever compete with WoW as long as Blizzard doesn't screw it up. WoW seems to have everything pretty close to perfect for those that enjoy that gamestyle (which I did for over a year). After going through my third character however, I realized I was replaying months and months of my life all to simply change my class - something I can do in a sandbox MMOsin weeks, days, or even hours.
Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU and even a little post-CU) was the ideal example of a sandbox game. I knew a guy who played the game for 2 years and guess how many mobs he killed in his entire time playing? ZERO. Most of you can't even fathom the idea of being able to spend hours a day tending harvesters, factories, and your shops, stocking them with armor, weapons, food, buildings, and more and enjoying it. The idea of obtaining a special weapon and not having it last forever, most of you would've quit right there. I got excited about Conan's player cities until I read further. Even player cities, something that sounds like a perfect "build it how you want to build it" have huge restrictions on location placement of buildings.
I played SWG from a few months after release until the day the NGE was released. What is sad is the state that SOE released and left the game in. Lie after lie, change after change, I watched the life get sucked out of that game. I know most of you are sick of the SWG sob stories (myself included) so I will save that for the Refugee forum.
It is terrible but most of you will never even realize that there... is... another...
thanks for the post in support ! You got me rethinking of trying EVE again (i played it once for about a week 2 yrs ago).
SWG will always be a painful reminder as long as developers refuse to make us another virtual sandbox world. I often think about my old shop and the events held like weddings, pvp contests with prizes, it was a real-life community and I miss it
The things people did, it encouraged creativity, cleverness, and teamwork to accomplish some of the player ran events. Games like WoW and AoC sadly don't even allow someone to think outside the box. I remember going back after a few months of the NGE for a day to check my friend's list. It was a sad sight to see my once large and active list, show everyone I knew as "offline" and I knew that mean't they were gone.
I too tried EVE awhile back and thought I would enjoy the game but realized how much time had to be invested in training the skills before you could really experience the game so I stopped playing, but kepting training. I guess the money invested and time spent is paying off, now that I'm enjoying getting past the simple beginnings.
What are you talking about, dont allow you to think outside the box?
I thought outside the box plenty of times in WoW and games like EQ2, and Vanguard.
For example in WoW I devised a battle royal at the arena to determine a guild "Champion" which eneded up spoiling over to a bloodfest between he horde. All player all my guild.
Your elitist attitude, is what drives people away from many activities and games,
-Jive
Arenas were a good addition to WoW to allow for some change. Despite doing thousands of arena matches, you always had many different combinations and types of gameplay you had to face.
My "elitest" attitude is what drives people like you away from the games I enjoy. Mission Accomplished!
I am enjoying the game (or moment as you stated). However that moment will quickly be over since its a linear game. Had Funcom made it sandbox style, I might be around to enjoy the "moment" for years and years
Thank you for your attempt to explain to these people that another type of MMO does indeed exist. Not having an NPC standing there telling these people what to do, I don't know how they would survive to enjoy themselves. Age of Conan was hailed as some to be the game that would kill WoW. Fifteen minutes into the game I found myself crying. Crying I was laughing so hard at these people (myself included) that put their faith into this.....below par game (sadly WoW has established itself as the par). I feel screwed, but alas... I will take some of the above advice and continue playing before writing a complete novel about how bad the game is.
I've recently started playing EVE and while their time-based progression system isn't very newbie friendly, for veteran players I can certainly see why it is appealing and I am playing the game because it appears EVE cares more about their veteran community than attracting a new audience. The game is appealing because you can choose to have missions given to you or you can choose to go about your own way of making ISK.
WoW was a good game. I don't believe any linear MMO will ever compete with WoW as long as Blizzard doesn't screw it up. WoW seems to have everything pretty close to perfect for those that enjoy that gamestyle (which I did for over a year). After going through my third character however, I realized I was replaying months and months of my life all to simply change my class - something I can do in a sandbox MMOsin weeks, days, or even hours.
Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU and even a little post-CU) was the ideal example of a sandbox game. I knew a guy who played the game for 2 years and guess how many mobs he killed in his entire time playing? ZERO. Most of you can't even fathom the idea of being able to spend hours a day tending harvesters, factories, and your shops, stocking them with armor, weapons, food, buildings, and more and enjoying it. The idea of obtaining a special weapon and not having it last forever, most of you would've quit right there. I got excited about Conan's player cities until I read further. Even player cities, something that sounds like a perfect "build it how you want to build it" have huge restrictions on location placement of buildings.
I played SWG from a few months after release until the day the NGE was released. What is sad is the state that SOE released and left the game in. Lie after lie, change after change, I watched the life get sucked out of that game. I know most of you are sick of the SWG sob stories (myself included) so I will save that for the Refugee forum.
It is terrible but most of you will never even realize that there... is... another...
thanks for the post in support ! You got me rethinking of trying EVE again (i played it once for about a week 2 yrs ago).
SWG will always be a painful reminder as long as developers refuse to make us another virtual sandbox world. I often think about my old shop and the events held like weddings, pvp contests with prizes, it was a real-life community and I miss it
The things people did, it encouraged creativity, cleverness, and teamwork to accomplish some of the player ran events. Games like WoW and AoC sadly don't even allow someone to think outside the box. I remember going back after a few months of the NGE for a day to check my friend's list. It was a sad sight to see my once large and active list, show everyone I knew as "offline" and I knew that mean't they were gone.
I too tried EVE awhile back and thought I would enjoy the game but realized how much time had to be invested in training the skills before you could really experience the game so I stopped playing, but kepting training. I guess the money invested and time spent is paying off, now that I'm enjoying getting past the simple beginnings.
What are you talking about, dont allow you to think outside the box?
I thought outside the box plenty of times in WoW and games like EQ2, and Vanguard.
For example in WoW I devised a battle royal at the arena to determine a guild "Champion" which eneded up spoiling over to a bloodfest between he horde. All player all my guild.
Your elitist attitude, is what drives people away from many activities and games,
-Jive
Arenas were a good addition to WoW to allow for some change. Despite doing thousands of arena matches, you always had many different combinations and types of gameplay you had to face.
My "elitest" attitude is what drives people like you away from the games I enjoy. Mission Accomplished!
People like me?
Mature, fun loving, college students?
Well then im glad, too.
-Jive
This is the exact problem I see in the genre and largely it was caused by EQ1 trouncing UO and AC (a true sandbox and a limited sandbox.) Followed by the subsequent failure of SWG to get a serious customer base. Then WOW came along and trounced EQ1 and now everyone copies it (except vanguard who went back and copied EQ1 yet again to prove they could get trounced worse than anyone else.) It's a problem we're going to see in the game industry over and over and over until someone gets a sandbox game that is a smash hit. This industry hardly ever innovates (they add polish and incremental betterment) it just copies whoever is the leader and tries to take their market share. For examples look at the mmo industry, the diablo clones, the c&c/starcraft clones, the doom clones, the etc etc etc. Hell you see it in the movie industry too, "Ooh superheroes movies are doing good!" ->flood market with every superhero movie you can find... even the epically lame ones. I understand why they do it, I just hate the end result... 1 innovation and 10 years of copying. Repeat ad infinitum.
Shadus
I have to agree with the OP but maybe due to my age I am just a lot more patient these days. Even if the game is linear and a nice show ride I take it for what it is and play through it if I am still enjoying it. I still play Tabula Rasa after 6 months because I want to play through to level 50 and PAU, its not a sandbox game, its not ground breaking (some cool stuff though) but I enjoy the storyline, gameplay and graghics are great. Is it my home for the next 5 years? No. However as long as I am enjoying the game I will keep playing.
On that note it would be nice to see a true 'EVE' like fantasy game where players make the world....Darkfall is the only one I can see.
Sandbox needs people, no people = no game. Very risky business model but if you get it right you have an ever growing fanbase and a culture develop in-game rather than people just finishing a great journey and moving on to the next one.
EVE Online the journey is survival, victories and more than not a great deal of loss. No levels as well so the end game is what you make out of it.
I agree. Sandbox is better. But where are they?
I can remember helping someone out who was having trouble with a few mobs, after we got to chatting he asked if I would like to have his pets as he had decided to change his class to Smuggler ( NOT make a new alt, just change his class!) amongst them were his rares that had taken weeks to hunt down and find.
Then he asked if I would like to see his house which was full of awesome trophies collected overtime, furniture, pictures, animal heads, armour, weapons and many more items.
Later we headed out to a party being held on an island in the middle of a lake, there were fishing competitions, dancing and great musicians also a real variety of player made social clothes..
Someone said they were starting a tailoring shop and needed fur, so everyone jumped into their vehicles and headed out for a hunt, level didn’t matter, class didn’t matter anyone could join in.
Player made robots collected the fur and every so often we would stop, sit around a campfire, rebuff and generally socialize and plan new events and raids.
Everyone got xp, even the music makers yet no NPC has told us what to do, we were doing what we wanted not what we were told and it was amazing fun. That is the real difference between linear and sandbox.
I am not saying linear games are not fun but unless you have experienced a GOOD sandbox, when it is working well it is hard to make comparisons.
I think the OP has made a valid statement and we shouldn’t argue amongst ourselves but try to get the developers to create the best gaming experience possible.
People just don't know Wow anymore. If there is any PERSONAL sandbox MMORPG at the moment it is the Wow end game.
Wow has so many options in that endgame which were not present in the old Wow, The player can freely decide now what aspect of the game he wants to develop. It's HE who decides how he plays, no longer the system.
Grind is practically gone in Wow, because if the player only plays what he likes, he never even thinks of a grind.
Where's the player housing? The actual virtual communities? Where's the diversity in crafting because everyone looks the same, everyone can craft the same item with the same stats with the same appearance. Where's the feeling of purpose in the game? The purpose of WOW is just to kill x amount of mobs to get x amount of level to then get x amount of rep to then do the same old stuff on a harder level to see the same old loot drops in the same old places. Just rinse and repeat.
Grinding isn't gone at all. It's just a grind game and to try and claim otherwise is very naive. Want gear? Gring Karazhan every week to get your gear or grind motes to craft the same stuff the guy next to you is wearing. Then grind the early 25 mans for the same old stuff. Done with that? Go do the dailies everyone else is doing - and help the Sunwell armorsmith unlock her armoury so you can get your nice little rep rewards.
Meh point made - I enjoyed wow, but I wont defend it when people try and portray it as something it most certainly isn't.
How did you get into EA? And you already played through so many times that you feel the need to throw up? Wow, you're fast.
Nice find, these people sicken me with their lies.
-Jive
ah yes, i must be lying. It wouldnt be possible for me to get a hold of another account that already had early access eh ?
I feel with ya, OP, not only in AoC - as far as I saw it in beta - but in many new MMOs. Lotro is just the same, a fun amusement park one time playing through then bye bye. I miss my good olde SWG days of open world and sandbox. I mean I love and want good quests and stories but not so linear leading players like through Disney World...
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
thats beautiful and brings back many great memories in SWG for me as well. We werent on a level grind treadmill. We didnt have 28 quests to finish before moving on to the next zone to get even more quests. We had the freedom to do whatever the hell we wanted too.
I dont recall ever having evenings like that in any linear MMO. Everyone is too busy following their Linear scripts the devs wrote for them.
I, too, would much rather prefer the game play of a sandbox type mmorpg. That was the potential me and my friends realised when we discovered they genre with EQ1. We all were ensnared by thought of “living” in a virtual fantasy world filled with danger and glory, where our own choices would, at the very least, affect our own characters – good or bad, depending on our wisdom and creativeness.
The main way of achieving this kind of play should be to give players the tools and mechanics, and not more quests – which would later with EQ2 and WOW become pretty obvious, cater to a totally different gaming experience.
.............
When in doubt, troll.
When I was a kid, we didnt have computer games. We played with Rocks! and to us PVP was us throwing them at each other and we LOVED IT! and the game never ended. People are so spoiled today and lack imagination! I miss my rocks.. =(
We didnt have Radios or TVs or even books. We just made up our own stories in our heads. People are too lazy today and expect some external device to entertain them. Pathetic!
Bring back Liberty, Freedom, & The Constition. Save America from Corporatism. -RonPaul2008
I'd just like to pip in again and this time point out that imo some of you guys are confusing two quite separate dichotomies....
1) class-based vs skill-based MMOS
and
2) linear quest-based vs sandbox MMOS
The first dichotomy deals with the RPG system (which is used to simulate character abilities in the world (like D20, GURPS etc)) while the second is about the way the game world is set up.
You can have a level-and-class MMO that is completely sandbox and you can have a MMO without levels and classes that is completely linear and story driven.
Personally I'd prefer a sandbox, skill-based game but it is quite possible to have a 100% class/level based game that takes place in a 100% sandbox world.
In addition "sandbox" doesn't have to mean that the game has no NPC content at all. In fact, I can envision a game which takes place in an NPC AI driven dynamic world where players may influence the way this "god AI" changes the game state and are given quests based on the needs of the said AI (or AIs). That could be a possible mode of further evolution of sandbox games... In fact I hear that GTA4 actually has something smilar though very rudimentary under its hood and the players absolutely love it.
If you want sandbox you can always play pen and paper dungeons and dragons
But I agree with you, but some people can't handle the sandbox and like to have linerity which to those people you should go to these MMOS. i never liked EVE it seemed to me boring and complicated, maybe that makes me more of a linear type of gamer. I don't mind that.
Ok sarcasm /Off
In response to the guy who said he loved moding out his online house. I can totally agree with that. I think a game idea to take the throne from The Sims would be a home design game that took a really great FPS engine like the Unreal engine, but made a simple way to build any custom home you wanted, and fully customize the colors, textures, patterns, lighting, and thousands of styles of furniture With new ones being added as downloadable content. And then you could connect online and invite others into your home or visit people in there homes. Make the TVs/Radios in the homes actually connect to the web and be able to access web videos or music streams. With entire neighborhoods built this way and connected by hubs of roads, we'd see the beginnings of the first fully 3D cyberspace.
And dont tell me Im describing HOME for ps3. I said Totally customizeable and with near photorealistic graphics. You could design your own home perfectly for instance in the game. Sims kinda does this, and it may get there eventually in Sims 3 or 4.
Bring back Liberty, Freedom, & The Constition. Save America from Corporatism. -RonPaul2008
The day they can put a gameworld like GTAIV in a massively online format. Will be the day all other prior MMOs lose all their subscribers. Great point made though. GTAIV doesnt need levels or even skills, and you could play it for years endlessly. All it would need is growing aspects of customizeablity, being able to deck out your home, buy bigger nicer homes and even furniture, trophies, and such. Guilds would be gangs, and gangs could control parts of cities. I could also see tons of people role playing Drug Dealers, Prostitutes, Gamblers, Weapons Dealers, Undercover Cops, Bounty Hunters, Hitmen, etc.
The dynamic AI would control would control npcs & could still have quests and scripted events but you wouldnt have to do the quests, and I could imagine that many peoples quests would dynamically overlap, and class with other people quests and make a very wild city indeed! Or you could make your own as well. GTA IV already has the most amazing multiplayer I've ever seen in a full city with all the dynamic AI npcs running intact. It would already be an amazing MMO if there wasnt a small cap on number of players. Maybe in 5 years we'll be there. I hear the game APB being made now by one of the designers of GTA will do alot of what I described, but again it wont be Massively Online, and still be limited by the amount of players in one instance. But it will have tons of customizeability.
Bring back Liberty, Freedom, & The Constition. Save America from Corporatism. -RonPaul2008
Damn that brings back some nice memories.....
Good review from what little I saw of the game in beta. My cure for this situation is to just play in 3 or 4 hours a week. With a lifetime membership ( LoTRO) I don't feel as if I am wasting my money if I don't play daily.
Also now I remembered that the true value of this type game was the socialization. When log in to LoTRO now it is more to shoot the breeze in guild chat more than it is to level a alt or grind virtual coin with my lvl 50's. I have know most of the people since early EQII and I feel as if I know them and their families almost like they are neighbors by now..
By the way some good sanbox MMO's in my opinion would be EvE, UO, and the original SWG.
I miss DAoC
Long term appeal for how many people? 20K? 50k?
Grindfests appeal to a small minority of people... and that's the reason there are so few of them.
A game with quests will hold me for months. A grindfest will hold me for hours, maybe a few days.
You are obivous a troll and have never played a sandbox mmorpg.
World of warcraft is by example a grind fest. Sandbox mmorpg's that are well designed but still have a story line and quests ( a bit linear) have more diversity , the control is in player hands and diversity is far more while grinding is far less.
World of warcraft gets much faster boring ( the anology of themepark rides) what blizzard did is creating boring time sinks ala a stupid grind , a job.
But trolls like you don't understand that and think World of warcraft is the perfect game.
-----------------------------------------------------------
the old days, the days of gold.
representer of euhporium, shade/amity , high member of the council.
played
UO,M59,EVE,L2,AC,GW,WOW,LOTRO,SWG pre cu/nge,COH/COV, VG,TR,L1, POTBS,Neocron 1 and 2, DAOC pre TOA and age of conan
playing: EVE ONLINE
Waiting for Earthrise, FE, bioware mmo, guild wars 2, DFO , mortal online , the chronicles of spellborn
EVE is sandbox. Fallen Earth and I think Darkfall in development are both sandbox.
And Ive seen the end of this game's content already in LOTR, WoW, and the many other linear MMO's around. It will be players jumping through hoops like raiding and sieges for gear. Been there, done that...
Folks are already asking on the forums if they can skip past the 1-20 tutorial because theyve read the book and dont want to do it again. The ride is already getting boring.
The same could be said about a "sand box" MMO, except instead of wanting to skip the starter levels, you'd want to skip all experience grinding since there isn't a quest structure to give you motivation.
In sandbox games you don''t have to do that. You don't have to create a new alt always because there is always something to do. A well created sandbox mmo that also has some linaer elements like quests and story line and some dungeons is perfect because , the world is always changing, you can achieve som,ething, this isn't possible in linear mmo's. In linear mmo's, people say they achieve something but it isn't, it is just a static thing that improves you but it did not affect the world or anyhing. In sandbox mmo's or games, you have freedom and you make your own decisions while in linear games , the game makes decisions and gets much faster stale and causes much faster a boredom for that player.
-----------------------------------------------------------
the old days, the days of gold.
representer of euhporium, shade/amity , high member of the council.
played
UO,M59,EVE,L2,AC,GW,WOW,LOTRO,SWG pre cu/nge,COH/COV, VG,TR,L1, POTBS,Neocron 1 and 2, DAOC pre TOA and age of conan
playing: EVE ONLINE
Waiting for Earthrise, FE, bioware mmo, guild wars 2, DFO , mortal online , the chronicles of spellborn