Quite simply the UO model hasn't been tried by a AAA company that acutally has the funds too see it through to launch in this modern era where MMOs have become a more widespread gaming genre. I say again, no AAA company has tried to make one. Indy companies have tried and only 1, EvE, has reached a really respectable measure of success.
Once a AAA company decides to break the themepark monopoly and go for what UO forumla detractors call a niche (though the only non-niche game out there is WoW so I'm not sure why these people try to use the word only when talking about UO forumla games - Actually, yes I do know why but personal disparaging remarks are against he RoC) they will be pleasantly surprised at how big of a "niche" they'll carve out for themselves.
A UO forumla game just seems like a devloper's dream to me as for one you can eliminatehaving to write quests into the game on the scale that themeparks, which are based on this content and are seen to fail when they don't have enough at the beginning, middle or end. UO formula games allow developers to act as mechanics, fine tuning the tools in game so that we the players can generate content. With players generating their own content they never run out!
Give me $100 million, complete control of my development team and 4 years 8 months and I'd design a UO formula game that would easily rival WAR or AoC at their respective launches with respect to subscription. Difference is, my target audience, with a game done well, will stick around alot longer. I'm not saying I'm beeter at coding or graphics or any of that essential stuff. No. But I know I can be just as good if not better at the Game Designer role than the majority of the guys doing it now.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Give me $100 million, complete control of my development team and 4 years 8 months and I'd design a UO formula game that would easily rival WAR or AoC at their respective launches with respect to subscription. Difference is, my target audience, with a game done well, will stick around alot longer. I'm not saying I'm beeter at coding or graphics or any of that essential stuff. No. But I know I can be just as good if not better at the Game Designer role than the majority of the guys doing it now.
Doubt it.
Player generated content is much worse than developer generated content. I'd much rather take themepark with content at start, middle and end instead of sandbox with unlimited, yet inferior content.
That kind of game isn't obviously designed for me though, so whatever.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
Gotta love how people try to make their opinions into fact on this forum.
Saying a sandbox has no content is complete nonsense.
Last time i logged into eve It was one of my saturday afternoon power sessions of 6+ hours of me doing nothing but this content that doesn't exist in my game. Sleepers arent created by players, rats arent, missions arent, the probing system isnt something that a player designed, the variety of sites I scann down didn't get placed in the game world by random players 1010201213.
Enough with the nonsense.
Oh as for tagging a entire sub genre "boring" please give it a rest "boring" is completely suggestive and not a fucking fact.
It seems the only content that matters to these people is Quest hub zone progression and if thats the case then I am glad I don't play a game that leads me around a static world like im retarded and can't think for my self.
Is it better if people say sandboxes are boring for the vast majority? Then suddenly its a fact, because the numbers say so;) EQ was played by significantly more than UO or AC. WOW is played by more people than every sandbox combined and then some. So, Most people think Themeparks are more fun than Sandboxes. There ya go...now we have a fact.
Also, when people say sandboxes have no content, they mean no well designed content. Missions in Eve might technically be "content" but by all accounts, its horribly repetitive BORING, uncreative content. Compare that to an epic quest line in that starts with killing a few rats in a barn and ends with killing a dragon and mounting its head by the city gates. A story is content. Eve just has "stuff" you do while watching TV;) Arguing with other players over virtual territory isn't content. Its just RPing and chatting. Random PvP isn't content. STORY is content. A boss is content. A dungeon is content. Go to X system and kill X generic space ships is NOT content. Click on generic rock#16274 for hours on end, while alt tabbing & browsing the web, since you barely have to pay attention to what you're doing is also not GOOD content;)
Why do they need to follow a formula. I think here in lies some of the problem with the industry. They should just make a game, not a game like X. Forget what other games are like and just focus on what would work in your game.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.
Give me $100 million, complete control of my development team and 4 years 8 months and I'd design a UO formula game that would easily rival WAR or AoC at their respective launches with respect to subscription. Difference is, my target audience, with a game done well, will stick around alot longer. I'm not saying I'm beeter at coding or graphics or any of that essential stuff. No. But I know I can be just as good if not better at the Game Designer role than the majority of the guys doing it now.
Doubt it.
Player generated content is much worse than developer generated content. I'd much rather take themepark with content at start, middle and end instead of sandbox with unlimited, yet inferior content.
That kind of game isn't obviously designed for me though, so whatever.
Not quite Hyan, consider if you will, Bethesda and Blizzard games.
Players make far superior UIs in WoW. Players make far superior maps in starcraft. Players make a better fucking game for diablo2 (medianXL, Eastern Sun). Players make Bethesda RPGs...playable (lol). You have a MASSIVE base of FREE people working on your game who are FANATICAL. Modders tend to become the next generation of game designers ~~
Player generated content is much worse than developer generated content. I'd much rather take themepark with content at start, middle and end instead of sandbox with unlimited, yet inferior content.
That kind of game isn't obviously designed for me though, so whatever.
Not quite Hyan, consider if you will, Bethesda and Blizzard games.
Players make far superior UIs in WoW. Players make far superior maps in starcraft. Players make a better fucking game for diablo2 (medianXL, Eastern Sun). Players make Bethesda RPGs...playable (lol). You have a MASSIVE base of FREE people working on your game who are FANATICAL. Modders tend to become the next generation of game designers ~~
Well, that would mean that those games have good dev-made content in the first place- which I don't find true.
When developers make the game very mod-friendly from the start, the player made content usually becomes better than what the devs have thought of. But that dev-made content is quite shitty in the first place, so it doesn't really mean anything.
Devs who don't give players much freedom in making their own content make better games content wise, because they're not limited by the restrictions of the game like players are. As much freedom as you can give the players, that's still less freedom than what the developers have, who can create pretty much everything they want.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
I think the decline of sandbox MMOs can be blamed on three things:
1) SOE - For making the stupidest business decision in the history of gaming. They single-handedly destroyed all faith in the sandbox model for big name developers simply by making Star Wars Galaxies the example of what NOT to do for the entire MMO genre. While the game design in SWG was never the reason for its failure, the downfall of the game will nonetheless deter major game developers from ever trying anything like it again.
2) WoW - For showing the rest of the industry that a well crafted themepark can make MUCH more money than any other game on the market. This I think is actually due to the quality of Blizzard products. I honestly think that if Blizzard had decided to follow the UO model, the game would still be incredibly popular simply because Blizzard does not make bad games.
3) Suits - Because the people funding game projects rarely have an in-depth understanding of gaming and must therefore rely on the examples of past games when making decisions about future projects. They look at points 1 and 2 above and they naturally conclude that following the WoW model is the safer option.
Gotta love how people try to make their opinions into fact on this forum.
Saying a sandbox has no content is complete nonsense.
Last time i logged into eve It was one of my saturday afternoon power sessions of 6+ hours of me doing nothing but this content that doesn't exist in my game. Sleepers arent created by players, rats arent, missions arent, the probing system isnt something that a player designed, the variety of sites I scann down didn't get placed in the game world by random players 1010201213.
Enough with the nonsense.
Oh as for tagging a entire sub genre "boring" please give it a rest "boring" is completely suggestive and not a fucking fact.
It seems the only content that matters to these people is Quest hub zone progression and if thats the case then I am glad I don't play a game that leads me around a static world like im retarded and can't think for my self.
The term "boring" is subjective, but when lots of people call something boring they're really hinting at the underlying reasons it's boring. Different people have different capacities for enduring tedium, and different people seek different "interesting decisions" in a game.
The fact is that EVE's ratting/missions typically only require enough decision-making to keep you at the computer. They're not compelling or meaningful decisions by a long stretch.
To paint EVE in a fair light, the game's strength lies largely in the fact that you have these infrequent yet highly compelling decisions which enable you to change the game world.
For most players, these rare-yet-important decisions don't outweigh the lack of common-yet-somewhat-important decisions that many other games have. So when the majority of gameplay involves tedious activities, they call the game boring.
I do think the OP's "best of both worlds" game is possible. It's not hard to imagine player-ownership and dynamic world content in WOW (with housing, conquerable territories, and other sandbox mechanics.) It's only slightly harder to imagine making fun games out of existing sandbox worlds like EVE*. Which of course is easy to say because there's no "pure themepark" game and no "pure sandbox" game -- every MMORPG is already a mix of activities, some of which are themepark-ish, others which are sandbox-ish.
(*harder because many sandbox mechanics aren't conducive to a lot of these ideas. Example: if there was a "fair and challenging" mission option in EVE players might not take it because it means they might lose their ship while running missions, which would ruin the whole point of missioning: making ISK. Of course this is one of the easiest problems to solve -- make the fair/challenging missions more lucrative -- but it points out the fact that many sandbox mechanics shove these games in a not-so-fun direction.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
For most players, these rare-yet-important decisions don't outweigh the lack of common-yet-somewhat-important decisions that many other games have. So when the majority of gameplay involves tedious activities, they call the game boring.
I do think the OP's "best of both worlds" game is possible. It's not hard to imagine player-ownership and dynamic world content in WOW (with housing, conquerable territories, and other sandbox mechanics.) It's only slightly harder to imagine making fun games out of existing sandbox worlds like EVE*. Which of course is easy to say because there's no "pure themepark" game and no "pure sandbox" game -- every MMORPG is already a mix of activities, some of which are themepark-ish, others which are sandbox-ish.
I really do think you can create a game that is the best of both worlds and eliminate the crap from both. It just takes smart decision making.
Looking at "the big picture" instead of focusing so intensively on a few key features. I call this focusing on a "hook." You try to sell a game based off a single feature and build up so much hype for it you sell boxes, but not subscriptions. Think back to WAR's RvR, AoC's combat and adult nature, Aion's flying, STO being Star Trek IP, Champions Online NOT being fantasy or sci fi... Tabula Rasa being from Richard Garrot...
...because what happens is that if players don't like your hook, and the rest of the game offers nothing great because you spent too much time on the hook and not enough on the game... well, you end up with AoC, WAR, Aion, STO, CO, and TR....
It's just bad decision making on the part of the developers. Sure, they may be limited by time and money from their publishers but at the same time fairly simple design decisions can make or break a game.
If you were to compile a list of the top 5 "flaws" in these games as viewed by the majority of their player-base, you could maybe write one or two off due to budgest/time constraints because they are NOT made by the Bioware's and Blizzard's...
But the other three or four come down to design decisions - things players on their forums tell them from day one, things they are told in beta, and conveniently these are the things that are hidden from the general gaming audience until they install the game and start playing.
Then 3-4 months later these same bad design decisions come back as "I told you so" post on forums like this one.
So is it the technology limiting developers?
Is it publishers being more concerned about profit then game play and controlling decisions?
Is it developers that are too conventional and tied to their previous ideas, projects, and mentalities that cannot look past their original concept ideas scribbled on a napkin?
I do think it is a combination of these three and so many more that us forum junkies and gamers will never know because we don't work in the industry - and it's easy for us to coach from the stands - but if we got down on the field and were handed the coaches play-book could we really do better?
A lot of the time I think the answer is yes to be 100% honest.
Regardless of your product's quality and potential, you're always going to have a bunch of people who claim it won't work. I bet there was a huge chunk of sandbox MMORPGers who played Retail WOW's beta and said it would never succeed, that the game sucked for reasons X, Y, and Z. Should Blizzard have listened to them?
You simply have to know good game design, and be willing to take some chances on new mechanics (especially since releasing rehash games is not a safe path to success.) Part of it is hindsight being 20/20 too, since mid-flight on a development project can make things difficult to view from the proper perspective (but well, that's why you run usability, playtesting, and a beta..and make changes based on feedback.)
Which I suppose is me saying you need to listen to the masses...okay, so you were right. But the point is you have to be smart about who you listen to, and how you go about listening to them. And that's not easy.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Sandbox games, the way they implement them nowadays, come across as more work than fun. I'm looking for more of a hybrid type mmorpg like AC. With AC you could grind mobs for loot and xp or get a group together and do a quest chain to get a weapon or piece of equipment that may be useful or just cool to have. Back then we'd explore a dungeon just to see what's in it. I'd jump into a portal with no idea where it goes out of curiosity.
Now I know I've got my rose colored glasses on and that there have to be good sandbox games out there, but any game where you can play for hrs and not even have to be at the keyboard is not my idea of fun. Eve and DF both came across as more work than fun for me. And that is my opinion before the fact/opinion police attack me.
I haven't been keeping close track of the games coming out because I refuse to jump on the hype train anymore. But when they come out I'll try them and hopefully find a good mmorpg. I really don't care if it's a sandbox or themepark game. I refuse to limit myself to a genre subset because I might lose my "hardcore" cred because I like a "carebear" game or whatever the nerds are calling it.
Let's start with a very basic definition of what I consider to be the "UO" formula and the "EQ" formula.
UO formula - open world, freedom, un-bound by race/gender/class/faction restrictions, the very definition of "sandbox."
EQ formula - stat based, class and more importantly role based (tank/dps/healer), level and stat progression.
Some common examples of more "modern" games:
UO formula - EvE, Darkfall
EQ formula - WoW, STO, Aion
I'd think it would be obvious to most that the EQ formula has proven thus far to be the vastly more popular of the two. Even looking back to previously popular games, DaoC and FFXI - both EQ formula. SWG in its original format was much more closely associated with the UO formula, though many of the EQ influenced facets were some of the biggest issues early SWG faced (balance between professions being the big one).
And let's not forget the incredibly large Asian MMO market, where nearly every single game ever produced follows the EQ model from Lineage to Aion and everything in between.
Along the way we have seen advancement in both models.
Earth and Beyond, then Star Wars Galaxies were really the first to introduce "content" in the form of quests. SWG had the "Theme Parks" like the Rebel Base and Jabba's Palace that were the first true quest-hubs, a concept WoW then took and mass marketed, refined, and perfected. And as such, we now see it every where.
Both SWG and EvE included randomly generated missions - no more then formula/variable based automatic quest generation.
And now modern EQ formula games like WAR, AoC, STO, and an ever-changing and updating WoW place even further emphasis on quests and class roles. We look forward to the future to games like Star Wars: The Old Republic which as far as we know right now will be entirely class/role/story/quest based!
So what has happened to the UO model?
Some games try to emulate it, most notably Darkfall. But they still can't seem to capture the same magic that UO once had. I dare say that there has been no true sandbox outside of EvE since UO.
But why?
Why has the MMO market all but abandoned its true roots?
Those games aren't anything like what EQ was.
Games fail because they are trying to copy WoW. They should copy EQ if they want a good MMORPG.
They need to stop dumbing their game down, put more timesinks in the game, etc. How about a game where it doesn't take a week to get level 60? You know, an MMORPG..
Give me $100 million, complete control of my development team and 4 years 8 months and I'd design a UO formula game that would easily rival WAR or AoC at their respective launches with respect to subscription. Difference is, my target audience, with a game done well, will stick around alot longer. I'm not saying I'm beeter at coding or graphics or any of that essential stuff. No. But I know I can be just as good if not better at the Game Designer role than the majority of the guys doing it now.
Doubt it.
Player generated content is much worse than developer generated content. I'd much rather take themepark with content at start, middle and end instead of sandbox with unlimited, yet inferior content.
That kind of game isn't obviously designed for me though, so whatever.
By your "inferior" comment I can tell you have no idea what I mean by player generated content. You think you do, but you don't. And "inferior" is a term of opinion so it's all good.
Anyway, I know full well that what I have in mind isn't for the modern day themepark tell-me-what-to-do-step-by-step gamers. And I would be very up front that this isn't a cattle call game, we aren't looking to top Blizzard's numbers in the media. We are looking to bring a sorely missed style of MMOG play back at AAA quality that is at current an untapped demand. Plenty of level grinding themeparks being conveyor belted out and this is just an equal or better production value of something old yet new.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
You first have to look at why theme park MMO’s are more widely accepted and then understand what the challenges are to make a sandbox more mass marketable.
Face it UO was successful because it was released before any real Theme Park games existed. Its just human nature to be attracted more to the promise of the thrill ride and adventure.
Put any child in front of a theme park entrance and the largest sandbox full of toys and the vast majority are going to chose the theme park and cry when its time to go home.
Skills instead of levels don’t work, players need to be interdependent and fit together like pieces of a puzzle so the sum of their parts become greater then their hole. Skill based systems make it near imposable for developers to plan out these interdependencies
Open world PvP doesn’t work in a lawless society, you are ether the ganker or the ganked. If you wanted to just be a crafter and merchant in UO it was a frustrating experience working for hours only to get ambushed on the way home to sell your wares and lose all you have worked for.
The idea of the sandbox or virtual world was to be anything, do anything and live in virtual environment but when you bring all these people together in a virtual environment without defined goals many get lost or have a hard time finding someone to join them in what they want to do at any one time.
The theme park quest system gives players defined tangible mini goals that they can focus on and helps player work on set problems that need to be overcome.
The sandbox concept in its purest form has some real problems to overcome but I see no reason the Theme Park and Sandbox formats can’t be mixed to give us the best of both worlds. A rich crafting system and player run economies, housing and city building and other means for the player to add to the game world are all very good concepts born in the sandbox format games.
The OP forgot to include skill based into the discription of EQ1. One omly had to visit their Guild Master to see all the skillls he could learn,sense heading and kick come to mind straight away.
Player generated content is much worse than developer generated content. I'd much rather take themepark with content at start, middle and end instead of sandbox with unlimited, yet inferior content.
That kind of game isn't obviously designed for me though, so whatever.
By your "inferior" comment I can tell you have no idea what I mean by player generated content. You think you do, but you don't. And "inferior" is a term of opinion so it's all good.
Anyway, I know full well that what I have in mind isn't for the modern day themepark tell-me-what-to-do-step-by-step gamers. And I would be very up front that this isn't a cattle call game, we aren't looking to top Blizzard's numbers in the media. We are looking to bring a sorely missed style of MMOG play back at AAA quality that is at current an untapped demand. Plenty of level grinding themeparks being conveyor belted out and this is just an equal or better production value of something old yet new.
Well, if you told me what you meant by that kind of content, I might come off less ignorant than before and we could have a possibly fruitful argument about it. But now that you don't tell me, I'm left in the dark and am still doubtful =/.
What you say sounds good, but I'd still think that themepark not designed for tell-me-what-to-do-step-by-step-gamers would have better developer designed content than what player designed sandbox content could be at best.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
Why has the MMO market all but abandoned its true roots?
True roots? The true roots of the MMO market are games like (the original) Neverwinter Nights, Gemstone, etc., and the single-player CRPGs that preceded them, and the pen & paper RPGs that preceded them. And the vast majority of these were class-based, level-based and quite rigid.
UO was - and I'm not intending this as a criticism, just a statement of fact - an offshoot that occurred a good decade after the birth of the genre.
What bugs me about themepark MMOs is how little choice you are actually given compared to even most single player RPGs. It seems developers ether think its impossible to give players choice, or think it's too costly to give it.
Even on this forum if you say sandbox people act like you want 'second life' BS of 100% user generated. When in reality people want choice, real choices that effect there character beyond what zone to level in or palladin over warrior. This problem doesn't seem to exist in single player rpg's. in Oblivion or Morrowind for example are sandboxes yet still have quests and loot the difference is you control over when you do what and how you do it, and how your character advances. Even with highly linear games like MassEffect you are still given some control over dialog choices and character development.
Meanwhile themepark only care about the illusion of choice at best, to use wow as an example you are given some choice over talents and equipment, but in reality there are only a few talent specs that work properly and only a few gear choices that will work properly with the spec. Even with games like CO and STO that don't have 'classes' only a few of the skills are any good. Quests in them, for the most part, have to be done one way with little choice. roleplay can often conflict with the quests, for example paladin character might have run around assassinating people and helping pirates, and do to the highly linear path its ether do the quests or spend days grinding mobs to get past them
I just find it a real shame that I've played RPGs on the original NES that offered more choices and character development then most MMOs in 2010
To some people not having choices is a better option than having choices.
That said, there is a need for games with choices, since not every game should be the same. Some should have choices, some shouldn't. Every player could play the games that cater to their playstyle.
Just like you can play open-ended RPG's like Elder Scrolls, or choose a more linear experience like Mass Effect or Final Fantasy as complete opposite to what Elder Scrolls offers. Whatever you prefer, you can play, and there are quality games for every playstyle. No one is excluded.
But that is not the case in the MMO genre.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
Ummm... I could be waay of base here, but ill take a stab at what games are really missing. Its the community, and what UO did that other games are not and have not done right, is the way characters communicate with each other. Why do I really need to gather around the city and interact if I can chat globally all over the game, and not once have to come into actual contact with another player, I can just private message/map chat/global chat etc... pick your poison. Then also, came the auction house. The infamous leave my item there come back to cash, its great for that on the go, constant action cant stop for two seconds or ill slow my leveling curve. These two game mechanics KILL the need for players to be around each other at all. Just chillin in a dungeon with your bud killing some ettins and talking was fun, then the bartering back in town with hundreds of other players around. It created community. Just like texting has made communication more convienient and easy, it has made that person to person interaction easily avoided, and ignored. Just my thoughts.
I believe if there was a good sandbox try with lots of intresting things to do while play the game that would fit to all players taste like:
1.vast and deep proffesions system crafting
2.,meaningfull reputation system that would in fact offer good rewards to ppl
3.Ability to players to actually build villages ,farms, shops,houses
4.a very well designed,fluid combat system with nice animations and tactical use of skills
5.Rich pve content
6.Huge world to explore uncharted areas,adventuring,claiming areas and regions by races/guilds
7.Apart the obvious free pvp outdoors situation well designed pvp contests like wow's arenas,battlegrounds tht will award playerswith items,money and fame for those who are quite fond of pvp
I cant see why such a sandbox game wouldn t look str8 in the eyes World of warcraft even in sales and subs numbers.
I know loads of wow players that are quite bored of wow but still there cause in fact nothing better exists for them.
Lots of others as well wouldnt say no to try something diferent if it would be close to wow in terms of quality standards.
If all the 1-7 above were covered surely loads of ppl would try it and if devs would have indeed did a good work why wouldnt they stay inside such a game.
I think the biggest problem is funding and market share.
Traditional MMOs (UO, EQ) apealed to a very specific gamer that enjoys a gaming experience they can immerse themselves in and build meaningful relationships with other players. Traditional MMORPG gamers want a gaming experience that is more meaningful than what you get out of an 80 hour single player experience, or the quick WAM BAM Thank you Mam fix that FPS games offer. UO was in the Guiness Book of World Records for most online subs in 2000 at approx 200,000 subs.
Enter WOW. They effectively expanded the TRADITIONAL MMO market by focusing on game mechanics and experiences that appeal to gamers that enjoy console and FPS games. The 8 - 11 million subs that Blizzard claims WOW has is made up of a mix of traditional MMORPGers (because there just isn't another polished alternative available) and gamers that were formarly not interested in MMORPGs. Anyone that reads the WOW forms will tell you that much of the complaints and strife regarding the direction of the game comes from both camps advocating their own play style.
The old console FPS casual gamers want more short cycle experiences that allow them to "Jump on and jump off" without being left behind in progression & content......while the traditional MMO gamers are pushing for more risk vs reward, long term progression and challenging encounters.
The problem is that by WOW expanding the MMO market to these non traditional MMO types is that any independent coming up has a HUGE financial barrier to entry because they can't develop a sandbox (or traditional) MMO because they can't reach a significant part of the market without compromising their game design to appeal to the whole specturm of gamers not playing MMOs.
We see this trend of incorporating non traditional gamers into games with the whole Farmville movement that a lot of game developers are worried about. If we are now in the business of watering down the content to appeal to people who aren't originally interested in games (in order to increase revenue by # of subs), then whats there left for the peope who originally play MMORPGs for the qualities you associate with MMORPGs?
Your going to see casual MMORPGs (even by WOWs standards) suffering the same fate that traditional MMOs suffered. MMORPG games (in general) will be considered niche based and will have a hard time getting funding for a quality product.
I am NOT at all for player driven content 100% because most players (and generally people) are idiots.
I am NOT for no-developer content as in a theme-park free sandbox MMO. In this day and age a lack of content is simply a sign of under funded and unskilled development teams.
But what I do want is choice.
More then a class and some talent choices, more then a rail-road leveling processes skipping from theme park to theme park. I want theme parks to go and visit and do fun and cool things, but what about the rest of the world?
I want crafting to be a choice not a requirement for high end-game PvP and PvE. And I want that crafting to be unique and interesting.
I want areas to explore and adventures to be had alone and with friends that no quest points to, but I still want story and adventure supplied by top-notch writers and content developers.
I want community! Reason to help strangers and areas and activities made for social gathering. Top notch friend-finding, party searching, guild recruitment and advertisement IN GAME not on third party sites and forums.
I want my own chunk of the world. Instanced customizable apartment housing free for all, instanced neighborhood living for a price where I can share a virtual neighborhood with my friends and guild mates with no upkeep costs, and make it public for view or private for just us. I also want open-world housing in the non-instanced world more like Fable then UO/SWG to prevent wilderness loss and ghost towns. High prices and upkeep costs will keep the limited supply of purchasable homes and buildings in the hands of owners who are serious about maintaining community.
If EA were smart they would build a hybrid game based off of Legends of Kesmai but we all know they arent smart.
The game had it all.. Exp levels that controlled HP , Mana , Stamina based on class and skill levels that controlled hit rate , blocking ability , damage ( actual levels and not 1-100 numbers ) and several unique lands. You actually had to do a meaningful quest to become a Knight or gain extra HP.
Sanboxes and the new generation of fans think that killing each other is what a sandbox game is all about. Its sickening really. A real sandbox offers more than just sparring people for skill points or sitting in one area harvesting or sitting in a house and crafting for hours.
In other words.. Choice. There is a reason why forced FFA PvP isnt popular and why " themepark " games are ruling the day. They offer fun content and choice at the same time.. Run a dungeon if you want , harvest if you want , craft if you want , pvp if you want..ect. A good sandbox would offer the same thing but with a different twist.
I am at a point where I think some think that FFA PvP and skill points = sandbox.
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Quite simply the UO model hasn't been tried by a AAA company that acutally has the funds too see it through to launch in this modern era where MMOs have become a more widespread gaming genre. I say again, no AAA company has tried to make one. Indy companies have tried and only 1, EvE, has reached a really respectable measure of success.
Once a AAA company decides to break the themepark monopoly and go for what UO forumla detractors call a niche (though the only non-niche game out there is WoW so I'm not sure why these people try to use the word only when talking about UO forumla games - Actually, yes I do know why but personal disparaging remarks are against he RoC) they will be pleasantly surprised at how big of a "niche" they'll carve out for themselves.
A UO forumla game just seems like a devloper's dream to me as for one you can eliminate having to write quests into the game on the scale that themeparks, which are based on this content and are seen to fail when they don't have enough at the beginning, middle or end. UO formula games allow developers to act as mechanics, fine tuning the tools in game so that we the players can generate content. With players generating their own content they never run out!
Give me $100 million, complete control of my development team and 4 years 8 months and I'd design a UO formula game that would easily rival WAR or AoC at their respective launches with respect to subscription. Difference is, my target audience, with a game done well, will stick around alot longer. I'm not saying I'm beeter at coding or graphics or any of that essential stuff. No. But I know I can be just as good if not better at the Game Designer role than the majority of the guys doing it now.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Doubt it.
Player generated content is much worse than developer generated content. I'd much rather take themepark with content at start, middle and end instead of sandbox with unlimited, yet inferior content.
That kind of game isn't obviously designed for me though, so whatever.
Is it better if people say sandboxes are boring for the vast majority? Then suddenly its a fact, because the numbers say so;) EQ was played by significantly more than UO or AC. WOW is played by more people than every sandbox combined and then some. So, Most people think Themeparks are more fun than Sandboxes. There ya go...now we have a fact.
Also, when people say sandboxes have no content, they mean no well designed content. Missions in Eve might technically be "content" but by all accounts, its horribly repetitive BORING, uncreative content. Compare that to an epic quest line in that starts with killing a few rats in a barn and ends with killing a dragon and mounting its head by the city gates. A story is content. Eve just has "stuff" you do while watching TV;) Arguing with other players over virtual territory isn't content. Its just RPing and chatting. Random PvP isn't content. STORY is content. A boss is content. A dungeon is content. Go to X system and kill X generic space ships is NOT content. Click on generic rock#16274 for hours on end, while alt tabbing & browsing the web, since you barely have to pay attention to what you're doing is also not GOOD content;)
Why do they need to follow a formula. I think here in lies some of the problem with the industry. They should just make a game, not a game like X. Forget what other games are like and just focus on what would work in your game.
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Not quite Hyan, consider if you will, Bethesda and Blizzard games.
Players make far superior UIs in WoW. Players make far superior maps in starcraft. Players make a better fucking game for diablo2 (medianXL, Eastern Sun). Players make Bethesda RPGs...playable (lol). You have a MASSIVE base of FREE people working on your game who are FANATICAL. Modders tend to become the next generation of game designers ~~
Well, that would mean that those games have good dev-made content in the first place- which I don't find true.
When developers make the game very mod-friendly from the start, the player made content usually becomes better than what the devs have thought of. But that dev-made content is quite shitty in the first place, so it doesn't really mean anything.
Devs who don't give players much freedom in making their own content make better games content wise, because they're not limited by the restrictions of the game like players are. As much freedom as you can give the players, that's still less freedom than what the developers have, who can create pretty much everything they want.
I think the decline of sandbox MMOs can be blamed on three things:
1) SOE - For making the stupidest business decision in the history of gaming. They single-handedly destroyed all faith in the sandbox model for big name developers simply by making Star Wars Galaxies the example of what NOT to do for the entire MMO genre. While the game design in SWG was never the reason for its failure, the downfall of the game will nonetheless deter major game developers from ever trying anything like it again.
2) WoW - For showing the rest of the industry that a well crafted themepark can make MUCH more money than any other game on the market. This I think is actually due to the quality of Blizzard products. I honestly think that if Blizzard had decided to follow the UO model, the game would still be incredibly popular simply because Blizzard does not make bad games.
3) Suits - Because the people funding game projects rarely have an in-depth understanding of gaming and must therefore rely on the examples of past games when making decisions about future projects. They look at points 1 and 2 above and they naturally conclude that following the WoW model is the safer option.
The term "boring" is subjective, but when lots of people call something boring they're really hinting at the underlying reasons it's boring. Different people have different capacities for enduring tedium, and different people seek different "interesting decisions" in a game.
The fact is that EVE's ratting/missions typically only require enough decision-making to keep you at the computer. They're not compelling or meaningful decisions by a long stretch.
To paint EVE in a fair light, the game's strength lies largely in the fact that you have these infrequent yet highly compelling decisions which enable you to change the game world.
For most players, these rare-yet-important decisions don't outweigh the lack of common-yet-somewhat-important decisions that many other games have. So when the majority of gameplay involves tedious activities, they call the game boring.
I do think the OP's "best of both worlds" game is possible. It's not hard to imagine player-ownership and dynamic world content in WOW (with housing, conquerable territories, and other sandbox mechanics.) It's only slightly harder to imagine making fun games out of existing sandbox worlds like EVE*. Which of course is easy to say because there's no "pure themepark" game and no "pure sandbox" game -- every MMORPG is already a mix of activities, some of which are themepark-ish, others which are sandbox-ish.
(*harder because many sandbox mechanics aren't conducive to a lot of these ideas. Example: if there was a "fair and challenging" mission option in EVE players might not take it because it means they might lose their ship while running missions, which would ruin the whole point of missioning: making ISK. Of course this is one of the easiest problems to solve -- make the fair/challenging missions more lucrative -- but it points out the fact that many sandbox mechanics shove these games in a not-so-fun direction.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I really do think you can create a game that is the best of both worlds and eliminate the crap from both. It just takes smart decision making.
Looking at "the big picture" instead of focusing so intensively on a few key features. I call this focusing on a "hook." You try to sell a game based off a single feature and build up so much hype for it you sell boxes, but not subscriptions. Think back to WAR's RvR, AoC's combat and adult nature, Aion's flying, STO being Star Trek IP, Champions Online NOT being fantasy or sci fi... Tabula Rasa being from Richard Garrot...
...because what happens is that if players don't like your hook, and the rest of the game offers nothing great because you spent too much time on the hook and not enough on the game... well, you end up with AoC, WAR, Aion, STO, CO, and TR....
It's just bad decision making on the part of the developers. Sure, they may be limited by time and money from their publishers but at the same time fairly simple design decisions can make or break a game.
If you were to compile a list of the top 5 "flaws" in these games as viewed by the majority of their player-base, you could maybe write one or two off due to budgest/time constraints because they are NOT made by the Bioware's and Blizzard's...
But the other three or four come down to design decisions - things players on their forums tell them from day one, things they are told in beta, and conveniently these are the things that are hidden from the general gaming audience until they install the game and start playing.
Then 3-4 months later these same bad design decisions come back as "I told you so" post on forums like this one.
So is it the technology limiting developers?
Is it publishers being more concerned about profit then game play and controlling decisions?
Is it developers that are too conventional and tied to their previous ideas, projects, and mentalities that cannot look past their original concept ideas scribbled on a napkin?
I do think it is a combination of these three and so many more that us forum junkies and gamers will never know because we don't work in the industry - and it's easy for us to coach from the stands - but if we got down on the field and were handed the coaches play-book could we really do better?
A lot of the time I think the answer is yes to be 100% honest.
Well you can't simply listen to the masses.
Regardless of your product's quality and potential, you're always going to have a bunch of people who claim it won't work. I bet there was a huge chunk of sandbox MMORPGers who played Retail WOW's beta and said it would never succeed, that the game sucked for reasons X, Y, and Z. Should Blizzard have listened to them?
You simply have to know good game design, and be willing to take some chances on new mechanics (especially since releasing rehash games is not a safe path to success.) Part of it is hindsight being 20/20 too, since mid-flight on a development project can make things difficult to view from the proper perspective (but well, that's why you run usability, playtesting, and a beta..and make changes based on feedback.)
Which I suppose is me saying you need to listen to the masses...okay, so you were right. But the point is you have to be smart about who you listen to, and how you go about listening to them. And that's not easy.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Sandbox games, the way they implement them nowadays, come across as more work than fun. I'm looking for more of a hybrid type mmorpg like AC. With AC you could grind mobs for loot and xp or get a group together and do a quest chain to get a weapon or piece of equipment that may be useful or just cool to have. Back then we'd explore a dungeon just to see what's in it. I'd jump into a portal with no idea where it goes out of curiosity.
Now I know I've got my rose colored glasses on and that there have to be good sandbox games out there, but any game where you can play for hrs and not even have to be at the keyboard is not my idea of fun. Eve and DF both came across as more work than fun for me. And that is my opinion before the fact/opinion police attack me.
I haven't been keeping close track of the games coming out because I refuse to jump on the hype train anymore. But when they come out I'll try them and hopefully find a good mmorpg. I really don't care if it's a sandbox or themepark game. I refuse to limit myself to a genre subset because I might lose my "hardcore" cred because I like a "carebear" game or whatever the nerds are calling it.
Those games aren't anything like what EQ was.
Games fail because they are trying to copy WoW. They should copy EQ if they want a good MMORPG.
They need to stop dumbing their game down, put more timesinks in the game, etc. How about a game where it doesn't take a week to get level 60? You know, an MMORPG..
By your "inferior" comment I can tell you have no idea what I mean by player generated content. You think you do, but you don't. And "inferior" is a term of opinion so it's all good.
Anyway, I know full well that what I have in mind isn't for the modern day themepark tell-me-what-to-do-step-by-step gamers. And I would be very up front that this isn't a cattle call game, we aren't looking to top Blizzard's numbers in the media. We are looking to bring a sorely missed style of MMOG play back at AAA quality that is at current an untapped demand. Plenty of level grinding themeparks being conveyor belted out and this is just an equal or better production value of something old yet new.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
You first have to look at why theme park MMO’s are more widely accepted and then understand what the challenges are to make a sandbox more mass marketable.
Face it UO was successful because it was released before any real Theme Park games existed. Its just human nature to be attracted more to the promise of the thrill ride and adventure.
Put any child in front of a theme park entrance and the largest sandbox full of toys and the vast majority are going to chose the theme park and cry when its time to go home.
Skills instead of levels don’t work, players need to be interdependent and fit together like pieces of a puzzle so the sum of their parts become greater then their hole. Skill based systems make it near imposable for developers to plan out these interdependencies
Open world PvP doesn’t work in a lawless society, you are ether the ganker or the ganked. If you wanted to just be a crafter and merchant in UO it was a frustrating experience working for hours only to get ambushed on the way home to sell your wares and lose all you have worked for.
The idea of the sandbox or virtual world was to be anything, do anything and live in virtual environment but when you bring all these people together in a virtual environment without defined goals many get lost or have a hard time finding someone to join them in what they want to do at any one time.
The theme park quest system gives players defined tangible mini goals that they can focus on and helps player work on set problems that need to be overcome.
The sandbox concept in its purest form has some real problems to overcome but I see no reason the Theme Park and Sandbox formats can’t be mixed to give us the best of both worlds. A rich crafting system and player run economies, housing and city building and other means for the player to add to the game world are all very good concepts born in the sandbox format games.
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The OP forgot to include skill based into the discription of EQ1. One omly had to visit their Guild Master to see all the skillls he could learn,sense heading and kick come to mind straight away.
Furious Fighters
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/13trindx.htm
Well, if you told me what you meant by that kind of content, I might come off less ignorant than before and we could have a possibly fruitful argument about it. But now that you don't tell me, I'm left in the dark and am still doubtful =/.
What you say sounds good, but I'd still think that themepark not designed for tell-me-what-to-do-step-by-step-gamers would have better developer designed content than what player designed sandbox content could be at best.
True roots? The true roots of the MMO market are games like (the original) Neverwinter Nights, Gemstone, etc., and the single-player CRPGs that preceded them, and the pen & paper RPGs that preceded them. And the vast majority of these were class-based, level-based and quite rigid.
UO was - and I'm not intending this as a criticism, just a statement of fact - an offshoot that occurred a good decade after the birth of the genre.
What bugs me about themepark MMOs is how little choice you are actually given compared to even most single player RPGs. It seems developers ether think its impossible to give players choice, or think it's too costly to give it.
Even on this forum if you say sandbox people act like you want 'second life' BS of 100% user generated. When in reality people want choice, real choices that effect there character beyond what zone to level in or palladin over warrior. This problem doesn't seem to exist in single player rpg's. in Oblivion or Morrowind for example are sandboxes yet still have quests and loot the difference is you control over when you do what and how you do it, and how your character advances. Even with highly linear games like MassEffect you are still given some control over dialog choices and character development.
Meanwhile themepark only care about the illusion of choice at best, to use wow as an example you are given some choice over talents and equipment, but in reality there are only a few talent specs that work properly and only a few gear choices that will work properly with the spec. Even with games like CO and STO that don't have 'classes' only a few of the skills are any good. Quests in them, for the most part, have to be done one way with little choice. roleplay can often conflict with the quests, for example paladin character might have run around assassinating people and helping pirates, and do to the highly linear path its ether do the quests or spend days grinding mobs to get past them
I just find it a real shame that I've played RPGs on the original NES that offered more choices and character development then most MMOs in 2010
To some people not having choices is a better option than having choices.
That said, there is a need for games with choices, since not every game should be the same. Some should have choices, some shouldn't. Every player could play the games that cater to their playstyle.
Just like you can play open-ended RPG's like Elder Scrolls, or choose a more linear experience like Mass Effect or Final Fantasy as complete opposite to what Elder Scrolls offers. Whatever you prefer, you can play, and there are quality games for every playstyle. No one is excluded.
But that is not the case in the MMO genre.
Ummm... I could be waay of base here, but ill take a stab at what games are really missing. Its the community, and what UO did that other games are not and have not done right, is the way characters communicate with each other. Why do I really need to gather around the city and interact if I can chat globally all over the game, and not once have to come into actual contact with another player, I can just private message/map chat/global chat etc... pick your poison. Then also, came the auction house. The infamous leave my item there come back to cash, its great for that on the go, constant action cant stop for two seconds or ill slow my leveling curve. These two game mechanics KILL the need for players to be around each other at all. Just chillin in a dungeon with your bud killing some ettins and talking was fun, then the bartering back in town with hundreds of other players around. It created community. Just like texting has made communication more convienient and easy, it has made that person to person interaction easily avoided, and ignored. Just my thoughts.
I believe if there was a good sandbox try with lots of intresting things to do while play the game that would fit to all players taste like:
1.vast and deep proffesions system crafting
2.,meaningfull reputation system that would in fact offer good rewards to ppl
3.Ability to players to actually build villages ,farms, shops,houses
4.a very well designed,fluid combat system with nice animations and tactical use of skills
5.Rich pve content
6.Huge world to explore uncharted areas,adventuring,claiming areas and regions by races/guilds
7.Apart the obvious free pvp outdoors situation well designed pvp contests like wow's arenas,battlegrounds tht will award playerswith items,money and fame for those who are quite fond of pvp
I cant see why such a sandbox game wouldn t look str8 in the eyes World of warcraft even in sales and subs numbers.
I know loads of wow players that are quite bored of wow but still there cause in fact nothing better exists for them.
Lots of others as well wouldnt say no to try something diferent if it would be close to wow in terms of quality standards.
If all the 1-7 above were covered surely loads of ppl would try it and if devs would have indeed did a good work why wouldnt they stay inside such a game.
I want a mixed game.
UO stats/skills, EQ quests/story/etc.
I think the biggest problem is funding and market share.
Traditional MMOs (UO, EQ) apealed to a very specific gamer that enjoys a gaming experience they can immerse themselves in and build meaningful relationships with other players. Traditional MMORPG gamers want a gaming experience that is more meaningful than what you get out of an 80 hour single player experience, or the quick WAM BAM Thank you Mam fix that FPS games offer. UO was in the Guiness Book of World Records for most online subs in 2000 at approx 200,000 subs.
Enter WOW. They effectively expanded the TRADITIONAL MMO market by focusing on game mechanics and experiences that appeal to gamers that enjoy console and FPS games. The 8 - 11 million subs that Blizzard claims WOW has is made up of a mix of traditional MMORPGers (because there just isn't another polished alternative available) and gamers that were formarly not interested in MMORPGs. Anyone that reads the WOW forms will tell you that much of the complaints and strife regarding the direction of the game comes from both camps advocating their own play style.
The old console FPS casual gamers want more short cycle experiences that allow them to "Jump on and jump off" without being left behind in progression & content......while the traditional MMO gamers are pushing for more risk vs reward, long term progression and challenging encounters.
The problem is that by WOW expanding the MMO market to these non traditional MMO types is that any independent coming up has a HUGE financial barrier to entry because they can't develop a sandbox (or traditional) MMO because they can't reach a significant part of the market without compromising their game design to appeal to the whole specturm of gamers not playing MMOs.
We see this trend of incorporating non traditional gamers into games with the whole Farmville movement that a lot of game developers are worried about. If we are now in the business of watering down the content to appeal to people who aren't originally interested in games (in order to increase revenue by # of subs), then whats there left for the peope who originally play MMORPGs for the qualities you associate with MMORPGs?
Your going to see casual MMORPGs (even by WOWs standards) suffering the same fate that traditional MMOs suffered. MMORPG games (in general) will be considered niche based and will have a hard time getting funding for a quality product.
I do agree it's all about choice.
I am NOT at all for player driven content 100% because most players (and generally people) are idiots.
I am NOT for no-developer content as in a theme-park free sandbox MMO. In this day and age a lack of content is simply a sign of under funded and unskilled development teams.
But what I do want is choice.
More then a class and some talent choices, more then a rail-road leveling processes skipping from theme park to theme park. I want theme parks to go and visit and do fun and cool things, but what about the rest of the world?
I want crafting to be a choice not a requirement for high end-game PvP and PvE. And I want that crafting to be unique and interesting.
I want areas to explore and adventures to be had alone and with friends that no quest points to, but I still want story and adventure supplied by top-notch writers and content developers.
I want community! Reason to help strangers and areas and activities made for social gathering. Top notch friend-finding, party searching, guild recruitment and advertisement IN GAME not on third party sites and forums.
I want my own chunk of the world. Instanced customizable apartment housing free for all, instanced neighborhood living for a price where I can share a virtual neighborhood with my friends and guild mates with no upkeep costs, and make it public for view or private for just us. I also want open-world housing in the non-instanced world more like Fable then UO/SWG to prevent wilderness loss and ghost towns. High prices and upkeep costs will keep the limited supply of purchasable homes and buildings in the hands of owners who are serious about maintaining community.
If EA were smart they would build a hybrid game based off of Legends of Kesmai but we all know they arent smart.
The game had it all.. Exp levels that controlled HP , Mana , Stamina based on class and skill levels that controlled hit rate , blocking ability , damage ( actual levels and not 1-100 numbers ) and several unique lands. You actually had to do a meaningful quest to become a Knight or gain extra HP.
Sanboxes and the new generation of fans think that killing each other is what a sandbox game is all about. Its sickening really. A real sandbox offers more than just sparring people for skill points or sitting in one area harvesting or sitting in a house and crafting for hours.
In other words.. Choice. There is a reason why forced FFA PvP isnt popular and why " themepark " games are ruling the day. They offer fun content and choice at the same time.. Run a dungeon if you want , harvest if you want , craft if you want , pvp if you want..ect. A good sandbox would offer the same thing but with a different twist.
I am at a point where I think some think that FFA PvP and skill points = sandbox.