What happened is; someone ruined SWG, and now there's 200,000 people out there trolling gaming forums. GIVE US OUR SWG-type GAME BACK OR WE'LL NEVER LEAVE HAHA! (We're the terrorists of the MMORPG community, hehe).
SWG was losing 10k subs a month BEFORE NGE. It was already ruined.
I tend to think there just aren't that many gamers who want a pure sandbox like Eve or how SWG was initially. It's a relatively small part of the MMO market.
It was losing subs due to severe bugs and balance issues that the Devs weren't addressing... they were too busy making the CU, and NGE. Not to mention the assinine Jedi systems that never should have been in the game.
The fact that SWG was a sandbox had little to do with it losing subs. If it were, the game never would have drawn the attention of 200k subs.
This proves that merely being a sandbox does not make a game good. SWG had major design flaws flaws from the beginning and the sandbox elements simply made it more passable to players. Once the sandbox elements were played out, people found out there there was nothing more to the game. Housing and a complex crafting system will not sustain the game by itself if the rest is full of bugs and unfinished content.
What happened is; someone ruined SWG, and now there's 200,000 people out there trolling gaming forums. GIVE US OUR SWG-type GAME BACK OR WE'LL NEVER LEAVE HAHA! (We're the terrorists of the MMORPG community, hehe).
SWG was losing 10k subs a month BEFORE NGE. It was already ruined.
I tend to think there just aren't that many gamers who want a pure sandbox like Eve or how SWG was initially. It's a relatively small part of the MMO market.
It was losing subs due to severe bugs and balance issues that the Devs weren't addressing... they were too busy making the CU, and NGE. Not to mention the assinine Jedi systems that never should have been in the game.
The fact that SWG was a sandbox had little to do with it losing subs. If it were, the game never would have drawn the attention of 200k subs.
This proves that merely being a sandbox does not make a game good. SWG had major design flaws flaws from the beginning and the sandbox elements simply made it more passable to players. Once the sandbox elements were played out, people found out there there was nothing more to the game. Housing and a complex crafting system will not sustain the game by itself if the rest is full of bugs and unfinished content.
Merely making a game of any type does not guarantee a good game. Why, over many posts from you, do you think that Sandbox players want a lackluster game that only has housing and complex crafting? We Sandbox gamers do not accept your definition of what we want.
What happened is; someone ruined SWG, and now there's 200,000 people out there trolling gaming forums. GIVE US OUR SWG-type GAME BACK OR WE'LL NEVER LEAVE HAHA! (We're the terrorists of the MMORPG community, hehe).
SWG was losing 10k subs a month BEFORE NGE. It was already ruined.
I tend to think there just aren't that many gamers who want a pure sandbox like Eve or how SWG was initially. It's a relatively small part of the MMO market.
It was losing subs due to severe bugs and balance issues that the Devs weren't addressing... they were too busy making the CU, and NGE. Not to mention the assinine Jedi systems that never should have been in the game.
The fact that SWG was a sandbox had little to do with it losing subs. If it were, the game never would have drawn the attention of 200k subs.
This proves that merely being a sandbox does not make a game good. SWG had major design flaws flaws from the beginning and the sandbox elements simply made it more passable to players. Once the sandbox elements were played out, people found out there there was nothing more to the game. Housing and a complex crafting system will not sustain the game by itself if the rest is full of bugs and unfinished content.
Merely making a game of any type does not guarantee a good game. Why, over many posts from you, do you think that Sandbox players want a lackluster game that only has housing and complex crafting? We Sandbox gamers do not accept your definition of what we want.
Where did you get a weird idea like that?
Personally I consider myself a sandbox player since I played SWG, EVE and A Tale in the Desert. However, there seems to be a group of people on these forums who call themselves 'sandbox players' that seem to think that there is some conspiracy against sandbox games and are unwilling to consider that the old sandbox games they revere had some major flaws that made them uplayable to a lot of other people who would consider themselves 'sandbox players'.
SWG had a neat housing system, a player city system with great potential, a complex crafting system with a really lousy UI, a mediocre combat system with obvious flaws and a pointlessly grindy and limited leveling/skill system. These things are the reason why I really got into the game for about two months and then quit it way before any CU or NGE. It had very intiguing concepts and ideas combined with a weak design and terrible execution.
What happened is; someone ruined SWG, and now there's 200,000 people out there trolling gaming forums. GIVE US OUR SWG-type GAME BACK OR WE'LL NEVER LEAVE HAHA! (We're the terrorists of the MMORPG community, hehe).
SWG was losing 10k subs a month BEFORE NGE. It was already ruined.
I tend to think there just aren't that many gamers who want a pure sandbox like Eve or how SWG was initially. It's a relatively small part of the MMO market.
It was losing subs due to severe bugs and balance issues that the Devs weren't addressing... they were too busy making the CU, and NGE. Not to mention the assinine Jedi systems that never should have been in the game.
The fact that SWG was a sandbox had little to do with it losing subs. If it were, the game never would have drawn the attention of 200k subs.
This proves that merely being a sandbox does not make a game good. SWG had major design flaws flaws from the beginning and the sandbox elements simply made it more passable to players. Once the sandbox elements were played out, people found out there there was nothing more to the game. Housing and a complex crafting system will not sustain the game by itself if the rest is full of bugs and unfinished content.
Merely making a game of any type does not guarantee a good game. Why, over many posts from you, do you think that Sandbox players want a lackluster game that only has housing and complex crafting? We Sandbox gamers do not accept your definition of what we want.
Where did you get a weird idea like that?
Personally I consider myself a sandbox player since I played SWG, EVE and A Tale in the Desert. However, there seems to be a group of people on these forums who call themselves 'sandbox players' that seem to think that there is some conspiracy against sandbox games and are unwilling to consider that the old sandbox games they revere had some major flaws that made them uplayable to a lot of other people who would consider themselves 'sandbox players'.
SWG had a neat housing system, a player city system with great potential, a complex crafting system with a really lousy UI, a mediocre combat system with obvious flaws and a pointlessly grindy and limited leveling/skill system. These things are the reason why I really got into the game for about two months and then quit it way before any CU or NGE. It had very intiguing concepts and ideas combined with a weak design and terrible execution.
I got that idea from a number of posts of yours where you assumed that a "Sandbox" game is nothing more than just "a world to live in", where players do the same thing over and over again in monotenous simulation of real life in a game, with no excitement or fun.
Edit to add: Well, maybe I just misunderstood you. Rereading your above post, maybe I'm wrong about you. Maybe your entire points were always that you need more than just simple sandbox?
Yeah it's a shame but I think the Sandbox genre will eventual be gone, and its because of games like WoW. Nothing against WoW since its the most successful MMO out there, but new companies developing MMOs will folllow suit. We have seen this happening for the last 5 years after all. From a buisness perspective it makes perfect sense to do things that work and guarantee success rather than taking the risk of making a Sandbox.
Saying all that, we may get a brave company one day that'll take that risk...pulls it off. And we'll have a Sandbox that has 10+ mil subs. Let's only hope anyway! =P (Wishful thinking!) But most players want uber gear and endgame pvp, so until that changes we're not going to see many Sandbox games.
Are there any in development that i am just not aware off/ didnt get the memo. Or is everything in the near future themeparkin it up
What normally happens in them .... they got pooped in.
But really people want more. DF is sandbox go play it.
There are sandbox games.
Sandbox is just not as good as themepark. GW2 is doing a open world Dynamic event and private/group themepark concept . I like it.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Personally I consider myself a sandbox player since I played SWG, EVE and A Tale in the Desert. However, there seems to be a group of people on these forums who call themselves 'sandbox players' that seem to think that there is some conspiracy against sandbox games and are unwilling to consider that the old sandbox games they revere had some major flaws that made them uplayable to a lot of other people who would consider themselves 'sandbox players'.
SWG had a neat housing system, a player city system with great potential, a complex crafting system with a really lousy UI, a mediocre combat system with obvious flaws and a pointlessly grindy and limited leveling/skill system. These things are the reason why I really got into the game for about two months and then quit it way before any CU or NGE. It had very intiguing concepts and ideas combined with a weak design and terrible execution.
I got that idea from a number of posts of yours where you assumed that a "Sandbox" game is nothing more than just "a world to live in", where players do the same thing over and over again in monotenous simulation of real life in a game, with no excitement or fun.
Edit to add: Well, maybe I just misunderstood you. Rereading your above post, maybe I'm wrong about you. Maybe your entire points were always that you need more than just simple sandbox?
I do not always phrase my statements in ways that convey my ideas easily. Plus I have a tendency to inject too much sarcasm into my posts. I will also shoot down a specific implementation of an idea while loving the idea itself in theory.
So, I am a big fan of the 'idea of sandbox' but a big critic of its implementation in games. I believe that sandbox games need a 'purpose' to drive them and without it they just become 'a world to live in'. I acknowledge that many players will find their own purpose by just 'being' in the game but I am a 'builder' type so I need to keep building and improving things. So any sandbox game that stagnates into a 'do the same thing you did yesterday' mode, will lose me as a player.
The suckiest part of any game for me is the point where you hit the 'glass ceiling' and really cannot get better at it because the game does not accomodate that. I quit SWG when I realized that I got my character to the best point I could manage and the only way to try something else was to completely wreck what I done so far and start from scratch. There was only about 2-3 months worth of sandbox content in the game for me and everything else was either 'sameo-sameo' or a dead end. There was no more 'purpose' for me in that game.
Heck, lack of a 'purpose' was the reason I first quit WoW. I realized that I was no longer building a character but simply going through the same motions and merely accumulating better gear.
For some people merely 'living' in a sandbox world is enough but I need to 'build' in it for it to have any purpose.
As far as I can see, sandboxes are pretty much doomed by design.
Every one I've ever seen has been a disaster because average players don't / won't understand art or design and generally ham, glam, or perv up everything they get their hands on. (Not all players, but in this case a very few bad apples can ruin the barrel for everyone.)
I mean, think about what happend with second life. Have you ever been there? I bet you won't last 5 minutes without seeing something NSFW. And, why don't you walk 5 feet more and see the pedobears attack? LOL
On the other side, do you remember UO from the old days? I used to hunt Orcs in a suburb because there were houses EVERYWHERE. I'd run through the city streets and try to find mobs.
It was silly.
Go look at all the "great" content created in CoX. LOL.
So, no big company wants to commit the resources needed to create a sandbox game. In this case they're probably right.
1. Second Life was never a game to begin with
2. City of Heroes was never ever ever a sandbox (I had about two max LVL characters so I know 4 sho)
To me FFXI, & now to be FFXIV, are story driven PvE sandboxes. No, sandboxe doesn't have to be FFA PvP full loot you freaks!
Ok, maybe its not perfect, but its pretty close... here:
- You can do everything with one char.
- The game doesn't tell you what do & how do to it.
- Zones aren't sub divided by level range, you always have to be careful in your travel.
- More player interdependancy than most game out there.
- Meaningful housing. ( No its doesn't have to be a non instance clusterf**k)
- You can build your classe however you want it. ( with some restriction )
- I'm sure i'm forgetting some more aspect here...
- The only thing it is missing, is the ability to affect the world... Which FFXIV might have in one way or another, who knows.
Anyways, say what you will, FFA PvP full loot game ( what you call sandboxe ) are dead, no money is to be made on that type of game. I see it staying that way until real tough consequences are put in place to control criminal behavior, period.
<cough> EVE Online. Partial loot most of the time although I've been fully looted for my ships and rigs
1. Not forced to linearly follow a path from low level to Max (for example, in EVE veterans and newbies adventure and live together in the space their corp/alliance controls. There is not an area a newbie cannot enter. Both vets and noob enjoys each other company and provides mutual benefits)
2. Can own Land and change the world. Perhaps fight for terriority or just buy it
3. No LEvels (or rather, no enforced linear path to go from early Levels to end). You can have sandbox type of Levels like EVE (aka skillpoints / skill level). You can acquire skills in a non-linear manner
4. SHould be free to attack anyone. However, its ok to spawn cops to enforce justice (aka EVE Online in secure space)
Games like City of Heroes, Final Fantasy, and such all fall far short of these basic criteria.
They don't make big money, therefore no major development house is going to touch them. Many smaller Indie houses keep trying, but as you mentioned, Earthrise, Dawntide, all the same, under-funded and very rough around the edges.
I concur.. A true well balance sandbox lives.. it evolves.. To keep a sandbox game from imploding or destroying itself requires a dev team to police it.. Therefore not only does it cost a lot to make, but it will require probably twice as many devs to maintain it.. It's all about the money in the mmo industry...
Short answer: Those that were actually released failed, failed, failed, failed, epic failed, failed, and then failed somemore, so less and less companies are willing to invest the budget required to risk trying to create a successful one.
*Cough*EvE*Cough*
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
Personally I consider myself a sandbox player since I played SWG, EVE and A Tale in the Desert. However, there seems to be a group of people on these forums who call themselves 'sandbox players' that seem to think that there is some conspiracy against sandbox games and are unwilling to consider that the old sandbox games they revere had some major flaws that made them uplayable to a lot of other people who would consider themselves 'sandbox players'.
SWG had a neat housing system, a player city system with great potential, a complex crafting system with a really lousy UI, a mediocre combat system with obvious flaws and a pointlessly grindy and limited leveling/skill system. These things are the reason why I really got into the game for about two months and then quit it way before any CU or NGE. It had very intiguing concepts and ideas combined with a weak design and terrible execution.
I got that idea from a number of posts of yours where you assumed that a "Sandbox" game is nothing more than just "a world to live in", where players do the same thing over and over again in monotenous simulation of real life in a game, with no excitement or fun.
Edit to add: Well, maybe I just misunderstood you. Rereading your above post, maybe I'm wrong about you. Maybe your entire points were always that you need more than just simple sandbox?
I do not always phrase my statements in ways that convey my ideas easily. Plus I have a tendency to inject too much sarcasm into my posts. I will also shoot down a specific implementation of an idea while loving the idea itself in theory.
So, I am a big fan of the 'idea of sandbox' but a big critic of its implementation in games. I believe that sandbox games need a 'purpose' to drive them and without it they just become 'a world to live in'. I acknowledge that many players will find their own purpose by just 'being' in the game but I am a 'builder' type so I need to keep building and improving things. So any sandbox game that stagnates into a 'do the same thing you did yesterday' mode, will lose me as a player.
The suckiest part of any game for me is the point where you hit the 'glass ceiling' and really cannot get better at it because the game does not accomodate that. I quit SWG when I realized that I got my character to the best point I could manage and the only way to try something else was to completely wreck what I done so far and start from scratch. There was only about 2-3 months worth of sandbox content in the game for me and everything else was either 'sameo-sameo' or a dead end. There was no more 'purpose' for me in that game.
Heck, lack of a 'purpose' was the reason I first quit WoW. I realized that I was no longer building a character but simply going through the same motions and merely accumulating better gear.
For some people merely 'living' in a sandbox world is enough but I need to 'build' in it for it to have any purpose.
I agree with that, and I think most of us do. You never want the game to go stagnant, no matter what kind of game it is. And I think that's perfectly possible in a true Sandbox game. But it does have to be different than the level grind games that are common these days. It has to be much more social by game design. It has to be much less dedicated to levelling up and uber gear per levels, and replaced with what a Sandbox "world" can offer. That doesn't mean that gear and getting things shouldn't be very interesting and enticing. It just means that it needs to be brought back "down to earth" so that the social aspects and world building aspects for players can work, all together and in "one world" (as opposed to zoned content).
Short answer: Those that were actually released failed, failed, failed, failed, epic failed, failed, and then failed somemore, so less and less companies are willing to invest the budget required to risk trying to create a successful one.
*Cough*EvE*Cough*
EVE is a piece of crap relying on RMT & forced multi account.
There are sandboxes out there, some are doing very well (EVE), some are just 'ticking over' (Darkfall). The problem is people expect them to have populations and developmental support on par with the big money themeparks. That simply isn't going to happen as they are niche products run by indie companies.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
To me FFXI, & now to be FFXIV, are story driven PvE sandboxes. No, sandboxe doesn't have to be FFA PvP full loot you freaks! Sandbox = Do anything
Ok, maybe its not perfect, but its pretty close... here:
- You can do everything with one char. no you cannot Try being an effective mage healer and warrior at the same time.
- The game doesn't tell you what do & how do to it. It does its called NPC quest givers
- Zones aren't sub divided by level range, you always have to be careful in your travel. In otherwords if your level is not right DONT GO THERE
- More player interdependancy than most game out there.
- Meaningful housing. ( No its doesn't have to be a non instance Why doesant it?clusterf**k)
- You can build your classe however you want it. ( with some restriction )
- I'm sure i'm forgetting some more aspect here...
- The only thing it is missing, is the ability to affect the world... Which FFXIV might have in one way or another, who knows.
Anyways, say what you will, FFA PvP full loot game ( what you call sandboxe ) are dead, no money is to be made on that type of game. I see it staying that way until real tough consequences are put in place to control criminal behavior, period. EvE Online
Sandboxes = Do whatever you want with the tools given I have a sword i want to stab you.
Housing wise. Why cant they be in non instanced areas?
It seems you like this game which is fare enough but it is still a themepark game.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
Short answer: Those that were actually released failed, failed, failed, failed, epic failed, failed, and then failed somemore, so less and less companies are willing to invest the budget required to risk trying to create a successful one.
*Cough*EvE*Cough*
EVE is a piece of crap relying on RMT & forced multi account.
Thanks, but no thanks
Not sure who is telling you this misinformation but it is incorrect (like your other post). I played the game for many yrs with one account for instance.
And what 'RMT' are you refering to? Are you talking bout how the community can trade characters with each other on their site plus buy other services from each other? Doesn't affect the game negatively in anyway. It actually allows CCP to combat farmers.
Are there any in development that i am just not aware off/ didnt get the memo. Or is everything in the near future themeparkin it up
There are many sandbox games in development, and a few out now.
Look at:
EvE
Mortal Online
Darkfall
Xsyon
Earthrise
Perpetuum
Dawntide
Aerrevan
Yes there are sandboxes out there and people liek me are having a lot of fun playijng them.
I have had the most fun in Darkfall and am extremely excited for DF2010. If you do not know what that is or what it will bring than I would look it up.
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What is the point of using a word while no one can agree on it's meaning?
If I ask 5 people here to define sandbox it will problably result in 5 different definitions.
Originally posted by Ozmodan
Well CCP is still at it last time I checked and they only do sandbox. You can bet World of Darkness will be sandbox when it is announced.
CCP's definition of sandbox is that your every action/decision in game will affect and shape the world, like the butterfly effect.
And in that sense WoD will be a sandbox because that's how CCP like to make their games.
They thrive for building more than games, but living virtual worlds.
WoD will probably be a very social action-based player driven MMO with horror elements.
Social because killing things isn't the main thing in WoD, PvP will occur without combat most of the times.
Action based because a dev already stated that. And to get the chunk of player base EvE can't get with its more strategic combat.
Player driven because it will probably have prayer driven quests, politics and economy.
Horror because it's WoD.
Everything i said it's just speculation, but it's as accurate as it gets. I follow that game very closely, it's hard to find something but is possible.
I suggest reading thisand thisfor a better view of a WoD developer designing ideals.
In 15 days we will see the confirmation of what I'm saying here.
Young Tauren was the new boy on the beach. He was a big lad who only ate pure beef content and was worthy of his nickname “Bull”. He was a bit lacking in the brains department though, but his parents the Blizzards overlooked this failing like most parents do. “Alright now you go and play” they said to him as they waved him off on the beach.
There were many boys on the beach, puny runts who obviously did not have the money to buy Tauren’s designer speedo’s or have a happening haircut like his. But these puny boys did like to build sandcastles, they took after their parents that way. Tauren was puzzled, why did they build these funny things in the sand, were quests and levelling not enough for them? With a mighty roar he set of down the beach stamping on sandcastles, knocking down the boy’s player base.
Looking back at his work Tauren felt a glowing pride, the beach was now flat and simple, a good place for questing. My parents will be proud, he thought.
Young Tauren was the new boy on the beach. He was a big lad who only ate pure beef content and was worthy of his nickname “Bull”. He was a bit lacking in the brains department though, but his parents the Blizzards overlooked this failing like most parents do. “Alright now you go and play” they said to him as they waved him off on the beach.
There were many boys on the beach, puny runts who obviously did not have the money to buy Tauren’s designer speedo’s or have a happening haircut like his. But these puny boys did like to build sandcastles, they took after their parents that way. Tauren was puzzled, why did they build these funny things in the sand, were quests and levelling not enough for them? With a mighty roar he set of down the beach stamping on sandcastles, knocking down the boy’s player base.
Looking back at his work Tauren felt a glowing pride, the beach was now flat and simple, a good place for questing. My parents will be proud, he thought.
That's the story told by all the boys who are jealous of Tauren because all the girls like him and will not give them the time of day.
The real reason the beach is the way it is now because its owners failed to remove all the broken grass, let dogs poop on it and it was next to the sewage plant. But since they gave all the other boys some candy before they let the beach go to crap, the other boys think they are nice guys and blame the scapegoat Tauren.
Young Tauren was the new boy on the beach. He was a big lad who only ate pure beef content and was worthy of his nickname “Bull”. He was a bit lacking in the brains department though, but his parents the Blizzards overlooked this failing like most parents do. “Alright now you go and play” they said to him as they waved him off on the beach.
There were many boys on the beach, puny runts who obviously did not have the money to buy Tauren’s designer speedo’s or have a happening haircut like his. But these puny boys did like to build sandcastles, they took after their parents that way. Tauren was puzzled, why did they build these funny things in the sand, were quests and levelling not enough for them? With a mighty roar he set of down the beach stamping on sandcastles, knocking down the boy’s player base.
Looking back at his work Tauren felt a glowing pride, the beach was now flat and simple, a good place for questing. My parents will be proud, he thought.
I someone gave me the ability to chose a meaning for the term sandbox that everyone would follow I would say:
A game that require creativity, which you build your own fun. / In contrast with themepark were it's easy fun, just sit and enjoy the ride.
But I don't have that power, and no one will ever agree on the meaning of this term.
Comments
This proves that merely being a sandbox does not make a game good. SWG had major design flaws flaws from the beginning and the sandbox elements simply made it more passable to players. Once the sandbox elements were played out, people found out there there was nothing more to the game. Housing and a complex crafting system will not sustain the game by itself if the rest is full of bugs and unfinished content.
Merely making a game of any type does not guarantee a good game. Why, over many posts from you, do you think that Sandbox players want a lackluster game that only has housing and complex crafting? We Sandbox gamers do not accept your definition of what we want.
Once upon a time....
Where did you get a weird idea like that?
Personally I consider myself a sandbox player since I played SWG, EVE and A Tale in the Desert. However, there seems to be a group of people on these forums who call themselves 'sandbox players' that seem to think that there is some conspiracy against sandbox games and are unwilling to consider that the old sandbox games they revere had some major flaws that made them uplayable to a lot of other people who would consider themselves 'sandbox players'.
SWG had a neat housing system, a player city system with great potential, a complex crafting system with a really lousy UI, a mediocre combat system with obvious flaws and a pointlessly grindy and limited leveling/skill system. These things are the reason why I really got into the game for about two months and then quit it way before any CU or NGE. It had very intiguing concepts and ideas combined with a weak design and terrible execution.
I got that idea from a number of posts of yours where you assumed that a "Sandbox" game is nothing more than just "a world to live in", where players do the same thing over and over again in monotenous simulation of real life in a game, with no excitement or fun.
Edit to add: Well, maybe I just misunderstood you. Rereading your above post, maybe I'm wrong about you. Maybe your entire points were always that you need more than just simple sandbox?
Once upon a time....
Yeah it's a shame but I think the Sandbox genre will eventual be gone, and its because of games like WoW. Nothing against WoW since its the most successful MMO out there, but new companies developing MMOs will folllow suit. We have seen this happening for the last 5 years after all. From a buisness perspective it makes perfect sense to do things that work and guarantee success rather than taking the risk of making a Sandbox.
Saying all that, we may get a brave company one day that'll take that risk...pulls it off. And we'll have a Sandbox that has 10+ mil subs. Let's only hope anyway! =P (Wishful thinking!) But most players want uber gear and endgame pvp, so until that changes we're not going to see many Sandbox games.
What normally happens in them .... they got pooped in.
But really people want more. DF is sandbox go play it.
There are sandbox games.
Sandbox is just not as good as themepark. GW2 is doing a open world Dynamic event and private/group themepark concept . I like it.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
I do not always phrase my statements in ways that convey my ideas easily. Plus I have a tendency to inject too much sarcasm into my posts. I will also shoot down a specific implementation of an idea while loving the idea itself in theory.
So, I am a big fan of the 'idea of sandbox' but a big critic of its implementation in games. I believe that sandbox games need a 'purpose' to drive them and without it they just become 'a world to live in'. I acknowledge that many players will find their own purpose by just 'being' in the game but I am a 'builder' type so I need to keep building and improving things. So any sandbox game that stagnates into a 'do the same thing you did yesterday' mode, will lose me as a player.
The suckiest part of any game for me is the point where you hit the 'glass ceiling' and really cannot get better at it because the game does not accomodate that. I quit SWG when I realized that I got my character to the best point I could manage and the only way to try something else was to completely wreck what I done so far and start from scratch. There was only about 2-3 months worth of sandbox content in the game for me and everything else was either 'sameo-sameo' or a dead end. There was no more 'purpose' for me in that game.
Heck, lack of a 'purpose' was the reason I first quit WoW. I realized that I was no longer building a character but simply going through the same motions and merely accumulating better gear.
For some people merely 'living' in a sandbox world is enough but I need to 'build' in it for it to have any purpose.
1. Second Life was never a game to begin with
2. City of Heroes was never ever ever a sandbox (I had about two max LVL characters so I know 4 sho)
<cough> EVE Online. Partial loot most of the time although I've been fully looted for my ships and rigs
And FFXI has never ever been a sandbox.
Most folks idea of a sandbox:
1. Not forced to linearly follow a path from low level to Max (for example, in EVE veterans and newbies adventure and live together in the space their corp/alliance controls. There is not an area a newbie cannot enter. Both vets and noob enjoys each other company and provides mutual benefits)
2. Can own Land and change the world. Perhaps fight for terriority or just buy it
3. No LEvels (or rather, no enforced linear path to go from early Levels to end). You can have sandbox type of Levels like EVE (aka skillpoints / skill level). You can acquire skills in a non-linear manner
4. SHould be free to attack anyone. However, its ok to spawn cops to enforce justice (aka EVE Online in secure space)
Games like City of Heroes, Final Fantasy, and such all fall far short of these basic criteria.
I concur.. A true well balance sandbox lives.. it evolves.. To keep a sandbox game from imploding or destroying itself requires a dev team to police it.. Therefore not only does it cost a lot to make, but it will require probably twice as many devs to maintain it.. It's all about the money in the mmo industry...
*Cough*EvE*Cough*
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
I agree with that, and I think most of us do. You never want the game to go stagnant, no matter what kind of game it is. And I think that's perfectly possible in a true Sandbox game. But it does have to be different than the level grind games that are common these days. It has to be much more social by game design. It has to be much less dedicated to levelling up and uber gear per levels, and replaced with what a Sandbox "world" can offer. That doesn't mean that gear and getting things shouldn't be very interesting and enticing. It just means that it needs to be brought back "down to earth" so that the social aspects and world building aspects for players can work, all together and in "one world" (as opposed to zoned content).
Once upon a time....
EVE is a piece of crap relying on RMT & forced multi account.
Thanks, but no thanks
There are sandboxes out there, some are doing very well (EVE), some are just 'ticking over' (Darkfall). The problem is people expect them to have populations and developmental support on par with the big money themeparks. That simply isn't going to happen as they are niche products run by indie companies.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
There are many sandbox games in development, and a few out now.
Look at:
EvE
Mortal Online
Darkfall
Xsyon
Earthrise
Perpetuum
Dawntide
Aerrevan
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
Sandboxes = Do whatever you want with the tools given I have a sword i want to stab you.
Housing wise. Why cant they be in non instanced areas?
It seems you like this game which is fare enough but it is still a themepark game.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
Not sure who is telling you this misinformation but it is incorrect (like your other post). I played the game for many yrs with one account for instance.
And what 'RMT' are you refering to? Are you talking bout how the community can trade characters with each other on their site plus buy other services from each other? Doesn't affect the game negatively in anyway. It actually allows CCP to combat farmers.
Yes there are sandboxes out there and people liek me are having a lot of fun playijng them.
I have had the most fun in Darkfall and am extremely excited for DF2010. If you do not know what that is or what it will bring than I would look it up.
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Not sure if it was mentioned earlier but also Ryzom.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
FFXIV is pretty sandboxy...
Sandbox - Let's stop using this word, please.
What is the point of using a word while no one can agree on it's meaning?
If I ask 5 people here to define sandbox it will problably result in 5 different definitions.
CCP's definition of sandbox is that your every action/decision in game will affect and shape the world, like the butterfly effect.
And in that sense WoD will be a sandbox because that's how CCP like to make their games.
They thrive for building more than games, but living virtual worlds.
WoD will probably be a very social action-based player driven MMO with horror elements.
Social because killing things isn't the main thing in WoD, PvP will occur without combat most of the times.
Action based because a dev already stated that. And to get the chunk of player base EvE can't get with its more strategic combat.
Player driven because it will probably have prayer driven quests, politics and economy.
Horror because it's WoD.
Everything i said it's just speculation, but it's as accurate as it gets. I follow that game very closely, it's hard to find something but is possible.
I suggest reading this and this for a better view of a WoD developer designing ideals.
In 15 days we will see the confirmation of what I'm saying here.
Long, long ago….
Young Tauren was the new boy on the beach. He was a big lad who only ate pure beef content and was worthy of his nickname “Bull”. He was a bit lacking in the brains department though, but his parents the Blizzards overlooked this failing like most parents do. “Alright now you go and play” they said to him as they waved him off on the beach.
There were many boys on the beach, puny runts who obviously did not have the money to buy Tauren’s designer speedo’s or have a happening haircut like his. But these puny boys did like to build sandcastles, they took after their parents that way. Tauren was puzzled, why did they build these funny things in the sand, were quests and levelling not enough for them? With a mighty roar he set of down the beach stamping on sandcastles, knocking down the boy’s player base.
Looking back at his work Tauren felt a glowing pride, the beach was now flat and simple, a good place for questing. My parents will be proud, he thought.
That's the story told by all the boys who are jealous of Tauren because all the girls like him and will not give them the time of day.
The real reason the beach is the way it is now because its owners failed to remove all the broken grass, let dogs poop on it and it was next to the sewage plant. But since they gave all the other boys some candy before they let the beach go to crap, the other boys think they are nice guys and blame the scapegoat Tauren.
I someone gave me the ability to chose a meaning for the term sandbox that everyone would follow I would say:
A game that require creativity, which you build your own fun. / In contrast with themepark were it's easy fun, just sit and enjoy the ride.
But I don't have that power, and no one will ever agree on the meaning of this term.