I don't see too much of the traditional themepark crowd being that excited about a sandbox. Look at FFXIV: they basically made a traditional asian grindfest and glued on a sandbox economy. The general response was "Where the @#$% is the AH?"
On the other hand I think people might actually like more sandbox type elements in their themepark than WoW currently offers. Even instanced player housing is too much to ask for? Unusually strong pre-order sales for Rift are indicating people might be getting tired of WoW's same old rides.
I think Arche Age could be a real test for the sandbox market. For the first time there might actually be a sandbox game with appealing graphics.
... themepark mmo's earn more money than sandbox mmo's ...
How do you know? We haven't seen a quality sandbox release since the pre-WoW days (EVE, SWG, Ryzom, all developed pre-WoW) thus nobody really knows whether a sandbox game can earn money or not - somebody will have to try some time.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
I think the Sandbox has become a by word for hardcore pvp and a PK paradise. The normal player in the street (me included) dosent want to be griefed constantly.
I dont think this is all a true sanbox should be and is an insult to the term sandbox.
It makes better business sense to go with what brings in more money generally. There is a small sandbox playerbase. A dev team could spend tens of millions on a sandbox, get every single sandbox lover and some partial likers, and still take years and years to make back the cost.
Or, an Indi dev can create a sandbox that doesn't have much in it, and maybe eventually get their investment back and then some.
I'm sure some teams have really thought about doing a sandbox with a lot of money behind it. With so many themepark games that came out and just did really meh or worse, it most likely made them wonder. Then they saw how few actual sandbox players there are.
Besides, the only real sandbox game I see is Second Life. The rest are just themeparks with a little sand thrown in here and there.
Someone pointed this out that it is small because it is usually FFA and I agree. I am one of those people who would try the sandbox games if they were not FFA.
So the free-market/capitalism is working as intended but the OP doesn't like it is.
Huh?
If demand is there someone will make it. That's how free-market works.
I agree (though I would argue about the existence of any 'free market' in the real world).
At this time it is perceived that sandboxes have a smaller market then themeparks, and themeparks are cheaper to make, so in a world of companies being run by accountants, investors, and shareholders rather then creative game playing designers, you see them being made. It's really that simple.
The truth is all it is gonna take is one modern, good looking, well made and working at launch sandbox game that dosent force FFA pvp to break open this market. The mass market wants to build and create in virtual spaces, they want to form communities and are very open to using MMO style mechanisms to do so (look at farmville etc).
IMO, the sandbox devs need to get away from these hardcore gank sandbox games and start to build one for for the PvE community people, with optional PvP when wanted. The last batch (DF, MO, even Earthrise now) are selling themselves as a harsh competitive experience where you will be ground down if your not 'leet', and thats a major put off for a lot of folks that would buy into a sandbox experience- those that want to build, create, explore, politicise, socialise, and, yes, even PvP when they want.
Arche Age is really the only chance I see of this happening right now.
... themepark mmo's earn more money than sandbox mmo's ...
How do you know? We haven't seen a quality sandbox release since the pre-WoW days (EVE, SWG, Ryzom, all developed pre-WoW) thus nobody really knows whether a sandbox game can earn money or not - somebody will have to try some time.
I never thought about that but it's true and I believe in comparison to wow those games had very little resources put into them except swg maybe.
I was definately a themeparker back then I tried SWG trial but didn't get into it (it didn't help that I was a kid either) and my first MMO was WoW but now I've grown bored (or maybe grown up) of themeparks and I jumped around alot even got DCUO but once I get to max level all I i see is the gear grind machine in the background not a game.
I would play MO right now if it wasn't so damn unfinished.
Second Life is profitable from what I understand and its completely player driven. There is hardly any dev content at all, not a single quest in my knowledge.
The only thing more sandboxy than Second Life is pen and paper D&D.
I like to discuss too. That is why I am here. But this horse has been beaten to death a long time ago.
Anyway, Venge said it best in his previous post. There really isn't anything else to say about this topic.
{Mod Edit}
When the arguments on both sides and all the 'real world' statistics and evidence on both sides has been presented over and over and over again, yes, the dead horse has been beaten too much. There's only so much flesh on those bones.
Yes, it's possible a sandbox game could make a lot of money. There's no evidence of a sandbox game making as much money on average than a theme park game. There's no market research that supports investing the kind of money you would invest into a theme park game into a sandbox game will return your investment the way theme park games do. You might be able to do it in China, Korea or even Japan, but if you're not already a developer in those countries, you have to start in North America or Europe. If you're starting in North America or Europe, investors will not likely invest a lot of money into a sandbox game.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I know this post is a bit rambling but the short version is this:
1. WoW owns the PvE theme-park market and devs need to let them have it instead of trying the WoW+ system. (WAR = WoW + RvR, AoC = WoW + mature setting, Rift = WoW + random PQs, etc. etc.).
2. Some dev needs to nut up and put out a AAA "hard-core" PvE themepark MMO sans yellow !s and ?s and with a real risk vs. reward system to draw and hold the "rest of us".
3. EvE owns the sandbox Sci-fi market and DFO holds the sandbox fantasy market. Eve's quality puts it in a nice position, while DFO could easily be dethroned by a big budget version.
4. This is the "P.S. bullet". Between DCUO, CoX and Champions it seems the hero market is covered.
Any other niches I have forgotten are likely just that, niches and will likely merit little profit, if any.
It's a shame op, gamers of today just want to mash buttons repeatedly for their shinies then do an endzone dance before waving e-peens to the other mouthbreathers in the general vicinity about how 1337 their buttonmashing is- welcome to MMORPGs for the Playskool generation.
Don't you think things like Minecraft are an indications that its over or at least just peaked?
Things like that are an indication that nothing's changed, tbh.
After so many years of videogames, simulations (like sandboxes) are still unpopular and rarely made while games (like themeparks) are popular and frequently made. Add to that the old adage "80% of everything is crap" and you've pretty much summed up the MMORPG industry.
If someone puts out a sandbox that's more game-like and less simulation-like, it will have potential.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think it all comes down to two words: simplified content.
World of Warcraft has SO much content. You can level up from 1-85 by doing various things, such as PvP, questing, and dungeon instancing. In fact, you can do just one of those things and have plenty of content for 1-85. You can do a fraction of the quests in the game and only do quests and still level 1-85 easily. There are dozens of dungeons to go to and each one of them looks and feels differently. Although there are only two PvP arenas to go to from 10-70, it does open up, you do get rewards, and you become much more skilled in the game than if you would just PvE alone. There are considerable reasons to do all three of those things, and mixed in with that is more content, such as choosing primary professions and masturing them, as well as the four secondary professions. World of Warcraft has always been known to, "be easy to play and hard to master" which causes players to play (because it is simple), but also stay (because of the content and "increasing" difficulty).
And this is especially apparent after Catalysm. Vanilla WoW had three primary kinds of quests: "go to" quests, "kill" quests", and "kill and collect" quests, but after Catalysm it just became a lot more varied. Catalysm really opened up quests which you had alternative styles to play with, such as getting in a tree-cutting machine to kill some night elves (Azshara anyone?), and although it was a, "kill" quest, it was much different than normal combat and this variety adds depth and content to the game that would might otherwise be considered "grinding".
What sandbox MMOs need to do is to still somehow obtain simplified content and still yet allow players to choose their own paths. There are some MMO sandboxes that are simplified (The Sims Online) and have nearly no content and is a constant grind. There are some MMO sandboxes that are content-filled (Second LIfe) but is so hard to create that content that it is a constant grind. Whenever you have something that is deemed a "grind" such as The Sims Online, Second Life, or pre-CU SWG, it will more or less only appeal to the people who are willing to grind to achieve the content.
So how do we achieve a sandbox MMO that allows to choose your own path while having simplified content? Well, for example, with The Sims Online if you wanted to have lots of friends and people over to your house you had to socialize, but you also needed a lot of Simeleons to make it a worthwhile place. My first MMO is The Sims Online, and it took me a long, long time to grind the necessarly Simeleons to get the things required to make a great house, and by the time I did that I didn't feel like socializing to actually attract people over to my house. One big thing about The Sims Online that could have been improved is going from a timed exploit and change it over to a mini-game station. Although they started to have this with pizza stations and jobs, I found that the majority, or at least what felt like a majority of my time was going to blackboards to write auto-equations that I had no apart of. What they needed to do is create mini-games that compliment the skill you are using. So if you are reading a book to increase your logic, why not have actual pages you can read to have tips on how to achieve maximum output in the boardboard mini-game? In fact, they should have completely removed skill bars in The Sims Online and have tutorials and in-game books and examples on how to generate maximum cash flow from mini-games that challenge your logic, your cooking, your body, to the extent that while it isn't too hard to play it is very difficult to master. They could have also reduced the number of Simeleons needed to create a really cool house, but as long as they developed the mini-games to challenge your logic, charisma, and other skills I think it would have been fine. What they also could have done was increased player involvement in creating Simeleons. What if there was a Sim job developing a newspaper that had articles, ads, and jobs, that people could buy? What if players could create factories and jobs for other players to do and that you actually worked like a team? A simple example could be telemarketing in the game. What if when you telemarketed in The Sims Online you actually telemarketed another human being (as in, a sim in the game) on an offer to buy something at a reduced profit margin (on sale)? There are various little things they could have done like that to keep the game engaging for players to play but they didn't and never got the players they wanted and had to close the game.
For Second Life, it really needs to stop being a cash shop. Cash shops are for hard-core Asia-playing players that have no lives. If the in-game money was different from the money in the game, they wouldn't have any legal issues. What they could do is something in the middle, such as what Pogo does. Allow players to earn Linden dollars by creating content in the game and then offer that content as modules for players to play with. For example, if somebody creates a first-person shooter in the style of Unreal Tournament, allow a single-player experience with instancing and computer AI OR a multiplayer experience with no instancing and human intelligence, but either way create rules so somebody can't just spawn a redeemer every second and blow everybody's heads off every second. Don't charge players to have land, allow them to have as much land as they want and instancize it. If the content they think is good enough for other players to play in, allow them to summit to Second Life officials for a Linden reward and a multiplayer experience. Those Linden dollars could then be used to do something like what Pogo does - enter in contests to win money and prizes and make it happen so often that people feel like it is worth playing. There could be many different kinds of games to play in Second Life that could be free if they offered it as free expansion packs for their players to play, so not all of their players need in-game cash or a lot of real-life money just to recieve a little content. This would simplify content, probably generate more money for Linden Labs, and have more players play the game.
And finally pre-CU Star Wars Galaxies. Pre-CU Star Wars Galaxies was close to what I consider a perfect video game, but it needed more. I think the galactic civil war should have been represented on the planetary maps and that it should have been a constant battlefield with destructible environments. With destructible environments, it would make a lot more business for architects and in fact the whole creating community, because if your house gets destroyed, everything in that house would then get destroyed as well. Star Wars Galaxies could have benefited from city walls, scenary, larger buildings, and paths and everything that non-player cities had, although they did have a lot. Pre-CU Star Wars Galaxies needed a lot of bug-fixing as well, with commandos having only one usable weapon, the flamethrower, and only that was usable in PvE (moving targets aka PvP caused it to always miss). But honestly, I don't think that everything NGE had was a bad idea. I think that twitched-based combat is better than button mashing, but I think they could have allowed players themselves to decide what they wanted to play as - it shouldn't have been a one-way deal. But make the galactic civil war really galactic. Allow commandos to destroy houses, city halls, etc, and smugglers to slice in terminals and hack buildings and allow them to steal houses from other players. What Star Wars Galaxies also could have done is skill re-balancing. Although I never was an architect in the game, I've talked to them and it was a lot easier to grind architect than what I was trying to grind, the weaponsmith. This is because I believe the game accounted how many resources you used to how many skill points you got, when it really should have accounted how many times you build something and how well you build it. They could have made it harder to master the basic professions and easier to master the advanced and hybrid ones. Although there still would be a grind before you are considered very useful in the game, there would be a better seemless transition from master artisan to master weaponsmith. I also think the game could have been more of a buyer's market - the game could have allowed things like reverse aunctioning or at least allow you to surf the forums while in the game to find exactly what you are looking for easier and with the trade forums they could have split it up even more: looking to buy and looking to sell. I was also pretty clueless on how to play the game for awhile, I think their should have been advanced tutorials for basic, advanced, and hybrid professions, that would teach players things like how to plant small havesters. They also could have made resource-gathering more realistic, and instead of having land-wipes they could have allowed an advanced-resource gather, such as the beta miner and farmer, allow them to take deep samples from the ground to see just how much resource is available in the area before you pump it all out, and have resources regenerate much more quickly than what it would take in real life. Allow players to see other players' skill sets. I think the skill sets and the galactic civil war should have been intertwained, as in, allow artisans to create things only Imperials or Rebels can use, or have scouts be able to set up Imperial or Rebel camps and claim much more land than just what the cities have.
I think there will be a sandbox MMO that will be as big as World of Warcraft, but it will take just as much time and resources to fill it up, if not more. Because think about it, a sandbox MMO not only needs the developers to create content that will allow players to create their own content, BUT the players themselves will need to create their own content. What they need to do is make it relevently easy to level to end-game (like World of Warcraft), and then have the end-game be something worth fighting over, such as planetary conquest with control of land and therefore resources and other things. Allow players to feel like they are fighting something that is worth protecting, such as their own survival and well-being, and everything they created would be on the line. My dream MMO is something like what I described with Star Wars Galaxies and my own changes to it, but make it completely and uttlerly IP-less. Allow players to make up their own quests, guilds, and even factions to give and share with other players. Allow players to fight for planetary survival. Make it worth fighting for.
There are a few things I don't understand about sandboxers and their fans on these threads.
Why do you all seem to think that people that play WoW are all new to MMO's and don't know wha tthe 'golden' era was like. WoW has a lot of players, don't fool yourself into thinking that even a majority of them have played wow as their first game.
You might be surprised at the sheer amount of 'mmo vets' that play wow. Some of us vets grew out of the phase.
What's with this elitist attitude that gives you some misconception that you're better than a WoW player? Don't you realize how petty and ridiculous you sound with this whole preaching your gaming opinions onto other players? You hear all this "omg wow is for easy ppl, when you're ready for a challenge come to a real game" - I bet 90% of you haven't even done a hardmode encounter in wow.
You guys are like the religious fanatics that go to Mardi Gras to try to preach their religion and call everyone else sinners.
Oh and another thing - So some guy posts some random thread about some random friend that says Amazon has X amount of pre-orders and suddenly it's fact? Lol come on now, so my uncle who's a real wiz with volcanos says that a volcano is headed this way! Make sure you buy your volcano insurance !
There are a few things I don't understand about sandboxers and their fans on these threads.
Why do you all seem to think that people that play WoW are all new to MMO's and don't know wha tthe 'golden' era was like. WoW has a lot of players, don't fool yourself into thinking that even a majority of them have played wow as their first game.
You might be surprised at the sheer amount of 'mmo vets' that play wow. Some of us vets grew out of the phase.
What's with this elitist attitude that gives you some misconception that you're better than a WoW player? Don't you realize how petty and ridiculous you sound with this whole preaching your gaming opinions onto other players? You hear all this "omg wow is for easy ppl, when you're ready for a challenge come to a real game" - I bet 90% of you haven't even done a hardmode encounter in wow.
You guys are like the religious fanatics that go to Mardi Gras to try to preach their religion and call everyone else sinners.
Oh and another thing - So some guy posts some random thread about some random friend that says Amazon has X amount of pre-orders and suddenly it's fact? Lol come on now, so my uncle who's a real wiz with volcanos says that a volcano is headed this way! Make sure you buy your volcano insurance !
Ha my step dad works with insurance and theres no such thing as VOLCANO INSURANCE!!! If your going to write BS make sure you get the facts straight first. Makes the rest of your thread seem like a load now
I was just thinking about the title of the thread and there's no way to know for sure if Theme Park mmorpg make more money than Sandbox mmorpg, but it is certainly true that Theme Park mmorpg attract more investors. That's really what matters when you come down to it...how much money can you get invested in your project, and whether or not you can pay those people back.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
This is true, theme parks do make more money. They are easyer to enjoy, easyer to be decent at and, much much easyer to jump in and start playing.
Sandboxes you must learn, a lot, in order to really get moving. Havent really seen a sandbox without a learning curve, but have seen themeparks.
Yes there will always be "more to do" in a theme park, simply because its sitting there looking you in the face, say ing "come do me...i am fun...others are doing it too" while in a sandbox you must make the effort to get thing going.
Personally, as much as i love the sandbox idea, i think they work better with a huge RP crowd, which i am not. Creating your own reasons to go out and do stuff works better this way. This is why you will always see 3 complaints about sandbox games come up over and over again.
First if that there is nothing to do. Most real sandboxes wont have a campaign questline with cinematics to guide you to the right areas ect. There wont be instant battle grounds or instant dungeons or mini games. Just you the community adn the open world.
Second is "all there is to do is grind. There usualy wont be the typical quest spam of themeparks. Your on your own in a sandbox, have fun. So what most people do, is just go out and kill mobs with no goals and no reason, they grind. Once your tolerance for this is reached, you quit. People forget that you need to create your own motives.
Third is the complaint about the community itself. People will resort to asking in global chat what to do, and why cant i do this, or this game should have ____. The community grows tired of having to hold every new players hand though the learning curve, and are themselves able to create content and goals for themselves.
The fact is, most player want to jump into the game, gloss over quests for a day and come out level 15 or 20, knowing they made progress toward the endgame, and the resulting themepark attractions there. In a sandbox that same amount of effort might improve some skills, but the feeling of certain accomplishment for your work is not there. Your not level 20 now in a sandbox, you skills are now only slightly better.
In all honesty themeparks is more of a reaction to the old problems with the first gen mmorpgs, attempting to fix the old issues though themeparks and hand holding to endgame. Since these issues have been addressed the community has grown, to the point where most dont remember getting a quest and spending half a day trying to figure out what the hell your trying to do, or not being able ti find the mobs you need, or being unable to obtain a weapon or item you must have.
A modern sandboxes approach to these issues is to remove the need to do the quest.
I was just thinking about the title of the thread and there's no way to know for sure if Theme Park mmorpg make more money than Sandbox mmorpg, but it is certainly true that Theme Park mmorpg attract more investors. That's really what matters when you come down to it...how much money can you get invested in your project, and whether or not you can pay those people back.
Investment is all about returns to the investors. Investors are typically savy about knowing which idea will generate the best return. This all relates back to how many players are paying to play.
This is why you see so many themepark mmorpgs with huge budgets (some fail bigtime) and you really dont see any big budget sandboxes, most are indy companies taking a huge risk.
Investment relates 100% to what game will make the most money. Theres bigtime proof that wow syle uber themeparks can generate the biggest revenue, wow being that proof, but theres other games that did pretty well too.
Theres not much proof out there that a sandbox with a huge learning curve will make lots of money.
This is why you see all big budget games being like a certain other game at hear, and why you see sketych companies with low budges making sandbox attempts.
It will take one huge sandbox success to change this, however the majority of players dont play mmorpgs for the learning experience or the difficult journey...they play to own noobs as fast as possible, or at the least, "be the best" as soon as humany possible. People use to play for the learning, for the reading of quests and the lore, and for helping others with their journey. I remember that being endgame, helping out others. Not today. Also i think we were all a bit younger during those days, if you were around. With a job and family its hard to sink 60 hours a week into a sandbox in order to make some progress you can feel. You can jump into wow, run a few dungeons, do a few battlegounds, make a bit of progress you can see, and be done with it. Thats the real allure to themeparks. Your not spending 3 hours out of 4 availible hours to play, just trying to figure out what you need to do, or trying to up a skill slightly.
Current generation sandboxes will be purely pvp games, as that seems to be the obvious way to go , grind, learn,pvp for controll (the reason to grind..)
Themeparks are instand fun , so many people will go for that, some are simple, some are harder but does not realy mather..
It needs a brave developer and a total review of the term sandbox before we see a realy succesfull one. a sandbox whitout any grind, were the focus lies on building, exploring/discovering, protecting your lands from npc's (randomized events) hunting for resorces becource -you- need them not becource you need to skill up someting..
a game were the term endgame can not be given as there is no "weak" start.
Why do you all seem to think that people that play WoW are all new to MMO's and don't know wha tthe 'golden' era was like. WoW has a lot of players, don't fool yourself into thinking that even a majority of them have played wow as their first game.
You might be surprised at the sheer amount of 'mmo vets' that play wow. Some of us vets grew out of the phase.
Considering WoW alone currently has more subscriptions than then all mmos combined had before wow existed I can safely say that the majority of people that play or have played wow where mmo first timers before it (me included).
Why do you all seem to think that people that play WoW are all new to MMO's and don't know wha tthe 'golden' era was like. WoW has a lot of players, don't fool yourself into thinking that even a majority of them have played wow as their first game.
You might be surprised at the sheer amount of 'mmo vets' that play wow. Some of us vets grew out of the phase.
Considering WoW alone currently has more subscriptions than then all mmos combined had before wow existed I can safely say that the majority of people that play or have played wow where mmo first timers before it (me included).
Helthros is right though. A good % of wows population isnt a child, and wow isnt their first mmorpgs. And no not every wow vet goes into a diffrent mmorpg and suck at it, unable to cope with a non wow game, as we all assume.
Its very common to hate what you dont understand, and a whole lot of people dont understand WoW, they cant understand why a game that looks like wow does can be populair, they cant understand how character looking that goofy and akward can keep the largest population of mmorpgers in the industry. They dont get how a game without top of the line graphics can maintain more players than games with top of the line graphics.
Lots of people look at wow, go through the free trial, and think "this is a kids game, and its lame, and im leveling fast, its too easy, what the hell is wrong with 11million people"
What sets off a lot of people is when bored wow players come into their game, looking for a new home, and those wow players let everyone know that the game doesnt stand up to wow, and that they will be returning. So they assume that they cannot handle a non-wow game.
Other than that, its simple trolling for the lulz.
But yeah so many stereotpyes surround wow, outside of the wow community, its quite amazing. From what ive seen most are completely untrue.
The wow is easy is a common one. The game is too easy, however when these people get to raiding and endgame content, are shunned from groups (gearscore) or kicked out of groups (imporper build and rotation). Fact is, being decent at endgame is very difficult for a new player, almost to the point whre it isnt fun. You need to use 3rd party programs, macros (not botting) and key bindings, on a level i havent realy seen in any other games. Sure its easy to get to endgame if you have the time...but i havent found a single game where that isnt true, the only variable is the amount of time needed to get there. SImply put, wow is an easy game to be decent, and a near impossible game to be great in. On top of that you have a LOT of competition from people who know (down to the math equations) exactly what they are doing.
There are a few things I don't understand about sandboxers and their fans on these threads.
Why do you all seem to think that people that play WoW are all new to MMO's and don't know wha tthe 'golden' era was like. WoW has a lot of players, don't fool yourself into thinking that even a majority of them have played wow as their first game.
You might be surprised at the sheer amount of 'mmo vets' that play wow. Some of us vets grew out of the phase.
What's with this elitist attitude that gives you some misconception that you're better than a WoW player? Don't you realize how petty and ridiculous you sound with this whole preaching your gaming opinions onto other players? You hear all this "omg wow is for easy ppl, when you're ready for a challenge come to a real game" - I bet 90% of you haven't even done a hardmode encounter in wow.
You guys are like the religious fanatics that go to Mardi Gras to try to preach their religion and call everyone else sinners.
Oh and another thing - So some guy posts some random thread about some random friend that says Amazon has X amount of pre-orders and suddenly it's fact? Lol come on now, so my uncle who's a real wiz with volcanos says that a volcano is headed this way! Make sure you buy your volcano insurance !
Ha my step dad works with insurance and theres no such thing as VOLCANO INSURANCE!!! If your going to write BS make sure you get the facts straight first. Makes the rest of your thread seem like a load now
It's a joke from Family Guy. Right over your head apparently. I think it's funny you asked your dad if there was volcano insurance though.
That's kind of the point.. it doesn't exist. Kind of how you're not just supposed to believe some guy when they say a friend said blah blah 300,000 pre orders, blah blah?
lol in trying to be cool you really just burned yourself.
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what the hell thread am i in? lol
lizardbones your post with the dev chat is hilarious!
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I don't see too much of the traditional themepark crowd being that excited about a sandbox. Look at FFXIV: they basically made a traditional asian grindfest and glued on a sandbox economy. The general response was "Where the @#$% is the AH?"
On the other hand I think people might actually like more sandbox type elements in their themepark than WoW currently offers. Even instanced player housing is too much to ask for? Unusually strong pre-order sales for Rift are indicating people might be getting tired of WoW's same old rides.
I think Arche Age could be a real test for the sandbox market. For the first time there might actually be a sandbox game with appealing graphics.
If only 1% of World of Warcraft players has the capacity of playing it like a sandbox, why would that surprise anyone.
Playing with experience turned off. Level only on PvP. Max out your professions before reaching end game.
Go for Justicar and other titles without reaching max levels or doing one single quest.
Gather a fortune and all dress up in epics without going to dungeons/raids not even doing Bg's, just by gathering mats.
All the above is possible. And do you play like that? Nope.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
I think the Sandbox has become a by word for hardcore pvp and a PK paradise. The normal player in the street (me included) dosent want to be griefed constantly.
I dont think this is all a true sanbox should be and is an insult to the term sandbox.
Money!
It makes better business sense to go with what brings in more money generally. There is a small sandbox playerbase. A dev team could spend tens of millions on a sandbox, get every single sandbox lover and some partial likers, and still take years and years to make back the cost.
Or, an Indi dev can create a sandbox that doesn't have much in it, and maybe eventually get their investment back and then some.
I'm sure some teams have really thought about doing a sandbox with a lot of money behind it. With so many themepark games that came out and just did really meh or worse, it most likely made them wonder. Then they saw how few actual sandbox players there are.
Besides, the only real sandbox game I see is Second Life. The rest are just themeparks with a little sand thrown in here and there.
Someone pointed this out that it is small because it is usually FFA and I agree. I am one of those people who would try the sandbox games if they were not FFA.
I agree (though I would argue about the existence of any 'free market' in the real world).
At this time it is perceived that sandboxes have a smaller market then themeparks, and themeparks are cheaper to make, so in a world of companies being run by accountants, investors, and shareholders rather then creative game playing designers, you see them being made. It's really that simple.
The truth is all it is gonna take is one modern, good looking, well made and working at launch sandbox game that dosent force FFA pvp to break open this market. The mass market wants to build and create in virtual spaces, they want to form communities and are very open to using MMO style mechanisms to do so (look at farmville etc).
IMO, the sandbox devs need to get away from these hardcore gank sandbox games and start to build one for for the PvE community people, with optional PvP when wanted. The last batch (DF, MO, even Earthrise now) are selling themselves as a harsh competitive experience where you will be ground down if your not 'leet', and thats a major put off for a lot of folks that would buy into a sandbox experience- those that want to build, create, explore, politicise, socialise, and, yes, even PvP when they want.
Arche Age is really the only chance I see of this happening right now.
I never thought about that but it's true and I believe in comparison to wow those games had very little resources put into them except swg maybe.
I was definately a themeparker back then I tried SWG trial but didn't get into it (it didn't help that I was a kid either) and my first MMO was WoW but now I've grown bored (or maybe grown up) of themeparks and I jumped around alot even got DCUO but once I get to max level all I i see is the gear grind machine in the background not a game.
I would play MO right now if it wasn't so damn unfinished.
Second Life is profitable from what I understand and its completely player driven. There is hardly any dev content at all, not a single quest in my knowledge.
The only thing more sandboxy than Second Life is pen and paper D&D.
When the arguments on both sides and all the 'real world' statistics and evidence on both sides has been presented over and over and over again, yes, the dead horse has been beaten too much. There's only so much flesh on those bones.
Yes, it's possible a sandbox game could make a lot of money. There's no evidence of a sandbox game making as much money on average than a theme park game. There's no market research that supports investing the kind of money you would invest into a theme park game into a sandbox game will return your investment the way theme park games do. You might be able to do it in China, Korea or even Japan, but if you're not already a developer in those countries, you have to start in North America or Europe. If you're starting in North America or Europe, investors will not likely invest a lot of money into a sandbox game.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
GOod stuff. Two thumbs up { Mod Edit}
:-D
Minecraft recently just made over 1,000,000 sold for 20 bucks and its still in beta.
I want to own property too
Things like that are an indication that nothing's changed, tbh.
After so many years of videogames, simulations (like sandboxes) are still unpopular and rarely made while games (like themeparks) are popular and frequently made. Add to that the old adage "80% of everything is crap" and you've pretty much summed up the MMORPG industry.
If someone puts out a sandbox that's more game-like and less simulation-like, it will have potential.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think it all comes down to two words: simplified content.
World of Warcraft has SO much content. You can level up from 1-85 by doing various things, such as PvP, questing, and dungeon instancing. In fact, you can do just one of those things and have plenty of content for 1-85. You can do a fraction of the quests in the game and only do quests and still level 1-85 easily. There are dozens of dungeons to go to and each one of them looks and feels differently. Although there are only two PvP arenas to go to from 10-70, it does open up, you do get rewards, and you become much more skilled in the game than if you would just PvE alone. There are considerable reasons to do all three of those things, and mixed in with that is more content, such as choosing primary professions and masturing them, as well as the four secondary professions. World of Warcraft has always been known to, "be easy to play and hard to master" which causes players to play (because it is simple), but also stay (because of the content and "increasing" difficulty).
And this is especially apparent after Catalysm. Vanilla WoW had three primary kinds of quests: "go to" quests, "kill" quests", and "kill and collect" quests, but after Catalysm it just became a lot more varied. Catalysm really opened up quests which you had alternative styles to play with, such as getting in a tree-cutting machine to kill some night elves (Azshara anyone?), and although it was a, "kill" quest, it was much different than normal combat and this variety adds depth and content to the game that would might otherwise be considered "grinding".
What sandbox MMOs need to do is to still somehow obtain simplified content and still yet allow players to choose their own paths. There are some MMO sandboxes that are simplified (The Sims Online) and have nearly no content and is a constant grind. There are some MMO sandboxes that are content-filled (Second LIfe) but is so hard to create that content that it is a constant grind. Whenever you have something that is deemed a "grind" such as The Sims Online, Second Life, or pre-CU SWG, it will more or less only appeal to the people who are willing to grind to achieve the content.
So how do we achieve a sandbox MMO that allows to choose your own path while having simplified content? Well, for example, with The Sims Online if you wanted to have lots of friends and people over to your house you had to socialize, but you also needed a lot of Simeleons to make it a worthwhile place. My first MMO is The Sims Online, and it took me a long, long time to grind the necessarly Simeleons to get the things required to make a great house, and by the time I did that I didn't feel like socializing to actually attract people over to my house. One big thing about The Sims Online that could have been improved is going from a timed exploit and change it over to a mini-game station. Although they started to have this with pizza stations and jobs, I found that the majority, or at least what felt like a majority of my time was going to blackboards to write auto-equations that I had no apart of. What they needed to do is create mini-games that compliment the skill you are using. So if you are reading a book to increase your logic, why not have actual pages you can read to have tips on how to achieve maximum output in the boardboard mini-game? In fact, they should have completely removed skill bars in The Sims Online and have tutorials and in-game books and examples on how to generate maximum cash flow from mini-games that challenge your logic, your cooking, your body, to the extent that while it isn't too hard to play it is very difficult to master. They could have also reduced the number of Simeleons needed to create a really cool house, but as long as they developed the mini-games to challenge your logic, charisma, and other skills I think it would have been fine. What they also could have done was increased player involvement in creating Simeleons. What if there was a Sim job developing a newspaper that had articles, ads, and jobs, that people could buy? What if players could create factories and jobs for other players to do and that you actually worked like a team? A simple example could be telemarketing in the game. What if when you telemarketed in The Sims Online you actually telemarketed another human being (as in, a sim in the game) on an offer to buy something at a reduced profit margin (on sale)? There are various little things they could have done like that to keep the game engaging for players to play but they didn't and never got the players they wanted and had to close the game.
For Second Life, it really needs to stop being a cash shop. Cash shops are for hard-core Asia-playing players that have no lives. If the in-game money was different from the money in the game, they wouldn't have any legal issues. What they could do is something in the middle, such as what Pogo does. Allow players to earn Linden dollars by creating content in the game and then offer that content as modules for players to play with. For example, if somebody creates a first-person shooter in the style of Unreal Tournament, allow a single-player experience with instancing and computer AI OR a multiplayer experience with no instancing and human intelligence, but either way create rules so somebody can't just spawn a redeemer every second and blow everybody's heads off every second. Don't charge players to have land, allow them to have as much land as they want and instancize it. If the content they think is good enough for other players to play in, allow them to summit to Second Life officials for a Linden reward and a multiplayer experience. Those Linden dollars could then be used to do something like what Pogo does - enter in contests to win money and prizes and make it happen so often that people feel like it is worth playing. There could be many different kinds of games to play in Second Life that could be free if they offered it as free expansion packs for their players to play, so not all of their players need in-game cash or a lot of real-life money just to recieve a little content. This would simplify content, probably generate more money for Linden Labs, and have more players play the game.
And finally pre-CU Star Wars Galaxies. Pre-CU Star Wars Galaxies was close to what I consider a perfect video game, but it needed more. I think the galactic civil war should have been represented on the planetary maps and that it should have been a constant battlefield with destructible environments. With destructible environments, it would make a lot more business for architects and in fact the whole creating community, because if your house gets destroyed, everything in that house would then get destroyed as well. Star Wars Galaxies could have benefited from city walls, scenary, larger buildings, and paths and everything that non-player cities had, although they did have a lot. Pre-CU Star Wars Galaxies needed a lot of bug-fixing as well, with commandos having only one usable weapon, the flamethrower, and only that was usable in PvE (moving targets aka PvP caused it to always miss). But honestly, I don't think that everything NGE had was a bad idea. I think that twitched-based combat is better than button mashing, but I think they could have allowed players themselves to decide what they wanted to play as - it shouldn't have been a one-way deal. But make the galactic civil war really galactic. Allow commandos to destroy houses, city halls, etc, and smugglers to slice in terminals and hack buildings and allow them to steal houses from other players. What Star Wars Galaxies also could have done is skill re-balancing. Although I never was an architect in the game, I've talked to them and it was a lot easier to grind architect than what I was trying to grind, the weaponsmith. This is because I believe the game accounted how many resources you used to how many skill points you got, when it really should have accounted how many times you build something and how well you build it. They could have made it harder to master the basic professions and easier to master the advanced and hybrid ones. Although there still would be a grind before you are considered very useful in the game, there would be a better seemless transition from master artisan to master weaponsmith. I also think the game could have been more of a buyer's market - the game could have allowed things like reverse aunctioning or at least allow you to surf the forums while in the game to find exactly what you are looking for easier and with the trade forums they could have split it up even more: looking to buy and looking to sell. I was also pretty clueless on how to play the game for awhile, I think their should have been advanced tutorials for basic, advanced, and hybrid professions, that would teach players things like how to plant small havesters. They also could have made resource-gathering more realistic, and instead of having land-wipes they could have allowed an advanced-resource gather, such as the beta miner and farmer, allow them to take deep samples from the ground to see just how much resource is available in the area before you pump it all out, and have resources regenerate much more quickly than what it would take in real life. Allow players to see other players' skill sets. I think the skill sets and the galactic civil war should have been intertwained, as in, allow artisans to create things only Imperials or Rebels can use, or have scouts be able to set up Imperial or Rebel camps and claim much more land than just what the cities have.
I think there will be a sandbox MMO that will be as big as World of Warcraft, but it will take just as much time and resources to fill it up, if not more. Because think about it, a sandbox MMO not only needs the developers to create content that will allow players to create their own content, BUT the players themselves will need to create their own content. What they need to do is make it relevently easy to level to end-game (like World of Warcraft), and then have the end-game be something worth fighting over, such as planetary conquest with control of land and therefore resources and other things. Allow players to feel like they are fighting something that is worth protecting, such as their own survival and well-being, and everything they created would be on the line. My dream MMO is something like what I described with Star Wars Galaxies and my own changes to it, but make it completely and uttlerly IP-less. Allow players to make up their own quests, guilds, and even factions to give and share with other players. Allow players to fight for planetary survival. Make it worth fighting for.
There are a few things I don't understand about sandboxers and their fans on these threads.
Why do you all seem to think that people that play WoW are all new to MMO's and don't know wha tthe 'golden' era was like. WoW has a lot of players, don't fool yourself into thinking that even a majority of them have played wow as their first game.
You might be surprised at the sheer amount of 'mmo vets' that play wow. Some of us vets grew out of the phase.
What's with this elitist attitude that gives you some misconception that you're better than a WoW player? Don't you realize how petty and ridiculous you sound with this whole preaching your gaming opinions onto other players? You hear all this "omg wow is for easy ppl, when you're ready for a challenge come to a real game" - I bet 90% of you haven't even done a hardmode encounter in wow.
You guys are like the religious fanatics that go to Mardi Gras to try to preach their religion and call everyone else sinners.
Oh and another thing - So some guy posts some random thread about some random friend that says Amazon has X amount of pre-orders and suddenly it's fact? Lol come on now, so my uncle who's a real wiz with volcanos says that a volcano is headed this way! Make sure you buy your volcano insurance !
Ha my step dad works with insurance and theres no such thing as VOLCANO INSURANCE!!! If your going to write BS make sure you get the facts straight first. Makes the rest of your thread seem like a load now
I was just thinking about the title of the thread and there's no way to know for sure if Theme Park mmorpg make more money than Sandbox mmorpg, but it is certainly true that Theme Park mmorpg attract more investors. That's really what matters when you come down to it...how much money can you get invested in your project, and whether or not you can pay those people back.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
This is true, theme parks do make more money. They are easyer to enjoy, easyer to be decent at and, much much easyer to jump in and start playing.
Sandboxes you must learn, a lot, in order to really get moving. Havent really seen a sandbox without a learning curve, but have seen themeparks.
Yes there will always be "more to do" in a theme park, simply because its sitting there looking you in the face, say ing "come do me...i am fun...others are doing it too" while in a sandbox you must make the effort to get thing going.
Personally, as much as i love the sandbox idea, i think they work better with a huge RP crowd, which i am not. Creating your own reasons to go out and do stuff works better this way. This is why you will always see 3 complaints about sandbox games come up over and over again.
First if that there is nothing to do. Most real sandboxes wont have a campaign questline with cinematics to guide you to the right areas ect. There wont be instant battle grounds or instant dungeons or mini games. Just you the community adn the open world.
Second is "all there is to do is grind. There usualy wont be the typical quest spam of themeparks. Your on your own in a sandbox, have fun. So what most people do, is just go out and kill mobs with no goals and no reason, they grind. Once your tolerance for this is reached, you quit. People forget that you need to create your own motives.
Third is the complaint about the community itself. People will resort to asking in global chat what to do, and why cant i do this, or this game should have ____. The community grows tired of having to hold every new players hand though the learning curve, and are themselves able to create content and goals for themselves.
The fact is, most player want to jump into the game, gloss over quests for a day and come out level 15 or 20, knowing they made progress toward the endgame, and the resulting themepark attractions there. In a sandbox that same amount of effort might improve some skills, but the feeling of certain accomplishment for your work is not there. Your not level 20 now in a sandbox, you skills are now only slightly better.
In all honesty themeparks is more of a reaction to the old problems with the first gen mmorpgs, attempting to fix the old issues though themeparks and hand holding to endgame. Since these issues have been addressed the community has grown, to the point where most dont remember getting a quest and spending half a day trying to figure out what the hell your trying to do, or not being able ti find the mobs you need, or being unable to obtain a weapon or item you must have.
A modern sandboxes approach to these issues is to remove the need to do the quest.
Investment is all about returns to the investors. Investors are typically savy about knowing which idea will generate the best return. This all relates back to how many players are paying to play.
This is why you see so many themepark mmorpgs with huge budgets (some fail bigtime) and you really dont see any big budget sandboxes, most are indy companies taking a huge risk.
Investment relates 100% to what game will make the most money. Theres bigtime proof that wow syle uber themeparks can generate the biggest revenue, wow being that proof, but theres other games that did pretty well too.
Theres not much proof out there that a sandbox with a huge learning curve will make lots of money.
This is why you see all big budget games being like a certain other game at hear, and why you see sketych companies with low budges making sandbox attempts.
It will take one huge sandbox success to change this, however the majority of players dont play mmorpgs for the learning experience or the difficult journey...they play to own noobs as fast as possible, or at the least, "be the best" as soon as humany possible. People use to play for the learning, for the reading of quests and the lore, and for helping others with their journey. I remember that being endgame, helping out others. Not today. Also i think we were all a bit younger during those days, if you were around. With a job and family its hard to sink 60 hours a week into a sandbox in order to make some progress you can feel. You can jump into wow, run a few dungeons, do a few battlegounds, make a bit of progress you can see, and be done with it. Thats the real allure to themeparks. Your not spending 3 hours out of 4 availible hours to play, just trying to figure out what you need to do, or trying to up a skill slightly.
Current generation sandboxes will be purely pvp games, as that seems to be the obvious way to go , grind, learn,pvp for controll (the reason to grind..)
Themeparks are instand fun , so many people will go for that, some are simple, some are harder but does not realy mather..
It needs a brave developer and a total review of the term sandbox before we see a realy succesfull one. a sandbox whitout any grind, were the focus lies on building, exploring/discovering, protecting your lands from npc's (randomized events) hunting for resorces becource -you- need them not becource you need to skill up someting..
a game were the term endgame can not be given as there is no "weak" start.
Considering WoW alone currently has more subscriptions than then all mmos combined had before wow existed I can safely say that the majority of people that play or have played wow where mmo first timers before it (me included).
Helthros is right though. A good % of wows population isnt a child, and wow isnt their first mmorpgs. And no not every wow vet goes into a diffrent mmorpg and suck at it, unable to cope with a non wow game, as we all assume.
Its very common to hate what you dont understand, and a whole lot of people dont understand WoW, they cant understand why a game that looks like wow does can be populair, they cant understand how character looking that goofy and akward can keep the largest population of mmorpgers in the industry. They dont get how a game without top of the line graphics can maintain more players than games with top of the line graphics.
Lots of people look at wow, go through the free trial, and think "this is a kids game, and its lame, and im leveling fast, its too easy, what the hell is wrong with 11million people"
What sets off a lot of people is when bored wow players come into their game, looking for a new home, and those wow players let everyone know that the game doesnt stand up to wow, and that they will be returning. So they assume that they cannot handle a non-wow game.
Other than that, its simple trolling for the lulz.
But yeah so many stereotpyes surround wow, outside of the wow community, its quite amazing. From what ive seen most are completely untrue.
The wow is easy is a common one. The game is too easy, however when these people get to raiding and endgame content, are shunned from groups (gearscore) or kicked out of groups (imporper build and rotation). Fact is, being decent at endgame is very difficult for a new player, almost to the point whre it isnt fun. You need to use 3rd party programs, macros (not botting) and key bindings, on a level i havent realy seen in any other games. Sure its easy to get to endgame if you have the time...but i havent found a single game where that isnt true, the only variable is the amount of time needed to get there. SImply put, wow is an easy game to be decent, and a near impossible game to be great in. On top of that you have a LOT of competition from people who know (down to the math equations) exactly what they are doing.
Dont bother explaining whats on March 1st, for anyone not following whatever game you are suggesting.
DETAILS!
It's a joke from Family Guy. Right over your head apparently. I think it's funny you asked your dad if there was volcano insurance though.
That's kind of the point.. it doesn't exist. Kind of how you're not just supposed to believe some guy when they say a friend said blah blah 300,000 pre orders, blah blah?
lol in trying to be cool you really just burned yourself.