sounds really good and the kind of thing that wouldnt need an "endgame" so to speak . Sounds like a game where a "toon" can make a "name" for himself rather than sayin hi im lvl 165 fear me cuase i got all uber gear n can gank whole guilds, now if u want to touch me you have to grind for 2 years first.
i would be interested in the "name" of the game or somesuch so i can keep an eye out for it.
Sorry I am not saying publicly any more on the subject. If you want to know then PM me as I said to much in the first place.
FFA PvP with no proper tools to enforce a law system has killed them all. Its human nature to avoid that type of conflict. Once they can get over this hurdle I think they may hit the mainstream.
Probably already been said, but really it comes down to money. The almighty Dollar or Euro.
Let's leave Eve out of the equation, because really, I think Eve Online and specifically CCP are anomolies (whole another post!). Basically, the invenstors with money, want more money of course, else why would they invenst in something. Unfortunately for us, they see games like World of Warcraft and want a piece of pie. This is why you have seen so many games over the past 5-6 years come out they are so similar to World of Warcraft (and EQ1) because investors, thinking they are being smart, invest in ideas/games that resemble WoW, because apparently this is what we all want. Yes I know that 12 million people supposedly play WoW right now, but this game is also an anomoly like Eve.
What investors don't realize is that many, many people want games like Darkfall, Xsyon, Mortal Online and so forth, but unfortunately these games, due to development problems/lack of funds, do not have high subscriber rates. Investors look at these small number of subscribers and decide not to pump money into companies making these types of games because they think people just don't like games like this. Similarly, many developers are afraid to try to break the mould I think because, well, it's scary. They might not get enough money to follow through because of the previously stated problem with invenstors.
What the people with money don't realize, is that if a sandbox game was created, based on some great ideas and with amazing features that were implemented correctly (also needs to be technologically sound) it could be huge. If said game got the funds to be developed, distrubuted, and maintained there's a chance it could make a ton of money. Unfortunately, this will not happen until the people with money get their heads out their asses, or WoW finally dies.
I am afraid it looks like less of people wanting games like darkfall, and more that people who will play MMOs are the people who alreadydo such. There's very few left "gameless" nor undiscovered or undecided at this point. The majority of people playing WoW already, 90%+ will probably NEVER play a non-themepark MMO in terms of who could be swayed as well. New sandbox games suffer the same problem, more or less they can only draw from other sandbox games for their userbase, which is a very real limiting factor when there might not be more than a few hundred thousand possible in the market for a sandbox game no matter how good it is.
Having played anomalies like EVE Online and a plethora of other MMOs, both sandbox and theme park, I think I can point out the problem: overcomplication. Sandbox MMOs that let you do what you want how you want spend too much effort developing that "how-you-want" part (like crafting, etc) and as a result the rest of the game suffers. Graphics become lower quality, combat begins to resemble rock-em-sock-em robots, and magic starts to look... well, more like parlour tricks. I mean, I recently tried the demo for Fallen Earth, and to be honest I was disgusted. Seriously. Your first weapon is an axe with a HORRIBLE attack animation, and your second weapon is a... well, a paintball gun, modified to fire metal balls instead of paintballs. The graphics were atrocious and resembled the original Starsiege: Tribes fps, which for a 2011 game is simply unacceptable. I mean, maybe I'm spoiled by games like Oblivion or Fallout or Crysis, but eye candy is and always will be an integral part of games. Eve is an anomaly because of that. Yeah, its sandbox, its huge, its do-whatever-you-want, and it looks good doing it. It makes sense. Other sandbox mmo's fall short because you have to have 50 different skills or levels to do a new ability/build this/craft that, and it looks exactly the same as whatever ability you had before it.
We play MMOs to escape reality, and frankly, I don't want to escape to an alternate reality that looks far more bleak then the one we're currently in. I know I may get flamed to hell for this but, if you want a Sandbox game to be more successful, it needs to look better. I know Crysis is an FPS, but take it for example. Some games give you an objective, go here, flip that switch. Most sandbox MMOs: You run in, hack up any mobs nearby with a sword, then press "interact" on a switch. Voila. Crysis, on the other hand: You could charge in guns blazing, moving too fast to be shot. You could go in in armor mode and duck from cover to cover, eliminating all the hostiles. You could roll in in a vehicle and squish/shoot anything that gets in the way. You could hide in a forest 200m away with a sniper rifle and pick everything off, or your could cloak, sneak in, flip the switch, then run like mad. That's sandbox, that's play it how you want. And Crysis looks AMAZING doing it. Oblivion, same example.
Fallen Earth (again using as example) is a sandbox game with too much emphasis put on crafting and not enough put on combat or other fun stuff. I mean I get that some gamers LOVE crafting, and more power to them. I like a game that puts emphasis on both, that excels in all those departments: crafting, pve, pvp, high-risk-reward, trading, etc. Like EVE. Eve isn't an anomaly by any means. They're just doing it right.
I am afraid it looks like less of people wanting games like darkfall, and more that people who will play MMOs are the people who alreadydo such. There's very few left "gameless" nor undiscovered or undecided at this point. The majority of people playing WoW already, 90%+ will probably NEVER play a non-themepark MMO in terms of who could be swayed as well. New sandbox games suffer the same problem, more or less they can only draw from other sandbox games for their userbase, which is a very real limiting factor when there might not be more than a few hundred thousand possible in the market for a sandbox game no matter how good it is.
Well, I am trying to look at things optimistically. Maybe games such as Darkfall and Mortal Online are a little too hardcore for the general population, but if you could take the freedom these games offer, add more mechanics that a wider variety of people enjoy, a lot of people would want to play this game. Just look at something like The Sims or Second Life. These aren't really games per se, well The Sims kind of is, but quite a lot of people enjoy these things. Someone just needs to come along and incorporate what all those people like about The Sims, Second Life, etc and make it into a real game, where your choices effect the game world. A lot of people like to make their own story and they like to see the choices they make in their games matter.
If something came along that is truly awesome and epitomizes what sandbox's are all about, and if it got enough funding, advertising could help pull in more people. More than just guys like us who try every sandbox Just need investors to take some chances.
Eve isn't an anomaly by any means. They're just doing it right.
It is an anomaly in the sense that no other sandboxish MMO currently out there has their subscriber base. It was also developed well before WoW came out and the clones that followed it. It did not have to deal with the problems that current sandbox mmo's have to deal with. I of course agree with you that CCP does things right, I am long time Eve player. Not playing currently, but I will be back.
it's because true sand boxes are a niche market, they do not appeal to the majority of casual mmo players and even less to your average "console" video game player.
large companies are not interested in dumping a whole wack load of money to capture the attention of a small niche of hard core players, they want their game to appeal to the biggest possible audience available.
to date, the only model that has managed to do so is the theme park experience like WoW.
therfore it makes way more financial sense (way easier to find investors for) to make a very generic theme park mmo then taking a huge gamble on a radical sand box project that even if flawless will always be held back by it's niche appeal.
All of them lack integral game-play to make them effective or are ridden with enough bugs to make their promise as a game moot. I would love to see a developer nail down a solid sandbox game from the ground up. It seems like if they have good crafting they have terrible combat.... If they have good combat the crafting is terrible. If they have decent PvM they have terrible PvP and vice versa..
Well, most sandbox games are made by inexperienced and underfunded devs.
Eve which is the best right now were the same from launch but CCP have actually gained both money and experienced since 2003 and fixed the game up, but it is not as good as it would have been if they were more experienced when they launched it.
CCP next MMO, WoDO will be interesting because now are they a lot better than 8 years ago and they work together with white wolf that are excellent at P&P RPGs.
Bethesda do still have a MMO department and had so for 3 years, one of the founders of Mythic is leading it,. It is a guess that they sooner or later will release a sandbox styled MMO, probably based on the elder scroll IP.
Underfunded games with inexperienced devs never becomes good, or at least close to never.
All of them lack integral game-play to make them effective or are ridden with enough bugs to make their promise as a game moot. I would love to see a developer nail down a solid sandbox game from the ground up. It seems like if they have good crafting they have terrible combat.... If they have good combat the crafting is terrible. If they have decent PvM they have terrible PvP and vice versa..
Well, most sandbox games are made by inexperienced and underfunded devs.
Eve which is the best right now were the same from launch but CCP have actually gained both money and experienced since 2003 and fixed the game up, but it is not as good as it would have been if they were more experienced when they launched it.
CCP next MMO, WoDO will be interesting because now are they a lot better than 8 years ago and they work together with white wolf that are excellent at P&P RPGs.
Bethesda do still have a MMO department and had so for 3 years, one of the founders of Mythic is leading it,. It is a guess that they sooner or later will release a sandbox styled MMO, probably based on the elder scroll IP.
Underfunded games with inexperienced devs never becomes good, or at least close to never.
i think it's a problem of them being too idealistic (which in my mind plays right out of being inexperienced).
I'm not sure I agree they lack integral gameplay. The problem is you have to have integral gameplay for every avenue a player can explore. Getting this done in one area can be tricky much less all the areas an MMO covers. Like you mention, many games have good PvE but PvP sucks, etc.. Once you have a fairly successful game, why would you risk alienating your base to try and tweak a certain aspect of that game? Sure everyone agrees that crafting or whatever sucks but people stil play your game for the good parts. Case in point, SWG.
Eve isn't an anomaly by any means. They're just doing it right.
It is an anomaly in the sense that no other sandboxish MMO currently out there has their subscriber base. It was also developed well before WoW came out and the clones that followed it. It did not have to deal with the problems that current sandbox mmo's have to deal with. I of course agree with you that CCP does things right, I am long time Eve player. Not playing currently, but I will be back.
SOE sacked SWG and alot of SWG players went to EVE and did what SWG players do best. It's an anomaly in the sense that no other game had as many tools for them to work with. It's normal if you know what SWG players were best at.
Plus, CCP are the best in the business. True artists:)
Maybe Im remembering wrong though.
See you in the dream.. The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
Well, I am trying to look at things optimistically. Maybe games such as Darkfall and Mortal Online are a little too hardcore for the general population, but if you could take the freedom these games offer, add more mechanics that a wider variety of people enjoy, a lot of people would want to play this game. Just look at something like The Sims or Second Life. These aren't really games per se, well The Sims kind of is, but quite a lot of people enjoy these things. Someone just needs to come along and incorporate what all those people like about The Sims, Second Life, etc and make it into a real game, where your choices effect the game world. A lot of people like to make their own story and they like to see the choices they make in their games matter.
If something came along that is truly awesome and epitomizes what sandbox's are all about, and if it got enough funding, advertising could help pull in more people. More than just guys like us who try every sandbox Just need investors to take some chances.
I think the problem goes well beyond accessibility. Most will NEVER be okay with massive world PvP or free looting, and honestly given the nature of other RPGs, most people love levelling, and structured preplanned experiences, mostly because in those forms, there is something to "beat". It is certainly possible to "beat" world of warcraft afer completeing every raid or reaching top battleground ranks, and it is an absolutely incredible driving force. Lots of people like the sims, but the Sims is a very different kind of game about perfect control of digital people and playing house with digital dolls, much like second life is as well.
Sandbox games tend to try and eschew traditional levelling and follow the dotted line quests of awesomeness, but even the ones that don't fail to attract the right "groups" because they absolutely can't.": No amount of caramel sauce will turn vanilla ice cream into chocolate or strawberry, but it's still going to taste good to the people who want it, and probably to most anyone who will at least try it." (Yes I know that was lame)
Too many sandboxes are created these days by indy companies that have an imagination that's too big for their budget.
What indy companies need to do is nail down a solid, although basic, form of gameplay that can be built upon in future content updates and expansion packs instead of trying to fit in every feature (and usually failing) at launch.
Pretty much this.
One of the reasons this happens to them, is that there are so many MMOs these days, that things like a mail system, an auction house, etc. etc are considered must-have features in every game. So the company has to build all those things before it can even start to imagine it`s vision.
I can't imagine that basic features such as merchant interaction, mail, auction houses are a large part of development time. All those things are really just datbase interaction with some exploit protection (Anyone remember in FFXI when you could time a sender's cancel with a recipient's receipt of an item and dupe the item? A large part of the reason that game's economy was never balanced was early players exploited it heavily and Square Enix never did anything about it besides eventually stopping the glitch).
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug. 12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
History has proven that a concise and rather accurate assessment.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
One simple reason. Most MMO development teams are composed of individuals who had 0 interest in the genre before the launch of WoW. Therefore the term sandbox is anthema to everything they think they know and wouldn't know how to design a good one if the plans for it came up and bit them in the a**.
One simple reason. Most MMO development teams are composed of individuals who had 0 interest in the genre before the launch of WoW. Therefore the term sandbox is anthema to everything they think they know and wouldn't know how to design a good one if the plans for it came up and bit them in the a**.
Could you name some of the dev teams you are referring to? Been working in the industry for about a decade now and that is not my experience at all. Most of the teams I've interacted with have had their roots in either playing or working on MMOs that came out years before WOW.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
At one time it was possible for MMO's to soft launch an unfinished game and build up a player base as they polished the experience. I believe EvE Online followed this trajectory.
I have to disagree with this. When EVE launched it was a 'finished' game. It worked and the content that was advertised was actually in the game. Many of its system benefited from additional polish and some were rewritten later on but the primary systems that defined the game all worked. It released in as much a 'finished' state as WoW did.
Originally posted by Deathofsage Originally posted by SwampRob
Originally posted by SuperXero89
Too many sandboxes are created these days by indy companies that have an imagination that's too big for their budget. What indy companies need to do is nail down a solid, although basic, form of gameplay that can be built upon in future content updates and expansion packs instead of trying to fit in every feature (and usually failing) at launch.
Pretty much this. One of the reasons this happens to them, is that there are so many MMOs these days, that things like a mail system, an auction house, etc. etc are considered must-have features in every game. So the company has to build all those things before it can even start to imagine it`s vision. I can't imagine that basic features such as merchant interaction, mail, auction houses are a large part of development time. All those things are really just datbase interaction with some exploit protection (Anyone remember in FFXI when you could time a sender's cancel with a recipient's receipt of an item and dupe the item? A large part of the reason that game's economy was never balanced was early players exploited it heavily and Square Enix never did anything about it besides eventually stopping the glitch).
I think people trivialize the amount of work that goes into creating the bottom floor of the mmorpg building because they spend so much time seeing them and playing through those basic features. It's like seeing objects in front of you. You forget how long it took your brain to actually be able to discern people's faces and what they meant because you do it all the time.*
Just because a feature is basic to the game or the process appears simple to the end user doesn't mean that it's trivial to implement in code. Especially since there is no standard "base" mmorpg platform. Even if the design is based on an existing system, the code is largely from scratch. The game engines that exist do not have a built in chat server, auction house system, vendor system, etc. You have to write all of them, and then populate them.
* This obviously doesn't apply to the blind, but I couldn't come up with a good analogy that worked for everyone, everywhere.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Too many sandboxes are created these days by indy companies that have an imagination that's too big for their budget.
What indy companies need to do is nail down a solid, although basic, form of gameplay that can be built upon in future content updates and expansion packs instead of trying to fit in every feature (and usually failing) at launch.
This plus developers get all misty eyed when they think about how much fun UO was with it's ffa pvp. I am no ffa pvp fan, I personally think it brings out the worst in people, but I have to admit it wasn't that bad in UO, BUT times and demographics have changed. Trying to create on outdated beliefs and hopes will also lead you disaster.
Originally posted by SuperXero89 [Mod Edit] I respect the ambition of those developers, but I'm not going to pay to play an unfinished product. You could argue that Darkfall is now at a point where it can build on a solid foundation, but other titles such as Mortal Online, Earthrise, and Xyson are glorified pay-to-play beta tests at best.
Agree!
I believe the answer to the headline question is really very easy. Like WhoreyWood these days and their fear of anything that isn't a re-something/pre-se-quel these people (the big companies) are basically (anyone except the indies) terrified of trying anything that isn't basically some variety of WoW-clone. With creativity, talent, and money sure it could be done.
I'd add one point, which is "way too much arrogance for their limited budget and total lack of marketing". Proof being those two latest "sandbox" PvP gankfest, Darkfall and Mortal Online. They forced the PvP gankfest, first person view and several other design flaws upon the players despite the negative feedback on their forums. Even big companies don't survive that. Had those idiots done some very simple things, like adding a PvE server in addition to the full PvP one, permitted third person view, etc... they would be way more successful and the devs would be richer by now.
Keep an eye on Dawntide. It seems those indy developers got the message.
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
Comments
Sorry I am not saying publicly any more on the subject. If you want to know then PM me as I said to much in the first place.
FFA PvP with no proper tools to enforce a law system has killed them all. Its human nature to avoid that type of conflict. Once they can get over this hurdle I think they may hit the mainstream.
I am afraid it looks like less of people wanting games like darkfall, and more that people who will play MMOs are the people who alreadydo such. There's very few left "gameless" nor undiscovered or undecided at this point. The majority of people playing WoW already, 90%+ will probably NEVER play a non-themepark MMO in terms of who could be swayed as well. New sandbox games suffer the same problem, more or less they can only draw from other sandbox games for their userbase, which is a very real limiting factor when there might not be more than a few hundred thousand possible in the market for a sandbox game no matter how good it is.
Having played anomalies like EVE Online and a plethora of other MMOs, both sandbox and theme park, I think I can point out the problem: overcomplication. Sandbox MMOs that let you do what you want how you want spend too much effort developing that "how-you-want" part (like crafting, etc) and as a result the rest of the game suffers. Graphics become lower quality, combat begins to resemble rock-em-sock-em robots, and magic starts to look... well, more like parlour tricks. I mean, I recently tried the demo for Fallen Earth, and to be honest I was disgusted. Seriously. Your first weapon is an axe with a HORRIBLE attack animation, and your second weapon is a... well, a paintball gun, modified to fire metal balls instead of paintballs. The graphics were atrocious and resembled the original Starsiege: Tribes fps, which for a 2011 game is simply unacceptable. I mean, maybe I'm spoiled by games like Oblivion or Fallout or Crysis, but eye candy is and always will be an integral part of games. Eve is an anomaly because of that. Yeah, its sandbox, its huge, its do-whatever-you-want, and it looks good doing it. It makes sense. Other sandbox mmo's fall short because you have to have 50 different skills or levels to do a new ability/build this/craft that, and it looks exactly the same as whatever ability you had before it.
We play MMOs to escape reality, and frankly, I don't want to escape to an alternate reality that looks far more bleak then the one we're currently in. I know I may get flamed to hell for this but, if you want a Sandbox game to be more successful, it needs to look better. I know Crysis is an FPS, but take it for example. Some games give you an objective, go here, flip that switch. Most sandbox MMOs: You run in, hack up any mobs nearby with a sword, then press "interact" on a switch. Voila. Crysis, on the other hand: You could charge in guns blazing, moving too fast to be shot. You could go in in armor mode and duck from cover to cover, eliminating all the hostiles. You could roll in in a vehicle and squish/shoot anything that gets in the way. You could hide in a forest 200m away with a sniper rifle and pick everything off, or your could cloak, sneak in, flip the switch, then run like mad. That's sandbox, that's play it how you want. And Crysis looks AMAZING doing it. Oblivion, same example.
Fallen Earth (again using as example) is a sandbox game with too much emphasis put on crafting and not enough put on combat or other fun stuff. I mean I get that some gamers LOVE crafting, and more power to them. I like a game that puts emphasis on both, that excels in all those departments: crafting, pve, pvp, high-risk-reward, trading, etc. Like EVE. Eve isn't an anomaly by any means. They're just doing it right.
Well, I am trying to look at things optimistically. Maybe games such as Darkfall and Mortal Online are a little too hardcore for the general population, but if you could take the freedom these games offer, add more mechanics that a wider variety of people enjoy, a lot of people would want to play this game. Just look at something like The Sims or Second Life. These aren't really games per se, well The Sims kind of is, but quite a lot of people enjoy these things. Someone just needs to come along and incorporate what all those people like about The Sims, Second Life, etc and make it into a real game, where your choices effect the game world. A lot of people like to make their own story and they like to see the choices they make in their games matter.
If something came along that is truly awesome and epitomizes what sandbox's are all about, and if it got enough funding, advertising could help pull in more people. More than just guys like us who try every sandbox
Just need investors to take some chances.
It is an anomaly in the sense that no other sandboxish MMO currently out there has their subscriber base. It was also developed well before WoW came out and the clones that followed it. It did not have to deal with the problems that current sandbox mmo's have to deal with. I of course agree with you that CCP does things right, I am long time Eve player. Not playing currently, but I will be back.
1. Usually created by small teams.
2. Those small teams usually have no experience.
3. Have no idea what they are doing.
4. No budget.
5. Think sandbox = pvp gankfest.
Thats about it.
it's because true sand boxes are a niche market, they do not appeal to the majority of casual mmo players and even less to your average "console" video game player.
large companies are not interested in dumping a whole wack load of money to capture the attention of a small niche of hard core players, they want their game to appeal to the biggest possible audience available.
to date, the only model that has managed to do so is the theme park experience like WoW.
therfore it makes way more financial sense (way easier to find investors for) to make a very generic theme park mmo then taking a huge gamble on a radical sand box project that even if flawless will always be held back by it's niche appeal.
Well, most sandbox games are made by inexperienced and underfunded devs.
Eve which is the best right now were the same from launch but CCP have actually gained both money and experienced since 2003 and fixed the game up, but it is not as good as it would have been if they were more experienced when they launched it.
CCP next MMO, WoDO will be interesting because now are they a lot better than 8 years ago and they work together with white wolf that are excellent at P&P RPGs.
Bethesda do still have a MMO department and had so for 3 years, one of the founders of Mythic is leading it,. It is a guess that they sooner or later will release a sandbox styled MMO, probably based on the elder scroll IP.
Underfunded games with inexperienced devs never becomes good, or at least close to never.
i think it's a problem of them being too idealistic (which in my mind plays right out of being inexperienced).
I'm not sure I agree they lack integral gameplay. The problem is you have to have integral gameplay for every avenue a player can explore. Getting this done in one area can be tricky much less all the areas an MMO covers. Like you mention, many games have good PvE but PvP sucks, etc.. Once you have a fairly successful game, why would you risk alienating your base to try and tweak a certain aspect of that game? Sure everyone agrees that crafting or whatever sucks but people stil play your game for the good parts. Case in point, SWG.
Those who want to create a sandbox don't have the resources to make a good one.
Those who have the resources also have people telling them to copy WoW for the cash flow.
SOE sacked SWG and alot of SWG players went to EVE and did what SWG players do best. It's an anomaly in the sense that no other game had as many tools for them to work with. It's normal if you know what SWG players were best at.
Plus, CCP are the best in the business. True artists:)
Maybe Im remembering wrong though.
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
I think the problem goes well beyond accessibility. Most will NEVER be okay with massive world PvP or free looting, and honestly given the nature of other RPGs, most people love levelling, and structured preplanned experiences, mostly because in those forms, there is something to "beat". It is certainly possible to "beat" world of warcraft afer completeing every raid or reaching top battleground ranks, and it is an absolutely incredible driving force. Lots of people like the sims, but the Sims is a very different kind of game about perfect control of digital people and playing house with digital dolls, much like second life is as well.
Sandbox games tend to try and eschew traditional levelling and follow the dotted line quests of awesomeness, but even the ones that don't fail to attract the right "groups" because they absolutely can't.": No amount of caramel sauce will turn vanilla ice cream into chocolate or strawberry, but it's still going to taste good to the people who want it, and probably to most anyone who will at least try it." (Yes I know that was lame)
I can't imagine that basic features such as merchant interaction, mail, auction houses are a large part of development time. All those things are really just datbase interaction with some exploit protection (Anyone remember in FFXI when you could time a sender's cancel with a recipient's receipt of an item and dupe the item? A large part of the reason that game's economy was never balanced was early players exploited it heavily and Square Enix never did anything about it besides eventually stopping the glitch).
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
History has proven that a concise and rather accurate assessment.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
One simple reason. Most MMO development teams are composed of individuals who had 0 interest in the genre before the launch of WoW. Therefore the term sandbox is anthema to everything they think they know and wouldn't know how to design a good one if the plans for it came up and bit them in the a**.
Retired: EVE, SWG, STO, EQ2, Ryzom, AO, LotRO, FFXI
Currently Awaiting: SWTOR, TSW, ArcheAge
Could you name some of the dev teams you are referring to? Been working in the industry for about a decade now and that is not my experience at all. Most of the teams I've interacted with have had their roots in either playing or working on MMOs that came out years before WOW.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I have to disagree with this. When EVE launched it was a 'finished' game. It worked and the content that was advertised was actually in the game. Many of its system benefited from additional polish and some were rewritten later on but the primary systems that defined the game all worked. It released in as much a 'finished' state as WoW did.
One of the reasons this happens to them, is that there are so many MMOs these days, that things like a mail system, an auction house, etc. etc are considered must-have features in every game. So the company has to build all those things before it can even start to imagine it`s vision.
I can't imagine that basic features such as merchant interaction, mail, auction houses are a large part of development time. All those things are really just datbase interaction with some exploit protection (Anyone remember in FFXI when you could time a sender's cancel with a recipient's receipt of an item and dupe the item? A large part of the reason that game's economy was never balanced was early players exploited it heavily and Square Enix never did anything about it besides eventually stopping the glitch).
I think people trivialize the amount of work that goes into creating the bottom floor of the mmorpg building because they spend so much time seeing them and playing through those basic features. It's like seeing objects in front of you. You forget how long it took your brain to actually be able to discern people's faces and what they meant because you do it all the time.*
Just because a feature is basic to the game or the process appears simple to the end user doesn't mean that it's trivial to implement in code. Especially since there is no standard "base" mmorpg platform. Even if the design is based on an existing system, the code is largely from scratch. The game engines that exist do not have a built in chat server, auction house system, vendor system, etc. You have to write all of them, and then populate them.
* This obviously doesn't apply to the blind, but I couldn't come up with a good analogy that worked for everyone, everywhere.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
This plus developers get all misty eyed when they think about how much fun UO was with it's ffa pvp. I am no ffa pvp fan, I personally think it brings out the worst in people, but I have to admit it wasn't that bad in UO, BUT times and demographics have changed. Trying to create on outdated beliefs and hopes will also lead you disaster.
Archeage Online is our only home atm
Remember Old School Ultima Online
Agree!
I believe the answer to the headline question is really very easy. Like WhoreyWood these days and their fear of anything that isn't a re-something/pre-se-quel these people (the big companies) are basically (anyone except the indies) terrified of trying anything that isn't basically some variety of WoW-clone. With creativity, talent, and money sure it could be done.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
I'd add one point, which is "way too much arrogance for their limited budget and total lack of marketing". Proof being those two latest "sandbox" PvP gankfest, Darkfall and Mortal Online. They forced the PvP gankfest, first person view and several other design flaws upon the players despite the negative feedback on their forums. Even big companies don't survive that. Had those idiots done some very simple things, like adding a PvE server in addition to the full PvP one, permitted third person view, etc... they would be way more successful and the devs would be richer by now.
Keep an eye on Dawntide. It seems those indy developers got the message.
Respect, walk
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