Wha? You included games in entirely different genres to find something that "supports" your argument, yet had no links, articles or docs that support that point at all. If you claim F2P game X makes more money than P2P game Y, you better darn well post something that at the very least offers a reasonable explanation on the numbers. I think I am simply another victim claimed by this troll thread... shame on me for even poking fun at an argument full of holes.
Games are games and I'm sorry. I thought it was "gaming common knowledge". If nothing else than the fact that going F2P is by no means a failure. I have no motivation to lie, but at the moment I can't be arsed to pull any sources either.
The TF2 news is pretty recent. The BF Heroes is an older piece. Some .pdf report somewhere. And you need to dig yet a little deeper for the DDO and LOTRO numbers. But they really had something close to 400% increase in revenue after the transformation. AoC too.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Originally posted by Quirhid Originally posted by NaughtyPOriginally posted by QuirhidOriginally posted by NaughtyP
Wha? You included games in entirely different genres to find something that "supports" your argument, yet had no links, articles or docs that support that point at all. If you claim F2P game X makes more money than P2P game Y, you better darn well post something that at the very least offers a reasonable explanation on the numbers. I think I am simply another victim claimed by this troll thread... shame on me for even poking fun at an argument full of holes.Games are games and I'm sorry. I thought it was "gaming common knowledge". If nothing else than the fact that going F2P is by no means a failure. I have no motivation to lie, but at the moment I can't be arsed to pull any sources either.
The TF2 news is pretty recent. The BF Heroes is an older piece. Some .pdf report somewhere. And you need to dig yet a little deeper for the DDO and LOTRO numbers. But they really had something close to 400% increase in revenue after the transformation. AoC too.
My recent faux pas in another thread has given me two facts about the past 12 months: Funcom made roughly $13 million from AoC in the past 12 months. CCP has made something like $72 million from Eve in the same period of time. I have no idea about the DDO or LoTR money, but they would have to be doing considerably better than AoC to get into Eve's money making territory.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Wha? You included games in entirely different genres to find something that "supports" your argument, yet had no links, articles or docs that support that point at all. If you claim F2P game X makes more money than P2P game Y, you better darn well post something that at the very least offers a reasonable explanation on the numbers. I think I am simply another victim claimed by this troll thread... shame on me for even poking fun at an argument full of holes.
Games are games and I'm sorry. I thought it was "gaming common knowledge". If nothing else than the fact that going F2P is by no means a failure. I have no motivation to lie, but at the moment I can't be arsed to pull any sources either.
The TF2 news is pretty recent. The BF Heroes is an older piece. Some .pdf report somewhere. And you need to dig yet a little deeper for the DDO and LOTRO numbers. But they really had something close to 400% increase in revenue after the transformation. AoC too.
When someone says 400% increase, I would take that with a grain of salt. A 400% increase in revenue could be going from $50/mo to $250/mo. Obviously my example is an exaggeration, but something like a percentage increase doesn't give the full picture we really want to see. Anyways, I'm not really trying to argue here. But I have little faith in gaming companies giving a straight answer when it comes to things like profit or subscriptions.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
its not a myth..its more like...we all got older and our crys for better mmorps are flooded bye the sound of stampeeding kids wanting battle ground type pvp and theamparks
and the devs / companys see this as a quick buck every few months to bait them hook line and sinker..
im not just speaking of WOW ..every run of the mill mmorpg that has came out or has been released and up coming are 95% theampark / more of the same / glitter and spaarklers filled with promises followed by broken promises
You're right about depth, it was a poor choice of words. Replayability would probably be better.
Anyway, I'm a bit confused why you don't believe there is a continuum between the two extremes. All that means is that there is a lot of space in-between a "pure" sandbox and a "pure" themepark where a game can live. And you basically seem to admit this when you say Morrowwind is a "compromise" between sandbox and themepark...this means that it is somewhere in-between sandbox and themepark which implies a continuum.
Well when you consider games like Sid Meier's Pirates! you are put into a world with some randomization. Clear objective what to do, and then left there to do it. Is it a sandbox is it a themepark? If you look at Mount & Blade it is a very similar game, however it doesn't give you any objective. You are just left to do whatever you want. Mount & Blade is clearly a sandbox.
How would you classify randomized or randomly generated quests? Obviously developer made to some extent.
What about Civilization? Same as with Pirates but the map is completely random and you are only tasked to win within the game rules. No one match is the same. Everything is developer made yet the content is still not "directed". Not really a themepark, not really a sandbox either.
What about strict PvP games like Fury or Bloodline Champions? If there was a game, a MMORPG with gladiators as player characters and a persistent arena (like the Colosseum) as their game world. All content is arena PvP, yet is it somehow directed content or is it player created?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Originally posted by Quirhid More accurately the assistant would say: "I'm sorry, we have only old widgets because apps have taken over the market. Would you like an app? To which the client would get upset because he wants a widget and he doesn't what has happened in the market.
Don't you just hate customers who don't want to buy what you feel like supplying?
This no longer has anything to do with videogames, but if I was the assistant yes, I'd be a little annoyed that the customer is, for one reason or another, sticking to the old and refusing to use the new. I'm not resposible so why is he complaining to me.
You're still using Product A when the majority of customers have moved on to using Product B. Then you complain how big names in the industry are not making new and improved As. Small manufacturers yes, big names no. Then you claim that if a new and improved Product A was made, there'd be market for it. Sure there would be, but it is nowhere near the size of the market for Product B which means there's a poor justification for a big budget project making Product A.
Now replace Product A with sandbox and Product B with themepark.
Here's a theory:
Themeparks have a shorter lifespan than sandboxes in general (although there are very few sandbox examples to use). Themeparks burn fast but they burn brightly. Thats why they have much better ROI. On top of the sheer size of the market, thats why they are more appealing to investors. And because they burn up so quickly, there's always players for the next themepark so there's room for multiple big names to make AAA games.
Unlike with sandboxes where the potential customers for a new sandbox is small not only because the overall customer base smaller but also because the players commit to the games longer and as such the the potential customers left for each game is smaller.
I wonder if I should draw a I picture to explain what I mean...
EDIT: I did.
Does this treory of yours just account for the west or world wide? numbers may come out different if you add say Asia to the mix. Im sure the sales of Theams and Sanders in other contries should be taking into consideration.
You're right about depth, it was a poor choice of words. Replayability would probably be better.
Anyway, I'm a bit confused why you don't believe there is a continuum between the two extremes. All that means is that there is a lot of space in-between a "pure" sandbox and a "pure" themepark where a game can live. And you basically seem to admit this when you say Morrowwind is a "compromise" between sandbox and themepark...this means that it is somewhere in-between sandbox and themepark which implies a continuum.
Well when you consider games like Sid Meier's Pirates! you are put into a world with some randomization. Clear objective what to do, and then left there to do it. Is it a sandbox is it a themepark? If you look at Mount & Blade it is a very similar game, however it doesn't give you any objective. You are just left to do whatever you want. Mount & Blade is clearly a sandbox.
How would you classify randomized or randomly generated quests? Obviously developer made to some extent.
What about Civilization? Same as with Pirates but the map is completely random and you are only tasked to win within the game rules. No one match is the same. Everything is developer made yet the content is still not "directed". Not really a themepark, not really a sandbox either.
What about strict PvP games like Fury or Bloodline Champions? If there was a game, a MMORPG with gladiators as player characters and a persistent arena (like the Colosseum) as their game world. All content is arena PvP, yet is it somehow directed content or is it player created?
All the games you're listing are just at different points down the continuum of the sandbox and themepark ideals. Where you decide to call one game "themepark" and one game "sandbox" I can't really say. For some games it's extremely obvious (Minecraft, SWTOR), for others, it is not very obvious (Pirates!, Archeage). And I think that's why many devs have started to classify their games as the "hybrid" Themebox or Sandpark.
In addition, you can really make this argument about anything type of classification. For example, I could tell you about a game where you can level up, buy new equipment, and make different "builds." And you probably immediately think "RPG," but in reality, I was talking about Modern Warfare which is most definitely an FPS .
I think the real important thing here is that game development should not be constrained by our desire to categorize things. If traditional tomato bisque is made with only tomatoes, cream, and basil, but you know that some croutons would make it even better, then you should throw those croutons in!
Also, I know we gave one back and forth about our different definitions of sandbox over and over again, but I actually think our definitions are pretty close.
You define a sandbox vs. themepark as player driven vs. developer driven.
I define sandbox vs. themepark as unguided vs. guided.
But when you think about it, isn't player driven stuff always unguided? After all, if it was guided, then the developer would have had to script that guidance in, which would make it developer driven.
I also think that games like Skyrim fit very well into either of these definitions. The content may be all developer made, but the game is very much player driven. As in, every player will experience Skyrim very differently depending on how they decide to play.
I think the real important thing here is that game development should not be constrained by our desire to categorize things.
The overwhelming majority of games would exactly be those "hybrids", atleast by my standards, so calling them hybrids would be pointless, I think. There are names for the ones that are easily classified, the few extreme cases, and I'm fine with that. The rest are just "regular games".
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
As much as everyone dislikes it Runescape is the largest SandBox MMORPG right now, and ya know what? It's also the biggest and most succesful MMORPG right now. It has a sort of hybrid feel and that's what allows it to do so well. People can do what they want to do but there are places for it, sure it's not what everyone wants out of a sandbox but it works.
Does this treory of yours just account for the west or world wide? numbers may come out different if you add say Asia to the mix. Im sure the sales of Theams and Sanders in other contries should be taking into consideration.
The Y axis shows the percentage of their customer base. Each themepark reaches more of their potential customer base because their lifespans' do not overlap. Sandboxes suffer from overlapping product lifespans on top of having a smaller potential customer base.
Ofcourse this is an extreme/simplified example.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
I think the real important thing here is that game development should not be constrained by our desire to categorize things.
It isn't our desire that's the problem. It's that those constraints are already in place by the developers themselves as they package this MMO or that one by whatever boxed set of rules they base the creation and design of any given MMO upon and the basis of that decision is the almighty dollar. It just so happens that Themeparks are the least expensive to make, and due to our own lemming like way of running to all major game titles, offer the most return especially in the short term and we all know that in this day and age investors are all about short term.
None of it having anything to do with anything I wrote or even relevant to the very topic you started.
Please, provide us a list of themepark MMO's that uses a subscription model, and shows continued growth every year. This should be easier then directing us to the AAA sandbox MMO that didn't work to support your claim that there's no market for that style of game; that other thing you couldn't do.
Thats the neglect I was talking about. Thats why Eve Online showed a decline in subs last fall. Should we talk about WoW when it had a track record of continual growth (up until 2009)? It doesn't matter. Especially when the size of your customer base is less than 4% of the market leader's.
Or 15% of the second highest (Aion).
Or 25% of the third (SWTOR).
What about Runescape and Dofus? Are either of those sandboxes? Both have more players than Eve does. And then there's the games mentioned that went F2P? Many of them make more money than Eve does. Like someone mentioned sometimes even four times more than what they did when their game was P2P.
Even Team Fortress 2 went F2P they made more money then they had when selling boxes. Battlefield Heroes is another succesful F2P example. Neither game hardly "failed" when the did the transformation. It shows that F2P is a very viable way to fund your game.
You went from saying that all the themeparks games have more subs then a single sandbox to now using free to play games haveing more subs then a single pay to play sandbox.
On top of that, you're throwing in free to play games that aren't even MMO's.
You're also trying to alter the concept of a game that started out as pay to play, and then switching to free to play as not failing. As if the switch had nothing to do with the continual decline of the subscriber base to the point that the games were no longer sustainable under the pay to play model, or weren't generating more revenue then they would if they just switched to free to play. You're now trying to, in a rather offhanded way, make the claim that switching from pay to play to free to play has nothing to do with anything other then making more money.
You're right. DDO, AoC, CoH, STO and every other subscription based game that switched to free to play did make more money. That's because they weren't making enough money prior to the change to make the change non-viable. Even Aion, with the 2 millions subs you said they had, switched to free to play for one reason and one reason only. No projected growth equals coninual decline which results in deminshed returns.
In otherwords, they switch to free to play when a subscription stops being more profitable, and the only way it stops being more profitable under a subscription model is for people to stop paying.
If the themepark model was "the best model" then people would be supporting them with subs. We know that's not happening.
The only MMO you can point at and say that being a themepark works is WoW. It was the only one with a subscription that showed continual growth for multiple years, and it's the only one that ended up with more subscribers then initially purchased the game.
Show us a themepark MMO that has more people subscribing to it today, then they had initially purchase it; that isn't WoW. Does ToR have more subs today then people that purchased it when it released? Does Rift? Did EQ2 before it went free to play?
How about showing us a single themepark game, other then WoW, that had more people subscribing to it after 6 months then had initially purchse it.
As much as everyone dislikes it Runescape is the largest SandBox MMORPG right now, and ya know what? It's also the biggest and most succesful MMORPG right now. It has a sort of hybrid feel and that's what allows it to do so well. People can do what they want to do but there are places for it, sure it's not what everyone wants out of a sandbox but it works.
ganna need to see some numbers that support your claim. Not saying your wrong, just dont know if your right
As much as everyone dislikes it Runescape is the largest SandBox MMORPG right now, and ya know what? It's also the biggest and most succesful MMORPG right now. It has a sort of hybrid feel and that's what allows it to do so well. People can do what they want to do but there are places for it, sure it's not what everyone wants out of a sandbox but it works.
ganna need to see some numbers that support your claim. Not saying your wrong, just dont know if your right
Isn't runescape free to play?
Don't know about anyone else, but if there's one thing I've learned in almost 36 years, it's that people LOVE free crap. Doesn't matter how good it is, if you slap free on it, people will be more then happy to accept it.
I kid you not. You could advertise a bag of cat crap on freecycle and someone will be more then happy to come to your house and take it off your hands.
Even MO could attract more people then the server could handle if they made it free to play, the same goes for DF or any other equally bad MMO. The earth would literally stop spinnig on it's axis as the the weight of the entire planet stopped what they were doing and sat down at their PC's at the exact same time to play an unlimitted free to play WoW.
None of it having anything to do with anything I wrote or even relevant to the very topic you started.
Please, provide us a list of themepark MMO's that uses a subscription model, and shows continued growth every year. This should be easier then directing us to the AAA sandbox MMO that didn't work to support your claim that there's no market for that style of game; that other thing you couldn't do.
Thats the neglect I was talking about. Thats why Eve Online showed a decline in subs last fall. Should we talk about WoW when it had a track record of continual growth (up until 2009)? It doesn't matter. Especially when the size of your customer base is less than 4% of the market leader's.
Or 15% of the second highest (Aion).
Or 25% of the third (SWTOR).
What about Runescape and Dofus? Are either of those sandboxes? Both have more players than Eve does. And then there's the games mentioned that went F2P? Many of them make more money than Eve does. Like someone mentioned sometimes even four times more than what they did when their game was P2P.
Even Team Fortress 2 went F2P they made more money then they had when selling boxes. Battlefield Heroes is another succesful F2P example. Neither game hardly "failed" when the did the transformation. It shows that F2P is a very viable way to fund your game.
You went from saying that all the themeparks games have more subs then a single sandbox to now using free to play games haveing more subs then a single pay to play sandbox.
On top of that, you're throwing in free to play games that aren't even MMO's.
You're also trying to alter the concept of a game that started out as pay to play, and then switching to free to play as not failing. As if the switch had nothing to do with the continual decline of the subscriber base to the point that the games were no longer sustainable under the pay to play model, or weren't generating more revenue then they would if they just switched to free to play. You're now trying to, in a rather offhanded way, make the claim that switching from pay to play to free to play has nothing to do with anything other then making more money.
You're right. DDO, AoC, CoH, STO and every other subscription based game that switched to free to play did make more money. That's because they weren't making enough money prior to the change to make the change non-viable. Even Aion, with the 2 millions subs you said they had, switched to free to play for one reason and one reason only. No projected growth equals coninual decline which results in deminshed returns.
In otherwords, they switch to free to play when a subscription stops being more profitable, and the only way it stops being more profitable under a subscription model is for people to stop paying.
If the themepark model was "the best model" then people would be supporting them with subs. We know that's not happening.
The only MMO you can point at and say that being a themepark works is WoW. It was the only one with a subscription that showed continual growth for multiple years, and it's the only one that ended up with more subscribers then initially purchased the game.
Show us a themepark MMO that has more people subscribing to it today, then they had initially purchase it; that isn't WoW. Does ToR have more subs today then people that purchased it when it released? Does Rift? Did EQ2 before it went free to play?
How about showing us a single themepark game, other then WoW, that had more people subscribing to it after 6 months then had initially purchse it.
EQ, DAoC all have more subscriptions today than on launch.
Of course that doesn't mean a lot these days because staring with 10 or 40,000 accounts is nothing when compared with games that start with 1.7 million.
And if your insinuation is that Eve is better because it WAS (it's dropped in the last year) growing, that is a false assumption. It may be true, however we cant' state that as fact. The fact is Eve was crap when it launched, definately one of the worst, it had only 2 places to go, grow, or close. They chose to make the game better, so it grew.
For a game to hold stable with over a million subs, is extremly rare.
A question for you. other than Eve and UO show us the sandbox with more than 50,000 subs?
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
if I had the resources and knowledge to make MMO video games,
I sure would design the greatest sandbox MMO ever, with subs close to a traditional themepark MMO success or better... not niche, like traditional sandbox.
Indeed! I'm calling BS on the notion that there is this mythical mass of players that want a sandbox virtual world MMO. If there was one, I would hear about it, devs would see it, and there would be games for that crowd. As it stands, there's hardly one, and it has been like that for so long that merely saying there hasn't been the right one yet is not going to cut it. Many have tried, many have failed and even if these games were any good they would've showed much more interest from the public, don't you think?
How can you have a "massive" virtual world when you only have a handful of players to fill it. And how can you get funding to something that has such a small audience. You are doomed to wander from indie game to indie game...
Admit it. You are to rest of the MMORPG players what LARPers are to P&P role players. "Regular people" snicker at people who play D&D but everyone laughs at LARPers (no offense meant - but they do).
Ben "Yahtzee" Crosshaw hit the nail in the head: -"Eve players are to nerds what nerds are to normal people."
Even if some recent themeparks have failed or will fail in your eyes, I'm quite confident in saying that there will be no major shift towards sandboxes of any sort. People still love themeparks - they just don't like shitty games, thats all.
Well I think your entire article is a myth. There are a lot of people who would love a sandbox if they even knew what one really is. BTW since there are no good ones out there besides Eve and Eve is definitely not for everyone. SWG prior to the NGE patch was one of the better ones, but it had it's issues. but instead of fixing them they gutted it.
So basically most of your MMO crowd has never experienced one. Hard to know if they like or dislike it. I do know that a game that relies on restricted classes is silly. Game economies should be player driven, not some version of the random number generator to have any depth.
Did you ever ask yourself why so many MMO players lose interest in these games so fast. They are all shallow and offer no way to uniquely develop your character and crafting systems are strictly a time sink.
Problem is all these game companies want the next Wow and they think the only workable model is the theme park.
its not a myth..its more like...we all got older and our crys for better mmorps are flooded bye the sound of stampeeding kids wanting battle ground type pvp and theamparksand the devs / companys see this as a quick buck every few months to bait them hook line and sinker..im not just speaking of WOW ..every run of the mill mmorpg that has came out or has been released and up coming are 95% theampark / more of the same / glitter and spaarklers filled with promises followed by broken promises
EQ, DAoC all have more subscriptions today than on launch.
Of course that doesn't mean a lot these days because staring with 10 or 40,000 accounts is nothing when compared with games that start with 1.7 million.
And if your insinuation is that Eve is better because it WAS (it's dropped in the last year) growing, that is a false assumption. It may be true, however we cant' state that as fact. The fact is Eve was crap when it launched, definately one of the worst, it had only 2 places to go, grow, or close. They chose to make the game better, so it grew.
For a game to hold stable with over a million subs, is extremly rare.
A question for you. other than Eve and UO show us the sandbox with more than 50,000 subs?
Yeah....no.
EQ is free to play, and DAoC does NOT have more subs today then they had when it released.
And not once did I say EVE was better, or remotely imply that.
Mortal onine sub based
Darkfall sub based
EVE sub based
UO sub based
Xyson sub based
Tales of the desert sub based?
Those the ONLY sandboxes I can think of off the top of my head that actually use a subscription. One is really old, One is actually good, the rest suck. Not because they're sandbox but because they're not very good games.
Tales fo the desert is only crafting and socializing, you can't fight anything. MO and DF are all about killing each other, and MO is riddled with bugs. Face of mankind? Zero content. Ryzom, not a "bad" game, but it doesn't do a very good job of having any real purpose if you don't RP. Mobinogi, VERY successfull F2P sandbox. Soeone pointed out Runescape as another F2P sandbox that is also very successful. Isn't asherons calls till running, no idea how many people play that.
Just like themepark MMO's the vast magority of them aren't very good, but unlike themeparks there haven't been hundreds made. It has nothing to do with there not being a market.
It is normal business practice to EMULATE the success of other successfull business; that is what they do every day in big business and corporate America. Everyong is only trying to do what Blizzard did. It had nothing to do with sandbox vs themepark. Blizzard made a hugely successful themepark MMO, and every other company hopes they can emulate what Blizzard did and achieve some of the same success. It's not about "no market", it's about taking the success that someone else has achieved and trying to refine that formula in the hopes of doing something better. Even Blizzard does it, why do you think they pull elements that work in new MMO's to incorporate into WoW?
There is a working formula. They won't deviate from that working formula as long as they can make money from it, there's no reason to.
No MMO will do what WoW did, themepark or sandbox, it doesn't matter. But it's easier to give the masses that Blizzard brought in something they can immediately relate to, and hope that you can keep enough of them in the game, then it is to devise entirely new systems from the ground up.
If WoW was a sandbox we would be having a different convesation.
MTV came out with a show called the real world. It wasn't the first reality show ever made, but it was the most successfull of it's time, and a crapton of people watched it. Immediately following the success of the real world, every TV network and there mother started producing reality TV shows, until it was imossible to turn the TV on and find something that wasn't reality TV show to watch. This trend went on for many, many years, until the ratins started dropping because people were tired of watching reality TV, and today there are considerably fewer reality TV shows.
They're called TRENDS. Someone sets it, and everyone else follows it. It's normal human behavior that correlates to the way that HUMANS run their business. Just like any other trend, they will not try anything new until the current trend stops being popular. This will probably happen, not when the magority of all money in the MMO market is being made under the F2M modell, but when that modell as well as the subscription based one both stop showing any growth.
In a market that DOES NOT DIVERSIFY, growth will stop, and a period of decline will occur. A market does not sustain that does not diversify.
It has nothing to do with sandbox vs themepark, and everythng to do with the way that companies work. This is normal!
EQ, DAoC all have more subscriptions today than on launch.
Of course that doesn't mean a lot these days because staring with 10 or 40,000 accounts is nothing when compared with games that start with 1.7 million.
And if your insinuation is that Eve is better because it WAS (it's dropped in the last year) growing, that is a false assumption. It may be true, however we cant' state that as fact. The fact is Eve was crap when it launched, definately one of the worst, it had only 2 places to go, grow, or close. They chose to make the game better, so it grew.
For a game to hold stable with over a million subs, is extremly rare.
A question for you. other than Eve and UO show us the sandbox with more than 50,000 subs?
Yeah....no.
EQ is free to play, and DAoC does NOT have more subs today then they had when it released.
And not once did I say EVE was better, or remotely imply that.
Mortal onine sub based
Darkfall sub based
EVE sub based
UO sub based
Xyson sub based
Tales of the desert sub based?
Those the ONLY sandboxes I can think of off the top of my head that actually use a subscription. One is really old, One is actually good, the rest suck. Not because they're sandbox but because they're not very good games.
Tales fo the desert is only crafting and socializing, you can't fight anything. MO and DF are all about killing each other, and MO is riddled with bugs. Face of mankind? Zero content. Ryzom, not a "bad" game, but it doesn't do a very good job of having any real purpose if you don't RP. Mobinogi, VERY successfull F2P sandbox. Soeone pointed out Runescape as another F2P sandbox that is also very successful. Isn't asherons calls till running, no idea how many people play that.
Just like themepark MMO's the vast magority of them aren't very good, but unlike themeparks there haven't been hundreds made. It has nothing to do with there not being a market.
It is normal business practice to EMULATE the success of other successfull business; that is what they do every day in big business and corporate America. Everyong is only trying to do what Blizzard did. It had nothing to do with sandbox vs themepark. Blizzard made a hugely successful themepark MMO, and every other company hopes they can emulate what Blizzard did and achieve some of the same success. It's not about "no market", it's about taking the success that someone else has achieved and trying to refine that formula in the hopes of doing something better. Even Blizzard does it, why do you think they pull elements that work in new MMO's to incorporate into WoW?
There is a working formula. They won't deviate from that working formula as long as they can make money from it, there's no reason to.
No MMO will do what WoW did, themepark or sandbox, it doesn't matter. But it's easier to give the masses that Blizzard brought in something they can immediately relate to, and hope that you can keep enough of them in the game, then it is to devise entirely new systems from the ground up.
If WoW was a sandbox we would be having a different convesation.
MTV came out with a show called the real world. It wasn't the first reality show ever made, but it was the most successfull of it's time, and a crapton of people watched it. Immediately following the success of the real world, every TV network and there mother started producing reality TV shows, until it was imossible to turn the TV on and find something that wasn't reality TV show to watch. This trend went on for many, many years, until the ratins started dropping because people were tired of watching reality TV, and today there are considerably fewer reality TV shows.
They're called TRENDS. Someone sets it, and everyone else follows it. It's normal human behavior that correlates to the way that HUMANS run their business. Just like any other trend, they will not try anything new until the current trend stops being popular. This will probably happen, not when the magority of all money in the MMO market is being made under the F2M modell, but when that modell as well as the subscription based one both stop showing any growth.
In a market that DOES NOT DIVERSIFY, growth will stop, and a period of decline will occur. A market does not sustain that does not diversify.
It has nothing to do with sandbox vs themepark, and everythng to do with the way that companies work. This is normal!
You asked to show a game that had more subs than when it realeased. EQ gained subs year after year. It only went F2P this year, and I'm sure still has more subs than at release. DAOC rose quickly to 250k subs, but did not start with that, so again it grew.
You did imply eve was better. That was the purpose of your question "show me a themepark that gained subs 6 months after release." Just admit it.
And you listed a bunch of sandbox, however the question I asked was list a sandbox with more than 50k subs. None of those ones you listed meet that criteria.
I personally think the majority of themeparks are actually pretty good, perhaps not my cup of tea but not bad. Even the dreaded SWTOR wasn't bad. Yes it has a bad reputation on this site, but by and large I think it has been accepted, just not here.
No one here is arguing trends. Not sure why you brought that up, it's pretty self-explanatory.
However, there are several games that are breaking the mold, that are doing things different.
Many are playing on the formula, it's in there best interest too because they need to carve their own niche.
The market is diversifying, however if you only look at games that are similar to each other, don't be surprised that they are similar. Want to play a different game, look for differences. There are many of them out there.
I'll say it one last time, if you feel that all modern games are the same, you need to broaden your horizons, there are many games out there are diffferent.
edit - and yes while there were a lot of reality tv shows on, there was still a huge amount of other tv out there. It was not even remotely challenging finding something other than reality tv.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
People may look at this funny but I honestly thought Runescape was a fun sandbox MMO. You could do whatever the hell you damn pleased. Like just cook, cut trees, fight, farm, construct, etc. through the game for hours and it was fun. That was before it was updated and turned into garbage.
You asked to show a game that had more subs than when it realeased. EQ gained subs year after year. It only went F2P this year, and I'm sure still has more subs than at release. DAOC rose quickly to 250k subs, but did not start with that, so again it grew.
You did imply eve was better. That was the purpose of your question "show me a themepark that gained subs 6 months after release." Just admit it.
And you listed a bunch of sandbox, however the question I asked was list a sandbox with more than 50k subs. None of those ones you listed meet that criteria.
I personally think the majority of themeparks are actually pretty good, perhaps not my cup of tea but not bad. Even the dreaded SWTOR wasn't bad. Yes it has a bad reputation on this site, but by and large I think it has been accepted, just not here.
No one here is arguing trends. Not sure why you brought that up, it's pretty self-explanatory.
However, there are several games that are breaking the mold, that are doing things different.
Many are playing on the formula, it's in there best interest too because they need to carve their own niche.
The market is diversifying, however if you only look at games that are similar to each other, don't be surprised that they are similar. Want to play a different game, look for differences. There are many of them out there.
I'll say it one last time, if you feel that all modern games are the same, you need to broaden your horizons, there are many games out there are diffferent.
edit - and yes while there were a lot of reality tv shows on, there was still a huge amount of other tv out there. It was not even remotely challenging finding something other than reality tv.
EQ2 and lineage 2 are two of my favorite MMO's; I also think that Rift is actually really good game. I happen to think that all three of those games are as good as EVE. I played WoW for 5 years, I didn't play it that long because it sucked. CoH is also another one I think is very good, I played it for several years.
Stop reading things I didn't write.
And no, there is not a lot of diversity in the genre unless you're willing to play some of the games that were intended as f2p. There are games coming that are actually different and not the same themepark brand, but again they're all being made by independant studios.
Instead of reading only the one post I made in the thread, read the others. I've been pretty consistant. There are no AAA sandboxes being made because everyone is still trying to emulate the success that Blizzard had. You can't determine what isn't possible based on what hasn't been done, and there hasn't been a AAA sandbox MMO sinse UO was released.
Crappy, bug ridden, underfunded, and underdeveloped sandbox mmo's do not represent what is possible. EVE, a sandbox MMO that is more niche then any fantasy based one would ever be has done very well. Well enough that it's allowed CCP to fund 2 other MMO's. If CCP can get 400k+ people playing, which is about what any themepark is able to do, then one that is set in a fantasy setting, would do better. That is if it doesn't release in the same state EVE or MO did.
And again, there is no reason someone that plays themepark MMO's should not like a sandbox one. A good sandbox will have everything that a themepark one offers, with more freedom.
My only problem with themepark MMO's is that there's to damn many of them, and not enough GOOD sandbox ones to play. I prefer a sandbox, that doesn't mean I dislike themepark ones. Unlike a lot of the posts I've seen in this thread, I'm not that bi-polar.
PS: I'm a really persistant individual. Keep quoting me, I literally have nothing better to do but keep repeating the exact same thing I've been repeating over and over and over and over. Kind of like all the big MMO's that have been released the past several years.
And again, there is no reason someone that plays themepark MMO's should not like a sandbox one. A good sandbox will have everything that a themepark one offers, with more freedom.
My only problem with themepark MMO's is that there's to damn many of them, and not enough GOOD sandbox ones to play. I prefer a sandbox, that doesn't mean I dislike themepark ones. Unlike a lot of the posts I've seen in this thread, I'm not that bi-polar.
PS: I'm a really persistant individual. Keep quoting me, I literally have nothing better to do but keep repeating the exact same thing I've been repeating over and over and over and over. Kind of like all the big MMO's that have been released the past several years.
I like trance. That doesn't mean I like Jazz (which I don't).
Whether the jazz album is good / bad has no relevance to me as I just don't like that particular style of music.
People's taste are different and so far, numbers just don't add up.
If you really want to make a change, how about funding (via kickstarter) 'The Repopulation'?
Or maybe creating some mods out of free tools (Quake engines are open source; except tech4) and get investors involved?
Or how about volunteering for 'The Repopulation' or other indie projects?
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I always find it funny. Some little selfimportant brat come in and scream "Sandbox crowds are a myth! You guys do not exist!" Then you read his post history....
Guild Wars... Guild Wars II.... DDO... freebie games. It is just another flipping little noob and froob player that think he, by liking one game, can talk for the whole of MMO community and explain true quality.
pretty much EVERYONE that played MMOS before WoW would love a real good sandbox game. Close to everyone. Problem is, and the only problem is, there has not been relased a "real", "good" or even "sandbox" game since then. So we have nothing to play, we are old and experienced enough not to throw money on bad products and yes.... That might be our fault.
I can explain exactly why we wont, but OP would not understand, its way over his head. Anyway... Your cute, OP. We do not exist. The old, experienced MMO players do not exist, because you did not find them in your precious Guiild Wars.
Keep thinking that.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force"
I always find it funny. Some little selfimportant brat come in and scream "Sandbox crowds are a myth! You guys do not exist!" Then you read his post history....
Guild Wars... Guild Wars II.... DDO... freebie games. It is just another flipping little noob and froob player that think he, by liking one game, can talk for the whole of MMO community and explain true quality.
pretty much EVERYONE that played MMOS before WoW would love a real good sandbox game. Close to everyone. Problem is, and the only problem is, there has not been relased a "real", "good" or even "sandbox" game since then. So we have nothing to play, we are old and experienced enough not to throw money on bad products and yes.... That might be our fault.
I can explain exactly why we wont, but OP would not understand, its way over his head. Anyway... Your cute, OP. We do not exist. The old, experienced MMO players do not exist, because you did not find them in your precious Guiild Wars.
Keep thinking that.
Hm .. you have a reading comprehension problem?
The OP did not say you do not exist. He said your guys are not "massive" and so far i have not seen any evidence that there is a massive sandbox market out there. A few guys ranting on a internet forum do NOT make a massive market.
Comments
Games are games and I'm sorry. I thought it was "gaming common knowledge". If nothing else than the fact that going F2P is by no means a failure. I have no motivation to lie, but at the moment I can't be arsed to pull any sources either.
The TF2 news is pretty recent. The BF Heroes is an older piece. Some .pdf report somewhere. And you need to dig yet a little deeper for the DDO and LOTRO numbers. But they really had something close to 400% increase in revenue after the transformation. AoC too.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Wha? You included games in entirely different genres to find something that "supports" your argument, yet had no links, articles or docs that support that point at all. If you claim F2P game X makes more money than P2P game Y, you better darn well post something that at the very least offers a reasonable explanation on the numbers. I think I am simply another victim claimed by this troll thread... shame on me for even poking fun at an argument full of holes.
Games are games and I'm sorry. I thought it was "gaming common knowledge". If nothing else than the fact that going F2P is by no means a failure. I have no motivation to lie, but at the moment I can't be arsed to pull any sources either.
The TF2 news is pretty recent. The BF Heroes is an older piece. Some .pdf report somewhere. And you need to dig yet a little deeper for the DDO and LOTRO numbers. But they really had something close to 400% increase in revenue after the transformation. AoC too.
My recent faux pas in another thread has given me two facts about the past 12 months:
Funcom made roughly $13 million from AoC in the past 12 months.
CCP has made something like $72 million from Eve in the same period of time.
I have no idea about the DDO or LoTR money, but they would have to be doing considerably better than AoC to get into Eve's money making territory.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
When someone says 400% increase, I would take that with a grain of salt. A 400% increase in revenue could be going from $50/mo to $250/mo. Obviously my example is an exaggeration, but something like a percentage increase doesn't give the full picture we really want to see. Anyways, I'm not really trying to argue here. But I have little faith in gaming companies giving a straight answer when it comes to things like profit or subscriptions.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
its not a myth..its more like...we all got older and our crys for better mmorps are flooded bye the sound of stampeeding kids wanting battle ground type pvp and theamparks
and the devs / companys see this as a quick buck every few months to bait them hook line and sinker..
im not just speaking of WOW ..every run of the mill mmorpg that has came out or has been released and up coming are 95% theampark / more of the same / glitter and spaarklers filled with promises followed by broken promises
Well when you consider games like Sid Meier's Pirates! you are put into a world with some randomization. Clear objective what to do, and then left there to do it. Is it a sandbox is it a themepark? If you look at Mount & Blade it is a very similar game, however it doesn't give you any objective. You are just left to do whatever you want. Mount & Blade is clearly a sandbox.
How would you classify randomized or randomly generated quests? Obviously developer made to some extent.
What about Civilization? Same as with Pirates but the map is completely random and you are only tasked to win within the game rules. No one match is the same. Everything is developer made yet the content is still not "directed". Not really a themepark, not really a sandbox either.
What about strict PvP games like Fury or Bloodline Champions? If there was a game, a MMORPG with gladiators as player characters and a persistent arena (like the Colosseum) as their game world. All content is arena PvP, yet is it somehow directed content or is it player created?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Does this treory of yours just account for the west or world wide? numbers may come out different if you add say Asia to the mix. Im sure the sales of Theams and Sanders in other contries should be taking into consideration.
All the games you're listing are just at different points down the continuum of the sandbox and themepark ideals. Where you decide to call one game "themepark" and one game "sandbox" I can't really say. For some games it's extremely obvious (Minecraft, SWTOR), for others, it is not very obvious (Pirates!, Archeage). And I think that's why many devs have started to classify their games as the "hybrid" Themebox or Sandpark.
In addition, you can really make this argument about anything type of classification. For example, I could tell you about a game where you can level up, buy new equipment, and make different "builds." And you probably immediately think "RPG," but in reality, I was talking about Modern Warfare which is most definitely an FPS
.
I think the real important thing here is that game development should not be constrained by our desire to categorize things. If traditional tomato bisque is made with only tomatoes, cream, and basil, but you know that some croutons would make it even better, then you should throw those croutons in!
Also, I know we gave one back and forth about our different definitions of sandbox over and over again, but I actually think our definitions are pretty close.
You define a sandbox vs. themepark as player driven vs. developer driven.
I define sandbox vs. themepark as unguided vs. guided.
But when you think about it, isn't player driven stuff always unguided? After all, if it was guided, then the developer would have had to script that guidance in, which would make it developer driven.
I also think that games like Skyrim fit very well into either of these definitions. The content may be all developer made, but the game is very much player driven. As in, every player will experience Skyrim very differently depending on how they decide to play.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
The overwhelming majority of games would exactly be those "hybrids", atleast by my standards, so calling them hybrids would be pointless, I think. There are names for the ones that are easily classified, the few extreme cases, and I'm fine with that. The rest are just "regular games".
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
As much as everyone dislikes it Runescape is the largest SandBox MMORPG right now, and ya know what? It's also the biggest and most succesful MMORPG right now. It has a sort of hybrid feel and that's what allows it to do so well. People can do what they want to do but there are places for it, sure it's not what everyone wants out of a sandbox but it works.
The Y axis shows the percentage of their customer base. Each themepark reaches more of their potential customer base because their lifespans' do not overlap. Sandboxes suffer from overlapping product lifespans on top of having a smaller potential customer base.
Ofcourse this is an extreme/simplified example.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
It isn't our desire that's the problem. It's that those constraints are already in place by the developers themselves as they package this MMO or that one by whatever boxed set of rules they base the creation and design of any given MMO upon and the basis of that decision is the almighty dollar. It just so happens that Themeparks are the least expensive to make, and due to our own lemming like way of running to all major game titles, offer the most return especially in the short term and we all know that in this day and age investors are all about short term.
You went from saying that all the themeparks games have more subs then a single sandbox to now using free to play games haveing more subs then a single pay to play sandbox.
On top of that, you're throwing in free to play games that aren't even MMO's.
You're also trying to alter the concept of a game that started out as pay to play, and then switching to free to play as not failing. As if the switch had nothing to do with the continual decline of the subscriber base to the point that the games were no longer sustainable under the pay to play model, or weren't generating more revenue then they would if they just switched to free to play. You're now trying to, in a rather offhanded way, make the claim that switching from pay to play to free to play has nothing to do with anything other then making more money.
You're right. DDO, AoC, CoH, STO and every other subscription based game that switched to free to play did make more money. That's because they weren't making enough money prior to the change to make the change non-viable. Even Aion, with the 2 millions subs you said they had, switched to free to play for one reason and one reason only. No projected growth equals coninual decline which results in deminshed returns.
In otherwords, they switch to free to play when a subscription stops being more profitable, and the only way it stops being more profitable under a subscription model is for people to stop paying.
If the themepark model was "the best model" then people would be supporting them with subs. We know that's not happening.
The only MMO you can point at and say that being a themepark works is WoW. It was the only one with a subscription that showed continual growth for multiple years, and it's the only one that ended up with more subscribers then initially purchased the game.
Show us a themepark MMO that has more people subscribing to it today, then they had initially purchase it; that isn't WoW. Does ToR have more subs today then people that purchased it when it released? Does Rift? Did EQ2 before it went free to play?
How about showing us a single themepark game, other then WoW, that had more people subscribing to it after 6 months then had initially purchse it.
ganna need to see some numbers that support your claim. Not saying your wrong, just dont know if your right
Isn't runescape free to play?
Don't know about anyone else, but if there's one thing I've learned in almost 36 years, it's that people LOVE free crap. Doesn't matter how good it is, if you slap free on it, people will be more then happy to accept it.
I kid you not. You could advertise a bag of cat crap on freecycle and someone will be more then happy to come to your house and take it off your hands.
Even MO could attract more people then the server could handle if they made it free to play, the same goes for DF or any other equally bad MMO. The earth would literally stop spinnig on it's axis as the the weight of the entire planet stopped what they were doing and sat down at their PC's at the exact same time to play an unlimitted free to play WoW.
EQ, DAoC all have more subscriptions today than on launch.
Of course that doesn't mean a lot these days because staring with 10 or 40,000 accounts is nothing when compared with games that start with 1.7 million.
And if your insinuation is that Eve is better because it WAS (it's dropped in the last year) growing, that is a false assumption. It may be true, however we cant' state that as fact. The fact is Eve was crap when it launched, definately one of the worst, it had only 2 places to go, grow, or close. They chose to make the game better, so it grew.
For a game to hold stable with over a million subs, is extremly rare.
A question for you. other than Eve and UO show us the sandbox with more than 50,000 subs?
if I had the resources and knowledge to make MMO video games,
I sure would design the greatest sandbox MMO ever, with subs close to a traditional themepark MMO success or better... not niche, like traditional sandbox.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Well I think your entire article is a myth. There are a lot of people who would love a sandbox if they even knew what one really is. BTW since there are no good ones out there besides Eve and Eve is definitely not for everyone. SWG prior to the NGE patch was one of the better ones, but it had it's issues. but instead of fixing them they gutted it.
So basically most of your MMO crowd has never experienced one. Hard to know if they like or dislike it. I do know that a game that relies on restricted classes is silly. Game economies should be player driven, not some version of the random number generator to have any depth.
Did you ever ask yourself why so many MMO players lose interest in these games so fast. They are all shallow and offer no way to uniquely develop your character and crafting systems are strictly a time sink.
Problem is all these game companies want the next Wow and they think the only workable model is the theme park.
so trueYeah....no.
EQ is free to play, and DAoC does NOT have more subs today then they had when it released.
And not once did I say EVE was better, or remotely imply that.
Mortal onine sub based
Darkfall sub based
EVE sub based
UO sub based
Xyson sub based
Tales of the desert sub based?
Those the ONLY sandboxes I can think of off the top of my head that actually use a subscription. One is really old, One is actually good, the rest suck. Not because they're sandbox but because they're not very good games.
Tales fo the desert is only crafting and socializing, you can't fight anything. MO and DF are all about killing each other, and MO is riddled with bugs. Face of mankind? Zero content. Ryzom, not a "bad" game, but it doesn't do a very good job of having any real purpose if you don't RP. Mobinogi, VERY successfull F2P sandbox. Soeone pointed out Runescape as another F2P sandbox that is also very successful. Isn't asherons calls till running, no idea how many people play that.
Just like themepark MMO's the vast magority of them aren't very good, but unlike themeparks there haven't been hundreds made. It has nothing to do with there not being a market.
It is normal business practice to EMULATE the success of other successfull business; that is what they do every day in big business and corporate America. Everyong is only trying to do what Blizzard did. It had nothing to do with sandbox vs themepark. Blizzard made a hugely successful themepark MMO, and every other company hopes they can emulate what Blizzard did and achieve some of the same success. It's not about "no market", it's about taking the success that someone else has achieved and trying to refine that formula in the hopes of doing something better. Even Blizzard does it, why do you think they pull elements that work in new MMO's to incorporate into WoW?
There is a working formula. They won't deviate from that working formula as long as they can make money from it, there's no reason to.
No MMO will do what WoW did, themepark or sandbox, it doesn't matter. But it's easier to give the masses that Blizzard brought in something they can immediately relate to, and hope that you can keep enough of them in the game, then it is to devise entirely new systems from the ground up.
If WoW was a sandbox we would be having a different convesation.
MTV came out with a show called the real world. It wasn't the first reality show ever made, but it was the most successfull of it's time, and a crapton of people watched it. Immediately following the success of the real world, every TV network and there mother started producing reality TV shows, until it was imossible to turn the TV on and find something that wasn't reality TV show to watch. This trend went on for many, many years, until the ratins started dropping because people were tired of watching reality TV, and today there are considerably fewer reality TV shows.
They're called TRENDS. Someone sets it, and everyone else follows it. It's normal human behavior that correlates to the way that HUMANS run their business. Just like any other trend, they will not try anything new until the current trend stops being popular. This will probably happen, not when the magority of all money in the MMO market is being made under the F2M modell, but when that modell as well as the subscription based one both stop showing any growth.
In a market that DOES NOT DIVERSIFY, growth will stop, and a period of decline will occur. A market does not sustain that does not diversify.
It has nothing to do with sandbox vs themepark, and everythng to do with the way that companies work. This is normal!
You asked to show a game that had more subs than when it realeased. EQ gained subs year after year. It only went F2P this year, and I'm sure still has more subs than at release. DAOC rose quickly to 250k subs, but did not start with that, so again it grew.
You did imply eve was better. That was the purpose of your question "show me a themepark that gained subs 6 months after release." Just admit it.
And you listed a bunch of sandbox, however the question I asked was list a sandbox with more than 50k subs. None of those ones you listed meet that criteria.
I personally think the majority of themeparks are actually pretty good, perhaps not my cup of tea but not bad. Even the dreaded SWTOR wasn't bad. Yes it has a bad reputation on this site, but by and large I think it has been accepted, just not here.
No one here is arguing trends. Not sure why you brought that up, it's pretty self-explanatory.
However, there are several games that are breaking the mold, that are doing things different.
Many are playing on the formula, it's in there best interest too because they need to carve their own niche.
The market is diversifying, however if you only look at games that are similar to each other, don't be surprised that they are similar. Want to play a different game, look for differences. There are many of them out there.
I'll say it one last time, if you feel that all modern games are the same, you need to broaden your horizons, there are many games out there are diffferent.
edit - and yes while there were a lot of reality tv shows on, there was still a huge amount of other tv out there. It was not even remotely challenging finding something other than reality tv.
People may look at this funny but I honestly thought Runescape was a fun sandbox MMO. You could do whatever the hell you damn pleased. Like just cook, cut trees, fight, farm, construct, etc. through the game for hours and it was fun. That was before it was updated and turned into garbage.
EQ2 and lineage 2 are two of my favorite MMO's; I also think that Rift is actually really good game. I happen to think that all three of those games are as good as EVE. I played WoW for 5 years, I didn't play it that long because it sucked. CoH is also another one I think is very good, I played it for several years.
Stop reading things I didn't write.
And no, there is not a lot of diversity in the genre unless you're willing to play some of the games that were intended as f2p. There are games coming that are actually different and not the same themepark brand, but again they're all being made by independant studios.
Instead of reading only the one post I made in the thread, read the others. I've been pretty consistant. There are no AAA sandboxes being made because everyone is still trying to emulate the success that Blizzard had. You can't determine what isn't possible based on what hasn't been done, and there hasn't been a AAA sandbox MMO sinse UO was released.
Crappy, bug ridden, underfunded, and underdeveloped sandbox mmo's do not represent what is possible. EVE, a sandbox MMO that is more niche then any fantasy based one would ever be has done very well. Well enough that it's allowed CCP to fund 2 other MMO's. If CCP can get 400k+ people playing, which is about what any themepark is able to do, then one that is set in a fantasy setting, would do better. That is if it doesn't release in the same state EVE or MO did.
And again, there is no reason someone that plays themepark MMO's should not like a sandbox one. A good sandbox will have everything that a themepark one offers, with more freedom.
My only problem with themepark MMO's is that there's to damn many of them, and not enough GOOD sandbox ones to play. I prefer a sandbox, that doesn't mean I dislike themepark ones. Unlike a lot of the posts I've seen in this thread, I'm not that bi-polar.
PS: I'm a really persistant individual. Keep quoting me, I literally have nothing better to do but keep repeating the exact same thing I've been repeating over and over and over and over. Kind of like all the big MMO's that have been released the past several years.
I like trance. That doesn't mean I like Jazz (which I don't).
Whether the jazz album is good / bad has no relevance to me as I just don't like that particular style of music.
People's taste are different and so far, numbers just don't add up.
If you really want to make a change, how about funding (via kickstarter) 'The Repopulation'?
Or maybe creating some mods out of free tools (Quake engines are open source; except tech4) and get investors involved?
Or how about volunteering for 'The Repopulation' or other indie projects?
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I always find it funny. Some little selfimportant brat come in and scream "Sandbox crowds are a myth! You guys do not exist!" Then you read his post history....
Guild Wars... Guild Wars II.... DDO... freebie games. It is just another flipping little noob and froob player that think he, by liking one game, can talk for the whole of MMO community and explain true quality.
pretty much EVERYONE that played MMOS before WoW would love a real good sandbox game. Close to everyone. Problem is, and the only problem is, there has not been relased a "real", "good" or even "sandbox" game since then. So we have nothing to play, we are old and experienced enough not to throw money on bad products and yes.... That might be our fault.
I can explain exactly why we wont, but OP would not understand, its way over his head. Anyway... Your cute, OP. We do not exist. The old, experienced MMO players do not exist, because you did not find them in your precious Guiild Wars.
Keep thinking that.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
Hm .. you have a reading comprehension problem?
The OP did not say you do not exist. He said your guys are not "massive" and so far i have not seen any evidence that there is a massive sandbox market out there. A few guys ranting on a internet forum do NOT make a massive market.