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evidence of mainstream sandbox appeal
bishbosh
Member Posts: 388
day z.- 320k unique players
minecraft - 6.4mil purchases
taking into consideration dayz is a recently developed arma 2 mod and minecraft is a small indie project, these are very good numbers. imagine what a well funded sandbox mmorpg could do.
people like sandbox features like building, exploration, surviving and amassing riches. its the buggy, unfinished and underfunded nature of recent sandbox games that has let them down, not the sandbox features.
the whole idea of taking years to level so you can compete with veterans is extremely bad game design because no new players will want to play. i think one of the reasons dayz and minecraft are succesful because new players actually stand a chance against veterans and it doesnt take long for a new player to become as strong as a veteran.
my prediction is that the next well funded developer that can make a polished complete sandbox game that has fast character progression, pve and pvp zones and some form of item decay will be enjoy great success.
Comments
not MMOs.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Both play online, so you're on crack.
~I wil extend a bit on this, though. For the sake of not looking like a complete asshole.
There are two kinds of players out there; MMO players that like open-world sandbox-single player games, and single-player gamers that now play MMOs. One is more social than the other, one wants more of a 'world' than a 'game' than the other, but only one of them is a bigger demographic... and everyone knows that stupidity breeds faster than anything else, and thusly Modern Warfare will live on to see Black Ops #5.
There are plenty of others that will continue to make games that require "thinking" and put down a decent investment, while the vast majority of them milk the r-tards for box prices, knowing they will jump ship long after the game has already been given a skeleton crew, and the majority profits put towards the next attack on r-tards.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Purchases aren't subscriptions.
I am a Minecraft purchase. I was also entirely disappointed in it. It's a lousy sandbox (compared with the fun I had in the more gamelike and better-designed Terraria.)
I want a game which is consistently entertaining, and most sandboxes (especially MMORPGs) have had a terrible track record of that.
For a sandbox MMORPG to be successful it would have to solve that. It has to be closer to a ATITD or Haven & Hearth, where I can always log in and know I'll find something fun to do to improve my section of the game world, without threat of other players ruining my fun, but while having the potential to positively interact with others.
Also, DayZ isn't really all that sandbox-ish is it? Do you actually manipulate the world at all, or is it just open PVP? Open PVP isn't particularly sandbox-ish (unless you want to claim that a massive game of Battlefield with team damage turned on is a sandbox FPS...that'd sound pretty ridiculous to me: sandboxes involve sand -- something for players to manipulate, change, or create.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Not your MMO. The sad fact is when you hear MMO you already have an idea in mind. I've been on a dayz server with 70+ people. I've been on a minecraft server with 300+ people. I'd consider that pretty massive.
MMO has tons of sub-genre's. MMOFPS (Planetside), MMORTS (Atlantica, End of Nations), MMORPG (Yes.), MMODC(Dungeon Runner), MMOMOBA(Leage of Legends), MMO racing games (Need for speed world), MMO simulators , MMO sports games (PGA golf online), Social MMO's (Second life), MMO Action games (Vindictus), MMO Sidescroller (Maple Story).
Played - M59, EQOA, EQ, EQ2, PS, SWG[Favorite], DAoC, UO, RS, MXO, CoH/CoV, TR, FFXI, FoM, WoW, Eve, Rift, SWTOR, TSW.
Playing - PS2, AoW, GW2
MMO has tons of sub-genre's. MMOFPS (Planetside), MMORTS (Atlantica, End of Nations), MMORPG (Yes.), MMODC(Dungeon Runner), MMOMOBA(Leage of Legends), MMO racing games (Need for speed world), MMO simulators , MMO sports games (PGA golf online), Social MMO's (Second life), MMO Action games (Vindictus), MMO Sidescroller (Maple Story).
How many people total play Minecraft on MMORPG like servers? There are about 8,000 active Minecraft public servers, and most of those have less than 100 player slots. Most of those servers do not have half their player slots filled.
Would mashing all those servers into one mega server result in the same popularity? Probably not. Minecraft's popularity is as much because of the ability for any player to setup a server as it is the sandbox game play mechanics of the game.
What I think games like this shows is that there is room in the market for non-massive, but still MMORPG-like games. A million players playing on ten thousand player run servers. Whether they are truly sandbox games or not I don't think is too relevant. DayZ isn't exactly a sandbox, even though it has some very sandbox elements. If I wanted, I could setup an Arma II server with the DayZ mod and invite my friends to play. That is a draw.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
DayZ is more MMO than any other "MMORPG" I've played in the past decade.
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
Sadly I pretty much agree with you.
We don't need these recent games as evidence, because the evidence has been there since gaming started. Every copy of Sim City or the Sims (whether online or not) along with so different games like Farmville and Railroad Tycoon or even Civilisation and The Settlers proves that there is a mainstream sandbox appeal: enough people want to create and shape or modify the world.
The question is how you bring this type of game-play into the MMORPG genre and whether it makes a better business case than making themeparks. That doesn't mean that making sandboxes is a bad business case, not at all, but business is about maximising profit and if you have to chose between a good and a better business case you go for the better one.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
For calling Civilization and Settlers sandboxes you are sentenced for gross pidgeonholing. Now go run a lap around the house as punishment.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
@ OP yes but sadly there are millions and millions of other people who just love to pick up the next themepark wow clone...
Companies know where the money is.. simple as that..
I'm sure every here is pushing the boundaries of definitions by calling them MMOs and sandboxes.
Dayz you run around a map with other players and pick stuff up and kill stuff. That's not a sandbox. Do you build houses? Do you build weapons? Do you cook food? Can you modify anything in the game world besides the life status of a zombie or another player?
It's not a MMO, it's not a sandbox.
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Minecraft is popular because it is basically legos and IIRC dirt cheap. You slap a 60 dollar box price on it and 15 dollar a month sub you'd see a drastically different story.
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What these two games/game mods tell you is that people like cheap forms of entertainment.
I think they are equating it to "sandbox" due to the non linear open world- I wouldnt call it a sandbox BUT its probably the closest thing out there now that COULD be a real sandbox given more development.
I am not playing and am basic my opinion on youtube videos- BUT throw in player housing (imagine survivers banding together and building "Villages") which needs to be protected 24/7 and a persistant and large (HUGE) server and slowly add thngs in and I think it wold be a dream game.
Do you build? Yes you can put up barbed wire and build tents.
Do you build weapons? no but of coruse you find them
Do you cook? Yes you can cook food and its some of the best food in the game
Can you modify anything? Well you can repair vehicles and move them around, build a little base.. well wahtever you want really..
I dont really class it as a MMO but it does have a lot of the features in place ready to become one... Persisant characters and character items across servers is one of the main things.. Biggest server ive seen so far is about 80 players but ARMA II does not really have a limit its all down to how powerfull your server is
Dayz could quite easily make a transition into a fully fledged MMO and its probally somthing they are seriously looking into.
You can build fences =O
Do the dead slowly wander around and attack the fences? And tents? I didnt know that- Very cool...
I can't believe the amount of people that never played Pre-AOS Ultima Online.. then again it was the first true to the title Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. For anyone who may not have had the pleasure, it has exactly what everyone wants in a game RIGHT NOW other than dazzling graphics.
1. Noobs could catch up to veterans because 'gear' was nothing more than metal or cloth fashioned into equipment. There was nothing magical about it, no hidden properties that made you stronger than the next guy wearing Chainmail armor. Skills meant something but it didn't take years for a new character to max out the right skills and become easily pvp viable. Strength used to lie in numbers rather than who abused the system the hardest.
2. Free reign to do whatever you want, socialize, craft, build your house up, an open market, endless PVE, politics, ect.
And the best part is that it was completely balanced! Your gear didn't last forever, but hey how many times can a metal plate be struck before it's bent beyond use? I wish a developer would recreate what UO did in 3D, and if you all had experienced it I'm sure you would feel the same way.
this
It ISNT what everyone wants... I WISH you were right.
People want a "story" and for everyone to be the "hero"- They want to only rely on themselves (no dedicated crafters being essentially a class of its own) and to be gated through a linear process.
Our "Worlds" arre dead... And you can imagine what we would have had for Worlds if a AAA company used modern tech to give us this World.
I was there, and mages were OP.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
That pretty much sums it up. What's fun in a single-player or multiplayer environment isn't necessarily fun in an MMO, and vice versa. The experience of any creative or player-controllable environment changes with the density of the playerbase and the diversity of their playstyles.
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
A LOT of single player or general multiplayer games sell very well, but turning them into MMO's is a hard and arduous task.
Minecraft is successful BECAUSE it's an SP/MP game.
DayZ is successful BECAUSE of its weird server format.
Some games do much better when they stay small. That's why you like them. There's nothing MMO about it. They're worlds, but worlds can be single or multiplayer.
Try to turn either of them into an MMO, and you will have about the same situation as The Elder Scrolls Online atm.
MMO or not a mmo , it does not matter. What is showed was that people love exatly wha the op was talking about. People love exploration, freedom, building, surviving and things that are fun. Theme parks are only good for the weekend!
Grim Dawn, the next great action rpg!
http://www.grimdawn.com/
No one questioned whether it had general appeal or not, so if that was his intent that's a rather odd point to feel compelled to make, so the logical assumption is that he was using it to reinforce that Minecraft and DayZ gameplay would have mainstream appeal in an MMO. If that is a false assumption, then it would be good if the OP stopped by to clarify that.
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
There's no contradiction between exploration, freedom, and themeparks.
Zelda is a themepark.
99% of games are themeparks.
Good luck; hope you're right, no I won't donate.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
As opposed to the millions playing and buying theme parks?
Yeah, that doesn't show people like theme parks.
Additionally I don't see what is the reason for exploration, freedom, building and surviving can't be in theme parks other than people idolizing a genre that hasn't exactly delivered a gigantic hit yet and then blaming the others for the non-existance of that hit.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders