Yes, you *could* solo if you wanted to. Most people chose not to, and even more people chose to make custom builds that didn't lend themselves well to soloing tougher mobs, but worked great in groups.
Nice...I chose not to solo in SWTOR, a game that basically is a SRPG. Your point isnt that you dont have a choice, the point is that you now play as if you dont. Many of the games back then were as easy as they are now...the only thing that has changed is that there are more whiney players.
I'm not following your comment at all. I'm saying that SWG and other sandbox games had solo gameplay, if that is what you wanted, but there was much more emphasis through game mechanics and the type of people who play sandboxes, toward grouping. The game itself, prior to NGE, was designed with grouping first, and solo second, unlike today's games. Even crafters had to build relationships with othe crafters to trade parts for high-end crafted items. I don't recall *anyone* using the term "forced grouping" back then either. It was actually fun. Forced grouping is a term anti-social players use to demonstrate the fact that they should actually be playing SRPGs instead of MMORPGs.
Lot's of people chose to solo in SWG, or more likely, to have a character they could solo with, and another character that was more community oriented. In fact, much of the early content in the open gaming world was not solo friendly. Going to Dathomir by yourself in the early days before speeders were added the game was practically suicide. One Nightsister witch spawned on you, and you were toast.
As the WoW mindset started to sweep the game with the CU and later the NGE, obviously this all changed.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Count me in the crowd who sees the future as a hybrid of themepark and sandbox. I don't see pure sandboxes being anything more than niche and I don't see more themparks excelling either.
Many people want some form of purpose and direction when they play a game and therefore I feel some form of quest system is needed. What you don't need however is a system that leads you around by the nose, and one in which you can't go into this zone or that zone until you reach a certain level.
I do look at GW2 as that shining star that is pointing in the right direction. I do think there is more that can be done however, and I think the next wave of MMO's will use GW2 as a basis and progress from there.
Yes, you *could* solo if you wanted to. Most people chose not to, and even more people chose to make custom builds that didn't lend themselves well to soloing tougher mobs, but worked great in groups.
Nice...I chose not to solo in SWTOR, a game that basically is a SRPG. Your point isnt that you dont have a choice, the point is that you now play as if you dont. Many of the games back then were as easy as they are now...the only thing that has changed is that there are more whiney players.
I'm not following your comment at all. I'm saying that SWG and other sandbox games had solo gameplay, if that is what you wanted, but there was much more emphasis through game mechanics and the type of people who play sandboxes, toward grouping. The game itself, prior to NGE, was designed with grouping first, and solo second, unlike today's games. Even crafters had to build relationships with othe crafters to trade parts for high-end crafted items. I don't recall *anyone* using the term "forced grouping" back then either. It was actually fun. Forced grouping is a term anti-social players use to demonstrate the fact that they should actually be playing SRPGs instead of MMORPGs.
Lot's of people chose to solo in SWG, or more likely, to have a character they could solo with, and another character that was more community oriented.
You just contradicted your other post where you were trying to counter what I said with the idea that you have no choice but solo in todays game and that back in the good old days you had a choice.
You can solo or group in any MMO is the point im making, nothing has changed in that aspect. The past is viewed with rose colored glasses far too often...and thats coming from someone that still looks back at AC1 as the best MMO ever made.
Sorry but there is no middle ground for GW2, it has no sandbox features whatsoever. Other than that I thought it was a good article. Obviously if you read between the lines the media knows a sandbox game is coming soon for the masses.
There really is no point in discussing this, if certain condifions do not change. For example, the people investing money into mmo development, aka the publishers or "suits", need to actually want "more", better games, and not be satisfied anymore with just good initial box sales. There is obviously a reason there are and were so many themepark mmo clones: They do sell, and apparently generate "enough" money.
But...just like in RL, there has to happen something terrible first, before things change. Which brings us to SWTOR...despite lots of time, lots of money and lots of talent, it apparently does not make enoough money...SWTOR marks the death of "traditional" themepark mmos.
These days, the only way of having at least a chance to be successful on a long term basis, is to not to follow trends anymore, but to set them yourself. Be creative, be new, be fresh. Arena Net and others obviously understoodd this some years ago.
Good article and some good points, I agrree, I think the market is tired of themeparks, and a sandbox model could do well. However I think there is one thing that needs to be divorced from the sandbox model, and that is full on open world PvP. I know everyone loves to hearken back to the good old "Ultima Online" days and thinks that sandbox needs to be like that, but it is just not the case. When you make a game of any style have forced open world PvP you immediatly lose subscribers. Anyone who has no interest in PvP is probably going to stop even looking at the game. You also lose some PvPers who don't live for 24/7 PvP and being able to loot (or lose) things when they are defeated. So the moment you make your game have this style of PvP design, you have already set your game up to have a limited playerbase.
Despite the popular urban myth, most players don't just need to try PvP to just LOOOOVE it. Most of these players have tried and have not liked it. if you eat salmon and think it is disgusting, chances are eating it again will yield the same result. Maybe on some rare occasions the first experience was poor (ie PvP was crap or the salmon was cooked poorly) but those are the exception I think. So when a game has forced PvP, this players choices are 1: Play it and hate it, or 2: Not play it.
Now I am not saying that PvP should not exist. It can even be open world, but there needs to be a consensual method to it. Maybe that is a dedicated PvP server ruleset where you are PvP enabled 24/7. Maybe it is a PvP toggle switch where you can turn it on. The point is there needs to be a choice to PvP.
The biggest argmenent against this that I usually hear is "but then NO ONE would be around to PvP if you made a server or switch!". That really is not a fault of the game design, that is peoples playstyle choice. Really, if you compare a game with forced PvP and one that allows a toggle or a server you end up with nearly the same amount of players to PvP with. In the game with forced Pvp you have just never seen the non Pvpers in the game world, just the few that like that playstyle. Most likely the server population is not bursting at the seams either. But in a game with a toggle you do see these players, and some folks get real angry when they can't attack these players when they are questing or harvesting or whatever.
So I would like to see themepark design come back, but only if it leaves behind this relic from the Ultima Online days. PvP should be a choice beyond "get the game or don't".
I think what has occurred with SWTOR and the inability of other themeparks to mimic WoW's success will really only (potentially) see an end to companies throwing astronomical sums at substandard products in order to push an IP.
Whether that leads to a sandbox revival or an age of hybrids is not really that clear, but seems a bit wishful thinking. Instead the traditional AAA dev/pubs will more then likely merely risk less capital and turn out games looking to churn players and make profit from box sales and microtransaction top ups.
It would certainly be nice to think that longevity, a game world and a sense of community might be returning to the genre, we can but hope.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Originally posted by Mephster Sorry but there is no middle ground for GW2, it has no sandbox features whatsoever. Other than that I thought it was a good article. Obviously if you read between the lines the media knows a sandbox game is coming soon for the masses.
I think of GW2 as a themepark without rails. Sure, there's level progression, but you choose your own path to get there and you can always go back without obsoleting the earlier content.
I think SWG had little to nothing to do with the the demise of Sandbox games.
The demise was more likely for the following reasons:
1. The failure of Shadowbane - 3 years of beta, tons of promise, lots of hype which delivered a pretty good game that very few would play because of AO like stability problems.
2. Horizons Another sandbox game with dynamic events that actually changed the world. Players could teunnel under mountains to get to new areas, build bridges to islands that could not be reached. Horizons was a wonderful crafting game but failed miserably because of an unfinished adventure game along with stability issues.
3. WoW - Wow upped the bar considerably in regards to what was expected in terms of quality and the amount of conten required t at release. Additionally. they changed the style of gameplay for MMOs switching to quest directed gameplay. With quest directed gameplay being a staple of MMOs and quality and content expectations rising it changed the model of what a sandbox could release with. Sandboxes depend on player content but because MMOs are suddenly expected to include more at release it made it very difficult for a AAA MMO to release with polish and content expected along with sandbox elements.
4. Vanguard - Nort a pure sandbox game but its scope, size and many features is quite similar to what we would expect from a sandbox. The last AAA MMO that decided to go "big." By "Big" I use Scott Hartsman's definition of "big."Which is making a large horizontal game. Vanguard released with 19 races, 16 classes. complicated crafting with hosue building, 4 zones for each level range. large amount of dungeons for leveling up, 4 different inventoriey screens for crafting, harvesting, advetuting and diplomacy, a 3rd tier of gameplay diplomacy along with a massive huge world. Vanguard was simply over ambitious. The rule of thumb is one cannot go big and deliver anything close to a polished product with quality content at release. There simply is not enough time nor money for a developer to do so. What has happened since is Devs realized that to have quality and polish one has to have a very narrow content release and then hope to grow horizontally like what Rift did. Vanguard's death pretty much closed the chance of a a AAA game going big."
A game like AA with $50 million of funding has the chance to change these perceptions as it relases in the East 1st to a more patient market that will make longer than America's we want it all now market. The game will have a chance to grow a year a two before entering the west. There is a chance it could redefine the perception of sandbox viability. But I think its an exception given its logistics releasing in the East first.
But in regards to the OPs article I think he is clearly off base. SWG had little to nothing to do with Sandbox's demise.
Certainly ToR's demise might open development up for more sandbox type elements. But again the OP misses the problem and I will add this belatedly as the 5th problem.
5. The problem is the player. Players have changed. Western players no longer have the patience to play games that are complex, unpolished, are not easy to pick up and play out of the box and do not keep them constatly entertained.
Besides a game like AA that will receive the larger share of its funding from the East I do not see a sandbox game surviving in the Western market unless its a low budget niche game.
Originally posted by Mephster Sorry but there is no middle ground for GW2, it has no sandbox features whatsoever. Other than that I thought it was a good article. Obviously if you read between the lines the media knows a sandbox game is coming soon for the masses.
A sandbox game designed for the masses would be a disappointment to current sandbox fans. That's part of the problem with current theme park games, they're designed for the masses.
It would be a whole new set of complaints on these forums though, so there's that at least.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Count me in the crowd who sees the future as a hybrid of themepark and sandbox. I don't see pure sandboxes being anything more than niche and I don't see more themparks excelling either.
Many people want some form of purpose and direction when they play a game and therefore I feel some form of quest system is needed. What you don't need however is a system that leads you around by the nose, and one in which you can't go into this zone or that zone until you reach a certain level.
I do look at GW2 as that shining star that is pointing in the right direction. I do think there is more that can be done however, and I think the next wave of MMO's will use GW2 as a basis and progress from there.
I agree. I really hope GW2 is the new "WoW" in terms of redefining the genre and having games "grow" from what it brings to the table. If it does we're in for some great games. I hope.
If the concept of the "MMORPG" is going to survive at all, it has to move away from purely developer-generated content. Modern MMO's take 4-5 years to create, and the playerbase rips through the all the "content" in 2 months at most. So the developer has to rely on initial box sales and 1 or 2 months of subs (or Cash Shop sales) for the bulk of their revenue. That's simply not financially viable.
I appreciate the article, Mike, I don't necessarily agree with it - but I appreciate it.
Firstly, for the industry to change their approach, it's not enough when players call a game a "failure", gamers are much too fast with that word anyway. It's also not enough that EA calls SWTOR a "miss", that means that the game doesn't met their financial expectations. Whether the game was also a "failure" from a financial point of view is only known to EA (and probably LucasArt).
But the industry will certainly not forget that the game sold 2.4 million copies in it's first 3 or 4 months. That's a massive number and a massive potential for revenue. Sure, like other games before SWTOR, it couldn't hold that number of paying players for long (and neither will GW2) but it still generated a very nice chunk of money (and with digital distribution getting ever more popular ever more of that money goes directly to the publisher).
You say, that themepark games don't really work - and I agree. They don't work for a long time, but in the market they do work, just only for a limited time. And I suspect that both the casual gamer and the industry aren't that much interested in a long term game anyway. For the industry as a whole it's much better that people play a game for 3 months and then buy another one: there's more revenue in that style than in buying one game and staying with it for a year.
Thus I can't see one of the big publishers taking the risk to put a sandbox into that market - because I can't see that a sandbox will sell that amount of copies in so short a time. I think the industry will solve the problem in another way - they will still make themeparks with a lifetime of 3 or 4 months: they will just produce the games cheaper - by producing in other countries, by cutting features, by making the game shorter, by saving on voice actors, by offering the game only via digital distribution.
(As to GW2 representing a middle-ground between themepark and sandbox I completely disagree. I cannot see a single sandboxy feature in GW2, thus for it being sandboxy one would have to completely redefine what a sandbox is.)
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
Only correction I found was "Iff" third paragraph from bottom.
I think the next step forward beyond GW2 will be for Archage or The Repopulation to make. It has to be a hybrid "sandpark". Capture the adventure and endless possibilities from the old school games, but leave room for casual enjoyment. If I can only sneak away for a couple hours every few days to play, I don't want to feel that it's pointless because I've fallen too far behind the 12hr/daily crowd.
Build the world open, and vast. I want to have the opportunity to get lost for a couple hours- on accident or by intention. It's all about persistence and the feeling that my actions have a lasting impact on surroundings, not just: dimension 1, instance 4, for the next two minutes.
I could go on and on, maybe later. Again, nice article MikeB.
I don't really think themeparks are dead. GW2 is a themepark in every sense of the word and it has every indication of being a success. I do think there is an untapped market for sandbox games out there (however right now no company has yet to put in enough anti-griefing measures to make one popular).
I think what there is no longer a market for is WoW style combat and quest hub gameplay. People simply aren't looking for that anymore. What started with Warhammer and was improved on with Rift and now is shown in pretty much full blown action in GW2 really makes one hate the quest hub style of gameplay. Simply copying WoW's primary features hasn't been working for years and I think developers are finally starting to get the memo.
The business model of needing to pay a subscription fee is also starting to wear thin on some people. It's hard to justify paying $15 a month when more and more AAA titles are moving away from the sub model and switching to F2P or B2P. It's becoming increasingly more evident that bandwidth, maintence, and content updates aren't as expensive as they were years ago and that developers can seek alternate forms of revenue without ruining the gameplay experience.
The business model of needing to pay a subscription fee is also starting to wear thin on some people. It's hard to justify paying $15 a month when more and more AAA titles are moving away from the sub model and switching to F2P or B2P. It's becoming increasingly more evident that bandwidth, maintence, and content updates aren't as expensive as they were years ago and that developers can seek alternate forms of revenue without ruining the gameplay experience.
I would gladly pay a $15 sub if/when I find such a game again that lasts me beyond the free month.
"[The Secret World], at least to me, represents a sort of middle ground between the two subgenres. The game features a fully developer driven content pipeline, but the underlying game design and functionality of the event system inspires the same sort of wanderlust players often feel when playing a sandbox game. Events are repeatable and may even branch off in different ways and the experience earned from these events will be useful to players even at level cap. This is no doubt a very expensive and challenging form of delivering content to players, but it may serve as the beginnings of a renaissance of sandbox games that we may see over the next couple of years."
Nope, doesn't work.
"Loading screens" are not "instances". Your personal efforts to troll any game will not, in fact, impact the success or failure of said game.
Yes, you *could* solo if you wanted to. Most people chose not to, and even more people chose to make custom builds that didn't lend themselves well to soloing tougher mobs, but worked great in groups.
Nice...I chose not to solo in SWTOR, a game that basically is a SRPG. Your point isnt that you dont have a choice, the point is that you now play as if you dont. Many of the games back then were as easy as they are now...the only thing that has changed is that there are more whiney players.
I'm not following your comment at all. I'm saying that SWG and other sandbox games had solo gameplay, if that is what you wanted, but there was much more emphasis through game mechanics and the type of people who play sandboxes, toward grouping. The game itself, prior to NGE, was designed with grouping first, and solo second, unlike today's games. Even crafters had to build relationships with othe crafters to trade parts for high-end crafted items. I don't recall *anyone* using the term "forced grouping" back then either. It was actually fun. Forced grouping is a term anti-social players use to demonstrate the fact that they should actually be playing SRPGs instead of MMORPGs.
Lot's of people chose to solo in SWG, or more likely, to have a character they could solo with, and another character that was more community oriented.
You just contradicted your other post where you were trying to counter what I said with the idea that you have no choice but solo in todays game and that back in the good old days you had a choice.
You can solo or group in any MMO is the point im making, nothing has changed in that aspect. The past is viewed with rose colored glasses far too often...and thats coming from someone that still looks back at AC1 as the best MMO ever made.
I never, ever said you had no choice but to solo in the newer games. What I said was the games are designed with solo play to be the norm. You can argue against that all you want, but you will be wrong. I'm not contradicting anything I said earlier. I'm likely contradicting what you thought I said.
Find a sentence in any post I have made on this site since 2007 that states my belief that people MUST solo to play a modern themepark. I have always said that these games FOSTER or encourage solo gameplay either intentionally or otherwise, and often DISCOURAGE grouping through game mechanics such as story quests where your character is the center of the universe, and lack positive feedback for grouping (such as a small XP boost for groups).
To state that you *must* solo, as in there being no other choice, would be a ludicrous assertion that I have never made.
I'm not sure I can break this down for you any further, or that you would read anything other than what you want to read even if I did.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
I think what we're starting to see is actually a new mixture of the two (and I think this will continue). I still don't think the sandbox purists will be seeing the games they seem to be expecting.
I definitely think we're going to see an increase of player-generated content, but it's going to be within a world that also has clear goals and systems. In the end I don't think we're going to have games that totally are sandboxes or themeparks, but rather a sort of hybrid that takes the best aspects of both.
A good article. I do not, however, agree with this statement: "Guild Wars 2, at least to me, represents a sort of middle ground between the two subgenres."
In my eyes, Guild Wars 2 is the culmination of the themepark. Go around and experience the rides, no particular order is needed. Go through them once, twice, however many times you feel like it. A sandbox, on the other hand, will always involve the CREATION of content by the players themselves. The events in Guild Wars 2 are scripted regardless if they branch or not. The content is not created, but made use of by the players. And since we are discussing massively multiplayer gaming, I do very much believe that content creation by the players in a sandbox-style game should very much affect other players as well.
A vastly more appropriate middle ground between the two subgenres was also mentioned in your article: ArcheAge. The game combines the linearity of themeparks with the freedom of sandboxes.
I'm not sure the author actually played SWG at its Launch. If he did, then he'd know that WoW did not kill SWG, SWG fell on its sword right out of the gate.
I can't begin to list the amount of SERIOUS database bugs and corruptions (item loss, entire inventory item loss? Dupe bugs?) and server instability that existed for the first year, and up until the NGE change-over. The servers needed to be rebooted once every 24 hours just to prevent database corruption.
The reason? Their unique item creation system overloaded the database. Every item had its own database identifier code, and while it was a bit more complicated than that, the short of it was that the database could nto keep up. That's why there was so much lag while travelling around, especially as houses became filled with junk, because the server had to load all those unique items whenever a player came within range. The SWG devs were a victim of their own unique "travel bubble" technology.
Not to mention the profession imbalances that results in "god-mode" builds, the 4 month development of the space "mini-game" that was "phoned in" and bland, but hard-coded by its designing Dev to never be improved. ( Worth mentioning that through some magical talent that they recruited late in the game, that wrote tools to get around the problem, JTL was becoming something fun.)
SWG was a piece of crap from the time it launched, until the time it died. It was doomed from Day 1 of Launch. Its "sandbox" design was the only thing that kept subscriptions. People need to realize that, because all anyone really remembers or talks about, is how fun it was to play an immortal character that couldn't be killed. (no not Jedi, the non-Jedi god-mode builds)
I do agree that SWTOR had a chance to recover the "sandbox" design and suck in the now dislocated SWG fans, but their choice of a linear themepark was a wrong move. I can't count how many times I've heard "its a single player game with a lot of people running around you" comments from all of my friends. I felt that way too, it felt like I was stuck in a cattle chute, as I leveled my character.
I do believe that the persistent world community is really hungry, for a sandbox game. The only problem, is that there have been, and still are, other games out there TRYING to make the sandbox work, but no one has heard of them because they don't have Hollywood IPs and the gaming media just doesn't bother to cover them.
What are these games? Do your own legwork and look around. There are some nice little sandbox games out there, they just aren't Star Wars.
I think GW2 is finding a good middle ground between the two in whih it can hopefully add more sandbox features. Something along the lines of guild controlled keeps or towns in WvW. Regardless typically "sandbox" style content is harder for casual gamers to break into making them less likely to play sandbox style games.
The Great thing about GW2 from a sandboxers perspective is, they haven't totaly boxed in their own design. They seem like the kind of dev house that at least is up front and tries to listen to what players are saying. and the hope is they can shift with the player demands and industry trends better then say,Bioware or SOE or even blizzard.
I heard mention of some form of housing down the road in GW2. I think anet (unlike the other themeparks) has the talent to mix hybrid sandbox elements were say, bioware for example, has a game that is designed with so many limatations in the MMOs framework. it would take a complete re-wrtite of the engine to shift with player trends/demands with additional sandbox features.
I'm holding out judegment on archage. it does look pretty and some of the videos are very appealing. but I might be a little xenophobic sadly when it comes to asian MMOs. I like asian culture and people but the games they make I hold off on and keep a close eye before I buy..
Comments
I'm not following your comment at all. I'm saying that SWG and other sandbox games had solo gameplay, if that is what you wanted, but there was much more emphasis through game mechanics and the type of people who play sandboxes, toward grouping. The game itself, prior to NGE, was designed with grouping first, and solo second, unlike today's games. Even crafters had to build relationships with othe crafters to trade parts for high-end crafted items. I don't recall *anyone* using the term "forced grouping" back then either. It was actually fun. Forced grouping is a term anti-social players use to demonstrate the fact that they should actually be playing SRPGs instead of MMORPGs.
Lot's of people chose to solo in SWG, or more likely, to have a character they could solo with, and another character that was more community oriented. In fact, much of the early content in the open gaming world was not solo friendly. Going to Dathomir by yourself in the early days before speeders were added the game was practically suicide. One Nightsister witch spawned on you, and you were toast.
As the WoW mindset started to sweep the game with the CU and later the NGE, obviously this all changed.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Count me in the crowd who sees the future as a hybrid of themepark and sandbox. I don't see pure sandboxes being anything more than niche and I don't see more themparks excelling either.
Many people want some form of purpose and direction when they play a game and therefore I feel some form of quest system is needed. What you don't need however is a system that leads you around by the nose, and one in which you can't go into this zone or that zone until you reach a certain level.
I do look at GW2 as that shining star that is pointing in the right direction. I do think there is more that can be done however, and I think the next wave of MMO's will use GW2 as a basis and progress from there.
You just contradicted your other post where you were trying to counter what I said with the idea that you have no choice but solo in todays game and that back in the good old days you had a choice.
You can solo or group in any MMO is the point im making, nothing has changed in that aspect. The past is viewed with rose colored glasses far too often...and thats coming from someone that still looks back at AC1 as the best MMO ever made.
___________________________
Have flask; will travel.
Grim Dawn, the next great action rpg!
http://www.grimdawn.com/
There really is no point in discussing this, if certain condifions do not change. For example, the people investing money into mmo development, aka the publishers or "suits", need to actually want "more", better games, and not be satisfied anymore with just good initial box sales. There is obviously a reason there are and were so many themepark mmo clones: They do sell, and apparently generate "enough" money.
But...just like in RL, there has to happen something terrible first, before things change. Which brings us to SWTOR...despite lots of time, lots of money and lots of talent, it apparently does not make enoough money...SWTOR marks the death of "traditional" themepark mmos.
These days, the only way of having at least a chance to be successful on a long term basis, is to not to follow trends anymore, but to set them yourself. Be creative, be new, be fresh. Arena Net and others obviously understoodd this some years ago.
Good article and some good points, I agrree, I think the market is tired of themeparks, and a sandbox model could do well. However I think there is one thing that needs to be divorced from the sandbox model, and that is full on open world PvP. I know everyone loves to hearken back to the good old "Ultima Online" days and thinks that sandbox needs to be like that, but it is just not the case. When you make a game of any style have forced open world PvP you immediatly lose subscribers. Anyone who has no interest in PvP is probably going to stop even looking at the game. You also lose some PvPers who don't live for 24/7 PvP and being able to loot (or lose) things when they are defeated. So the moment you make your game have this style of PvP design, you have already set your game up to have a limited playerbase.
Despite the popular urban myth, most players don't just need to try PvP to just LOOOOVE it. Most of these players have tried and have not liked it. if you eat salmon and think it is disgusting, chances are eating it again will yield the same result. Maybe on some rare occasions the first experience was poor (ie PvP was crap or the salmon was cooked poorly) but those are the exception I think. So when a game has forced PvP, this players choices are 1: Play it and hate it, or 2: Not play it.
Now I am not saying that PvP should not exist. It can even be open world, but there needs to be a consensual method to it. Maybe that is a dedicated PvP server ruleset where you are PvP enabled 24/7. Maybe it is a PvP toggle switch where you can turn it on. The point is there needs to be a choice to PvP.
The biggest argmenent against this that I usually hear is "but then NO ONE would be around to PvP if you made a server or switch!". That really is not a fault of the game design, that is peoples playstyle choice. Really, if you compare a game with forced PvP and one that allows a toggle or a server you end up with nearly the same amount of players to PvP with. In the game with forced Pvp you have just never seen the non Pvpers in the game world, just the few that like that playstyle. Most likely the server population is not bursting at the seams either. But in a game with a toggle you do see these players, and some folks get real angry when they can't attack these players when they are questing or harvesting or whatever.
So I would like to see themepark design come back, but only if it leaves behind this relic from the Ultima Online days. PvP should be a choice beyond "get the game or don't".
I think what has occurred with SWTOR and the inability of other themeparks to mimic WoW's success will really only (potentially) see an end to companies throwing astronomical sums at substandard products in order to push an IP.
Whether that leads to a sandbox revival or an age of hybrids is not really that clear, but seems a bit wishful thinking. Instead the traditional AAA dev/pubs will more then likely merely risk less capital and turn out games looking to churn players and make profit from box sales and microtransaction top ups.
It would certainly be nice to think that longevity, a game world and a sense of community might be returning to the genre, we can but hope.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
I think of GW2 as a themepark without rails. Sure, there's level progression, but you choose your own path to get there and you can always go back without obsoleting the earlier content.
Oderint, dum metuant.
I think SWG had little to nothing to do with the the demise of Sandbox games.
The demise was more likely for the following reasons:
1. The failure of Shadowbane - 3 years of beta, tons of promise, lots of hype which delivered a pretty good game that very few would play because of AO like stability problems.
2. Horizons Another sandbox game with dynamic events that actually changed the world. Players could teunnel under mountains to get to new areas, build bridges to islands that could not be reached. Horizons was a wonderful crafting game but failed miserably because of an unfinished adventure game along with stability issues.
3. WoW - Wow upped the bar considerably in regards to what was expected in terms of quality and the amount of conten required t at release. Additionally. they changed the style of gameplay for MMOs switching to quest directed gameplay. With quest directed gameplay being a staple of MMOs and quality and content expectations rising it changed the model of what a sandbox could release with. Sandboxes depend on player content but because MMOs are suddenly expected to include more at release it made it very difficult for a AAA MMO to release with polish and content expected along with sandbox elements.
4. Vanguard - Nort a pure sandbox game but its scope, size and many features is quite similar to what we would expect from a sandbox. The last AAA MMO that decided to go "big." By "Big" I use Scott Hartsman's definition of "big."Which is making a large horizontal game. Vanguard released with 19 races, 16 classes. complicated crafting with hosue building, 4 zones for each level range. large amount of dungeons for leveling up, 4 different inventoriey screens for crafting, harvesting, advetuting and diplomacy, a 3rd tier of gameplay diplomacy along with a massive huge world. Vanguard was simply over ambitious. The rule of thumb is one cannot go big and deliver anything close to a polished product with quality content at release. There simply is not enough time nor money for a developer to do so. What has happened since is Devs realized that to have quality and polish one has to have a very narrow content release and then hope to grow horizontally like what Rift did. Vanguard's death pretty much closed the chance of a a AAA game going big."
A game like AA with $50 million of funding has the chance to change these perceptions as it relases in the East 1st to a more patient market that will make longer than America's we want it all now market. The game will have a chance to grow a year a two before entering the west. There is a chance it could redefine the perception of sandbox viability. But I think its an exception given its logistics releasing in the East first.
But in regards to the OPs article I think he is clearly off base. SWG had little to nothing to do with Sandbox's demise.
Certainly ToR's demise might open development up for more sandbox type elements. But again the OP misses the problem and I will add this belatedly as the 5th problem.
5. The problem is the player. Players have changed. Western players no longer have the patience to play games that are complex, unpolished, are not easy to pick up and play out of the box and do not keep them constatly entertained.
Besides a game like AA that will receive the larger share of its funding from the East I do not see a sandbox game surviving in the Western market unless its a low budget niche game.
A sandbox game designed for the masses would be a disappointment to current sandbox fans. That's part of the problem with current theme park games, they're designed for the masses.
It would be a whole new set of complaints on these forums though, so there's that at least.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I agree. I really hope GW2 is the new "WoW" in terms of redefining the genre and having games "grow" from what it brings to the table. If it does we're in for some great games. I hope.
I appreciate the article, Mike, I don't necessarily agree with it - but I appreciate it.
Firstly, for the industry to change their approach, it's not enough when players call a game a "failure", gamers are much too fast with that word anyway. It's also not enough that EA calls SWTOR a "miss", that means that the game doesn't met their financial expectations. Whether the game was also a "failure" from a financial point of view is only known to EA (and probably LucasArt).
But the industry will certainly not forget that the game sold 2.4 million copies in it's first 3 or 4 months. That's a massive number and a massive potential for revenue. Sure, like other games before SWTOR, it couldn't hold that number of paying players for long (and neither will GW2) but it still generated a very nice chunk of money (and with digital distribution getting ever more popular ever more of that money goes directly to the publisher).
You say, that themepark games don't really work - and I agree. They don't work for a long time, but in the market they do work, just only for a limited time. And I suspect that both the casual gamer and the industry aren't that much interested in a long term game anyway. For the industry as a whole it's much better that people play a game for 3 months and then buy another one: there's more revenue in that style than in buying one game and staying with it for a year.
Thus I can't see one of the big publishers taking the risk to put a sandbox into that market - because I can't see that a sandbox will sell that amount of copies in so short a time. I think the industry will solve the problem in another way - they will still make themeparks with a lifetime of 3 or 4 months: they will just produce the games cheaper - by producing in other countries, by cutting features, by making the game shorter, by saving on voice actors, by offering the game only via digital distribution.
(As to GW2 representing a middle-ground between themepark and sandbox I completely disagree. I cannot see a single sandboxy feature in GW2, thus for it being sandboxy one would have to completely redefine what a sandbox is.)
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
Great article MikeB, really well written!
Only correction I found was "Iff" third paragraph from bottom.
I think the next step forward beyond GW2 will be for Archage or The Repopulation to make. It has to be a hybrid "sandpark". Capture the adventure and endless possibilities from the old school games, but leave room for casual enjoyment. If I can only sneak away for a couple hours every few days to play, I don't want to feel that it's pointless because I've fallen too far behind the 12hr/daily crowd.
Build the world open, and vast. I want to have the opportunity to get lost for a couple hours- on accident or by intention. It's all about persistence and the feeling that my actions have a lasting impact on surroundings, not just: dimension 1, instance 4, for the next two minutes.
I could go on and on, maybe later. Again, nice article MikeB.
I don't really think themeparks are dead. GW2 is a themepark in every sense of the word and it has every indication of being a success. I do think there is an untapped market for sandbox games out there (however right now no company has yet to put in enough anti-griefing measures to make one popular).
I think what there is no longer a market for is WoW style combat and quest hub gameplay. People simply aren't looking for that anymore. What started with Warhammer and was improved on with Rift and now is shown in pretty much full blown action in GW2 really makes one hate the quest hub style of gameplay. Simply copying WoW's primary features hasn't been working for years and I think developers are finally starting to get the memo.
The business model of needing to pay a subscription fee is also starting to wear thin on some people. It's hard to justify paying $15 a month when more and more AAA titles are moving away from the sub model and switching to F2P or B2P. It's becoming increasingly more evident that bandwidth, maintence, and content updates aren't as expensive as they were years ago and that developers can seek alternate forms of revenue without ruining the gameplay experience.
I would gladly pay a $15 sub if/when I find such a game again that lasts me beyond the free month.
Let's try an experiment:
"[The Secret World], at least to me, represents a sort of middle ground between the two subgenres. The game features a fully developer driven content pipeline, but the underlying game design and functionality of the event system inspires the same sort of wanderlust players often feel when playing a sandbox game. Events are repeatable and may even branch off in different ways and the experience earned from these events will be useful to players even at level cap. This is no doubt a very expensive and challenging form of delivering content to players, but it may serve as the beginnings of a renaissance of sandbox games that we may see over the next couple of years."
Nope, doesn't work.
"Loading screens" are not "instances".
Your personal efforts to troll any game will not, in fact, impact the success or failure of said game.
I never, ever said you had no choice but to solo in the newer games. What I said was the games are designed with solo play to be the norm. You can argue against that all you want, but you will be wrong. I'm not contradicting anything I said earlier. I'm likely contradicting what you thought I said.
Find a sentence in any post I have made on this site since 2007 that states my belief that people MUST solo to play a modern themepark. I have always said that these games FOSTER or encourage solo gameplay either intentionally or otherwise, and often DISCOURAGE grouping through game mechanics such as story quests where your character is the center of the universe, and lack positive feedback for grouping (such as a small XP boost for groups).
To state that you *must* solo, as in there being no other choice, would be a ludicrous assertion that I have never made.
I'm not sure I can break this down for you any further, or that you would read anything other than what you want to read even if I did.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
I think what we're starting to see is actually a new mixture of the two (and I think this will continue). I still don't think the sandbox purists will be seeing the games they seem to be expecting.
I definitely think we're going to see an increase of player-generated content, but it's going to be within a world that also has clear goals and systems. In the end I don't think we're going to have games that totally are sandboxes or themeparks, but rather a sort of hybrid that takes the best aspects of both.
A good article. I do not, however, agree with this statement: "Guild Wars 2, at least to me, represents a sort of middle ground between the two subgenres."
In my eyes, Guild Wars 2 is the culmination of the themepark. Go around and experience the rides, no particular order is needed. Go through them once, twice, however many times you feel like it. A sandbox, on the other hand, will always involve the CREATION of content by the players themselves. The events in Guild Wars 2 are scripted regardless if they branch or not. The content is not created, but made use of by the players. And since we are discussing massively multiplayer gaming, I do very much believe that content creation by the players in a sandbox-style game should very much affect other players as well.
A vastly more appropriate middle ground between the two subgenres was also mentioned in your article: ArcheAge. The game combines the linearity of themeparks with the freedom of sandboxes.
I'm not sure the author actually played SWG at its Launch. If he did, then he'd know that WoW did not kill SWG, SWG fell on its sword right out of the gate.
I can't begin to list the amount of SERIOUS database bugs and corruptions (item loss, entire inventory item loss? Dupe bugs?) and server instability that existed for the first year, and up until the NGE change-over. The servers needed to be rebooted once every 24 hours just to prevent database corruption.
The reason? Their unique item creation system overloaded the database. Every item had its own database identifier code, and while it was a bit more complicated than that, the short of it was that the database could nto keep up. That's why there was so much lag while travelling around, especially as houses became filled with junk, because the server had to load all those unique items whenever a player came within range. The SWG devs were a victim of their own unique "travel bubble" technology.
Not to mention the profession imbalances that results in "god-mode" builds, the 4 month development of the space "mini-game" that was "phoned in" and bland, but hard-coded by its designing Dev to never be improved. ( Worth mentioning that through some magical talent that they recruited late in the game, that wrote tools to get around the problem, JTL was becoming something fun.)
SWG was a piece of crap from the time it launched, until the time it died. It was doomed from Day 1 of Launch. Its "sandbox" design was the only thing that kept subscriptions. People need to realize that, because all anyone really remembers or talks about, is how fun it was to play an immortal character that couldn't be killed. (no not Jedi, the non-Jedi god-mode builds)
I do agree that SWTOR had a chance to recover the "sandbox" design and suck in the now dislocated SWG fans, but their choice of a linear themepark was a wrong move. I can't count how many times I've heard "its a single player game with a lot of people running around you" comments from all of my friends. I felt that way too, it felt like I was stuck in a cattle chute, as I leveled my character.
I do believe that the persistent world community is really hungry, for a sandbox game. The only problem, is that there have been, and still are, other games out there TRYING to make the sandbox work, but no one has heard of them because they don't have Hollywood IPs and the gaming media just doesn't bother to cover them.
What are these games? Do your own legwork and look around. There are some nice little sandbox games out there, they just aren't Star Wars.
Scoobin it up on the daily.
The Great thing about GW2 from a sandboxers perspective is, they haven't totaly boxed in their own design. They seem like the kind of dev house that at least is up front and tries to listen to what players are saying. and the hope is they can shift with the player demands and industry trends better then say,Bioware or SOE or even blizzard.
I heard mention of some form of housing down the road in GW2. I think anet (unlike the other themeparks) has the talent to mix hybrid sandbox elements were say, bioware for example, has a game that is designed with so many limatations in the MMOs framework. it would take a complete re-wrtite of the engine to shift with player trends/demands with additional sandbox features.
I'm holding out judegment on archage. it does look pretty and some of the videos are very appealing. but I might be a little xenophobic sadly when it comes to asian MMOs. I like asian culture and people but the games they make I hold off on and keep a close eye before I buy..