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Cant you have sandbox co-op, non-pvp?
Mimzel
Member UncommonPosts: 375
I can enjoy *some* themepark elements, and *some* sandbox elements. One thing that's always driven me away from sandbox games is the pvp aspect. A thing thats driven me away from most themeparks is the soloability they now have.
From recent releases I get the impression that you cant have sanbox without pvp. Is this the case? I'd love for a game to have the epicness and vastness of EVE, and the co-operation focus of more traditional mmorpgs ("themeparks").
Comments
I believe you can. But there needs to be balance. The problem I see with the FFA Pvp games out there currently is that there is nothing there to really stop people who want to take their max level and constantly fight (I use the term loosely) low levels. While the option to do so should be there there should be the opertunity to protect yourself too.
The idea i would love to see introduced is for players to be able to create their own laws in their own lands. And use those laws to control what can and cannot be alowed to take place.
A simple idea would be for a player to create a law where no one can kill another. From that they can add guards and bounty systems to allow the capture of anyone breaking the law. If caught the 'red' player must serve jail time depending no their bounty. Bounty is determined by comparing levels, frequency, items stolen etc...
The problem I always get when I suggest this kind of thing is that the people opposed don't like the idea of losing time sitting in a jail. IMO you make the crime you pay the time. Jail could even include some little mini game to occupy their time.
As a RP'er I would love such a system and it is the only reason I would ever really want to be a 'red'. I would totally accept doing jail time if I got caught in that scenario.
The problem I see is that there are far too many 'red' pvp'ers who claim to be hardcore, more skillful then carebears, pvp against another person is more exciting etc...but when you boil it down they don't want an exciting fight where the outcome is in the balance, they just want to piss someone off to get their kicks.
And the old 'players are the best deterent' is bollocks. It isn't a deterent when some arsewipe max level picks on a noob and it never is. Give the noob the tools to use the sand to defend themselves and let the 'red' players skill at avoiding capture determine how 'leet' they are.
An opinion.
No problem to have sandbox gameplay without FFA PvP. Case in point: A Tale in the Desert, Wurm (on the PvE servers), Ryzom (apart from GvG outpost battles), Istaria and others.
It's just that the few sandbox games we got in the last years mostly followed the FFA PvP route.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
Thanks for the replies, guys. It could be then that I've only noticed the latest titles that mostly have PVP. Ive only played EVE and Mortal Online which are concidered sandbox. Out of all the sandboxes its only EVE I know of that has beeen successful.
I dont know which one of them I tried, but either Ryzom or A Tale in the Desert is looking so old that I couldnt possibly play it (Im very visual). I dont suppose there has been any good sandbox games coming out the last few years that arent pvp?
Ryzom is still a pretty game. It aged very gracefully.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
in my opinion sandbox should let you kill everything that walks, NPCs, players, everywhere.
sandbox is about freedom, not silly immersion breaking restrictions
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Best MMOs ever played: Ultima, EvE, SW Galaxies, Age of Conan, The Secret World
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Killing indiscriminantly without penalty is even more immersion breaking.
Sandboxer.org
Has a list, but most of that is yet to come.
There is also a list on these forums with the latest sandbox games out now.
And FFA pvp is a huge misconception, everyone fears a sandbox due to pvp, but in all honesty, more sandboxes do without or give you a choice.
Ryzom is pretty balanced between all aspects of a mmo, I havent realy got into it myself but hear good and bad, try it for yourself.
And there are a ton of new sandboxes coming, that seem balanced and not based souly on pvp or pve alone.
it's tricky because when you dont' allow pvp you are limiting freedom, and sandboxes are all about freedom. Sandboxes are also all about player generated "content"....but the only reliable content players can constantly generate is pvp. Players simply cannot reliably create great stories, epic adventures, interesting quests lines, etc.
if you remove pvp what are people going to create? houses? cities? that's fun for about a month but then it gets boring quick.
then you are left with the problem that you have to implement quests and raids...but this starts taking you back to themepark where people are not creating, but just consuming dev's generated content.
PvP is the only wild card in sandboxes which makes them feel unpredictable and ever changing. you remove pvp and it's just a very bland fantasy Sims game with lots of tools but absolutely no direction.
The games sandboxes descended from were essentially pure PVE. In most of them, you couldn't fight other players, even by accident.
But the audience (what it morphed into) came predominantly from consoles.
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.
And when you allow PvP you are limiting freedom as well. One freedom is the freedom of the killer to kill, the other one is the freedom of the victim to live. The freedom argument is a very weak one.
You might prefer sandboxes with PvP and that's fine. I prefer them as well, playing Wurm on a PvP server. But I can see that it's very well possible to have a sandbox MMORPG without PvP, I need only point to Wurm again, this time to the PvE servers.
[Edit. typo]
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
Sure you can, PvP dosen't define 'sandbox' at all.
The A Tale in the Desert games don't even have combat and they are maybe some of the most purest examples of sandbox MMORPGs to have been made.
I think a fair number of folk have just been captured by the marketing hype of the One True Way their favorite game did/does things :shrug:
Not unusual 'round here, really.
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.
i disagree with your statement on freedom. living and dieing are both freedoms. emagine a life where you couldn't die even if you wanted......you'd feel forced to live, not free to live, because in the end you do not have the choice. in the end it all comes back to choice. a game that has more choice feels more free, even if that choice means sometimes being victim of other peoples choices. You still have the choice to do exactly what he did to you.
as for the PVE Wurm, sure it's possible, but it gets very boring when all you can do is build and destroy structures all day.
complete BS.
A sandbox is supposed to simulate reality.
In RL you could walk out of your house and get run over by a bus or stabbed by a criminal who wants to rob you.
RL=ultimate sandbox
a good sandbox game simulates this or it's just another average carebear themepark
Secrets of Dragon?s Spine Trailer.. !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwT9cFVQCMw
Best MMOs ever played: Ultima, EvE, SW Galaxies, Age of Conan, The Secret World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2X_SbZCHpc&t=21s
.
.
The Return of ELITE !
In reality when you get caught for murdering someone it is very long break for you. Create sandbox where your account will be locked for 5 years (assuming that game has 4x faster time than realisty) real time if you murdering any other player and that it will require box fee to play and then I will play it.
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Sandbox can be done without pvp or with big safe zones (aka EVE Online or Trammel in UO) or with systems severely limiting PVP (SWG). Does not have to be one giant deatchmatch like DFO or MO.
Simulate 'reality'?
Well.. ok, but that means giving the players the tools to also form a governing council (with a meaningful police force) that can set player created laws within the game and the penalities for breaking them (anything from a fine to a character lock down for how ever long they set if the PK is caught).
So... you want 'reality' to allow you to kill? Then that 'reality' also requires that you risk something for the action of killing, maybe even the loss of your character as he is sent down to do life or sent to the gas chamber while all your targets cheer and throw rotten fruit at you.
That aside though, there are obviously very different models of sandbox out there and to call one of them ' complete BS' when they have actually been already made (A Tale in the Desert etc) seems... churlish.
Or are you saying ATitD isn't a sandbox MMORPG?
I agree. I'm not sure why it seems to be a required element. It could be that it's expected or that trying to combine a lot of PvE content with sandbox mechanics is problematic.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
UO is sandbox with optional PVP combat on the Trammel side.
ATITD has zero PVP combat.
Free Realms has no real PVP to speak of.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I do RL everyday - I go to my games to ESCAPE reality not model it. Call me a carebear then. I think people are silly who think it is their way or the highway - highway please.
Really ? And how much do you enjoy that features of the so called IRL sandbox ? If I had a cjoice I would surely choose not to be killed by anything IRL. I really don't need the excitement of being robbed of killed. And that's why we play games...not to have another reality which is just as bad as the real one, but to escape the real one and enjoy fun in another one. Sandboxes are meant to be fun, just as any other game, not pure simulations.
And if you really want a simulation I'm sure you insist to have permadeath, and permaban in case of a player kills another one. Or your account to be locked in jail for 10 years. Have fun in game then, lol.
I think if done right you can have the best of both.
Where as this is a sore spot for some I played SWG from beta till shut down. For me it was more a "sandbox" it had pvp flagged areas it had some theme to its park and the best crafting system to date.
so yes it can be done
p.s. let me know when/where you find it lol
I sometimes wonder how many devs end up regreting their decisions to shoehorn both sub-genres into the same game.
The players resent each other; and they resent balance changes that they perceive aimed at "the other guys". Balancing both sub-genres at the same time is...well...kind of a dream. Seperate gear sets..."resilience" or some other scheme...double the server types...
It's just an unholy bastard mess, a lot of the time.
Why not let games specialize? Shrug. They always used to.
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.