Originally posted by JeremyBowyer Do you guys even play any "pvp" games? Threes a lot of pve and harvesting/crafting.
Even in darkfall there are people in my clan who have maxed out characters solely from fishing and crafting.
I don't, unless the PvP is separated from the PvE. I really like the look of Arch Age. Not gong to touch it because of its PvP. I played EverQuest for a few years, City of Heroes for a few years, World of Warcraft for a few years. All of them had PvP. All of them had it separated from PvE.
What does it matter if there is great crafting and what have you in an MMO if *my* hard work is stolen from me or made more difficult? Why build a house that any bored idiot can demolish at their whim? Why even try? I'll play an MMO much better suited to my preferences, thank you.
Ok well for a lot of us it's the total opposite. Why should I care about this stuff I have if I'm never in danger of losing it? That's boring to us.
Anarchy Online has land control for resources in the open world via PvP, yet doesn't have FFA PvP but a flagging system.
Some people need to stop limiting what's possible to the limits of their own imagination and/or knowledge.
If you're referring to the argument between myself and SnarlingWolf, my point about land control was that it would cost extra money to develop a new system for it, not that it's impossible.
It is however impossible to have certain things like city raiding without pvp, because the whole point of it is the pvp.
the MMO market is over saturated with pvp focused games.
even though i consider myself a casual pvp gamer. pvp is already becoming stale and boring to me. i think it is time for something radically new from what we've been getting in the past years.
a world where players really need to bind together in order to survive. if that world is harsh , brutal and inmersive enough. then there is no need for a pvp focused endgame. because it would make perfect sense, everyone would need to unite or be utterly destroyed.
i was interested in Archeage, untill i found out recently, that is going to be more of the same ole and dull boring pvp. with the usual ganking, meaningless penalties for pking. i hope everquest next don't follow the same path of the niche pvp mmo, and come up with something radically different and fresh. i'm way too tired of the same mmo clones. to a point, i may consider stop playing mmo altogether and perhaps get back into reading.
the MMO market is over saturated with pvp focused games.
Name one good MMO where PVP is an integral part of the package and not and afterthought (World of Warcraft and its clone army) or tried to make like it could ever be everything and MMO would need (Darkfall and Mortal Online).
the MMO market is over saturated with pvp focused games.
Name one good MMO where PVP is an integral part of the package and not and afterthought (World of Warcraft and its clone army) or tried to make like it could ever be everything and MMO would need (Darkfall and Mortal Online).
There is only the one that is commonly accepted as both good, and containing well integrated pvp and pve elements. (Eve)
Quite a few PVE based MMOs with the tacked on PVP and the deserted pvp servers. (big surprise! PVE game has bad PVP)
the MMO market is over saturated with pvp focused games.
Name one good MMO where PVP is an integral part of the package and not and afterthought (World of Warcraft and its clone army) or tried to make like it could ever be everything and MMO would need (Darkfall and Mortal Online).
There is only the one that is commonly accepted as both good, and containing well integrated pvp and pve elements. (Eve)
Quite a few PVE based MMOs with the tacked on PVP and the deserted pvp servers. (big surprise! PVE game has bad PVP)
Yes but that's a decade old game, how many PVE-centric games have been released since then? (both sandbox and themepark, indie and AAA, quite a few of which are good).
the MMO market is over saturated with pvp focused games.
Name one good MMO where PVP is an integral part of the package and not and afterthought (World of Warcraft and its clone army) or tried to make like it could ever be everything and MMO would need (Darkfall and Mortal Online).
It's very hard to make a PVP focused MMORPG that gives you maximum ability to individualize yourself. That has a huge level of balancing that has to be taken into account (gear, skills, levels, etc.)
The best we can do now is one where you have very limited roles of your characters, but still roles none the less
The pvp vs pve debate has raged on for 44 pages, but in reality I think we all want the same thing - a challenge. The PvP advocates say that PvE is boring and monotonous because in pretty much all the games it has become so. This is because Blizzard wanted MMO's to appeal to the dumb masses, and made a lot of money doing so (and thus set the standard from which all else followed). PvE advocates are complaining because so much PvP is frustrating because you're playing against people with 'series 7 elite pvp gear with super epic enchanged gems' which makes them immune to anything you can throw at them. This results in grinding pvp so you can have equivolent gear so you can START competing.
The original Everquest was awesome because it was challenging. The creatures were tough - I couldn't ever solo equal level mobs with my cleric. People grouped because we had to, and even in a group things quite often went bad.
The other thing that Everquest did right is was that if things did go bad, there was consequences to your failure, which made it exciting. You actually had risk vs rewards. Think of it like this- you went to Vegas, and every time you played you won a little bit of money. Sounds great, right? So, you move there any play every day, and every day you end up ahead- just a little. It's called being a dealer. It's not fun- it's a soul crushing job. People go to Vegas because there can be big payouts and the is a risk of loosing gives us that adrenaline rush.
I like minecraft. I thought it was because I liked to build things, but in reality I know that it's because of the adrenaline that I get from splunking. If I survive I get some iron, maybe some diamonds. If I fail my stuff will likely rot at the bottom of cave. So, when I turn around and see a creeper I jump! In wow, the last time I did (once in the last year) it was just a petty annoyance, like a fly buzzing around my ear. My thoughts were something to the effect of "I don't know why they bother fighting back, I'm going to kill them either way. In EQ when I died, my thoughts were "I took too many risks, need to rethink that one"
It's funny. I remember all of the debates over how we don't need sandboxes, because every single one fails. It's a dying niche in MMO's, it has poor systems, a bad community, blah blah blah. Now it seems that more and more, people are warming up to the idea of the sandbox genre, praising some of their systems, talking about how great the RP community can be, blah blah.
Is that in your imagination, or you have evidence for that statement?
Some posts here do not count. What is the big sandbox success? And don't say minecraft, because it is a buidling game, not so much a RPG.
Yes, I do have evidence. Anyone who has had any prolonged experience on gaming forums can attest to the change in mindset. Why do you think so many people are tired of games like WoW? Where do you think the whole WoW clone thing came from? A ton of people are tired of the same crap that developers continue to dish out. Why do you think dynamic content has become popular? Why do you think there is such an outcry to make ESO more like an Elder Scrolls game and less MMO'y with arena combat, pointless raid dungeons, no housing, no customizability and such? If you've been around, you know things have been changing.
And by saying some posts don't count, you pretty much have zero credibility to yourself. Ultima Online was a huge success. SWG was a huge success. EVE is, for a spreadsheet harvester game, a massive success. Why do you think so many people are going nuts over EQNext, a game that has been said to be the next big sandbox MMO? Why was there such a huge interest in Mortal Online and Darkfall when they launched?
1- Devs mindset => The devs with more inclination towards sandbox mmos have a same way of think things that makes they pursuit the maximum of "mechanical realism" in their works. So pvp with artificial and unjustified "invulnerabilities" passes little through their heads. Their focus to prevent abuse is more in creating punishments (trying to imitate the reality) instead of that way.
That reason above can explain the sensation of some PVEers that some pvp focused mmos have more "cool things" (aside pvp, ofc) than your pve focused mmos they are playing. As a example i will mention the AI of the npcs (mobs) in DFUW: It's almost a consensus that DF has the best mob AI of all mmos. And that is paradoxical, since DF is a pvp focused mmo and "shouldn't" invest so much in mobs. But that investment is only a indirect consequence of the devs mindset of trying to make realistic features. I think if the DF developers had the Archeage or even the EVE's budget, they would make a awesome sandbox.
Anyone who says Darkfall AI is good, is downright ignorant.
I've played the game. The pathfinding is horrible and the mobs constantly rubber band. Sometimes they won't even attack you. Other times they will attack you from a mile away while you're standing behind a building or rock. They don't call for help or attack in groups. They don't roam random areas. All they do is run around back and forth a few times, change from ranged to melee when they get close, and spam attack you with an occasional spell that most likely will not increase their chances of killing you.
Want good AI? Play something like splinter cell, or gears of war. At least they use things that can kill you and at least they use cover. Then again, you have to have a cover system for it to be used, but still.
Originally posted by DAS1337 It's funny. I remember all of the debates over how we don't need sandboxes, because every single one fails. It's a dying niche in MMO's, it has poor systems, a bad community, blah blah blah. Now it seems that more and more, people are warming up to the idea of the sandbox genre, praising some of their systems, talking about how great the RP community can be, blah blah.
Is that in your imagination, or you have evidence for that statement?Some posts here do not count. What is the big sandbox success? And don't say minecraft, because it is a buidling game, not so much a RPG.
Yes, I do have evidence. Anyone who has had any prolonged experience on gaming forums can attest to the change in mindset. Why do you think so many people are tired of games like WoW? Where do you think the whole WoW clone thing came from? A ton of people are tired of the same crap that developers continue to dish out. Why do you think dynamic content has become popular? Why do you think there is such an outcry to make ESO more like an Elder Scrolls game and less MMO'y with arena combat, pointless raid dungeons, no housing, no customizability and such? If you've been around, you know things have been changing.
And by saying some posts don't count, you pretty much have zero credibility to yourself. Ultima Online was a huge success. SWG was a huge success. EVE is, for a spreadsheet harvester game, a massive success. Why do you think so many people are going nuts over EQNext, a game that has been said to be the next big sandbox MMO? Why was there such a huge interest in Mortal Online and Darkfall when they launched?
Seriously, think about it.
Gah. That's your answer? It's just obvious? Really?
**
You're not even going to try and scan twitter feeds or anything?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
1- Devs mindset => The devs with more inclination towards sandbox mmos have a same way of think things that makes they pursuit the maximum of "mechanical realism" in their works. So pvp with artificial and unjustified "invulnerabilities" passes little through their heads. Their focus to prevent abuse is more in creating punishments (trying to imitate the reality) instead of that way.
That reason above can explain the sensation of some PVEers that some pvp focused mmos have more "cool things" (aside pvp, ofc) than your pve focused mmos they are playing. As a example i will mention the AI of the npcs (mobs) in DFUW: It's almost a consensus that DF has the best mob AI of all mmos. And that is paradoxical, since DF is a pvp focused mmo and "shouldn't" invest so much in mobs. But that investment is only a indirect consequence of the devs mindset of trying to make realistic features. I think if the DF developers had the Archeage or even the EVE's budget, they would make a awesome sandbox.
Anyone who says Darkfall AI is good, is downright ignorant.
I've played the game. The pathfinding is horrible and the mobs constantly rubber band. Sometimes they won't even attack you. Other times they will attack you from a mile away while you're standing behind a building or rock. They don't call for help or attack in groups. They don't roam random areas. All they do is run around back and forth a few times, change from ranged to melee when they get close, and spam attack you with an occasional spell that most likely will not increase their chances of killing you.
]
Wrong several times over.
Different mobs have different AIs. Zombies can't see during the day but they can hear you. At night they can see you from a mile off. Goblins run back to their camps to get help right away, other mobs do not. Many mobs wander around and roam certain areas, like the dragons, the kraken, and a lot of the high end mobs. The humanoid mobs will strafe and juke and dodge to get out of the way of projectiles. Melee based mobs will try to box you into a corner.
There are probably a thousand different ways to impliment any given feature in a game, some work better then other. How well each individual feature works and how well those features fit together to form a cohesive whole are a large part of what seperates a good game from a bad one. Needless to say, there is a very large variety of possible game styles to suit a variety of different tastes that can be built....and that's awesome.
Now upcoming MMO's are trending away from Themeparks to more sandbox oriented styles. The reasons for that aren't all that hard to understand if you step back and think about it. Themeparks rely on Developer produced content for entertainment. Developer produced content is VERY expensive to produce and fairly quickly consumed. There are MANY Themepark MMO's out on the market right and many of them well established with years of content updates behind them. Thus any new entrants to the market that want to sustain an audience have to compete with those established titles that already have established audiences and years of content behind. That means that the new title has to raise enough capital to produce ALOT of content at release and keep a steady flow of content coming and it has to hope it's content is compelling enough to pull customers away from the titles they are already customers of. Think about the implications of that in today's business climate (raising alot of capital on a risky venture) especialy given recent AAA MMO financial history.
Sandbox MMO's, however, don't need to rely on all that expensive to produce Developer content because they can rely on the players to produce content (entertainment) for each other and just build the systems that support players doing that. PvP is one of the easiest ways to impliment that since it doesn't rely on exposing content creation tools/editors to players and depending upon them to produce a sufficient quantity of high quality content for other players and then finding a way to fit that content into the world somehow....it just relies upon them playing the game the way they naturaly would. Nor does it rely on Developing sophisticated A.I. systems to adjust the world dynamicaly and intelligently to the players actions and still make that world interesting and not "break". PvP is also quite popular in gaming in general as one can easly see demonstrated by FPS, RTS, MOBA's and Console Sports and Fighting games so the developer can do well if they are able to translate that experience into an MMO successfully.
FFA PvP is, however, the riskiest and most complicated style of PvP to impliment. In it the player, especialy the new player, doesn't have any automatic built-in base of support (e.g. a Team/Faction) and it can create an atmosphere of paranoia and inability to trust anyone anywhere which can turn off a good portion of PvP oriented players and make it difficult for new players to establish themselves within the game community.
That is not to say that other styles.... Themepark, PvE Sandbox, FFA PvP sandbox, etc all can't be done and done well. Nor am I trying to make any arguements about whether X is more popular then Y. It's a simply observation on my part about why we are starting to observe the trends we are for upcoming MMO's. YMMV.
One doesn't need to consider forum posts here. Simply look at what so many MMO Developers are doing and saying with thier upcoming MMO's and not just small indies. "Sandbox" is actualy starting to become a bit of a buzzword with them in terms of style and features. They don't do that sort of thing unless there is at least the perception that there is a decent potential market for it. Now they could be wrong, they certainly have been about other things in the past. However, I'm fairly confident that they have access to better market research tools then most of us here. So while there may not be proof, the folks in charge of millions of dollars of investor money look like they are starting to place thier bets in that direction. I'd say that's at least a fair indicator that something might be there....at least as good a bet as anything with something as fickle and ephemeral to nail down as audience tastes in entertainment.
1- Devs mindset => The devs with more inclination towards sandbox mmos have a same way of think things that makes they pursuit the maximum of "mechanical realism" in their works. So pvp with artificial and unjustified "invulnerabilities" passes little through their heads. Their focus to prevent abuse is more in creating punishments (trying to imitate the reality) instead of that way.
That reason above can explain the sensation of some PVEers that some pvp focused mmos have more "cool things" (aside pvp, ofc) than your pve focused mmos they are playing. As a example i will mention the AI of the npcs (mobs) in DFUW: It's almost a consensus that DF has the best mob AI of all mmos. And that is paradoxical, since DF is a pvp focused mmo and "shouldn't" invest so much in mobs. But that investment is only a indirect consequence of the devs mindset of trying to make realistic features. I think if the DF developers had the Archeage or even the EVE's budget, they would make a awesome sandbox.
Anyone who says Darkfall AI is good, is downright ignorant.
I've played the game. The pathfinding is horrible and the mobs constantly rubber band. Sometimes they won't even attack you. Other times they will attack you from a mile away while you're standing behind a building or rock. They don't call for help or attack in groups. They don't roam random areas. All they do is run around back and forth a few times, change from ranged to melee when they get close, and spam attack you with an occasional spell that most likely will not increase their chances of killing you.
]
Wrong several times over.
Different mobs have different AIs. Zombies can't see during the day but they can hear you. At night they can see you from a mile off. Goblins run back to their camps to get help right away, other mobs do not. Many mobs wander around and roam certain areas, like the dragons, the kraken, and a lot of the high end mobs. The humanoid mobs will strafe and juke and dodge to get out of the way of projectiles. Melee based mobs will try to box you into a corner.
You must not have played any darkfall.
I've played Darkfall (including early beta) and I can only agree with DAS1337. The supposed "superior AI" aventurine was bragging about is definitely not superior at all. All the things you post are supposed to be awesome on paper, but definitely don't work that way in game, except the roaming bosses, but then a ton of games have those and that's no superior AI. PvE in Darkfall is one of the worse I've seen in a MMO, hell, combat was better in the 17+ years old Ultima Online (which at least was a true sandbox).
Just about everyone who has played the game disagrees with you.
So you're saying that mobs in most MMOs, where they all run in together as a group and stay and fight until they die, is better than the AI I described? Nah, I think you just dislike Darkfall.
Yes, I do have evidence. Anyone who has had any prolonged experience on gaming forums can attest to the change in mindset. Why do you think so many people are tired of games like WoW? Where do you think the whole WoW clone thing came from? A ton of people are tired of the same crap that developers continue to dish out. Why do you think dynamic content has become popular? Why do you think there is such an outcry to make ESO more like an Elder Scrolls game and less MMO'y with arena combat, pointless raid dungeons, no housing, no customizability and such? If you've been around, you know things have been changing.
Tire of games like WOW does not mean they want sandbox. I can easily say they want MOBAs and instanced pvp games. LoL and WOT is way more successful than any sandbox MMOs.
Yes, I do have evidence. Anyone who has had any prolonged experience on gaming forums can attest to the change in mindset. Why do you think so many people are tired of games like WoW? Where do you think the whole WoW clone thing came from? A ton of people are tired of the same crap that developers continue to dish out. Why do you think dynamic content has become popular? Why do you think there is such an outcry to make ESO more like an Elder Scrolls game and less MMO'y with arena combat, pointless raid dungeons, no housing, no customizability and such? If you've been around, you know things have been changing.
Tire of games like WOW does not mean they want sandbox. I can easily say they want MOBAs and instanced pvp games. LoL and WOT is way more successful than any sandbox MMOs.
Neither of you are correct or wrong for that matter but you need to remember Narius that LoL and WoT have higher burn of players than sandbox MMOs do even if the latter has a smaller playerbase it can be just as profitable ergo you can say that they want something new in whatever form that may be (MOBA, WoT type, survival game like DayZ, Co- Op RPG like Cube World or a form of MMO or another).
Originally posted by GrumpyMel2 @lizardbonesOne doesn't need to consider forum posts here. Simply look at what so many MMO Developers are doing and saying with thier upcoming MMO's and not just small indies. "Sandbox" is actualy starting to become a bit of a buzzword with them in terms of style and features. They don't do that sort of thing unless there is at least the perception that there is a decent potential market for it. Now they could be wrong, they certainly have been about other things in the past. However, I'm fairly confident that they have access to better market research tools then most of us here. So while there may not be proof, the folks in charge of millions of dollars of investor money look like they are starting to place thier bets in that direction. I'd say that's at least a fair indicator that something might be there....at least as good a bet as anything with something as fickle and ephemeral to nail down as audience tastes in entertainment.
That at least doesn't make my head hurt. It even makes a bit of sense.
Also, I don't dispute the whole sandbox thing. I just don't see "I read internet forums" as proof that a particular point is valid. That type of thing can be used to support anything and is poor form and shouldn't be tolerated.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Neither of you are correct or wrong for that matter but you need to remember Narius that LoL and WoT have higher burn of players than sandbox MMOs do even if the latter has a smaller playerbase it can be just as profitable ergo you can say that they want something new in whatever form that may be (MOBA, WoT type, survival game like DayZ, Co- Op RPG like Cube World or a form of MMO or another).
sure .. i didn't list everything. I can throw in online ARPG (D3 sold 14.5M copies ..), shooters with online components (the new "share world" shooter like Destiny).
The point is that getting sick of wow (and themepark MMO) does not equate wanting sandbox. In fact, why return to old ideas? Weren't the market sick of UO & EQ, before it moves to WOW and similar games?
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I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Ok well for a lot of us it's the total opposite. Why should I care about this stuff I have if I'm never in danger of losing it? That's boring to us.
If you're referring to the argument between myself and SnarlingWolf, my point about land control was that it would cost extra money to develop a new system for it, not that it's impossible.
It is however impossible to have certain things like city raiding without pvp, because the whole point of it is the pvp.
the MMO market is over saturated with pvp focused games.
even though i consider myself a casual pvp gamer. pvp is already becoming stale and boring to me. i think it is time for something radically new from what we've been getting in the past years.
a world where players really need to bind together in order to survive. if that world is harsh , brutal and inmersive enough. then there is no need for a pvp focused endgame. because it would make perfect sense, everyone would need to unite or be utterly destroyed.
i was interested in Archeage, untill i found out recently, that is going to be more of the same ole and dull boring pvp. with the usual ganking, meaningless penalties for pking. i hope everquest next don't follow the same path of the niche pvp mmo, and come up with something radically different and fresh. i'm way too tired of the same mmo clones. to a point, i may consider stop playing mmo altogether and perhaps get back into reading.
Name one good MMO where PVP is an integral part of the package and not and afterthought (World of Warcraft and its clone army) or tried to make like it could ever be everything and MMO would need (Darkfall and Mortal Online).
There is only the one that is commonly accepted as both good, and containing well integrated pvp and pve elements. (Eve)
Quite a few PVE based MMOs with the tacked on PVP and the deserted pvp servers. (big surprise! PVE game has bad PVP)
Yes but that's a decade old game, how many PVE-centric games have been released since then? (both sandbox and themepark, indie and AAA, quite a few of which are good).
It's very hard to make a PVP focused MMORPG that gives you maximum ability to individualize yourself. That has a huge level of balancing that has to be taken into account (gear, skills, levels, etc.)
The best we can do now is one where you have very limited roles of your characters, but still roles none the less
The pvp vs pve debate has raged on for 44 pages, but in reality I think we all want the same thing - a challenge. The PvP advocates say that PvE is boring and monotonous because in pretty much all the games it has become so. This is because Blizzard wanted MMO's to appeal to the dumb masses, and made a lot of money doing so (and thus set the standard from which all else followed). PvE advocates are complaining because so much PvP is frustrating because you're playing against people with 'series 7 elite pvp gear with super epic enchanged gems' which makes them immune to anything you can throw at them. This results in grinding pvp so you can have equivolent gear so you can START competing.
The original Everquest was awesome because it was challenging. The creatures were tough - I couldn't ever solo equal level mobs with my cleric. People grouped because we had to, and even in a group things quite often went bad.
The other thing that Everquest did right is was that if things did go bad, there was consequences to your failure, which made it exciting. You actually had risk vs rewards. Think of it like this- you went to Vegas, and every time you played you won a little bit of money. Sounds great, right? So, you move there any play every day, and every day you end up ahead- just a little. It's called being a dealer. It's not fun- it's a soul crushing job. People go to Vegas because there can be big payouts and the is a risk of loosing gives us that adrenaline rush.
I like minecraft. I thought it was because I liked to build things, but in reality I know that it's because of the adrenaline that I get from splunking. If I survive I get some iron, maybe some diamonds. If I fail my stuff will likely rot at the bottom of cave. So, when I turn around and see a creeper I jump! In wow, the last time I did (once in the last year) it was just a petty annoyance, like a fly buzzing around my ear. My thoughts were something to the effect of "I don't know why they bother fighting back, I'm going to kill them either way. In EQ when I died, my thoughts were "I took too many risks, need to rethink that one"
Yes, I do have evidence. Anyone who has had any prolonged experience on gaming forums can attest to the change in mindset. Why do you think so many people are tired of games like WoW? Where do you think the whole WoW clone thing came from? A ton of people are tired of the same crap that developers continue to dish out. Why do you think dynamic content has become popular? Why do you think there is such an outcry to make ESO more like an Elder Scrolls game and less MMO'y with arena combat, pointless raid dungeons, no housing, no customizability and such? If you've been around, you know things have been changing.
And by saying some posts don't count, you pretty much have zero credibility to yourself. Ultima Online was a huge success. SWG was a huge success. EVE is, for a spreadsheet harvester game, a massive success. Why do you think so many people are going nuts over EQNext, a game that has been said to be the next big sandbox MMO? Why was there such a huge interest in Mortal Online and Darkfall when they launched?
Seriously, think about it.
Anyone who says Darkfall AI is good, is downright ignorant.
I've played the game. The pathfinding is horrible and the mobs constantly rubber band. Sometimes they won't even attack you. Other times they will attack you from a mile away while you're standing behind a building or rock. They don't call for help or attack in groups. They don't roam random areas. All they do is run around back and forth a few times, change from ranged to melee when they get close, and spam attack you with an occasional spell that most likely will not increase their chances of killing you.
Want good AI? Play something like splinter cell, or gears of war. At least they use things that can kill you and at least they use cover. Then again, you have to have a cover system for it to be used, but still.
Gah. That's your answer? It's just obvious? Really?
**
You're not even going to try and scan twitter feeds or anything?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
People whine if they have to run more than a minute, imagine if they would have to run to Karana for 30 minutes, they would rage hell on the forums.
Wrong several times over.
Different mobs have different AIs. Zombies can't see during the day but they can hear you. At night they can see you from a mile off. Goblins run back to their camps to get help right away, other mobs do not. Many mobs wander around and roam certain areas, like the dragons, the kraken, and a lot of the high end mobs. The humanoid mobs will strafe and juke and dodge to get out of the way of projectiles. Melee based mobs will try to box you into a corner.
You must not have played any darkfall.
There are probably a thousand different ways to impliment any given feature in a game, some work better then other. How well each individual feature works and how well those features fit together to form a cohesive whole are a large part of what seperates a good game from a bad one. Needless to say, there is a very large variety of possible game styles to suit a variety of different tastes that can be built....and that's awesome.
Now upcoming MMO's are trending away from Themeparks to more sandbox oriented styles. The reasons for that aren't all that hard to understand if you step back and think about it. Themeparks rely on Developer produced content for entertainment. Developer produced content is VERY expensive to produce and fairly quickly consumed. There are MANY Themepark MMO's out on the market right and many of them well established with years of content updates behind them. Thus any new entrants to the market that want to sustain an audience have to compete with those established titles that already have established audiences and years of content behind. That means that the new title has to raise enough capital to produce ALOT of content at release and keep a steady flow of content coming and it has to hope it's content is compelling enough to pull customers away from the titles they are already customers of. Think about the implications of that in today's business climate (raising alot of capital on a risky venture) especialy given recent AAA MMO financial history.
Sandbox MMO's, however, don't need to rely on all that expensive to produce Developer content because they can rely on the players to produce content (entertainment) for each other and just build the systems that support players doing that. PvP is one of the easiest ways to impliment that since it doesn't rely on exposing content creation tools/editors to players and depending upon them to produce a sufficient quantity of high quality content for other players and then finding a way to fit that content into the world somehow....it just relies upon them playing the game the way they naturaly would. Nor does it rely on Developing sophisticated A.I. systems to adjust the world dynamicaly and intelligently to the players actions and still make that world interesting and not "break". PvP is also quite popular in gaming in general as one can easly see demonstrated by FPS, RTS, MOBA's and Console Sports and Fighting games so the developer can do well if they are able to translate that experience into an MMO successfully.
FFA PvP is, however, the riskiest and most complicated style of PvP to impliment. In it the player, especialy the new player, doesn't have any automatic built-in base of support (e.g. a Team/Faction) and it can create an atmosphere of paranoia and inability to trust anyone anywhere which can turn off a good portion of PvP oriented players and make it difficult for new players to establish themselves within the game community.
That is not to say that other styles.... Themepark, PvE Sandbox, FFA PvP sandbox, etc all can't be done and done well. Nor am I trying to make any arguements about whether X is more popular then Y. It's a simply observation on my part about why we are starting to observe the trends we are for upcoming MMO's. YMMV.
@lizardbones
One doesn't need to consider forum posts here. Simply look at what so many MMO Developers are doing and saying with thier upcoming MMO's and not just small indies. "Sandbox" is actualy starting to become a bit of a buzzword with them in terms of style and features. They don't do that sort of thing unless there is at least the perception that there is a decent potential market for it. Now they could be wrong, they certainly have been about other things in the past. However, I'm fairly confident that they have access to better market research tools then most of us here. So while there may not be proof, the folks in charge of millions of dollars of investor money look like they are starting to place thier bets in that direction. I'd say that's at least a fair indicator that something might be there....at least as good a bet as anything with something as fickle and ephemeral to nail down as audience tastes in entertainment.
Just about everyone who has played the game disagrees with you.
So you're saying that mobs in most MMOs, where they all run in together as a group and stay and fight until they die, is better than the AI I described? Nah, I think you just dislike Darkfall.
Tire of games like WOW does not mean they want sandbox. I can easily say they want MOBAs and instanced pvp games. LoL and WOT is way more successful than any sandbox MMOs.
Neither of you are correct or wrong for that matter but you need to remember Narius that LoL and WoT have higher burn of players than sandbox MMOs do even if the latter has a smaller playerbase it can be just as profitable ergo you can say that they want something new in whatever form that may be (MOBA, WoT type, survival game like DayZ, Co- Op RPG like Cube World or a form of MMO or another).
Er, the opposite is the case.
Minecraft has PvP. Eve has PvP. SWG had PvP. AC has PvP. UO has PvP. Shadowbane had PvP. Virtually every sandbox has PvP.
Ironic that most sandboxes are also duds, no?
That at least doesn't make my head hurt. It even makes a bit of sense.
Also, I don't dispute the whole sandbox thing. I just don't see "I read internet forums" as proof that a particular point is valid. That type of thing can be used to support anything and is poor form and shouldn't be tolerated.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
sure .. i didn't list everything. I can throw in online ARPG (D3 sold 14.5M copies ..), shooters with online components (the new "share world" shooter like Destiny).
The point is that getting sick of wow (and themepark MMO) does not equate wanting sandbox. In fact, why return to old ideas? Weren't the market sick of UO & EQ, before it moves to WOW and similar games?
Minecraft has PvP. Eve has PvP. SWG had PvP. AC has PvP. UO has PvP. Shadowbane had PvP. Virtually every sandbox has PvP.
Single player sandboxes don't have PvP! Sner sner!
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.