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So, what do we call "formerly known as sandbox" games, now?
Adjuvant1
Member RarePosts: 2,100
The term "sandbox" has been mutated and adopted to mean, well, pretty much whatever the utterer cares so say it means, but generally, "any game in which the player has choices he can make which alter the flavor of his progression in the game". This wasn't always the case, as I've noted in previous posts. This has actually led to the editing of a wikipedia page, namely..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_world
...which formerly included text to the point that "sandbox" was used incorrectly in the contexts you see nowadays. Similar wording is used in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_gameplay , which I expect to also see edited in coming days, now that I've brought it to light.
"A game that is significantly nonlinear is sometimes described as being open-ended or a sandbox, though that term is used incorrectly in those cases."
Note "open-ended" as opposed to "open world".
If the majority is consistently incorrect, this becomes "correct" I guess. It leads to silly and futile discussion of what the erroneously understood "sandbox" means to the gaming world, or ridiculous branching terms such as "sandpark", which really means nothing. I have alot of trouble taking these conversations seriously and I restrain myself actively from raging, because they're built from collectively misunderstood concepts and frankly, they're stupid.
Anyway...
What do we call games now in which "the player has the tools to modify the game, be they graphical or story aspect, during actual gameplay"? Should we go according to "roguelike" and call them "minecraftlike"? Should we invent a whole new word, now that it's become so convoluted and people have such a wrong idea that it has spawned its own bastardized relevant concept topics?
What have we done and what do we do now? Does it matter?
Comments
First, who cares what the wiki has listed as a definition. The point is we don't have an agreement on what is a sandbox games. This is the real problem.Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
There are so many words that are hard to define and we probably would never come to consensus on what they truly mean if we tried, but still use every day.
Its fine until someone comes along who has the "one true definition" and tries to make everyone else conform to their dogma.
Why should it matter? Why is it an insult to a "musician" (using that term loosely) if I say he is dubstep instead of tripstep urban hop glitch tramp like he should apparently correctly be called according to an irate youtuber? Terms have always evolved to mean different things with colloquial speech, though I never heard of people getting upset about it until recently. I think it's just a side effect of our hyper politically correct society that were so used to policing speech and now even benign terms are subject to strict approval before they can be used. Wouldn't want to make anyone mad.
I'll just start calling it "crambox" kinda sounds dirty, and it has a lot of possible meanings. Lets see if it catches on.
People have been altering terminologies and definitions for thousands of years before you were born, and they'll still be doing it and communicating just fine after you're dead. The dictionary gets updated all the time to include modernized usage. But you are above all that, kay.
No I'm pretty sure I was correct the first time.
I'm pretty sure there's hardly anyone that "enjoys" it when modern expression takes words and gives them alternate meanings. I happen to be among the large group of people who are completely indifferent to the whole thing, I personally have no interest in critiquing the way someone else speaks. The point initially was that getting upset about it or having a strong opinion one way or the other is ridiculous, I'd appreciate it if you didn't lump me into that demographic and force me to care as much as you apparently do.
The only ones with an agenda are the ones who get upset when "pay 2 win" and "sandbox" take on an evolving and subjective meaning because that term can no longer be used to support that particular agenda. The rest of us are quite content to allow those terms to have a loose meaning so the user can define that for themselves. Since we don't have a particular agenda we are not particularly offended when people use terms which are already vague to fit their own. If I was one with such an agenda, perhaps getting upset about it would be warranted.
A lot of your examples were just silly though. You have no interest in preserving communication, especially not when you admittedly have no interest in thousands of years of evolution of our own and many many other languages. You just want to lord over a particular word or two. Yet you've yet to state what makes you especially qualified to do so.
Sure, words change meaning, you're right. "Sandbox" has, indeed, been altered in the lexicon of game reviewers and designers, more of a buzzword than an actual definition of anything. What it used to mean has been lost in hundreds of conversations, even to the point of retroactive assignment of the term to games preexisting the gaming use of the term. When Ultima Online or Star Wars Galaxies were released, even when they were "hot", no one used the term "sandbox" to describe them. Today, however, they're listed as "great sandbox games", because the gameplay was non-linear.
It's a bit late to reverse course, even were one to bring the issue to attention consistently, the argument has simply become moot. People convinced that this is what a sandbox game is will continue to use the term in the fashion and others with the shared understanding will somewhat know what they mean. The obvious consequence with the deviation is now a conflict, not only in definition but in rhetoric.
If a developer were to create a new "true sandbox", or one that, while immersed in gameplay, a player can literally shape the game world using available tools, in likely game term "as a deity", and form physical constructs, change the disposition of mobs, or even alter the entire set of circumstances considering a "winning scenario", what almost might be construed as an intentional "cheat mode", what will we call it now that "sandbox" has been shanghaied? To wit, if we consider to call a sandbox, "a sandbox", how will we be able to articulate, "no, I don't mean non-linear gameplay, and I don't mean simply player-driven economy and role-play". It needs a new term, now. In a list of "sandbox games" to the layperson, Minecraft no longer fits, and the functionality that makes something like Garry's mod so special isn't even considered.
What do we call Landmark (jokes of its success aside)? It's more sandbox, certainly, than UO or SWG. Do we then call it "MOAR SANDBOXY!"? But the term's already gotten old and stale, because everything is supposedly a sandbox now, and it seems many don't even want to hear about another sandbox. The term is now meaningless, the intent and concept are lost. I see that and accept it. So, what can I call these now, when I want to communicate to someone else, "no, I don't mean a chair, no I don't mean a gumball machine, I mean a game in which players are granted access to tools to have permanent lasting effects within the game".
Don't use labels.
Explain the game perhaps through other similar games.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I'm sure you have spent literally half your life dealing specifically with the study of the way words have changed throughout the human experience, welcome to the internet where everyone is an expert at everything, no matter how obscure. But again, that does little to explain your mass rejection of the entire concept behind what you have apparently spent years upon years studying, by condemning the practice whole sale when it pertains to the matter of video games, that does indeed strike me as little odd. But I'll let previous comments speak for themselves and leave you to your important studies.
As for video game developers cramming sandboxes that aren't really sandboxes down our throat and manipulating the definition in a shrewd manner to deceive since they're obviously incapable or unwilling to develop actual sandboxes, to your exact specifications, which no doubt fit the only true definition of the word (with no specific terms needed to be met to qualify you as the sole spokesperson to determine what those specifications actually are): the OP bails us out here by providing context to what the real issue of the problem is, even if you are entirely unaware of it.
When the great sandbox games people reference as good examples of one were being developed and released upon the world, they weren't exactly being marketed as sandboxes. To do so would not have had much merit or garnered any attention, because as he very accurately describes it, it's a marketing buzzword that became popular after the fact. So essentially you are debating the virtue of a word that is being used specifically to market to you, where as I am completely indifferent to it as I said. So you really believe it is me that is dancing to their tune and not yourself? A little dishonest, or maybe just naivety.
What is being marketed to you is a blatant two party system, not unlike our own political one. Theme park, or sandbox, or some moderate of the two. They want you to care deeply about what it means to be one or the other, they want you to feel passionately about those two labels if anything, so they can continue feeding you more hype and more prefabricated crap, rather than needing to design games on their own virtues and just saying "here is a great game". They just have to put in a few prerequisite mechanics, and market to one audience or the other. Rather than worrying about wether the game is actually any good, (or the candidate is actually suitable for the job continuing the political example).
Just because I am indifferent on the usage of the term does not mean I'm unaware of it, or do not have a definition of my own. I just don't care what "you" call a sandbox, you're probably at the end of the day the only one who does.
And no matter how much your agenda might be to inform the bovine masses of what your ideas of F2P and P2W are, they have their own ideas about those too, as they are likewise buddying wanna be emperors who would very much love to dictate what those things mean to everyone else. I hope you change a lot of minds on your crusade, and wish you nothing but the best my liege.
That is why it has to be a consensus and not one person. Personally, I think sandbox is likely broken and meaningless. And isn't that the point, we need to have a definition in order to talk in those terms with meaning? I remember someone calling wow a sandbox. That is the price of a lack of definition.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I've never understood the confusion that seems to exist around the terms sandbox and themepark. Their meanings are very, very obvious because they're based on their real-life counterparts.
Likewise, there are no former sandbox games. Sandbox games don't cease being so because some people don't understand the terms they're using.
A proper mmorpg sandbox allows you progression through more ways than just combat and it allows players to beneficially interact with others that have different focus on their gameplay.
Problem is that most sandboxes are more like themeparks, your progression is through combat and there aren't much alternatives in what you can do. They do have more extensive crafting but they are seriously underdeveloped when it comes to content and the only way they can have some longterm gameplay is through ffa-PvP.
I don't really see us needing more labels to describe all these games, its better if we describe them for what they really are.
Because "sandbox" is not the literal alternative to "themepark". This is where the issue became convoluted and, for lack of a better word, people who didn't understand what a "sandbox game" is reached for that as terminology. The opposite of "themepark" is "non-linear" or "open world", wherein you're not specifically (as?) driven on rails from one part of content to the next, determined by position in storyline, but rather explore storylines "out of order" because, hey, it's what you wanted to do that day.
As I've been saying, I've come to accept this. I see how it happened, and because it's become so mainstream, if I want to communicate with people about games on this base level, I have to use the term in this fashion. There are, however, games which are actually "sandbox" games, again, games in which the player not only advances his character in his preferential way, not only role plays, not only can participate in a game mechanism to conquer land and appropriate control, but also has dev-like tools to actually change terrain, buildings, mobs, victory conditions and story, and those changes be relatively permanent so that another player(s) may come along and experience and participate within those changes, and the issue I'm bringing up, the question I have now, is because I think so much of the endeavor of the genre, what now do we call this?
edit: Additionally, I'm not only talking about instanced player-contructed content, although that is a better representation of "sandbox", like EQ2's player-made dungeons or CoH's architect mode, which are/were nice, but more to the point, in the "outside world", the persistent world.
^^ A way to describe a sandbox is that it is a game that provides a framework of rules and tools within a virtual environment. The development concern is not content but instead extensions to the framework and ruleset to enrich the tools and options for the players while maintaining the stability of the virtual word.
I do think however the use of the terms themepark and sandbox have little real value - they are far too vague to provide any real meaning for the reader.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
Anything you like because the whole discussion about whether a game is a sandbox or not is down entirely to what a persons interpretation of what 'sandbox' means to them.
If someone hasn't played any similar games, then you explain and describe the game and let them make a judgement what it is.
If you are going to use some terminology, you have to agree on it first. You must accept that the terminology can change meaning from conversation to conversation depending on the context and who you are talking with.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
If you want to describe a game with an open world, you use the term open world.
If you want to describe a game where players have a strong authorship of the experience, you use the term sandbox.
Or if the developers have strong authorship, you use themepark.
The wiki page equating open worlds with sandboxes always felt wrong, given the very obvious implication that a sandbox is controlled/manipulated/authored by the players. It's about players having control over the experience and that's it. Every individual feature of a game is either going to be static (a ride) , or player-changeable (sand) and the sum total of those features adds up to whether a game is generally considered sandbox or themepark.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver