I'd have to say, hybrid.

Open world and with your choice of grind group, single 1 off quests or even progresive quests.

You want be a crafter you say, then be one, but you shouldnt have to be completly reliant on adventures or be one yourself to excell.

Originally posted by K.o.v.e

Who knows maybe one of blizzards or biowares new mmo's will be a sandbox..

Well, stranger things have happened, but I'd be shocked if I heard this.  To be honest, this is the main reason why I'm not at all hyped about those two developments...neither of them is likely to be skill based or a sandbox MMO.

The writing for the quests in nearly all MMOs is meager at best but they give you a reason and a purpose for playing these games with(and let's be honest here) terrible and boring gameplay. Sandbox MMOs have very little reason why you should be playing that particular one.

A lot of people like old SWG but forget that it was absolutely horrendous at launch and very little was fixed in the following months. It tried to be too "sand box" for it's own good and fell flat on it's face.

A lot of people like Eve but if it was a single player space sim it would be one of the worst ever.

Well personally I favor Sandbox. If they made Oblivion an MMO I would still be playing it.

I also think that quest based games are actually harder to put together for devs then a sandbox style. Look at SWG for example, pre-NGE ofcourse, the game had almost zero quests and was based entirely off of random missions. Granted that got boring quickly, but how much dev time did it take to key up the mission terminals? Compared to a game like WoW where you run into 25 quests every village (all of them easily found thanks to the annoying immersion killing ! over every head and now signposts.....) the DEVs have to slap together a series of pre-constructed and recycled scenarios and write out new scripts for them like the average Scooby-Doo episode (don't get me wrong, I loved Scooby when I was a kid and all...) for every single quest.

I have yet to find a game that captivates me completely. The only two games I have been utterly addicted to have been Planetside and DAoC. All other games I usually quit after 2 maybe 3 months of play.

'quest' is just 'fantasy-speak' for a CHORE. You people like to do chores?

NPC: Us stone workers are having problems with sand falling into our pants. This is irritating, and many of my workers are breaking out in rashes. We need these work pants cleaned! Can you help us out?

Adventurer: I would be glad to support my nation.

NPC: ok. Go find 10 piles of dirty laundry, and take them to the machine of cleaning. Once done, then pick them up and disburse them to my men. Hop to it soldier!

(And then you get to spam your 'community' for help and guidance)

/ooc Where are those damned dirty pants?!

Neighborhood smartass: Don't be so lazy! look it up on the web.

(then you go to the database on the web that describes every quest and it's solution.... do these guys ever get their pants clean?!)

That's a quest-game. Of course, you could make this laundry quest part of a CHAIN, leading to a super big chore/quest that will give the sword of a thousand truths.... but you might have to wait and pay 15/month for a year or so while they develop it. But that gives you time to master the 5 possible battle sequences (sequences of keystrokes resulting in avatar actions in the virtual world), as well and modify 2 of them and add 1 new one over the course of a year because the dev-gods decided to change the rules (class balancing) to make 'choring' more 'challenging'.... ugh

well ...

UO - i played from start until trammel.

EQ1 - 5 months

DAoC - 6 months

SB - i played on and off for a year or two then it went free and the pacific rim took over all the servers so i havent been back in a while.

AO - since it went free, i got almost 8 months lol after SWG died.

SWG - from day 1 ahem day 2 , 3 accounts until CU.

EVE - 2 accounts going on 2nd year now on both.

WOW - 3 months then got bored

LoTRO - free 30 days only really got bored.

EQ2 / MxO / CoH/V - free 30 days only  - ugh.

TR - currently on 1st paid month. is still fun to me but i can see a need for some kinda high end game type stuff in next month or 2 or it goes poof. ends in 21 days if they cant control the credit sellers and PL services spamming for 18 of the 22 hrs the server is up everyday tho.

so yeah my track record says for sandbox games im willing to go longer and more than likely multiple accounts for the game vs liner i rarely last longer than3 months.

I wouldn't say it necessarily HAS to be sandbox. But it really should give us players something better to do with our time when we don't feel like going and killing rats or boars. Heck, even some random puzzles in dungeons would be nice. Make us use our brains for a bit rather than simply rushing to the finish line. An example of this can be, You have X amount of time to deciper this puzzle and open the door, if not, then some mobs will pop up from somewhere (prison cells for example). and if you don't solve it again, more mobs will show up, or, the second or third time around the room will be gassed/explode or SOMETHING. Just make it worth our while. Dungeons are supposed to be exciting and dangerous.

Originally posted by airhead

'quest' is just 'fantasy-speak' for a CHORE. You people like to do chores?

NPC: Us stone workers are having problems with sand falling into our pants. This is irritating, and many of my workers are breaking out in rashes. We need these work pants cleaned! Can you help us out?

Adventurer: I would be glad to support my nation.

NPC: ok. Go find 10 piles of dirty laundry, and take them to the machine of cleaning. Once done, then pick them up and disburse them to my men. Hop to it soldier!

(And then you get to spam your 'community' for help and guidance)

/ooc Where are those damned dirty pants?!

Neighborhood smartass: Don't be so lazy! look it up on the web.

(then you go to the database on the web that describes every quest and it's solution.... do these guys ever get their pants clean?!)

That's a quest-game. Of course, you could make this laundry quest part of a CHAIN, leading to a super big chore/quest that will give the sword of a thousand truths.... but you might have to wait and pay 15/month for a year or so while they develop it. But that gives you time to master the 5 possible battle sequences (sequences of keystrokes resulting in avatar actions in the virtual world), as well and modify 2 of them and add 1 new one over the course of a year because the dev-gods decided to change the rules (class balancing) to make 'choring' more 'challenging'.... ugh

 

Jordan, a man who previously hired you to find his daughter is in trouble and sends you a message telling you that he has uncovered a plot by the man who stole his daughter, the man that is now your enemy.  You rescued the girl, and did some dirty deeds to his hirelings.  He is seeking revenge.  The evil bastard is planning to retake the girl and in order to keep you from interfering, again, he has hired a group of assassins to kill you.  In his message, Jordan begs you to protect his daughter, you are the only one he trusts.  He has sent her with a caravan to take refuge at a monastery, but he is afraid she will be taken on the route there.  If you can save his daughter, he will put you in contact with a man who has information that you need.

Now, you have to find the Caravan, which is in route to another town.  On the way there, at any time, you may be attacked by assassins who are actively hunting you.  If you survive these ambushes, and reach the caravan the daughter may be there if you got there early enough.  If, however, you were delayed by the ambushes, the caravan has been destroyed and the daughter taken.  In that case you must track her abductors to their hideout, where they plan to sell her to the man that hired them, the same man that hired the assassins to kill you.

The hideout is very well guarded, you could try a frontal assault, but that might be suicide.  Or, you could try to sneak into a secret entrance, or go in disguised as members of the bandits.  There are several ways to attempt the rescue, which will you try?

And so on...

This quest is tied into things you have accomplished in the past, there are enemies actively seeking your death, and friends needing your help.  Your actions affect how the Quest unfolds, and how you attempt to complete the Quest is up to you.  Finally, there is no guarantee you will be successful, and if you fail, there is no repeating this; your story just goes on.

This is what MMORPG Quests should be like, plot driven non-linear and part of your ongoing story.  Not grocery lists, or endless boring grinds.

I don’t believe you have to offer only sandbox games, or boring grocery list quest games, it is simply time to make a new kind of MMORPG game that is neither of these old designs, and that is exactly what we have been building for the past two years.   I was so tired of playing those other shallow MMOs that I gathered some  other game industry professionals and started building one that I want to play.  If you are also bored, maybe you want to play something new as well?   If so, stop by, we need to convince the industry that people want something better, not more clones of the same. 

Jatar
www.CitadelofSorcery.com

Originally posted by Jatar

 

 

I could not agree more.  What current MMOs call Quests are grocery lists.  Who wants to do that?
But... what if an MMORPG gave you real quests instead of these useless grocery lists?  What if a Quest was like this...

 

Jordan, a man who previously hired you to find his daughter is in trouble and sends you a message telling you that he has uncovered a plot by the man who stole his daughter, the man that is now your enemy.  You rescued the girl, and did some dirty deeds to his hirelings.  He is seeking revenge.  The evil bastard is planning to retake the girl and in order to keep you from interfering, again, he has hired a group of assassins to kill you.  In his message, Jordan begs you to protect his daughter, you are the only one he trusts.  He has sent her with a caravan to take refuge at a monastery, but he is afraid she will be taken on the route there.  If you can save his daughter, he will put you in contact with a man who has information that you need.

Now, you have to find the Caravan, which is in route to another town.  On the way there, at any time, you may be attacked by assassins who are actively hunting you.  If you survive these ambushes, and reach the caravan the daughter may be there if you got there early enough.  If, however, you were delayed by the ambushes, the caravan has been destroyed and the daughter taken.  In that case you must track her abductors to their hideout, where they plan to sell her to the man that hired them, the same man that hired the assassins to kill you.

The hideout is very well guarded, you could try a frontal assault, but that might be suicide.  Or, you could try to sneak into a secret entrance, or go in disguised as members of the bandits.  There are several ways to attempt the rescue, which will you try?

And so on...

This quest is tied into things you have accomplished in the past, there are enemies actively seeking your death, and friends needing your help.  Your actions affect how the Quest unfolds, and how you attempt to complete the Quest is up to you.  Finally, there is no guarantee you will be successful, and if you fail, there is no repeating this; your story just goes on.

This is what MMORPG Quests should be like, plot driven non-linear and part of your ongoing story.  Not grocery lists, or endless boring grinds.

I don’t believe you have to offer only sandbox games, or boring grocery list quest games, it is simply time to make a new kind of MMORPG game that is neither of these old designs, and that is exactly what we have been building for the past two years.   I was so tired of playing those other shallow MMOs that I gathered some  other game industry professionals and started building one that I want to play.  If you are also bored, maybe you want to play something new as well?   If so, stop by, we need to convince the industry that people want something better, not more clones of the same. 

Jatar
www.CitadelofSorcery.com

Well, this would be cool.... IF it was dynamically created by the thoughts and intentions of the NPCs...sure. Ultimately, to me, if it is POSSIBLE to go to a third party website and read a list of instructions about what to do to complete it, then it's NOT dynamic. It's just a bigger more complicated list of actions that you do to complete it. With some randomness thrown in because you might crit that sword swing, or you might miss, so my gameplay is like this: do action A, action B... if fail, then do action M and maybe complete quest, if not do action C, etc. Just a little more complicated.

Now we are YEARS away from achieving such things with AI.... so the only way it could really happen in the near future is because there are humans behind those avatars. Also, the game mechanics would have to allow for such things as 'hiring assassins',  or 'tracking assassins / others', etc. That's what developers should be doing... creating more things you can do. Then humans with all their greed, benevolence, loyalty, betrayal, etc create the story and world that the players live in.

(aside: when I use bold on a word, I'm not yelling, just emphasizing that word as the most important one in the sentence... to convey meaning etc. :-)

Originally posted by airhead

'quest' is just 'fantasy-speak' for a CHORE. You people like to do chores?

NPC: Us stone workers are having problems with sand falling into our pants. This is irritating, and many of my workers are breaking out in rashes. We need these work pants cleaned! Can you help us out?

Adventurer: I would be glad to support my nation.

NPC: ok. Go find 10 piles of dirty laundry, and take them to the machine of cleaning. Once done, then pick them up and disburse them to my men. Hop to it soldier!

(And then you get to spam your 'community' for help and guidance)

/ooc Where are those damned dirty pants?!

Neighborhood smartass: Don't be so lazy! look it up on the web.

(then you go to the database on the web that describes every quest and it's solution.... do these guys ever get their pants clean?!)

That's a quest-game. Of course, you could make this laundry quest part of a CHAIN, leading to a super big chore/quest that will give the sword of a thousand truths.... but you might have to wait and pay 15/month for a year or so while they develop it. But that gives you time to master the 5 possible battle sequences (sequences of keystrokes resulting in avatar actions in the virtual world), as well and modify 2 of them and add 1 new one over the course of a year because the dev-gods decided to change the rules (class balancing) to make 'choring' more 'challenging'.... ugh

 

 By your logic LOTR was just one big chore.  Take RING!  Throw into lava.  Done.  AT least I can choose to do them or not.  IN a Sandbox, everything is a chore you make up.  There is no content.  I'm paying to entertain myself and chat, since thats what content is in a sandbox.  No thank you.

Sure most quests in WOW weren't all that special, but there were plenty of gems in there, mostly involving dungeons.  Whenever someone mentions all of WOW"s quests are simple, I think "IDIOT, try something other than soloing."  DOn't complain there weren't any decent quests if you purposely skipped all the good ones.

Basically I suggest not playing MMOs anymore, because you're obviously bitter and burnt out. 

Originally posted by airhead

 

Originally posted by Jatar

 

 

I could not agree more.  What current MMOs call Quests are grocery lists.  Who wants to do that?
But... what if an MMORPG gave you real quests instead of these useless grocery lists?  What if a Quest was like this...

 

Jordan, a man who previously hired you to find his daughter is in trouble and sends you a message telling you that he has uncovered a plot by the man who stole his daughter, the man that is now your enemy.  You rescued the girl, and did some dirty deeds to his hirelings.  He is seeking revenge.  The evil bastard is planning to retake the girl and in order to keep you from interfering, again, he has hired a group of assassins to kill you.  In his message, Jordan begs you to protect his daughter, you are the only one he trusts.  He has sent her with a caravan to take refuge at a monastery, but he is afraid she will be taken on the route there.  If you can save his daughter, he will put you in contact with a man who has information that you need.

Now, you have to find the Caravan, which is in route to another town.  On the way there, at any time, you may be attacked by assassins who are actively hunting you.  If you survive these ambushes, and reach the caravan the daughter may be there if you got there early enough.  If, however, you were delayed by the ambushes, the caravan has been destroyed and the daughter taken.  In that case you must track her abductors to their hideout, where they plan to sell her to the man that hired them, the same man that hired the assassins to kill you.

The hideout is very well guarded, you could try a frontal assault, but that might be suicide.  Or, you could try to sneak into a secret entrance, or go in disguised as members of the bandits.  There are several ways to attempt the rescue, which will you try?

And so on...

This quest is tied into things you have accomplished in the past, there are enemies actively seeking your death, and friends needing your help.  Your actions affect how the Quest unfolds, and how you attempt to complete the Quest is up to you.  Finally, there is no guarantee you will be successful, and if you fail, there is no repeating this; your story just goes on.

This is what MMORPG Quests should be like, plot driven non-linear and part of your ongoing story.  Not grocery lists, or endless boring grinds.

I don’t believe you have to offer only sandbox games, or boring grocery list quest games, it is simply time to make a new kind of MMORPG game that is neither of these old designs, and that is exactly what we have been building for the past two years.   I was so tired of playing those other shallow MMOs that I gathered some  other game industry professionals and started building one that I want to play.  If you are also bored, maybe you want to play something new as well?   If so, stop by, we need to convince the industry that people want something better, not more clones of the same. 

Jatar
www.CitadelofSorcery.com

 

Well, this would be cool.... IF it was dynamically created by the thoughts and intentions of the NPCs...sure. Ultimately, to me, if it is POSSIBLE to go to a third party website and read a list of instructions about what to do to complete it, then it's NOT dynamic. It's just a bigger more complicated list of actions that you do to complete it. With some randomness thrown in because you might crit that sword swing, or you might miss, so my gameplay is like this: do action A, action B... if fail, then do action M and maybe complete quest, if not do action C, etc. Just a little more complicated.

Now we are YEARS away from achieving such things with AI.... so the only way it could really happen in the near future is because there are humans behind those avatars. Also, the game mechanics would have to allow for such things as 'hiring assassins',  or 'tracking assassins / others', etc. That's what developers should be doing... creating more things you can do. Then humans with all their greed, benevolence, loyalty, betrayal, etc create the story and world that the players live in.

(aside: when I use bold on a word, I'm not yelling, just emphasizing that word as the most important one in the sentence... to convey meaning etc. :-)

 

You say, 'that's what developers should be doing', right you are, and that is what we ARE doing.  If you would like to see a list of the kind of things you can do in the game, look on our web site and read in the 'Cos Q and A' section, look under 'Design' and read some of the questions people have already asked us about the design of the game.

We're not doing the impossible, we're just trying harder.

Jatar

www.CitadelofSorcery.com

Jatar, I think Bioware might have one up on you guys since they've stressed a very similar idea to what you're saying and they have been working on it since 2005 (supposedly). I'll wait and see what Bioware ahas to say though.

@ Jatar.... then I bow in unfeigned admiration and respect; wishing you success !   (wish I had enough time to participate)...

@ Josher, ( particularly: "IN a Sandbox, everything is a chore you make up.  There is no content. ")... I would say this...

Are you saying self-made goals and actions are chores? For example, suppose i'm in a game, and I see some guy walking down the street with a nice two-hander. I want it (greed). Maybe I could backstab him in an alley somewhere? But then all his friends might put a bounty on my head and I would be an outlaw. Maybe I could trick him someway? Or maybe play a game of poker with him and win it that way? Maybe I could team up with somebody and we could cheat at poker together?

All these 'methods' are what I would call the mechanics of a game. Most MMOs today have VERY LITTLE you can do... just press 20 buttons and your guy moves around. To really make a sandbox work, there needs to be hundreds of 'things' I could do. Then the complexity of human desires and actions make the world dynamic and entertaining. But IF the mechanics were built-for-the-moron like most games are today, then yea, I agree, everything you did would still be somewhat of a chore, because you can only do one thing, and every action would just be how much of that one thing you repeatedly did.

But self-made goals and actions ARE at least different than chores, which are tasks given to you by your superior. But you need to have enough goals to choose from to make your choice feel like 'freedom'....

Originally posted by Josher

 

Originally posted by airhead

'quest' is just 'fantasy-speak' for a CHORE. You people like to do chores?

NPC: Us stone workers are having problems with sand falling into our pants. This is irritating, and many of my workers are breaking out in rashes. We need these work pants cleaned! Can you help us out?

Adventurer: I would be glad to support my nation.

NPC: ok. Go find 10 piles of dirty laundry, and take them to the machine of cleaning. Once done, then pick them up and disburse them to my men. Hop to it soldier!

(And then you get to spam your 'community' for help and guidance)

/ooc Where are those damned dirty pants?!

Neighborhood smartass: Don't be so lazy! look it up on the web.

(then you go to the database on the web that describes every quest and it's solution.... do these guys ever get their pants clean?!)

That's a quest-game. Of course, you could make this laundry quest part of a CHAIN, leading to a super big chore/quest that will give the sword of a thousand truths.... but you might have to wait and pay 15/month for a year or so while they develop it. But that gives you time to master the 5 possible battle sequences (sequences of keystrokes resulting in avatar actions in the virtual world), as well and modify 2 of them and add 1 new one over the course of a year because the dev-gods decided to change the rules (class balancing) to make 'choring' more 'challenging'.... ugh

 

 

 By your logic LOTR was just one big chore.  Take RING!  Throw into lava.  Done.  AT least I can choose to do them or not.  IN a Sandbox, everything is a chore you make up.  There is no content.  I'm paying to entertain myself and chat, since thats what content is in a sandbox.  No thank you.

Sure most quests in WOW weren't all that special, but there were plenty of gems in there, mostly involving dungeons.  Whenever someone mentions all of WOW"s quests are simple, I think "IDIOT, try something other than soloing."  DOn't complain there weren't any decent quests if you purposely skipped all the good ones.

 

Basically I suggest not playing MMOs anymore, because you're obviously bitter and burnt out. 

Seriously, it's a personal preferance thing.  Some of us like player driven content and some us like quests.  I really would prefer to decide what I want to do during a session or to jump in on what ever the community has going.  Static quests don't do it for me.  LOTRO was a good example.  I could play through the quests and be reasonably entertained, but it just got boring after a while.  Basically, everyone is running through the same quests with the same results and nothing ever changes in the game world...no matter what you do.  Theme park really is a fiting description here...

---

Originally posted by Josher

---

Originally posted by airhead

'quest' is just 'fantasy-speak' for a CHORE. You people like to do chores?
NPC: Us stone workers are having problems with sand falling into our pants. This is irritating, and many of my workers are breaking out in rashes. We need these work pants cleaned! Can you help us out?
Adventurer: I would be glad to support my nation.
NPC: ok. Go find 10 piles of dirty laundry, and take them to the machine of cleaning. Once done, then pick them up and disburse them to my men. Hop to it soldier!
(And then you get to spam your 'community' for help and guidance)
/ooc Where are those damned dirty pants?!
Neighborhood smartass: Don't be so lazy! look it up on the web.
(then you go to the database on the web that describes every quest and it's solution.... do these guys ever get their pants clean?!)
That's a quest-game. Of course, you could make this laundry quest part of a CHAIN, leading to a super big chore/quest that will give the sword of a thousand truths.... but you might have to wait and pay 15/month for a year or so while they develop it. But that gives you time to master the 5 possible battle sequences (sequences of keystrokes resulting in avatar actions in the virtual world), as well and modify 2 of them and add 1 new one over the course of a year because the dev-gods decided to change the rules (class balancing) to make 'choring' more 'challenging'.... ugh
 

---

 By your logic LOTR was just one big chore.  Take RING!  Throw into lava.  Done.  AT least I can choose to do them or not.  IN a Sandbox, everything is a chore you make up.  There is no content.  I'm paying to entertain myself and chat, since thats what content is in a sandbox.  No thank you.
Sure most quests in WOW weren't all that special, but there were plenty of gems in there, mostly involving dungeons.  Whenever someone mentions all of WOW"s quests are simple, I think "IDIOT, try something other than soloing."  DOn't complain there weren't any decent quests if you purposely skipped all the good ones.
 
Basically I suggest not playing MMOs anymore, because you're obviously bitter and burnt out. 

---

LOTR WAS a big chore! if you don't believe me, here's how the same goal could've been achieved WITHOUT it being a messy chore lol!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnUvw1rzziE

"well that was extremely easy"

"Yeah, can you imagine what would've happened if we had travelled ALL the way?" (LAUGH)

"Don't be silly"

"Yeah, one of us could've died!"

There is a big demand for sandbox.  However, it is hard to make em because there no new age guidelines to follow besides maybe old SW, but even that is old.  It takes a lot of creative developers with a good source of money.  It just doesnt' happen.  Of course there is Darkfall, but many, and I'm starting to become one of them, believe it is vaporware.

---

Originally posted by Kyleran
I'd have to say I vote for a hybrid system that has the best part of both systems, they are not mutually exclusive concepts.

---

I agree. A game that gives you things to do while you try to find something you want to do but which does not restrict you to only doing one thing. :P EVE is good in that it gives you things to do mining, missions, ratting, etc but you are free to do what ever else you may desire and you are not hindered by class limitations. My only big gripe about EVE is the time based skills as I much rather have it setup like Saga of Ryzom or OU where you use a skill in order to gain mastery over it.

My theory on constant sandbox failure:

The game itself is not to blame, it is the people playing them. For the most part , people in general after going to work or going to school ect are burned out at the end of the day, now when they log into a sandbox they are forced to think even more on what they want to do.

It is like writting an essay for no reason, a lot people just want to open up a great book and read it, not write it. THe player base now just is so small for these games it just not economically possible to get them made. Think from what I hear SWG Pre was about the last shot, it failed because of of an update, a lot of production and investers just see that it failed, they don't care why and won't fund anything that grand.

My Theory on how it could work with a story based game :

Think the best thing is to create a middle line where there is just enough role playing and player areas to create a semi sand pile, LotRO does this, it has the great novel you get to play through but also makes it possible for you to write your own little niche. Who says you can't just farm all day in Saddle, or sit in the Taverns and jam with your lute. Things are possible, but we run into that area of "imagination" that one part a lot of working people get burned out of because of a stress, so they pop open the novel and immerse them selves into a a role and follow the storyline , and whne they feel like stepping away there are other elements to do, that is why I thin LotRO is probably one of the best balanced games in that aspect.

It seems a popular option seems to be a hybrid. However, I would question if linear progression and sandbox mechanics can really coexist, if it means players will grow more powerful as they progress. As someone pointed out, it divides the playerbase, meaning only certain people can play with certain other people. It would create players who are richer than others by virtue of being higher level, ruining the economy. It would favor the players who have the skillset (probably combat) to advance in the plot, and exclude all others. Whenever you try to please too many people, some groups become an afterthought. Chances are, it wouldn't be the most profitable player demographic that becomes ignored. This is the only major thing that bothered me about pre-CU SWG. The combat pprofessions got all the attention and pretty much ruled the game since almost all money came from combat missions.

Originally posted by Jatar

 

I'm pleased to tell you that this is not years away.  Our Quest Generator creates Quests for the players, these cannot be looked up on a web site as they are made for the player at the time the player begins the Quest.  The AI behind the NPCs is also very possible, as we already have this system in the works.  Two years on technology and design, that's what we've spent to get here.

 

You say, 'that's what developers should be doing', right you are, and that is what we ARE doing.  If you would like to see a list of the kind of things you can do in the game, look on our web site and read in the 'Cos Q and A' section, look under 'Design' and read some of the questions people have already asked us about the design of the game.

We're not doing the impossible, we're just trying harder.

Jatar

www.CitadelofSorcery.com

 

And I'm sorry to tell you that no end of games have included dynamic mission/quest generators and they all suck.

A basic template of a few different quest types, randomise some variables, mix and match.

And while at the end of the day you still end up with the same basic chod you get in the hand programmed quests, where you go and retrieve sadi item or kill x many mobs, you lack one basic ingredient, a hand written story.

You see for all WoW quests are basically boring, each one has a sense of humor. Each one has been written. By an Author.

This is not what developers should be doing. It is what developers should not be doing, no one wants a souless and uninspired game world. If you are not willing to take the time to individually craft and create each element of your game, if you just want to write a script to dynamically churn out content instead of lovingly inscribe each part by hand, the quality of your product will reflect this.

On the AI front, the limitiations of the AI are not what you can program they are what your server can calculate. You should be able to realise a higher grade of AI with each new game as processors become more powerful and bandwidth more available. Obviously it isn't possible to place a Quakebot standard AI in a server that hosts 3,000 players and provide one for each player. There are finite limits to processing power. MMO's are by their very "Massive Online" nature forced to use very primitive AI's and game types.

With regards to sandbox games, things have moved on. Servers are now powerful enough to host quests and AI's galore. Games that provide none of this are all past their sell-by date.  "Sandbox" is not the technological marvel of innovation it once was.  A new game arriving on the market must be contemporary with the competiton. It must provide as many features as existing games or more to stand a chance.

Hybrid games sandbox and quest games?  All quest games are sandbox. Sandbox is built into all MMO's already. It's just that inthe newer MMO's the other elements of the game, the sripted quests and event's for example, the PvP battlegrounds and Arena's are more fun. They are Sandbox+. Sandbox play is allive and well in all MMO's, only these days MMO's have progressed and have additional content to offer. Games that seek to offer less then the competition for the same price are destined to failure.

Any game that goes back to only simpleton game designs such as those found in Ultima or Eve, is going to fail in the market place.  Sandbox isn't dead it is an intrinsic part of all MMO's. When people ask for "sandbox games" they are essentially trying to market themselves as "old school" MMOers for the kudos of their peers. I like vintage cars too. They rock, but 99% of the time they stay on the garage and I use my modern ones.