I love sandbox games, played UO alot, bought Darkfall day one, tried Mortal Online, now trying back to UO on PandoraUO, played Wurm Online with guildmates few weeks..

im now searching for any good sandbox game to play. Dawntide is currently offline, so im waiting for their open beta. Earthrise is offline too, because they are working on lags and going to release f2p - which is cool - Im waiting for that.

But what about Xsyon? it seems its like wurm, which is cool, but problem is - they still want 30euro + 15/month, when they have around 50 players online on whole server.

I dont get it. Why they are so greedy? Yes. Many people get over this game, because its bad..etc..etc.. but I think most of intelligent players think about price/fun. And if games from indie devs like Xsyon or Earthrise or Dawntide will be for free, or for smaller fee they will have server full of players.. like Wurm now have.

Smaller fee = 20eur for account, it will include 1 month of playtime. Then 10eur/month MAX. And some bonuses, like 25eur for 3 months, 40 for 6, 80 for 12. And maybe, like in Wurm, some "trials" Like 5eur/month for 50% skillcap, after starter month gone..etc

People will definitely go for it. They will start trying to play it.. and they will start love it. But games, that have empty world, with many negative critics and you cant even try them for free? Thats big problem today. And dont tell me "devs must pay hosting..blabla" fees arent that large. If they will, there will be none free servers for uo,L2,wow..etc.

Im not someone who hate fees. I paid for xK hours in wow, lotro and was even in swtor. But swtor was my last game where I select pay for themeparks. I will never do it again.
Its just about principles. I like sandbox games. But gamers dont want pay for something thats a) nothing extra (themeparks) b) unfinished games (darkfall, mortal, xsyon, dawntide.. you named it).

I mean.. intelligent people will pay for sandbox games even if its not finished, but not 30-60eur + 15/month.. thats not possible. There are some standards. I know, for example World of Warcraft its boring game..etc but its quality game. so yes, they have rights to demand 30eur + 15/month. But unfinished games like df/mo/xsyon? I dont think so. Darkfall was really good game, but PvE was problem for me. it was really chaotic. Like one strong mob - and not any loot. or weak loot. there was mobs with loot 20cr then 200cr and nothing between them, so player need to grind or do hardcore. I like smooth pve, with intelligent loot system, where loot correspond to strong of that mob, which was not true in many cases. And to be honest, I dont like full loot system like how it was in DF. Partial ? Yes.. maybe full in side pvp.. but in darkfall, because bad karma system blue kills blue.. no one can trust anyone = community never rise..

Dont put in "state of the game" and then go off on a rant about pricing, its missleading, people might think that its an actual post about the state of the game.

If you think its worth it pay the money, if not then dont play the game. Its a very subjective thing to determine whether or not the game is worth the pricetag, for me it has definately been worth it, for a lot of other players obvously it wasnt.

Incidently a trial server is in the works, there are several issues with the gameplay that would make a trial on the live server a living nightmare, noone wants that (unless they are idiots). The thing is that a trial is really a marketing thing and up until recently there hasnt really been much of a finished game to do marketing with, but its quickly becoming a pressing issue.

seems you cant read long text properly ;)
its state of this game AND ALL SANDBOX GAMES
which I write about.
its there. inside.
xsyon - empty. unfinished. bugged. nothing working. no endgame, because tools/armors/weapons didnt decay..etc.

all other sandboxes today - same style. greedy amateur devs that want AAA pay for nothing.

+ i was asking others that played xsyon last 1-2 month.. how they think xsyon is.. and others sandbox games..

about worth/worthless - no. its not about WORTH its about PRINCIPLES.
and about trial - yep. because they are too bad, so even if they have claim system, city system..they dont have any protections.

They were able to make.. in 3 years.. run 3 tools to generate world,spawn it, totally randomly and then make few items. Thats all. they dont have any good script into. any good AI, any advanced script for criminal flag, for securing your property..etc. They just made empty world and some graphic data files and few items. But that hardest part.. in 3 years.. NOTHING. Why they have on web page they have X size of cities.. claiming land..etc when it means nothing, I dont know. Maybe they are scammers or they just lazy.

Originally posted by rodier

seems you cant read long text properly ;)
its state of this game AND ALL SANDBOX GAMES
which I write about.
its there. inside.
xsyon - empty. unfinished. bugged. nothing working. no endgame, because tools/armors/weapons didnt decay..etc.

all other sandboxes today - same style. greedy amateur devs that want AAA pay for nothing.

+ i was asking others that played xsyon last 1-2 month.. how they think xsyon is.. and others sandbox games..

about worth/worthless - no. its not about WORTH its about PRINCIPLES.
and about trial - yep. because they are too bad, so even if they have claim system, city system..they dont have any protections.

They were able to make.. in 3 years.. run 3 tools to generate world,spawn it, totally randomly and then make few items. Thats all. they dont have any good script into. any good AI, any advanced script for criminal flag, for securing your property..etc. They just made empty world and some graphic data files and few items. But that hardest part.. in 3 years.. NOTHING. Why they have on web page they have X size of cities.. claiming land..etc when it means nothing, I dont know. Maybe they are scammers or they just lazy.

First off....many of the free public UO, L2, WOW servers you mentioned are funded via player donations for items that give competitive advantage in the game.  Cash shops & Sandbox MMORPGs (generally speaking) do not mix.

It is quite possible that the folks over at Xyson can't handle a whole lot of people right now (as its being developed) and they are using the price point to control the population.  For example, if they all of the sudden went free to play w/ Cash shop......they would have an explosion of subs that their infrastructure can't handle and you end up with a bunch of upset people over lag & game performance.

It could also just be their strategy at funding the game so that it stays afloat.  As I mentioned before, Cash Shops aren't great for Sandbox games because Sandbox MMOs are generally more competitive and rely on a player driven economy for stuff needed in the game to be successful.  If you allow players to circumvent the social dependence (which is one of the main features of this game) and circumvent the player economy by purchasing over powered items in a cash shop....you essentially wreck the main premise of playing in a sandbox.

Indie developers are trying to fill a gap in MMO gaming, and are challenged with finding funding to keep the projects afloat. 

I'm not making excuses for these guys, but just offering some other things to consider.

Originally posted by rodier

seems you cant read long text properly ;)
its state of this game AND ALL SANDBOX GAMES
which I write about.
its there. inside.
xsyon - empty. unfinished. bugged. nothing working. no endgame, because tools/armors/weapons didnt decay..etc.

all other sandboxes today - same style. greedy amateur devs that want AAA pay for nothing.

+ i was asking others that played xsyon last 1-2 month.. how they think xsyon is.. and others sandbox games..

There wasnt really any questions in your post. I  assumed you were telling and not asking. I suppose its just bad english skills, no worries.

I can assure you that a lot of the posters on these forums are terribly uninformed. For example, item decay has been active in Xsyon for months, its hardly bugged or laggy at this stage, and they actually deal with bugs from new content rather quickly.

They ask the players to pay for their subscriptions because it costs money to develope a game and it costs money to run servers, its not free, I dont think thats so greedy. I dont see the point in comparing subscription fees. The box price is a different deal and I think its a little steep myself but you are not paying subscriptions for the game, you are paying it for a service and that service is the same no matter if its wow, swtor, Xsyon or darkfall. F2P games is a different deal and its basicly a choice from the developers perspective. Notorious games chose to go with a subscription form and thats just fine, I dont think any other way would work with Xsyon. Im a long time paying customer and I wouldnt have it any other way. 

Look, its very simple, if you dont want to pay for a game that you percieve as "empty, unfinished, bugged, nothing working" then DON'T buy it.

i recently tried xsyon, and the game world was too full for me. i had to walk for hours to find a good place to start my tribe. very in depth crafting system,  i saw some amazing architecture, easy enough to figure out how to play. combat was really hard for me though. kept getting killed by hampsters and squirrels, which led to a lot of frustration.

as i mentioned i saw some awesome player towns and settlements, but they all just seemed abandoned. the world was full of player created tribes, but it felt very empty.  if they made a new server for new players i would play again, it gave the feeling of "you missed youre chance to contribute".

Ok, this is game is not worth it to you, no need to make a post complaining about pricing.  You haven't even played this game, how would you call it unfinished?  All those games you listed are not 'unfinished', maybe they aren't up to your artificial level of being complete, but they are most certainly a finished product.  The exception to the games you meantioned is Dawntide and I guess Earthrise.  Dawntide is still in beta, so yeah it really is unfinished.  ER is bascially not accepting new accounts at the moment because they say they are making a transitiion to f2p (if it lasts that long).   As far as I know Xsyon team is still working on a free trial for the game. 

I think about price/fun sure.  But the word fun is subjective and what may be a lot of money to you, may be nothing to me and of course vice versa.

Originally posted by rodier

I dont get it. Why they are so greedy?

You're right.  You DON'T get it.

Keeping and housing servers costs MONEY.  Continuing to develop a game costs MONEY.

To keep a game going requires X amount of revenue.  The fewer people that play, means each has to pay more in order to keep the game going.  It's not GREED, it's MATH.

It's certainly an unfortunate irony; one that I wish more folks that like to criticize the quality of sandboxes would respect.  Sandboxes generally require ALOT more resources to create than do themeparks, yet they lack the big money support that themeparks get.  And as a result, you end up with tiny development houses trying to create something that is way beyond their means.

Frankly, I don't know why they do it.  Sandbox fundamentalists are the most fickle, arrogant, opinionated player base in existence.  Create a themepark, they bitch.  Create a flawed sandbox, they bitch even more.  In the end, developers don't get support from anybody.

Originally posted by brody71

i recently tried xsyon, and the game world was too full for me. i had to walk for hours to find a good place to start my tribe. very in depth crafting system,  i saw some amazing architecture, easy enough to figure out how to play. combat was really hard for me though. kept getting killed by hampsters and squirrels, which led to a lot of frustration.

 

as i mentioned i saw some awesome player towns and settlements, but they all just seemed abandoned. the world was full of player created tribes, but it felt very empty.  if they made a new server for new players i would play again, it gave the feeling of "you missed youre chance to contribute".

I think this is a common thing but is like this in any game. Join a game where you are level 1 and everyone else is level 85 teir 3 raid gear.

Sandbox games are even worse about it because the world keeps going. Look at EVE online same thing. Xsyon is really just started out many tribes have done some but not close to "finished" what they even have planned.

Im the leader of the the largest tribe in Xsyon, it takes months to do work on our projects of many people. I dont see how you can think you missed you chance.

Ive seen new tribes spring up this last couple of months and they starting their own projects that already have passed up some of the other tribes that are large.

Its all about what direction you want to take. Why worry about what others have done,  you wont be the first to do something. They are not going to make a new server just so everyone can be first. They would have 10000s of new servers and no one on any of them because everyone would be bored.

Back on topic of the post. The state of the game is still improving. If you love building up a world, effecting the world around you interacting with it. Xsyon is unmatched as the best sandbox game for that. Better than WURM, better than Dawntide, better than ATTID.

If you are looking for PVP, or PVE battles, contested areas, tribal wars etc. I would wait a few months.

Xsyon is great for solo players AND large tribes.

One of the major issues I have about it as someone else posted is "Whats the point". You can build all these great looking things (check out my youtube for my tribe area www.youtube.com/user/GavinXT or some of the screenshots. http://s38.photobucket.com/albums/e107/MrDDT/Xsyon/Xsyon%20-%20Mutants/) now what do I do with all the stuff we built? Baskets full of armor weapons resources etc. There is really no reason for it other than just something you can do.

Having said that, Xsyon is in prelude. Its the "build" up phase of what is going on in Xsyon. I expect these other things to come when the world is ready for them.

Originally posted by Robsolf

Originally posted by rodier

I dont get it. Why they are so greedy?

You're right.  You DON'T get it.

Keeping and housing servers costs MONEY.  Continuing to develop a game costs MONEY.

To keep a game going requires X amount of revenue.  The fewer people that play, means each has to pay more in order to keep the game going.  It's not GREED, it's MATH.

It's certainly an unfortunate irony; one that I wish more folks that like to criticize the quality of sandboxes would respect.  Sandboxes generally require ALOT more resources to create than do themeparks, yet they lack the big money support that themeparks get.  And as a result, you end up with tiny development houses trying to create something that is way beyond their means.

Frankly, I don't know why they do it.  Sandbox fundamentalists are the most fickle, arrogant, opinionated player base in existence.  Create a themepark, they bitch.  Create a flawed sandbox, they bitch even more.  In the end, developers don't get support from anybody.

By stereotyping a group of players you come off as opinionated and arrogant.  You wouldn't by chance be a sandbox fundamentalist?  

We are all here voicing our opinions hence we are all opinionated.  The fact we think anyone cares when we make these posts hints toward arrogance.  As far as fickle, well....sandbox players are anything but fickle as they continue to languish in a genre where there is slim pickings...where themepark games with 100 million dollar plus budgets are compared to sandbox operations created out of someones garage and then point to those failures as somehow endemic of sandbox design.

I play whatever is good, be it themepark or sandbox.  There's been quite a few themepark games released.  I'm wondering when we will see a 300 million dollar sandbox game.  Until then, yeah...people who prefer that style of gameplay are gonna be asking for it and feeling like square pegs trying to fit into circular holes when playing themepark.

Basically the only functioning and stable modern sandbox is Darkfall, love or hate it for its unforgiving pvp, at least the gear and game is build around the unforgiving nature and things come easy, and things are very diffrent community wise since its nightmare launch.

Xyson ties to do things well, and like most of the other sandboxes, has great ideas but fails horribly at the basic game mechanics, like DT/Earthrise/MO.

I dont blame them for charging, giving the game for free wouldnt result in the funding they need t fix the game. They need the funding badly, as many thing needed to be fixed, and from what i hear the basics are still in a terrible state.

Im like a lot of people who went on a charity gaming spree, trying to support games like this and earthrise, for doing something diffrent, getting away from the boring wow-parks mechanics.  After a while you just get tired of it.  Besides at least i can play one sandbox free of issues. 

Bottom line, this game had its big chance a year ago. Tons of people flocked to it.  It hade a deep community divide, which only made the basic malfunctions of the game and its engin all the more horrible to deal with.  Games like this rarely get a second chance.

I would come back, paying full price if:

1. The basic combat system was decent

2. There was a function to all those crafted items that were mainly visual

3. There was a good pve combat game within the gathering/crafting game it use to be

4. There was a reason to pvp ( i think it was tribal wars) however it needs to deter people camping in safe zones and avoiding pvp on a whim, or allowing people to run into magical safe zones where all of a sudden my attacks do nothing but can still take damage ect.

Not sure how many of these issues have been dealt with, however last i heard...not much has changed from last year, other than a laundry list of changes done to things that dont really matter...like adding seasons ect. The basics were broken in this game and thats what needs to be fixed if this game is ever going to compete with any other game, or draw a crowd that will stay.

Originally posted by Crunchy221

Basically the only functioning and stable modern sandbox is Darkfall, love or hate it for its unforgiving pvp, at least the gear and game is build around the unforgiving nature and things come easy, and things are very diffrent community wise since its nightmare launch.

Xyson ties to do things well, and like most of the other sandboxes, has great ideas but fails horribly at the basic game mechanics, like DT/Earthrise/MO.

I dont blame them for charging, giving the game for free wouldnt result in the funding they need t fix the game. They need the funding badly, as many thing needed to be fixed, and from what i hear the basics are still in a terrible state.

Im like a lot of people who went on a charity gaming spree, trying to support games like this and earthrise, for doing something diffrent, getting away from the boring wow-parks mechanics.  After a while you just get tired of it.  Besides at least i can play one sandbox free of issues. 

Bottom line, this game had its big chance a year ago. Tons of people flocked to it.  It hade a deep community divide, which only made the basic malfunctions of the game and its engin all the more horrible to deal with.  Games like this rarely get a second chance.

I would come back, paying full price if:

1. The basic combat system was decent

2. There was a function to all those crafted items that were mainly visual

3. There was a good pve combat game within the gathering/crafting game it use to be

4. There was a reason to pvp ( i think it was tribal wars) however it needs to deter people camping in safe zones and avoiding pvp on a whim, or allowing people to run into magical safe zones where all of a sudden my attacks do nothing but can still take damage ect.

 

Not sure how many of these issues have been dealt with, however last i heard...not much has changed from last year, other than a laundry list of changes done to things that dont really matter...like adding seasons ect. The basics were broken in this game and thats what needs to be fixed if this game is ever going to compete with any other game, or draw a crowd that will stay.

 

I agree with your reasons here.

I would like to add that EVE Online is a sandbox game and doing much better than Darkfall. Darkfall also is just barely sandbox.

I think Darfall focuses on combat with little world building and crafting. It does well at what it does.