Originally posted by MindTrigger

 

I'm seeing a lot of talk lately about people who are concerned about the lack of content, and/or lackluster replayability in these new games a few short months after they come out.  The problem these developers are having is a simple one.  It's called "theme park".  The issue is that since they create their worlds to hand deliver an experience (theme park rides, quests, instances), they can't possibly give people enough content to make them happy.

Many, many people on this website have been talking smack about sandbox-type design for years now, while I and others have been advocates of it having experienced how amazing they can be.  Star Wars Galaxies was a mess of a game from a technical and polish standpoint, yet most of the people who played it back in the day still proclaim their undying love for it.  There are many reasons people loved this game, and I can't recall anyone ever complaining about lack of content. Indeed, SWG could have benefited greatly from some of today's questing standards, as long as they were added in addition to the sandbox play already existing.

I'm not saying all games should be sandboxes, or that they need to be sandboxes even to the limited extent SWG was one, but what I am saying is that these new games need to be designed with perpetual replayability in mind, and this must go beyond PvP.  PvE replayability can be as easy as adding new explorable zones that do not require quests, or at least do not require nearly as many quests as a standard PvE zone.  These 'freestyle' zones could be filled with beautiful terrain, interesting mobs, dungeons, camps and other fun things that people could attack whenever they feel like it.  These realms could also potentially be opened up to PvP, making them something like the wild-west of the game world.

There is another aspect that is popping up more and more as well, and that is people complain that the worlds feel 'dead'.  They feel dead because they are dead.  They are little more than movie sets for you to walk past and not look too closely at.  There are no real social features, nothing in there for the RP crowd, crafting and trade has been reduced to the equivelent of a Mc Donalds Happy Meal served through a Drive-Thru window (auction house).  There is little or no player interaction required.

If you are wondering why these games are boring you, it's because they are the same thing, generally speaking, rehashed over and over again.  What you want is something different, and that different is going to come from starting to take these games back in the direction of living, breathing virtual worlds rather than completely scripted and contrived experiences.  The players need a chance to become their own content, as was true in SWG and other sandbox games, and they also need to be given the tools to forge their own adventure without having six "stories" to follow until they are bored to death with them.  I want my own damned story, and all I want from the game developers is an interesting and interactive world, a hybrid of theme park and sandbox ideals that will give me a place to do it.

Again, I'm not saying full-on hardcore sandboxes are going to appeal to everyone, but what I am saying is that theme parks could greatly benefit from many of the principals of sandboxes.  As long as game companies continue to crank out these cardboard worlds with no depth to them, you will continue to be bored with them shortly after purchasing the games.

What say you?

I think issue is more in the way how the two games have become more and more extreme versions of themselves.  

Many theme park games have become nothing more than guided tours through the world, with no ability to do anything other than follow the path as layed out for you.  Its become less theme park, and more single ride.  

The flip side is that many sandboxes have really become nothing more than detailed playing boards designed for you to have combat on.  There are generally no quests, no lore, nothing there but something pretty to attacke people  beside/on.

Its almost like these genres have become charactchers of themselves.

To me, the best way to fix this is to give us the TRAPPINGS of a theme park, and the ACTIVITIES of a sandbox.  However, this is going to require some paradigm shifts in thinking about content, and what "freedom" really means in the name of the game.

I still think a game should have some sort of randomized dungeons that spawn out in the wilderness to actually keep people out in the world. This could be added to a themepark or sandbox game, but seems like a more sandbox thing.

I've been looking for something more than what current games offer, the problem is, the developers that choose to make sandboxes usually lack experience and make buggy pieces of crap.

I also don't like how sandbox developers tend to equate sandbox to FFA PvP.

like your post and despite the false claims (not posted by OP but by other peopel replying)  that people migrate heavily between games (because we all know the REAL issue is not enough replayable content or workable content in most games) look at LOTRO is a great example. Heres a game that's had to overcome the movies, over come the standard themepark model. They are not by any means a sandbox however they have had to add content that's easily replayable enjoyable for the gamers who are fans to keep alive. 

That's all we want as players, the ability to replay content the ability to have fun replaying content and the standard models that are being thrown at us most recently with most titles is not enough, dungeons raids over and over again until nausia sets in is just not fun! Sorry but it's not.

Maybe its time that the themepark makers sat down and actually came up with a game model that's in between to satisfy both types of players because let's face it, us casuals are taking over the market and that's the only way these companies are going to make any profit is by catering to those of us who have lives, have jobs and don't spend 18 hours on a game a day.

Casuals like me love sandbox games (altho i could do without the forced pvp of most of them) i still like them.

The closest game that's in between right now that has yet to be released is Guild Wars 2. It has pve the world moves on without you, there are consequences to your actions. Thats the one thats in between, the best i think sandbox game or the most promising will be Archeage im sure because of their features. I'm highly impressed with this title.

Originally posted by ReallyNasti

Games like Mortal Online are the only hope for the genre.  Anyone who hasn't tried it needs to go download the game and give it a shot.  After trying it you will never want to go back to the same old themepark.   The head of the company is a true visionary who is slowly but surely bringing that vision to life.

 

The faithful shall be rewarded.

 

I read this randomly and laughed.. Mortal Online is not a good example...

Skyrim is a good example of an RPG...

Maybe a new sandbox game coming out, but not Mortal Online.. Terrible, terrible game.

Originally posted by ReallyNasti

Originally posted by Morv

Originally posted by ReallyNasti

Games like Mortal Online are the only hope for the genre.  Anyone who hasn't tried it needs to go download the game and give it a shot.  After trying it you will never want to go back to the same old themepark.   The head of the company is a true visionary who is slowly but surely bringing that vision to life.

 

The faithful shall be rewarded.

 

I read this randomly and laughed.. Mortal Online is not a good example...

 

Skyrim is a good example of an RPG...

Maybe a new sandbox game coming out, but not Mortal Online.. Terrible, terrible game.

This is what I mean when I talk about people buying steak and complaining they did not get sushi.  Skyrim is a single player game.

 

Show me another fantasy based, first person, sandbox MMORPG with skillbased combat, cooking, thivery, housing and soon to be the most advanced AI seen in an MMO.  Please show me as I am waiting.

 

He's not talking trash about the game due to features, he's doing it because of the inept developers. I think the game has always had some sort of game breaking bugs since release. Not to mention the corrupt GMs.

Originally posted by ReallyNasti

Originally posted by Morv

Originally posted by ReallyNasti

Games like Mortal Online are the only hope for the genre.  Anyone who hasn't tried it needs to go download the game and give it a shot.  After trying it you will never want to go back to the same old themepark.   The head of the company is a true visionary who is slowly but surely bringing that vision to life.

 

The faithful shall be rewarded.

 

I read this randomly and laughed.. Mortal Online is not a good example...

 

Skyrim is a good example of an RPG...

Maybe a new sandbox game coming out, but not Mortal Online.. Terrible, terrible game.

This is what I mean when I talk about people buying steak and complaining they did not get sushi.  Skyrim is a single player game.

 

Show me another fantasy based, first person, sandbox MMORPG with skillbased combat, full lot, open PvP, cooking, thivery, housing and soon to be the most advanced AI seen in an MMO.  Please show me as I am waiting.

 

Rule #1 of games.  Be fun to play.  Tried mortal.  It broke that rule.

---

Originally posted by jusomdude
I also don't like how sandbox developers tend to equate sandbox to FFA PvP.

---

The reason why most developers put FFA PVP into their sandboxes is, that you're basically allowed to do whatever you want in a sandbox. The question is, how restrictive the developer wants to be in that regard.

Look at EvE, where the universe is seperated into three zones. If you don't want to do PvP then you can basically play the game without getting involved in PvP and I know lot's of players in EvE, who've never engaged in PvP during the years they've played the game.

It's only a question of the implementation, but as I see it, FFA PvP is an essential part of a sandbox.

@ OP:

Yeah, all themeparks I've played so far (WoW, AoC, RoM, SWTOR) I've not played for longer then some 3-6 month exactly for the reason that after this time there's no content left. And I've never come back once a new addon was released, as I couldn't stand to grind out the next tier of equipment.
The only MMO I've played for an extended time (6 years) is EvE Online, as it didn't have levels and a premade story or dungeons. In EvE you could actually roleplay.

Originally posted by MindTrigger

 

I'm seeing a lot of talk lately about people who are concerned about the lack of content, and/or lackluster replayability in these new games a few short months after they come out.  The problem these developers are having is a simple one.  It's called "theme park".  The issue is that since they create their worlds to hand deliver an experience (theme park rides, quests, instances), they can't possibly give people enough content to make them happy.

Many, many people on this website have been talking smack about sandbox-type design for years now, while I and others have been advocates of it having experienced how amazing they can be.  Star Wars Galaxies was a mess of a game from a technical and polish standpoint, yet most of the people who played it back in the day still proclaim their undying love for it.  There are many reasons people loved this game, and I can't recall anyone ever complaining about lack of content. Indeed, SWG could have benefited greatly from some of today's questing standards, as long as they were added in addition to the sandbox play already existing.

I'm not saying all games should be sandboxes, or that they need to be sandboxes even to the limited extent SWG was one, but what I am saying is that these new games need to be designed with perpetual replayability in mind, and this must go beyond PvP.  PvE replayability can be as easy as adding new explorable zones that do not require quests, or at least do not require nearly as many quests as a standard PvE zone.  These 'freestyle' zones could be filled with beautiful terrain, interesting mobs, dungeons, camps and other fun things that people could attack whenever they feel like it.  These realms could also potentially be opened up to PvP, making them something like the wild-west of the game world.

There is another aspect that is popping up more and more as well, and that is people complain that the worlds feel 'dead'.  They feel dead because they are dead.  They are little more than movie sets for you to walk past and not look too closely at.  There are no real social features, nothing in there for the RP crowd, crafting and trade has been reduced to the equivelent of a Mc Donalds Happy Meal served through a Drive-Thru window (auction house).  There is little or no player interaction required.

If you are wondering why these games are boring you, it's because they are the same thing, generally speaking, rehashed over and over again.  What you want is something different, and that different is going to come from starting to take these games back in the direction of living, breathing virtual worlds rather than completely scripted and contrived experiences.  The players need a chance to become their own content, as was true in SWG and other sandbox games, and they also need to be given the tools to forge their own adventure without having six "stories" to follow until they are bored to death with them.  I want my own damned story, and all I want from the game developers is an interesting and interactive world, a hybrid of theme park and sandbox ideals that will give me a place to do it.

Again, I'm not saying full-on hardcore sandboxes are going to appeal to everyone, but what I am saying is that theme parks could greatly benefit from many of the principals of sandboxes.  As long as game companies continue to crank out these cardboard worlds with no depth to them, you will continue to be bored with them shortly after purchasing the games.

What say you?

With all the "I'm not saying" you have going on there it doesn't seem like you are saying all that much.  Have some guts and take a real stand.

Originally posted by ReallyNasti

Originally posted by jusomdude

Originally posted by ReallyNasti

Originally posted by Morv

Originally posted by ReallyNasti

Games like Mortal Online are the only hope for the genre.  Anyone who hasn't tried it needs to go download the game and give it a shot.  After trying it you will never want to go back to the same old themepark.   The head of the company is a true visionary who is slowly but surely bringing that vision to life.

 

The faithful shall be rewarded.

 

I read this randomly and laughed.. Mortal Online is not a good example...

 

Skyrim is a good example of an RPG...

Maybe a new sandbox game coming out, but not Mortal Online.. Terrible, terrible game.

This is what I mean when I talk about people buying steak and complaining they did not get sushi.  Skyrim is a single player game.

 

Show me another fantasy based, first person, sandbox MMORPG with skillbased combat, cooking, thivery, housing and soon to be the most advanced AI seen in an MMO.  Please show me as I am waiting.

 

He's not talking trash about the game due to features, he's doing it because of the inept developers. I think the game has always had some sort of game breaking bugs since release. Not to mention the corrupt GMs.

So I take it that you cannot name a game like one I listed.  OK thanks for playing, please enjoy a nice parting gift of "same old crappy theme park" on your way out.

Just because he can't name one, doesn't make MO good. Its like choosing between shot in the foot, knee to the groin or punched in the face. None of the choices are good, but one is certainly better than the other. Being "the best" doesn't make it good.

Its not the players, its the game. Its a horrible, horrible game.

Originally posted by MindTrigger

 

I'm seeing a lot of talk lately about people who are concerned about the lack of content, and/or lackluster replayability in these new games a few short months after they come out.  The problem these developers are having is a simple one.  It's called "theme park".  The issue is that since they create their worlds to hand deliver an experience (theme park rides, quests, instances), they can't possibly give people enough content to make them happy.

Many, many people on this website have been talking smack about sandbox-type design for years now, while I and others have been advocates of it having experienced how amazing they can be.  Star Wars Galaxies was a mess of a game from a technical and polish standpoint, yet most of the people who played it back in the day still proclaim their undying love for it.  There are many reasons people loved this game, and I can't recall anyone ever complaining about lack of content. Indeed, SWG could have benefited greatly from some of today's questing standards, as long as they were added in addition to the sandbox play already existing.

I'm not saying all games should be sandboxes, or that they need to be sandboxes even to the limited extent SWG was one, but what I am saying is that these new games need to be designed with perpetual replayability in mind, and this must go beyond PvP.  PvE replayability can be as easy as adding new explorable zones that do not require quests, or at least do not require nearly as many quests as a standard PvE zone.  These 'freestyle' zones could be filled with beautiful terrain, interesting mobs, dungeons, camps and other fun things that people could attack whenever they feel like it.  These realms could also potentially be opened up to PvP, making them something like the wild-west of the game world.

There is another aspect that is popping up more and more as well, and that is people complain that the worlds feel 'dead'.  They feel dead because they are dead.  They are little more than movie sets for you to walk past and not look too closely at.  There are no real social features, nothing in there for the RP crowd, crafting and trade has been reduced to the equivelent of a Mc Donalds Happy Meal served through a Drive-Thru window (auction house).  There is little or no player interaction required.

If you are wondering why these games are boring you, it's because they are the same thing, generally speaking, rehashed over and over again.  What you want is something different, and that different is going to come from starting to take these games back in the direction of living, breathing virtual worlds rather than completely scripted and contrived experiences.  The players need a chance to become their own content, as was true in SWG and other sandbox games, and they also need to be given the tools to forge their own adventure without having six "stories" to follow until they are bored to death with them.  I want my own damned story, and all I want from the game developers is an interesting and interactive world, a hybrid of theme park and sandbox ideals that will give me a place to do it.

Again, I'm not saying full-on hardcore sandboxes are going to appeal to everyone, but what I am saying is that theme parks could greatly benefit from many of the principals of sandboxes.  As long as game companies continue to crank out these cardboard worlds with no depth to them, you will continue to be bored with them shortly after purchasing the games.

What say you?

Place some the blame on Blizzard and WoW but the rest goes surely on the greedy corporations whose pupils turn to $$$.  This genre is dieing because of those 2 issues.  Its not like the old days when companies built "WORLDS" to live in, now we got every tom, dick and harry wanting to cash in on Blizzard's success.

its the reason why Ive been so vocally supportive of GW2 and here recently, TSW.  Because here are two games created with the players, and their desire to live in a world instead of play a game.  I know some people will say negative things about TSW but at least they are trying to not be a clone which cant be said for games like Rift or SWTOR so with what little of a voice as I have I will continue to speak out for the games who want to change the how "WoW does it".

Part of the problem is that WoW is actually fun and has years of content built on.  I can no longer stomach those type of games though long term.

I would like to see a game designed with community building design being the roots than layer theme park over that.  What I mean is design how player housing, towns, nations, shops, community tools, and etc work first than layer over the story and theme parks on that.  Have the space for it to happen and design in mind.  The whole point of MMORPG's seems to be lost with communities gone and game play turning single player multiplayer game.   How many vagabond hero games do we really need?

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Originally posted by Torik

Originally posted by MindTrigger

 

So how does your experience from the many, many people like me who played the game for years?  Your experience does not equal everyone else's.

For one, his experiences represent  a larger consensus. Old MMOs were not popular games. Todays MMOs are - thanks to the changes. Also, today you have a wide array of MMOs to choose from so you don't have to stick to one game for years. This is partly why Ultima Online is never, ever coming back. Players have options now and they don't have to put up with anything. You don't make a game massive with a collection of unpopular design decisions.

Is Mortal Online massive? -No it is not. I see more people on a TF2 server in ten minutes than in a day with MO.

It certainly doesn't help that "sandbox" is synonomous to piss poor production values and gameplay. They are a lucrative business for an indie developer because even if you did a shitty job, the competition is not much better. "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" is exactly how I would describe the sandbox market.

Gaming as a whole has grown since the release of SWG.  Most of that growth has been only in the five years or so, and WoW helped fuel it.  SWG wasn't for everyone, but to suggest it was garbage just because you and some others didn't like it, is ludicrous.  There simply was not millions and millions of MMO gamers back then.

We're off subject anyway.  The point is that these scripted and contrived theme parks that were popular for most of the last decade, are now considered boring.  People are looking for more.  I'm suggesting that building hyrbid MMO's that also have some more open word and sandbox features to go along with all the standard theme park elements would be a step in the right direction.  Sandboxes are the very definition of replayable, because there is no end-goal.  

Listen to all the people who are trying these brand new games such as Tera, GW2 and TSW.  A lot of people are just burned out on the same old garbage, and while the changes offered by GW2 are very helpful, people are still wondering where the long term playability is after they burn through all the contrived content.

Ok so.

1. I refuse to play linear as hell ,closed mmorpg worlds that are basically graphical lobbies framework to dungeon running. <-- this is boring

2. I also refuse to play underfinanced, understaffed ,slow-developed indie sandboxes. I do enjoy some single player / normal multiplayer indie games , but mmorpg's is diffrent scale and bit diffrent thing and indie productions just does not work. well EvE is an expception but I with that small succes rate I will not risk again , after dozens of horrible experiences like DFO , MO , Xsylon ,etc 

3. I refuse to play small sandbox projects backed up by big studios that are cash-shopped (sandbox + cash shop brrrr..) 

Hmm guess it is nothing exceptional that aside of few beta weekends and few ultra short tries of f2p games I do NOT play any mmorpg's atm since July 2011.

Future also does not look so bright.  Only two games that have chance to be released in 2012 or 2013 have some chance of having good enough features and business model to be good enough to play them.

While 2012-2013 will be exceptionally 'rich' years in mmo's releases.

Oh well there are other things that mmorpg's in this world.

I guess this is where subjectivity comes in.

Other than Swtor I don't feel today's games are any more linear than many old games.  Wow doesn't force me to go into any one area any more than EQ did.  In WoW just like EQ I have a bunch of places to level designed around a certain level range.  In both games I can go almost anywhere, although it maybe suicide at times.  I don't play them as lobby games althought it's nice to be able to hook up from for a quick run at virtualy anytime.

I don't play games that I think are crap either, under-funded or not.  I only play games I enjoy.

For me the future looks very bright.  More games, more themepark, more sandbox, more hybrid, horror games...

Theme parks are easier to mass manufacture. There are business plans upon business plans for themeparks. They are a safe investments for investors.

Sandboxes, not so much....

That's why you do not see much of them. And if you do, it's always a self funded indy trying to pull it off. hehe

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

I guess this is where subjectivity comes in.

Other than Swtor I don't feel today's games are any more linear than many old games. s...

Never said that modern mmorpg themeparks are more linear than old themeparks. Some are some not, still are linear as hell and that's not good and I am tired of it.

Originally posted by WellzyC

I completely agree 100% on EVERY point that  the OP has made. And I would LOVE if mmos were like that again.

The only problem is.. there's NO money in it, or very little. And thats that problem. The % of players that would enjoy a sandbox with an imersive world is completly shadowed by the Short term  "give me a flashy game for 2 months before school starts" crowd.

 

All comes down to where the money is, and its just not in sandboxes.

 

The Genre went Main stream - and that ruined it.

 Until you have some real world evidence, IE: a sandbox MMO developed by a studio with experience and financial backing; with all the polish that people would expect from a triple A themepark, and that isn't based almost soley around PVP or being a "hardcore" MMO, it's only speculation that it wouldn't work.

There is no MMO out there like that.  By the time WoW released UO was already outdated.  The remake was scrapped, most likely because EA saw the success of WoW and figured that it they wouldn't be able to compete, and at that time it was probably true.

If all the new Themeparks that release today, aren't able to sustain anymore subsciptions then EQ, DAoC, AC, SWG, or UO did when they were at thier primes, why would anyone assume that a sandbox MMO with the same level of budgetting and development as WoW not do any better?  UO did just as well at it's peak as most every MMO on the market today, even when there were a few other options to go to.

The problem is that the people who make the games are thinking exactly like you.  You only assume it won't work because somewere, at some point, the idea of it took on air of impossible.  There is a smog of assumption that it's "not popular", even though single player sandbox style games are hugely popular, even though there's a constant outpouring of people asking for something more then the a-typical "tradition" themepark MMO, and most importantly even though it's NEVER been attempted correctly, in the modern MMO era.

Here's my prediction.

Blizzard is going to show everyone that thinks it's not possible that they are wrong.  I'm betting on Titan to be a thempark/ sandbox hybrid, with action combat. 

Oddly enough, it's korean and chinese developers that seem to be seeing that there is a market for sandbox MMO's.  Dark and light is being remade by a chinese studio and the game looks like it's going to be incredibly massive.  It's just unfortunate that the western audience has a tendency to turn there nose up to anything that isn't made outside the US or a small part of the EU.

Devs make games with the idea that it has the potential to draw in millions of players, and then the reality hits and it's still just a few hundred thousand player game.  When they start developing with the mindset of pleasing a few hundred thousand instead of millions, the games will improve.

---

Originally posted by nariusseldon
I dont see the problem with short games. It is not like there is a lack of games to play.

So we play till we consume the content of a game. So? There is always more content out there. One game cannot generate enough content for u to play long term, 100 games can.

Very few play only one game anyway.

Take diablo for example, it is a ultra fun games. I will have it as my main game for a while .. But i dont play it forever.

---

---

Originally posted by MindTrigger
 

I'm seeing a lot of talk lately about people who are concerned about the lack of content, and/or lackluster replayability in these new games a few short months after they come out.  The problem these developers are having is a simple one.  It's called "theme park".  The issue is that since they create their worlds to hand deliver an experience (theme park rides, quests, instances), they can't possibly give people enough content to make them happy.

Many, many people on this website have been talking smack about sandbox-type design for years now, while I and others have been advocates of it having experienced how amazing they can be.  Star Wars Galaxies was a mess of a game from a technical and polish standpoint, yet most of the people who played it back in the day still proclaim their undying love for it.  There are many reasons people loved this game, and I can't recall anyone ever complaining about lack of content. Indeed, SWG could have benefited greatly from some of today's questing standards, as long as they were added in addition to the sandbox play already existing.

I'm not saying all games should be sandboxes, or that they need to be sandboxes even to the limited extent SWG was one, but what I am saying is that these new games need to be designed with perpetual replayability in mind, and this must go beyond PvP.  PvE replayability can be as easy as adding new explorable zones that do not require quests, or at least do not require nearly as many quests as a standard PvE zone.  These 'freestyle' zones could be filled with beautiful terrain, interesting mobs, dungeons, camps and other fun things that people could attack whenever they feel like it.  These realms could also potentially be opened up to PvP, making them something like the wild-west of the game world.

There is another aspect that is popping up more and more as well, and that is people complain that the worlds feel 'dead'.  They feel dead because they are dead.  They are little more than movie sets for you to walk past and not look too closely at.  There are no real social features, nothing in there for the RP crowd, crafting and trade has been reduced to the equivelent of a Mc Donalds Happy Meal served through a Drive-Thru window (auction house).  There is little or no player interaction required.

If you are wondering why these games are boring you, it's because they are the same thing, generally speaking, rehashed over and over again.  What you want is something different, and that different is going to come from starting to take these games back in the direction of living, breathing virtual worlds rather than completely scripted and contrived experiences.  The players need a chance to become their own content, as was true in SWG and other sandbox games, and they also need to be given the tools to forge their own adventure without having six "stories" to follow until they are bored to death with them.  I want my own damned story, and all I want from the game developers is an interesting and interactive world, a hybrid of theme park and sandbox ideals that will give me a place to do it.

Again, I'm not saying full-on hardcore sandboxes are going to appeal to everyone, but what I am saying is that theme parks could greatly benefit from many of the principals of sandboxes.  As long as game companies continue to crank out these cardboard worlds with no depth to them, you will continue to be bored with them shortly after purchasing the games.

What say you?

---