Too much confusion here, fortunately I'll set it straight.

Sandboxes died when WOW turned the industry down the theme park path.

Theme parks died when WOW implemented cross realm grouping.

What we have now is a bunch of dungeon crawlers posing as Theme Parks which are posing as MMORPGs which we all know are Sandboxes.

A true MMORPG is a Sandbox.

A theme park is not and never was an MMORPG. They are a type of game unto themselves that have 0 to do with RPG. I shall call them a Massive Multiplayer Online Quest Grinders.

The genre fell even further into darkness with cross realms going from theme parks to Massive Multiplayer Online Dungeon Crawlers.

Hopefully this clarifies things so people on this site, a MMORPG site, can stop talking about all these silly non MMORPGs.

Theme Parks are not dead just look at all the people clammoring to play GW2 and that game is the epitome of Theme Park. People think they want a Sandbox MMORPG, but once they get there, get ganked and lose their gear, they quit and go back to Disneyland.

Themeparks are far from dead. People just change games more often than in the past, but today there is also more choice than few years back. I am not really expecting to stay with a themepark MMO for more than two to three months. Many of my gaming friends feel the same. Is it a bad thing? No, not really. I like the fact that there is choice. 

Change in the social landscape in MMOs is also happening steadily. There are a lot more multigame and multiplatform guilds than there were few years back.

The pricing for these games is changing as well. More and more games launch with various B2P to freemium concepts. This is partly because companies recognise that, amongst other things, gamers like to try out new titles and different type of games.

What can i say... i agree with everything.

But kids who can quit the game when they find any obstacle, they are probably 70-90% of all players. So mmorpgs will continue to be dumbed down games on rails. And sanboxes, unfortunately, will continue to be niche games.

What devs seem to be missing is the game within a game. I don't play MMORPGs to play capture the flag in an instance in the game. I play it to capture the land mass and have an actual impact on the game world I live in. If I want to play capture the flag I can grab any generic FPS on the market and go to town.

Although I am a big fan of sandboxes, themeparks are not dead, nor are they dying.

What will not last, in my opinion, is this new wave of heavy story driven, single player feeling, personal storyline type of mechanic with heavy cut scenens and tons of voice overs, in a mmorpg. This is just my opinion but when you try to blend these two great genres (sp and mp), you muddy both to the point where it just does not work for a living, breathing world feel. What makes each great are things that just can not be merged.

Get your cards ready, someone is going to bingo real quick in this one......

Theme parks aren't dead they are just boring and overrated.

They arent dead, more like Zombies. Undead empty shells with no soul looking for fresh meat to tear apart

I played The Secret World for about 20 min. I had to turn it off. I just can't do the "Go here, go there" thing anymore.

I want a sandbox. However, I don't want it to be some hardcore Darkfall-type first-person view sandbox. I want blend of SWG and EQ.

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Originally posted by mmoDAD
I played The Secret World for about 20 min. I had to turn it off. I just can't do the "Go here, go there" thing anymore.

 

I want a sandbox. However, I don't want it to be some hardcore Darkfall-type first-person view sandbox. I want blend of SWG and EQ.

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The first company to take what SWG had and combine it with park style PVE will be the next "One" imho

The MMORPG genre is pretty awful in general.  Go here, kill these 10 guys, get yer fish biscuit.  Go do something else boring.  Combat is hit 1, hit 1, hit 1, hit 2, hit 1, hit 1, hit 3, blah blah blah.  Combat is the worst part of MMORPG's, like it is designed for a monkey or something to be successful at.  TERA had the right idea except they made the mobs so idiotic that action combat is still boring as all hell.  GW2 has some good ideas but the combat is almost as bad as the WoW clones. 

Developers don't want to take risks so nothing good will come out unless it is some sort of MMOFPS type of thing like planetside2.  The future of the genre is in game mods like DayZ, not in these big budget Pavlovian nightmares.

So that leaves what, The Repopulation and Embers of Caerus? I give credit to the indie developers to try and create these games, I hope they have the tools to release a real quality product.

I can only imagine what the could do with either title if they had a fraction of the cash big developers do, although when that cash is given it usually begins the death of the dream of most games.

Once that cash partner is into you, they set the benchmarks and deadlines, it's a horrible model that is the current game developement, I just dont want to play card board cut outs sliding around a blocky world of pop up style art.

Nah, you're wrong. WoW still has millions of players and a lot of people like to be shown what there is to do.

Besides, I like both WoW and (for instance) Darkfall. Good games but in different ways.

Originally posted by Mephster

Theme parks aren't dead they are just boring and overrated.

Originally posted by ZigZags

Theme Parks are not dead just look at all the people clammoring to play GW2 and that game is the epitome of Theme Park. People think they want a Sandbox MMORPG, but once they get there, get ganked and lose their gear, they quit and go back to Disneyland.

yeah,look at all the people that clammered to play star wars the old republic.and look at where they are now,gone and playing another mmo

id say the mmo genre itself took a turn for the worst when they changed it to become the casuals games instead of the grindy timesinks 

Originally posted by ZigZags

Theme Parks are not dead just look at all the people clammoring to play GW2 and that game is the epitome of Theme Park. People think they want a Sandbox MMORPG, but once they get there, get ganked and lose their gear, they quit and go back to Disneyland.

 If the game is truly a sandbox game then PVP is optional, so I see no reason why a sandbox gamer should be ganked and lose their gear, unless it's still a themepark that's heavy on the PVP which seems to be forced wich already eliminates the freedom to play how you want which in turn does not make it sandbox.

Not sure when PVP became such a sandbox feature where people asume you need PVP in a sandbox game, while I do agree all sorts of playstyle's should be available in a sandbox MMORPG, but again everything should be optional.

But then again it's us gamers that want to label something while it's the developers that actually create these games that are intitled to call their game what ever genre they want to call it. I mean we now see games like GTA being called sandbox, while I personaly feel it's not, but just a openworld game.

OP: you didn't set anything straight, you just voiced your opinion like all of us do.

Originally posted by theJexster

Too much confusion here, fortunately I'll set it straight.

Sandboxes died when WOW turned the industry down the theme park path.

Theme parks died when WOW implemented cross realm grouping.

What we have now is a bunch of dungeon crawlers posing as Theme Parks which are posing as MMORPGs which we all know are Sandboxes.

A true MMORPG is a Sandbox.

A theme park is not and never was an MMORPG. They are a type of game unto themselves that have 0 to do with RPG. I shall call them a Massive Multiplayer Online Quest Grinders.

The genre fell even further into darkness with cross realms going from theme parks to Massive Multiplayer Online Dungeon Crawlers.

Hopefully this clarifies things so people on this site, a MMORPG site, can stop talking about all these silly non MMORPGs.

And that is totally YOUR point of view. The RPG comes from the player, not the game. Sandbox or themepark, *I* am what makes the RPG with my character, not the game mechanics. Once you understand that these types of posts can go the way of the dodo.

Originally posted by Reklaw

Originally posted by ZigZags

Theme Parks are not dead just look at all the people clammoring to play GW2 and that game is the epitome of Theme Park. People think they want a Sandbox MMORPG, but once they get there, get ganked and lose their gear, they quit and go back to Disneyland.

 If the game is truly a sandbox game then PVP is optional, so I see no reason why a sandbox gamer should be ganked and lose their gear, unless it's still a themepark that's heavy on the PVP which seems to be forced wich already eliminates the freedom to play how you want which in turn does not make it sandbox.

Not sure when PVP became such a sandbox feature where people asume you need PVP in a sandbox game, while I do agree all sorts of playstyle's should be available in a sandbox MMORPG, but again everything should be optional.

But then again it's us gamers that want to label something while it's the developers that actually create these games that are intitled to call their game what ever genre they want to call it. I mean we now see games like GTA being called sandbox, while I personaly feel it's not, but just a openworld game.

OP: you didn't set anything straight, you just voiced your opinion like all of us do.

 

I wish someone would make a sandbox with FFA full loot pvp, but where killing other players actually had consequences. So far in such games you are pretty much only rewarded for being an asshole psychopatic killer machine. Instead I wish someone would make a game, give us lore and setting and then allow us to act as we want within the limits of that setting. That, to me, would be a great fantasy/SF world to live and play in instead of being MMO Quake.

Originally posted by theJexster

Too much confusion here, fortunately I'll set it straight.

Sandboxes died when WOW turned the industry down the theme park path.

Theme parks died when WOW implemented cross realm grouping.

What we have now is a bunch of dungeon crawlers posing as Theme Parks which are posing as MMORPGs which we all know are Sandboxes.

A true MMORPG is a Sandbox.

A theme park is not and never was an MMORPG. They are a type of game unto themselves that have 0 to do with RPG. I shall call them a Massive Multiplayer Online Quest Grinders.

The genre fell even further into darkness with cross realms going from theme parks to Massive Multiplayer Online Dungeon Crawlers.

Hopefully this clarifies things so people on this site, a MMORPG site, can stop talking about all these silly non MMORPGs.

nope you are wrong with some of this.

Your first statement might very well be correct, your second statement might be your opinion but with the huge turnout at launch of themepark games it pretty much shows you are incorrect. What you can say is that in the last few years theme park games are wanted but the developers can't get it right at launch in order to keep the numbers of people buyng them.

The rest is also opinion.