Originally posted by Mephster
Sorry but there is no middle ground for GW2, it has no sandbox features whatsoever. Other than that I thought it was a good article. Obviously if you read between the lines the media knows a sandbox game is coming soon for the masses. 

I think of GW2 as a themepark without rails. Sure, there's level progression, but you choose your own path to get there and you can always go back without obsoleting the earlier content.

I think SWG had little to nothing to do with the the demise of Sandbox games.

The demise was more likely  for the following reasons:

1.  The failure of Shadowbane -  3 years of beta, tons of promise, lots of hype which delivered a pretty good game that very few would play because of AO like stability problems.

2.  Horizons  Another sandbox game with dynamic events that actually changed the world.  Players could teunnel under mountains to get to new areas, build bridges to islands that could not be reached.  Horizons was a wonderful crafting game but failed miserably because of an unfinished adventure game along with stability issues.

3.  WoW  - Wow upped the bar considerably in regards to what was expected in terms of quality and the amount of conten required t at release.  Additionally. they changed the style of gameplay for MMOs switching to quest directed gameplay.  With  quest directed gameplay being a staple of MMOs and quality and content expectations rising it changed the model of what a sandbox could release with.  Sandboxes depend on player content but because MMOs are suddenly expected to include more at release it made it very difficult for a AAA MMO to release with polish and content expected along with sandbox elements.

4.  Vanguard  - Nort a pure sandbox game but its scope, size and many features is quite similar to what we would expect from a sandbox. The last AAA MMO that decided to go "big."  By "Big" I use Scott Hartsman's definition of "big."Which is making a large horizontal game.  Vanguard released with 19 races, 16 classes. complicated crafting with hosue building, 4 zones for each level range. large amount of dungeons for leveling up, 4 different inventoriey screens for crafting, harvesting, advetuting and diplomacy, a 3rd tier of gameplay diplomacy along with a massive huge world.  Vanguard was simply over ambitious.  The rule of thumb is one cannot go big and deliver anything close to a polished product with quality content at release.  There simply is not enough time nor money for a developer to do so.  What has happened since is Devs realized that to have quality and polish one has to have a very narrow content release and then hope to grow horizontally like what Rift did.  Vanguard's death pretty much closed the  chance of a a AAA game going big."

A game like AA with $50 million of funding  has the chance to change these perceptions as it relases in the East 1st to a more patient market that will make longer than America's we want it all now market.  The game will have a chance to grow a year a two before entering the west. There is a chance it could redefine the perception of sandbox viability.  But I think its an exception given its logistics releasing in the East first.

But in regards to the OPs article I think he is clearly off base.  SWG had little to nothing to do with Sandbox's demise.

Certainly ToR's demise might open development up for more sandbox type elements.  But again the OP misses the problem and I will add this belatedly as the 5th problem.

5.  The problem is the player.  Players have changed.  Western players no longer have the patience to play games that are complex, unpolished, are not easy to pick up and play out of the box and do not keep them constatly entertained. 

Besides a game like AA that will receive the larger share of its funding from the East I do not see a sandbox game surviving in the Western market unless its a low budget niche game.

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Originally posted by Mephster
Sorry but there is no middle ground for GW2, it has no sandbox features whatsoever. Other than that I thought it was a good article. Obviously if you read between the lines the media knows a sandbox game is coming soon for the masses. 

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Originally posted by Grimlock426

Count me in the crowd who sees the future as a hybrid of themepark and sandbox.  I don't see pure sandboxes being anything more than niche and I don't see more themparks excelling either.

Many people want some form of purpose and direction when they play a game and therefore I feel some form of quest system is needed.  What you don't need however is a system that leads you around by the nose, and one in which you can't go into this zone or that zone until you reach a certain level. 

I do look at GW2 as that shining star that is pointing in the right direction.  I do think there is more that can be done however, and I think the next wave of MMO's will use GW2 as a basis and progress from there. 

I agree.  I really hope GW2 is the new "WoW" in terms of redefining the genre and having games "grow" from what it brings to the table.  If it does we're in for some great games.  I hope.

I appreciate the article, Mike, I don't necessarily agree with it - but I appreciate it.

Firstly, for the industry to change their approach, it's not enough when players call a game a "failure", gamers are much too fast with that word anyway. It's also not enough that EA calls SWTOR a "miss", that means that the game doesn't met their financial expectations. Whether the game was also a "failure" from a financial point of view is only known to EA (and probably LucasArt).

But the industry will certainly not forget that the game sold 2.4 million copies in it's first 3 or 4 months. That's a massive number and a massive potential for revenue. Sure, like other games before SWTOR, it couldn't hold that number of paying players for long (and neither will GW2) but it still generated a very nice chunk of money (and with digital distribution getting ever more popular ever more of that money goes directly to the publisher).

You say, that themepark games don't really work - and I agree. They don't work for a long time, but in the market they do work, just only for a limited time. And I suspect that both the casual gamer and the industry aren't that much interested in a long term game anyway. For the industry as a whole it's much better that people play a game for 3 months and then buy another one: there's more revenue in that style than in buying one game and staying with it for a year.

Thus I can't see one of the big publishers taking the risk to put a sandbox into that market - because I can't see that a sandbox will sell that amount of copies in so short a time. I think the industry will solve the problem in another way - they will still make themeparks with a lifetime of 3 or 4 months: they will just produce the games cheaper - by producing in other countries, by cutting features, by making the game shorter, by saving on voice actors, by offering the game only via digital distribution.

(As to GW2 representing a middle-ground between themepark and sandbox I completely disagree. I cannot see a single sandboxy feature in GW2, thus for it being sandboxy one would have to completely redefine what a sandbox is.)

Great article MikeB, really well written!

Only correction I found was "Iff" third paragraph from bottom.

I think the next step forward beyond GW2 will be for Archage or The Repopulation to make.  It has to be a hybrid "sandpark".  Capture the adventure and endless possibilities from the old school games, but leave room for casual enjoyment.  If I can only sneak away for a couple hours every few days to play, I don't want to feel that it's pointless because I've fallen too far behind the 12hr/daily crowd.

Build the world open, and vast.  I want to have the opportunity to get lost for a couple hours- on accident or by intention.  It's all about persistence and the feeling that my actions have a lasting impact on surroundings, not just:  dimension 1, instance 4, for the next two minutes.

I could go on and on, maybe later.  Again, nice article MikeB.

I don't really think themeparks are dead.  GW2 is a themepark in every sense of the word and it has every indication of being a success.  I do think there is an untapped market for sandbox games out there (however right now no company has yet to put in enough anti-griefing measures to make one popular).

I think what there is no longer a market for is WoW style combat and quest hub gameplay.  People simply aren't looking for that anymore.  What started with Warhammer and was improved on with Rift and now is shown in pretty much full blown action in GW2 really makes one hate the quest hub style of gameplay.  Simply copying WoW's primary features hasn't been working for years and I think developers are finally starting to get the memo.

The business model of needing to pay a subscription fee is also starting to wear thin on some people.  It's hard to justify paying $15 a month when more and more AAA titles are moving away from the sub model and switching to F2P or B2P.  It's becoming increasingly more evident that bandwidth, maintence, and content updates aren't as expensive as they were years ago and that developers can seek alternate forms of revenue without ruining the gameplay experience.

Originally posted by Magnum2103

The business model of needing to pay a subscription fee is also starting to wear thin on some people.  It's hard to justify paying $15 a month when more and more AAA titles are moving away from the sub model and switching to F2P or B2P.  It's becoming increasingly more evident that bandwidth, maintence, and content updates aren't as expensive as they were years ago and that developers can seek alternate forms of revenue without ruining the gameplay experience.

I would gladly pay a $15 sub if/when I find such a game again that lasts me beyond the free month.

Originally posted by bcbully

Everywhere you said GW2 you sould have put TSW.

 

Other than that good article.

Let's try an experiment:

"[The Secret World], at least to me, represents a sort of middle ground between the two subgenres. The game features a fully developer driven content pipeline, but the underlying game design and functionality of the event system inspires the same sort of wanderlust players often feel when playing a sandbox game. Events are repeatable and may even branch off in different ways and the experience earned from these events will be useful to players even at level cap. This is no doubt a very expensive and challenging form of delivering content to players, but it may serve as the beginnings of a renaissance of sandbox games that we may see over the next couple of years."

Nope, doesn't work.

Originally posted by rdrakken

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Originally posted by rdrakken

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Yes, you *could* solo if you wanted to.  Most people chose not to, and even more people chose to make custom builds that didn't lend themselves well to soloing tougher mobs, but worked great in groups.  

 Nice...I chose not to solo in SWTOR, a game that basically is a SRPG. Your point isnt that you dont have a choice, the point is that you now play as if you dont. Many of the games back then were as easy as they are now...the only thing that has changed is that there are more whiney players.

I'm not following your comment at all.  I'm saying that SWG and other sandbox games had solo gameplay, if that is what you wanted, but there was much more emphasis through game mechanics and the type of people who play sandboxes, toward grouping.  The game itself, prior to NGE, was designed with grouping first, and solo second, unlike today's games.  Even crafters had to build relationships with othe crafters to trade parts for high-end crafted items.  I don't recall *anyone* using the term "forced grouping" back then either.  It was actually fun.  Forced grouping is a term anti-social players use to demonstrate the fact that they should actually be playing SRPGs instead of MMORPGs.

Lot's of people chose to solo in SWG, or more likely, to have a character they could solo with, and another character that was more community oriented. 

 

 You just contradicted your other post where you were trying to counter what I said with the idea that you have no choice but solo in todays game and that back in the good old days you had a choice.

You can solo or group in any MMO is the point im making, nothing has changed in that aspect. The past is viewed with rose colored glasses far too often...and thats coming from someone that still looks back at AC1 as the best MMO ever made.

I never, ever said you had no choice but to solo in the newer games.  What I said was the games are designed with solo play to be the norm.  You can argue against that all you want, but you will be wrong.  I'm not contradicting anything I said earlier.  I'm likely contradicting what you thought I said.

Find a sentence in any post I have made on this site since 2007 that states my belief that people MUST solo to play a modern themepark.   I have always said that these games FOSTER or encourage solo gameplay either intentionally or otherwise, and often DISCOURAGE grouping through game mechanics such as story quests where your character is the center of the universe, and lack positive feedback for grouping (such as a small XP boost for groups).

To state that you *must* solo, as in there being no other choice, would be a ludicrous assertion that I have never made.  

I'm not sure I can break this down for you any further, or that you would read anything other than what you want to read even if I did.

I think what we're starting to see is actually a new mixture of the two (and I think this will continue). I still don't think the sandbox purists will be seeing the games they seem to be expecting.

I definitely think we're going to see an increase of player-generated content, but it's going to be within a world that also has clear goals and systems. In the end I don't think we're going to have games that totally are sandboxes or themeparks, but rather a sort of hybrid that takes the best aspects of both.

A good article. I do not, however, agree with this statement: "Guild Wars 2, at least to me, represents a sort of middle ground between the two subgenres."

In my eyes, Guild Wars 2 is the culmination of the themepark. Go around and experience the rides, no particular order is needed. Go through them once, twice, however many times you feel like it. A sandbox, on the other hand, will always involve the CREATION of content by the players themselves. The events in Guild Wars 2 are scripted regardless if they branch or not. The content is not created, but made use of by the players. And since we are discussing massively multiplayer gaming, I do very much believe that content creation by the players in a sandbox-style game should very much affect other players as well.

A vastly more appropriate middle ground between the two subgenres was also mentioned in your article: ArcheAge. The game combines the linearity of themeparks with the freedom of sandboxes.

I'm not sure the author actually played SWG at its Launch.  If he did, then he'd know that WoW did not kill SWG, SWG fell on its sword right out of the gate.

I can't begin to list the amount of SERIOUS database bugs and corruptions (item loss, entire inventory item loss?  Dupe bugs?)  and server instability that existed for the first year, and up until the NGE change-over.  The servers needed to be rebooted once every 24 hours just to prevent database corruption. 

The reason?  Their unique item creation system overloaded the database.  Every item had its own database identifier code, and while it was a bit more complicated than that, the short of it was that the database could nto keep up.  That's why there was so much lag while travelling around, especially as houses became filled with junk, because the server had to load all those unique items whenever a player came within range.  The SWG devs were a victim of their own unique "travel bubble" technology.

Not to mention the profession imbalances that results in "god-mode" builds, the 4 month development of the space "mini-game" that was "phoned in" and bland, but hard-coded by its designing Dev to never be improved. ( Worth mentioning that through some magical talent that they recruited late in the game, that wrote tools to get around the problem, JTL was becoming something fun.)

SWG was a piece of crap from the time it launched, until the time it died.  It was doomed from Day 1 of Launch.  Its "sandbox" design was the only thing that kept subscriptions.  People need to realize that, because all anyone really remembers or talks about, is how fun it was to play an immortal character that couldn't be killed. (no not Jedi, the non-Jedi god-mode builds)

I do agree that SWTOR had a chance to recover the "sandbox" design and suck in the now dislocated SWG fans, but their choice of a linear themepark was a wrong move.  I can't count how many times I've heard "its a single player game with a lot of people running around you" comments from all of my friends.  I felt that way too, it felt like I was stuck in a cattle chute, as I leveled my character.

I do believe that the persistent world community is really hungry, for a sandbox game.  The only problem, is that there have been, and still are, other games out there TRYING to make the sandbox work, but no one has heard of them because they don't have Hollywood IPs and the gaming media just doesn't bother to cover them.

What are these games?  Do your own legwork and look around.  There are some nice little sandbox games out there, they just aren't Star Wars.

The Great thing about GW2 from a sandboxers perspective is, they haven't totaly boxed in their own design. They seem like the kind of dev house that at least is up front and tries to listen to what players are saying. and the hope is they can shift with the player demands and industry trends better then say,Bioware or SOE or even blizzard.

I heard mention of some form of housing down the road in GW2. I think anet (unlike the other themeparks) has the talent to mix hybrid sandbox elements were say, bioware for example, has a game that is designed with so many limatations in the MMOs framework. it would take a complete re-wrtite of the engine to shift with player trends/demands with additional sandbox features.

I'm holding out judegment on archage. it does look pretty and some of the videos are very appealing. but I might be a little xenophobic sadly when it comes to asian MMOs. I like asian culture and people but the games they make I hold off on and keep a close eye before I buy..

Gaming media really loves making forced connections between events in the formation of some grand analysis of gaming history. 

I find GW2's questing system to be utter trash. I strongly dislike it. Mainly, because it seems like themepark questing with more smoke and mirrors. I still did mundane tasks, I still easily defeated my opponents. I still waiting around for spawns. I'll just take themepark instead of faux-themepark with pretention. 

I don't quite understand why you think Guild Wars 2 is in the middle of sandbox and themepark just because it gives quests in a different way..

I just hope we get a game like SWG in the future but more polished and decent endgame (PVP)

I actually found the quests in SWG (pre eveverything) not that bad, especially compared to all the thempark games which came after that.

"we" this and "people" that. I'll put my fortune telling hat on and read the minds of everyone too. The majority of online gamers, in the hundreds of millions, are playing games like FarmVille. So if we want to talk about the future focus of gaming... We're all screwed so dust off your kindles and iPads.

Swtor failed because it wasn't good, swg failed because it wasn't good. Doesn't anyone remember in the beginning when sitting down in a chair had a good chance of teleporting you to the edge of the map? Or Your body getting stuck underneath a players house after dying? These were persistent issues for months, all the the while paying $15 a month, in a better economic time than now.

I won't even start on SWTOR, you guys have viciously torn into its soul with the comments you've made, I'll let it die. it's basically like Kyle said, people just want to play good games. Right now were settling for what we got, just like most other situations.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Well written article and I can agree with the major points, that SWG helped put nails in the sandbox coffin...

 

 

I think you missed the point. SWG was the first to really offer sandbox, and the developers put the nails in the games coffin by changing that. SWG was the first major mmo that had player based weapons, armor, housing, buildings, equipment etc. etc. The game allowed players to decide what type of character they were going to be with a mixed class point delegation system. You could change allegances, change class build, build player cities, free to roam anywhere in any zone including space. (although this came after the great ruining and I mean the first ruining of the game not NGE) I have not touched on several of the games better points but in no means did SWG put the nail in the sand box's coffin.

SWG at launch and for a few months was the essence of sand box and sadly what was not touched on, and I have never seen touched, was its utter failure to launch. My friends and I had been waiting for its launch since we saw its announcement at E3 98 or 99. (can't remember which) They never had a commercial, game magazine ad, announcement releases, websites, announced betas, etc. When it came out none of us ever knew. I chanced upon it one Friday evening after work, and had to call 20+ people to let them know. It just showed up to the store unannounced. After a couple of months playing I ran into gamers that had no idea it even existed. So essentially the game was killed before it ever launched.(secretly)

By no means was it the nails, at one point it was a great game, just never given a proper chance. And some other poster stated that it was bleeding subs before NGE, duh like I stated previously, the game was ruined when they did the Combat Upgrade. CU was the answer to all the whiney lazy players that flood our games today. Pistoleers who only had to do one set of bars were as powerful as classes that had to do three full masteries.