Originally posted by Loktofeit

 

I haven't played in a over year, but I've definitely played it. To your points:

no one said it has housing

the lack of resets supports persistence, not voids it.

craftable items - I don't know about 1,000 being true but it is certainly hundreds. Here's a partial list:

• http://wiki.afterworld.ru/wiki/Category:ASP
• http://wiki.afterworld.ru/wiki/Category:MFP
• http://wiki.afterworld.ru/wiki/Category:Protection_Kit_Crafting_Terminal
• http://wiki.afterworld.ru/wiki/Category:Non-CD_Components (multiple items in each subcategory)\

 

It seems the world and housing are your two points of contention, but you're preaching to the choir. If you look at the list, I didn't check either of those as criteria it met. it does meet most others, however.

Again I stand by what I said before Afterworld may have a few points that are a bit sandboxy but lack a lot of  stuff to make it a full sandbox style game.

It doesn't meet most of the others what so ever it only has a few other points the map is NOT one giant map it is a bunch of smaller maps as well which you move betweeen. Nor do I believe that you are right when you said the size before either as I said they are all SMALLER maps which you move between NOT one giant map again doesn't fit the criteria you have checked things off that do NOT meet. As far as I am concerned Afterworld is NOT a full sandbox game and I stand by that now please just stop posting you obviously do not know what you are talking about!

Originally posted by Loktofeit
I hadn't realized Darkwind had added that much. I have to check that out again.

I think if they just reskinned the graphics and touched it up a bit that game could see a lot of new players. I have given up on playing an MMO with any real depth that has decent graphics though. I figured it out a longtime ago. You can have shiny and shallow, or dated and in depth.

They've even added a ultra hardcore mode called Scavenger that removes all money from the game, and your gang can starve to death. 

This is the game I consistently find myself going back to when other MMO's let me down.

Should add Linkrealms to that list, I know it is not fully released yet, but anyone can create an account, download the game and log right in... Also perhaps Second Life can be considered a Sandbox MMORPG, but really it is a simulator in many ways, more than one..  I don't see APB - Reloaded on the list either.. 

Doh, thanks for the replies.

@Razeekster: I didn't play Mabinogi or Free Realms, both games are on the list because posters suggested them and from what I've seen on their official websites and their forums they might fit the bill. I'll have a second look at them, thanks to Loktofeit for already posting about Free Realms.

@Darkshad: Likewise, I didn't play Afterworld or Fallen Earth. In the case of Afterworld it seems to me that you criticize the quality of how the features are implemented more than that you say the features aren't there. Well, for this list, quality doesn't really matter, frankly, I would know a few games more that are on the list where I personally think that they're not good games - but, they're listed here because they have the feature, my personal taste doesn't matter. 

I will have to look into Fallen Earth, whether this patch 2.4 changed things around.

[Edit: completely forgot to thank you for the suggestion concerning swgemu. I had not listed SWG because it's no longer active, but in a way it still is, unofficially. Frankly, I don't know yet how to deal with that, I'll have to think that over.]

@Loktofeit: Thanks for the support and your opinion, much appreciated.

@MadnessRealm: Thanks for your post and the information about Mabinogi, makes it much easier for me to judge a game I've never played.

@TruthXhurts: Thanks for the suggestion about Darkwind: War on Wheels, I didn't even know the game, I will have a look at it in the coming days.

@Reizla: Likewise, I will look at Silkroad, could you please use the feature list from the OP as well? As you've seen, it makes it much easier to initially decide whether a game should be put on the list here. Thanks in advance.

@eGumball: Oh, dear, was only a matter of time I guess until someone would suggest GW2. Anyway, could you please use the feature list from the OP as well and list the GW2 features so that we can see whether it ticks the boxes? Thanks in advance.

@Eyrothath: Linkrealms has been suggested before, but according to Linkrealms own website it is in closed beta. Sometimes they seem to accept new players, sometimes they don't. Right now it reads: "New Beta Account Status: BY APPLICATION".

I have decided to exclude unofficial servers and emulators from this list.

Reason:

This List of Sandbox MMORPGs is hosted here in the forums at MMORPG.com. And as long as it is hosted here we will have to follow the Rules of Conduct the staff here at MMORPG.com has set out. Amongst these rules are:

• "Discussing or advertising unofficial servers or emulators for MMOs is not permitted on the MMORPG.com forums. These servers are against the Terms of Service of the original game, and violate the intellectual propriety rights of the game's publisher and developer."

Therefore unofficial servers or emulators cannot appear on this List of Sandbox MMORPGs.

Originally posted by Razeekster
I wouldn't consider Mabinogi or Free Realms sandbox games. Mabinogi has some qualities, but not enough to call it a sandbox game. Actually now that I think about... I don't know how you can call it a sandbox game at all. The player has no impact on the world and can't change it.

• An open world, not a collection of small maps - Mabinogi has an actual world. Though instanced, no zones are set for levels x to x. Each zone has it's own attraction that players of all levels can use. 
• Gameplay features other than combat activities, for example: fishing, harvesting, prospecting, crafting, diplomacy, music, trading - Mabinogi has every one of these.
• Character progression or development outside of combat (see above examples) - Again, it has this.
• Open-ended gameplay, no "game starts at level 50" game design - Check.
• Player-driven in-game economy, not a loot-driven economy, no bind-on-equip or bind-on acquire items - Check. Only items that are bound to players are main storyline quest items and gear given out to newer players from beginner quests. 
• Character development that can be customised via skills and/or customisations of class roles, not a class system where every level 50 warrior has the exact same skills and attributes - No classes, skill based.
• Non-linear character development where characters are not limited to developer-defined roles, for example: free skill trees or multi-classing of characters - See above.
• In-depth crafting system. A crafting system is considered in-depth if the majority of items in the game is player-made and when crafted items can be at least as good as dropped items - Crafting requires materials to move the progress along, a minigame for each craft, and ranks for the crafting skills. Crafters make better items than there counterparts found in stores, even more so when using the merchant destiny.
• In-depth resource system. A resource system is considered in-depth if items can be made from raw resources that influence the resulting item (either it's stats or it's appearance is okay) - Has this. Coming update brings skills especially for harvesting too.
• Player's ability to change aspects of the game world, either by being able to modify the physical game world or by being able to take ownership of structures in the game world - There are 4 residential areas in the world where players can rent housing to use as shops or crafting stations. The guild that owns that areas castle has to actually build up the houses in any style they want and rent them out. The guild builds no house? None for the player. Many more examples in the game too.
• Some form of customizable player housing/building - See above.

Time for an update. There have recently been some posts both challenging games that are on the list and suggesting new games for the list.

• Games that are challenged: Afterworld, Fallen Earth, Free Realms, Mabinogi.
• Games that have been suggested: Darkwind: War of Wheels, Guild Wars 2, Silkroad Online.

Some decisions have been made, some others are still open to discussion.

Afterworld will stay on the list until I had a chance to look into the game. I understand that both features and the quality of the features are in question. Sadly, if quality would count for this list I would have to remove more than one game. Features count for this list, not necessarily how good the features are implemented. I'll have a look at the features and will report back in a few days.

Darkwind: War of Wheels, a very interesting suggestion. Is it an RPG? There is no such thing as a player character in Darkwind because the player controls multiple characters that are hired to form a team - and the player is the one controlling the team. There's also the fact that all combat happens in instanced areas and arenas, I hope I got that right. I think about the game much more like an online real time strategy wargame than an RPG. Much of the gameplay beside combat doesn't even happen in a gameworld but on a website. Any comments?

Fallen Earth will stay on the list until I had a chance to look into the game more. I understand a recent patch has changed the importance of crafting, especially for F2P-players, and according to posts on the FE forums many of those have left. I think the feature is still present however, likewise there's territorial control in the game: I will look into it but I tend to keep it on the list.

Free Realms will stay on the list. Thanks to Loktofeit for providing the input in post 154.

Guild Wars 2 will not be listed, the game does not meet the criteria as stated in the OP.

Mabinogi will stay on the list. Thanks to MadnessRealm (post 158) and to Draron (in post 169) for providing the input.

Silkroad Online will not be listed, the game does not meet the criteria as stated in the OP.

Thanks, OP out.

LARSA the Gatekeeper of the Sandbox!  You rock thanks for this thread.  Its hard to find info on sandbox games.

I was wondering if you would put DayZ on the list.  Its a MMOFPS that has no levels, and no skills, its a gear and shooting skill based game, where you have to find gear and weapons in a 250 sqkm map based on Russia.  There is permadeath, player looting, you can find and fix vehicles and use them (cars, trucks, bicycles, helicopters, etc.).  It has realistic survival mechanics.  In other words you must eat when your hungry, drink when your thirsty, build a fire and warm up when you get cold, find medicine if you get sick or have a friend give you a blood transfusion when your low on blood.  You can change the world around you (although a bit limited atm) by building sandbag walls and barbed wire fences as protection.  Here is a link: http://dayzmod.com/  

There have been two new suggestions of games to put on the List of Sandbox MMORPGs:

• Vendetta Online
• DayZ

1. It's not massive because a DayZ server cannot host 500 concurrent players. This is the minimum amount of concurrent players on the same server (thus players that can interact with each other) according to MMORPG.com. I had decided to use the same requirement.
2. It isn't an RPG. There is no character progression of any sorts I believe.

Originally posted by Cristina1
What about Pirates of the Burning Sea?

Cristina, thanks for the suggestion. I played PotBS myself (before the switch to F2P) and very much enjoyed my time in the game (about half a year). But it certainly isn't a sandbox. It's not the run-of-the-mill themepark, but a sandbox it isn't.

Here's the sandbox feature list from my original post (red for PotBS doesn't meet the requirements, green for meets the requirements):

• An open world, not a collection of small maps
• A non-instanced game world, no private instances for story mode or private dungeons (zones are okay if technically needed)
• Gameplay features other than combat activities, for example: fishing, harvesting, prospecting, crafting, diplomacy, music, trading
• Character progression or development outside of combat (see above examples)
• Open-ended gameplay, no "game starts at level 50" game design
• Player-driven in-game economy, not a loot-driven economy, no bind-on-equip or bind-on acquire items
• Character development that can be customised via skills and/or customisations of class roles, not a class system where every level 50 warrior has the exact same skills and attributes
• Non-linear character development where characters are not limited to developer-defined roles, for example: free skill trees or multi-classing of characters
• In-depth crafting system. A crafting system is considered in-depth if the majority of items in the game is player-made and when crafted items can be at least as good as dropped items
• In-depth resource system. A resource system is considered in-depth if items can be made from raw resources that influence the resulting item (either it's stats or it's appearance is okay)
• Persistent game world. A game where the world (or parts of the world) reset to a known state in regular intervals is not persistent
• Player's ability to change aspects of the game world, either by being able to modify the physical game world or by being able to take ownership of structures in the game world
• Some form of customizable player housing/building

LOVE is most definately a sandbox MMORPG. http://www.quelsolaar.com/

Also most MMORPG's that use levels as a means of progression are Theme parks. It's Not always the case but 90% of MMORPG's that I've played that had leveling systems where the "end-game" was eternal PVP have been theme parks.

Also Minecraft sort of DOES qualify as an MMORPG because if you have a server with enough hardware you can host well over 500 players. I've seen some servers hosting 6500+ players with multiple servers acting as world "shards". And some even go so far as to charge a subscription fee ( for server maitnence reasons).

As for it not being an RPG is also bollocks because it has a lot of RPG elements. You CAN improve your character through enchanted armor, tools and weapons And there is a working potion system. It also has NPC's you can buy stff from as well as combat with monsters and other players depending how the server is set up.

Sure it has a singleplayer component but it's actually a local server. You can even open up a singleplayer game to the public on a LAN and it becomes a multiplayer game.

So is Minecraft an MMORPG? The answer is both Yes and No.

Originally posted by lordfirefox

LOVE is most definately a sandbox MMORPG. http://www.quelsolaar.com/

 

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Originally posted by lordfirefox

LOVE is most definately a sandbox MMORPG. http://www.quelsolaar.com/

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I had a look at their website - and while it might be a sandbox and might qualify as MMO I can't see how it is a RPG. There seems to be zero character development and progression.

The developer calls it a cooperative online first person adventure game.

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Originally posted by lordfirefox

... As for it not being an RPG is also bollocks because it has a lot of RPG elements. You CAN improve your character through enchanted armor, tools and weapons And there is a working potion system. It also has NPC's you can buy stff from as well as combat with monsters and other players depending how the server is set up. ...

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Sorry, Firefox, but by that definition of yours every shooter game I've seen would be an RPG: he, you can equip weapons and armour, kill monsters and buy stuff from an NPC, it's an RPG :)

While Minecraft in its vanilla version certainly qualifies as sandbox there are also no RPG elements like character development in the vanilla version. And no, going through the 6862 Minecraft servers listed at Minecraft servers to decide which one offers a sandbox MMORPG experience is completely impossible.

Most Minecraft servers are so heavily modded these days that one could call Minecraft a game development engine. Yes, there might be some servers that have modded in character development and other RPG elements, but there are also servers that have completely removed the sandbox building aspect of the vanilla game and instead run a continuous battle arena. Other servers even offer quests and character classes like every other themepark game.

Forgot to say that Vendetta Online is out too. I played the game a bit and couldn't find enough sandbox RPG elements. It's certainly not a linear themepark that directs you from quest hub/zone to quest hub/zone and it offers open-ended gameplay.

In a way it's a nifty game for people wanting space flight and space combat with some trading along the way - and players can even provide player-made content for developer approval, but that doesn't make it a sandbox. There's little in the way of character development, crafting is limited to a few items and the game is generally rather combat-heavy. I think of it as an online version of an old game, Elite II from 1993.