Originally posted by Mothanos

GW2 easy ? bet he dint try to solo Veteran or Champion mobs ? or the hard more dungeons in GW2 :P ?
You cant have cleared them or you woulnt say that btw.

And iam having a full list of friends made in WvW and in PvE...
Its starts within yourself to socialise....specialy with new people.
And The Shatterer and some other dragons where damn epic and heart pounding dude...

Dunno but that age off mmo;s you think about are done death and burried.

We had UO / DaoC / EQ and that kind of mmo's.

Its a diffrent time and age.

I dont have time to stand in a city spamming /1 for 2 hours to find a healer or tank.
I dont have the time to walk / fly 45 min to a dungeon to see the tank left and a group falls apart waisting my whole free evening by one sucker with mental issues.
Old school mmo's are death or are on the brink of dying out like the dinosaurs did.

Your a few left who want to play that kind of game.

Guildwars 2 = E P I C <----- at least for a few years to come.

[mod edit]

Now you want the game dev's to manage this for you. 

See what I did there?

nt

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Originally posted by Burntvet

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Originally posted by KingGator

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Originally posted by Moirae Not another person begging for "group dependant MMO". No thanks. I won't play it.  But we do need to return to the sandbox games. I'm sick to death of the pvp and themepark focused games. 

---

What is the point of an mmo if you can eaily solo the content? Why not just play a single person rpg, for that sort of play style it would be a massively superior product, at leat if you pick a good one. 

---

Raph Koster of SWG (and other games) design fame said in a recent video that MMOs, in the mold of what they originally were, are no longer being made. And haven't been.

He called what is being made these days "SPG games in shared space" (or words to that effect).

And I strongly agree.

What is lacking are things like player interdependency, social hubs/functions, real functioning economies, and allowing for multiple playstyles.

That is what most of these "1-month wonders" that MMO makers are putting out have been sorely lacking.

 

Thing is, for the person looking for a good, well made sandbox-ish game (and who doesn't like EvE), there is nothing out there.

And there is very little hope either, on the horizon we have DF whatever, made by the same clowns that put out the first one as a buggy, exploit riddled mess, and Archage, which if it ever comes out in the West will have a cash shop, and that is something that has no real place in a sandbox MMO.

So, no, there is not a whole lot out there for people looking for that.

 

---

Originally posted by Arclan

 

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Originally posted by Burntvet

---

Originally posted by KingGator

---

Originally posted by Moirae Not another person begging for "group dependant MMO". No thanks. I won't play it.  But we do need to return to the sandbox games. I'm sick to death of the pvp and themepark focused games. 

---

What is the point of an mmo if you can eaily solo the content? Why not just play a single person rpg, for that sort of play style it would be a massively superior product, at leat if you pick a good one. 

---

Raph Koster of SWG (and other games) design fame said in a recent video that MMOs, in the mold of what they originally were, are no longer being made. And haven't been.

 

He called what is being made these days "SPG games in shared space" (or words to that effect).

And I strongly agree.

What is lacking are things like player interdependency, social hubs/functions, real functioning economies, and allowing for multiple playstyles.

That is what most of these "1-month wonders" that MMO makers are putting out have been sorely lacking.

 

Thing is, for the person looking for a good, well made sandbox-ish game (and who doesn't like EvE), there is nothing out there.

And there is very little hope either, on the horizon we have DF whatever, made by the same clowns that put out the first one as a buggy, exploit riddled mess, and Archage, which if it ever comes out in the West will have a cash shop, and that is something that has no real place in a sandbox MMO.

So, no, there is not a whole lot out there for people looking for that.

 

 

---

Could not have said it better myself. Brilliant and well-informed. +1

 

There are a few good sandbox or sandboxy games out there.  Most/all had horrible launches but are ok now.

Istaria is one - decent quets, ok graphics, lots of choice, lots of crafing/building.  Still a bit of hitching in areas, but otherwise it's decent.

Vanguard - I don't think this is sandbox but am willing to call it a sandboxy themepark.  While I thought it ws just mediocre, that just means it didn't appeal to me, a lot of people like it. 

Unfortunately IMO opinoin there are no great sandbox out there at all :(

Those are the two I would recommend the most. 

Originally posted by Torik

 

Let me list a some other things where those skills come in useful:

4.  Watching a Uwe Boll film

5. Sitting through a Justin Bieber concert

A lot of very unpleasant activities also require patinetnce and dedication to see through.  However, they are not activities I want to engage in to entertain myself. 

The discussion was about MMOs being challenging and how the amount of Time needed to do something equating to "hard".

Personal preference for game play doesn't come into the dicsussion at this point,  right now we are trying to understand what "HARD" is,  though I would agree with you that I don't know if I am up to the challenge of sitting through a Justin Bieber concert.

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
 

A sandbox game has nothing to do with player created content; I'm so tired of seeing people spout this nonsense everytime they talk about a sandbox MMO.

Sandbox games didn't start with MMO's.

Sandbox, open ended, free-form. Games that focus on world building, and not central characters (you). They don't define the path you take, they aren't about housing, they aren't about PvP, they aren't about not having classes. Sandbox gameplay is all about providing a world for you to inhabit, and letting you loose in it.

Baldurs Gate was a sandbox RPG. It's built off of a D&D ruleset, it has classes, and is an open-ended single player RPG. GTA3 is a sandbox, it had a quest line that requred following to unlock other parts of a city; yet it's a single player sandbox RPG.

A sandbox gives you a WORLD THAT ISN'T STRUCTURED. Ultima Online doesn't give you the tools to "create your own content", no more then WoW does. Oblivion doesn't let you "create your own content", any more then Everquest did. I can't make anymore content in EVE online then I can Lineage 2.

City of Heroes gives you the ability to actually create missions, you can't do that in Mortal Online; yet MO is a sandbox MMO, and CoH is a themepark. Ultima online doesn't provide a single "tool" to "create" any content. There is no quest builder in UO, you can't make a dungeon in UO, no tools to build events like SWG had (and SWG isn't a sandbox at this moment, yet I can make my own content in it.), and UO had multiple expansiions over the years to add content to the game; those expansions weren't made by the players.

Being a sandbox game is not an excuse for content light games, or a reason for developers to not have to make content. Sandbox isn't an excuse to not have questing, boss raids, or events. These are all GAMEPLAY FEATURES THAT KEEP PEOPLE ENGROSSED AND ENTERTAINED!

Traditional RPG= Puts player in the role of the hero. Player follows a story that leads to them reaching the end were they confront the protagonist. There may be diversions along the way, some side quests, or activities in the way of minigames. This game is primarilly focused on character development in a typically static world, were the player has little or no effect on what's going on around him.

Sandbox= Open ended gameplay that doesn't have a conclusion (general lack of an endgame). Player isn't always defined within a set role (player may be the hero, or the player may be the bad guy, or maybe the heroes is a hermit that doesn't interact with anything but his pet pig, the players isn't typically predefined by the developers IE: placed in the shoes of a specific character within a story, or playing the hero saves the world.) There may be a central story line, but that story line isn't required to be followed. Lot's of side stories that develop the world around the player. This type of game focuses primarilly on world building, were a players actions impact the world in some way, or where the player is able to alter the world itself in some way.

You make your own story in a sandbox, not your own content.

EVE does well because CCP understood that for a sandbox to work they had to build a world. Everything about EVE has to do with the world itself and how the players behaive within it. Ryzom didn't do so well because the game only feels like a sandbox because there aren't any classes, other then that it's really not a lot dif. from WoW or any other traditional MMO. MO and DF are both FFA PVP with full loot, and they both emphasize this, provide very little in the way of "meaningful" PvE elements (or working ones at that). Face of mankind was developed originally by people that had the same mindset as the "lawl sandbox means player created content" crowd, and they tried to make a game that almost entirely depended on players creating the content, it was also PvP heavy. Fallen Earth has horrible combat.

There has yet to be a single sandbox MMO created in the last decade, that wasn't all about PvP, or set within it's own niche market (like playing a spaceship). When someone finally makes a game more like UO, that isn't all about PvP, has worthwhile PvE, doesn't require 20 other people playing with you to do anything, doesn't run like crap, doesn't have horrible fighting, AND IS FUN, it will have lots and lots of subscribers.

edit -Ryzome is not an old school sandbox.  Lack of content is not the defintion.  SWG and UO were the oldest school content and each of them had orders of magntitude more content than Ryzom including quests. 

post of the year

/thread

/mmos

/internet

Originally posted by Burntvet

Originally posted by DavisFlight

Originally posted by Burntvet

Originally posted by PsyMike3d

Originally posted by delete5230

/snip
 

Darkfall Unholy Wars is comming. And it has all and more of those you are asking ;)

Except that "DF2" is being made by the same incompetents that made DF1.

That game was the most broken and buggy POS I have ever had the misfortune to play for its first 6 months. It was crap, and it launched with less than half the promised features. ANd many of those features did not work.

And no communication except to complain about their customers.

Haha what fantasy realm do you come from? Those "incompetents" made one of the most technically impressive MMOs ever, on a shoestring budget with no experience. Imagine what they can do with a team 3 times as big and with 4 years of experience? Darkfall, other than Vanguard, was the only interesting MMO to come out in the last 7 years.

As for your spotty recollection of the launch, there were hardly any bugs at all. Certainly none that impacted the gameplay in meaningful ways. There were a handful of bugged quests for the first few weeks. And I can't think of any feature that was outright broken.

The only promised feature that the game launched without was roaming mobs, so I don't know where you're getting your "half" bs.

And they patched and communicated every week for about a year. I don't know where you got the "complain about customers" bit.

Oh, please.

AV got caught changing the features list after launch to hide all the things that were  supposed to be in there at launch and weren't, there are threads in this very section about that. They updated the feature list to match what they had announced over time. We knew years and years before launch that things like NPC hirelings were no longer planned for the game. Every feature with the exception of the one I mentioned that wasn't in at launch was announced cut long before launch. Nice try though.

There were bugs and exploits a plenty, beating/botting on the bloodwall? Swimming in place against an obstuction forever neither of those are bugs, or exploits, just game mechanics that weren't thought out too well, the messed up mix between melee and ranged, and the fact that magic was useless for the first several months? Not a bug or an exploit. Not punishing the skill botters? Many were banned. And more?

Much more. Do tell more, cause you're about 95% incorrect as of now.

Remember any of that?

Glad to see you couldn't back up pretty much ANY of your claims.

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

To the OP...

 

The majorrity of MMO players is actually very happy with things like dungeon finders, instance quests crossrealm interaction and such

 

 

So dont say We need, but refer to me and my friends, or even the very lonely I.

 

When do people like the OP start to realise they are currently a very small minority.

Your ignorance and mis information has no bounds my friend. For the last 7 years. I Have I seen, talked, heard  tens, hundreds, and thousands of disgruntled gamers in real life, the internet, and gaming conventions complain that video games in general are way to dumbed down, easy, simplistic, and all almost all the same now a days, about the only thing that has changed is the graphics and Gameplay. Everything else is just worse then what it was and a shallow shell of what it used to be. Even the Elderscrolls games over the years have been dumbed down over and over again. Morrowind actually has more skills, spells, and choices you can do then Skyrim. I've seen this very thing on almost all types of games and genres for the past, not just MMO's but Single Players games too. The reason why I say your Logic is flawed is because you yourself like easy games and like the current state of MMO's, and assume that everyone else is like you, but that doesn't mean that the people who you don't agree with are in a small minority. Do some research and educate your mind on things you are not sure about instead of spouting nonsense to try to back up your dalusional idea that there is only one type of gamer out there like you and everyone else is just a small minority. That's like me saying I like Choclate icecream but everyone that likes Vanilla are just in the minority and are lonely losers. What a stupid, and close minded ideology that is.

Assming things is baseline for ignorance.

Cheers,

-Trash

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

 Ultima Online doesn't give you the tools to "create your own content", no more then WoW does.

Can you link us to pages on the following content in WOW, please?

• - tile by tile house building in open world space (ex: UOHomeDecor.com is a great site to check out player creations)
• - writable books, paper, bulletin boards (ex: Libraries on each server , recent article)
• - permanent sculptuires and other creations built with world objects. (ex: fish tanks, grand pianos)
• - placing objects in the gameworld (yes, players used to be able to do that back in the good old days)
• - player-run venues (ex: Kazola's, YMCA, Mage Tower, Sonoma Fight Pit, Serpent's Cross Tavern, Pax Lair)
• - guild alliances, wars and diplomatic tools (ex: guild info here)
• - dev support for player-created games (ex: Bagball)
• - dev support for player created territories (ex: Shadowclan Fort, Kinship Village)

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by DavisFlight

Originally posted by Moirae

Originally posted by eddieg50

   We do have one and it is called---Vanguard------and very few people play

    We have a old school sand box called -----Ryzom-----and very few people play

 

Vanguard is NOT all its cracked up to be. From the early 2000's graphics, to the rehash of eq2 in different clothes. Its not that good a game. EQ2 had better graphics than this game does. And Vanguard is newer.

Vanguard is almost nothing like EQ2... EQ2 is a heavily instanced themepark, Vanguard is a zoneless, instanceless sandbox/themepark, and its graphics are way WAAY ahead of EQ2.

Very few people played Vanguard for quite a few reasons, the biggest being that SoE never tried to develop the game or put any money into it. Now that theres a full dev team again and some actually money coming in, a lot of people are playing it.

 

That being said, it has still been made quite casual by classic MMORPG standards, and not everyone likes the pure PVE experience.

IMO Vanguard is just an ok game.  It's like the devs stopped at each area and went good enough. 

Your have great background graphics, but bad character graphics.

You can build houses, but only from about 6 different styles.

Classes have an interesting turn.

Diplomacy--- well I'll just say it is the best of all the games offereing diplomacy and leave it at that.

lag lag lag lag lag.  falling through world, minute long load at chunks.

But it isn't a bad game, it's just mediocre.

For Ryzom.  IMO Ryzom is the worst iteration of a sandbox and embraces everything that is many consider bad parts.  Very little content, you have digging in the dirt for crafting materials, making one of a dozen types of armor (yes different by stats, but only about a dozen styles of armor), fighting mobs or arraging for a fight on on the outposts.  All fighting styles play exactly the same, all magic styles play exactly the same, all crafting is exactly the same.  Very weak market, no way to even decorate a house.  Absolutley no impact on the world at all.  It can barely be called a sandbox IMO.

edit - and vanguard as zones.  NO there isn't a zone wall, but there are chunk lines where the game pauses to load up the next zone.   And in the beginining SOE put a full dev team in the game, fixed a lot of bugs, tried to reduce the lag.  No real success. 

   vanguard is the only game offering Diplomacy that I can think of and this makes it unique, it is a classic old school mmo and that is what the op said he is looking for.

   Ryzom is really an old school sand box mmo,  "very little content"--it is a sand box mmo!  you the player are suppose to make the content, that being said the beginning does an excellent job with quests tutoring you through because it is a complex game.

"digging in the dirt for crafting materials" You mean like SWG, digging in the dirt is sand box in its purest sense, what dont you understand about that it is called harvesting.

the rest of your comments are simply untrue and so do not observe comment

What was untrue.  Everything is complete fact.  Name something that was not fact.  I will apologzie and correct it.

Yes Diplomacy is unique which is why I can't say it's the worst.  I personally thought it was terrible but it was the only one, so I guess it's the best too. 

Ryzom only has about a dozen styles of armor.  There is no world impact, no way of even decorating a house and all the styles of crafting are the same, all the styles of fighting are the same, all the styles of magic are the same. 

SWG had multple ways of doing that, heck it had harvesters so you hardly had to do it at all.  Ryzome if I want shells, resins, materials of any kinds I dig in the dirt for ABSOLUTELY every single material.  That is what the crafting is, digging in the dirt and fighting mobs. There is way way way more to harvesting resources and way more variety than just digging in the dirt.  Trees, water, chemicals, air... are just some simple examples that don't involve digging in the dirt.   

Vanguard has zones, called chunks.  There is still lots of lag and bugs. 

 

As for the content, posted by Uhwop long ago.  I don't agree with the player created content part, that is central to sandbox but the rest of it I do agree with.  Perhaps player emergent content might be a better choice, because he is right we can't actually create the content in most games.

 

A sandbox game has nothing to do with player created content; I'm so tired of seeing people spout this nonsense everytime they talk about a sandbox MMO.

Sandbox games didn't start with MMO's.

Sandbox, open ended, free-form. Games that focus on world building, and not central characters (you). They don't define the path you take, they aren't about housing, they aren't about PvP, they aren't about not having classes. Sandbox gameplay is all about providing a world for you to inhabit, and letting you loose in it.

Baldurs Gate was a sandbox RPG. It's built off of a D&D ruleset, it has classes, and is an open-ended single player RPG. GTA3 is a sandbox, it had a quest line that requred following to unlock other parts of a city; yet it's a single player sandbox RPG.

A sandbox gives you a WORLD THAT ISN'T STRUCTURED. Ultima Online doesn't give you the tools to "create your own content", no more then WoW does. Oblivion doesn't let you "create your own content", any more then Everquest did. I can't make anymore content in EVE online then I can Lineage 2.

City of Heroes gives you the ability to actually create missions, you can't do that in Mortal Online; yet MO is a sandbox MMO, and CoH is a themepark. Ultima online doesn't provide a single "tool" to "create" any content. There is no quest builder in UO, you can't make a dungeon in UO, no tools to build events like SWG had (and SWG isn't a sandbox at this moment, yet I can make my own content in it.), and UO had multiple expansiions over the years to add content to the game; those expansions weren't made by the players.

Being a sandbox game is not an excuse for content light games, or a reason for developers to not have to make content. Sandbox isn't an excuse to not have questing, boss raids, or events. These are all GAMEPLAY FEATURES THAT KEEP PEOPLE ENGROSSED AND ENTERTAINED!

Traditional RPG= Puts player in the role of the hero. Player follows a story that leads to them reaching the end were they confront the protagonist. There may be diversions along the way, some side quests, or activities in the way of minigames. This game is primarilly focused on character development in a typically static world, were the player has little or no effect on what's going on around him.

Sandbox= Open ended gameplay that doesn't have a conclusion (general lack of an endgame). Player isn't always defined within a set role (player may be the hero, or the player may be the bad guy, or maybe the heroes is a hermit that doesn't interact with anything but his pet pig, the players isn't typically predefined by the developers IE: placed in the shoes of a specific character within a story, or playing the hero saves the world.) There may be a central story line, but that story line isn't required to be followed. Lot's of side stories that develop the world around the player. This type of game focuses primarilly on world building, were a players actions impact the world in some way, or where the player is able to alter the world itself in some way.

You make your own story in a sandbox, not your own content.

EVE does well because CCP understood that for a sandbox to work they had to build a world. Everything about EVE has to do with the world itself and how the players behaive within it. Ryzom didn't do so well because the game only feels like a sandbox because there aren't any classes, other then that it's really not a lot dif. from WoW or any other traditional MMO. MO and DF are both FFA PVP with full loot, and they both emphasize this, provide very little in the way of "meaningful" PvE elements (or working ones at that). Face of mankind was developed originally by people that had the same mindset as the "lawl sandbox means player created content" crowd, and they tried to make a game that almost entirely depended on players creating the content, it was also PvP heavy. Fallen Earth has horrible combat.

There has yet to be a single sandbox MMO created in the last decade, that wasn't all about PvP, or set within it's own niche market (like playing a spaceship). When someone finally makes a game more like UO, that isn't all about PvP, has worthwhile PvE, doesn't require 20 other people playing with you to do anything, doesn't run like crap, doesn't have horrible fighting, AND IS FUN, it will have lots and lots of subscribers.

edit -Ryzome is not an old school sandbox.  Lack of content is not the defintion.  SWG and UO were the oldest school content and each of them had orders of magntitude more content than Ryzom including quests. 

   LOL, it is tough to argue with someone who says BG was a sandbox, I dont know what to say, maybe when I am done laughing I may respond

Out of his whole comment about quests, building, pvp, pve, games that let you directly add things, games that you don't, and the inconsistency the gaming community has regarding sandbox and nonsandbox, thats what you took from it?  Sheesh.

   Ok, I am done laughing so I can  comment, but please dont say BG is a sand box game, you will make me start laughing again. I read over your last few posts and you do make some good and thoughtfull comments. This may be a personal thing but I did not enjoy Istara one bit and thought it paled when compared to Ryzom. Yes in Ryzom you have to dig in the dirt, but there are many skills you can use to do it or find out exactly where you need to go digging, and when you dig you can be attacked by mobs which makes it exciting.  "decorating my house" ? I know that was big in SWG but i dont play games to decorate my house. Speaking of which SWG while having some excellent elements reminded me of a giant chatroom where everyone hung out in the cantina chatting and waiting to get buffed to go out and play some bad combat. Space game-= Good,  Harvesting and crafting==Good, Combat and performance===Bad. An MMO with bad combat combined with bad performance is an mmo that sony takes over and makes even worse LOL. As a matter of fact this has been the problem with Vanguard, The combat is fair but the intense lag makes it seem worse and has really hurt this fine game.   By the way I have to dissagree again on Fallen Earth combat, it is not tera or AOC combat but I had fun useing guns and the fact that you get a horse right away is cool, and crafting takes some thought. 

"Sandbox= Open ended gameplay that doesn't have a conclusion"--I have never seen a mmo that had a conclusion, I have seen some where the quests ran out but never one that had a conclusion.

"Player isn't always defined within a set role"--In Ryzom you are not in a set role, you are what you want to make yourself, if you want to be evil or good that is up to you, Combat in Ryzom,you can use several different types of magic or combine it with melle, it is a skill based building block game that takes ten times more thought than WOW ever did.

"There has yet to be a single sandbox MMO created in the last decade, that wasn't all about PvP"---I played Ryzom for about 75 hours and never even thought about PvP and I dont think I ran into anyone who did, with the occasional exception of a duel, UO on the otherhand was all about griefing and PvP. yes there was house building and such but Pv P  ruled the roost there.

"Sandbox gameplay is all about providing a world for you to inhabit, and letting you loose in it"---hmmm if this does not define Ryzom i dont know what does.

   Anyway as I said not many people  play Ryzom so yes people do find it limiting, although I blame the developers for stagnating the game, however I will take games like Ryzom, Shadowbane, and fallen earth any day over SWG, UO and Eve (little dots in outer space make me blind and irratate me).  However BG and BG2 are two of the greatest rpg's in history---but no not sand boxes

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by DavisFlight

Originally posted by Moirae

Originally posted by eddieg50

   We do have one and it is called---Vanguard------and very few people play

    We have a old school sand box called -----Ryzom-----and very few people play

 

Vanguard is NOT all its cracked up to be. From the early 2000's graphics, to the rehash of eq2 in different clothes. Its not that good a game. EQ2 had better graphics than this game does. And Vanguard is newer.

Vanguard is almost nothing like EQ2... EQ2 is a heavily instanced themepark, Vanguard is a zoneless, instanceless sandbox/themepark, and its graphics are way WAAY ahead of EQ2.

Very few people played Vanguard for quite a few reasons, the biggest being that SoE never tried to develop the game or put any money into it. Now that theres a full dev team again and some actually money coming in, a lot of people are playing it.

 

That being said, it has still been made quite casual by classic MMORPG standards, and not everyone likes the pure PVE experience.

IMO Vanguard is just an ok game.  It's like the devs stopped at each area and went good enough. 

Your have great background graphics, but bad character graphics.

You can build houses, but only from about 6 different styles.

Classes have an interesting turn.

Diplomacy--- well I'll just say it is the best of all the games offereing diplomacy and leave it at that.

lag lag lag lag lag.  falling through world, minute long load at chunks.

But it isn't a bad game, it's just mediocre.

For Ryzom.  IMO Ryzom is the worst iteration of a sandbox and embraces everything that is many consider bad parts.  Very little content, you have digging in the dirt for crafting materials, making one of a dozen types of armor (yes different by stats, but only about a dozen styles of armor), fighting mobs or arraging for a fight on on the outposts.  All fighting styles play exactly the same, all magic styles play exactly the same, all crafting is exactly the same.  Very weak market, no way to even decorate a house.  Absolutley no impact on the world at all.  It can barely be called a sandbox IMO.

edit - and vanguard as zones.  NO there isn't a zone wall, but there are chunk lines where the game pauses to load up the next zone.   And in the beginining SOE put a full dev team in the game, fixed a lot of bugs, tried to reduce the lag.  No real success. 

   vanguard is the only game offering Diplomacy that I can think of and this makes it unique, it is a classic old school mmo and that is what the op said he is looking for.

   Ryzom is really an old school sand box mmo,  "very little content"--it is a sand box mmo!  you the player are suppose to make the content, that being said the beginning does an excellent job with quests tutoring you through because it is a complex game.

"digging in the dirt for crafting materials" You mean like SWG, digging in the dirt is sand box in its purest sense, what dont you understand about that it is called harvesting.

the rest of your comments are simply untrue and so do not observe comment

What was untrue.  Everything is complete fact.  Name something that was not fact.  I will apologzie and correct it.

Yes Diplomacy is unique which is why I can't say it's the worst.  I personally thought it was terrible but it was the only one, so I guess it's the best too. 

Ryzom only has about a dozen styles of armor.  There is no world impact, no way of even decorating a house and all the styles of crafting are the same, all the styles of fighting are the same, all the styles of magic are the same. 

SWG had multple ways of doing that, heck it had harvesters so you hardly had to do it at all.  Ryzome if I want shells, resins, materials of any kinds I dig in the dirt for ABSOLUTELY every single material.  That is what the crafting is, digging in the dirt and fighting mobs. There is way way way more to harvesting resources and way more variety than just digging in the dirt.  Trees, water, chemicals, air... are just some simple examples that don't involve digging in the dirt.   

Vanguard has zones, called chunks.  There is still lots of lag and bugs. 

 

As for the content, posted by Uhwop long ago.  I don't agree with the player created content part, that is central to sandbox but the rest of it I do agree with.  Perhaps player emergent content might be a better choice, because he is right we can't actually create the content in most games.

 

A sandbox game has nothing to do with player created content; I'm so tired of seeing people spout this nonsense everytime they talk about a sandbox MMO.

Sandbox games didn't start with MMO's.

Sandbox, open ended, free-form. Games that focus on world building, and not central characters (you). They don't define the path you take, they aren't about housing, they aren't about PvP, they aren't about not having classes. Sandbox gameplay is all about providing a world for you to inhabit, and letting you loose in it.

Baldurs Gate was a sandbox RPG. It's built off of a D&D ruleset, it has classes, and is an open-ended single player RPG. GTA3 is a sandbox, it had a quest line that requred following to unlock other parts of a city; yet it's a single player sandbox RPG.

A sandbox gives you a WORLD THAT ISN'T STRUCTURED. Ultima Online doesn't give you the tools to "create your own content", no more then WoW does. Oblivion doesn't let you "create your own content", any more then Everquest did. I can't make anymore content in EVE online then I can Lineage 2.

City of Heroes gives you the ability to actually create missions, you can't do that in Mortal Online; yet MO is a sandbox MMO, and CoH is a themepark. Ultima online doesn't provide a single "tool" to "create" any content. There is no quest builder in UO, you can't make a dungeon in UO, no tools to build events like SWG had (and SWG isn't a sandbox at this moment, yet I can make my own content in it.), and UO had multiple expansiions over the years to add content to the game; those expansions weren't made by the players.

Being a sandbox game is not an excuse for content light games, or a reason for developers to not have to make content. Sandbox isn't an excuse to not have questing, boss raids, or events. These are all GAMEPLAY FEATURES THAT KEEP PEOPLE ENGROSSED AND ENTERTAINED!

Traditional RPG= Puts player in the role of the hero. Player follows a story that leads to them reaching the end were they confront the protagonist. There may be diversions along the way, some side quests, or activities in the way of minigames. This game is primarilly focused on character development in a typically static world, were the player has little or no effect on what's going on around him.

Sandbox= Open ended gameplay that doesn't have a conclusion (general lack of an endgame). Player isn't always defined within a set role (player may be the hero, or the player may be the bad guy, or maybe the heroes is a hermit that doesn't interact with anything but his pet pig, the players isn't typically predefined by the developers IE: placed in the shoes of a specific character within a story, or playing the hero saves the world.) There may be a central story line, but that story line isn't required to be followed. Lot's of side stories that develop the world around the player. This type of game focuses primarilly on world building, were a players actions impact the world in some way, or where the player is able to alter the world itself in some way.

You make your own story in a sandbox, not your own content.

EVE does well because CCP understood that for a sandbox to work they had to build a world. Everything about EVE has to do with the world itself and how the players behaive within it. Ryzom didn't do so well because the game only feels like a sandbox because there aren't any classes, other then that it's really not a lot dif. from WoW or any other traditional MMO. MO and DF are both FFA PVP with full loot, and they both emphasize this, provide very little in the way of "meaningful" PvE elements (or working ones at that). Face of mankind was developed originally by people that had the same mindset as the "lawl sandbox means player created content" crowd, and they tried to make a game that almost entirely depended on players creating the content, it was also PvP heavy. Fallen Earth has horrible combat.

There has yet to be a single sandbox MMO created in the last decade, that wasn't all about PvP, or set within it's own niche market (like playing a spaceship). When someone finally makes a game more like UO, that isn't all about PvP, has worthwhile PvE, doesn't require 20 other people playing with you to do anything, doesn't run like crap, doesn't have horrible fighting, AND IS FUN, it will have lots and lots of subscribers.

edit -Ryzome is not an old school sandbox.  Lack of content is not the defintion.  SWG and UO were the oldest school content and each of them had orders of magntitude more content than Ryzom including quests. 

   LOL, it is tough to argue with someone who says BG was a sandbox, I dont know what to say, maybe when I am done laughing I may respond

Out of his whole comment about quests, building, pvp, pve, games that let you directly add things, games that you don't, and the inconsistency the gaming community has regarding sandbox and nonsandbox, thats what you took from it?  Sheesh.

   Ok, I am done laughing so I can  comment, but please dont say BG is a sand box game, you will make me start laughing again. I read over your last few posts and you do make some good and thoughtfull comments. This may be a personal thing but I did not enjoy Istara one bit and thought it paled when compared to Ryzom. Yes in Ryzom you have to dig in the dirt, but there are many skills you can use to do it or find out exactly where you need to go digging, and when you dig you can be attacked by mobs which makes it exciting.  "decorating my house" ? I know that was big in SWG but i dont play games to decorate my house. Speaking of which SWG while having some excellent elements reminded me of a giant chatroom where everyone hung out in the cantina chatting and waiting to get buffed to go out and play some bad combat. Space game-= Good,  Harvesting and crafting==Good, Combat and performance===Bad. An MMO with bad combat combined with bad performance is an mmo that sony takes over and makes even worse LOL. As a matter of fact this has been the problem with Vanguard, The combat is fair but the intense lag makes it seem worse and has really hurt this fine game.   By the way I have to dissagree again on Fallen Earth combat, it is not tera or AOC combat but I had fun useing guns and the fact that you get a horse right away is cool, and crafting takes some thought. 

"Sandbox= Open ended gameplay that doesn't have a conclusion"--I have never seen a mmo that had a conclusion, I have seen some where the quests ran out but never one that had a conclusion.

"Player isn't always defined within a set role"--In Ryzom you are not in a set role, you are what you want to make yourself, if you want to be evil or good that is up to you, Combat in Ryzom,you can use several different types of magic or combine it with melle, it is a skill based building block game that takes ten times more thought than WOW ever did.

"There has yet to be a single sandbox MMO created in the last decade, that wasn't all about PvP"---I played Ryzom for about 75 hours and never even thought about PvP and I dont think I ran into anyone who did, with the occasional exception of a duel, UO on the otherhand was all about griefing and PvP. yes there was house building and such but Pv P  ruled the roost there.

"Sandbox gameplay is all about providing a world for you to inhabit, and letting you loose in it"---hmmm if this does not define Ryzom i dont know what does.

   Anyway as I said not many people  play Ryzom so yes people do find it limiting, although I blame the developers for stagnating the game, however I will take games like Ryzom, Shadowbane, and fallen earth any day over SWG, UO and Darkfall.  However BG and BG2 are two of the greatest rpg's in history---but no not sand boxes

That is the longest wall of text I've ever seen in a forum... you guys should write a book on gaming.

Originally posted by DavisFlight

Originally posted by Burntvet

Originally posted by DavisFlight

Originally posted by Burntvet

Originally posted by PsyMike3d

Originally posted by delete5230

/snip
 

Darkfall Unholy Wars is comming. And it has all and more of those you are asking ;)

Except that "DF2" is being made by the same incompetents that made DF1.

That game was the most broken and buggy POS I have ever had the misfortune to play for its first 6 months. It was crap, and it launched with less than half the promised features. ANd many of those features did not work.

And no communication except to complain about their customers.

Oh, please.

AV got caught changing the features list after launch to hide all the things that were  supposed to be in there at launch and weren't, there are threads in this very section about that. They updated the feature list to match what they had announced over time. We knew years and years before launch that things like NPC hirelings were no longer planned for the game. Every feature with the exception of the one I mentioned that wasn't in at launch was announced cut long before launch. Nice try though.

There were bugs and exploits a plenty, beating/botting on the bloodwall? Swimming in place against an obstuction forever neither of those are bugs, or exploits, just game mechanics that weren't thought out too well, the messed up mix between melee and ranged, and the fact that magic was useless for the first several months? Not a bug or an exploit. Not punishing the skill botters? Many were banned. And more?

Much more. Do tell more, cause you're about 95% incorrect as of now.

Remember any of that?

Glad to see you couldn't back up pretty much ANY of your claims.

Whatever man, can't convince a zealot.

What is the difference between a bug/exploited mechanic and a poorly writen one that allows players to max out skills while AFK? Nothing. And that the company did not fix this for many months is even worse, AND they never punished/adjusted the toons of anyone doing it. And even worse, those exploitable mechanics gave the "cheaters" an advantage in a full loot, PvP centric game.

So like I said, they are incompentent. Worse, because many of the broken mechanics were there the way they intended. And yet, they were "exploitable".

Plus the speed and other hacks and all the other broken/unfinished/missing stuff in DF at launch. That took forever to fix. And there was a lot of that.

Not all of those people quit DF (and there were a lot) because it was "hardcore" or "too tough for carebears", many left because it was simply a not very good or technically polished game. And still isn't/wasn't. Plus AV can't manage a game longterm well, either.

Which is why, any sensible person will not be buying DF2 out of the gate, because frankly, AV did a crappy job on the last launch.

Originally posted by delete5230

What we need is an old school mmo.  In other words we need an mmo that is hard.

 

 We DON'T need.  Dungeon finders, cross realm nothing,Dynamic events with auto group, story telling that other social people can't get involved,cinematic that pulls players away from the game for 3  minutes when in groups....This stuff is bull crap...Bottom line.

 

We DO need.  A somewhat hard mmo.  One that relays on the guy next to you having a hard time soloing too.  A game that joining a guild means something, and helps the players progress as a team.  Make a friend that you click with?....Add him to your friends list....It's all about survival in a hard world.

 

SOMETHING THAT MAKES YOUR HART POUND, BUT WITH FRIENDS,IT CAN BE DONE.  This is an mmo !....I don't know what you call all this crap we have now.  GuildWars 2 in a nice game.  Well made, tons of features.  BUTT is 

........

This is what YOU need and many others, not what I need or many others.

Will never ever play again any game where i will spend a week desperately lfg-ing for group that will help me get my fire mount. Never ever. They can of course make it, but will never get money from me. Will however get it from you. So at the end it is decision of company how they want to have their game and players will respond all according to their preferences.

So SWTOR will constantly getting my money (actually love game so much that I'm leaving sub running even if not playing for about last 2 months, but have played for 7 to 8 months continuously), also Wow with any expansion, same for Rift, ... never will get my money FF XI with forced grouping.

Swtor in this regard is great, only class quests are mondatory, for the rest I can do only solo questing or only grup quests.

Saying this I must however add that I do not like eveything companies do, do not like dumbing down at all cost. Is more easy now but still missing hours spent trying to level my lock picking. And alike.

I do not however miss not even minimally chain of quests that ultimately (many) ended in elite quest requiring group of few at least. This could not be problem in "normal" hours or when enough players in that area.

Originally posted by trash656

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by DavisFlight

Originally posted by Moirae

Originally posted by eddieg50

   We do have one and it is called---Vanguard------and very few people play

    We have a old school sand box called -----Ryzom-----and very few people play

 

Vanguard is NOT all its cracked up to be. From the early 2000's graphics, to the rehash of eq2 in different clothes. Its not that good a game. EQ2 had better graphics than this game does. And Vanguard is newer.

Vanguard is almost nothing like EQ2... EQ2 is a heavily instanced themepark, Vanguard is a zoneless, instanceless sandbox/themepark, and its graphics are way WAAY ahead of EQ2.

Very few people played Vanguard for quite a few reasons, the biggest being that SoE never tried to develop the game or put any money into it. Now that theres a full dev team again and some actually money coming in, a lot of people are playing it.

 

That being said, it has still been made quite casual by classic MMORPG standards, and not everyone likes the pure PVE experience.

IMO Vanguard is just an ok game.  It's like the devs stopped at each area and went good enough. 

Your have great background graphics, but bad character graphics.

You can build houses, but only from about 6 different styles.

Classes have an interesting turn.

Diplomacy--- well I'll just say it is the best of all the games offereing diplomacy and leave it at that.

lag lag lag lag lag.  falling through world, minute long load at chunks.

But it isn't a bad game, it's just mediocre.

For Ryzom.  IMO Ryzom is the worst iteration of a sandbox and embraces everything that is many consider bad parts.  Very little content, you have digging in the dirt for crafting materials, making one of a dozen types of armor (yes different by stats, but only about a dozen styles of armor), fighting mobs or arraging for a fight on on the outposts.  All fighting styles play exactly the same, all magic styles play exactly the same, all crafting is exactly the same.  Very weak market, no way to even decorate a house.  Absolutley no impact on the world at all.  It can barely be called a sandbox IMO.

edit - and vanguard as zones.  NO there isn't a zone wall, but there are chunk lines where the game pauses to load up the next zone.   And in the beginining SOE put a full dev team in the game, fixed a lot of bugs, tried to reduce the lag.  No real success. 

   vanguard is the only game offering Diplomacy that I can think of and this makes it unique, it is a classic old school mmo and that is what the op said he is looking for.

   Ryzom is really an old school sand box mmo,  "very little content"--it is a sand box mmo!  you the player are suppose to make the content, that being said the beginning does an excellent job with quests tutoring you through because it is a complex game.

"digging in the dirt for crafting materials" You mean like SWG, digging in the dirt is sand box in its purest sense, what dont you understand about that it is called harvesting.

the rest of your comments are simply untrue and so do not observe comment

What was untrue.  Everything is complete fact.  Name something that was not fact.  I will apologzie and correct it.

Yes Diplomacy is unique which is why I can't say it's the worst.  I personally thought it was terrible but it was the only one, so I guess it's the best too. 

Ryzom only has about a dozen styles of armor.  There is no world impact, no way of even decorating a house and all the styles of crafting are the same, all the styles of fighting are the same, all the styles of magic are the same. 

SWG had multple ways of doing that, heck it had harvesters so you hardly had to do it at all.  Ryzome if I want shells, resins, materials of any kinds I dig in the dirt for ABSOLUTELY every single material.  That is what the crafting is, digging in the dirt and fighting mobs. There is way way way more to harvesting resources and way more variety than just digging in the dirt.  Trees, water, chemicals, air... are just some simple examples that don't involve digging in the dirt.   

Vanguard has zones, called chunks.  There is still lots of lag and bugs. 

 

As for the content, posted by Uhwop long ago.  I don't agree with the player created content part, that is central to sandbox but the rest of it I do agree with.  Perhaps player emergent content might be a better choice, because he is right we can't actually create the content in most games.

 

A sandbox game has nothing to do with player created content; I'm so tired of seeing people spout this nonsense everytime they talk about a sandbox MMO.

Sandbox games didn't start with MMO's.

Sandbox, open ended, free-form. Games that focus on world building, and not central characters (you). They don't define the path you take, they aren't about housing, they aren't about PvP, they aren't about not having classes. Sandbox gameplay is all about providing a world for you to inhabit, and letting you loose in it.

Baldurs Gate was a sandbox RPG. It's built off of a D&D ruleset, it has classes, and is an open-ended single player RPG. GTA3 is a sandbox, it had a quest line that requred following to unlock other parts of a city; yet it's a single player sandbox RPG.

A sandbox gives you a WORLD THAT ISN'T STRUCTURED. Ultima Online doesn't give you the tools to "create your own content", no more then WoW does. Oblivion doesn't let you "create your own content", any more then Everquest did. I can't make anymore content in EVE online then I can Lineage 2.

City of Heroes gives you the ability to actually create missions, you can't do that in Mortal Online; yet MO is a sandbox MMO, and CoH is a themepark. Ultima online doesn't provide a single "tool" to "create" any content. There is no quest builder in UO, you can't make a dungeon in UO, no tools to build events like SWG had (and SWG isn't a sandbox at this moment, yet I can make my own content in it.), and UO had multiple expansiions over the years to add content to the game; those expansions weren't made by the players.

Being a sandbox game is not an excuse for content light games, or a reason for developers to not have to make content. Sandbox isn't an excuse to not have questing, boss raids, or events. These are all GAMEPLAY FEATURES THAT KEEP PEOPLE ENGROSSED AND ENTERTAINED!

Traditional RPG= Puts player in the role of the hero. Player follows a story that leads to them reaching the end were they confront the protagonist. There may be diversions along the way, some side quests, or activities in the way of minigames. This game is primarilly focused on character development in a typically static world, were the player has little or no effect on what's going on around him.

Sandbox= Open ended gameplay that doesn't have a conclusion (general lack of an endgame). Player isn't always defined within a set role (player may be the hero, or the player may be the bad guy, or maybe the heroes is a hermit that doesn't interact with anything but his pet pig, the players isn't typically predefined by the developers IE: placed in the shoes of a specific character within a story, or playing the hero saves the world.) There may be a central story line, but that story line isn't required to be followed. Lot's of side stories that develop the world around the player. This type of game focuses primarilly on world building, were a players actions impact the world in some way, or where the player is able to alter the world itself in some way.

You make your own story in a sandbox, not your own content.

EVE does well because CCP understood that for a sandbox to work they had to build a world. Everything about EVE has to do with the world itself and how the players behaive within it. Ryzom didn't do so well because the game only feels like a sandbox because there aren't any classes, other then that it's really not a lot dif. from WoW or any other traditional MMO. MO and DF are both FFA PVP with full loot, and they both emphasize this, provide very little in the way of "meaningful" PvE elements (or working ones at that). Face of mankind was developed originally by people that had the same mindset as the "lawl sandbox means player created content" crowd, and they tried to make a game that almost entirely depended on players creating the content, it was also PvP heavy. Fallen Earth has horrible combat.

There has yet to be a single sandbox MMO created in the last decade, that wasn't all about PvP, or set within it's own niche market (like playing a spaceship). When someone finally makes a game more like UO, that isn't all about PvP, has worthwhile PvE, doesn't require 20 other people playing with you to do anything, doesn't run like crap, doesn't have horrible fighting, AND IS FUN, it will have lots and lots of subscribers.

edit -Ryzome is not an old school sandbox.  Lack of content is not the defintion.  SWG and UO were the oldest school content and each of them had orders of magntitude more content than Ryzom including quests. 

   LOL, it is tough to argue with someone who says BG was a sandbox, I dont know what to say, maybe when I am done laughing I may respond

Out of his whole comment about quests, building, pvp, pve, games that let you directly add things, games that you don't, and the inconsistency the gaming community has regarding sandbox and nonsandbox, thats what you took from it?  Sheesh.

   Ok, I am done laughing so I can  comment, but please dont say BG is a sand box game, you will make me start laughing again. I read over your last few posts and you do make some good and thoughtfull comments. This may be a personal thing but I did not enjoy Istara one bit and thought it paled when compared to Ryzom. Yes in Ryzom you have to dig in the dirt, but there are many skills you can use to do it or find out exactly where you need to go digging, and when you dig you can be attacked by mobs which makes it exciting.  "decorating my house" ? I know that was big in SWG but i dont play games to decorate my house. Speaking of which SWG while having some excellent elements reminded me of a giant chatroom where everyone hung out in the cantina chatting and waiting to get buffed to go out and play some bad combat. Space game-= Good,  Harvesting and crafting==Good, Combat and performance===Bad. An MMO with bad combat combined with bad performance is an mmo that sony takes over and makes even worse LOL. As a matter of fact this has been the problem with Vanguard, The combat is fair but the intense lag makes it seem worse and has really hurt this fine game.   By the way I have to dissagree again on Fallen Earth combat, it is not tera or AOC combat but I had fun useing guns and the fact that you get a horse right away is cool, and crafting takes some thought. 

"Sandbox= Open ended gameplay that doesn't have a conclusion"--I have never seen a mmo that had a conclusion, I have seen some where the quests ran out but never one that had a conclusion.

"Player isn't always defined within a set role"--In Ryzom you are not in a set role, you are what you want to make yourself, if you want to be evil or good that is up to you, Combat in Ryzom,you can use several different types of magic or combine it with melle, it is a skill based building block game that takes ten times more thought than WOW ever did.

"There has yet to be a single sandbox MMO created in the last decade, that wasn't all about PvP"---I played Ryzom for about 75 hours and never even thought about PvP and I dont think I ran into anyone who did, with the occasional exception of a duel, UO on the otherhand was all about griefing and PvP. yes there was house building and such but Pv P  ruled the roost there.

"Sandbox gameplay is all about providing a world for you to inhabit, and letting you loose in it"---hmmm if this does not define Ryzom i dont know what does.

   Anyway as I said not many people  play Ryzom so yes people do find it limiting, although I blame the developers for stagnating the game, however I will take games like Ryzom, Shadowbane, and fallen earth any day over SWG, UO and Darkfall.  However BG and BG2 are two of the greatest rpg's in history---but no not sand boxes

That is the longest wall of text I've ever seen in a forum... you guys should write a book on gaming.

   This is nothing compared to some of the posts on mmorpg, Venge and I just have a difference of opinion and he is a bit more wordy than I am

I have been lurking around here for a few years and I agree with you.  I'm starting to feel like it's almost time.  No one wants to build one yet because it's a gamble.  The safe bet is to build another one of what we have all been playing for the last 7-8 years.  If those games continue to fail, then maybe, just maybe there will be a bit of a retro movement.

Here's hoping.

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by eddieg50

 

   Ok, I am done laughing so I can  comment, but please dont say BG is a sand box game, you will make me start laughing again. I read over your last few posts and you do make some good and thoughtfull comments. This may be a personal thing but I did not enjoy Istara one bit and thought it paled when compared to Ryzom. Yes in Ryzom you have to dig in the dirt, but there are many skills you can use to do it or find out exactly where you need to go digging, and when you dig you can be attacked by mobs which makes it exciting.  "decorating my house" ? I know that was big in SWG but i dont play games to decorate my house. Speaking of which SWG while having some excellent elements reminded me of a giant chatroom where everyone hung out in the cantina chatting and waiting to get buffed to go out and play some bad combat. Space game-= Good,  Harvesting and crafting==Good, Combat and performance===Bad. An MMO with bad combat combined with bad performance is an mmo that sony takes over and makes even worse LOL. As a matter of fact this has been the problem with Vanguard, The combat is fair but the intense lag makes it seem worse and has really hurt this fine game.   By the way I have to dissagree again on Fallen Earth combat, it is not tera or AOC combat but I had fun useing guns and the fact that you get a horse right away is cool, and crafting takes some thought. 

"Sandbox= Open ended gameplay that doesn't have a conclusion"--I have never seen a mmo that had a conclusion, I have seen some where the quests ran out but never one that had a conclusion.

"Player isn't always defined within a set role"--In Ryzom you are not in a set role, you are what you want to make yourself, if you want to be evil or good that is up to you, Combat in Ryzom,you can use several different types of magic or combine it with melle, it is a skill based building block game that takes ten times more thought than WOW ever did.

"There has yet to be a single sandbox MMO created in the last decade, that wasn't all about PvP"---I played Ryzom for about 75 hours and never even thought about PvP and I dont think I ran into anyone who did, with the occasional exception of a duel, UO on the otherhand was all about griefing and PvP. yes there was house building and such but Pv P  ruled the roost there.

"Sandbox gameplay is all about providing a world for you to inhabit, and letting you loose in it"---hmmm if this does not define Ryzom i dont know what does.

   Anyway as I said not many people  play Ryzom so yes people do find it limiting, although I blame the developers for stagnating the game, however I will take games like Ryzom, Shadowbane, and fallen earth any day over SWG, UO and Eve (little dots in outer space make me blind and irratate me).  However BG and BG2 are two of the greatest rpg's in history---but no not sand boxes

First let me clarify, that was Uhwops post as I stated (I went back and redid the font to make that part clearer) however I do generally agree with it. 

Decorating your house is not the issue.  The issue is about having some place to call your own, and being able to customize your world.  Building, desiging and then decorating a home/castle/city farm... would do this, decorating is the least of it and Ryzom doesn't even have that

"Sandbox= Open ended gameplay that doesn't have a conclusion"--I have never seen a mmo that had a conclusion, I have seen some where the quests ran out but never one that had a conclusion.  No most MMO's do not have a conclusion which is why there is not a single MMO that does not at least have some sandboxy elements.  Every single MMO out is somewhere on the line between full sandbox and full linear gameplay.

"Player isn't always defined within a set role"--In Ryzom you are not in a set role, you are what you want to make yourself, if you want to be evil or good that is up to you, Combat in Ryzom,you can use several different types of magic or combine it with melle, it is a skill based building block game that takes ten times more thought than WOW ever did.

And that is the only thing that Ryzom has that makes it a sandbox, it's skill based.  There is nothing else there. 

"There has yet to be a single sandbox MMO created in the last decade, that wasn't all about PvP"---I played Ryzom for about 75 hours and never even thought about PvP and I dont think I ran into anyone who did, with the occasional exception of a duel, UO on the otherhand was all about griefing and PvP. yes there was house building and such but Pv P ruled the roost there.

See above.  I personally don't consider Ryzom a sandbox.  I played for about 3 months, no idea how many hours that was.  There is no impact on the world either through your character, or building, there is no market to speak of because everyone can and does build everything.  All it has is skill progression and there isn't even any variety in that.  How many hours did you spend whacking those bushes to build swords, magic, and whatever other melle and magic they had.  It was always exactly the same routine without variation, most even had the same animations.  There was no variety in gameplay, no variety in crafting (yes there was tons of variety in stats but nothing in appearance, there were only a dozen or so styles of armor).

Again the only sandbox element it had was skill selection.  So if Ryzom is a sandbox it is the worst implementation and description of one.  I would consider Vanguard to be more of a sandbox. 

"Sandbox gameplay is all about providing a world for you to inhabit, and letting you loose in it"---hmmm if this does not define Ryzom i dont know what does.  Ryzom doesn't have anything for you to do in it.  There is no impact on the world at all. 

Anyway as I said not many people play Ryzom so yes people do find it limiting, although I blame the developers for stagnating the game, however I will take games like Ryzom, Shadowbane, and fallen earth any day over SWG, UO and Eve (little dots in outer space make me blind and irratate me). However BG and BG2 are two of the greatest rpg's in history---but no not sand boxes.

Here is Larsa's description of Sandbox which we use to keep the sandbox list going.  Yes it is subjective, however I do agree with it.

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)  Ryzom has this
• Gameplay features other than combat activities, for example: fishing, harvesting, prospecting, crafting, diplomacy, music, trading.  Ryzom has this
• Character progression or development outside of combat (see above examples)  Ryzom has this
• Open-ended gameplay, no "game starts at level 50" game design  Ryzom has this
• Player-driven in-game economy, not a loot-driven economy, no bind-on-equip or bind-on acquire items  --- Not really but that is because there is a very low population and everyone can make everything, so iffy on this one.
• 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  Ryzom has this
• Non-linear character development where characters are not limited to developer-defined roles, for example: free skill trees or multi-classing of characters  Ryzom has this
• 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.  Ryzom has this with stats. 
• 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)  Yes Ryzom has this
• Persistent game world. A game where the world (or parts of the world) reset to a known state in regular intervals is not persistent.  Ryzom has this. 
• 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  Ryzom has this only with taking control of outposts.
• Some form of customizable player housing/building  Ryzom does not have this.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

To the OP...

 

The majorrity of MMO players is actually very happy with things like dungeon finders, instance quests crossrealm interaction and such

 

 

So dont say We need, but refer to me and my friends, or even the very lonely I.

 

When do people like the OP start to realise they are currently a very small minority.

If a majority of players are happy with these features, why do they leave most MMO's so quickly.

What are they looking for to keep them playing for longer than 2-3 months?

 

The same majority aren't looking for a game to play for 6 months to a year. They want to play for a month tops, beat it and move on. They approach it the same they would a single player game. It is a box price to give them a couple weeks entertainment until the next thing pops up.

That is the true majority of the game market and it is why smart phone games have been so successful. They can buy one cheap get a couple hours entertainment and move onto the next one. Those of us who want a title we love so much that we want to stay with it for years are the small minority.

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

To the OP...

 

The majorrity of MMO players is actually very happy with things like dungeon finders, instance quests crossrealm interaction and such

 

 

So dont say We need, but refer to me and my friends, or even the very lonely I.

 

When do people like the OP start to realise they are currently a very small minority.

If a majority of players are happy with these features, why do they leave most MMO's so quickly.

What are they looking for to keep them playing for longer than 2-3 months?

 

The same majority aren't looking for a game to play for 6 months to a year. They want to play for a month tops, beat it and move on. They approach it the same they would a single player game. It is a box price to give them a couple weeks entertainment until the next thing pops up.

 

That is the true majority of the game market and it is why smart phone games have been so successful. They can buy one cheap get a couple hours entertainment and move onto the next one. Those of us who want a title we love so much that we want to stay with it for years are the small minority.

@Kyleran

I would say the majority do like those features.  However they leave likely because they find the gameplay itself a tad dull and repetitive.

All those things do is help you access the content, if the content itself is kinda blah, who cares about accessing it.