Originally posted by ShakyMo
Sandbox: eve, uo - EVE-UO
Hybrid: ac, swg- EQ
Themepark: EQ, daoc, gw2, coh- DAOC- COD-WOW
Glorified lobby game:- SWTOR-GW2

My take on it.

"But Smedley, I like theme park games."

"EverQuest Next will also be the world's largest theme-park style game."

I believe nothing SOE related until it happens.

Originally posted by Rimmersman

Originally posted by CalmOceans

Originally posted by The_Korrigan

The fact that some people still believe Everquest 1 was a sandbox, even though it's the father of all theme park MMORPGs, makes me take such announcements with a HUGE grain of salt. Even more when it comes from SoE.

We'll know soon enough I guess.

The "father of themepark MMO" if you want to use that, was WoW. I don't believe the word themepark even existed before WoW. When WoW came out EQ was in the GoD expansion, which wasn't a themepark nor really a sandbox at the time. GoD still had no quests outside of the long progression quests like Breakdown in Commication and a few more related to the sewers. GoD was nothing like Vanilla WoW.

Some of you are either trolls or have never played EQ, I don't care though, keep claiming things you know nothing about.

+1

Mr Korrigan does not know what he is talking about, obviously never played EQ or if he has then it was not before GOD and not even before POP.

I would guess he played it VOA came out for all the knowledge he has about the game.

I think it is better to think of EQ as the father of all mmo's; UO being the grandfather; Meridian 59 as the petrie dish.

I, like others, see EQ as a kind of hybrid; neither sand or theme but the 'naissance' of both concepts and how they could work in a 3D world (<----see that UO fans; I don't want to argue - I know you came first).

EQ birthed WoW/EQ2 in one direction; but it also birthed SWG in the other direction.

I loved EQ2, played it for 5 years.

Games don't last forever, they eventually get old and tired.

I would like to see todays MMO's last 5 years.

I thank Smedly for giving me 5 years of friendships and adventures, there's nothing more i want in an MMO than this.

Smedley also plays EVE Online in a nullsec corp, so i think he has some idea about Sandboxes, that and the fact that he created the fucking genre you are playing :)

Bring on EQNEXT.

Originally posted by ignore_me

Originally posted by Olgark
SOE can't make a decent sandbox game they proved it with the mess up that was SWG and their NGE patch.

And the 2nd law of thermodynamics proves that SOE must specifically repeat all failures 100% of the time.

99% of development companise do.

Originally posted by ShakyMo
I still don't see how they are going to square sandbox with a raiding endgame, which let's face it is what most EQ fans like, heck blizzard hired these players half way through vanilla wow to make it into a raid grinder.

You can't have sandbox and raid orientated endgame, hell you can't have sandbox and endgame fullstop. The concepts go together like fishfingers and custard.

offtopic but Blizzard hired the EQ players before WOW launched

http://wow.joystiq.com/2007/10/15/a-tigole-flashback-to-legacy-of-steel/

Rob Pardo was the guild leader for EQ raiding guild, Legacy of Steel

Rob Pardo already worked for Blizzard and in 2002 he recruited Tigole (Jeff Kaplan) from same guild

Furor (Alex Afrasiabi) from EQ raiding guild, Fires of Heaven, joined Blizzard in 2004

Originally posted by ShakyMo
I still don't see how they are going to square sandbox with a raiding endgame, which let's face it is what most EQ fans like, heck blizzard hired these players half way through vanilla wow to make it into a raid grinder.

You can't have sandbox and raid orientated endgame, hell you can't have sandbox and endgame fullstop. The concepts go together like fishfingers and custard.

What ShakyMo says is true. You can not have a open ended MMO with raid content in a Sandbox. It just doesn't work, raids will only work within a themepark based MMO.

For a sandbox to be successful then there must not be any end game no max level you can obtain, and no classes. SOE can't make that kind of game, the only companies that can are CCP and the now long dead Origin who made UO.

I'm shocked to see how many people want this to fail... Everyone refers to just about one excuse... SWG. How long ago was that, really? To think that you guys honestly think they'd want to further risk their reputation by continuing to do the same is just absurd. They're doing an amazing job on PS2 and I highly doubt EQN will be treated any different. Those of us that have been paying attention knew to expect something big coming.

Months ago smedley did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on reddit any he made a lot of itneresting comments one of which when he was asked if they're working on any sandbox games and he replied "Hell yes we will". Here's a few more comments to give you an idea of how EQN could be:

• Emergent gameplay is where this whole thing is going. People chew through content faster than any company can make it.

• EQ Next is about as far from a WoW clone, EQ Clone or any current MMO as you can get period. It's nothing like them at all. It's the new hotness. Or it will be :)

• This is game development. We introduce stuff that doesn't work. What I can promise you is we listen a lot better than we ever have.

• People make mistakes and learn from them. I am most certainly one of them.

• I despise the hand holding shit. hate it in a big way.

• I would have listened to customers more. You can expect us to make a heavy investment in more sandbox stuff. Very heavy.

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Originally posted by Olgark

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Originally posted by ShakyMo I still don't see how they are going to square sandbox with a raiding endgame, which let's face it is what most EQ fans like, heck blizzard hired these players half way through vanilla wow to make it into a raid grinder. You can't have sandbox and raid orientated endgame, hell you can't have sandbox and endgame fullstop. The concepts go together like fishfingers and custard.

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What ShakyMo says is true. You can not have a open ended MMO with raid content in a Sandbox. It just doesn't work, raids will only work within a themepark based MMO.

 

For a sandbox to be successful then there must not be any end game no max level you can obtain, and no classes. SOE can't make that kind of game, the only companies that can are CCP and the now long dead Origin who made UO.

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wow. That train of thought is really closed minded.

you can still have tiered raiding in a sandbox game.

The difference is that the rewards should be for the guild and not the individual.

no swords of doom and gloom, no ultimate sheild. You might get a "orb of teleporting" that your guild could use to put a teleporter in the guild hall.

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Originally posted by ShakyMo
It's not. Tiered raiding endgame is the OPPOSITE of sandbox. They can't cost in the same game. As soon as you add item sets you need to gather before you can move into a next tier of content that let's you grind another set that let's you do a further tier etc.. ad infinitum with expansions. The game ceases to be a sandbox.

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You need to expand your understanding of what a raid can be.

ill use this as an example maybe..

There is a npc that requires 10+ individuals to defeat, By defeating said npc players can harvest or obtain crafting materials or schematics. which in turn creates different items.

Now you didn't speak of "tiered raiding" in the initial post, but I would speculate it be interworked into the scenario by implementing a skill level of 'harvesting".

Now all of this doesn't kill your sandbox ideology, Things are still created, destroyed and altered in a free-form fashion.

Originally posted by Olgark

What ShakyMo says is true. You can not have a open ended MMO with raid content in a Sandbox. It just doesn't work, raids will only work within a themepark based MMO.

 

All EQ raids before PoP started were open world raids. Even PoP, GoD and later expansions had open world raids.

The reason some raids became instanced is because of griefing, guilds would permacamp them day and night to stop other guilds from progressing.

Originally posted by ShakyMo
It's not. Tiered raiding endgame is the OPPOSITE of sandbox. They can't cost in the same game. As soon as you add item sets you need to gather before you can move into a next tier of content that let's you grind another set that let's you do a further tier etc.. ad infinitum with expansions. The game ceases to be a sandbox.

Every game has tiers, every game has a form of balance, even sandboxes have tiers.

Originally posted by ShakyMo
Then it wouldn't be tiered. Do you really thinly core EQ fans would enjoy a game where they can't go "we've progressed as far as raid x". But as soon as you put that gated progression in the game ceases to be a sandbox.

 not at all. The difference is in a sandbox the rewards from raid type activities help guilds to build all kinds of interesting devices that their whole guilds can utilize.

I would go on guild raids if it was for a good cause like getting that teleporter orb or a guild sheild generator or a floating island to put my guild base on.

i will not go on any raid that leads to phat l33t for one person.

make raids a guild activity and they fit in really nice. Individual rewards just dont fit in a large group activity.

Originally posted by ShakyMo
It's not. Tiered raiding endgame is the OPPOSITE of sandbox. They can't cost in the same game. As soon as you add item sets you need to gather before you can move into a next tier of content that let's you grind another set that let's you do a further tier etc.. ad infinitum with expansions. The game ceases to be a sandbox.

why?

As long as they don't make the quipment "bind on equip" and allow players to sell it, I don't see any reason they can't add special encounters that require specific efforts to obtain them.

not everything has to be crafted. As long as they allow crafters to create different but competitive armor/weapon types then I can see it adding variety.

Originally posted by CalmOceans

Originally posted by Olgark

What ShakyMo says is true. You can not have a open ended MMO with raid content in a Sandbox. It just doesn't work, raids will only work within a themepark based MMO.

 

All EQ raids before PoP started were open world raids. Even PoP, GoD and later expansions had open world raids.

The reason some raids became instanced is because of griefing, guilds would permacamp them day and night to stop other guilds from progressing.

True, i remember when LDON introduced instances to EQ. I liked it the way it was but things move on, it's one of the reasons i still get my kicks in Vanguard now and again. It's way closer to the old systems of EQ than EQ2 could ever be.