Sandbox is the new "carrot on a stick" for all the sheeple to chase, hoping to fill their little sheeple gullets.

Simple as that.

Features and how well they work as a whole in a game are far more important to me than vague and extremely broad labels that could mean anything depending on a person's point of view.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if all of these upcoming "sandboxes" end up making the same mistakes as various other MMOs in the past, in that they try to appeal to too many different groups, and as a result their features end up being extremely halfassed, or the worlds they make end up being incredibly boring/poorly designed.

Originally posted by Riftstar

Originally posted by ste2000

Originally posted by erictlewis

Paying for a korean mmo no thanks.

That would have been my answer 1 year ago.

You know what is funny, that I hated Korean MMOs before Archeage, and I used them as an example on how not to make a MMO.

In 10 years "career" the only Korean (or Asian) MMO I spent money on so far is Tera, generally I unistall them within few hours.

So the fact that today the game I am most excited about is Archeage, surprise more myself than anything.

I am truly fed up of doing what developers want me to do in their game, I really need some freedom

I believe that EQ3 will change the MMO industry, if Smedley is not talking BS as his usual (promising a Sandbox and delivering Hello Kitty Online).

The future is bright, the future is Sandbox.

 

Wait, you trust Smedley? 

  Let me preface what I'm about to say with some background.  I hate SOE.  Smedly and his entire SWG crapshoot upset me enough that I have not owned a sony product in years.  I don't mean a SOE game.  I refuse to house anything with a Sony logo.  No TVs, no DVD players, no Sony ANYTHING. 

  I do not trust Smedly.  However....

  He IS probably the most desperate person alive in terms of needing to do something to undo all the years of failure and reinvent himself as a power player in the MMO market.  Perhaps enough so to actually take a daring risk, and really push for something innovative.  It would, quite literally, be the only card he has left to play as his saving grace.  And save it would, because bringing us even a taste of what made SWG a good game back into the market with a full scale AAA backing would do wonders.

  So I do think he is the most likely person to take such an undertaking seriously and, I hope, follow it through.  Its probably his last ditch effort to even matter to us anymore.  I'm certain he realizes that he needs to do something.  At this point even having his name NEAR a game is a death sentence.  I'm sure he loves his job and wants to stay important to the MMO world.  If he pulled this off, his name would carry more weight than any of the old legends because most of them have already proven to be horrid failures in the current market.

Originally posted by Larsa

 

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Originally posted by ste2000

 

... Is it that the members of this site are actually Sandboxers at heart or maybe people are truly bored of Themeparks (TESO/Neverwinter to name few)? ...

 

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Bored people. Half of the people (or even more ;-) posting on these sandbox threads have never played a sandbox, couldn't survive in a sandbox game for more than 2 hours and are just throwing a word around. Heck, plenty of people called GW2 a sandbox.

Frankly, they don't know better. I see them in Wurm every day.

Newbie: "Help, what should I do now?"
Old player: "What do you want to do?"
Newbie: "I don't know. LOLOLOL. Where can I kill stuff? :) :) :)"

Yes, it always makes me laugh when people say they don't like player generated content because professional writers are better, not realising that the content in a sandbox is the interactions between the players and not some fan fiction quest.

Originally posted by ObiClownobi

Originally posted by Larsa

 

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Originally posted by ste2000

 

... Is it that the members of this site are actually Sandboxers at heart or maybe people are truly bored of Themeparks (TESO/Neverwinter to name few)? ...

 

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Bored people. Half of the people (or even more ;-) posting on these sandbox threads have never played a sandbox, couldn't survive in a sandbox game for more than 2 hours and are just throwing a word around. Heck, plenty of people called GW2 a sandbox.

Frankly, they don't know better. I see them in Wurm every day.

Newbie: "Help, what should I do now?"
Old player: "What do you want to do?"
Newbie: "I don't know. LOLOLOL. Where can I kill stuff? :) :) :)"

Yes, it always makes me laugh when people say they don't like player generated content because professional writers are better, not realising that the content in a sandbox is the interactions between the players and not some fan fiction quest.

And that is a problem with sandboxes. :)

People (some) even dislke raiding because it requires one to interact with a substantial number of people instead of a small group of friends you can interact with while playing.

Personally I like sandboxes, themeparks and hybrids, I just want a fun game. But themeparks have been worse and worse with telling us exactly what to do at all times and that is kinda annoying, older themeparks often had nasty surprises and stuff you had to figure out for yourself.

Still, I think it more have to do with most devs have the idea that themeparks more or less must be as close to Wow as possible instead of trying new ideas as they did in the past.

One thing this forums member often have in common is that most here played MMOs for a long time and when most themeparks gets too close to Wow it lowers their score here.

GW2 is still the top voted MMO here and it is a themepark.

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

And that is a problem with sandboxes. :)

People (some) even dislke raiding because it requires one to interact with a substantial number of people instead of a small group of friends you can interact with while playing.

It is not so strange really. The more people in your group the less room for you...

Small goups have its advantages just like large groups do and some people prefer one or the other. 

Personally I think both are fun but different, I do however know many RPers that prefer small groups.

Originally posted by HeroEvermore
I don;t clasify games by these 2 silly words. The game either has a lot of functions in game or it does not. There is no such thing as themepark. this isnt rollercoaster tycoon.

a themepark tycoon MMO....is that on kickstarter yet?!?

Im whatever guy.IF there is solid themepark or solid sandbox i will play 1 of them or both.Just with newly mmorpgs coming out now and people "evolve" in what they want from their games ,have expectations for somethink different that wow style game level system and progression wich is kinda linear for those most old gamers present..Now games like Minecraft or Skyrim really up the bar for what mmos can be turn into.Myself after playing minecraft with friend on survival map i really enjoyed and than i started searchin games similar with it wich they lack atm.Now games like Aion,Lotro,Rift are amazingly linear and boring.Thats what games should not be in future but more openly world,i can think of Archage/Eve/ atm.GuildWars 2 i dnt want to put it here cause its going to linear ones.I really hope for future when someone say MMORPG to think bout the world how big is and the risk of exploring it,games like startup zone u get first quest than u walk on road and next corner another quest should be shutdown wich wont hapen oufcourse.

SRy english

Most upcoming asian MMOs are sandbox inspired.  And that is the fastest growing market, by far.  Many are using CryEngine3, an engine designed with the intent of building sandbox environments with relative ease.  F2P is quickly taking over as the competitve pricing model, allowing players a more "on-off shopping experience," original features and wild concepts will attract more middle tier F2P spenders.  Easier to do when your game is sandbox inspired.  You don't have to focus strickly on character progression or combat, two concepts that most themeparks begin and end with.  You can focus on resource ecosystems, and asset destruction, other kinds of progressions. And, you can focus beyond combat, to exploration, puzzles, experimentation, building, breeding, gathering, community management, politics, and other features that are sorely, sorely underdeveloped in MMOs.

The reason why the themepark MMO is failing, as it should, is simply because its part of single-player game theory.  That's how WoW brought so many players in, are created that market almost single-handedly.  Now people are realizing that the cutting edge single player games are outpacing themepark MMO's, and they die faster every year.   They're dying because the idea, in a massive scale, has hit a dead end.  They've extracted everything they can out of the themepark MMO pool of thought.  Its still a good idea, for small groups of people or a single individual.

There has never been a AAA sandbox MMO.  UO was indie.  There have been FFA esque PVP games, with themepark constrants, but that's it.  ArcheAge will be the first, and it does look very impressive.  It will be a success around the world, especially because it doesn't have full loot, it does run CryEngine3, and is well balanced and truly massive in scale.

People are curious to see what a true fantasy ecosystem could be like.  In a massive scale, with balanced roles, community involvement, resource and asset economies, and freedom only limited by productivity.  There isn't a dead end in that idea pool.

There are a handful of people who have always been rather pro sandbox in terms of their posting on these boards (myself included). Just as there are a handful of posters who spend their time doing nothing but trying to shout down sandboxes in sandbox orientated threads.

Whilst there seems to be something of a boom in terms of hype for sandbox games and a plethora of sandbox threads of late, this is probably down to more people just being a bit fed up with the same old shit that gets shovelled down their throats of late in the mmo genre.

That doesn't mean to say they are all looking for sandbox games, they just want something a bit different for a change.

In general most people on the boards are neither exclusively "sandbox" or "themepark", they just like games.

Mostly it is peer preasure. The "cool" crowd only dig in the sandbox right now so the lemmings does the same. 

Personally prefer stompy mechs but that is because i got my sandbox fill back in my UO days... Nothing like open world PvP to make you enjoy sitting in a city doing crud and less.

I'm not a "sandbox player", nor do I think that people turned their backs on "themeparks".

I do think people are starting to turn their backs on the repeated formulas in the gaming world, and not just in MMO gaming at that. In each case, people who have been in to gaming and have known the gaming world for a while seem to be (aka: not the crowd who has just rolled into it via facebook and apps).

In my opinion, those people are slowly turning their backs on repeated games that forego creating new and interesting design of their own in favour of becoming the next blockbuster shooter, or making the next MMO with pretty artwork that turns out to be a grinder.

Many observers recently commented that the game industry is in a crisis. I think the many recycled FPS games like the modern warfare series and others, together with other uninspired and short games and an MMO scene that focuses on threadmills is to blame.

I feel like other players and myself are looking for games with a vision, games that provide interesting new concepts and possibilities without holding people by the nose while spying on their wallet. The sort of games that make you wonder what lies beyond the horizon in the game world, that keep on getting better, instead of turning drab.

That doesn't necessarily mean "sandbox game" in my book. In fact, most sandbox games I've played are far worse grinders than anything out there in the themepark world. But the prospect of a game with a huge deal of options open to the player does seem to ring the sandbox tune to many players here.

For me, the important thing is that games grow up and implement exciting new ideas and artistic directions. One of the challenges for the medium is to cope with the players messing around in and interacting with your game, binding the player unto a rail is a fake way of dealing with that.

Originally posted by TheHavok

 In reality, there have been multiple sandbox mmos released as well, but they just get nitpicky and start listing reasons why they aren't playing those sandboxes, saying things like

A)They aren't 'true sandboxes'

B)they have annoying features (ex: FFA pvp).

 

not wanting to be constantly ganked by other players, and robbed of ALL your items.....that's just being nitpicky.   ROFL

Originally posted by eyelolled
I play themeparks because I haven't found a sandbox that has the features I want, with none of the features that I hate.

this.  

all these..... special people acting like things like full loot unrestricted FFA PVP everywhere shouldn't be a deterrent if you were a "TRUE SANDBOX FAN".......

its like claiming nobody REALLY likes beef, and everyone prefers turkey..... just cuz you served cooked turkey burgers at a cookout, alongside stacks of raw beef patties that nobody bothered to cook, and nobody bothered to eat.

just cuz they don't choke down a raw beef patty to PROVE something to you, doesn't mean that they prefer turkey burgers, and don't love beef.