---

Originally posted by Morons
Ever wanted to get RID of the End-Game?
I have been dreaming of an game, not unsimilar to the current WoW, LoTRO, WaR etc that is totally sandboxed.
This can easily be done.
You need to start an character - any gender any race.
You gain ALL your Attributes, this include Stats as well as skills and abilities via learning (Much like EvE-Online)
You enter the library/college etc. pay for or been given skills and upon completion attributes are allocated.
This game will have ZERO Xp or levels whatsoever.
Progression is then natural so that after you completed the full learning tree for lets say an "Mage" type you can add bits of healing or tanking mix and match maybe combine Archery with Master Swordskills.
This also mean that Dungeaon will have required skills rather than levels.
Also this mean you can play with the big boys directly after creating the toon, not "you are nothing till end-game" pandemic!
Gear can then increase as an factor of your skill in equiping / deploying or managing it.
Even guild management must then be learned
It will make a game the does NOT have end-game and the game developers can no consentrate on balance, bugfixes and richer content.
Expantion is via new areas, new skills, new equipment - enhanced storyline etc.
Money is then "real" and a good trade sytem with game scale economy can then enrich those seeking to MAKE gear.
Tradeskills/money can be that of social*, gearmaking, consumable making, real-estate / property value rental of the above. * Similar to SWG were yu could entertain via song and dance! Nice for random RP players.
Real-Eestate and property can be that of an instanced pvp "guildhouse" fort or keep or sumthing that can be built, maintained and cared for by the guild members as well as include an "Home" for each player were he can make decorations - have pets gardens and tradeskill benches. Sell and resell marketplaces.
Skill can be learned (like EVE-Online) in Realtime and thus capturing constant player retention and a will to see the outcome of new skills.
This would be Ultimate fun.
With this kind of proposed game, players can spend and INVEST time because they will keep growing, never hit a ceiling that colapses at the next expantion!
... I can only dream!
L8r

 

---

A sandbox's design should not be swayed by preference such as a level-less system or a specific learning system.  All of that should come much later once established what makes the game a sandbox design.  Having level less and class less only serves to enhance sandbox instead of being it's main focus.  Sandbox that is based solely on not having level, class, or any other features related to character progression is not a real sandbox.  It is in fact a half-assed attempt at a sandbox.

Simply put, a sandbox is about choices and the freedom that comes with it.  Having level-less or whatever system does not tell me if a game is a sandbox.  It seems you are simply forcing what you want or are tired of in a game.  I respect your opinion and preferences, but I just have to point out that you seem to confuse sandbox as simply removing systems you want to avoid. 

Truthfully, I have heard enough opinions about sandbox and recent mmo-action game designs to make me want to throw up.   However, for some reason sandbox seem to be the part where people always keep getting the wrong idea.  I can even design a game that is sandbox but completely based on a pre-designed class system and it will be just as fun if not more so.

Last thing I have to say is that alot of players would not play if there are no ceiling at all.  People want to be powerful and they want to hit the ceiling when gaming.  Same with system where somone can just create a character and suddenly become competitive without any work.  I am sorry, if a game is based on your playing skill instead of any form of in-depth and complex character progression, that game will only last as long as it is new.  It will have no staying power since it is also not a proper sandbox game.

SUMMING ABOVE UP IN ONE SENTENCE:  Getting rid of end-game does not automatically make the game a sandbox.

Originally posted by Fortenc

Most games don't reward camping choke points in large groups and sitting on one side of a door to camp new players and old alike with *loot.  As for the 'name one game' bull, yes, EvE is unique in what it is.  Still doesn't mean that everyone wants to spend one month logging on once a day to make sure that their cloaking plan is still on schedule.

 

When I played I found one lucky plan that I sold for so much money that there was no point in playing for money.  I couldn't survive long in 0.0 space and there was.. nothing to do.

 

So I sat.  I sat and came on every day to check my skills.

 

In situations like this, however, when playing is not mandatory and has no bonuses.. many players don't have a feeling of wanting to play.  After a while doing the same repeated quests over and over gets boring, mining gets boring, blah.

 

One thing that would make the game far more interesting is if you learned your skills over time AND by how much you play / do.  That would give people a reason to play.

 

EDIT:  To turn the perplexing BS back on you: name the only game where you can never catch up to the 'high-level' toon no matter how much you play.  That's EvE.  Now stop that.

really? you do know there are finite skills which would help a battleship right? there may be 480million+ skill points, but not all apply to a battleship. your point IS moot cause not every skill will help you. I have battleship to lvl 5, engineering skills all to lvl 5, drones, i can use all tech II with some drone support skills, my gun specialization is to lvl 4, and some other skills, those are the most useful to me. What good is astrometrics, industrial, research, electronic warfare, etc etc going to do for me on a ship which doesnt utilize these skills?Each ship set there is a very finite number of skills which will be utilized out of the total 480mil skill points. Hell there are about only 25 which directly affect my abaddon. Some can reach level 5 of these skills (like engineering) in under a week. the tech 2 guns and lvl 5 battleship will prolly take you 3 months.

and you are missing the bigger picture...eve is NOT a solo game, you will almost NEVER come across 1 vs 1 pvp. This is a group game, corps and alliances define the universe, a solo pvpr will not be able to conquer space. Rarely will you run into that solo ship, but 90% of the time, he has friends waiting.

Originally posted by miagisan

pvp can be accomplished in under 1 month of training....example:

cruiser - Maller

All tech II guns, cap booster, 1mn mwd, some energized plates and 2x1600mm plates.....you can be in on in under 3 weeks.

This ship can tank up to 3 battleships ... i know...i have done it....battleships cant hit these ships effectively, while having enough armor to tank a multitide of frigates, and if you use small guns, you will shread all frigate class ships while smiling happily as you now have about 40k effective hit points. my EHP is closer to 49k cause my engineering skills are very high, they have to be for amarr pilots, who actively armor tank

this is simply not true.

just checked in evemon, medium beam laser spec prerequisites - 22 day. but i already have 2 mil in learning skills, 3.5 millions in gunnery, set of +4 implants. add just EANM II - more than a week. add some engineering skill for capacitor, navigation, gunnery support skills and you get more realistic figure well above 2-3 month.

Miagisan, I'm glad that you agree with all the faults I find in EvE.  It's not the game for me.  Maybe you should stop arguing that it's perfect and I should admit that it's a good game for obsessive-compulsive planners and customizers.  Maybe you should agree with me that there's a problem with not having a point to play and maybe I should concede that, correctly planned by a player who has either researched the game for 5 months or already played it before, a new toon can becomes semi-useful quickly.

I still don't agree that this is a good system.  If you defeat someone who has been playing forever, the likelihood that they have a ship and skills waiting that will beat you when they come back or find you again is quite high.  They are like chameleons; they can be whatever they want to be.  You can only be what you trained to be until you branch out and then they are still ahead of you.

You're missing out on a lot of useful skills on that ship, there, by the way.  Sure, astrometrics may not be the most useful skill, but there are so many defensive and offensive possibilities that will take a significant amount of time not playing to learn.  Or playing, either way.

EDIT:  Another problem I have with EvE, one of personal preference, is that I prefer quick, concise combat.  Starship fighting often doesn't offer that as a possibility.  It's a game of trying to bring shields down and usually ends up being very slow.  Finishing one mission can take 30 minutes and then if you want to scavenge to make money then it may take an hour.  This isn't a problem with game design, of course, just one of those design choices.

Originally posted by alldfart

Originally posted by miagisan

pvp can be accomplished in under 1 month of training....example:

cruiser - Maller

All tech II guns, cap booster, 1mn mwd, some energized plates and 2x1600mm plates.....you can be in on in under 3 weeks.

This ship can tank up to 3 battleships ... i know...i have done it....battleships cant hit these ships effectively, while having enough armor to tank a multitide of frigates, and if you use small guns, you will shread all frigate class ships while smiling happily as you now have about 40k effective hit points. my EHP is closer to 49k cause my engineering skills are very high, they have to be for amarr pilots, who actively armor tank

 

this is simply not true.

just checked in evemon, medium beam laser spec prerequisites - 22 day. but i already have 2 mil in learning skills, 3.5 millions in gunnery, set of +4 implants. add just EANM II - more than a week. add some engineering skill for capacitor, navigation, gunnery support skills and you get more realistic figure well above 2-3 month.

you would never be able to fit medium pulse/beam laser on the build i suggested, try learning small pulse/beam specialization.

edit: i use small pulses cause i go for the frigate and cruiser classes in my ship, while tanking the larger ships if they choose to target me

Originally posted by Fortenc

Miagisan, I'm glad that you agree with all the faults I find in EvE.  It's not the game for me.  Maybe you should stop arguing that it's perfect and I should admit that it's a good game for obsessive-compulsive planners and customizers.  Maybe you should agree with me that there's a problem with not having a point to play and maybe I should concede that, correctly planned by a player who has either researched the game for 5 months or already played it before, a new toon can becomes semi-useful quickly.

 

I still don't agree that this is a good system.  If you defeat someone who has been playing forever, the likelihood that they have a ship and skills waiting that will beat you when they come back or find you again is quite high.  They are like chameleons; they can be whatever they want to be.  You can only be what you trained to be until you branch out and then they are still ahead of you.

 

You're missing out on a lot of useful skills on that ship, there, by the way.  Sure, astrometrics may not be the most useful skill, but there are so many defensive and offensive possibilities that will take a significant amount of time not playing to learn.  Or playing, either way.

the game is not perfect, nor am i agreeing with you. There are faults, one of the biggest is the sov system. I will gladly point that out, but balance and new players having an impact in pvp more so than any other game, is NOT one of its weak points.

edit: and i love the skill setup, because i dont have 5 + hours to spend in front of the keyboard. I work 60 hours a week, have 2 great kids, and get maybe 2 hours a night to play....the fact that i can learn skills when i cant log in 22 hours of the day, for me, works PERFECTLY. I dont have to grind rep, skills, etc. I run a lvl 4 mission, go pvp or rat, and i can easily make a few mil in a 2 hour sitting.

miagi, it is if you want to play solo or even explore solo.  There's no choice going anywhere without an escort, good ship or bad.  2-20+ pirates will trap you, scan you and rape you.  That's not new-player new-ship friendly.

Only in big corporations and big battles are lots of noobs useful and they probably won't be doing that.  Even exploring with friends is impossible, especially early on.

EDIT:  I agree that it is a useful system and, were I making an MMO, I would use one similar.  The only problem is not rewarding people who do have that extra time and do want to play any.  Perhaps make them gain a timing boost for finishing a mission?  SOMETHING to offer them a bit more.

Originally posted by miagisan

every system can be gotten through, hell spend 1 extra month, learn cloaking 4, you can warp right through gates with no issue

3 types of ships only and not in null-sec, where covert-op cloak won't help in the bubble.

Originally posted by Fortenc

miagi, it is if you want to play solo or even explore solo.  There's no choice going anywhere without an escort, good ship or bad.  2-20+ pirates will trap you, scan you and rape you.  That's not new-player new-ship friendly.

 

Only in big corporations and big battles are lots of noobs useful and they probably won't be doing that.  Even exploring with friends is impossible, especially early on.

so you change your argument now to a noob solo-only setting. well in that case, again, you will not find a game, any mmorpg, which a solo noob will be effective against a veteran player. Ever...i dare you to find 1 game which this will be the case. ANd the ONLY area which you will be attacked for doing anything you described above is 0.0 or low sec. I explore very happily in hi sec. Hell 2 nights ago i found an exploration/salvage site...i got 42 armor plates of the wreck. Not bad....and it was floating right in Hilaban.

Originally posted by alldfart

Originally posted by miagisan

every system can be gotten through, hell spend 1 extra month, learn cloaking 4, you can warp right through gates with no issue

3 types of ships only and not in null-sec, where covert-op cloak won't help in the bubble.

if you are in a bubble or not.....you can fit a mwd and blow through the bubble in a few seconds, or as soon as you decloak you cloak again, no ship can target you fast enough. A bubble will not break your cloak.

Most other games you can still explore.  Maybe you'll die, but at least you won't go back to step 1.  And who wants to explore high sec space?

Gate camping is retarded, I'm sorry to say.  If there were PvP areas that you may or may not get forced into, that would be fine.  But just trying to go somewhere, perhaps do a mission that brings you through 0.4 space and getting blown up before you know what's going on.. nobody can argue that that's an awesome thing for a game.  Sure it's fun for the pirates, though.

Originally posted by Fortenc

Most other games you can still explore.  Maybe you'll die, but at least you won't go back to step 1.  And who wants to explore high sec space?

 

Gate camping is retarded, I'm sorry to say.  If there were PvP areas that you may or may not get forced into, that would be fine.  But just trying to go somewhere, perhaps do a mission that brings you through 0.4 space and getting blown up before you know what's going on.. nobody can argue that that's an awesome thing for a game.  Sure it's fun for the pirates, though.

all depends which agent you are running missions for, but you can easily skip to 0.4 ones (notorious in caldari space cause of the agent placement). but they moved alot of the agents around in apocrypha, so its alot less of an issue. I run lvl 4 amarr navy in Mani, not once have i even come close to low sec. And no, most games with open pvp you cannot explore an enemy area freely. WAR you could not, EQ2 was near impossible, never played wow on a pvp server, and so on. Your problem now lies with a game with open pvp. Gate camping i agree sucks, but it is used to defend territories. Low sec you still have concord turrets which will help you at gates. Null sec is where camping is rampant....but in all honesty, if i had a system and was dending high end moons, you betcha i would defend it tooth and nail (which i dont have said system.....yet)

Originally posted by Morons

This also mean that Dungeaon will have required skills rather than levels.

 

wouldnt that make it non-sandbox?

Originally posted by miagisan

you would never be able to fit medium pulse/beam laser on the build i suggested, try learning small pulse/beam specialization.

 

edit: i use small pulses cause i go for the frigate and cruiser classes in my ship, while tanking the larger ships if they choose to target me

so it's non-standard setup. useful very rarely, not sure if ever.

Originally posted by alldfart

Originally posted by miagisan

you would never be able to fit medium pulse/beam laser on the build i suggested, try learning small pulse/beam specialization.

 

edit: i use small pulses cause i go for the frigate and cruiser classes in my ship, while tanking the larger ships if they choose to target me

 

so it's non-standard setup. useful very rarely, not sure if ever.

its actually very useful, you fry frigate and cruiser classes...its actually a pretty common set up...i stole it from battleclinic :P

Originally posted by miagisan  

if you are in a bubble or not.....you can fit a mwd and blow through the bubble in a few seconds, or as soon as you decloak you cloak again, no ship can target you fast enough. A bubble will not break your cloak.

inties can break your cloak and they fast enough with sensor busters to lock you.

So.. EvE: explore a massive universe!

Disclaimer: Other players will automatically destroy your ship in 90% of space.

I've been killed in 0.4 space way too often.  There's a zone 2 zones from the Minmatar starting area that at any time has about 20 people waiting to blow you up.  I remember when I got my first Cruiser and was randomly exploring ever-so-close to my starting zone..  Yeah, back to my first frigate for me.  Yay.

Originally posted by alldfart

Originally posted by miagisan  

if you are in a bubble or not.....you can fit a mwd and blow through the bubble in a few seconds, or as soon as you decloak you cloak again, no ship can target you fast enough. A bubble will not break your cloak.

inties can break your cloak and they fast enough with sensor busters to lock you.

so you are saying frigate class ships are useful...hmmmm........

Originally posted by miagisan

its actually very useful, you fry frigate and cruiser classes...its actually a pretty common set up...i stole it from battleclinic :P

sitting next to a bs and catching tacklers? what can you do to a cruiser with your small guns?