Originally posted by wrightstuf
In a sandbox, you have a little plastic pail and shovel. In a themepark you have roller coasters and thrill rides. seems like a no brainer which is better

Hrhr.. hell yeah, the roller coaster and the thrill rides of course. Ähem stop. until you realize you can build up a roller coaster and even more trhilling rides with those little plastic pail and shovel and a castle a dungeon and whatever you like. Now you dont care as much about roller coaster.. rather bland arent they? I like the little plastic pail and my shovel.

Originally posted by Apraxis

Originally posted by wrightstuf
In a sandbox, you have a little plastic pail and shovel. In a themepark you have roller coasters and thrill rides. seems like a no brainer which is better

Hrhr.. hell yeah, the roller coaster and the thrill rides of course. Ähem stop. until you realize you can build up a roller coaster and even more trhilling rides with those little plastic pail and shovel and a castle a dungeon and whatever you like. Now you dont care as much about roller coaster.. rather bland arent they? I like the little plastic pail and my shovel.

But is the roller coaster built by someone good at it that has done it 100 times or a first-time amateur roller-coaster builder? I'm sure the amateur builder would be pleased as punch building his first roller-coaster but I know which one I'd like to ride..

I think some people think that the rest of us would enjoy what they do with their pail and shovel...I'm not so sure.

Take player housing... do I really have to come over and look at your new re-decorated scheme? How many times do I have to say "ooh" and "ahh" before you'll agree to come help me kill the goddam troll eating my sheep? And by the way, a pink couch with green walls is just weird.

I'm there to kill trolls and maybe make some underwear with the wool from my sheep. I want an interior decorating simulator in my MMO about as much as I want a knitting simulator in it.

Originally posted by rungard
even real life theme parks have more than 1 kind of ride.

And they were all built by theme park ride experts.... thank god!

The quote did not show up in my post so had to add it manually.  I am responding to MMOExposed.

Originally posted by sagil
 

Sandbox should actually have more content than themepark. Take this as an example of a feature: quests (i dont like seeing just terrain, i would like to go on missions and uncover the history of the world) that give fame to particular factions. Since in sandbox you skill up instead of going up in levels so you can freely choose what to be.

It's too bad only small budget developers are making sandbox games.

___________________________________________________________________________

Sandbox with lots of contents is a Theme Park

___________________________________________________________________________

Not necessarily.  I've been following Greed Monger with much interest.  It certainly does not lack features, every item in the game will be player-crafted including buildings, yet it is a Sandbox in every respect.

Originally posted by Iselin

Originally posted by Apraxis

Originally posted by wrightstuf
In a sandbox, you have a little plastic pail and shovel. In a themepark you have roller coasters and thrill rides. seems like a no brainer which is better

Hrhr.. hell yeah, the roller coaster and the thrill rides of course. Ähem stop. until you realize you can build up a roller coaster and even more trhilling rides with those little plastic pail and shovel and a castle a dungeon and whatever you like. Now you dont care as much about roller coaster.. rather bland arent they? I like the little plastic pail and my shovel.

But is the roller coaster built by someone good at it that has done it 100 times or a first-time amateur roller-coaster builder? I'm sure the amateur builder would be pleased as punch building his first roller-coaster but I know which one I'd like to ride..

This made me laugh because I thought something along these lines yesterday. 

My theory is the following:

You can't have Sanbox without Themepark. Every game must have some type of layout in place for the game already developed, tested, and implemented the correct way for it to be enjoyable. Because you can go to both extremes and say a game is completely "themepark" and its just the player going from one ride to another jsut sitting back enjoying what the developers created with minimal interactions. On the other side you can make your game totally "sanbox" and give you players a 3d engine and graphics tool and say "enjoy yourself". We all know both extremes will NOT work.

Just like in a themepark there could be an already layed out rollercoaster, there can also be a virtual coaster that has the tools for people to pick certain layouts and create their customized rollercoaster and ride it, creation is part of the player experience some people like it some people do not.

The trick is to take every game system that players are looking for and that mesh well together and create a frankenstein of a creation balancing out systems by deciding how "themepark" or "sandbox" they should be to make the game experience you and your team are trying to create come alive (pun intended). Sometimes game developers get it right and you have a game players enjoy for a while and most the time s**t hits the fan. 

In the end of the day it all comes down to what audience you are looking to attract and the experience you want them to receive. The key to making a great game: Balance

Originally posted by Kry0gen

Originally posted by Iselin

Originally posted by Apraxis

Originally posted by wrightstuf
In a sandbox, you have a little plastic pail and shovel. In a themepark you have roller coasters and thrill rides. seems like a no brainer which is better

Hrhr.. hell yeah, the roller coaster and the thrill rides of course. Ähem stop. until you realize you can build up a roller coaster and even more trhilling rides with those little plastic pail and shovel and a castle a dungeon and whatever you like. Now you dont care as much about roller coaster.. rather bland arent they? I like the little plastic pail and my shovel.

But is the roller coaster built by someone good at it that has done it 100 times or a first-time amateur roller-coaster builder? I'm sure the amateur builder would be pleased as punch building his first roller-coaster but I know which one I'd like to ride..

This made me laugh because I thought something along these lines yesterday. 

 

My theory is the following:

You can't have Sanbox without Themepark. Every game must have some type of layout in place for the game already developed, tested, and implemented the correct way for it to be enjoyable. Because you can go to both extremes and say a game is completely "themepark" and its just the player going from one ride to another jsut sitting back enjoying what the developers created with minimal interactions. On the other side you can make your game totally "sanbox" and give you players a 3d engine and graphics tool and say "enjoy yourself". We all know both extremes will NOT work.

Just like in a themepark there could be an already layed out rollercoaster, there can also be a virtual coaster that has the tools for people to pick certain layouts and create their customized rollercoaster and ride it, creation is part of the player experience some people like it some people do not.

The trick is to take every game system that players are looking for and that mesh well together and create a frankenstein of a creation balancing out systems by deciding how "themepark" or "sandbox" they should be to make the game experience you and your team are trying to create come alive (pun intended). Sometimes game developers get it right and you have a game players enjoy for a while and most the time s**t hits the fan. 

In the end of the day it all comes down to what audience you are looking to attract and the experience you want them to receive. The key to making a great game: Balance

I agree. Watching my own kids play in many real sandboxes, I know that the best ones are well supervised by good supervisors :)

balanced hybrids are best and the more possibilities they've anticipated and managed with the goal of having fun clearly in mind, the better the result.

i personally am watching they development of REPOP (the repopulation) with great interest. Their goal seems to be a well-managed and inclusive sandbox (it's really a hybrid but shhh! Don't tell the purists) with something for everyone. It has some of the core sandbox elements such as improving skills by using them, city building, etc., but also a highly customizable "mission" (quests with story arcs) system catering to individuals depending on their previous activities. I hope they manage to pull it off.

Originally posted by Nsein1
[mod edit]

Um no.  I'm almost entirely certain that the majority of people will play both, however they will play one or the other depending on their particular mood or what they want to accomplish.

Yes there are some people that are more imaginative.  However there is very little difference in the population at large.  Most people use their imagination a lot, whether they realize it or not.

To say that one type of visual interface game is better suited for someone with imagination vs another is the height of self aggrandizing ludicrous puffed up self-righteous elitist bs. 

The question is simply what is their purpose for playing and what do they hope to accomplish.

It is pretty obvious with the current "lifespan" (for players) of themeparks that have come out recently, that players really want a change for longevity and a "world to live in" and we all know, the only real way to deliver that is sandbox.

WE wan't "EVE - DF - UO - AC"-baby on steroids on the ground with a relatable character avatar, fps/tps player skill based combat, freedom of building, player driven economy with a multitude of professions from trader, crafter, gatherer (aquisitioner) to full blown military combat spec, (sci-fi, fantasy, modern day), doesn't really even matter what genre.

FULL BLOWN SANDBOX with some scripted events, quests, stories to boost the experience and immersion is the way of the future, you can mark my words on that and quote me in the future.

These are relevant to the discussion: 

Goblin Works BIog: Can See for Miles

Theme Park vs Sandbox MMOs

themepark FTW(with few and limited sandbox elements)

sandbox will only get u the famous monoclegate from EVE,,or players scamming 50k$, and devs calling it

"metagaming"

SWG was sandbox too,,how did that work out?

and lastly,,pandaland ,,the most successful MMO on the market,,themepark de luxe

sandbox does sound tempting, but seeing how some players will try to ruin others gaming experience,,

the devs would need a full gestapo force to control the bad apples,,and that prolly wont happen

Originally posted by simplius

themepark FTW(with few and limited sandbox elements)

sandbox will only get u the famous monoclegate from EVE,,or players scamming 50k$, and devs calling it

If you are stupid enough to fall for a someone scamming then it is your fault. A themepark will get you a shiney new "epic" rare that you'll have to trendmill grind for following the next update. Sometimes you'll get some half-arse attempt at territory control, but it usually offers nothing except visual pleasing rewards.

"metagaming"

SWG was sandbox too,,how did that work out?

Funny because I though SWG was a sucessful sandbox mmorpg until SOE ruined it with NGE and CU patches.

and lastly,,pandaland ,,the most successful MMO on the market,,themepark de luxe

sandbox does sound tempting, but seeing how some players will try to ruin others gaming experience,,

the devs would need a full gestapo force to control the bad apples,,and that prolly wont happen

This is why there are so many garbage mmo coming out for the past 7 years. WoW was extremely sucessful so lets make every game based upon their prinicipals. Lets not. It has made the genre stagnant and repeitive. There are no AAA companies that will make a great sandbox mmorpg because they don't want to take the risk. The only thing WoW has done right is making a smooth game with updates over the years.

Players should be the ones to weed out bad crops, except for hackers, not moderators.

What players want is the exact opposite of WoW despite its success. MMOs die everyday because people are searching for that first love they expierenced which has never been duplicated since. For several MMO players predate WoW and played Sandbox MMOs, but after WoW, everything is an instanced theme park, target tapping, antisocial end game raid grind fest.

The next big MMOs launch, last about a year, massive server merges, then go F2P and plead for players to return but they've already moved on in search for that next MMO which will surely die as well. Most players can claim they played more then 10+ MMOs but none of them lasted as long as there first one.

To fix it, they need to either completely change the genre as we know it, which companies would never stick there necks out to attempt, or go back to the original sandbox style and get rid of this 5 skill bar tab targeting crap. Action based combat mmos (twitch style) and sandboxes are getting more hype now days than the old tab targeting system.

If the first WoW clone failed, then the other 50 were sure to die too. I vote Sandbox.

~Mongoose

Looking for the Sandbox game that is good.

Themeparks are all boring and very anti social. WoW was successful because it was too easy and everyone wanted to follow a trend and act like zombies.

Most people who played it and were from the earlier generation played and left. As it was not appealing. The people who stayed were youngsters and it was their first large MMO.

IF they could actually have played from before, I am sure they would have passed WoW up too.

So I vote sandbox, but they have to do it right. They cannot make it so hard and boring. There's no fun in it.

I think in 2 years, we MIGHT see something. 

Originally posted by lorewise
Everyone seems to have different opinions on what a Sandbox game is. The only consistent descriptions of a Sandbox game I can find include the following descriptions.

Open world with no instancing.
"Deep crafting", however what "deep" means exactly I'm not sure.
Player created content.
Player created homes and player controlled territories.
No classes.
"Skill based", but it seems like definitions of this vary.

In addition some people feel like the following would also define a sandbox game:
Permanent Death
Full Loot PvP
PvP anywhere

To this I have to ask, why do these things sound like fun? And don't get me wrong, I understand "fun" is just as subjective as "deep", but I don't understand why anyone would want to play a game like that, because it doesn't sound like a game, it sounds like work. And if we add in the Player VS Player aspect it sounds like a big world where people just sign up to get get beat up on.

Maybe it's just me, but I write and illustrate for a living, and I love it. But that's my career. It's definitely work, but it's work I enjoy and it's rewarding, so maybe I can understand this on a certain level but who has time for this kind of a game? I mean we're talking about a virtual world. Why on earth would you want to invest that much time in a virtual world when you could be using your time in real life creating something that will actually live on, that will have real meaning?

I guess what I'm getting at is, I play themepark games for the same reason I watch movies. To be entertained. My life is full enough of work and stress and micromanagement that I just can't fathom investing my time and emotions into something that is not only intangible, but could also be completely destroyed should someone decide to pull the plug on a server.

Now my final point regarding sandbox games ties back into my introductory sentence. The idea of a sandbox game isn't even fully realized by the gaming community. Which means as a community, you're all asking a game design team to basically make a game that has no soul or story. Basically this is like saying to an author, "nah, I don't want to read your book, I want you to make me a book so I can write in it."

Because some of us don't play games or watch movies to escape. 

That's why I read non-fiction and watch documentaries.  You probably watch Avengers and Game of Thrones.

Either is okay.  But truly, some of us enjoy the grind if you get something out of it (aka bossing around real people virtually)

Originally posted by simplius

themepark FTW(with few and limited sandbox elements)

sandbox will only get u the famous monoclegate from EVE,,or players scamming 50k$, and devs calling it

"metagaming"

SWG was sandbox too,,how did that work out?

and lastly,,pandaland ,,the most successful MMO on the market,,themepark de luxe

sandbox does sound tempting, but seeing how some players will try to ruin others gaming experience,,

the devs would need a full gestapo force to control the bad apples,,and that prolly wont happen

Wrong wrong wrong wrong.

Sandbox where players can control other players will self-monitor.  If you provide suitable penalties. 

Making lives a commodity much like anything else will augment player behaviour more than anything.

In games where characters last for years, why not put a death count of 1000 as "permadeath"?  It would allow communities to purge asshats eventually and make every death mean something.

Lower it to 250, and you could put a real world price on death:  the ultimate trading token: hell, it could be the game's currency. 

There are so many ways to do it, all you need is a game dev smart enough and ballsy enough with permission to do it.