Originally posted by itchmon

eve is a sandbox, eve has storylines driven by the player alliances (we call this "nullsec drama" in eve land) and Eve also has dev-developed storylines, very good ones in fact if you go and play through the epic mission lines.

 

eve doesnt force the payers to engage in either of these storylines though.

 

because, it's a sandbox.

 

feels circular.................

Some people are just so ignorant. Sand times. EvE +10. Everyone one else +0.

Of course you can have story in a sanbox game, but I fail to see how TOR proves it.

Sandbox and themeparks both can have good stories behind them, they are just presenting them in different ways and sandboxes gives you more freedom to evolve that story.

Just because you can do both games with very little story alá Diablo doesn´t mean you have to them that way.

In a sandbox you get the background and deal with it the way you like, to do that good it actually demands a better story than a themepark where you just are railroaded on a premade story (even if you at times can change tracks there as well).

Originally posted by tixylix

Originally posted by revy66

This is how you do story in a sandbox MMO: http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Great_War

That is a good experience that comes naturally from a more open ended player driven MMO. However there is no reason why you cannot have story mixed in with this type of MMO. It would be so easy to put lots of quest content in EVE that is really story driven like SWTOR. With walking in stations you could even have cutscenes inbetween each mission objective.

Yet you'd have the ability to do all that and then go out into 0.0 to do player driven content.

Well, you kind of, sort of, get storyline through the Epic Mission Arcs if you carefully read what the agents say each time you start and complete a segment of it, but still...

However, one thing some people don't seem to realize about Eve is that there is a LOT of story for it...outside of the game. If you look on the main Eve Online website, on the menu to the left expand the top Eve Online segment and click on Backstory. There are scientific articles on some of the various techologies, historical accounts of the four races and a huge slew of short stories, the content of some of which having actually been incorporated into the game and/or the two paperback books. Consequently, new game content (such as the release of the strategic cruisers and the new tier 3 battlecruisers) frequently spawns new short stories that heavily involve them. Nearly every ship in the game has in its description a brief history of its development from the company that builds it.

There's also one particular aspect of player-driven content and story of Eve that I find quite cool: Periodically CCP holds a "Design a Ship" contest, where players can submit artistic drawings of potential ships within a specified size class, and these are judged by the community. The top 3 or 4 choices get in-game and real-world prizes, but the real kicker is that the first-place winner gets his ship PUT INTO THE GAME FOR REAL! The new Minmatar Tornado Tier 3 battlecruiser is the most recent example of this. CCP built up a backstory around this new battlecruiser and put it into the description, a new short story came out soon afterwards that also described its development and testing cycles...now that is player driven storyline.

Originally posted by LordRelic

Originally posted by kakasaki

Originally posted by Clocksimus

SWTOR is not a sandbox game.  What is this thread even about if the title  is already completely wrong.

This. Plus, in a well designed sandbox, the players drive the story so no need for a complex pre-determined storyline...

lol i love this saying " the Players drive the story"  soo do you walk around in an mmo and narate whats going on or something? i mean talking to yourself is a sign of insanity.... you do know that right?

 

Sandbox games are just an excuse for the dev team to cut corners and do no real thinking about the so called world they are trying to create.

Wrong.

A sandbox game is actually way more complex. The bigger the freedom the players enjoy, the more unexpected things that the devs will have to deal with.

SWTOR is the anti sandbox.

Originally posted by Clocksimus

SWTOR is not a sandbox game.  What is this thread even about if the title  is already completely wrong.

The OP did not say that SWTOR is a sandbox. Maybe you just have an attention span of anaverage WoW player?

Originally posted by Kiljaedenas

Originally posted by tixylix

Originally posted by revy66

This is how you do story in a sandbox MMO: http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Great_War

That is a good experience that comes naturally from a more open ended player driven MMO. However there is no reason why you cannot have story mixed in with this type of MMO. It would be so easy to put lots of quest content in EVE that is really story driven like SWTOR. With walking in stations you could even have cutscenes inbetween each mission objective.

Yet you'd have the ability to do all that and then go out into 0.0 to do player driven content.

Well, you kind of, sort of, get storyline through the Epic Mission Arcs if you carefully read what the agents say each time you start and complete a segment of it, but still...

However, one thing some people don't seem to realize about Eve is that there is a LOT of story for it...outside of the game. If you look on the main Eve Online website, on the menu to the left expand the top Eve Online segment and click on Backstory. There are scientific articles on some of the various techologies, historical accounts of the four races and a huge slew of short stories, the content of some of which having actually been incorporated into the game and/or the two paperback books. Consequently, new game content (such as the release of the strategic cruisers and the new tier 3 battlecruisers) frequently spawns new short stories that heavily involve them. Nearly every ship in the game has in its description a brief history of its development from the company that builds it.

There's also one particular aspect of player-driven content and story of Eve that I find quite cool: Periodically CCP holds a "Design a Ship" contest, where players can submit artistic drawings of potential ships within a specified size class, and these are judged by the community. The top 3 or 4 choices get in-game and real-world prizes, but the real kicker is that the first-place winner gets his ship PUT INTO THE GAME FOR REAL! The new Minmatar Tornado Tier 3 battlecruiser is the most recent example of this. CCP built up a backstory around this new battlecruiser and put it into the description, a new short story came out soon afterwards that also described its development and testing cycles...now that is player driven storyline.

Yeah, the last one was a huge success held on DeviantArt, where the DA staff chose the final 7 ships.

What a disaster that was. Dear god, a 3000 page forum thread. The epic proportions of the fail were felt for lightyears.

Afterwards CCP needed to re-judge the contest because the DA community shat bricks at the finalists (justifiedly so, because the staff-picks sucked monkey ass dick).

Not to mention the winner (Tornado) is only SLIGHTLY ripped off from an already existing design flying backwards.

I still get pissed whenever i think back at it. But hey, at least i got 30 days of free game time from the contest.

Hitting spacebar is an innovation.

A sandbox mmorpg is about making your own story and leaving your mark on the world. I don't want to listen to some guys life story just so i can do a kill 10 rats quest, giving it voice overs doesn't change the fact that it's a kill 10 rats quest.

I didn't hit the space bar much at first, I thought I never would, but I'm there now.  I felt the same way with Dragon Age.  Yadda yadda yadda.  Just shut the F up and let me actually control something, it's what I paid for.

Thus I don't think it would work well in a sandbox game.

Ha! Sandbox MMO...

Would it be sad to say that I've actually had more fun playing in the sand IRL over SWTOR?

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Originally posted by Loktofeit

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Originally posted by lizardbones
I think Skyrim would be a much better example of how a scripted story line or story lines could work in a sandbox.

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Single-player, yes. Now walk through that same story in an MMO environment.

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Originally posted by tixylix

What SWTOR has done is proved it can work in a sandbox MMO, the game doesn't have to be linear like what SWTOR is. I find the story elements of the gameplay to be completly irrelevant to how that game is designed. If you notice you speak to lots of NPCs out in the open and it locks you into a cutscene and no one can see what is happening in your cutscene unless they're grouped. It has no impact on the world and doesn't get in anyones way other than your character standing still with a speach bubble above your head. 

I see no reason why you couldn't have this in a game format of SWG Pre CU. The only difference in design would be instead of the worlds being one linear line, you could go to any planet you want at any time and do the content you want. This would mean that no area ever goes unplayed as people will always choose to do different content at different stages of their character progression. This would mean I could group with my friend if I've been playing for two years and he has only just started. It isn't even like you couldn't have linear quest stories because you could easily put that in a non linear game like what GTA or Skyrim has. 

The funny thing I find about SWTOR too is everything is done in mini dungeon phases which could easily be done in a sandbox game too. There is no reason for the game to be so linear what so ever because the story has no impact on the world. You'll constantly go into a phase and do content that would massively change the world and yet you run out and everything is the same. A lot of the time you've cleared out all the Mobs and that faction is sposed to be gone after the cutscene and you have to run back through them, killing them all again lol.

To me it just proves that the myth that Sandbox cannot have story content is a lie. 

Like your title you start off by stating SWTOR has proven  stories work in sandbox MMO's by SWTOR being linear and not a sandbox?  The whole point of a sandbox is player interaction freedom and consequences for your actions.  Having a heavily instanced sandbox can not work by tacking on meaningly stories that have zero impact on the game world.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the design of how SWTOR story is present is bad and/or doesn't work but it's meant for single player games like Skyrim and GTA.  SWTOR is more like GTA and Skyrim than a real MMO because it is just a single player story and your actions don't change anything for any other player.  You can kill the leader of the Republic as a Sith maybe.... but it's in your own little world.... Republic players don't care what you do you're just standing with a chat bubble over your head daydreaming.

The worse thing you could possibly do is try to make a sandbox that is as phased as SWTOR storymodes. You are invisible to the world almost 50% of the time you are online and  25% of the time you are standing still with a chat bubble above your head and the final 25% you are in the world doing stuff maybe interacting with people.  This is not an MMO sandbox design.

TO the OP

You may of titled this thread wrong, it first reads as though you think SWTOR is a sandbox game.

I can see what your saying and I think it could work also, but then in sandbox games most of the content is player driven. Although in Eve Online we do have storyline epic arcs that people can play through. 99% of the rest of the content is player driven much like the market and pvp.

I am waiting for a fantasy MMO like Eve Online but they all seem to be massive grind fests and quest driven. Now if they could update Ultima Online and bring it up to standards like some of the new games we are seeing that would be epic.

Originally posted by Olgark

I am waiting for a fantasy MMO like Eve Online

I would actually love to see a mafia-style game like this.  But yes, a fantasy one would be great as well.

Originally posted by LordRelic

Originally posted by kakasaki

Originally posted by Clocksimus

SWTOR is not a sandbox game.  What is this thread even about if the title  is already completely wrong.

This. Plus, in a well designed sandbox, the players drive the story so no need for a complex pre-determined storyline...

lol i love this saying " the Players drive the story"  soo do you walk around in an mmo and narate whats going on or something? i mean talking to yourself is a sign of insanity.... you do know that right?

 

Sandbox games are just an excuse for the dev team to cut corners and do no real thinking about the so called world they are trying to create.

The story drives the players as the players drive the story.

You don't need anyone to narrate your adventure when it occurs naturally through a fluid process. The best, most entertaining, most adventurous stories I have are of times in which there were no narrator but the adventure, created by the player.

The simply fact you believe someone needs narration to have a story is beyond comprehension for me. Sometimes I truly don't understand teenagers and their ignorance to real life.

Sandbox games require more content than any themepark ever does. As a game designer, I truly believe that it is a much more difficult and time-consuming work task to design and create an environment which creates adventure than any crappy themepark, however massive or "complex" (LAWL @ a complex themepark not being an oxymoron) ever could.

I mean YES...we simply narrate our own adventures talking in text chat. It has NOTHING to do with the imagination or the fluid process of self-created natural adventure.

Originally posted by tixylix

What SWTOR has done is proved it can work in a sandbox MMO

What tixylix has done is proved it can work in a thread MMO.

How is babby formed? We need to do way instain mother!

Lets set aside the swtor debate because tor only proved one thing,  money does not make a quality game.

You can have a story in a sandbox game as long as it does not lead you down a path to where you become entrapped in a liner story.

First, as many have said, SWTOR is the opposite of a sandbox.

Second, even among MMORPGs in General, LotRO did the immersive story as a primary feature long before SWTOR was even on the concept table.

Originally posted by Isasis

I got really good at hitting the space bar in SWTOR, best feature in the game.

  If there is one game out there where you do not want to skip the cut scenes voice overs it is Swtor, they are what make the game great