Just a bit of humor to help make my point, one of my friends pulled this out of the tribunal last week, sums it up nicely....

Darkfall has politics, spies, mercs, thieves, merchants, world wars where the players divide on their own lines (not ones drawn by a dev), backdoor deals, betrayals, lone wolfs, and player / clan controlled territory.   These are all sandbox elements because all of the previously mentioned content was not determined by a developers keystroke, but because of the will of players.

Planetside is an MMOFPS with scripted sides in a never ending war scripted by the devs just for the sake of fighting.

Both are good games (I play and enjoy both), but one has sandbox elements because the content is completely player driven, while the other's content is scripted.

Originally posted by Razeekster
And MMORPG.com really should start paying me... This is like the third time in less than a month that I've posted hot news before they got to it haha

PM news when you find it to SBFord here.   She does most of the news postings.

Originally posted by Abuz0r

I am typically a game economy tycoon and try to absolutely get the most immense amount of wealth in a game possible.  I also like to stash my treasure and put on my best gear (which usually I've made for myself so I can also replace myself) and go and fight for whatever cause I am interested in.    Dropping everything I'm carrying does seem to scare me, as long as I enter the situation aware of the risk and having stashed anything important to me in a safe storage place.

Will I have any interest in this game?

I think the newer version of the game will be much better for people like you because of the fact there are safe zones now.   They are small, but they do allow a safe place for people to conduct trades without fear of getting mugged.  I spoke about this is a recent podcast to a degree (link in my blog) where I talk a lot about what the old game was like and how some of the changes might improve the experience in the new game.

Money is a powerful tool in DF, and being a success merchant can put you in a good position financially as well as a an asset to whatever guild you may end up being in, if any.

You knew it was bad when they had to have a line in a patch note to say they are making changes to the UI to make it geared towards being played with a keyboard or something.   Like WTF did they think they were making this game for?  It's like they have been living in a bubble since FFXI and literally had no idea what the game world around them had done in the last decade, then forgot half of their own innovations that they themselves invented.

They deserve to be burned for making a bad game.   Much like SWTOR, you can not slap a good IP on a bad game and expect to be rewarded for it with people's money and success.  The entire FF franchise has been soiled (long before this imo).

EDIT:  This is from someone who absolutely loved FFXI.