Originally posted by lifesbrink

This type of game might want to be waited on.  Let's face it, game developers can't even come up with one whole city that has complete floorplans of each and every building in the city (I am looking at your, Grand Theft Auto), something that would be useful in an MMO setting for zombies.

So, maybe we should wait until things like this can be created.

 

Man, imagine a recreation of NYC, but with zombies.  Being able to hang out in famous locations like the Smithsonian or Chinatown  and gun down undead would be pretty sweet.

Yep. I would want to see a truly well-developed city. Plus it would have to have big wilderness as well with plenty of Evil Dead houses tucked away in them. That's one huge world we are talking about. I don't know if it is technical limitations or simply that it would need to be so big that it would scare off most potential developers, but it is one off the beaten sword and sorcery path that I would be interested in.

I'm not saying that permdeath is a good or bad thing, but after about the 500th post about how the MMO industry is stagnated and pumping out one boring cookie-cutter after another, pehaps we shouldn't be so quick to pull things off of the table in considering what we want different for a good MMORPG.

Originally posted by SlothnChunk

Originally posted by nariusseldon

I don't think an open world game will be suitable for this setting. 1000 players all at the same place is not scary at all.

This is much better done as a small group co-op game. 4-5 friends stuck with 100000 zombies around. There is no need to go MMO on this one.

Why not? Other human players can be hostile, build bases, create clans, etc. That certainly adds to the survival part of survival horror.

It seems there are a couple of possibilities like borrowing from Tabula Rasa in which the safe zone is is under periodic attacks by hordes; or have have survival shelters with a limited capacity in the classic, "If we let these people in, it's less food for us" scenario.

Yes, better AI makes any genre better. But the problem is that this assumes primarily pve, and very few AAA devs will release a game exclusively pve, and when they add pvp that's where the trouble begins because they are trying to satisfy two very opposed but equally adamant kinds of gamers. Too much toward pvp and people are scared off. Too much toward pve and it becomes a no-risk bore fest.

It is F2P anyway, so they are not trying to get a sub fee by pretending to be a MMO. 

What? You mean I can't make a raid with seventeen spider-men?

I think it's both/and, not either/or. That is, MMORPG's as a genre have stagnated AND gamers have become jaded and these form a vicious cycle. Devs have the impossible task of trying to satisfy at least three categories: Solo PvE, PVP, multiplayer pve--all while trying to provide meaningful end game and a crafting system that isn't a complete waste of time. The problem is it becomes a zero sum game. Throw a benefit to pvp, and the carebears howl in protest; beef up a classes' survivability, then people whine that it might as well be a single-player game; beef up multiplayer dungeons and then it's "forced grouping! rawr!" and by trying to please everyone, they end up pleasing no one.

Originally posted by Caldrin

you see for me thats a plus.. the rush you get from knowing you could die and loose everything..

Tho i msut say im not a super fan of perma death... but yeah if you die then it should be a bad thing..

 

I'm tending to gravitate towards more pvp and costly death as of late. One game I think does this well is EVE online. It's not permadeath, but if one is careless, the cost can be enormous, so you warp into a lo-sec system, your hairs stand on end, and when you make it to safety, it feels like a real victory as opposed to a hollow one from your typical WoW-style gankfest.

Originally posted by vee41

Since no one said it yet: Guild Wars 2.

Someone was going to come and say it eventually anyway :)

Well that goes without saying since Guild Wars 2 is not only going to innovate the entire industry but also cure cancer and herpes along the way. [jumps into foxhole]  :D

Originally posted by LizardEgypt

So when you want an RPG you play World of Warcraft, because RPG's have never been First Person since the 90s right?

I'm not sure I understand your comment. It's just my way of saying I don't do mmorpg's that lock first-person view and I know I'm not the only one. It's not an absolute dealbreaker, but pretty close.

Originally posted by danielsuh25

Any really good and popular f2p mmorpgs?

Try Fallen Earth and Uncharted Online. Both of them off the LotTRO grid.

Originally posted by Ramanadjinn

many of us refuse to play first person view locked games.

+1 If I wanted an FPS, I'd play Call of Duty

Originally posted by CalmOceans

I feel like an idiot not even knowing what a daily is.

A mission or instance that can be attempted once per day and reset for another attempt after a certain amount of time and often feature specific desireable loot drops or just piles of cash above what you can normally get. One of the more notorious daily-heavy games I can recall is Pirates of the Burning Sea in which there would be chat-box wars because people would be running dailies instead of helping their realm (nation) win port battles. 

The demo left me underwhelmed, but even still, it's rough times even for companies with popular titles.

As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. When you invest some money in subs, b2p, or even f2p, there is usually at least the sparks of a symbiotic relationship as opposed to merely looking for a free ride. This is why changes to sub games tend to evoke such howls of protest and threats of leaving than you get with your average f2p--funny how monetary investment and emotional investment coincide. Who takes better care of their car and appreciates it more? A teen who was given a car by his parents, or one that had to work at put some his own money into it? Usually the latter. Now, I suppose one could object that pure free players invest time rather than money, but in my case it was frittering time rather than investing.

So, there's no trick really. The best thing to do is try out these games and having the old manager's question in the back of your mind: where do I see myself in six months?

Well, I am encouraged that while I expect some of the greatswords to get toward the goofy side, it doesn't look like it's going to get like this:

Originally posted by Larsa

Ultime Online: published by EA.

Istaria (released as Horizons): published by EA.

Ryzom: published by GOA (GOA ran the DAoC servers in Europe).

Although not on the list because the servers are shut down - SWG: published by SOE.

Fair enough, but wouldn't you say that UO counts as a succesful sandbox? SWG is a bit fuzzy considering that so many people would buy a flaming bag of dog poo if it had the Star Wars logo  on it. 

Originally posted by Amaranthar

Not really arguing with you here, but money has a lot to do with most Sandbox games taking time to make and limited in content.

 i think you are correct and this goes back to my thought that there are plenty of possible reasons that AAA companies haven't made them other than that gamers don't want them. It's hard to imagine someone at a major company pitching a sandbox game and someone seriously objecting, "Look at all these sandbox games made by fly-by-night companies with shoestring budgets that didn't make it." Rather, sandbox hasn't been tried and found wanting by big companies; sandbox games have been found risky (stepping out of the WoW box) and difficult, and therefore left untried.

It occurs to me I need to go back a step and question this:

6. None of the newer games has a (well-known) publisher.

Looking at that list, which one was a well-known publisher before they made a sandbox game? Maybe Wakfu by Square?

Originally posted by Gdemami

How can you say:
 

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Originally posted by Scottgun
Good analysis Larsa.

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which implies how little and pitiful the actual demand for any sandbox game is(the games are mostly dated, low budget and revenue, little perspective) and then follow with:

 

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Originally posted by Scottgun

The market for sandbox is there I think 

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Just mind boggling...

Because as I said, when you step out of MMO, you find very popular sandbox games by big companies. So I ask, is it really that there is a substantial markets for sandbox, just not in our MMO's?  

Originally posted by Larsa

Just going through the list of sandbox games here: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/349518/page/1 I find a few things interesting.

1. There are 18 sandbox MMORPGs on the list.
2. 12 of those 18 games are older than 4 years or are re-releases of older games.
3. The 6 "newer" games are: Darkfall, Face of Mankind, Fallen Earth, Mortal Online, Perpetuum, Xsyon.
4. All of the newer games are PvP-heavy.
5. There are 2 fantasy, 2 sci-fi and 2 post-apocalypse games amongst the newer ones (I reckon that for the whole genre fantasy titles are the most popular ones).
6. None of the newer games has a (well-known) publisher.
7. None of the newer games is sold at retail stores.
8. All of the newer games are made by new development studios that haven't made an MMORPG before.

 

Good analysis Larsa. I find it odd that when you go to non-MMO, you get all kinds of sandbox games, so I'd be inclined to agree that developers are in the rut of trying to capture the lightning in a bottle by imitating WoW. The market for sandbox is there I think (That's certainly what I look for in new games MMO or not, but I'm just one guy), someone just needs to pull their heads out of WoW model and fill it.