I've never played, but was curious what some people who have played it themselves think: do you consider FE a sandbox? or a rail ride?

Originally posted by jramsay61

I've never played, but was curious what some people who have played it themselves think: do you consider FE a sandbox? or a rail ride?

It's a hybrid. It has sandboxy elements, but it also has a ton of quests. It's not one or the other, instead it's both.

No, no, no, it's not half sandbox, half theme park, It's full time theme park. Nevertheless, I still enjoy FE for what it is.

It is a hybrid, though leaning more toward theme-park at this time. It has the potential to go full on sandbox should the devs decide to take it that way. 

I would agree with Khalathwyr that it is both. I think the game gives you plenty of freedom to either play it as a sandbox, as a quest giver gamer, or a hybrid. I see this freedom alone makes it a true sandbox, as it allows you the freedom to play whatever way you wish

Originally posted by Thillian

No, no, no, it's not half sandbox, half theme park, It's full time theme park. Nevertheless, I still enjoy FE for what it is.

out of curiosity can i ask why?

the crafting and factioned pvp aspects seem to lean towards being a "sandbox" on paper

Originally posted by Thillian

No, no, no, it's not half sandbox, half theme park, It's full time theme park. Nevertheless, I still enjoy FE for what it is.

Heh, OP, so you'll see people disagree. I consider the crafting system (which you won't see a decently developed crafting system in themeparks as they are mob drop loot driven) to be sandboxy, and the housing that will be implemented sandboxy, the fact that you can, albeit very slowly, advance your character without combat sandboxy. I also consider the game having item that require other items to work, and that are done so in a logical way (such as guns needing bullets that we have to craft, vehicles needing gas, etc.) to be more sandboxy ideas than themepark.

But, as I said, you'll only get alot of opinions in this thread. Each one is right for their particular author. You'll have to make the decision for yourself.

Originally posted by jramsay61

Originally posted by Thillian

No, no, no, it's not half sandbox, half theme park, It's full time theme park. Nevertheless, I still enjoy FE for what it is.

 

out of curiosity can i ask why?

 

the crafting and factioned pvp aspects seem to lean towards being a "sandbox" on paper

There's a clear linear progression in everything you do. FE has arguably the same level of sandbox feeling as Vanguard.

Originally posted by Thillian

Originally posted by jramsay61

Originally posted by Thillian

No, no, no, it's not half sandbox, half theme park, It's full time theme park. Nevertheless, I still enjoy FE for what it is.

 

out of curiosity can i ask why?

 

the crafting and factioned pvp aspects seem to lean towards being a "sandbox" on paper

 

There's a clear linear progression in everything you do. FE has arguably the same level of sandbox feeling as Vanguard.

can you chop down trees in fe?!

Originally posted by jramsay61

Originally posted by Thillian

Originally posted by jramsay61

Originally posted by Thillian

No, no, no, it's not half sandbox, half theme park, It's full time theme park. Nevertheless, I still enjoy FE for what it is.

 

out of curiosity can i ask why?

 

the crafting and factioned pvp aspects seem to lean towards being a "sandbox" on paper

 

There's a clear linear progression in everything you do. FE has arguably the same level of sandbox feeling as Vanguard.

 

can you chop down trees in fe?!

No, you can't even build and place your own house. You also can't level up your crafting without harvesting in dangerous zones full of mobs (so unless you send your crafter mats, he will not improve his crafting -- which actually is possible to cap crafting in VG just by sitting in a town taking work orders) - so in this example FE is even less sandbox than VG. And I would never dare to call Vanguard a sandbox nor a hybrid.

FE even contains food with min. level requirements. Has got 5500 missions, you can't attack everyone, everywhere, you can't attack mission NPC's, you can't interact with persisent world in any way, there's a clear progression of your journey to CAP level. Honestly, how can anyone call FE a sandbox or a hybrid?

Games are measured by the number of sand box type features they contain.  A theme park game can still contain many elements traditional to sandbox games including good crafting and still be a more quest drivien experience.

Originally posted by jramsay61

I've never played, but was curious what some people who have played it themselves think: do you consider FE a sandbox? or a rail ride?

All MMOs are sandboxes by definition. No I really don't care how some forumite wants to define it. I've seen the actual definition. If you would ask questions that had meaningful answers you would get them instead of the same ill informed nonsense you see in this thread. When you constrain your thinking to artificial, meaningless and incorrect labels you cannot have a thoughtful discussion. You might as well ask how fast are blue cars?

hehe yup FE is totally a themepark wow clone ;-)

/heavy sarcasm off

Originally posted by zymurgeist

Originally posted by jramsay61

I've never played, but was curious what some people who have played it themselves think: do you consider FE a sandbox? or a rail ride?

 

All MMOs are sandboxes by definition. No I really don't care how some forumite wants to define it. I've seen the actual definition. If you would ask questions that had meaningful answers you would get them instead of the same ill informed nonsense you see in this thread. When you constrain your thinking to artificial, meaningless and incorrect labels you cannot have a thoughtful discussion. You might as well ask how fast are blue cars?

No. There's a huge difference between Ultima Online (true sandbox) and let's say Lotro (true theme park). I'm sorry that you can't see that. Sure, you 've got a lots of space in between where most of the games fit, but FE is surely rather closer to Lotro than uo.
 

edit: replaced aoc with lotro

 Even sandbox games have quests.  This is obviously a hybrid with the way the skill progression is, the way the non-linearity of quest options and level options, the are much more expansive then themepark games as you have a choice to take a countless amount of different roads to reach an end.

Most skill based sand box games are in the same avenue of linearity as any theme park level progression.  To truly make something non level based isn't to take away levels, but to take away any progression at all and base any actual world progression on player skill.  It seems to me that when you start at 1 and you end at 60 thats considered linearity... you do that in sandbox games to, so while we're defining the two genre's lets just get one thing straight.  Theme Park.  Sandbox. hardly anyone can tell the difference anymore. If its fun, play it.

Originally posted by Thillian

Originally posted by zymurgeist

Originally posted by jramsay61

I've never played, but was curious what some people who have played it themselves think: do you consider FE a sandbox? or a rail ride?

 

All MMOs are sandboxes by definition. No I really don't care how some forumite wants to define it. I've seen the actual definition. If you would ask questions that had meaningful answers you would get them instead of the same ill informed nonsense you see in this thread. When you constrain your thinking to artificial, meaningless and incorrect labels you cannot have a thoughtful discussion. You might as well ask how fast are blue cars?

No. There's a huge difference between Ultima Online (true sandbox) and let's say Lotro (true theme park). I'm sorry that you can't see that. Sure, you 've got a lots of space in between where most of the games fit, but FE is surely rather closer to Lotro than uo.
 

edit: replaced aoc with lotro

There's a huge difference between a Volkwagen Beetle and a Rolls Royce Phantom. They're still both automobiles, and ugly.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

Originally posted by jramsay61

I've never played, but was curious what some people who have played it themselves think: do you consider FE a sandbox? or a rail ride?

 

All MMOs are sandboxes by definition. No I really don't care how some forumite wants to define it. I've seen the actual definition. If you would ask questions that had meaningful answers you would get them instead of the same ill informed nonsense you see in this thread. When you constrain your thinking to artificial, meaningless and incorrect labels you cannot have a thoughtful discussion. You might as well ask how fast are blue cars?

ok?

such nerdly passion for an innocent question, lol

i assumed when asking the question, that the definition of "sandbox," is not subjective, but pretty straightforward.

sandbox - no predefined objective, player driven content, player driven economy/meaningful crafting, laissez-faire (EVE "scandals" serve as great examples of this)

rail-ride - defined objectives, developed content, quest scripted economy,

Originally posted by maskedweasel

 Even sandbox games have quests.  This is obviously a hybrid with the way the skill progression is, the way the non-linearity of quest options and level options, the are much more expansive then themepark games as you have a choice to take a countless amount of different roads to reach an end.

Nonsense.

What MMO is not a sandbox then currently on the market?  Why are the missions in FE non-linear? In what game you can't either grind or quest to reach cap level? In what MMO there's not a linear clear progression (starting towns A,B,C.. -> leads to level 6-10 towns, that leads to two level 11-12 towns etc) How does Lotro or AoC or whatever differs from this? What roads can you take in FE apart from doing missions or grinding (and severly gimp yourself). Missions in FE are nonlinear? Don't they still send you from A to B then C then back? Then get a follow up mission, rinse and repeat? 

How is FE less linear than Lotro, please give me at least one example.

Originally posted by Thillian

Originally posted by maskedweasel

 Even sandbox games have quests.  This is obviously a hybrid with the way the skill progression is, the way the non-linearity of quest options and level options, the are much more expansive then themepark games as you have a choice to take a countless amount of different roads to reach an end.

Nonsense.

What MMO is not a sandbox then currently on the market?  Why are the missions in FE non-linear? In what game you can't either grind or quest to reach cap level? In what MMO there's not a linear clear progression (starting towns A,B,C.. -> leads to level 6-10 towns, that leads to two level 11-12 towns etc) How does Lotro or AoC or whatever differs from this? What roads can you take in FE apart from doing missions or grinding (and severly gimp yourself). Missions in FE are nonlinear? Don't they still send you from A to B then C then back? Then get a follow up mission, rinse and repeat? 

How is FE less linear than Lotro, please give me at least one example.

i posed this question to begin with and even though i haven't played ... i'll bite. doesn't the promise of a player driven, crafting-based economy differentiate FE from nearly all other mmos? There is a myriad of options available that are limited by imagination on this one feature.

the absence of classes also grants a players imagination free reign over what his character will be proficient at.

Originally posted by jramsay61

Originally posted by Thillian

Nonsense.

What MMO is not a sandbox then currently on the market?  Why are the missions in FE non-linear? In what game you can't either grind or quest to reach cap level? In what MMO there's not a linear clear progression (starting towns A,B,C.. -> leads to level 6-10 towns, that leads to two level 11-12 towns etc) How does Lotro or AoC or whatever differs from this? What roads can you take in FE apart from doing missions or grinding (and severly gimp yourself). Missions in FE are nonlinear? Don't they still send you from A to B then C then back? Then get a follow up mission, rinse and repeat? 

How is FE less linear than Lotro, please give me at least one example.

 

i posed this question to begin with and even though i haven't played ... i'll bite. doesn't the promise of a player driven, crafting-based economy differentiate FE from nearly all other mmos? There is a myriad of options available that are limited by imagination on this one feature.

the absence of classes also grants a players imagination free reign over what his character will be proficient at.

 

There's no player driven crafting based economy any more than in any other game out there. Sure, it's only a month and something since the release, so the economy is a bit messy -- but there's no indication that this is going to be any more player driven.

Fact is, factions give you powerful item rewards and you grind factions by doing missions mostly. Fact is, most of the material for the crafting you can buy from the vendors. There's surely no need for pure gatherers, they can't make any sort of profit. Currently almost 99% of all material is selling on Auction for more than you can buy it from a vendor -- mostly because some people are too lazy to travel to another town to buy it from a vendor instead -- because atm there is TOO MUCH money made from doing missions. After level 35, you will never bother about money.

Absence of classes sure is a little step towards non-linearity and more choice. However, it does promote min-maxing and making a build to get the cap faction ability. On one hand yes, it's classless, on the other hand -> the options and the way you gain cap abilities promote to min-max and follow default builds.