Originally posted by Kyleran

 

Er, who was talking about sandbox vs themepark?  I was talking about virtual worlds vs MMO "games" and a theme park game can certainly be a reasonable approximation of a virtual world, DAOC was one such title back in the day. (so much so many people argue it was a sandbox instead)

Reading further, maybe you meant to reply to someone else's post?

 

Themeparks back in the day, sure! They were good, close to a sandbox almost. Today's themeparks........... seriously?

Themeparks back in the day had larger worlds, more features, a meaning, and some freedom (not like a sandbox). They were decent games.

Today? No, not even close.

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Originally posted by Lobotomist
Who ever said sandbox and themepark exclude each other ???

Even EVE has themepark missions and lot of themepark elements.

 

Bare in mind that themepark lovers eventually suffer from themepark game , because the content is always bound to come to the end. This is why sandbox is needed and perfectly also dynamically generated "themepark" missions

Missions that are created depending on your actions in the world.

For example if you have been killing lot of goblins, humans in the area decide you are "goblin slayer" and give you mission to kill goblin leader. This spawns goblin leader in goblin fortress and you (or others) can kill him.

 

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The theme park vs sandbox thing is because this is MMORPG.com.

That sounds like something that would work really well as a single player mechanic, but wouldn't scale well to many players. There would be player not only killed the goblins, but also the skeletons, ogres, trolls, deer, demons, dragons, ghosts, rabbits, bats, (you get where I'm going here, right?), etc. The system can't keep up with the players killing stuff. Even worse, players figure out how to manipulate the system so you get players helping the goblins over run the continent.

The idea is cool, but getting it to work in a large scale multiplayer setting sounds a bit tricky (to me). Now...small scale games with personal servers...yeah, that would work. But then I think a lot of developers who released their games as MMORPG should have released them as single player/personal server games anyway.

Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by Traugar

Originally posted by jpnz

As long as $$$ made in 'sandbox' is smaller than 'themeparks', sandbox will be a niche.

I always ask topic makers this question; if you like 'sandbox' MMOs do you spend $$$ on sandbox MMOs?

I would be more than happy to if there was one out there that had been made with a decent budget.  Eve isn't my thing, as I am not into being the ship.  I like having an avatar.  

So which decent sized company is going to make a sandbox MMO when the $$$ just isn't there?

It has to start somewhere.

 

Can we see a company make a huge risky investment? Maybe.

Will that company see a return? Probably not, when your best $$$ sandbox MMO is EVE with 300k-400k subs, it just doesn't make good business sense.

Eve has 300-400k subs because it is a small niche sandbox people dont like being a space ship they need characters they relate to. If a Sandbox was made as well as Eve in a good Fantasy world, the subs would be well beyond that, and by the way 300-400k subs is good money. Just cuz it isnt WoW doesnt make it any less successful and financially in the black. Also. SOE(Decent sized Company) is making EQ Next which is a Sandbox game in fact boasted that it is going to be the largest sandbox game ever made.

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Originally posted by Banaghran

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Originally posted by lizardbones Anyway, their peak users had to be at least a million. They had a million accounts as of the pre-order period just before launch. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108017-Rift-Tops-the-One-Million-Account-Mark. They could have had five people playing one month later, but they sold at least a million boxes before they went global.  

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You can have an account even without paying for the game. This is the same argument back from the rift forums, if rift would EVER have a million live subs, do you think Trion would have kept it a SECRET, just so that a few guys could argue over it on teh internetz? :)

That was really my only problem with your post, even if i stupidly commented on the box price vs sub number thing.

You may carry on bashing purist sandboxes. I made my point sufficiently clear a few pages back when you argued with yourself :)

Flame on!

:)

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Bah! Duped by verbiage! In any event, pick any two of the following games: Rift, SWToR, GW2, AoC, WarHammer, and you'll get a significantly bigger number of peak players than UO + SWG + Eve. The most popular games, judged by peak players are not sandboxes.

What is your point, exactly?

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Originally posted by Saryhl

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Originally posted by jpnz

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Originally posted by Traugar

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Originally posted by jpnz As long as $$$ made in 'sandbox' is smaller than 'themeparks', sandbox will be a niche. I always ask topic makers this question; if you like 'sandbox' MMOs do you spend $$$ on sandbox MMOs?

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I would be more than happy to if there was one out there that had been made with a decent budget.  Eve isn't my thing, as I am not into being the ship.  I like having an avatar.  

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So which decent sized company is going to make a sandbox MMO when the $$$ just isn't there? It has to start somewhere.   Can we see a company make a huge risky investment? Maybe. Will that company see a return? Probably not, when your best $$$ sandbox MMO is EVE with 300k-400k subs, it just doesn't make good business sense.

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Eve has 300-400k subs because it is a small niche sandbox people dont like being a space ship they need characters they relate to. If a Sandbox was made as well as Eve in a good Fantasy world, the subs would be well beyond that, and by the way 300-400k subs is good money. Just cuz it isnt WoW doesnt make it any less successful and financially in the black. Also. SOE(Decent sized Company) is making EQ Next which is a Sandbox game in fact boasted that it is going to be the largest sandbox game ever made.

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There's always an excuse as to why sandboxes aren't more popular than they are right now. It's always, "If only..." with some set of perfect circumstances that would make sandbox games incredibly successful.

In the meantime, theme parks have been half @ssing it since before SWG and raking in the money.

Originally posted by lizardbones

 

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Originally posted by Saryhl

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Originally posted by jpnz

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Originally posted by Traugar

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Originally posted by jpnz As long as $$$ made in 'sandbox' is smaller than 'themeparks', sandbox will be a niche. I always ask topic makers this question; if you like 'sandbox' MMOs do you spend $$$ on sandbox MMOs?

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I would be more than happy to if there was one out there that had been made with a decent budget.  Eve isn't my thing, as I am not into being the ship.  I like having an avatar.  

---

So which decent sized company is going to make a sandbox MMO when the $$$ just isn't there? It has to start somewhere.   Can we see a company make a huge risky investment? Maybe. Will that company see a return? Probably not, when your best $$$ sandbox MMO is EVE with 300k-400k subs, it just doesn't make good business sense.

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Eve has 300-400k subs because it is a small niche sandbox people dont like being a space ship they need characters they relate to. If a Sandbox was made as well as Eve in a good Fantasy world, the subs would be well beyond that, and by the way 300-400k subs is good money. Just cuz it isnt WoW doesnt make it any less successful and financially in the black. Also. SOE(Decent sized Company) is making EQ Next which is a Sandbox game in fact boasted that it is going to be the largest sandbox game ever made.

---

There's always an excuse as to why sandboxes aren't more popular than they are right now. It's always, "If only..." with some set of perfect circumstances that would make sandbox games incredibly successful.

In the meantime, theme parks have been half @ssing it since before SWG and raking in the money.

 

If not popular then why are 9 of them coming out soon? Some are AAA as well. Fact is themeparks have become worse and had their day. Now things will progress in a different direction. Bet you half of those will do better than the last 50 themeparks, because since Rift......... none have been worthy. So 1 out of 100 themeparks amount to anything, and this is your arguement for why themeparks are better and shouldnt change? Because im confused. I want a real mmo, an epic game with a massive world. Most you guys attacking sandboxes want the opposite.

People think we 'vets' are looking at the past with rose colored glasses.  Frankly, I just see history repeating.

The reason MMOs became so huge in the first decade of the 2000's is because traditional action-adventure titles were so bad.

Back in those days, action-adventure games and linear RPs were the capital ships of the software publishing world.  In the 90's, they replaced the platformers as the game of choice to represent the pinnacle of computer entertainment as art.  But at the dawn of the 21st century, the genre was, quite frankly, tired.

Game studios like Eidos, Crystal Dynamics, Square-Enix and Capcom did little more than push out sequals to overworked IPs, which you'd spend $50 on, finish in a weekend, and have nothing to do but dive into the next overworked sequal.  If you don't believe me, dust off a copy of Silent Hill III, or Resident Evil III, or Blood Omen 2, or Metal Gear Solid 2.  I still do from time to time, just for the nostalgia.  But after I finish, it goes back in the closet to grab three or four more years worth of dust.

Graphics on those games were great.  But the gameplay was just too limited.  We could fight, pick up skills, and pick up gear, but there was nothing beyond that.  No artistic outlet.  No avenue for thought.

Ultima Online, Everquest, DAoC and SWG--all those MMOs--gave us something more.  They gave us all the usual fare we'd expect, but they'd give us roles to play in the economy.  They'd give us avenues to express ourselves.  They gave us new things to explore.  They gave us reasons to keep playing, rather than just chuck the thing in the corner after we finished it.

Now I can't speak for anyone else, but the reason I dumped the big studios and went to MMOs is that they gave me many games in one game.  It was an adventure game, but it was also a player versus player combat game, a roleplaying game, an economic game and a building set.  It was like going into a toychest full of fun, rather than just one toy.  It wasn't a genre that was tired, like the action-adventure and RP genres at the time.  It was doing everything those old dogs did, and a whole lot more, for a whole lot less money.

Today, it's sad to say that the roles are reversed.  This genre, the MMO genre, is the one that's tired.  It gives you one thing--combat--and hasn't bothered to give you anything else very well.  The worlds are dry, the games are small, they are consumed within weeks and are discarded.  They are also expensive.  They take great pains to extract all kinds of wealth from you in an attempt to "make the game your own."

And the action-adventure genre?  The one that was tired in the early 2000s?  That gives you more of what MMOs used to give you than MMOs now do.  I played the Arkham games, Elder Scrolls, Fallout 3--and a whole lot of others.  They have big worlds.  Interesting side pursuits.  They have pay content, it's true, but you just seem to get more from them.  And, best of all, if you like them, they don't go *poof* on you whenever a publisher thinks they aren't making enough (like CoH).

So if you all are wondering excatly where folks like Lobotomist and Beatnik59 and Elikal are coming from, I think you ought to consider that this genre used to be more than just combat and quest consumption and gearing up.  Frankly, you don't need an MMO to get served that formula.  But MMOs have the capacity to give you many games in one game, for the person who liked many games.

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Originally posted by Onomas

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Originally posted by lizardbones  

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Originally posted by Saryhl

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Originally posted by jpnz

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Originally posted by Traugar

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Originally posted by jpnz As long as $$$ made in 'sandbox' is smaller than 'themeparks', sandbox will be a niche. I always ask topic makers this question; if you like 'sandbox' MMOs do you spend $$$ on sandbox MMOs?

---

I would be more than happy to if there was one out there that had been made with a decent budget.  Eve isn't my thing, as I am not into being the ship.  I like having an avatar.  

---

So which decent sized company is going to make a sandbox MMO when the $$$ just isn't there? It has to start somewhere.   Can we see a company make a huge risky investment? Maybe. Will that company see a return? Probably not, when your best $$$ sandbox MMO is EVE with 300k-400k subs, it just doesn't make good business sense.

---

Eve has 300-400k subs because it is a small niche sandbox people dont like being a space ship they need characters they relate to. If a Sandbox was made as well as Eve in a good Fantasy world, the subs would be well beyond that, and by the way 300-400k subs is good money. Just cuz it isnt WoW doesnt make it any less successful and financially in the black. Also. SOE(Decent sized Company) is making EQ Next which is a Sandbox game in fact boasted that it is going to be the largest sandbox game ever made.

---

There's always an excuse as to why sandboxes aren't more popular than they are right now. It's always, "If only..." with some set of perfect circumstances that would make sandbox games incredibly successful. In the meantime, theme parks have been half @ssing it since before SWG and raking in the money.  

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If not popular then why are 9 of them coming out soon? Some are AAA as well. Fact is themeparks have become worse and had their day. Now things will progress in a different direction. Bet you half of those will do better than the last 50 themeparks, because since Rift......... none have been worthy. So 1 out of 100 themeparks amount to anything, and this is your arguement for why themeparks are better and shouldnt change? Because im confused. I want a real mmo, an epic game with a massive world. Most you guys attacking sandboxes want the opposite.

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Nine sandboxes? I'd like to see that list, if you please. No, really, I'd like to see the list because I don't want to miss what might be a good game.

If there are sandboxes being made, then the publishers believe there's a financial reason to do so. I can think of a few reasons that have nothing to do with past sandbox performance.

EQNext

The repopulation

Archeage

Greed Monger

The Black Desert

Dark Fall 2/UW

Dragons Prophet (sounds like they are going sandbox style) Thats 2 games SOE are making snadboxes ;) Told you a change was coming :P

Age of Wushu (but think this is a hybrid, havent read much into it)

Embers of Caerus

Origins of Malu

 

 

Theres 10, need a few more? Some of these look damn good, and some have so called "themepark/hybrid" additions to them. But in general are sandbox games. Because honestly i think its stupid to call a sandbox a hybrid just because its got story, quests, and other stuff that normaly come with sandboxes lol.

 

 

Originally posted by Onomas

EQNext

The repopulation

Archeage

Greed Monger

The Black Desert

Dark Fall 2/UW

Dragons Prophet (sounds like they are going sandbox style) Thats 2 games SOE are making snadboxes ;) Told you a change was coming :P

Age of Wushu (but think this is a hybrid, havent read much into it)

Embers of Caerus

Origins of Malu

 

 

Theres 10, need a few more? Some of these look damn good, and some have so called "themepark/hybrid" additions to them. But in general are sandbox games. Because honestly i think its stupid to call a sandbox a hybrid just because its got story, quests, and other stuff that normaly come with sandboxes lol.

 

 

 

Salem

Relics of Annorath

Pathfinder Online

Citadel of Sorcery

Star Citizen

Elite Dangerous

Infinity

Miner Wars

LinkRealms

Project Theralon

World Of Darkness

Earthrise reboot (whenever that happens)

Newer iteration of Xsyon

also the slew of Minecraft inspired voxel games on the horizion, a few of which have MMO aspirations

 

 

there's prob like 3-5 others at least that i can't remember the names of.  there's definitely a paradigm shift on a thinking/planning level.   probably a number of these will never be released, but the fact people are thinking differently now is an important change.

 

also lets not forget whats happened in the past few years.  basically there was ALMOST no games of this type for around 13 years then....

 

 

Darkfall

Mortal Online

Perpetuum Online

Love

Vendetta Online? (i THINK this fits, dunno)

Earthrise

Xsyon 

Battlestar Galactica Online?  (dunno if this fits, dunno much about it)

APB

Wurm Online

Haven & Hearth

 

 

...and it seems there's a few others i've forgotten about.  so its a change thats already underway.

 

and for the extremely repetitive obsessive forum spammers that think it's their life duty to "correct" everyone....

....yes i'm well aware that none of these games were a big success, and yes they were forgettable for many reasons, the reasons have been discussed to death already, blah blah blah, cliche cliche cliche......  ITS NOT MY POINT HERE.  go start another thread about it elsewhere instead of acting like you are gonna "inform" me about such things.

Any of those actually worth following?

Originally posted by Kyleran

 

Er, who was talking about sandbox vs themepark?  I was talking about virtual worlds vs MMO "games" and a theme park game can certainly be a reasonable approximation of a virtual world, DAOC was one such title back in the day. (so much so many people argue it was a sandbox instead)

Reading further, maybe you meant to reply to someone else's post?

 

And so you were.

I was just lazy to type virtual worlds and typed sandbox instead ... sorry.

I dont see your point though.

Virtual worlds vs MMO games ? What MMO games ? There is a broad spectrum.

And Virtual worlds , its also very open term.

 

Let me give you perfect example of how Virtual world can be themepark aswell (and should be) the example is pretty recent and maybe some of you dont know it.

The game is Star Citizen

Galaxy in the game is attacked by enemy faction. Game revolves around player starting as a cadet pilot and progressing trough the story trough battle missions.

BUT

If player so chooses , he never needs to enroll into the army. He can just go on living his life in the galaxy. Trading , pirating , exploring. Maybe even aiding enemy factions , or military as mercenary.

...

In short you have living world that reacts to "themepark" campaign. Changes according to it. But you dont need to participate at all. Instead you can just do your thing.

 

 

 

Originally posted by Lobotomist

 

And so you were.

I was just lazy to type virtual worlds and typed sandbox instead ... sorry.

I dont see your point though.

Virtual worlds vs MMO games ? What MMO games ? There is a broad spectrum.

And Virtual worlds , its also very open term.

 

Let me give you perfect example of how Virtual world can be themepark aswell (and should be) the example is pretty recent and maybe some of you dont know it.

The game is Star Citizen

Galaxy in the game is attacked by enemy faction. Game revolves around player starting as a cadet pilot and progressing trough the story trough battle missions.

BUT

If player so chooses , he never needs to enroll into the army. He can just go on living his life in the galaxy. Trading , pirating , exploring. Maybe even aiding enemy factions , or military as mercenary.

...

In short you have living world that reacts to "themepark" campaign. Changes according to it. But you dont need to participate at all. Instead you can just do your thing.

The promotional video said very little about gameplay - the game itself. All the blabber was about graphics, world and "feel". "The game" is more than just a themepark campaign.

Originally posted by Quirhid
Any of those actually worth following?

 

*** WHOOOOSH ***

I just had a look at Star Citizen, looks promosing, but it does raise a dilemma for me. As someone on here who keeps saying do not preorder what to say about Kickstart games? I think if your heart is in the project then ante up, for me I will wait for the reviews but as usual have no issues with parting with cash and a sub if I like what I see.

Originally posted by Wizardry

It most certainly is what we want,however i beleive devs know it as well,but they are not about to put in the effort.

Recent game designs i have seen look really pathetic,it is like the devs/board get together and try to figure out the cheapest way to make a game stick and turn the largest profit possible.

To begin with a WORLD involves what i have been asking for awhile,versatile NPC's NOT these 3 possible choice questions with some minimal change/motive depending on your choice,that is too cheap/fabricated and eventually predictable.

I also have been asking for an ECO system for a very long time.

problems arise however,vast amounts of complex AI equals way too many memory resources.

I beleive there is a possible answer,IF we believe what marketing has been telling us.They CLAIM that the Physx engines/code can help speed up graphics and lower the load.if true then it opens up more room to give us better Ai.

this would allow more NPC's to roam and an ECO system.What i am afraid of is it stil lwould mean LESS of.Examplke less objects,less effects/animations,less people per zone/server and more use of those VIRTUAL/instance servers we have seen,that i do not like.

PhysX is also suppose to allow for destructive surfaces and realistic surfaces to happen without that huge resource draw.That means realistic leather/metal/effects.

It all comes down to TIME spent on game development and SYSTEMS and IF they are willing to spend on licenses to attain use  of code liek the PhysX engine.

Trends have shown us the devs are NOT willing to go that extra effort,they instead want to keep on churning out CHEAP linear questing with a hint of some SMALL really meaningless end game raiding or PVP.NEITHER are really important to a realsitic RPG atmosphere,so in reality developers are NOTG making very good Role Playing games.They are simply giving us what they have seen sells the best,so profit over quality.

It will take someone who has vision and walks the walk - not mutters about vision and merely talks the talk.

The likely outcome of what you refer to as an ecosystem world - with all of the elements of other games in one place - would be greater than the sum of it's parts and thus attract a huge following.

People make a great deal of the 10+ million subs WoW had at it's height, and how this is 'not acheivable again'. Blizzard put out a large game which was attractive enough for people to try it and broke enough new ground and offered enough new material to retain that interest and grow.

But then it was easier breaking new ground back in the day - there were far fewer examples of MMOs for gamers to compare and contrast. So I suppose understandably there are many who attribute it's success to timing and with overly-simplistic 'logic' predict there cannot be 'another WoW' becuase those conditions will never occur again.

But such 'seers' miss the point.

A new world-beating MMO will indeed not have these advantageous conditions handed to it on a plate within the current paradigm, it will not have new ground to break or a lack of competition - hence the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the death of the MMO genre etc. etc.

This is however crapola.

When a paradigm (simply put - a current widely accepted and practiced way of doing something) has been flogged to death - as the MMO genre is currently experiencing, then advantage and success within it is hard to find.

You need to create a new paradigm - one which lays the very 'new ground' and creates the new opportunities which it can then exploit first.

This requires innovative thinking 'outside of the box' and periodically happens win all human endevours regardless of the legions of short sighted proles who predict it cannot.

This is what will happen eventually in this genre, and the first game to do it will be a WoW-style runaway success.

For every rare person who dreamed man could fly, there were countless fools who thought it wasn't possible. It is thus with this rather less noble endevour. But fly we will - and when we get a paradigm breaking thinker(s), the technology is there or almost there to provide the tools to do so.

The only question is - how long to we have to wait for the 'Wright Brothers'...

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Lobotomist

 

And so you were.

I was just lazy to type virtual worlds and typed sandbox instead ... sorry.

I dont see your point though.

Virtual worlds vs MMO games ? What MMO games ? There is a broad spectrum.

And Virtual worlds , its also very open term.

 

Let me give you perfect example of how Virtual world can be themepark aswell (and should be) the example is pretty recent and maybe some of you dont know it.

The game is Star Citizen

Galaxy in the game is attacked by enemy faction. Game revolves around player starting as a cadet pilot and progressing trough the story trough battle missions.

BUT

If player so chooses , he never needs to enroll into the army. He can just go on living his life in the galaxy. Trading , pirating , exploring. Maybe even aiding enemy factions , or military as mercenary.

...

In short you have living world that reacts to "themepark" campaign. Changes according to it. But you dont need to participate at all. Instead you can just do your thing.

The promotional video said very little about gameplay - the game itself. All the blabber was about graphics, world and "feel". "The game" is more than just a themepark campaign.

I dont know how the final game will be like.

I am just using theoretical gameplay design he mentioned as an example of virtual world + themepark symbiosis

Originally posted by Kenze

sandboxers should be able to ignore themparkish aspects they dont like and play a game, if they chose to do so.... but themeparkers cant "make believe" themepark elements in to a game.

Wanting a sandbox isn't merely a case of "ignoring themeparkish elements"; there needs to be development work to allow the players the mechanisms to actually interact with each other. This gets handwaved away a lot because "everyone knows" that its themepark content that needs all the developing. But implementing and refining tools for players to interact with each other is just as big a job. Just ask CCP!

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Originally posted by Quirhid

 

The promotional video said very little about gameplay - the game itself. All the blabber was about graphics, world and "feel". "The game" is more than just a themepark campaign.

I dont know how the final game will be like.

I am just using theoretical gameplay design he mentioned as an example of virtual world + themepark symbiosis

Bah, I will remain sceptical until I see actual gameplay. The fact that he talked about almost anything but is not very encouraging. It is understandable to put your best side forward afterall.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Originally posted by Kyleran

 

Er, who was talking about sandbox vs themepark?  I was talking about virtual worlds vs MMO "games" and a theme park game can certainly be a reasonable approximation of a virtual world, DAOC was one such title back in the day. (so much so many people argue it was a sandbox instead)

Reading further, maybe you meant to reply to someone else's post?

 

And so you were.

I was just lazy to type virtual worlds and typed sandbox instead ... sorry.

I dont see your point though.

Virtual worlds vs MMO games ? What MMO games ? There is a broad spectrum.

And Virtual worlds , its also very open term.

 

Let me give you perfect example of how Virtual world can be themepark aswell (and should be) the example is pretty recent and maybe some of you dont know it.

The game is Star Citizen

Galaxy in the game is attacked by enemy faction. Game revolves around player starting as a cadet pilot and progressing trough the story trough battle missions.

BUT

If player so chooses , he never needs to enroll into the army. He can just go on living his life in the galaxy. Trading , pirating , exploring. Maybe even aiding enemy factions , or military as mercenary.

...

In short you have living world that reacts to "themepark" campaign. Changes according to it. But you dont need to participate at all. Instead you can just do your thing.

 

 

 

 

I think we lost our point a few posts back because we appear to be in agreement that a themepark style MMO can be more of a virtual world with me providing an older example of one and you offering up one currently in development. As to why and how I differentiate between virtual worlds and MMO games that would be it's own thread, but the short version is all based on game mechanics that simulate more realism and encourage the player to stay in and interact with others in the game world.