The MMO genre needs to stop looking backwards.

[Malefactor]

 

 

 

SWG wasn't a failure because everyone hated (or hates) sandboxes, SWG was a failure because the design team was terrible at managing the game post-launch, and the CU/CE both tried to transform the game from a sandbox into an EQ clone.

 

And the very reason they changed the game completely around was because it wasn't succeeding as they had hoped. They didn't just decide to change a perfectly good game with a very healthy sub base, they changed it because they were bleeding subs at an alarming rate. Those who loved SWG's original sandbox nature may be fanatical in their devotion to it, there just wasn't enough of them.

 

I could see a hybrid model working at some point though, doesn't make the themepark a bad model , it just doesn't appeal to those who prefer sandbox type games. Good thing there are both types available.

Edited February 7, 2012 by Malefactor

[Skorz]

No MMO has ever beated the experience I had in SWG and now my guild is dead in SWTOR oh well.. think I'm gonna give up with MMO's.

 

If I had the resources, I would make an MMO that would be a mix between a themepark and a sandbox. I wouldn't care if the game made any money or had 10 million players or 100k as long as I and the others had fun in the game.

Edited February 7, 2012 by Skorz

[Chromiie]

1) The trinity system isn't a realistic representation of combat.

 

[Silent-Joker]

Thats why i always compare all MMO's to UO back in the day. There were people who sent time on combat stuff adn rewards and there were people who just manufactures stuff all day long. I still say nothing beats that game by far.

 

I think if you wana fight thats all u do is fight.

If you wana make armor thats what u do is make armor.

 

and with each of these they get their own benefits. To many times in MMO's aka Diablo 2 its a 1 man army game. I roll a smite pally and can tank and dps every epic boss. kinda lame. If i wana build armor sets, mine the minerals etc i should be able to do that and if that was my main day i would be a high lvl smith and be the only one or of a couple people who can make the armor. It brings value to the wold. When everyone can easily get 400 in a craft and make all the epics they want it serves no purpose.

 

UO

[fujeo-finel]

Ummm. You missed the point. MMORPG's have now just become MMO's. There is little to know RPG, my character has ZERO impact on the world. The most impact my toon can have is dominating a rare good on the GTN or setting the price for one by flooding the market.

 

Nothing else my toon does has any impact or consequence on the world. This is the problem.

 

You decide your own level of involvement.

 

I agree with the OP. It would take megabucks to pull it off with today's expectations and the pseudo sandbox games that have come out and failed has mostly been due to poor advertising and marketting.

 

Sadly I never played SWG and having heard about the first 6 or so months I really wish I had. Sad thing is with such sparsely populated servers, SWTOR could probably have included something like this, it might might it worthwhile to play on an empty dead planet. Then again I can see what it would be hard creating an engine that can handle 1.7 million+ players and pull it off successfully.

 

In terms of the 'holy trinity' of classes, it is old and stale and to be honest bores me most of the time. With todays engines a lot more could be done with movement and playstyle than currently is. Playing an IA with the cover mechanic was great, I felt like I could use terrain to my advantage. I also like the idea of an mmo where I need to use stealth/tactics to complete missions, not just mindlessly cut a bloody path through mindless mobs to achieve my objective. A bit more tactics, maybe knocking people out, stealthing past, jumping on boxes and crawling through airvents etc to get things done.

 

Combat no longer means anything, to be honest I would rather have 10% of the current saturated combat grind but make each fight longer and harder. Make recovery a bit slower so I have to decide when to engage in killing rather than cut my way through everything.

 

Still complaining MMO's are MMO's.

[TonyIommi]

Nonsense. The allure of Minecraft is collaborative creative multiplayer, not its $15 price tag. But as I said earlier, I do think $60 upfront followed by $15/month after is a subscription model which will not last forever. Increasingly we see games going F2P w/ microtransactions, and these are games that go from struggling to get players through the door, to bustling and thriving.

 

This thread was supposed to focus on gameplay elements, not subscription models.

 

Nonsense. The allure of minecraft is 3 fold and has very little to do with "sandbox" in any sense of the word.

 

1) It's cheap

2) It runs on an Amiga 64

3) It's fun

 

It's the exact same appeal as LoL. Gamers by and large do not care about the distinction between "sandbox" and not. They play what they consider fun and accessible.

[Malefactor]

Still complaining MMO's are MMO's.

 

I think it's more a case of people buying an apple, knowing all along it was an apple, yet complaining that it isn't an orange because they personally prefer oranges.

[RocNessMonster]

Nobody has made a serious attempt to make a grade-A western sandbox MMO since SWG, a game which would arguably still be around today in some capacity if SOE hadn't repeatedly screwed the pooch.

 

SWG was designed in the days of low-budget MMOs. I have yet to see even a $20 million dollar sandbox or hybrid, let alone a $100 million one.

 

SWG was a monetary failure. Get over it, no one is interested in barren wasteland planets with no content in it.

[Zangaboing]

Dont need to read your post really, the title say it all - and i couldn't agree more.

 

edit:

 

Bored so im going to read it anyway though

Edited February 7, 2012 by Zangaboing

[AJediKnight]

I think it's more a case of people buying an apple, knowing all along it was an apple, yet complaining that it isn't an orange because they personally prefer oranges.

 

When there are no oranges for sale, people wish very hard that an apple was an orange, even if they know it isn't.

 

I knew what TOR was going to be ever since they announced it would be trinity-based years ago. I obviously bought the game knowing what I was getting into.

 

Now that TOR has failed as a WoW killer, and might, in fact, be the biggest flop in MMO history, I think it's fair to question where things went wrong. Theme park proponents will crow all night and day that this was just another example of an MMO that 'wasn't polished enough.' But is that really the case?

 

I tend to believe that a lot of people who got into MMOs with WoW are sick and tired of this formula without realizing or knowing that an alternative ever existed. If WoW was your first time at the rodeo, chances are excellent you've never even played a sandbox. It's time for a developer to take a serious shot at one.

 

I mean, is pissing away $100+ million really a sound investment just because the theme park supporters scream and shout that it has to be so? How many AOCs, WARs and, yes, TORs need to fail before a major publisher steers their ship in another direction?

[AJediKnight]

SWG was a monetary failure. Get over it, no one is interested in barren wasteland planets with no content in it.

 

You're right, that's definitely what every sandbox has to be, let alone hybrids.

[PorkinsSauce]

SWG is getting tossed around here so I would like to comment on that a little. I played SWG from launch and at all stages of change it went through.

 

My first point is about the "pre cu" It was a true sandbox game. It had massive issues, and some of them where game breaking. The biggest issue was just general balancing of "classes" Hybrid classes were the name of the game in pre cu swg. There were hybrids you could create that were so overpowered they could take on mobs of players or the hardest level mobs in game. It was not fair.

 

Griefing was rampant in the game. People were griefed so hard that I witnessed on several occasions players camped for hours until they would logout. I saw crafters griefed so hard that SOE had to implement immediate hotfixes to stop the griefers.

 

There were so many hybrid options the devs had no ability to balance anything. The sandbox pre cu world was great for some. Many people used their creativity and did really awesome things to contribute to the open world. But the world was lawless, and lacked rules so of course the roving packs of griefers bullied people around, and ruined the great experiences of many others. The Devs had so little control of the world they felt compelled to change the whole thing. We all know how that ended.

 

Its the old adage one bad apple spoils the bunch. If we removed laws in our society good people would mostly remain good even without law. It's the other people, the "bad apples" so to speak that we have to create rules and laws for. Mostly to protect ourselves. Sandbox games are great...in theory. The biggest problem with them are the players themselves. Fix the exploitative, psychopath, thieving, griefers also known as teenagers (joking kind of...) and I am sure sandbox games would be awesome.

 

Ohh and btw if you can do all that give me your name. I want you to be President.

[fujeo-finel]

Now that TOR has failed as a WoW killer, and might, in fact, be the biggest flop in MMO history, I think it's fair to question where things went wrong. Theme park proponents will crow all night and day that this was just another example of an MMO that 'wasn't polished enough.' But is that really the case?

 

Just because you say it's a flop, doesn't mean it is.

[Darka]

We got caught up in the belief that if you werent raiding, pvping or crafting your not doing anything at all. The misconception that you cant have fun if your just sitting around doing other things

The social aspect often gets ignored, but is highly underrated. That and attachment. Its great to have things like a ship, but its not a house or a home, its a bus i ride between missions.

[Malefactor]

When there are no oranges for sale, people wish very hard that an apple was an orange, even if they know it isn't.

 

I knew what TOR was going to be ever since they announced it would be trinity-based years ago. I obviously bought the game knowing what I was getting into.

 

Now that TOR has failed as a WoW killer, and might, in fact, be the biggest flop in MMO history, I think it's fair to question where things went wrong. Theme park proponents will crow all night and day that this was just another example of an MMO that 'wasn't polished enough.' But is that really the case?

 

I tend to believe that a lot of people who got into MMOs with WoW are sick and tired of this formula without realizing or knowing that an alternative ever existed. If WoW was your first time at the rodeo, chances are excellent you've never even played a sandbox. It's time for a developer to take a serious shot at one.

 

I mean, is pissing away $100+ million really a sound investment just because the theme park supporters scream and shout that it has to be so? How many AOCs, WARs and, yes, TORs need to fail before a major publisher steers their ship in another direction?

 

Wait, are you trying to say that TOR has somehow failed? Did anyone really expect it to "kill" WoW, especially within the first 2 months of launch? That launch being limited to certain regions? With little to no marketing? (at least the marketing that you'd normally expect for a holiday launch, for an IP this big) I don't know how you count success, but an ~85% retention rate after the first month is exceptionally good, about as far from a flop as you can get. With plans to expand into Aus/NZ very soon, and further plans to enter the Asian market I'd hold off on the predictions of doom.

 

And no, WoW was far from my first MMO, I've been playing them for over 15 years in fact. I just prefer themeparks.

Edited February 7, 2012 by Malefactor

[souloferdrick]

The biggest detriment to MMO's are the players themselves and those who would turn a profit at the players expense.

[Uben]

SWG is getting tossed around here so I would like to comment on that a little. I played SWG from launch and at all stages of change it went through.

 

My first point is about the "pre cu" It was a true sandbox game. It had massive issues, and some of them where game breaking. The biggest issue was just general balancing of "classes" Hybrid classes were the name of the game in pre cu swg. There were hybrids you could create that were so overpowered they could take on mobs of players or the hardest level mobs in game. It was not fair.

 

Griefing was rampant in the game. People were griefed so hard that I witnessed on several occasions players camped for hours until they would logout. I saw crafters griefed so hard that SOE had to implement immediate hotfixes to stop the griefers.

 

There were so many hybrid options the devs had no ability to balance anything. The sandbox pre cu world was great for some. Many people used their creativity and did really awesome things to contribute to the open world. But the world was lawless, and lacked rules so of course the roving packs of griefers bullied people around, and ruined the great experiences of many others. The Devs had so little control of the world they felt compelled to change the whole thing. We all know how that ended.

 

Its the old adage one bad apple spoils the bunch. If we removed laws in our society good people would mostly remain good even without law. It's the other people, the "bad apples" so to speak that we have to create rules and laws for. Mostly to protect ourselves. Sandbox games are great...in theory. The biggest problem with them are the players themselves. Fix the exploitative, psychopath, thieving, griefers also known as teenagers (joking kind of...) and I am sure sandbox games would be awesome.

 

Ohh and btw if you can do all that give me your name. I want you to be President.

 

What are you talking about?

 

-Describe the ways people used to grief others. I am asking for specifics here. it cannot be pvp, since it was a flag system. So what do you mean that crafters and people were camped and griefed?

[Tullaian]

The issue isn't sandbox versus theme park at all. Both modes are viable and MMOs of both genres exist today and people have quoted quite a few of them so far.

 

The issue is more fundamental, MMO devs need to come up with a new game/rules system. The reason these games are becoming increasingly stale is that everyone is stuck on the idea of the tank/heal/cc trinity and EQ1 gameplay model. Regardless of how you dress up the skill names and classes the sad fact is that SWTOR is just EQ1 with a cosmetic pack.

 

Prior to EQ1 you had UO which didn't have the trinty at all. So when EQ1 did it, it was genuinely new gameplay not to mention being the first 3D MMO as well , so EQ1 was new across so many fronts. (*to be fair a large portion of EQ1 was lifted from Diku MUD but being a text based MUD its audience was so tiny that hardly anyone realised how derivitive EQ1 was).

 

WOW was EQ1 with major polish , aimed at replicating EQ1 gameplay but made accessible to the mass market who didn't have 10+ hours a day that were required to be succsesful in the non-instanced world of EQ1. Past that other than a few exceptions like Eve and Guild Wars , both different in their own ways pretty much every other MMO has been a cosmetic overlay over WOW.

 

Players go from playing EQ1 for say 5000 hours to WOW for 3000 hours to MMOA for 2000 hours to MMOB for 1000 hours to MMOC for 500 hours to MMOD for 200 hours because they ever more quickly find out that it is the same freaking game and we are all bored to tears with it.

 

Nobody will ever get to the numbers that WOW got to by re-releasing WOW with new graphics regardless of how good the underlying theme park may be. People will come and play and dabble but they won't stay for years .. .because they've already done that. If you look at real theme parks like Disneyland they are constantly adding NEW rides, NEW experiences, not just changing the paint on the old ride and asking you to ride it again.

 

If you go back to AD&D there was no trinty, healers in fact wore heavy armour and were almost as capable as warriors of taking on enemies. The focus was on the adventure, not the loot (another problem of current MMO development, ffs this addiction with sets and tiers is killing everyone).

 

The reason why games like Eve continue to thrive is not just its true open market economy but the hugely complex combat structure they built around the various ship classes and skills and a really different way of doing combat. Unlike SWTOR or any WOW derivitive I can even in NPC combat in Eve be tasked with genuinely hard content coupled with the potential real loss of ship and equipment .. Eve combat has an edge even when not pvping that most MMOs don't come close to.

 

We are sick of the old rides, we want a new ride and we want it now !

[RODRIGJ]

Bleh,

 

Feel sorry for the OP : you're not playing the good game, and your opinion about mmo is not mine...

 

SWTOR is a mmoRPG : look closely at the caps...

 

And I like that my dps is not a tank or a healer...

 

I like diversity : if you like doing all by yourself, wait for D3, or any other massive action game...

 

I lile story, I like have the feeling to influence it too : like in a pen and paper rpg.

 

I really don't care about sandbox : as a previous poster said it, it becomes really quick a pool of the worst expressions of humanity you can find.

 

And I don't like pvp at all : insults, stress, grieving verbally others players, just because you can do it with little impact...

 

Your game is not mine : that's diversity...

 

Live with it.

 

JPR out!

[SnoggyMack]

I'd have to agree with OP's basic premise. If Minecraft's surprising rampant success doesn't tell the AAA dinosaurs something about how they're doing business, well, they just aren't paying attention.

 

There's a whole horde of people (to the tune of millions) interested in online multiplayer consisting of minimal or no combat.

 

What about Farmville's rampant success? Should that also be telling the devs something?

[laural]

OP, I'm right there with you.

 

I would love a game where I didn't have to spend 95% of it fighting my way through the world, whether for quests or to get to something I want (harvesting, collecting something whatever that may be depending on the game). A world that looks like an MMO world and has people running around yet has so much other stuff to do in it. Building stuff, owning a property/store, crafting (good crafting) would just make me one happy lady. I came on the MMO scene only 5 years ago and missed many of the MMOs people talk fondly about. In that 5 years, I seem to have burned out on them already.

 

As it stands now with MMOs, the excitement to log on seems to be waning for me regardless of which one it is. If I'm leveling, I know I pretty much am going to have to pick up on the quests I left off on last time I logged out. The same boring old quests that keep popping up in many MMOs, just with different wording and different mobs to kill. I have yet to play one where the crafting got me excited and was worth spending much time on. I've only reached level cap in 2 games, which is basically end of road for me since I don't do dungeons (not even leveling up) and refuse to gear grind (snore) or even do dailies (snore). I don't PVP.

 

If there was a game that allowed me the freedom to just "live" in the world, do stuff besides 100s of quests, build stuff, craft great stuff, own property, a game with good graphics, and character customization, well...sigh. It's a dream that will likely never happen. Not to say there shouldn't be stuff to kill. I wouldn't mind that since it would allow for looting/skinning/whatever, but the forced nonstop mob fighting to get anywhere in the game is getting old.

 

I really like the idea that someone above mentioned with the Wiki page so that maybe we can really get an idea if there is a big enough population to support something like this. The problem there is that I don't know how many people would even know such a thing exists. I wonder if people looking for that type of thing are more of the casual variety (like me), have families and/or limited time, who don't keep up with every gaming website or keep up with gaming news, thus missing out on it. Good thought though.

Edited February 7, 2012 by laural

[TonyIommi]

What about Farmville's rampant success? Should that also be telling the devs something?

 

or LoL for that matter,

[fujeo-finel]

Christ, if you don't enjoy the game, find another game to play. Wake up people!

[Tullaian]

If there was a game that allowed me the freedom to just "live" in the world, do stuff besides 100s of quests, build stuff, craft great stuff, own property, a game with good graphics, and character customization, well...sigh. It's a dream that will likely never happen. Not to say there shouldn't be stuff to kill. I wouldn't mind that since it would allow for looting/skinning/whatever, but the forced nonstop mob fighting to get anywhere in the game is getting old.

 

Eve Online.

 

The reason why most people struggle with Eve though is also its strength. You log in and there it is a living breathing single world (every player in the game plays on a single server) in a giant (really , it takes hours and hours of real time to cross the galaxy) area. The entire economy is player run, nearly every item (other than starting gear) exists because someone else made it, hauled it and put it up for sale. Outside of the secure space starting area territory is controlled by players, manufacturing , research is all controlled by players. It has easily the best crafting system in any game because it has a real economy... there is demand for nearly everything and the supply chain is so long that it is very hard to be self-sufficient.

 

The downside to that is that one person means very little. When you are holding an area of space and need to defend it 24x7 you end up with guilds/alliances with thousands of people in them , the shifting politics of thousands of real humans trying to interact with them becomes a plus for some and a huge turn off for others. Imagine logging on to say SWTOR and finding out overnight that a huge Russian guild had taken over Tattoine and that nobody else was allowed to go play there anymore.

 

Most people want direction hence the theme park popularity and they also want to be able to largely replicate single player gaming online. They want to be able to play when they want , do what they want and progress when they want. They don't really want to be beholden or reliant on other humans if they can help it and they don't want their corner of the sandbox taken over by bullies.

 

That's the problem for devs, people say they want all this freedom but player behaviour shows that the mass market really is terribly afraid of actual freedom and doesn't really enjoy it anywhere near as much as they claim.

[MrTijger]

We got caught up in the belief that if you werent raiding, pvping or crafting your not doing anything at all. The misconception that you cant have fun if your just sitting around doing other things

The social aspect often gets ignored, but is highly underrated. That and attachment. Its great to have things like a ship, but its not a house or a home, its a bus i ride between missions.

 

So, what social things do you do in that house on your own? How is that house different from your starship? Also, in games that do have housing, in my experience, the average player visits his house on occasion to dump stuff but they hardly social gatherings either.

 

Also, the social thing isnt something that a dev can just magic into the game, thats up to the players and if they dont do it then nobody will.