Theme Park vs Sandbox, What Do The Players Think?

[Huaracocha]

I disagree about WoW and TOR. TOR is 'more sandy' than WoW. I explore every nook and cranny of the planets, or as much as possible. The different areas, the way the mobs are laid out, the champion and elite mobs. There are many reasons to explore and spend time in/on the different TOR planets/environments. I never got that with WoW.

 

The fact that there are also different leveling paths in TOR means that it is 'more sandy' than at least vanilla WoW was.

 

I guess this comes down to a matter of opinion really.

 

To me when comparing the 'sandiness' of vanilla WoW to SWTOR I see;

 

More options for how to level in vanilla WoW - you could level 2 or 3 chars without repeating the same quests.

 

A feel of a bigger world more open to exploration - wandering the land it seemed more open than the planets on SWTOR to me.

 

Little, seemingly irrelevant things like being able to fish (I think that was in vanilla?), being able to swim underwater, flying over the land on flight paths, being able to sit on chairs, lie down on beds and such that add to immersion.

 

The increased relevance and difficulty / player involvement of crafting in vanilla WoW. By no means a great crafting system, but somewhat more tempting.

 

Finding rare and unusual spawns that could be tamed as a hunter perhaps or ganked as another class. To me the mobs here seem a little more static and less unpredictable.

 

 

As I say though, it's only opinion and I'm quite happy to agree to disagree on this I'm sure we can all agree that both are fairly theme-parky type games.

[gurugeorge]

Well the thing is the very first MMO I ever played, Ultima Online, was/is skill based and because of that you never had to reroll all you had to do was set skills to go down and new ones to go up and you could completely change your skills making you a new character type to play.

 

So you gain max skill and suddenly something in the game be it some dynamic event or what ever, but the skills you currently have will not be good to oppose this new threat. In any other game you would then need to reroll to a new class that is more suited to this new threat. In a skill based game all you do is start to change your skill set.

 

This very thing happened to me in UO. One day this strange man showed up at my guilds village and he threatened us saying that he was coming and if we were with him we would survive his "coming" however if we were against him we would surely all perish. Then for several weeks after that he unleashed hordes of undead upon our village and many others in the game world.

 

At the time I was skilled to chop wood and craft bows, which could earn you a very decent living in the game. I changed my skill set completely to become more of a warrior and in a month or so I was taking part in the war against this new stranger...

 

It turned out that this stranger was actually a Seer in the game and his story, which started in my guild's village, took the server population over a year of real time to complete and kill the man and his followers...

 

Seer's in UO were regular players that had volunteered to the developer to develop dynamic fiction, which when approved would then be implemented on their server.

 

This post makes me sad. There are so many possible ideas to explore with virtual worlds and MMOs, but sadly the majority of people just don't seem to be interested enough in virtual worlds, so the big money goes to themeparks - fun, but short-lived fun.

[Lord_Nova]

You are right. But f.e. i never played sandbox (i was a strong Wow and themepark player). I heard about'em here and ofc all the ppl is saayn 10000000000000 diff things (dependin by mood, experiences, interests) and im a little dazed and confused..

I just wanna give a shot to understand what can it be.

I was so bored about TOR that i reinstalled Diablo 2....

 

 

Don't get me wrong, EVE is a very good game. Besides Minecraft it is the closest thing to sandbox there is out there currently. If you want to try it out I would recommend getting involved in the Something Awful or Reddit communities and try to enter the game under their guidance. That way you wont get taken advantage of and have a bad experience. You will have people to show you the ropes and watch your back.

[Lord_Nova]

Well the thing is the very first MMO I ever played, Ultima Online, was/is skill based and because of that you never had to reroll all you had to do was set skills to go down and new ones to go up and you could completely change your skills making you a new character type to play.

 

So you gain max skill and suddenly something in the game be it some dynamic event or what ever, but the skills you currently have will not be good to oppose this new threat. In any other game you would then need to reroll to a new class that is more suited to this new threat. In a skill based game all you do is start to change your skill set.

 

This very thing happened to me in UO. One day this strange man showed up at my guilds village and he threatened us saying that he was coming and if we were with him we would survive his "coming" however if we were against him we would surely all perish. Then for several weeks after that he unleashed hordes of undead upon our village and many others in the game world.

 

At the time I was skilled to chop wood and craft bows, which could earn you a very decent living in the game. I changed my skill set completely to become more of a warrior and in a month or so I was taking part in the war against this new stranger...

 

It turned out that this stranger was actually a Seer in the game and his story, which started in my guild's village, took the server population over a year of real time to complete and kill the man and his followers...

 

Seer's in UO were regular players that had volunteered to the developer to develop dynamic fiction, which when approved would then be implemented on their server.

 

Reading this makes me regret not playing UO. That is awesome. And like an obove poster said, this will never happen again in an MMO. UO was definitely ahead of its time.

[Goretzu]

Well the thing is the very first MMO I ever played, Ultima Online, was/is skill based and because of that you never had to reroll all you had to do was set skills to go down and new ones to go up and you could completely change your skills making you a new character type to play.

 

So you gain max skill and suddenly something in the game be it some dynamic event or what ever, but the skills you currently have will not be good to oppose this new threat. In any other game you would then need to reroll to a new class that is more suited to this new threat. In a skill based game all you do is start to change your skill set.

 

This very thing happened to me in UO. One day this strange man showed up at my guilds village and he threatened us saying that he was coming and if we were with him we would survive his "coming" however if we were against him we would surely all perish. Then for several weeks after that he unleashed hordes of undead upon our village and many others in the game world.

 

At the time I was skilled to chop wood and craft bows, which could earn you a very decent living in the game. I changed my skill set completely to become more of a warrior and in a month or so I was taking part in the war against this new stranger...

 

It turned out that this stranger was actually a Seer in the game and his story, which started in my guild's village, took the server population over a year of real time to complete and kill the man and his followers...

 

Seer's in UO were regular players that had volunteered to the developer to develop dynamic fiction, which when approved would then be implemented on their server.

 

I always though that was a good way to add "content", EQ had some similar things initally (a bit more restrictied) as well as the guide program.

 

That was until the RL lawsuits killed the whole concept for everyone it seems.

 

 

 

On a more general note, it's pointless trying to categorise any MMO as sandbox vs theme park since most (all?) have at least some elements of both. It would be far more useful I think to consider them as 'sandier' or 'less sandy'.

 

EVE is extremely sandy, so was SWG. WoW much less, SWTOR - imo at least - even less so still.

 

There are in fact genuine MMO games (i.e. not Second Life or Minecraft) which meet the sandiest of sandy criteria such as those mentioned above of modifying terrain, custom building designs placed in the game world etc. They're just too 'small' to be on most people's radar!

 

 

That's a pretty good way to think of and describe things.

 

SWTOR could definately stand to be "sandier", the ways of doing that are many fold (potentially).

[Knockerz]

I would have have to say a theme park with elements of sandbox or limited areas where it it can be apply. The reason I favor theme park over sandbox is that in a sandbox like swg the vast majority of the world is devoid of activity. When I was leveling in swg I hardly saw any other players especially by the time I got to dantooine. Literally, I didn't see another player for hours or even days. Thus, if a sandbox area exist in game there should be reason for having that area be a sandbox, have content, and not just created to take up space.

 

Just making a sandbox area without a justifiable reason for having it doesn't make sense and just takes up space in the world that won't really get used. That's the way I see sandbox games, especially swg. The only advantage was for harvesting resources, but if that was the only case, then swg should have been called star wars crafting or swc instead of star war galaxies, because there was no reason to go outside cities other to farm for resources, which is why most of world of swg was devoid of player activity.

Edited February 17, 2012 by Knockerz

[rgolch]

I don't think we as gamers have seen a "superb" modern sandbox game as of yet. Eve has many great elements, but so many aspects of the game are too slow paced and boring. And Eve PvE is lame. I'm all for a more open world, and less linearity. But I also want great content that I can easily access and complete in short play sessions. And there has to be a good mix of both grouped and solo content, as well as PvP and PvE content.

[Knockerz]

Interesting you should say this. Recently I observed a discussion on another forum about this same topic, and someone brought up the thing about having to grind in EQ because there were no quests. Then someone else said that of course there were quests in EQ, there were tons of quests, that's why it was called "Everquest". It's just that you had to actually explore and talk to NPCs to get them, and many people, not understanding this, or not being bothered to explore, just grinded instead.

 

It's sort of a sad story you tell, and I reckon it's about right. Blizzard were of course extremely clever to do what they did with WoW, make the DIKU MUD experience of EQ more streamlined and easier to get into. Quest markers undoubtedly started the whole rot

 

But there's the thing - undoubtedly the streamlining is part of what made WoW popular.

 

It comes down to this: the percentage of population interesting in the possibility of gaming in a virtual world together who are Explorers is far smaller than the percentage of people who are Achievers, Socializer and Player Killers. It used to be different back when computer games were new, then the whole idea of an artificial virtual world was captivating, and exploring that artificial environment was fun in itself. Nowadays people are more familiar with the concept, more jaded, and Environment (as in PvE) is just less intrinsically interesting than getting into a trance state on a hamster wheel, socializing online while doing some easy gameplay, or ganking other players.

 

I don't think Explorers will come back into their own until there's some sort of quantum leap in AI, whereby the virtual world starts to respond more intelligently to players (more like a GM-led PW in NWN, say).

 

 

I agree with this statement, but we will need some major revolutions in both software and computer hardware before smarter AI become a reality.

[priest]

I'd really like to see more sandbox elements. Don't get me wrong, I love this game. I just miss an open world sandbox.

[Knockerz]

I would much rather a sandbox type of game where instead of levels you have skills you can learn and that way there are no classes just collections of different skill sets.

 

The Secret World, being developed by Funcom looks to be the next game I am excited about...

 

The Secret World

 

That looks interesting.

 

 

MMORPG companies also need to stop making games about orcs, elves, and dwarfs. I'm so tired of every new mmorpg being about sorcery and sword fantasy. I want to see MMORPG with guns, tanks, and airplanes or some futurist setting like starcraft not some Tolkien fantasy setting, which basically limits the game to character vs character in pvp. In any other setting other than fantasy you will have character vs character, vehicles, air support, and possibly space units. That alone makes the game more complicated and I think that is the reason why mmorpg companies have not bulge from the fantasy setting, so that the game can only focus on character vs character settings.

 

Why is it almost every new mmorpg is a sorcery and sword fantasy game? Is it because computer technology doesn't allow proper implementation of modern or futurist warfare and is more complicated to produce? If a MMORPG is made about like the matrix or even swtor there are constrains that must be followed, but with a sorcery and sword based game you can just make it up and justify it, because it's magic. On the other hand, a creating a game like world of starcraft is more complicated because it's not just about individual units like wow, but there are large units like tanks, cruisers, and other heavy units that don't exactly fit in the simplified version of character vs character like in fantasy mmorpg.

 

What I'm hoping is that star was expands to include ground heavy units like imperial walkers or air support units. This is one glaring problems I see with swtor. Where are the heavy vehicles units in pvp? I think that is was one reason why people say world pvp has more potential than either battlegrounds or arena in that potential for large pvp carnage is much higher, but so are the hardware and software requirements.

Edited February 17, 2012 by Knockerz

[Zakua]

It needs a little sandbox for some fun. I enjoy the story and have things to do but I have no real commitment to my tune or the virtual world.

 

I have played Eve for years and still do. I have my burn outs then find my self running back to it and each time i get into something new and nasty. Good times.

 

SWG had some fun elements aswell...along with a boat load of yuck but...

 

Still saddens me ( i have mentioned this many times so sorry ) to see all these planets fataly labeled with lvl 10, lvl 11 to 15, lvl 44..blah blah...Open em up.

 

Sure its no overnight add on and Im not really sure how to go about doing it but after our FUN but linear class grind its Ilum/ Bel/ Fleet, Ilum/ Bel /fleet....

[SnoggyMack]

Theme Park vs Sandbox, What Do The Players Think?

 

1.7 million SWTOR subs and 10 million WoW subs seem to think Theme Park is the way to go.

[Amdarius]

Sandbox! Sandbox!

 

I'm fine with there being some themepark elements, but the game should primarily be sandbox. You can't even make it too much themepark during the levelling up stage or you won't develop the relationships and community that make up the best part of a sandbox. As we saw in SWTOR, when a game allows you to play through a single player story to max level, most players are going to just whip through it.

[Rigota]

Theme Park vs Sandbox, What Do The Players Think?

 

1.7 million SWTOR subs and 10 million WoW subs seem to think Theme Park is the way to go.

 

 

 

swtor is crap. wow was good but is now crap.

 

Name any sandbox mmo that is out now? SWG failed, but the sandbox wasn't the reason why it sucked, it was actually the reason why it lasted.

Edited February 18, 2012 by Rigota

[jontyld]

I've seen the term "sandbox" abused too many times, it ends up being a lazy justification for making dull games when developers come out and say things like " Oh you wanted in game activities, we thought you could make your own fun" (looking at your FF14).

 

its all a perspective thing though, Some people may feel that sandbox games are better, but those are the people that seemed to enjoy MMOs back when they were made for 200-500k people, not today when they're budgeted for well over a million. There are plenty of sandbox and non-"wow clone" games coming out every year, but they're passed on by people who may have liked them because players prefer rushing to the newest big hype game and then complaining its not what they want.

[souloferdrick]

Im not joking here, if they WoWified SWG and added ToR's signature gimmick (voice acting/cutscenes but not as cheaply and badly done) they would be raking in the dough faster than they could reinvest it.

 

I'm passing on a lot of money publicizing this.

 

And yeah, release a game with 2-3 expansions worth of content.

[Bystandard]

I dont understand whats wrong with character customization in a theampark setup.

 

Is it balance?

 

Sure if a player strategically minimizes every aspect of their char they will under-preform the content. Right?

 

Certainty deciding what type of weapon YOUR char can wield will lead to being over powered or under-preformance. RIGHT?

 

Being able to make radical char changes(Lightsaber-blaster) for each "zone" would just ruin the fluidity of play. R I G H T?

 

The content can never be created to be optimized for a certain style of play per zone. AmI-Ri8

[Ansultares]

I dont understand whats wrong with character customization in a theampark setup.

It might confuse casuals.

[Enosh_]

More options for how to level in vanilla WoW - you could level 2 or 3 chars without repeating the same quests.

what a load of ********

in vanilla wow there weren't enough quest to get you from 1-60 only through quest, from around level 55 on you had to grind the last half to 3/4 of the level since you didn't have any quest to do

so where the hell are pulling enough quest to level 2 to 3 character without repeating quest from for vanilla wow

 

OT: sandbox MMOs can go to hell and with the exception of EVE they mostly did

[Stevoli]

True sandbox MMOs are "Player Driven". They require a thriving community of players willing to sponsor events and keep the economy in check. All gear is crafted, all quests are made up on the spot by the players (Lets go kill <some named mob>), the reward you got was having fun hanging out with your friends.

 

Today's MMO player can't handle any of that, they need to be told what to do and where to go by NPCs. They need instant gratification and shiney loot for completing a quest.

[Amdarius]

 

UO opened strong and was #1 as long as it had no modern competition.

Soon as EQ opened up, its player base bailed on UO over night at a astonding rate forcing UO to make game design changes after the fact. It never regained its prominence again. Oh it lasted for many years as a low income game because its opening box sales covered its budget costs. But its revenues have been in the basement ever since EQ opened up to compete.

 

...

 

LOL at the implication that people left UO for EQ because UO was a sandbox game and EQ was more themepark, completely ignoring that it had almost everything to do with graphical style. If UO had gone 3D first-person perspective like EQ instead of the top down look, UO would probably still be going strong.

 

Here's hoping UO 2 comes out some day (or at least a virtual successor).

[MaGicBush]

is that why every sandbox MMO fails miserably?

 

This, not sure why anyone would rather play a themepark MMO over a good sandbox mmo that fits your style.

[jontyld]

True sandbox MMOs are "Player Driven". They require a thriving community of players willing to sponsor events and keep the economy in check. All gear is crafted, all quests are made up on the spot by the players (Lets go kill <some named mob>), the reward you got was having fun hanging out with your friends.

 

Today's MMO player can't handle any of that, they need to be told what to do and where to go by NPCs. They need instant gratification and shiney loot for completing a quest.

 

I wouldn't say can't handle, I would say does not want to "find their own fun". Some kids you buy a toy and the'll spend hours using their imagination and the box to find their own fun, and some kids prefer to play with the actual toy.

[Amdarius]

Darkfall, SWG, Shadowbane all Sandbox MMOs that failed miserably. So you have one success EVE which even then it's still a niche market.

 

Themepark MMOs are doing really well once they go F2P. But that's more of a comment on the MMO business model and not the games. AoC, DDO, LotrO, EQ2, EQ, DCUO are all doing really well.

 

If you think that AoC, DDO, LotrO and DCUo are examples of themepark MMOs that "are doing really well", how in the world can you say with even a remotely straight face that SWG "failed miserably?"

 

It lasted many years.. it made SOE a good chunk of change, and would've made them much more if they hadn't ruined the game.

 

SWG was way more successful than any of those games.

Edited February 18, 2012 by Amdarius

[kevlarto]

is that why every sandbox MMO fails miserably?

 

I agree, wow is not a sandbox even though I am not fan of wow, it has done well and for that reason, almost every game after that has been a theme park, the masses want to go to Disney world, it seems..