Theme Park vs Sandbox, What Do The Players Think?

[sheisty]

Although I would love a AA Sandbox MMO, I think it would fail simply due to the fact that todays ADD player base has neither the foresight or imagination to make a sandbox MMO work. Todays gamers need their hands held at all aspects of the game.

 

And complain about travel times. But yet want a bigger world (boggle)

 

Having to fight mobs on the way to quest objectives (wat?)

 

Etc...

[jd_now]

Maybe in the long run, the Dev's will have a desire for SWtoR to be a sandpark - I mean this game is so very young. I only say that due to the Dev posts recently: Guild ships, player housing, extended space environment, and changes to the crafting.

 

Currently it's a themepark, but if the Devs can modify the meta game, add even more complexity and interest to the crafting, reinvent the space world, introduce more player driven elements, this game can redefine what is currently out there.

 

But that's asking a lot.

 

I prefer a sandbox, but think there's little chance of it happening with SWTOR.

 

The devs painted themselves into a corner in making the game so linear and story driven. There's certainly a lot of fun in that, but it would take a complete change in philosophy to make SWTOR a sandbox - they would have to abandon the overarching storylines, revamp the ability mechanics, and give the players the freedom to do what they wish (which means creating far more content and processes then currently exist).

 

I just don't see it happening.

[Halinalle]

If you played Eve without dying you played it completely wrong.

 

EVE is sandbox. You can't force them to play the game your way. "Pro PVP" (translates to hot dropping 50 super capitals or can baiting newbs in newb systems) is only one part of the game.

 

If you run into me in .6 and below you will most likely lose your ship.

 

You would actually primary a Damnation?

 

I prefer sandboxes, but I still like this game. Best game for me would be sandbox with theme park elements. Yeah, I know that's not going to happen, ever.

[BLACKKETYL]

I'm not really one for Sandbox but besides EVE and Perptuum or whatever........I've played them both, is there another that's current and you know, decent?

 

I played Mortal Online recently and holy moly that game sucks.

[Goretzu]

It's not feasible to have both as essentially you'd need to create two games in one, which no company is willing to do. Themepark and Freeform are like polar opposites, you either do one or the other, you can't have both. You either hold the players hand along a path of progression, or you let them loose in the world and they make their own way.

 

If I had a choice, I'd pick the sandbox/freeform setting. I liked swg because you could choose your role in the grand scheme of things. As an old school rper, I kinda liked playing the guy who may not be doing barrel rolls in the heat of combat, but he made weapons to support his faction to keep the fight going, running his humble shop on Corellia. I understand though that these days, such gameplay isn't very popular, and the themepark/raid/loot dynamic is king, still, I hold a special preference for the sandbox.

 

 

 

I absolutely don't understand that.

 

Why can't you have balanced combat classes AND still have crafting classes in a game?

 

Indeed, why are non-combat classes intrinically sand box?

 

It's not like SWG was without rules or constraints (or EvE for that matter), just a lot less than most, and no real guide structures.

 

 

 

Seemingly it's both the Developers and the player lacking imagination these days, which I guess does doom everyone to endless WoW clones, all grow less and less successful with each generation of duplication. Sad.

[KiranK]

There's already a true Sand Box MMO. It's called EVE Online and it's small for a reason. Sand box MMOs are very unfriendly and unforgiving to new players. The whole "sand box" theory only really rewards people who've been at the game for a while. This stunts the game's growth, which is why EVE is a relatively small game. I enjoy EVE Online, but the sand box component, along with several other mechanics, make the game closer to a second job than a real video game. I spend entirely too much time dodging scams and farming ISK than I do doing the parts of the game I actually enjoy. Theme park MMOs are more casual and newbie friendly. They're also much more forgiving, meaning you can spend more time playing the parts of the game you like and less time gearing/farming up to get to those parts. Sand boxes have their advantages for sure, but not enough to really inspire any major company into fronting one. Until they cure the non-noob/casual friendly components, sand boxes will always be the underdogs of the MMO world.

[Chromiie]

It is an interesting title, but it's easy to plan. Harder to deliver.

 

Well at least they are trying to develop it and are open about their plans I only wish Bioware was too.

[ptwonline]

I started MMOs with a sandbox game (Asheron's Call) and while I loved that game, I recognize that it has limited appeal.

 

My expectations of what an MMO can provide have also changed over the years, and I doubt I would find such an overly-grindy, relatively content-free game very appealing anymore.

 

Surely there is a middle ground though between themepark and sandbox.

[Cavadus]

It's called EVE Online and it's small for a reason.

 

EVE Online is small? Until TOR it was the second largest subscription MMO by population in the western world and it has never experienced a year of negative population growth.

 

After things settle down with TOR in six months EVE will once again be the second largest MMO in the western world and TOR will be lucky to hold onto the #3 spot.

Edited February 16, 2012 by Cavadus

[Cerion]

EVE Online is small? Until TOR it was the second largest subscription MMO by population in the western world and it has never experienced a year of negative population growth.

 

After things settle down with TOR in six months EVE will once again be the second largest MMO in the western world and TOR will be lucky to hold onto the #3 spot.

 

That means SWTOR would have less than 300k subs?? No...not it the haters most frenzied ecstasy will SWTOR drop below 300k subs any time soon.

 

 

(that's not even addressing the fact that EVE subs are, on average, dual-box accounts. So with 300k subs, you might have 150k actual players)

[Bystandard]

One thing I remember from SWG that hardly gets mentioned was the pets and bioengineering. We had players riding rancors and actually engineering new stats into them. Players would go out into the desert\forest\plains\ect and gather dna and tissue samples and based off what type of creature and the RNG they would get a material to use in cloning. They then would use a specific set of equipment to "grow" a pet! Train it and use it in combat or even just for the fun of having one that looks kool or as an accessory.

 

Thats not to mention droid engineers! Think about an R2 unit that can be upgraded to fight or craft or buff or wtvr you chose!

 

The main thing with these was there were no set instructions to figure out the best combos. No NPC to tell you what and where to get samples for what creature and no schematics that couldnt be fit into a certain droid build. You either experimented, talked to other players, or looked it up on swgcraft.com. Just like the metals, the creature tissues would shift and had stats and quality further fostering player action and experimentation.

[Cavadus]

That means SWTOR would have less than 300k subs?? No...not it the haters most frenzied ecstasy will SWTOR drop below 300k subs any time soon.

 

 

(that's not even addressing the fact that EVE subs are, on average, dual-box accounts. So with 300k subs, you might have 150k actual players)

 

It was 300k as of 2009. Estimates made for Q4 of 2011 put it somewhere between 400k and 450k.

 

Yes, I do believe that in six months TOR will have less than 450k subs due to their completely unsustainable content model.

[darth_knine]

Sandbox Sandbox Sandbox

 

I never had more fun than playing SWG pre-cu

 

WoW was ok, had fun raiding till I got burnt on gear grind and lack of a dynamic world

 

SWTOR **** this game is the most linear, boring, mmo ever...I hope finally this epic 300M failure gets companies to either take mix of sand box / themepark or when in doubt just sandbox.

 

I do think a themepark for leveling w/sandbox style when at max lvl and of course OPEN WORLDS would be best combo.

[Cerion]

One thing I remember from SWG that hardly gets mentioned was the pets and bioengineering. We had players riding rancors and actually engineering new stats into them. Players would go out into the desert\forest\plains\ect and gather dna and tissue samples and based off what type of creature and the RNG they would get a material to use in cloning. They then would use a specific set of equipment to "grow" a pet! Train it and use it in combat or even just for the fun of having one that looks kool or as an accessory.

 

Thats not to mention droid engineers! Think about an R2 unit that can be upgraded to fight or craft or buff or wtvr you chose!

 

The main thing with these was there were no set instructions to figure out the best combos. No NPC to tell you what and where to get samples for what creature and no schematics that couldnt be fit into a certain droid build. You either experimented, talked to other players, or looked it up on swgcraft.com. Just like the metals, the creature tissues would shift and had stats and quality further fostering player action and experimentation.

 

Yes did all of that...on one character as a matter of fact. I was a Droid Engineer, and it was fun building droids. I remember my shop was lined up with models like some sort of new car sales floor. Different types of R-series droids. Loved my Loader droids too -- big and stupid, haha. Protocol droids, mouse droids, probes...damm, I miss that.

 

But as Jump to Lightspeed approached, I dropped Droid Engineering to become a Master Ship Builder. Did that for a while, until for RP reasons, my character had to 'go underground' because the Empire had discovered my clandestine sales of ships to Rebels (in game terms, I was one of those reviled arbitrage buyers who bought up cheap starships from other players and resold them at a higher price--in the case of Empire ships, much higher--on my vendors. I and others like me were the reason SOE began giving out free starships, lol). So I dropped Master Ship Builder, and became a Master Creature Handler.

 

MCH was a blast until another Empire eliminated my class from the game. During all of this, I maintained maximum number of Harvesters on constant rotation for new metals and chems.

Edited February 16, 2012 by Cerion

[Cerion]

Yes, I do believe that in six months TOR will have less than 450k subs due to their completely unsustainable content model.

 

I guess it's how you define unsustainable. Unsustainable for the rabid hardcore player? Certainly. Unsustainable for the casual player who might get 5 hours of play time a week, maybe gain a level a week, and reach 50lvl by summer? No. Not really unsustainable. More like, right on track.

Edited February 16, 2012 by Cerion

[Halinalle]

I guess it's how you define unsustainable. Unsustainable for the rabid hardcore player? Certainly. Unsustainable for the casual player who might get 5 hours of play time a week, maybe gain a level a week, and reach 50lvl by summer? No. Not really unsustainable. More like, right on track.

 

Problem is when you get one level 50 you don't really want to start new character because you already know all side quests. So it's very boring to do. Why you don't play with your level 50 char, you ask. Simple, no content. And there is no real reason to help others to get to level 50 because leveling content is very singleplayer friendly.

 

I have only one level 50 character and multiple level 20+ characters. I haven't even played this game for a while because doing those same side quests over and over again is boring.

[Surakis]

All player made content.

 

Finding a group is content?

[Space_Gimp]

Finding a group is content?

 

It can be.

[PibbyPib]

The market has spoken clearly, and is speaking at this very moment. Sandbox MMOs do not appeal to the same numbers that themepark games do.

 

I've always preferred sandboxes, myself, but I've just had to accept the fact that I am in the minority.

 

There are plenty of solid sandbox MMOs out there *right now*. But I'll bet you can't name a single one without looking it up, because they didn't have fat development and marketing budgets. They are niche games.

 

By the way, all this talk of SWG always makes me laugh. I *loved* that game at launch, but if you were there you remember the forums and the talk in-game. The tone was overwhelmingly negative. People were angry that they had nothing to do. No one was telling them exactly where to go and what to do and it pissed them off, because most people are not into sandbox games.

 

There's a reason they demolished that little diamond and tried to rebuild it as a WoW clone. It was a niche game sporting a mega IP. Didn't make sense.

Edited February 17, 2012 by PibbyPib

[Nuzt]

The thing that amazes me is how badly they've failed with RvR.

 

They have Mythic Devs, they have had completely control of WAR for 20+ months now, yet the RvR (and PvP) of SWTOR seems to have taken none of that onboard.

 

The WAR mythic devs were craptastic at best, you want the real mythic go look at DAoC (still has a healthy sub rate) IMO find some of the original mythic devs and hand PvP/RvR over to them. It would flourish, the problem with the current mythic devs is they weren't around for the DAoC launch and tried to just create WoW but PvP instead of PvE.

 

Its truly a shame that they learned nothing from the Dev Vets at mythic and what they created.

Edited February 17, 2012 by Nuzt

[PibbyPib]

The WAR mythic devs were craptastic at best, you want the real mythic go look at DAoC (still has a healthy sub rate) IMO find some of the original mythic devs and hand PvP/RvR over to them. It would flourish, the problem with the current mythic devs is they weren't around for the DAoC launch and tried to just create WoW but PvP instead of PvE.

 

Its truly a shame that they learned nothing from the Dev Vets at mythic and what they created.

 

The most important lesson to take from DAoC is also the one that *every* developer seems determined not to learn; HAVE THREE FACTIONS.

[grueber]

It really doesn't matter if it's theme park or sandbox. It's just not a compelling experience in its current state.

 

Stuff like LFD, craft rehaul, endgame experience rehaul, massive lag in large pvp battles, etc would take alot of time to fix IMO.

 

If any of the above was almost ready to launch I'm pretty certain the devs would say something.

[iResist]

The ultimate MMO will be:

 

 

Themepark like SWTOR while LEVELING.

 

Sandbox like SWG/EVE while at MAX LEVEL.

 

 

Unfortunately, I don't believe any developer in the future will understand the need for sandbox elements at max level but having the leveling process be like SWTOR.

[Nuzt]

The most important lesson to take from DAoC is also the one that *every* developer seems determined not to learn; HAVE THREE FACTIONS.

 

I didn't want to go there because that horse has been dead for years. With that said ... your absolutely right.

[Fezzhan]

Sorry For stupid question but i never played eve... Ive serbo that exists 1 and 2... Which one yo are talkin about? Dont insult me