Theme Park vs Sandbox, What Do The Players Think?

[Lord_Nova]

Eve has around 40K people logged on at peak times. Hardly a success story but probably enough to keep their head above water.

 

Eve's problem isn't that it is sandbox though. Eve's problem is that it is very hard for new players to get started and even harder for them to want to stay after they experience losing all of their stuff when dying.

[Florial]

Personally I would like a little of both.

 

Theme parks are great for scripted content and for a challenge. Sandboxes allow an active community to not only enjoy the fun the game provides, but to organise their own.

 

While people will knock SWG for being bad, which it was in many ways, what it did well was encourage players to make their own game and their own events.

 

One of the problems with SWTOR is detachment. I have no real investment in my character or the world. I know when I log off, the world will still be there, doing what it does. The phasing takes the massive out of the game for me, and while people go on about community, I don't actually think there is much of one. Sure guilds get together and play, but not much else.

 

Same here--I would like a bit of both as well. As much as I like SWTOR, I don't see it being an extremely long term game for me. I will certainly get six months out of it since I'm playing it at such a glacial pace. The instancing, the lack of a vibrant community, the lack of finding a guild just isn't doing it for me. I'm enjoying the story, the crafting, my ship, the quests. The quests though are blurring together---how many generators can you blow up over time or upload data spikes? It is starting to feel the same. Once I get to max level though, I don't see it holding me over. It really does play like a single player game with MMO elements to it. Don't get me wrong---I still group up with folks and try to do the group content. I just feel curiously detached for some reason.

[Fezzhan]

Eve's problem isn't that it is sandbox though. Eve's problem is that it is very hard for new players to get started and even harder for them to want to stay after they experience losing all of their stuff when dying.

 

They now are givin a 15 days trial. It's good idea to understand if EVE is for a person or not

[tasar]

If you are after a sandbox /themepark mmo , supposedly this game that is in beta and has lifted the NDA is what you may be looking for .

 

 

 

 

Player housing, player built castles, player built ships, seamless world supposedly larger then all of WOW . no two servers will be the same as you can clear land plant trees , farms , build anywhere . can even build villages , shops etc hire npcs guards or npc to work in the shops etc .

 

Able to play 1 of 4 archtypes or take up to 3 skill trees from different classes and create a custom class due to this they report up to 120 possible classes .

 

open world dungeons aswell as instanced . a mix of wow + EQ 2 . + daoc + ultima online + shadowbane .

 

 

So far it shows promise has been in dev for 6 years and due out later this year .

Edited February 17, 2012 by tasar

[Sunsoar]

Sandbox is my choice. With phasing or real time environment changes.

 

They go theme park because the casual player base that is infecting the quality and depth of our games and content need to be appeased. Hand holding is needed nowadays for these players.

[ShotByBothSides]

They now are givin a 15 days trial. It's good idea to understand if EVE is for a person or not

 

I tried EVE and really loved it for it's potential and freedom of choice, but I found the missions too repetitive.

 

I suspect I should have joined a corporation and found a useful role to play and have "levelled" that way. I may well try it again, for the concept and freedom is astounding, albeit brutal at times

[Lord_Nova]

They now are givin a 15 days trial. It's good idea to understand if EVE is for a person or not

 

A triel doesn't solve the issues that new players face. It takes 6 months to a year for a player to really get the skills they will need to be able to customize ships the way they really want to. There is no way for them to do it faster because learning skills is based on time. If they allowed players to earn experience which they could then spend on skills then this would not be an issue.

 

The other problem is that EVE is cut-throat and ruthless. If players do not get involved with a large group of other players they are merely food for other more established players. New players could hide in High Security space but then the experience is very repetitive and boring.

[Fezzhan]

A triel doesn't solve the issues that new players face. It takes 6 months to a year for a player to really get the skills they will need to be able to customize ships the way they really want to. There is no way for them to do it faster because learning skills is based on time. If they allowed players to earn experience which they could then spend on skills then this would not be an issue.

 

The other problem is that EVE is cut-throat and ruthless. If players do not get involved with a large group of other players they are merely food for other more established players. New players could hide in High Security space but then the experience is very repetitive and boring.

 

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....

[Vordy]

is that why every sandbox MMO fails miserably?

 

You call Ultima Online a failure? It was one of the first mmo's and very successful one at the time, but you are probably to young to know about this, now go back to WoW which you obviously think was the first mmo that got released.

[Vordy]

They now are givin a 15 days trial. It's good idea to understand if EVE is for a person or not

 

Sure, you will learn the basic in 15 days, nothing else though.

[Fezzhan]

A triel doesn't solve the issues that new players face. It takes 6 months to a year for a player to really get the skills they will need to be able to customize ships the way they really want to. There is no way for them to do it faster because learning skills is based on time. If they allowed players to earn experience which they could then spend on skills then this would not be an issue.

 

The other problem is that EVE is cut-throat and ruthless. If players do not get involved with a large group of other players they are merely food for other more established players. New players could hide in High Security space but then the experience is very repetitive and boring.

 

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....

[sly_swg]

I've been waiting on a good sandbox mmo since the CURB hit swg...

 

perfect mmo for me= swg - bugs + some balancing.

 

unfortunately the mmo market caters to the bulk of people who apparently are lazy and dumb, and thus we end up with themepark mmo's with mechanics so complex a 5 year old van master them....

[Sunsoar]

unfortunately the mmo market caters to the bulk of people who apparently are lazy and dumb, and thus we end up with themepark mmo's with mechanics so complex a 5 year old van master them....

 

Pretty much this

[Goretzu]

If you are after a sandbox /themepark mmo , supposedly this game that is in beta and has lifted the NDA is what you may be looking for .

 

 

 

 

Player housing, player built castles, player built ships, seamless world supposedly larger then all of WOW . no two servers will be the same as you can clear land plant trees , farms , build anywhere . can even build villages , shops etc hire npcs guards or npc to work in the shops etc .

 

Able to play 1 of 4 archtypes or take up to 3 skill trees from different classes and create a custom class due to this they report up to 120 possible classes .

 

open world dungeons aswell as instanced . a mix of wow + EQ 2 . + daoc + ultima online + shadowbane .

 

 

So far it shows promise has been in dev for 6 years and due out later this year .

 

 

 

Yeah that looks genuinely intriguing, and what they say about 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation MMOs makes some sense (although in others it doesn't).

 

But equally a lot of what they are intending there could be "bolted on" to a game like SWTOR.

 

Not in the sense of the whole world perhaps, but certainly in zones.

 

Which is a I think the way a game that merges them might work, in the same way DAoC had PvE and RvR, you could actually do either or both (WAR took this further still in some ways, although reduced it in others) but weren't necessarily forced into either.

 

 

In fact strangely most later MMORPG games have taken this option with RvR, yet still haven't embraced it in a wider context.

[VegaPhone]

The answer is both especially when you want to make pvp meaningful.

 

For a pvper who wants sand box but also wants themepark elements to narrate content and develop their character to have a world that feels more alive with themepark elements.

 

The problem with sand box games is that the world does not feel alive by only making the players make the content its better to have both.

 

Since ;

 

1. Once the content has been experienced the game becomes old for a pure sand box game even when the combat is superb.

 

 

2. The sand box player has nothing to look forward to content wise, other than more pvp elements. However by adding themepark elements you can have similar pvp mechanics in an expansion but a different story and it would make world pvp continue to be more meaningful and keep the players more interested at the same time. This for me at least would be true.

 

I do not like pure sand box MMOs and I dont like pure care-bearish games either. I went a mix of both, and of course one of the main reasons why I like themepark MMOs more is because it gives a feel of longevity to the MMO, which is probably why people lean more to themepark as players as well and not just developers making the game.

Edited February 17, 2012 by VegaPhone

[jarjarloves]

Do you have a source for that? I've never seen anything reliable on pre-CU numbers, only the general idea that it was somewhere around 300k, fairly stable, and making a profit at that level.

 

My own experience in-game was that the noticeable bleed didn't really start until CU.

 

Of course I could be wrong and would be interested to see some numbers

 

are you joking they perma banned 50,000 players because they where suspected of credit duping. That caused a large part of their playerbase to leave with them.

 

 

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=1388515

[jarjarloves]

Could you do anything you wanted in SWG? No. You could do somethings and couldn't do others.

 

Therefore it wasn't a sand box, it was an MMORPG with a lot of sand boxy elements, and fewer restrictive elements.

 

UO had as least as many sand boxy elements, and AC had many too.

 

 

 

 

Now if you're comparing EQ1 to UO or SWG or AC EQ1 would be the least sand boxy, but compared to SWTOR it was.

EQ1 was in some ways more sand boxy than later games that had specific "sand box" paths because the players made it so, due to the lack of restriction and support.

 

EQ1 had many none combat trader characters, there were pure Taxi characters, there was ones that purely sold their buffs, there were even people that made a living guiding people across the world and in dungeons!

 

There was no support for this in the game, of course, yet they still sprung up, along with player casinos and many other things.

 

EQ1 was sand boxy in the context of give players a fairly functional world and no guidance or hand holding and see what they come up with, compared to SWTOR there is nothing of that.

now you are just talking out of your butt.

 

 

taxi characters? non combat traders? *** where are you getting this crap from. I played EQ since day 1 up until planes of power and nothing about it was sand boxy.

[jarjarloves]

You call Ultima Online a failure? It was one of the first mmo's and very successful one at the time, but you are probably to young to know about this, now go back to WoW which you obviously think was the first mmo that got released.

 

UO isn't a sandbox it's a PVP mmo.

[Goretzu]

now you are just talking out of your butt.

 

 

taxi characters? non combat traders? *** where are you getting this crap from. I played EQ since day 1 up until planes of power and nothing about it was sand boxy.

 

Where am I getting it from?

 

From playing it at the time.

 

 

I dunno what you were doing if you never saw any trader toons, any taxi toons, any buff seller toons, any player casinos or anyone working as a guide.

 

Perhaps therefore what you mean is your experience of EQ1 was very restrictive, 1 dimensional, and un-sand boxy. Well that IS sad for you, but that doesn't mean everyone else's was.

Edited February 17, 2012 by Goretzu

[Goretzu]

UO isn't a sandbox it's a PVP mmo.

 

Er..... did you not play UO either? I'm utterly mystified as to how you can say SWG was a "sand box" and say UO was not.

 

What would you class AC as?

Edited February 17, 2012 by Goretzu

[jarjarloves]

Where am I getting it from?

 

From playing it at the time.

 

 

I dunno what you were doing if you never saw any trader toons, any taxi toons, any buff seller toons, any player casinos or anyone working as a guide.

 

Perhaps therefore what you mean is your experience of EQ1 was very restrictive, 1 dimensional, and un-sand boxy. Well that IS sad for you, but that doesn't mean everyone else's was.

 

first off none of those things have anything to do with a sandbox. Sandbox is about being able to change the world and influence it with player made content, the freedom to do what you want. Running a casino is not a sandbox. They had those in vanilla WoW as well and it doesn't make it a sandbox.

 

I am really doubting you have any idea what a sandbox game is.

Edited February 17, 2012 by jarjarloves

[jarjarloves]

Er..... did you not play UO either? I'm utterly mystified as to how you can say SWG was a "sand box" and say UO was not.

 

What would you class AC as?

 

Ahserons Call is very much a Sandbox but UO is not. I honestly don't think you have any idea what a MMO even is.

[Goretzu]

first off none of those things have anything to do with a sandbox. Sandbox is about being able to change the world and influence it with player made content, the freedom to do what you want. Running a casino is not a sandbox. They had those in vanilla WoW as well and it doesn't make it a sandbox.

 

I am really doubting you have any idea what a sandbox game is.

 

 

And how could you do that in SWG? (and equally how could you do that in UO? And EvE?)

 

Could you dig a tunnel? Could you make a lake? Could you reshape a mountain (or climb every mountain?) Build a castle to you own specific design? Could you plant a forest? Could you control a servers economy?

 

 

 

There's no game that has the freedom to do whatever you want.

 

Even up coming games like Archeage don't have that complete freedom.

 

 

 

 

 

But to go back to the orginal point a game with more freedom and less restrictions is more sand boxy, hence EQ1 (original) was more sand boxy then SWTOR is now.

[wifeaggro]

I've been waiting on a good sandbox mmo since the CURB hit swg...

 

perfect mmo for me= swg - bugs + some balancing.

 

unfortunately the mmo market caters to the bulk of people who apparently are lazy and dumb, and thus we end up with themepark mmo's with mechanics so complex a 5 year old van master them....

 

Its not the players that are lazy and dumb. it never was ,sure some people whine about diffculty. but that is usally just a short term rage they post in forum because they died.

 

Devolpers are looking for short cuts and ease of devolpment. Add in corperate america looking for big sales numbers , and not sub retention. you get a very very watered down product that has little to no concern of the total end user expierence. TOR did a nice job in the leveling process. by lvl 25 you feel the doldrum and push through for the story. you hit endgame and have about 2 or 3 weeks top of end game content. Then they expect you to reroll. The problem is the planets are designed like a single player level not like a MMO zone they are .

 

Devolpers selling the story that this is what census shows the market wants is B.S. the facts state the same thing , People hit the end game wall through a fast linear lvling process by 6 to 8 weeks the hard cores in 3 to 4 weeks. And there is a massive burn off by 90 days. EQ 1 maintaind sub cycles in 9 month increments. Modern MMO's start the churn cycle 30 days out of the box. My game memories form EQ 1 EQ 2 , AOC , even SWG that had no content for end game other then PVP and trying to grind a jedi. were more memorable then this. For all the time they invested in story i remeber only few bright spots. The total game expierence was very mediocre.

[Goretzu]

Ahserons Call is very much a Sandbox but UO is not. I honestly don't think you have any idea what a MMO even is.

 

And what specifically could you do (or not do) in AC (or SWG) that you could not in UO that makes the difference between being a "sand box" and not being a "sand box"?