There'll always be sandbox games- but they'll always be what they've always been- an extreme niche.

 

Most people don't find putting dozens of hours of work into building something, only to log for the night and find it's been scrapped while you were sleeping- and with mmos that's what happens. Especially since the average player is casual these days and may never see the fruit of their labour.

 

It'll still be there as a niche though.

You're talking about a hardcore sandbox, and you're right, those will never ever work with the masses. Which is what I am afraid the repopulation is going to end up being if you want open world housing/cities.

It'll take a combination of both themepark, and sandbox to work in the future.

Few here want to hear this, but what SWG was doing in the last 2 years of the game was a very well made hybrid that had more things to do than any game before, or since. If you got tired of doing one thing, there were hundreds of other things to choose from to do. I never ran out of things to do. One day I might craft, the next I might do theme park stuff, then next I might gather materials to clone a combat pet, or do space, or heroics, or farm deathwatch bunker, do GCW stuff (which I loved dearly), or even scavenge for krayt pearls. I always had something to do that was interesting to me on any given day.

It might be strange to some, but I once spent 2 weeks doing nothing but going from city to city, and exploring as many open player houses as I could. There were too many amazing decoration jobs to list, and some of the player shops had decorations that blew me away. I never came close to seeing them all though.

To people who claim that GTA/Assassin are sandbox, I have to disagree there. Those are open world non-linear theme parks. Yes, you can do some "side stuff" in any order you want to, but in the end, you still have to progress through the "main stuff" to unlock more "side stuff".

Sandbox usually means you can create the content using the tools in game (not talking about SDKs, those are not part of game). For example, Spore was/is a sandbox, Minecraft is a sandbox, and so on.

GTA is more along what I was talking about earlier in the thread. It's a sandpark, not a sandbox. That's why it's massively successful, it caters to people on both sides of the spectrum.

For those sandbox types who just want to run around killing people, shooting cops, making money, or doing car tricks it's great.

For those in the middle ( the majority when it comes to mmos and even a large part of those who play only singleplayer games I think ) who like that stuff but also want some direction in where their experience takes them, the campaign adds to that.

And for those who simply want a good themepark ride from A to B without messing with the "frivolities" , they're covered too.

For instance, take the campaign story out of GTA and Rockstar would be like a CCP or Egosoft. One of those "niche" developers that enjoy a small but dedicated group of fans enjoying their games, but avoided by the majority of the gaming population at large.

The Elder Scrolls games are also sandparks, not sandboxes as many erroneously refer to them as. And we see how successful those games are ( the singleplayer games anyway, the mmo appears to be the upcoming black mark against the series from what I've seen so far ).

One reviewer described EVE best as an MMO that made deep-space exploration into a boring mess of spreadsheets and that EVE players are to nerds what nerds are to normal people.

 

Find a better example.

All I said was find a better example of a successful sandbox game because EVE is a horrible game.

I am really confused, the guy makes the point that there are "successful" sandbox games still out there and uses EVE as an example and you say it doesn't count because you don't like its style of gameplay?

I personally have no desire whatsoever to play EVE as the gameplay doesn't appeal to me AT ALL, but the game's been running for over 10 years now and has way more Subs than SWTOR - I don't think there's any question it's a successful game.

If all you've got is "it's a horrible game"... well, to put it in your own words:

Horrible opinion-based judgment calls are awesome.

And you can't win/lose an argument that's based on personal 'feelings.'

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Everquest Next/Landmark. SOE-hate aside, it looks a solid AAA attempt at a true sandbox MMO. Check out the dev diaries...I gotta say, it looks like it has potential. And if it fails, we may not ever see another big budget sandbox MMO for a long, long time.

It sure look like it has potential, but holding up a game as an example that is not yet even in Beta is not a great idea.

It sure look like it has potential, but holding up a game as an example that is not yet even in Beta is not a great idea.

Oh come on. Smedley said so! And we know Smed would never lie!

Well, the days of AAA sandbox MMO games are probably over.

But there will be smaller titles, and who knows, maby they'll come back into fashion again some day?

 

But for now, just accept that if you want a sandbox MMO, you'll have to go off the mainstream...

 

 

As for Sandbox Games in general?

Well, GTA V is a sandbox game, and that sold incredible amounts of copies, so I don't think its at an end in general... just for the MMO's.

You're talking about a hardcore sandbox, and you're right, those will never ever work with the masses. Which is what I am afraid the repopulation is going to end up being if you want open world housing/cities.

 

It'll take a combination of both themepark, and sandbox to work in the future.

 

Few here want to hear this, but what SWG was doing in the last 2 years of the game was a very well made hybrid that had more things to do than any game before, or since. If you got tired of doing one thing, there were hundreds of other things to choose from to do. I never ran out of things to do. One day I might craft, the next I might do theme park stuff, then next I might gather materials to clone a combat pet, or do space, or heroics, or farm deathwatch bunker, do GCW stuff (which I loved dearly), or even scavenge for krayt pearls. I always had something to do that was interesting to me on any given day.

 

It might be strange to some, but I once spent 2 weeks doing nothing but going from city to city, and exploring as many open player houses as I could. There were too many amazing decoration jobs to list, and some of the player shops had decorations that blew me away. I never came close to seeing them all though.

What aspect of the open world houses/cities, in The Repopulation worries you ? I too have concerns although mine are in regards to what will be sold in their store. The game is going to be heavy PvP and they plan on selling skill boosts and the balancing act between those who buy them and those who don't worries me a little bit.

and no i don't find what you did strange at all, maybe i'm strange too as i did everything in your list. I spent a week+ doing nothg but exploring Dathomir, every nook and cranny, every cave. But to me thats the beauty of sandbox i can choose to join into group activities or choose to go my own route and do my own thing and it all just depended on my mood at the time.

Maybe not MMOs in general because RTS world builders make good sandbox MMOs. But sandboxing story-based MMORPGs, except as a peripheral minigame, won't happen until somebody invents a way for millions of players' actions to be hard coded and shared with the other millions of players in real time as part of an organic, constantly evolving and omnipresent storyline. Won't happen. At least not in our lifetimes.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120132-Science-Suggests-Were-Living-in-the-Matrix

Sure seems that way to me. I had High hopes STO was going to be Sandbox, especially how Jack Emmert was talking about it and beefing the game up. I had high hopes AoC was going to be Sandbox, but was sadly disappointed....although, it did at least try to give the illusion that it was Sandbox, it was still noticeable to me that it was not. And last, I had high hope SWTOR was going to be Sandbox...again, a no go.

 

So are the Days of Sandbox games over? I sure hope not, it was the Sandbox aspect of SWG that got me hooked on MMOs to start with.

Considering that EQNext will be "sandbox" I really don't think the days of these games are at and end. In fact I think that many publishers, like EA, will use the sandbox to get the customer to make their own content and then eliminate most of the need for a development shop and thus save money.

Sadly most of the "Sandbox" games will end up with subpar content and little if any decent story line. If there is one thing that SWTOR got right it was the class stories. I don't believe you could see that type of immersion from player created content. It would be a hot mess.

GTA is more along what I was talking about earlier in the thread. It's a sandpark, not a sandbox. That's why it's massively successful, it caters to people on both sides of the spectrum.

 

/snip

I guess the word Sandpark is probably the best. However, we "could" call pretty much any game with side activities a sandpark, even SWTOR. You can run side missions, you can just play PvP (ground or space), you can sit all day on fleet and play GTN, you can travel around, etc. And you also has the main "campaign" that progresses you through the main story (which is not required, as, to my knowledge, you can visit planets at any time you want to)

I am not trying to start a fight, I am just saying that most people probably do not know what they want when they scream for sandbox features.

To me, sandbox games are, as I stated before, games like Spore and Minecraft, where you actually build the stuff you then use by using ingame tools.

Games like GTA, Farcry, Mafia etc. are, again, at least to me, open world games, not sandbox games.

I am not trying to start a fight, I am just saying that most people probably do not know what they want when they scream for sandbox features.

To me, sandbox games are, as I stated before, games like Spore and Minecraft, where you actually build the stuff you then use by using ingame tools.

Games like GTA, Farcry, Mafia etc. are, again, at least to me, open world games, not sandbox games.

THis is not a particular bad thing - this is my first ever MMO. I've played it for a year now, and before that tremendously enjoyed Dragon Age, Mass Effect and before that Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR. What I don't understand is what a sandbox offers, in terms of entertainment, to a themepark. Because when I read about it, sandbox comes across as a huge map, where basically no or minimal quests are available, and where players are basically forced to create their own content. So do things like huge bosses spawn randomly? Does treasure spawn randomly? How about gathering materials to sell? How does that work?

So what would work to make SWTOR as we know it more sandbox-like? JUST open world PVP? There's gotta be more to it than that, right?

THis is not a particular bad thing - this is my first ever MMO. I've played it for a year now, and before that tremendously enjoyed Dragon Age, Mass Effect and before that Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR. What I don't understand is what a sandbox offers, in terms of entertainment, to a themepark. Because when I read about it, sandbox comes across as a huge map, where basically no or minimal quests are available, and where players are basically forced to create their own content. So do things like huge bosses spawn randomly? Does treasure spawn randomly? How about gathering materials to sell? How does that work?

 

So what would work to make SWTOR as we know it more sandbox-like? JUST open world PVP? There's gotta be more to it than that, right?

In a true "sandbox", the player has tools to modify the world themselves and create how they play. So along with open world PvP, they'd have to add the option for user generated content. Think "GTA Online". This is my first MMO so I wouldn't know what a sandbox MMO would be like. But there are plenty of sandbox console games.

So are the Days of Sandbox games over?

Oh how I ever hope so.

Few here want to hear this, but what SWG was doing in the last 2 years of the game was a very well made hybrid that had more things to do than any game before, or since. If you got tired of doing one thing, there were hundreds of other things to choose from to do. I never ran out of things to do. One day I might craft, the next I might do theme park stuff, then next I might gather materials to clone a combat pet, or do space, or heroics, or farm deathwatch bunker, do GCW stuff (which I loved dearly), or even scavenge for krayt pearls. I always had something to do that was interesting to me on any given day.

 

It might be strange to some, but I once spent 2 weeks doing nothing but going from city to city, and exploring as many open player houses as I could. There were too many amazing decoration jobs to list, and some of the player shops had decorations that blew me away. I never came close to seeing them all though.

I agree with this 100%.

What I find confusing about SWG is that the majority of people who mention playing it quit when the NGE hit. With me... I had zero interest in it until the NGE and played from the launch of it til the close of the game. It was TOO open and grindy before (I can't get into the emulators of pre-CU at all) but by the time the last few years of the game rolled around there was a fantastic combination of sandbox and themepark.

So, as much as I miss NGE SWG, I doubt we will ever see another AAA pure sandbox and that's really alright with me. Sandbox elements are starting to be added to more and more themeparks though. I am going to keep citing Rift for this. The game is super themepark, yet you can also change the environment for other people in different zones and the housing system is incredible.

My #1 complaint with TOR is still that its more themeparky than WoW, the king of themeparks. What bugs me most are the closed maps. It's impossible to avoid groups of mobs in the majority of them, and they are literally tubes meant to funnel you from one place to the next with no room for exploration unless you want to fight swarm after swarm of static enemies. The utter lack of day/night or weather makes things boring too. I just wish the world we play in felt a little more alive, that's all.

sandbox lol

People are free to go play whatever games that they want, but I sure wish they'd stop getting angry that this themepark game isn't a sandbox game.

You don't see me wandering into sandbox games and ranting about how there's no themepark features in them.

while i think most people like the 'idea' of a sandbox, i don't know how many of them are truely willing to actually use them. I played SWG from about a month after launch until the NGE finally wrecked it for me. yes the planets were sandbox and you could go anywhere vs SWTOR where you're on rails more or less each planet. the thing is - nobody really ventured way out into the nooks and crannies of the SWG planets much at all.

 

as someone who always was out there in the hinterlands placing harvesters and running my economic empire, i rarely ran into anyone else out more than a couple thousand meters away from the spaceports, except maybe other harvester planters.

 

my point here is.. just because the idea of a sandbox is appealing, even when one is in front of gamers nobody actually takes advantage of it when they have one

I played SWG from Beta to death and I have to say, people went EVERYWHERE all the time. People were always looking for that awesome view for their houses, looking for random POI's, or the perfect place to set up a Town. Crafters were always venturing deep into the Wilderness for the best resource spawns...

I even know that on my servers (Scylla and Starsider) people had Guilds dedicated to exploration of the maps. So, when you say that people didn't venture off into the unknowns... That's not exactly true at all.

As for the Sandbox Game theme going downhill, that isn't true. Look at Everquest Next, The Repopulation, Wild Star, and Star Citizen. All games coming out.

Theres also Age of Wushu, EvE, and ESO on the way. (ESO is less Sand boxy, but still more so than TOR is.) So I would not say that Sandbox MMO's are not around anymore.

In a true "sandbox", the player has tools to modify the world themselves and create how they play. So along with open world PvP, they'd have to add the option for user generated content. Think "GTA Online". This is my first MMO so I wouldn't know what a sandbox MMO would be like. But there are plenty of sandbox console games.

Not sure how you create content in GTA (but then, I stopped following the series after maybe 3 hours of GTA4, because it was too boring for me, unlike San Andreas), but I basically your explanation is correct.

Explanation of Sandbox for you Ghoul_drool[/Quote]

Good example is the now very popular Minecraft (I am sure you heard of if, if now, where were you hiding for the past 2 years?), where you can literally build anything you want from whatever materials you have. You also have the possibility to play with other people in multiplayer and kill them or destroy their stuff.

Or perhaps even better example would be SPORE, conceived by Will Wright (the guy behind Sims, SimCity, etc), where you created anything from lifeforms to spaceships, and then you used those for playing. However, there was no multiplayer per se (you could use and meet other people's creations, but you could not play with others directly)

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120132-Science-Suggests-Were-Living-in-the-Matrix

Fun article though.

Just my opinion but Sanbox games bore me. I have only played EVE but the game really was boring and lacked story line. It was also full of griefers.

Sadly it appears that to do a really good story driven MMO means giving up profit margin and few publishers can or are willing to do that.

Thus we are left with what we have which is a game full of potential that will not be realized. The entire space combat mini-game was a misguided effort that did nothing to build on the core game in my very humble opinion.