Hi there,

 

I'm a bit curious about other players opinion, but I kind of miss the open worlds of WSG.

The Tython and Corrusant playable space feels small and confined. The whole gives me a single player kind of feeling.

Even "the other" game makes you believe you can go anywhere and do anything.

 

Add to this the arcade style of space battle and I can only conclude that Sandbox style MMO's are outdated.

 

Besides these points I really get the feeling SWTOR has a lot of expanding to do to and I tend to be there al the way to support it!!

 

greetzz...

Doba

Hi there,

 

I'm a bit curious about other players opinion, but I kind of miss the open worlds of WSG.

The Tython and Corrusant playable space feels small and confined. The whole gives me a single player kind of feeling.

Even "the other" game makes you believe you can go anywhere and do anything.

 

Add to this the arcade style of space battle and I can only conclude that Sandbox style MMO's are outdated.

 

Besides these points I really get the feeling SWTOR has a lot of expanding to do to and I tend to be there al the way to support it!!

 

greetzz...

Doba

 

I dont think sandbox is dead.

 

 

I just think no Company will do it right. OR even if they wanted to, their backers won't wanna hear it,...they want guaranteed money based on what was hot ( WoW).

 

Games like Fallen Earth and Darkfall are getting warmer,..but for some reason the industry thinks sandbox= open world PvP gankfest, making it too niche.

 

 

As heavily instanced as SWTOR is,..I think it's way past the 'sandbox' stage.

I wouldn't say that sandbox style mmo's are dead. They're just different. They play different, with differing ways for the players to entertain themselves. And that's the problem. Note that I use the word "problem" loosely and from more of a business perspective.

 

In a sandbox mmo, the player is free to do whatever they like. Depending on the rules and setup of the game, this could be anything from killing all players in sight, dancing in a cantina, to wondering aimlessly. All entertaining in theory, and sometimes, in application.

 

The big problem mmo's have, is keeping you playing beyond those first critical few minutes. You'll see a lot of the free mmo's giving you gifts and such on a timer, so you'll stick around for 5, 10, 20 minutes to get receive those gifts. But I digress.

 

When you plop a player into a big sandbox environment where they can do whatever, and make their own fun / adventure, players tend to get lost, or bored. So we tend to see more of a crafted, tailored experience. Which is both good and bad depending on who you ask. The instancing and such that people tend to dislike in swtor is in place only for performance issues. X amount of players in a zone, add a few too many, a new instance is created to keep performance up. I can understand that people think the number of players per instance is a bit low, but that's the price paid when you have a higher fidelity game. Like the visual style or not, the poly count is quite high.

 

Again, I'm not speaking from personal preference. I personally enjoy a myriad of mmo's of various styles for various reasons.

 

Just my 2 cents.

Why is this posted in the "star wars discussions" forum???

Why is this posted in the "star wars discussions" forum???

 

Seems an odd place to me, too.

 

And I'd say that EVE Online is an excellent space sandbox game (albeit with "underwater" style movement and combat, rather than inertial). I still play EVE, which I consider more open-ended and more like a sandbox than SWTOR, and still raid in Rift, which I consider more linear and restrictive than SWTOR (even if it's by having two starter areas per faction in SWTOR rather than one, or being able to do Nar Shaddaa before Balmorra on my bounty hunter). There are many games out there; to each their own.

 

From the movies and the background to this game I will say that the Star Wars setting DOES seem to me to be more restrictive than sandbox in "feel"; it doesn't feel like it has millions and millions of potentially inhabited worlds (our own Milky Way galaxy probably has 500 million planets in the liquid water "Goldilocks Zone" of its couple of hundred billion suns).

Edited January 5, 2012 by Poimandres

SWG is dead because SOE was a greedy and VERY poor developer.

 

Sandbox is NOT dead...just SWG.

I have to agree with those people who feel like all the instancing and zoning makes you feel like you're not in a living world at all. Having said that most of the game feels like wearing horse blinkers where you can't look or do anything which is off the path the developers have set out for you. Players who stick to those routes and do as their told at every turn don't notice as many bugs I've realised.

 

Even just travelling around, straying from the road you can't get to places because it's all divided by walls/canyons which if you do try and explore chances are you'll get stuck and have to use /stuck to break free.

 

So if I understand this correctly, the game is instanced to allow for higher FPS and visuals, then why do so many users have horrid FPS problems? With only around 100 users per zone it feels more like a desert even though on my server (Tomb of Freedon Nad) you have to queue for an hour to log on in the evenings.

They will never make another great sandbox game like Ultima Online again, because back in the day, the real gamers were hard core. Now, they have to play a numbers game where every game has to be dumbed-down to appeal to the masses.

 

If you ever played Ultima Online in the lates 90's, you probably experienced the best sandbox game ever made. When I listen to the

... ah the memories!

 

MMO players these days don't know what they're missing.

I just started reading Player Number One which really makes you want to play a more sandbox-y experience.

I just think no Company will do it right. OR even if they wanted to, their backers won't wanna hear it,...they want guaranteed money based on what was hot ( WoW).

 

Sadly I find this to be the truth since we are still having to deal with economic problems. Another problem is people seem to be demanding easy to play games with 25% solo content, 25% PvP content, 15% group content and 10% raid content. It's not like the oldschool days in EQOA for me where it took a week to get your stuff for epics. Anymore people demand their stuff inside of a day if not sooner.

 

Hopefully Bioware will have deaf ears when listening to EA complain at them making the best calls for their players. One thing I absolutely do not want to see anywhere in sight is an exchange type system setup for purchasing ingame items for real currency.

 

From what i've seen Bioware is a good company that listens to its customers and gives them what they need along with some of the things they want.

 

 

Sandbox games are a dying art and I doubt we'll see a resurgence of them. It becomes too much code with too many problems to maintain for the developers. As a result it just maybe easier to have linear mechanics to streamline everything.

 

Still miss being a Bio-Engineer going on my daily DNA runs for Mutant Rancors. Was also cool hunting in the Geo caves plowing through those nasty critters.

The sandbox type game like Galaxies pre NGE is dead. I've never played anything so rewarding or enjoyable as Galaxies pre NGE and I doubt i will in my gaming lifetime. The added element of the starwars jedi made the whole world so wonderful...but it's over. The companies that could make that kind of game wont touch them and the ones that are willing to try simply fall short. Fallen Earth is a great game, however I don't think of it in the same league as Galaxies was.

 

On the flip side though...I love the fact that I have a new Starwars MMO and i am really enjoying it. I think they did a good job on this one. I am very happy with this game and have accepted the fact that the experience I had with the early Galaxies game is dead and not comming back.

Sandbox isn't dead, there's just a few cat turds that need to be removed before people will want to play in them.

 

If I recall The Secret World by Funcom is going to be pretty sandboxish.

SWG is NOT DEAD!!!!

 

 

Go google SWG EMU. You can play it for free or even donate and help them bring it back to it's former glory

 

I hear people say "Oh it was the greatest game ever I wish it was still alive" Well put your money where your mouth is and help it.

 

 

Other wise shut up.

 

 

Sandbox is a niche market. Even the Single player Sandbox games like GTA Saints row and Arkhem City have more structured and more linear story elements to them then they have sandbox elements.

 

 

MMOs are also EXTRMELEY EXPENSIVE TO MAKE. So why put a ton of money into something if its a niche market and the changes of me making any money is slim to none.

SWG is NOT DEAD!!!!

 

 

Go google SWG EMU. You can play it for free or even donate and help them bring it back to it's former glory

 

 

 

This guy's got it right. I'd love a SWG style sandbox game with an SWTOR appearance, but that doesn't seem like it's going to happen. SWTOR is a great game, but it's not a sandbox.

 

Looks like EVE will stay the sandbox king for awhile longer.