sandbox/thempark and how it relates to swtor

That is pretty much my main complaint about this game. I hate being restricted to paths...and if I try and explore away from those paths, or take a short cut, there is always something that blocks the way, such as unclimbable objects, drop off cliffs that will mean certain death of you jump. Everything in this game restricts you to a path. Themepark. I hate it.

If the worlds were more like SWG, free exploration, I would have loved this game totally. To me, an MMO is not a true MMO without a Sandbox. Without a Sandbox, it just feels like a console game.

I missed the part where facts and logic were involved.

That's not true.
SWG had many quests story driven from launch, the problem is that were shallow and most people finished them in few hours.

But the proof that is possible have a sandbox game with deep storyline is Guild Wars 2. Each chacracter levels up through a story that evolves from level 1 to level 80, and that is possible because they were clever enough to instance personal stories. But happens that all 8 dungeons in GW2 develope a story about a legenday guild of heroes, which means there's a second deep story besides personal one. But the great about the personal storyline is that you can ignore it completely and fully level your character doing other things and retake your storyline at level 80 and have fun doing even low level chapters because GW2 developers were clever enough to downlevel your character to the level of the area you are to enjoy it the way is intended to be played at that level, and, of course, the chapter of the storyline in that area.

Sandbox model is not an obstacle for deep storylines. The obstacle are lazy developers who doesn't care about their own game.

SWG was my first mmo and I left when WoW released. I did really enjoy most aspects of swg like the crafting system and the sandbox element of constantly creating your own things to do like raiding enemy capital cities while overt and such. I wish Bioware would create some sandbox elements in swtor so that it caters to both play styles. It would help as far as not being able to release new content fast enough. I think back to WoW and forever the player base expressed the desire for player housing, but it was never done.

So what I think Bioware could do is the following, but i'm guessing they won't because they would need to either hire more people or take development time away from content releases.

Create 2 new planets solely for the sandbox element. 1 as a republic home, say a Naboo, and another as Imperial, can't think of a planet. Allow players to drop houses on these planets. Create and Architect crafting profession that crafts the homes and stuff to decorate them, maybe even a guild hq if they aren't going to ever do the capital ships idea. Also allow them to construct bases that can be destroyed like swg had as a way to have open world pvp besides attacking any player cities that might sprout up. Give some kind of reward for defending/destroying said bases. This would be a great way to encourage open world pvp until, if ever, they figure out what to do with Ilum.

This would certainly be enjoyed by those that enjoy the sandbox element and by not putting any themepark content on the planet, players that really only enjoy that don't have to travel to these planets. Many complained with sandboxes that as players quit their houses remained and cluttered the landscape, but the themepark crowd would not be effected by this since there is no need for them to visit these planets. They would probably have to figure out a way though to eventually remove structures that remain once an account has gone inactive for a certain amount of time.

It's kind of a structure of an overall idea and I would leave it to Bioware to flesh it out and make it more robust, but I think it would be well received by many in the player base.

Which is EXACTLY what I was saying about how sandbox games make the story of the game entirely redundant.

If your goal is to make the best story possible in an MMO, you don't make a game where the story can be completly ignored.

You are confusing different things. GW2 is in no way a sand box.

Eve is a sandbox. Players control or have influence over almost every facet of its universe. You can do just about anything you can dream up.

Tightly scripted story does not work in this setting, because the whole point is to throw the script out. Story has no value a sandbox. The POINT is to write your own story.

I do not think sandbox elements like player housing or any kind of littering of the terrain with doodads has much place in a themepark, handcrafted world. That being said, scifi (like Star Wars) has the endless possibilities of space, and could easily work in player run/maintained/owned structures via space stations, ships, etc. If any MMO were to try and incorporate both game types, a scifi MMO would be the one to stand the best chance.

That being said, TOR is so ultra restrictive (even for a themepark MMO) that I really doubt we will see any such things here. I would much rather see them work on loosening the reigns on the players a little and make the ground game more open-world and not so linear/instanced first before attempting anything else.

We can pretty drop the discussion about sandpark and themebox or SandThemed Boxpark or whatever.

There is no common definition of the terms, everyone has their own idea what these terms mean.Hell as I understand it , there are only a handful of Sandbox MMOs ever made and none are popular at the moment.

So the discussion is incoherent. Like most e-discourse.

carry on

Quote: Originally Posted by Darth_Halford

Going Free to Play is not in on itself a bad thing. Sure, alot of MMO vets cringe at the idea, but both subscriber trends and market analysis both suggest that's where the future of the genre is moving.

But, I would say that themepark MMO's are still showing more financial success because at least those games are still being made, even if some don't last long.

What was the last AAA sandbox mmo?

It's not inherently bad.

However there are a vast number of pit fall in F2P.
Mostly that it very, very easily morphs into P2W and that it actually works out more expensive for serious MMOers for a lesser experience.

Yeah SWTOR is probably the most restrictive MMORPG I've ever played (which as I said wouldn't matter so much IF class quest content was much, much higher).

It would certainly be one of the easier ways to make SWTOR better, to allow some sideways expansion of levelling content and certainly go for a more open world feel on any new planets.