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Days of Sandbox games are at an end?


Wraiven

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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.

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especially how Jack Emmert was talking about it and beefing the game up.

 

Off-topic: Having played CoH/CoV, I personally would never trust *anything* that comes out of Jack Emmert's mouth.

 

On-topic: Personally, I think the change in the gaming population is what relegated Sandbox type of MMOs to a niche role. As video gaming reached mainstream status, the attention span of its gamers became shorter as well. Where as before MMO gamers used to devote themselves to a single game for years, now they may play 2-3 (or more) games at once. With this evolution, time constraint becomes a significant issue as players now have many different options grabbing at their attention. In response to that, more and more MMOs chose to implement a somewhat linear progression system which allows the player to jump right into the action from the moment he logs on thus feeling like he accomplished something with the limited amount of time he had. This is pretty much same reason behind why MMOs of today are generally far less grindy than their predecessors from a decade ago.

 

Anyway, going forward I think it would be more common for MMOs to incorporate certain sandbox elements without adopting the whole theme.

Edited by Oneirophrenia
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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

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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.

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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.

 

I couldn't disagree more.

 

While we'll probably never see stuff like EQ1 or SWG again, beyond the release of ESO and Wildstar I expect that big budget MMORPGs will swing back towards sandbox elements. If you follow the news about Everquest Next you'll see that they're making a lot of noise about their move away from themepark design, largely because of the failure of big budget themepark ggames. As I said, we won't see stuff like EQ1, but rather MMOs more like GTA, which is really more of a themepark within a sandbox.

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I couldn't disagree more.

 

While we'll probably never see stuff like EQ1 or SWG again, beyond the release of ESO and Wildstar I expect that big budget MMORPGs will swing back towards sandbox elements. If you follow the news about Everquest Next you'll see that they're making a lot of noise about their move away from themepark design, largely because of the failure of big budget themepark ggames. As I said, we won't see stuff like EQ1, but rather MMOs more like GTA, which is really more of a themepark within a sandbox.

 

I wouldn't mind a theme park within a sandbox. Kind of best of both worlds. That I could easily be happy with.

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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.

 

I haven't played GTA V yet, but if it's anything like the previous GTA's... then it will also have tons of story and side missions.

So GTA V doesn't just appeal to sandbox fans, it also appeals to those who enjoy a good story and on top of that it appeals to a lot of racing fans - not to mention everyone who wants to play a bad*ss criminal is also going to pick it up because there are very few games that actually let you do that.

Rockstar has their fingers in many pots.

Edited by Callaron
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I wouldn't mind a theme park within a sandbox. Kind of best of both worlds. That I could easily be happy with.
Exactly, why it has to be only one or the either? Taking inspiration from good ideas & elements of both seems ust logical to me. The GTA/Assassin sandbox console games people keep bringing up mix it up however they want, including both linear story quests along with RPG influences, sandbox elements and anyting they feel like would make the game world seem more alive & dynamic yet with memorable characters and events populating it and variety of activities. Edited by Pietrastor
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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.

 

I agree, most PC MMOs today seem to follow the WoW route with a theme park levelling process, although SWTOR is very much theme park heavy compared to WoW. And I think this game lost so many subs last year not only because of the levelling process and maybe because of the story because those people may not have been expecting so many cutscenes or have never played kotor or a bioware game before...I reckon most of those people started playing this game because it's got the star wars logo on it.

 

But anyway i don't know many mainstream sandbox mmos today apart from EVE online and runescape, but they seem to be newer ones coming out such as TESO and the stomping land and dayz

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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.

 

the glorious return of sandbox MMOs is coming sooner than you think.

 

EQ Next

Star Citizen

World of Darkness

Archeage

The Repopulation

Life is Feudal

Pathfinder Online

Camelot Unchained

Shroud of the Avatar

...

 

all coming 2014/15

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In the MMO space Sandbox just hasn't done as well numbers wise. Eve is probably the most successful, and it's population is what, around 300k?

 

Sandbox MMOs have tended to come with some steep learning curves, and little to no themepark to guide players along the way.

 

I'd like to see more sandbox elements added into games, but themepark is certainly a better way to tell a story, and I think the next kind of breakout MMO will probably be one that does hybrid sandbox/themepark really well, with compelling features.

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I think the next kind of breakout MMO will probably be one that does hybrid sandbox/themepark really well, with compelling features.

 

I agree. And I hope it is done with a Star Wars theme....if not, I'll settle for Transformers Online, haha.

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the glorious return of sandbox MMOs is coming sooner than you think.

 

EQ Next

Star Citizen

World of Darkness

Archeage

The Repopulation

Life is Feudal

Pathfinder Online

Camelot Unchained

Shroud of the Avatar

...

 

all coming 2014/15

 

 

lol You can take ArcheAge off there, anyone who's played it will tell you it's one big theme park disguised as a litter box.

 

Anyway, you cannot have a successful sandbox without some themepark. People need goals and guidelines, whether they admit it or not. All you have to do is look at games like A Tale in the Desert or Face of Mankind to see how popular ( not ) player only content sandboxes are.

 

Make a good themebox or sandpark and you'll have a chance at success. Like Star Citizen, for example. It is more sandpark than sandbox, and that's one of its biggest draws. It actually has content for you to do, rather than for you to have to make it all up yourself.

Edited by Zorvan
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lol You can take ArcheAge off there, anyone who's played it will tell you it's one big theme park disguised as a litter box.

 

Anyway, you cannot have a successful sandbox without some themepark. People need goals and guidelines, whether they admit it or not. All you have to do is look at games like A Tale in the Desert or Face of Mankind to see how popular ( not ) player only content sandboxes are.

 

Make a good themebox or sandpark and you'll have a chance at success. Like Star Citizen, for example. It is more sandpark than sandbox, and that's one of its biggest draws. It actually has content for you to do, rather than for you to have to make it all up yourself.

 

This is true. In swg there wasn't any thing to do, except grind to unlock your jedi or gain experience on your jedi. It seems to me the only people who like pure sandbox mmorpgs are people who role play. Take for example swg, there were no dungeons, no pvp warzones, and no quest chains. What are you supposed to do, when your done leveling? I don't like sitting around waiting for pvp to happen. There was no questing in swg. The quest you accept generated spawns of 3-5 npc that you needed to destroy to complete. You did this over and over to level. That was not fun and swtor is 10 times better than that crap. I find it hard to believe any one would have fun in that game outside of role playing or maybe that flying, but otherwise what is there to do except craft? There is nothing outside the main cities.

 

I spent a lot time in Dathomir and Dantooine and both zones were always void of players. Between warcraft and swg it's no wonder warcraft won. That is why swg attempted to copy wow, but it only drove more people to leave. The game was not design like wow and consquently made little sense to change it. There was also the change to jedi from an unlock to standard class, which pissed off most of their player base.

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EA just announced a Star Wars sandbox game a la Assassin's Creed.

 

Whether or not it will be good is a completely different matter. I think it'll be great, however. EA may suck at MMOs, but they're pretty good at single-player stuff.

 

Yeah, I'm thinking they picked up that Star Wars 1313 that got cancelled and are building on to it.

Edited by Zorvan
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Yeah, I'm thinking they picked up that Star Wars 1313 that got cancelled and are building on to it.

 

Sounds likely.

My guess is that they want to compete with GTA V (well, mimic its success) - and Star Wars 1313 seems to have the right setting to do that; add a heap of sandbox elements to it and you have GTA V in Space with lightsabers. :p

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