People need to realize the Elder Scrolls series was never about choices! just simply giving the player the illusion that he/she was making choices! Why would I want to play an Elder Scrolls MMO where I could change my playstyle at anytime and progress my character in a non-linear fashion?? Sorry but thats just far too much work for me, ive got a wife and like 8 kids and a job, I dont play MMO's to stress myself out with all these choies, and im glad Zenimax is making a game for people like me because there isnt nearly enough Themepark games like that anymore!
You sir, talk about what the Elder Scrolls series is about and say that it never has been about choices? That alone tells me you've never tried them much, if any at all, much less know what the biggest theme of TES games have been.
Giving the player total free reign of play.
That has been a traditional hook going back to the first TES game I've played, Daggerfall.
There's already enough MMORPGs out there for people like you, that "stress myself out with all these choices" and, lord forbid, have to make a considerable decision in a game. They're called themeparks, and they litter the vast majority of MMORPGs today. Their developers are more than happy to grab you by the ear and nose, and walk you down their predetermined path, and slap you across the face and say, "Are you having fun yet? No? You better be!"
Zenimax has taken the tradition of TES games, freedom, and sacrificed it on the Great Altar of World of Warcraft to again, like many others before, try to get a "Piece of WoW Pie."
For a longtime TES fan, TESO is not a TES game. It's a completely unrelated game that just happens to have the TES name slapped on it for a quick money grab. Jeez, Bethesda isn't even working on this dung heap at all.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
"Is it Skyrim Online? No. Is it Elder Scrolls Online? Most definitely."
I hear ya Bill, but If it's not Skyrim Online I will not be playing it. Sorry man, the industry already has crap like this. Way too much of it...
Skyrim was the last of TES to have come out. So the online game has to be on par with that. Just like Ultima Online was. You can't go backwards and half ass a clone of all the garbage that is already out that noone wants to play longer than a month.
Skyrim Online would be new and fresh. Anything less will be "meh - I have seen this, done this, no thanks".
Elder scrolls can offer a lot more gameplay , Skyrim actually has less options .......But you will have to think about that because I am not pointing out the obvious.
Great article this sounds good , now lets hope they add the Politics/longevity /Crafting and Markets that make a game more rounded and worth playing.
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Bill, Bill, bro, we know that TESO will not be Skyrim online.
But it will be compared to Skyrim (Morrowind, Oblivion), because it has the TES name on it.
If your product is called CocaCola, i don't want Crystal Pepsi when i open the can.
How hard is that to understand in a marketing-sense?
Nothing you say or do right now will change the fact that people will EXPECT Skyrim online of TESO and will not want anything else.
Would you complain if you heard that there's going to be a RTS game based on TES lore, set in Tamriel? By your logic you should at least. As RTS fan I'd be thrilled to hear that. I dont think that any serie, IP, or franchice should absolutely be locked into just one style of gameplay.
See Star Wars, there's a SW game or a few in every gaming genre, many of them are good regardless of which genre they are in or what kind of gameplay they have. If a game has the name "TES" really does not need to mean that it's going to be just like the last game under that name.
How hard is that to understand in common sense? What do you expect to find in a bag of CocaCola candy? Same stuff that you find in a can of CocaCola? Does cherry CocaCola taste like the basic CocaCola? What about vanilla CocaCola? They taste very different.
I don't mind the "kill 10 rats" quest system, but what I like is the choice of taking the quests or not. Skyrim's type of play is just that, choice. I've got 227 hours in the game, and I haven't picked a side yet, nor have I hit the middle of the main quest line.
What worries me about this game is that there's no player housing. The whole point of TES is collecting things and having a place to put them...even if that broom keeps moving around the house...lol
The part I really hate hearing about is Cyrodiil. I'll never see it since I don't PvP, and I'll probably never get to go to the other areas (especially if that faction is waiting to kill me). It'll be a very small game for me. I'm also not into doing all the huge heroic dungeons. I rarely have anyone to group with, and I don't do PUG's. I end up with nothing, so there's no point.
In short, I like my Elder Scrolls single player. It's my world; if I break that barrel, I want it to stay broken, not get fixed in 5 seconds so someone else can break it. Also, mods. Mods are fun
This game has ALOT in common with GW2s best features, I hope both do great and help advance MMOs. Yes its a small incremental advancement, but atleast its something.
They can say what they want to butter up their final decision, but it doesn't change the fact that they are trying to cash in on an IP using an uninspired game. I'm not buying into any of their E3 shit, not falling for it again from another company.
They are taking the last bastion of sandbox gaming and proving yet again that the only thing that sells is themepark. Everyone took this negatively and will still buy it a year from now.
Currently playing - FF14ARR Previous games - SWG, World of Warcraft, ShadowBane, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall, Planetside Asheron's Call, Everquest, Everquest 2, Too many.
The information in this article seems somewhat recycled, vague and decidedly confusing. Combat is not twitch based but its not tab target based either...huh? Player interactivity that is organic but UI centered..eh?
I hate feeling jaded about MMO's in developement. I want to feel excited and supportive, but when information seems more like a carrot on a stick than cold hard facts, I can't help but feel like I am being worked over by some marketer in a suit.
Wow, what a shill piece. And no, questing content isn't open ended, it's still a game of traveling from hub to hub with random events thrown in, and zones that are level capped to prevent players from accessing certain areas before they finish the previous.
Really, I don't understand how those of you writing and reporting on this genre can't tell when you're being sold a load of bullshit, or maybe you just don't care.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
The more i here about this game the more I'm looking forward to it. no one can say whether it's good or bad yet because there's not enough information available yet and no gameplay footage of a near final product either. Interesting, but looking forward to some more in-depth feature details though.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I almost feel bad for the devleopers ( see 38 studios, Bioware, etc etc etc ) that develop yet another WoW-like game in today's market ( of course started when they thought it would work ) ....
WoW clones are dead, dying more every day . . . Perhaps the industry will turn out some interesting titles in 2015 . .
People need to realize the Elder Scrolls series was never about choices! just simply giving the player the illusion that he/she was making choices! Why would I want to play an Elder Scrolls MMO where I could change my playstyle at anytime and progress my character in a non-linear fashion?? Sorry but thats just far too much work for me, ive got a wife and like 8 kids and a job, I dont play MMO's to stress myself out with all these choies, and im glad Zenimax is making a game for people like me because there isnt nearly enough Themepark games like that anymore!
You sir, talk about what the Elder Scrolls series is about and say that it never has been about choices? That alone tells me you've never tried them much, if any at all, much less know what the biggest theme of TES games have been.
Giving the player total free reign of play.
That has been a traditional hook going back to the first TES game I've played, Daggerfall.
There's already enough MMORPGs out there for people like you, that "stress myself out with all these choices" and, lord forbid, have to make a considerable decision in a game. They're called themeparks, and they litter the vast majority of MMORPGs today. Their developers are more than happy to grab you by the ear and nose, and walk you down their predetermined path, and slap you across the face and say, "Are you having fun yet? No? You better be!"
Zenimax has taken the tradition of TES games, freedom, and sacrificed it on the Great Altar of World of Warcraft to again, like many others before, try to get a "Piece of WoW Pie."
For a longtime TES fan, TESO is not a TES game. It's a completely unrelated game that just happens to have the TES name slapped on it for a quick money grab. Jeez, Bethesda isn't even working on this dung heap at all.
Can you seriously not tell that the dude was being sarcastic?
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
People need to realize the Elder Scrolls series was never about choices! just simply giving the player the illusion that he/she was making choices! Why would I want to play an Elder Scrolls MMO where I could change my playstyle at anytime and progress my character in a non-linear fashion?? Sorry but thats just far too much work for me, ive got a wife and like 8 kids and a job, I dont play MMO's to stress myself out with all these choies, and im glad Zenimax is making a game for people like me because there isnt nearly enough Themepark games like that anymore!
You sir, talk about what the Elder Scrolls series is about and say that it never has been about choices? That alone tells me you've never tried them much, if any at all, much less know what the biggest theme of TES games have been.
Giving the player total free reign of play.
That has been a traditional hook going back to the first TES game I've played, Daggerfall.
There's already enough MMORPGs out there for people like you, that "stress myself out with all these choices" and, lord forbid, have to make a considerable decision in a game. They're called themeparks, and they litter the vast majority of MMORPGs today. Their developers are more than happy to grab you by the ear and nose, and walk you down their predetermined path, and slap you across the face and say, "Are you having fun yet? No? You better be!"
Zenimax has taken the tradition of TES games, freedom, and sacrificed it on the Great Altar of World of Warcraft to again, like many others before, try to get a "Piece of WoW Pie."
For a longtime TES fan, TESO is not a TES game. It's a completely unrelated game that just happens to have the TES name slapped on it for a quick money grab. Jeez, Bethesda isn't even working on this dung heap at all.
Can you seriously not tell that the dude was being sarcastic?
"Skyrim was great about letting you go where you wanted, by carefully leading you from one place to the next through quests."
What? The moment I got out of the tutorial, the game allowed me to go where I wanted, when I wanted by opening up and simply allowing me to do that. I didn't have to do any quests, and in fact I barely did any quests aside from the line to allow me to turn into a werewolf.
All you did was describe every other themepark, and tell is it's not the same as any other themepark; just like the devs!
You make a character within an archetype, you'll have some freedom to "build that class" within that arechetype, you'll then run around the world doing quests and killing stuff. For added fun we've got pvp, but it'll be 3 faction and restrained within the confines of a single zone. The entire article is saying what they've already been saying, and this is what EVERY SINGLE THEMEPARK OFFERS.
Will I be able to forgo doing quests and killing things in favor of being a simple herbalist who explores the world gathering the ingredients I need to experiment with creating potions and poisons?
Will I be able to be a trader, effecting the world economy by bying goods in one area and then selling them in another?
Will I be able to be a hunter, stalking deer, wolves, and other animals for thier hides?
Will I be able able to be a tanner, buying hides from adventurers to turn into leathers to either sell to armoursmith or tailers, or make armour or clothing out of it myself?
Will I be able to play the role of weaponsmith? A miner? A fletcher?
Will I be able to use the meats and vegetables that others gathered to make food for to keep those adventureres alive on thier journeys?
Nothing you wrote, and nothing they've said so far is no different then what you can do in WoW, ToR, or EQ2. In fact, EQ2 so far seems to have more in common with ES then ESO does.
I can choose a race, many of which aren't locked to a specific faction, I can pick an archetype which has a good deal of freedom in how I "build my class", I can explore the world and find quests in out of the way areas or follow quests lines that will guide me to new areas, I can explore the world in search of artifacts that will also offer me quests to solve ancient mysteries or learn about the allthe different races of the world, I can just craft or harvest and not have to focus on questing or killing monsters in order live the life of a simple artisan, I can rent a room in an inn which is customizable and even aspire to owning a large manor if I can aquire the wealth and one goes up for sale, I choose what faction I want to fight for or not be a part of any faction and at odds with the entire world, I can do confined PvP, faction pvp, or free for all pvp.
More media hype. You guys are doing the same thing you did with AoC, the same thing you did with ToR, the same thing you did with LoTRO, the exact same thing you did with WAR, and every other themepark that releases. Except now it's an MMO based on the best selling sandbox RPG ever, and you guys are telling us it's very much an ES MMO.
Or can we expect you guys to do just like you did with TERA? Tell us how novel the game is prior to release, and then when it's released you review it and tell us that it's really just more of the same old same old with a different style of combat?
You're right though, it is an ES mmo, because that's the name they chose to put in the title.
Yes, I'm nerdraging. This article actually pissed me off to no end. It was all the exact same PR crap they've said in every single interview they've done over the last month.
If it is less free (and it has to be) than Skyrim, then it will be a bust for me. I'd rather they work on a better, newer Skyrim which has provided me more hours of entertainment than most MMO's I've recently played.
I've heard all the "oh it's different because <insert thing that's already been done a dozen times>" before. None of that matters. Is the game fun, or not. That matters.
3 way factions? DAOC did that, and regardless of what the fanboys say, three-way failed just as hard as two-way in that game. Hence, having a Mythic guy leading your team is a recipe for epic-fail-ness yet again.
After years of wasting money on crappy MMOs, I have a simple test to determine if I buy it! Does it have Quest Hubs?
Guild Wars 2 = Yes (I will not buy no matter the hype)
ESO = No (Buying it!)
I hope Guild Wars 2 is good, but after years of wasting time and money doing the goes to X, kill or collect Y, return for Z quests I'm done. Quests should be meaningful, not just time sink crap like MMOs now a days!
"Is it Skyrim Online? No. Is it Elder Scrolls Online? Most definitely."
I hear ya Bill, but If it's not Skyrim Online I will not be playing it. Sorry man, the industry already has crap like this. Way too much of it...
Skyrim was the last of TES to have come out. So the online game has to be on par with that. Just like Ultima Online was. You can't go backwards and half ass a clone of all the garbage that is already out that noone wants to play longer than a month.
Skyrim Online would be new and fresh. Anything less will be "meh - I have seen this, done this, no thanks".
Put skyrim in an Online environment and i know for a fact you wouldn't have the same experience.... Modders have tried multiplayer in ES for awhile now, and its just isn't the same...
You can't just take a Single player game, that was designed around for you alone to explore and turn it into a MMO, the experience / feeling will be lost...
So you do the next best thing, see what work in the ES series and come close to it as possible but add other players to the mix.
Yeah, the only way to create a truely socialable mmorpg is to simply provide no rules, and let the players govern themselves. AKA sandbox - UO, Shadowbane, EvE Online, Darkfall etc and now DayZ (which is an experimental FPS mod for f's sake! lol)
..
....
Meh, the day pure sandbox MMOs become all that's in store will be the day I might stop playing MMOs. I already have to deal with other people power tripping in real life (politics, competition, business, etc) to subject myself to yet another form of lawless-palooza in a game that's supposed to make me relax and have fun.
Something in between would be nice.
CLAP CLAP CLAAAAAPPPPP...
Finally someone gets it also..
There need to be a good balance between the two... Make the game too "SANDBOX", it will not gain enough sub to stay alive, make it too theme park, it will person will grow old of it soon..
FUN is the key word.. Stike a good balance between the two playstyle but make it FUN..
Comments
You sir, talk about what the Elder Scrolls series is about and say that it never has been about choices? That alone tells me you've never tried them much, if any at all, much less know what the biggest theme of TES games have been.
Giving the player total free reign of play.
That has been a traditional hook going back to the first TES game I've played, Daggerfall.
There's already enough MMORPGs out there for people like you, that "stress myself out with all these choices" and, lord forbid, have to make a considerable decision in a game. They're called themeparks, and they litter the vast majority of MMORPGs today. Their developers are more than happy to grab you by the ear and nose, and walk you down their predetermined path, and slap you across the face and say, "Are you having fun yet? No? You better be!"
Zenimax has taken the tradition of TES games, freedom, and sacrificed it on the Great Altar of World of Warcraft to again, like many others before, try to get a "Piece of WoW Pie."
For a longtime TES fan, TESO is not a TES game. It's a completely unrelated game that just happens to have the TES name slapped on it for a quick money grab. Jeez, Bethesda isn't even working on this dung heap at all.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Elder scrolls can offer a lot more gameplay , Skyrim actually has less options .......But you will have to think about that because I am not pointing out the obvious.
Great article this sounds good , now lets hope they add the Politics/longevity /Crafting and Markets that make a game more rounded and worth playing.
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
You had me at Game Director Matt Firor (of Dark Age of Camelot fame) and three faction PVP system.
DAOC is still to me the best PvP MMO ever made. Please please please have an epic RvR system like DAOC.
Would you complain if you heard that there's going to be a RTS game based on TES lore, set in Tamriel? By your logic you should at least. As RTS fan I'd be thrilled to hear that. I dont think that any serie, IP, or franchice should absolutely be locked into just one style of gameplay.
See Star Wars, there's a SW game or a few in every gaming genre, many of them are good regardless of which genre they are in or what kind of gameplay they have. If a game has the name "TES" really does not need to mean that it's going to be just like the last game under that name.
How hard is that to understand in common sense? What do you expect to find in a bag of CocaCola candy? Same stuff that you find in a can of CocaCola? Does cherry CocaCola taste like the basic CocaCola? What about vanilla CocaCola? They taste very different.
I don't mind the "kill 10 rats" quest system, but what I like is the choice of taking the quests or not. Skyrim's type of play is just that, choice. I've got 227 hours in the game, and I haven't picked a side yet, nor have I hit the middle of the main quest line.
What worries me about this game is that there's no player housing. The whole point of TES is collecting things and having a place to put them...even if that broom keeps moving around the house...lol
The part I really hate hearing about is Cyrodiil. I'll never see it since I don't PvP, and I'll probably never get to go to the other areas (especially if that faction is waiting to kill me). It'll be a very small game for me. I'm also not into doing all the huge heroic dungeons. I rarely have anyone to group with, and I don't do PUG's. I end up with nothing, so there's no point.
In short, I like my Elder Scrolls single player. It's my world; if I break that barrel, I want it to stay broken, not get fixed in 5 seconds so someone else can break it. Also, mods. Mods are fun
This game has ALOT in common with GW2s best features, I hope both do great and help advance MMOs. Yes its a small incremental advancement, but atleast its something.
They can say what they want to butter up their final decision, but it doesn't change the fact that they are trying to cash in on an IP using an uninspired game. I'm not buying into any of their E3 shit, not falling for it again from another company.
They are taking the last bastion of sandbox gaming and proving yet again that the only thing that sells is themepark. Everyone took this negatively and will still buy it a year from now.
Currently playing - FF14ARR
Previous games - SWG, World of Warcraft, ShadowBane, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall, Planetside Asheron's Call, Everquest, Everquest 2, Too many.
Should be the other way round. You got MMO in my Elder Scrolls... MMOs and rpgs like this should be kept as faaaaaaaaaaaaar away as possible imo.
The information in this article seems somewhat recycled, vague and decidedly confusing. Combat is not twitch based but its not tab target based either...huh? Player interactivity that is organic but UI centered..eh?
I hate feeling jaded about MMO's in developement. I want to feel excited and supportive, but when information seems more like a carrot on a stick than cold hard facts, I can't help but feel like I am being worked over by some marketer in a suit.
Wow, what a shill piece. And no, questing content isn't open ended, it's still a game of traveling from hub to hub with random events thrown in, and zones that are level capped to prevent players from accessing certain areas before they finish the previous.
Really, I don't understand how those of you writing and reporting on this genre can't tell when you're being sold a load of bullshit, or maybe you just don't care.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
The more i here about this game the more I'm looking forward to it. no one can say whether it's good or bad yet because there's not enough information available yet and no gameplay footage of a near final product either. Interesting, but looking forward to some more in-depth feature details though.
How do you figure? We've already played Skyrim.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I almost feel bad for the devleopers ( see 38 studios, Bioware, etc etc etc ) that develop yet another WoW-like game in today's market ( of course started when they thought it would work ) ....
WoW clones are dead, dying more every day . . . Perhaps the industry will turn out some interesting titles in 2015 . .
/thread
Can you seriously not tell that the dude was being sarcastic?
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
ROFLCOPTER
"Skyrim was great about letting you go where you wanted, by carefully leading you from one place to the next through quests."
What? The moment I got out of the tutorial, the game allowed me to go where I wanted, when I wanted by opening up and simply allowing me to do that. I didn't have to do any quests, and in fact I barely did any quests aside from the line to allow me to turn into a werewolf.
All you did was describe every other themepark, and tell is it's not the same as any other themepark; just like the devs!
You make a character within an archetype, you'll have some freedom to "build that class" within that arechetype, you'll then run around the world doing quests and killing stuff. For added fun we've got pvp, but it'll be 3 faction and restrained within the confines of a single zone. The entire article is saying what they've already been saying, and this is what EVERY SINGLE THEMEPARK OFFERS.
Will I be able to forgo doing quests and killing things in favor of being a simple herbalist who explores the world gathering the ingredients I need to experiment with creating potions and poisons?
Will I be able to be a trader, effecting the world economy by bying goods in one area and then selling them in another?
Will I be able to be a hunter, stalking deer, wolves, and other animals for thier hides?
Will I be able able to be a tanner, buying hides from adventurers to turn into leathers to either sell to armoursmith or tailers, or make armour or clothing out of it myself?
Will I be able to play the role of weaponsmith? A miner? A fletcher?
Will I be able to use the meats and vegetables that others gathered to make food for to keep those adventureres alive on thier journeys?
Nothing you wrote, and nothing they've said so far is no different then what you can do in WoW, ToR, or EQ2. In fact, EQ2 so far seems to have more in common with ES then ESO does.
I can choose a race, many of which aren't locked to a specific faction, I can pick an archetype which has a good deal of freedom in how I "build my class", I can explore the world and find quests in out of the way areas or follow quests lines that will guide me to new areas, I can explore the world in search of artifacts that will also offer me quests to solve ancient mysteries or learn about the allthe different races of the world, I can just craft or harvest and not have to focus on questing or killing monsters in order live the life of a simple artisan, I can rent a room in an inn which is customizable and even aspire to owning a large manor if I can aquire the wealth and one goes up for sale, I choose what faction I want to fight for or not be a part of any faction and at odds with the entire world, I can do confined PvP, faction pvp, or free for all pvp.
More media hype. You guys are doing the same thing you did with AoC, the same thing you did with ToR, the same thing you did with LoTRO, the exact same thing you did with WAR, and every other themepark that releases. Except now it's an MMO based on the best selling sandbox RPG ever, and you guys are telling us it's very much an ES MMO.
Or can we expect you guys to do just like you did with TERA? Tell us how novel the game is prior to release, and then when it's released you review it and tell us that it's really just more of the same old same old with a different style of combat?
You're right though, it is an ES mmo, because that's the name they chose to put in the title.
Yes, I'm nerdraging. This article actually pissed me off to no end. It was all the exact same PR crap they've said in every single interview they've done over the last month.
Seems very interesting.
I'll pint it.
My blog about (no more)MMORPG Addicted - a bog about videogames, cinema, politics and other things (in Italian)
If it is less free (and it has to be) than Skyrim, then it will be a bust for me. I'd rather they work on a better, newer Skyrim which has provided me more hours of entertainment than most MMO's I've recently played.
I've heard all the "oh it's different because <insert thing that's already been done a dozen times>" before. None of that matters. Is the game fun, or not. That matters.
3 way factions? DAOC did that, and regardless of what the fanboys say, three-way failed just as hard as two-way in that game. Hence, having a Mythic guy leading your team is a recipe for epic-fail-ness yet again.
No Quest Hubs = Sign me up!
After years of wasting money on crappy MMOs, I have a simple test to determine if I buy it! Does it have Quest Hubs?
Guild Wars 2 = Yes (I will not buy no matter the hype)
ESO = No (Buying it!)
I hope Guild Wars 2 is good, but after years of wasting time and money doing the goes to X, kill or collect Y, return for Z quests I'm done. Quests should be meaningful, not just time sink crap like MMOs now a days!
Really?
Your proof astounds me and therefor this statement must be truth!
Put skyrim in an Online environment and i know for a fact you wouldn't have the same experience.... Modders have tried multiplayer in ES for awhile now, and its just isn't the same...
You can't just take a Single player game, that was designed around for you alone to explore and turn it into a MMO, the experience / feeling will be lost...
So you do the next best thing, see what work in the ES series and come close to it as possible but add other players to the mix.
No, you got your MMO in my Elder Scrolls! And you sank my battleship! And you connected four diagonally here, see? Pretty sneaky, sis!
CLAP CLAP CLAAAAAPPPPP...
Finally someone gets it also..
There need to be a good balance between the two... Make the game too "SANDBOX", it will not gain enough sub to stay alive, make it too theme park, it will person will grow old of it soon..
FUN is the key word.. Stike a good balance between the two playstyle but make it FUN..