Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
[Column] General: Two Failures and the Sandbox Revival
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
Could the sandbox sub-genre of MMOs be set for a revival of sorts? How did the relative failures of both Star Wars Galaxies and Star Wars: The Old Republic play into the state of the sandbox MMO? We discuss it all in this week's column.
We know this sad story all too well, and so does SOE, but it was likely this failure of such a high profile sandbox game combined with the unprecedented success of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft that has relegated the sandbox MMO sub-genre into a niche over the last few years. If SOE couldn’t get anywhere near Blizzard numbers with a sandbox game and the Star Wars IP, why should anyone else even bother? And thus the next couple of years saw the release of many ‘themepark’ MMOs featuring linear quest-driven content that was quickly consumed by players, often resulting in even faster subscriber turnover due to players’ voracious appetites for content and the increasingly fickle sense of loyalty gamers show any given title.
Read more of Michael Bitton's Two 'Failures' and the Sandbox Revival.
Comments
Well written article and I can agree with the major points, that SWG helped put nails in the sandbox coffin and WOW's unprecented success had Developers falling all over themselves trying to copy it.
At first the "clones" weren't very good, and people said, a well made theme park game could do as well as WOW. But then the quality went way up, and yet even those titles couldn't really carve out a solid base of long term subscribers.
Almost every post WOW title ends up F2P these days, just a matter of when, not if.
As others have mentioned, the problem is what is there to do once you burn though the quest content. It has even been made worse since the leveling curve has gotten shorter with every game and pretty much all of them now dump you off in the same gear grinding, dungeon centric content. (or running dailies)
I recall hitting level 50 on my first character in DAOC. (grinding all the way with groups of various types). What to do next? Get out to the Frontiers and join in the "big boy" RVR, and start refining my build with additional Realm points/abilities.
Meanwhile, I also started crafting, because I wanted to become a master in one of them. I took up Spellcrafting, and worked on that for quite a while, interspersed with RVR action.
I decided my role in groups and RVR wasn't to my liking (I was a stealther) so I decide to re-roll a group centric character, a Minstrel. I had a considerably different leveling experience playing that character, and eventually over the years with pretty much every class I tried in that game. (Hence I had like 5 or 6 level 50s, each at RR 5 or better)
I also had 2 high level crafters, SC and Armor, rerolled on the FFA PVP servers, joined a role playing horde of kobolds (Shadowclan, good times) and battled for Darkness Falls too many times
I defended our clan's "keep" (we adopted one in Mordred and fought all comers) and I even put up with some PVE raiding/gear grinding when Trials of Atlantis came out, but I really didn't like it and was a portent of what was to come in WOW and other titles one day.
Oh yeah, we were talking about sandboxes. I later found EVE, and there was a game that I really could sink my teeth in. It had even more diversity and things to work on doing than even DAOC (which was a case in point that even theme parks can have some serious end game things to work on).
I'll wrap it up.... players really are not screaming for a sandbox or a themepark, we just want MMO's that give us something more to do besides the same tired forumula that we've had shovelled at us for about the last 8 years.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
This get me confused when I read some of M.B. recent articles and then this one.
While they are not directly contraddicting themself, indirectly they actually do.
I am sorry and maybe I am wrong, but it kinda seems like an artice written 'under publicty' after slamming recent Swtor one.
Well Said MikeB.
Lets Hope 2013 is filled with old innovations making a return and many new ones popping up. Would love to see a sandbox with GW2 WvW added in.
Then top it off with a robust crafting/housing system like SWG. Tack on dynamic events and old school raids for those that have no life still
I would pay 40 bucks a month for this game.
most people have played WoW till their eyes bled. we have been gear grinding for years and are simply tired of that old formula. people want something inspired, something fresh, something challenging, and something they can leave a mark in.
there is plent of space for a good sandbox and games like Dayz and Minecraft have shown that. however it has to be done right.it has to be a solid game and it has to have something unique and innovative. it has to make you think "i really cannot find this feature, or set of features, in any other game".
Devs have to stop trying to copy and paste for a quick buck and they have to sit down and ask themselves "what kind of world would i want to lose myself in for hours on end? what would my dream mmo play and feel like?", that is how you make the magic happen.
we are all waiting to partake in something truly magical. it's why we play to begin with.
While I optimistically hope you are right, I pessimistically don’t see it. I’ve see little indication that MMOs are moving to sandbox, at least in the type we had in SWG. Allowing your players to wander about the digital landscape without really anything to do outside the quest content is not sandbox, just theme park without the invisible walls.
Here’s hopin’ nonetheless.
Been saying it all along. Hybrids are the wave of the future. We can't go back to the old style of sandbox and we can't continue with the current themepark style, so we need to find that middle ground and evolve from there, which we are in games like GW2, ArcheAge and Wildstar as well as others in the pipeline for the next few years.
I agree with the post. Good post.
Sick and tired of WoW clones. It's all the same steak with different seasoning.
Playing: FFXIV, DnL, and World of Warships
Waiting on: Ashes of Creation
I don't get it. The Author starts out by pointing out SWG was a Sandbox, and a Sandbox that dispite its popular IP that tanked hard , was bleeding subs even before the NGE. Massive fail but a sanbox. He then goes on to say that SW:TOR a theme park game with the same IP failed, ok how does that equal any revival of sandbox games?
GW2 is in no way a sandbox, and proclaiming it a overwhelming Major success just yet would be a bit soon I'd say, maybe at leaast wait a month or 2 after its been out. hell there were tons of people saying how SW;Tor was gonna be a major success before it was releaased too and we have seen how thats turned out.
Surely in the end the Author can come up with better then wishfull thinking and the arguement that because one SW sandbox game failed and one SW theme park game failed its gonna lead to a revival of sandbox games. Thatt just doesn't make any logical sense
There's no contradiction at all.
One could go on and on about how SWToR is a good game ( I do think it's a good game) and yet point out why it was a failure to EA/Bioware (wanting X amount of subs, thinking it was going to constantly grow with subs) or why it was a failure to mmo players wanting to continue in the SWToR world but not having much to continue with.
In one light SWToR can be looked at as a success. In another light it can be considered a dismal failure.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Really the only thing that SWTOR showed is that throwing what was in essence an unlimited amount of cash at a game doesn't guarantee the game will be a success. Take the Day-z mod, an indie sandbox game that has taken gaming by storm on what I'd guess was a very low budget by industry standards.
The industry leaders need to be thinking out the box now and stop being sheep, a hybrid sandbox may well be the answer.
Well, the subject matter is certainly a change, but his other articles highlighted either what's good about SWToR, or the irrational responses people have to the game on forums. Neither one of these things means he can't also see a possible trend in the market or a direction for MMORPG in general.
I'm not so sure he's exactly right though. Just because theme park MMORPG don't hold players for long periods of time doesn't mean developers are going to start making sandboxes. They could start making games that are designed to last for three months, and then have follow ups or updates or something. They might continue making theme park games, but they all release as B2P or F2P. There could be new sandbox games coming that do attract a lot of people, but they could all be more like Farmville or Wizard 101 than UO. The sandbox resurgence could happen with games that current sandbox fans wouldn't want to play. Any one of these things seems just as likely as developers deciding to make sandbox games in the classic style.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Well ultimately developers are going to realize that they simply can't keep up with enough content to satisfy people. They either can make it the EQ1 route and make you truly grind to extend playtime (I actually don't mind this like most others do) or give the player population some more freedom.
100% developer driven content MMO's are going to be much less popular in the future as it is just not possible to satisfy people with this model.
And I agree with other in the thread that sandparks are the wave of the future. Basically themeparks with more freedom. They will have more structure than a pure sandbox but more freedom than the current Themepark. Also these would likely dump Full loot PvP as it is simply not popular enough.
Hybrid is the future.
Elocke is 100% correct.
The "old school" sandbox of UO/EvE etc. just won't cut it, but neither will the cookie-cutter EQ formula games since 2004.
The original MMO audience I feel misses a virtual world, and the "new" MMO audience is growing tired of the same old formula and want virtual world aspects too.
The article mentions SWTOR and then a common weakness of "Themeparks" not being able to keep up with content demands of a ravonous playerbase. SWTOR had plenty of content, I seriously doubt most people that quit consumed all of it. Thier problem wasn't a lack of content. It was designing a world that is better visited than lived in. There is nothing wrong with this and it is absolutly fun if players approach it this way. The sub fee doesn't fit with this type of game which is why f2p is a good choice for them.
If a sandbox means designing a world that is to be "lived in" I am not sure that will ever be anything more than niche. It's a time requirement issue. The pool of gamers that have 80 hours a week to throw at a game is much much smaller than the pool of gamers that have 20 or 10.
If sandbox means making an impact on the world Mindcraft style then yes, absolutly yes this is the next iteration of the genre. If it means fresh bleeding edge always different algorythmicly generated content that we can do once and never agian, then yes of course yes.
If it means FFA Full loot PvP, then no. If it means time commitments that likes of which olympic training doesn't even require, then of course no. If it means frustration so prevasive that you need to repeat the same activity 1000 times to be successful even once, then no. If it means a world so open ended that the only things to do is to grind mobs and emote going to bathroom, then hell no.
Everywhere you said GW2 you sould have put TSW.
Other than that good article.
As much as I don't think ESO is going to "work" as an Elder Scrolls game (I want Skyrim online!)
It sounds like they are at least going the right direction for gamers are asking for -
1. Non linear questing/story - bring back the wanderlust
2. Open world PvP with meaning/purpose that is NOT FFA/gank/grief-fest
3. Faster paced skill-based combat.
Yes, it's the GW2 model, but as MB says - and I have said before, TOR was the death of the old ways, GW2 is the vanguard of the new direction. I am sure games released years from now will "do GW2 better than GW2 does GW2" but the shift IS happening.
Umm content consumption + end-game gear/instance grind. Exactly what MB says (correctly I might add) people are tired of.
As long as people believe that a game must be 100% sandbox or themepark, the genre deserves what it is getting.
Drop the idea of class/level and you can get a sandbox based themepark. Complete freedom to go anywhere, do anything at any time you want because you are not limited to level based area/content which will allow a sandbox to have quests and stories not stuck in a themepark design. Then throw in the ability for players to make game content and you add to the longevity of the game itself as it wont be limited to just whatever the developers can throw together to add new content.
And no...I dont want to hear about how most player made content is crap because SOME good content is better than NONE.
Players need to stop thinking in the box created by short sighted developers.
Companies should not be trying to match WOW sub numbers its never gonna happen.. its a one off..
SWG back in its day say with its 250k odd subs would have been no1 if it was not for WOW.. So if you take WOW out it then SWG was doing really well compared to other MMORPGs.
Also if you look at other MMORPGs released over the years sub numbers probally settle around that still maybe up to 500k if they are lucky..
My entire point is companies should not design and market their game around WOW numbers its not gonig to happen they should look at the average numbers from other AAA mmorpgs and go yeah this is what we should aim for.
Of course they need innovation as well but there is no reason why a AAA mmorpg sandbox cant do well as long as they dont expect WOW numbers.
I agree completely. I've felt this way for some years now, espcially being one of those people who actually played SWG from launch to NGE. [mod edit] Pre-CU SWG is a dated game and is far too clunky and raw for today's gaming world. For me it's a bit of nostalgia until I get something more modern such as The Repopulation or other.
SWG was a buggy game with its own problems. We all know that. However, what that game did best, with the limited technology at the time, was create a themed world for gamers to 'live' in. You could be a hero, or a zero. You could simulate just about any kind of character you wanted to, and the game would provide you some means to do so. I've never seen a more diverse and interesting player base in a game since, nor have I encountered a community that is even remotely as tightly integrated with one another.
I happen to agree that it is fun sometimes to "just play" like you do in themeparks, and I think this is why they are perfect for the F2P model. However, I also want to have a longer-term game that I can play for possibly years, and build up friendships and a virtual home to escape to with larger and more varying ambitions than just movie-style quests and cartoon PvP. I want to CREATE something that is mine, something that stays in the world when I am not logged in, and will be there when I return. Something I share with other players, and they share with me.
There's clearly plenty of room for both game styles, but as I have been saying for years now, more people would like a sandbox or hybrid than anyone really knows. Games like Minecraft (and the clones), and even social Facebook games show that there is an interest in persistant virtual world gaming that is more than just combat.
I'm personally watching the game in the signature I made below, because it's the closest thing we have coming that is an updated and more hybrid version of SWG. I'm also keeping an eye on other projects such as ArchAge.
I'm hanging out in TSW right now, but the writing is on the wall for that game too. While it is fun to play from a casual standpoint, and is much more interesting to me in setting and mood than GW2, it still has a very short playability window that the devs will be chasing with content updates. They missed a great opportunity to take TSW into a more hybrid play style, and the game will eventually suffer for it, just like all the other themeparks out there.
GW2 will give the WoW-type players a nice home, and many others may own a copy of it because it will be a fun themepark that is easy and accessible. However, it's still just an evolutionary step in the genre, and once you get past the fancy re-packaging of familiar gameplay mechanics, it's still just a themepark. For me, I already know GW2 won't be a game I will want to play for years. Your mileage may vary of course, but I'm looking for something much more bold and adventurous with gameplay that offers me choices from hero to zero.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.