Outside of eve, I think the 'proof' that a sandbox mmorpg could be popular comes from the old ones(swg, uo etc) that unfortunately got killed off by poor development.
EVE has a major hurdle simply because it is of the SciFi genre. Age of Wushu has a hurdle in the western markets because it is Asian fantasy. The market right now lacks a good western fantasy sandbox. It will be interesting to see just how well Everquest Next does.
I would like a theme park for most of the leveling process (ie a long tutorial) and then segway into a sandbox for to end game. My biggest gripe with sandboxes is the learning curve is steep, , every second you didn't play counts against you, and the crowd sandboxes tend to attract
Yeah a lot of people want a good sandbox game.. its one of the reasons why so many have been recently backed on kickstarter..
Will a sandbox game be as popular as wow.. no probably not.. but nothing will be.
No. The reason they are on KS is because few wants them. If they can sell millions and millions of copies, big publishers will already been jumping all over them.
KS is for niche products, and devs who can't get real funding and has to resort to selling dreams.
Is there any proof that sandboxes are popular at all?
The only proof of sandboxes being popular is that every new game gets some people on mmorpg.com begging for it to become a sandbox, and the same people scoffing any game thats not a sandbox...
But how popular are Sandboxes? just wondering if someone ever somewhere did a decent poll about this?
Lets list them all off.
EvE Online...
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
Is there any proof that sandboxes are popular at all?
The only proof of sandboxes being popular is that every new game gets some people on mmorpg.com begging for it to become a sandbox, and the same people scoffing any game thats not a sandbox...
But how popular are Sandboxes? just wondering if someone ever somewhere did a decent poll about this?
Lets list them all off.
EvE Online...
TOR has as much subs as Eve, and many more free players. Do is TOR popular too? I thought it was a failure?
Originally posted by Shadowguy64 Would a sandbox work for a non-PVP centric crowd?
pve sandbox would work just fine.
I can only imagine
A knight and full plate in his garden watering his flowers and harvesting petals to decorate his house with... Mmmm the excitement
If thats all you can imagine doing in a pve game you need more experience and a greater imagination
Since you have an idea how much experience and imagination or lack thereof from my one post, why dont you help me out here, Ill start...
Exploration
Structure creation
Fighting A.I scripts
There, now your turn... what else is there to do?
Good for you. Those are the big ones. Yes all those things can, should and frequently are done in pve sandboxes. Since you can imagine things other than a knight picking flowers, why did you state that in what was obviously a sarcastic post about pve sandboxes?
Are you confused?
I'll add a big general one. Every single thing you can do in every themepark MMO in the world can be done in a pve sandbox with the exception of open world pvp.
edit -with regards to what I can tell about you. I can only tell what you write, so if you write a very limited answer to a pretty simple question it's logical to believe you are limited.
Otherwise you wouldn't have written such a pathetically stupid answer when you obviously knew there was more to do.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Originally posted by ice-vortex EVE has a major hurdle simply because it is of the SciFi genre. Age of Wushu has a hurdle in the western markets because it is Asian fantasy. The market right now lacks a good western fantasy sandbox. It will be interesting to see just how well Everquest Next does.
pure sandbox games are difficult to do in the MMO space because you've always got the kid that comes into your sandbox and kicks over your sandcastle. No fun in that.
There are some pretty popular open-ended sandbox games that are single player however...like the new release "Don't Starve."
Originally posted by Shadowguy64 Would a sandbox work for a non-PVP centric crowd?
pve sandbox would work just fine.
I can only imagine
A knight and full plate in his garden watering his flowers and harvesting petals to decorate his house with... Mmmm the excitement
If thats all you can imagine doing in a pve game you need more experience and a greater imagination
Since you have an idea how much experience and imagination or lack thereof from my one post, why dont you help me out here, Ill start...
Exploration
Structure creation
Fighting A.I scripts
There, now your turn... what else is there to do?
Good for you. Those are the big ones. Yes all those things can, should and frequently are done in pve sandboxes. Since you can imagine things other than a knight picking flowers, why did you state that in what was obviously a sarcastic post about pve sandboxes?
Are you confused?
I'll add a big general one. Every single thing you can do in every themepark MMO in the world can be done in a pve sandbox with the exception of open world pvp.
edit -with regards to what I can tell about you. I can only tell what you write, so if you write a very limited answer to a pretty simple question it's logical to believe you are limited.
Otherwise you wouldn't have written such a pathetically stupid answer when you obviously knew there was more to do.
*Face Palm*
I was merely asking if you can think of anymore possible content a PvE sandbox could have. You didnt offer anything, plus you missed that I was comparing a PvE sandbox to a PvP sandbox NOT a PvE sandbox to a Themepark. My sarcasm in the post before was just pointing out the limits of a PvE sandbox. A Sandbox needs PvP or it will be all fluff and no grit....
and you had the nerve to ask if I was confused .. tsk tsk tsk
Originally posted by ice-vortex EVE has a major hurdle simply because it is of the SciFi genre. Age of Wushu has a hurdle in the western markets because it is Asian fantasy. The market right now lacks a good western fantasy sandbox. It will be interesting to see just how well Everquest Next does.
Really?
Mass Effects is sci-fi and sold a lot.
Halo is sci-fi and sold a lot.
GoW is sci-fi and sold a lot.
Heck, even TOR is sci-fi and sold a lot.
So what is the problem being sci-fi?
I think the majority of MMO players prefer fantasy. Just a guess tho.
Whenever i step outside, somebody claims to see the light It seems to me that all of us have lost our patience. 'cause everyone thinks they're right, And nobody thinks that there just might Be more than one road to our final destination--
Age of Wushu is a rebranding of a Chinese Sand box that is a decade old and while i don't have a problem with them having their moment in the sun, the game didn't really offer anything new. It came in as a sandbox and got a lot of attention just on that merit alone.
Sand Box MMO's are in demand. SWG proved it, Age of Wushu confirms it. The trouble being, they always seem to die a quick and horrible death because someone decided Sand Box means PvP in a do whatever the hell you want fashion and people get bullied out of them.
Originally posted by Shadowguy64 Would a sandbox work for a non-PVP centric crowd?
pve sandbox would work just fine.
I can only imagine
A knight and full plate in his garden watering his flowers and harvesting petals to decorate his house with... Mmmm the excitement
If thats all you can imagine doing in a pve game you need more experience and a greater imagination
Since you have an idea how much experience and imagination or lack thereof from my one post, why dont you help me out here, Ill start...
Exploration
Structure creation
Fighting A.I scripts
There, now your turn... what else is there to do?
Good for you. Those are the big ones. Yes all those things can, should and frequently are done in pve sandboxes. Since you can imagine things other than a knight picking flowers, why did you state that in what was obviously a sarcastic post about pve sandboxes?
Are you confused?
I'll add a big general one. Every single thing you can do in every themepark MMO in the world can be done in a pve sandbox with the exception of open world pvp.
edit -with regards to what I can tell about you. I can only tell what you write, so if you write a very limited answer to a pretty simple question it's logical to believe you are limited.
Otherwise you wouldn't have written such a pathetically stupid answer when you obviously knew there was more to do.
*Face Palm*
I was merely asking if you can think of anymore possible content a PvE sandbox could have. You didnt offer anything, plus you missed that I was comparing a PvE sandbox to a PvP sandbox NOT a PvE sandbox to a Themepark. My sarcasm in the post before was just pointing out the limits of a PvE sandbox. A Sandbox needs PvP or it will be all fluff and no grit....
and you had the nerve to ask if I was confused .. tsk tsk tsk
No.
You allready stated everything that MMO's have. A pvp sandbox has
Exploration
Structure creation
Fighting A.I scripts
And pvp.
A pve sandbox has
Exploration
Structure creation
Fighting A.I scripts
"A Sandbox needs PvP or it will be all fluff and no grit...."
Dumbest statement in regards to sandboxes.
So yes Are you confused?
There are several pve sandbox games out there allready, no none are very successfull but most have a great deal of depth to them (depth meaning meaningfull choices).
I also wasn't comparing a pve sandbox to a themepark, I only pointed out that it can have as many features. So name a feature besides pvp and a pve can have it.
You allready had the major points though.
So no.
A sandbox does not need pvp. It can have just as much "grit" without it.
Heck atitd has more meaning than most of the pvp sandboxes.
Originally posted by Shadowguy64 Would a sandbox work for a non-PVP centric crowd?
pve sandbox would work just fine.
I can only imagine
A knight and full plate in his garden watering his flowers and harvesting petals to decorate his house with... Mmmm the excitement
If thats all you can imagine doing in a pve game you need more experience and a greater imagination
Since you have an idea how much experience and imagination or lack thereof from my one post, why dont you help me out here, Ill start...
Exploration
Structure creation
Fighting A.I scripts
There, now your turn... what else is there to do?
Good for you. Those are the big ones. Yes all those things can, should and frequently are done in pve sandboxes. Since you can imagine things other than a knight picking flowers, why did you state that in what was obviously a sarcastic post about pve sandboxes?
Are you confused?
I'll add a big general one. Every single thing you can do in every themepark MMO in the world can be done in a pve sandbox with the exception of open world pvp.
edit -with regards to what I can tell about you. I can only tell what you write, so if you write a very limited answer to a pretty simple question it's logical to believe you are limited.
Otherwise you wouldn't have written such a pathetically stupid answer when you obviously knew there was more to do.
*Face Palm*
I was merely asking if you can think of anymore possible content a PvE sandbox could have. You didnt offer anything, plus you missed that I was comparing a PvE sandbox to a PvP sandbox NOT a PvE sandbox to a Themepark. My sarcasm in the post before was just pointing out the limits of a PvE sandbox. A Sandbox needs PvP or it will be all fluff and no grit....
and you had the nerve to ask if I was confused .. tsk tsk tsk
No.
You allready stated everything that MMO's have. A pvp sandbox has
Exploration
Structure creation
Fighting A.I scripts
And pvp.
A pve sandbox has
Exploration
Structure creation
Fighting A.I scripts
"A Sandbox needs PvP or it will be all fluff and no grit...."
Dumbest statement in regards to sandboxes.
So yes Are you confused?
There are several pve sandbox games out there allready, no none are very successfull but most have a great deal of depth to them (depth meaning meaningfull choices).
I also wasn't comparing a pve sandbox to a themepark, I only pointed out that it can have as many features. So name a feature besides pvp and a pve can have it.
You allready had the major points though.
So no.
A sandbox does not need pvp. It can have just as much "grit" without it.
Heck atitd has more meaning than most of the pvp sandboxes.
PvP definitely isn't required; however, you are cutting out a huge section of players and moving into a niche market by cutting out PvP. PvP is very popular. I don't know why. It just is.
For one, it helps create a community. We can look at this going back before modern MMOs with Diablo 1 and the like. There was always a coalescing of players around PKs and antis. We saw this in UO. Many modern MMOs try to factionize it. There's nothing wrong with this. If you don't have the PVP, you are going to have to have some just stellar PvE. It's going to have to be significantly better than the competition or the game is going to have to resign itself to a small niche.
Hopefully, I'll get around to reading all of the posts here, but I would like to say that I hope this thread turns out as good as the famous "Mythical Sandbox Crowd" thread.
That thread was epic!
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
You allready stated everything that MMO's have. A pvp sandbox has
Exploration
Structure creation
Fighting A.I scripts
And pvp.
A pve sandbox has
Exploration
Structure creation
Fighting A.I scripts
"A Sandbox needs PvP or it will be all fluff and no grit...."
Dumbest statement in regards to sandboxes.
So yes Are you confused?
There are several pve sandbox games out there allready, no none are very successfull but most have a great deal of depth to them (depth meaning meaningfull choices).
I also wasn't comparing a pve sandbox to a themepark, I only pointed out that it can have as many features. So name a feature besides pvp and a pve can have it.
You allready had the major points though.
So no.
A sandbox does not need pvp. It can have just as much "grit" without it.
Heck atitd has more meaning than most of the pvp sandboxes.
PvP definitely isn't required; however, you are cutting out a huge section of players and moving into a niche market by cutting out PvP. PvP is very popular. I don't know why. It just is.
For one, it helps create a community. We can look at this going back before modern MMOs with Diablo 1 and the like. There was always a coalescing of players around PKs and antis. We saw this in UO. Many modern MMOs try to factionize it. There's nothing wrong with this. If you don't have the PVP, you are going to have to have some just stellar PvE. It's going to have to be significantly better than the competition or the game is going to have to resign itself to a small niche.
No argument there, except for the niche part. I think a pve focused sandbox would be more popular than a pvp focused sandbox. However you are a right that a game that successfully melds both will be even more popular.
Pvp does do all of those things. However pve can too: Community events, community building projects. Istaria had mines and dungeons that the group would build and 2 major events where the community freed races that were then playable.
So the pve doesn't have to be stellar it just has to be there, too many sandboxes just don't have content at all.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Furthermore, Occam's Razor is not a logical argument.
Nor is dicto simpliciter.
"Players love to talk about world PvP and how much they like it. They don't."
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.
Is there any proof that sandboxes are popular at all?
The only two MMOs with growing subs and companies behind them are sandbox MMOs (Eve, Darkfall)
And Eve grew to be... only a little more than the average themepark. And Darkfall, which just released will grow to be... a little less than the average themepark.
Developer choice - make game A sell 1-2 million on release and then drop to 50-500k players and sustain that.
or Game B - sell 40-100k and raise to 50-500k and sustain that.
hahahah oh man you wish that themepark games had 500k subs. Age of Conan would DIE for that much. All of them would.
Several do have near 500k subs. and I said 50-500 which pretty much all of them have.
Well there's tor currently(if only because of the expansion). What are the others?
Age of Wushu is a rebranding of a Chinese Sand box that is a decade old and while i don't have a problem with them having their moment in the sun, the game didn't really offer anything new. It came in as a sandbox and got a lot of attention just on that merit alone.
Sand Box MMO's are in demand. SWG proved it, Age of Wushu confirms it. The trouble being, they always seem to die a quick and horrible death because someone decided Sand Box means PvP in a do whatever the hell you want fashion and people get bullied out of them.
Lol, Age Of Wushu has 15-20million players and most of them in Asia meaning China.
Age Of Wushu hasn't attracted those players because it's a hybrid MMO it's because of what the actual game is based on wuxia, it's the actual lore that is the pull in Asia. In the west it is more of the type of game it is..ie the hybrid features of the game.
As for nothing new, really! are you kidding me?
Name another mmo with the offline system that Age Of Wushu has, nope i'm not talking about gaining XP while off line because in Age Of Wushu your character stays online as an NPC.
Name another mmo that has the kidnapping system of Age Of Wushu.
Name another mmo that has the character alteration that the castration skills brings.
Spying and patrolling system that is actually built into the game.
A whole marriage system that is also built into the game.
Dungeons that have bosses calling on actual players to fight alongside them against player trying to complete the dungeon, seriously name me another mmo that has this.
I could go on but let's start with the things i mentioned.
And remember that AOW released in China before Archeage was released anywhere but i wont mention the court system, player policing system and prison system even though the game released before ArcheAge.
Either you haven't played the game, i mean actually got passed the tutorial and played the game over a length of time or you really know nothing about the game.
If these features were in a western mmo we wouldn't hear the last of it, can you imagine the fan love if GW2 had these features lol.
Aion Global - has a couple million. Don't start with the we are talking in the west crap. They are all played on a global market, including Eve. Eve only has about 100-200k in NA - it is global.
Thats just off the top of my head. I'm sure others can think of many more.
EvE is a sandobox game. Has consistantly ranked in the top 10 western MMO's for years now. Therefor a sandbox game CAN be popular... Q.E.D.
Unless ranking in the top 10 of MMO's in the western market doesn't meet your definition of popular.
If we go outside the MMO market....just look at Minecraft...again Q.E.D.
Simply being a themepark or sandbox won't make or break a game in and of itself as we have plenty of examples of unpopular games in both categories. There are thousands of different things that go into making a game what it is, sandbox and themepark are two of those and clearly both can work when put together with other things that are working.
PvP definitely isn't required; however, you are cutting out a huge section of players and moving into a niche market by cutting out PvP. PvP is very popular. I don't know why. It just is.
For one, it helps create a community. We can look at this going back before modern MMOs with Diablo 1 and the like. There was always a coalescing of players around PKs and antis. We saw this in UO. Many modern MMOs try to factionize it. There's nothing wrong with this. If you don't have the PVP, you are going to have to have some just stellar PvE. It's going to have to be significantly better than the competition or the game is going to have to resign itself to a small niche.
You're wrong. PvP players are a minority in almost every game out there. Open world PvP is even smaller niche even though the fans are nearly as vocal as the rest combined.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
PvP definitely isn't required; however, you are cutting out a huge section of players and moving into a niche market by cutting out PvP. PvP is very popular. I don't know why. It just is. For one, it helps create a community. We can look at this going back before modern MMOs with Diablo 1 and the like. There was always a coalescing of players around PKs and antis. We saw this in UO. Many modern MMOs try to factionize it. There's nothing wrong with this. If you don't have the PVP, you are going to have to have some just stellar PvE. It's going to have to be significantly better than the competition or the game is going to have to resign itself to a small niche.
You're wrong. PvP players are a minority in almost every game out there. Open world PvP is even smaller niche even though the fans are nearly as vocal as the rest combined.
I would go out on a limb and say that PvP RPG game play is the least popular option, whether you're talking about PvP games or RPGs. FPS death match games and MOBAs are more popular on the PvPG side of things, and PvE or PvE with secondary PvP mechanics are more popular in the RPG side of things.
If that's true (I think it is), why do sandbox developers seem so intent on doing PvP RPG style games?
** ** **
Also, I think PvP is required, but it needs to be optional or at least consensual.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
You allready stated everything that MMO's have. A pvp sandbox has
Exploration
Structure creation
Fighting A.I scripts
And pvp.
A pve sandbox has
Exploration
Structure creation
Fighting A.I scripts
"A Sandbox needs PvP or it will be all fluff and no grit...."
Dumbest statement in regards to sandboxes.
So yes Are you confused?
There are several pve sandbox games out there allready, no none are very successfull but most have a great deal of depth to them (depth meaning meaningfull choices).
I also wasn't comparing a pve sandbox to a themepark, I only pointed out that it can have as many features. So name a feature besides pvp and a pve can have it.
You allready had the major points though.
So no.
A sandbox does not need pvp. It can have just as much "grit" without it.
Heck atitd has more meaning than most of the pvp sandboxes.
PvP definitely isn't required; however, you are cutting out a huge section of players and moving into a niche market by cutting out PvP. PvP is very popular. I don't know why. It just is.
For one, it helps create a community. We can look at this going back before modern MMOs with Diablo 1 and the like. There was always a coalescing of players around PKs and antis. We saw this in UO. Many modern MMOs try to factionize it. There's nothing wrong with this. If you don't have the PVP, you are going to have to have some just stellar PvE. It's going to have to be significantly better than the competition or the game is going to have to resign itself to a small niche.
No argument there, except for the niche part. I think a pve focused sandbox would be more popular than a pvp focused sandbox. However you are a right that a game that successfully melds both will be even more popular.
Pvp does do all of those things. However pve can too: Community events, community building projects. Istaria had mines and dungeons that the group would build and 2 major events where the community freed races that were then playable.
So the pve doesn't have to be stellar it just has to be there, too many sandboxes just don't have content at all.
PvE only is probably going to be more popular especially given that now games do integrate PvP in ways without impacting PvE to any significant degree. I disagree that PvE does it as effectively. I think PvE can accomplish similar feats. The guild structure in EQ and early WoW was a great community builder, but I think that the way games have moved recently towards more of a cooperate multiplayer game as opposed to a true MMO they're failing at it. I also believe that an us vs. them environment does it better, but that's just opinion.
I agree with the sandboxes and lack of content. I do think that PvE without PvP requires better content or perhaps rather significantly more content.
Originally posted by Icewhite
Originally posted by marsh9799
Furthermore, Occam's Razor is not a logical argument.
Nor is dicto simpliciter.
"Players love to talk about world PvP and how much they like it. They don't."
It was pretty clear from what I said that it was not a universal but a specific subset of the player base that is loud and influential. Fail again.
Comments
No. The reason they are on KS is because few wants them. If they can sell millions and millions of copies, big publishers will already been jumping all over them.
KS is for niche products, and devs who can't get real funding and has to resort to selling dreams.
Lets list them all off.
EvE Online...
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
TOR has as much subs as Eve, and many more free players. Do is TOR popular too? I thought it was a failure?
Good for you. Those are the big ones. Yes all those things can, should and frequently are done in pve sandboxes. Since you can imagine things other than a knight picking flowers, why did you state that in what was obviously a sarcastic post about pve sandboxes?
Are you confused?
I'll add a big general one. Every single thing you can do in every themepark MMO in the world can be done in a pve sandbox with the exception of open world pvp.
edit -with regards to what I can tell about you. I can only tell what you write, so if you write a very limited answer to a pretty simple question it's logical to believe you are limited.
Otherwise you wouldn't have written such a pathetically stupid answer when you obviously knew there was more to do.
Really?
Mass Effects is sci-fi and sold a lot.
Halo is sci-fi and sold a lot.
GoW is sci-fi and sold a lot.
Heck, even TOR is sci-fi and sold a lot.
So what is the problem being sci-fi?
pure sandbox games are difficult to do in the MMO space because you've always got the kid that comes into your sandbox and kicks over your sandcastle. No fun in that.
There are some pretty popular open-ended sandbox games that are single player however...like the new release "Don't Starve."
*Face Palm*
I was merely asking if you can think of anymore possible content a PvE sandbox could have. You didnt offer anything, plus you missed that I was comparing a PvE sandbox to a PvP sandbox NOT a PvE sandbox to a Themepark. My sarcasm in the post before was just pointing out the limits of a PvE sandbox. A Sandbox needs PvP or it will be all fluff and no grit....
and you had the nerve to ask if I was confused .. tsk tsk tsk
I think the majority of MMO players prefer fantasy. Just a guess tho.
Whenever i step outside, somebody claims to see the light
It seems to me that all of us have lost our patience.
'cause everyone thinks they're right,
And nobody thinks that there just might
Be more than one road to our final destination--
Age of Wushu is a rebranding of a Chinese Sand box that is a decade old and while i don't have a problem with them having their moment in the sun, the game didn't really offer anything new. It came in as a sandbox and got a lot of attention just on that merit alone.
Sand Box MMO's are in demand. SWG proved it, Age of Wushu confirms it. The trouble being, they always seem to die a quick and horrible death because someone decided Sand Box means PvP in a do whatever the hell you want fashion and people get bullied out of them.
No.
You allready stated everything that MMO's have. A pvp sandbox has
Exploration
Structure creation
Fighting A.I scripts
And pvp.
A pve sandbox has
Exploration
Structure creation
Fighting A.I scripts
"A Sandbox needs PvP or it will be all fluff and no grit...."
Dumbest statement in regards to sandboxes.
So yes Are you confused?
There are several pve sandbox games out there allready, no none are very successfull but most have a great deal of depth to them (depth meaning meaningfull choices).
I also wasn't comparing a pve sandbox to a themepark, I only pointed out that it can have as many features. So name a feature besides pvp and a pve can have it.
You allready had the major points though.
So no.
A sandbox does not need pvp. It can have just as much "grit" without it.
Heck atitd has more meaning than most of the pvp sandboxes.
Read through these
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/349518
PvP definitely isn't required; however, you are cutting out a huge section of players and moving into a niche market by cutting out PvP. PvP is very popular. I don't know why. It just is.
For one, it helps create a community. We can look at this going back before modern MMOs with Diablo 1 and the like. There was always a coalescing of players around PKs and antis. We saw this in UO. Many modern MMOs try to factionize it. There's nothing wrong with this. If you don't have the PVP, you are going to have to have some just stellar PvE. It's going to have to be significantly better than the competition or the game is going to have to resign itself to a small niche.
Hopefully, I'll get around to reading all of the posts here, but I would like to say that I hope this thread turns out as good as the famous "Mythical Sandbox Crowd" thread.
That thread was epic!
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
No argument there, except for the niche part. I think a pve focused sandbox would be more popular than a pvp focused sandbox. However you are a right that a game that successfully melds both will be even more popular.
Pvp does do all of those things. However pve can too: Community events, community building projects. Istaria had mines and dungeons that the group would build and 2 major events where the community freed races that were then playable.
So the pve doesn't have to be stellar it just has to be there, too many sandboxes just don't have content at all.
Nor is dicto simpliciter.
"Players love to talk about world PvP and how much they like it. They don't."
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.
Well there's tor currently(if only because of the expansion). What are the others?
Lol, Age Of Wushu has 15-20million players and most of them in Asia meaning China.
Age Of Wushu hasn't attracted those players because it's a hybrid MMO it's because of what the actual game is based on wuxia, it's the actual lore that is the pull in Asia. In the west it is more of the type of game it is..ie the hybrid features of the game.
As for nothing new, really! are you kidding me?
Name another mmo with the offline system that Age Of Wushu has, nope i'm not talking about gaining XP while off line because in Age Of Wushu your character stays online as an NPC.
Name another mmo that has the kidnapping system of Age Of Wushu.
Name another mmo that has the character alteration that the castration skills brings.
Spying and patrolling system that is actually built into the game.
A whole marriage system that is also built into the game.
Dungeons that have bosses calling on actual players to fight alongside them against player trying to complete the dungeon, seriously name me another mmo that has this.
I could go on but let's start with the things i mentioned.
And remember that AOW released in China before Archeage was released anywhere but i wont mention the court system, player policing system and prison system even though the game released before ArcheAge.
Either you haven't played the game, i mean actually got passed the tutorial and played the game over a length of time or you really know nothing about the game.
If these features were in a western mmo we wouldn't hear the last of it, can you imagine the fan love if GW2 had these features lol.
Well off the top of my head
Tor - 500k subs, 2 million players.
Rift - has ~300k subs
WoW - 10 million
Aion Global - has a couple million. Don't start with the we are talking in the west crap. They are all played on a global market, including Eve. Eve only has about 100-200k in NA - it is global.
Thats just off the top of my head. I'm sure others can think of many more.
For between 50-500k? virtually all of them.
for an idea just look here:
http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png
http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-2.png
They are not up to date, and there are definite questions about it's accuracy but it gives an idea anway.
Gods, this debate again?
EvE is a sandobox game. Has consistantly ranked in the top 10 western MMO's for years now. Therefor a sandbox game CAN be popular... Q.E.D.
Unless ranking in the top 10 of MMO's in the western market doesn't meet your definition of popular.
If we go outside the MMO market....just look at Minecraft...again Q.E.D.
Simply being a themepark or sandbox won't make or break a game in and of itself as we have plenty of examples of unpopular games in both categories. There are thousands of different things that go into making a game what it is, sandbox and themepark are two of those and clearly both can work when put together with other things that are working.
You're wrong. PvP players are a minority in almost every game out there. Open world PvP is even smaller niche even though the fans are nearly as vocal as the rest combined.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I would go out on a limb and say that PvP RPG game play is the least popular option, whether you're talking about PvP games or RPGs. FPS death match games and MOBAs are more popular on the PvPG side of things, and PvE or PvE with secondary PvP mechanics are more popular in the RPG side of things.
If that's true (I think it is), why do sandbox developers seem so intent on doing PvP RPG style games?
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Also, I think PvP is required, but it needs to be optional or at least consensual.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
PvE only is probably going to be more popular especially given that now games do integrate PvP in ways without impacting PvE to any significant degree. I disagree that PvE does it as effectively. I think PvE can accomplish similar feats. The guild structure in EQ and early WoW was a great community builder, but I think that the way games have moved recently towards more of a cooperate multiplayer game as opposed to a true MMO they're failing at it. I also believe that an us vs. them environment does it better, but that's just opinion.
I agree with the sandboxes and lack of content. I do think that PvE without PvP requires better content or perhaps rather significantly more content.
It was pretty clear from what I said that it was not a universal but a specific subset of the player base that is loud and influential. Fail again.