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Will the upcoming wave of AAA sandboxes mmos change the public preferences?
maccarthur2004
Member UncommonPosts: 511
In the start, almost all mmos were sandbox. Then came EQ and later WoW with the themepark formula. The phenomenal success of WoW shaped the mmo market for the next 10 years, creating a paradigm that all AAA productions followed. The sandboxes became indie products.
Well, with the upcoming wave of AAA sandboxes/sandparks, will the market and the public preferences change once again in the opposite direction? Will these AAA mmorpgs "teach" the public to play and appreciate sandboxes? Will the themepark elements that some of them bring within serve as a "bridge" in that transition?
Open to opinions.
Comments
I was wondering right now the possible reasons that could make the people get sick of themeparks. I think the main reason would be the previsibility. Explaining: all themeparks are almost the same thing and their gameplay the same proccess. People used to play themparks acquire with time a "mastery" in themepark gameplay. This makes them reach the endgame in a very faster way than the planned by developers and makes their journey a sameness.
So, the sandboxes will at least provide them with a different thing, a another way of play that they aren't used to and so aren't (still) masters on and sick off.
EQN is a great triumph for Sandboxers, even if they like or hate the character designs / gameplay.
It gives good room for other games to one-up them . .. SOE keeps setting themselves up. They make a good design with serious flaws, then Blizzard steps in to clean up, release a product and claim victory. So 10 years from now trolls will say "Titan invented the MMORPG2", then someone will have to say, "actually, EQN invented that back in 2014".
Wrong side of the handle every time.
Essentially when people think of sandbox games, they will think of the company that fixed SOE's game and released their own. Blizzard likely. SOE keeps setting themselves up with awful decisions with flashy short term gain .. dare I say EA style?
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
EQ Next Landmark is the pure sandbox where people compete to create objects to sell and/or be used in the full game. EQ Next will be a sandpark, and rightfully so. You can't really do a pure sandbox with deep IP and storytelling. The entire point of the pure sandbox is the story basically comes from the users having been given the tools to create and destroy, and thats not really possible with a game like Everquest. But what you can certainly do is make the railed storyline completely optional to participate in and allow people to simply tool around in the world doing other stuff(PVP, class accumulation, tradeskills, housing, blowing stuff up via archaeology, etc), that are all equally valid.
The point is to make the overall story occurring a choice among many and not more or less valid than any other option and one option never be dependent on the other.
I.e. you have to participate in the story to get stuff for tradeskills or gear or whatever. All choices should be independent and provide their own distinct rewards. You should never feel forced to Have to do something or be left completely behind. It should all be what you want to do, with every play being as much a different experience as possible, as opposed to repetitive grinds.
You really don't understand why people don't play sandbox game.
People dont' play sandbox game because it equals FFA full loot pvp with lackster PvE dungeon.
I suppose more people will start playing sandbox game now that it is start to change.
And you don't seem to understand how fed up people are with having to log on every day for 15 minutes to kill the same mobs to collect their cookie and then log off. Then after they're let out of faction hell, having to log on to do the same X raids to get Y gear that is then invalidated a couple months later when a new tier is released.
The Skinner Box simply grew too apparent for a lot of people.
no one can tell the future.
This one will be interesting to watch.
I wonder how people are going to combat gold sellers who are carving "www.get-eqn-gold.com" on hillside again and again. (forced open world pvp? I doubt that .. that will turn off too many).
The other issue is whether the UO "tank mage" syndrome is going to reappear. It will be very funny if a most efficient fighting skill combo emerges, and you are not allowed into groups unless you have the cookie cutter "build".
But the saving grace is that it is going to be F2P, so i definitely will check it out.
Either the game is dead easy and builds don't matter, or you have a set of "optimal builds" you should be playing to get the best possible outcome.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Highly unlikely, but people will play/try anything that is new.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
No doubt.
It would be really funny if EQN starts to reverse some of their design choices when these problems pop up.
Another i can think of is the UO ghetto phenomenon. Without some zoning rules, allowing every player to build, and change the landscape is a very bad idea.
If SoE fix the combat system (Teamwork has to be central), EQN has a chance to become a cult game.
With no challenge, this game will sink fast, regardless of the nice new features they are implementing.
I don't think SOE wants a cult game. They want a big success. If so, they better cater to the solo-ers and casuals.
I am not sure yet if EQN is a Sandbox ... the word is being used, but in a very marketing way and none of the elements that would hint a Sandbox Gameplay have been announced or confirmed yet.
But it is a good step in the right direction.
Then we have ArcheAge, which is a Sandbox overall (Hybrid due to some elements being considered coming traditionaly from themeparks)
It is not without some concerns either, mainly the question of grind due to it being of Asian Design originally. But it will present Sandbox gameplay to many players of the WoW era for sure.
Along side some Indie projects, yes I think the stage is already changing and some new standards will be established.
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
*reads the tea leaves*
*casts the bones*
*shakes the magic eight ball*
I honestly have no idea what people are going to latch onto. My sense is that there is a "next big thing" lurking somewhere in the woods now being explored, but a lot of things need to go right all at once (both in design and marketting) for a new fad to catch fire.
Well, EQ is a cult game, like WoW and EvE............and they are doing well financially (at least EQ did well until few years ago)
And all those 3 games are not for casuals, even WoW has a a huge harcore player base (the end gamers), not just the casuals that keep rolling Alts forever..................
Name one Casual MMO that has been a huge success.
I can only name GW2 which is doing fine............... out of hundreds that failed.
I believe that MMOs are not for casual gamers, there will be one day that finally the industry will understand how much money they wasted in making MMOs for a player base (casual) that don't spend money and expect to play the games for free...............
I just want a true sandbox world where I can do NON-combat oriented activities that influence the economy and community around me. I want those same activities to be competitive and make me use my brain and force a risk vs. reward system. Basically, I want the EVE economy/trade/industry side of things in a fantasy world.
I don't know if EQN cares about me though. All I see is combat combat combat mixed with BF destruction (very cool) and possible minecraft building (in a separate game). Doesn't feel like the next big step to me.....
If it does, I'm quite sure SOE will do exactly what Origin did - fix the imbalance and move on.
In equally current news, you can eat the red MnMs now.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
The only way this works is if one of the new sandbox games games is wildly successful. It could just as easily be a huge setback to the whole sandbox idea if this round flops.
AA is having issues in the Korean market and I don't recall any Korean game ever being more successful in the west than in the east.
EQN is still too early to tell. It could be mindblowingly good, or it could just be f2p gw2.
It will be quite interesting to say the least. EVERYTHING comes around again. If these sandboxes explode in popularity, you will see a clone flood follow suit like it did with WoW. If not...it will be more of the current until something breaks that mold. Time will tell.
The other interesting part is...will those here who are passionate backers of themeparks and defend them in every thread take their own advice and adapt? Or become what they fought against and be the minority fighting tooth and nail on forums trying to keep a hold of what they love and watch it fade away?
Dear God no. Then it wouldn't be an EQ game.
The public preferences changes long ago.
The real question is, will game companies continue to see all their money in box sales or will the bread and butter be monthly revenue again?
Older MMO's were made with longevity in mind. None I have seen in 5 years had that goal. Sell boxes, push a cash shop and let it rot.
Strongly agree with this.
Although part of "high quality" and "very polished" is that a game is well-paced. And with ArcheAge in particular one concern I've had (knowing very little about the game) is it'll end up as one of those travel-intensive games which force players to spend a significant amount of time in the shallowest game system (travel is usually the shallowest mechanic in a game,) which drags down the experience. Hopefully it's just my ignorance of how ArcheAge is going to turn out, and they design it in a way where players spend the most time in the highest-depth systems, and the least time (if any time at all) in the shallowest systems.
But again, overall I agree with everything you've said -- and the undertone is that player tastes actually haven't changed much over the years at all. They still want the same deep, polished games which don't waste their time -- just like they always have.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
WoW is a casual game. Just because it has some hardcore content does not mean it isn't casual.
And any game with a huge audience will have to have a Casual entry point. Eve tries that very hard.. but really never catched it completely.
But to have somewhat of a longterm appeal, you have to have difficult content, and more important long term engaging content. For WoW it was raiding(hardcore and casual). For DAoC it was RvR. And i missed that one somewhat in GW2.. WvW was really not appealing enough, nor meaningfull enough.. just taking keeps for the sake of taking it is really not worth it.
And about the shift to more sandbox playing. Well.. it happens at the moment... and how long it will last comes down to how successful all those Sandbox/Sandparks games will be.
15 years ago i thought sandbox was the way for MMORPGs(as i played UO). I could not be more wrong.. with 15 years of themeparks following.
Arche age = ugly as hell
EQN = the hell is this? meh (brain fart?)
my game is the best game, others are shit too bad its just a design of aspiring designer at this point....(JOKE)
well anyway i certainly would be happy if the sandboxes or parks that come out in a few years would change the minds of the current mmorpg players or at least shift them so that they are more accepting towards sandboxes and parks instead of blatantly ignoring them
new generation of mmorpg players are growing as we speak its all about THE game that gets them to play mmorpgs and preferably sandboxes and sandparks
well i doubt that there will be a game that will rival WOWs playerbase atleast not in another 20 years
its all WoWs fault that the market got lost in the forest and the progress of mmorpgs stopped
"WoW money is not your money no matter how wow'ish the game you make is"
This simple fact will give Theme Parks the edge, no matter how many great sandbox games are made.