1. UO may or may not be considered a mainstream MMO, but it was a sandbox, and was very good. If you have noticed...it is ranked i think 8.1 on this website, and the graphicsa re horrid. The game is beating most current games, and I believe that is because you can do what you want...when you want. 2. You do not have to create infinite coded programs...you just have to program the world to work. Let the world seem alive, and let you be able to do what you could do in real life. If it was the problem with infinite coding then Sandboxes in general would be impossible to make, but they have been made before.
UO was a great game pre 3rd Dawn. and it is because you can do what you want when you want. but it also ahd consequences for you acttions. if you were a pk like me you would be guard wacked stact loss and hunted down by many players because they would get rewarded. UO truly knew what the R in MMORPG stood for. ROLEPLAYING. newer mmorpgs are loosing this form of ROLEPLAYING just so the creators can make money. for example the chicken Mechanic in WAR when you pk in a lowbie town you turn into a chicken with one hitpoint so you can't kill other players lower levels than you. No Roleplaying.
I would not call a game with only around 250k subscriber a "major" success. It is successful but it is niche. Even AOC, which is panned by everyone here, sell a lot more boxes in the first week than the entire history of Eve.
wrong. eve is a success. just because it doesn't have 9 million subs doesn't make it a failure. and lets see if conan can stand the test of time like eve has.
I would not call a game with only around 250k subscriber a "major" success. It is successful but it is niche. Even AOC, which is panned by everyone here, sell a lot more boxes in the first week than the entire history of Eve.
LOL! 250k subscribers is a Major succes! It always has been!
Just because WoW came along and managed to get 9 million subscribers (from wich over 3/4 reside in Asia) doesn't mean that all the other MMO's are suddenly Niche!
250.000 times 15 euro = 3.750.000 euro bruto income a month. I call that a financial success!
And don't start talking about Age of Conan, as selling boxes does mean jack jit in MMO's anyway. It's all about who sticks around after the first 30 days and starts paying monthly subscription fees to pay for the devs, hardware, maintainance and bandwith and continous ongoing development costs!
It's all nice and dandy to sell 700k boxes, but if over half of them quit the first month, because the game is so horribly broken and lacking, then I call that a Major failure! Not a Major success!
Cheers
How can it be major when it is overshadowed by so many? I am not saying it is not successful. But it is very niche. FIrst WOW now has >10M subscribes. 4.5M in US/Europe so a lot LESS than 70% are in Asia. Get your facts right.
LOTR Online, Guild Wars, even Lineage are much better than Eve. How can it be a MAJOR success when so many are doing better?
what are you quoting to show 45% of wow's subs coming from us/eu? wow's success came, initially, from everyone being sick and tired of all the raiding bullshit which was so prevalent in MMOs. wow promised to not follow suit. wow's success came, initially, from the horde of bliznetters. wow's success came, and still comes, from you being able to run it on very old rigs.
wow introduced nothing new, and turned from casual friendly to raid-grind-stupidity thanks to asshats like kaplan and pardo.
talk about wow all you want, people still rave about uo and eq; but, the graphics in uo are my turn off, and the gameplay itself is my eq turnoff, wow loses me on both accounts.
ccp bought out white wolf/world of darkness.
according to your definition, well, pretty much every MMO out there is niche, every WESTERN mmo, except for wow. so everything everyone plays, EXCEPT wow, only has a niche place/population?
what is the word i'm looking for to describe that thinking...
like stan the man would say -- 'nuff said.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
The best game will come up with ways to balance sandbox and linear story telling, solo and group/raid, open world and instances, and every other point/counterpoint you can come up with. SWG was limited by it's lack of content, if it had provided more clues on pointing players out in the right directions, it could have been much more popular. Players were bored, so much of a problem the developers decided to practically rewrite the entire game. It wasn't done to spite SWG players as much as you'd love to pretend it to be. Despite having one the best IPs ever, it couldn't even outsell EQ, that is unacceptable.
sony screwed the game up at every turn. they couldn't even publish a useful guide. ignoring the players at every turn. creating new bugs while ignoring old ones. and it still launched with 300k subs. and if you ask me
the way people still hang on to hatred for soe proves that a sandbox is not only a viable game style...but is an untapped market.
swg still has bounty hunters, right? are the BH missions STILL bugged? or did they do away with them altogether in the nge?
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
That would be kind of hard I think but I will give it a try.
Gameplay suitable for all player types: Socializer, Killer, explorer, achiever, etc etc etc. Loosely defined classes- Allow the players to make their own classes from an available pool of skillsets. Wide open game world. No restrictions on where you travel sure players may get wtfpwnt by some snarling nasty beastie but thats part of exploration. tools to allow the community to run events from tournaments to weddings 100% player run economy. The best items are made by in game crafters, who either get the resources themselves or contract out to killers/explorers. Player cities, player housing buildable mostly anywhere that terrain and distance from npc centers allow. There must be a cap however on the number of structures an account holder can have otherwise you have areas suffering from urban sprawl (Dantooine in SWG is a good example of this) Less of the directed go here do this then go to the next place and talk to so-n-so for more tasks to do. Let the players decide for themselves. Dynamic servers - where the players actually have an effect on how the game plays out for everyone. Not talking spawn camping but, have the game dynamically change to adjust for the playstyles of the gamers in aggregate. SWG had come close to this with the npc towns shifting factions depending on the number of "points" earned by the players. Also, the cries of alderaan story arc did this very well also. Plenty of live events hosted by the devs, please refer to the above cries of alderaan reference. A gameworld where the most important story being told is that of the player, not of the npcs.
So by this definition WOW/TBC is a complete sandboxed game and a very good one at that !
1. Professions,enchanters, gatherers, healers, warriors, twinks, vendors, manipulating of the auction houses. WRONG -- pvp is total and complete GARBAGE in this game. this is the most carebear-no risk pvp in the bloody universe. WOW completely LOSES on this one - so nuffin for da killers. what EXACTLY is there to explore in wow that you won't have already done by lvl 70? oopsies, nothing for the explorers. i hope the rest of your reasonings hold water.
2.With my lvl 70 paladin I can take the role of a pure tank, a pure healer, a pure fighting machine with the cost of 50 Gold (meaning doing 4 quests or sell some selfmade stuff on the auction house). Respeccing is a breeze these days in Wow. Respeccing every day. so, how good is your pally at being stealthy? got a bunch of ranged attacks there and you sniping folks much with this uber pally? what about aoes? you pretty good at aoe'ing the heck out of groups? oh, you can only do the pre-defined things that any pally can do, you can't actually make up your own kind of pally. gotcha. that's 2 for 2 where you've shown wow is NOT even remotely a sandbox. do your reasons get better? got something in there that lets you forego the healing and be a great tank AND dps? i would hope you could at least do that, since your pally is gimped for the other things.
3.Wide open? How about a personal flying mount you can fly ANYWHERE and land anywhere in TBC/Outland without ever seeing a loading screen on that land. And at night you go to an opera to watch the lastest shows ... anything hidden to uncover and explore? maybe something like UO's old school treasure maps/sunken treasures, or Eve's exploration. nope? didn't think so. but yeah, you can fly around and see the same old stuff that everyone else has seen. i'll be generous and call this one a wash. the constraints for this one were pretty broad.
4. In fact last week I assisted in a wedding in our guild. In fact there was some organisation required as there were another couple at the Cathedral of Light that very same night. Everyone was wearing a tox and afterwards we had a party in Goldshire. so, you guys did this in your guild hall? you had special flowers set up? maybe a podium and nice tables/chairs set up for everyone? yeah, wow completely loses out on this one. anyone can go to some static place and pretend. if there's actually housing and items you can manipulate, then you're talking. don't even pretend here. you're 3 losess and 1 draw so far. you're doing a great job of pointing out that even if you stretch it -- wow completely misses on being a sandbox -- in reality. in pretend-crazy-head-land it's anything you want, even peanut butter.
My picnic basket (changing world envirmont???) was a success together with the BBQ and drinks we brought along. seriously, a picnic basket? did the picnic basket take over a city, or build itself a pavilion or something? by this illogical reasoning, anytime i'm walking down the road i'm changing the game environment because i wasn't there before. can i count this is two WRONGS, since you were wrong twice in one answer?
5. Economy? The best Wow crafted items these days in TBC are always on par with the general dungeons progress on the servers. Today blacksmiths craft the gear that suits 95% of all people (only the top 2 gears are reserved for raids in BT.Sun and or super PvP champs with 2200 + ratings). don't even. player-run economy is something NO ONE will say wow has. no one that is being rational and intelligent. this counts for 10 wrongs by itself for being so outrageously inaccurate.
6.Not in the game at the moment but WotLK will have full construcatbel siege systems in open zones. yeah, so people are going to live in this siege system? what is a siege system? a catapult? even with your stretching you're just grasping at make believe. STOP POSTING.
7. End game is completely free. No lineair design whatsoever, not even the end levels from 60 to 70. You can choose what you want at 70. In fact from Nov till Mar I only did BG's and my professions just to have a nice PvP title of Justicar. yeah, nothing directed, unless you want the best goodies. then you either have to do lil arena battles of ******* until the cows come home, or do the raid-grind-dance-of-endless-boredom. yeah, total complete linear play is what wow is known for. you really need to actually play this wow game before posting fancifully made-up concoctions about it. please don't post any more about this game until you've played it.
8. Already present in two forms in Wow (one scripted and one dependant of world PvP. Will get a big extension in WotLK BTW, where the possesion and destructions off Keeps will influence the world. i don't think you understood this question. i know the areas you're talking about and um, no.
9. Live events:?TOO numerous to even sum them up. Both from the designers as from the players themselves. again, reading with comprehension for the loss. he didn't say from the players, he SPECIFICALLY said devs. like when they opened the gates to bug land and um... yeah, that's about it. you know, if i read questions and reply to them, but i don't actually say anything that has to do WITH the question, then i can say anything. i'll do it with number 9.
9. I want to buy a cobra and have take over a Circle K.
did that have anything to do with the actual question? no. did i put a 9 and an answer and pretend like it's relevant? yes.
10.Of course MY paladin has its own story HOW I downed mobs and players in thousands of fights or crafting hours to have HUGE profits on the AH. again, you're not understanding the question.
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So 9/10 is not bad for WOW as a complete sandbox game in YOUR defintion, isn't it.
0/10 and you've shown that you don't understand most of the questions, which leads me to ask if you're a little kid or if english is your 3rd or 4th language?
Of course if you only played Wow/TBC as a leveling experience to level to 46, you have no clue do you ? Or even worse if you never played Wow's end game after patch 2.3 you don't know what I am talking about.
at this point, i honestly wish that you knew what you were talking about. please don't post about this topic until you've played wow and you've actually played a sandbox type game. the two are as far apart as pluto from uranus. i only wish i could charge you for the time i've lost reading this post.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I would not call a game with only around 250k subscriber a "major" success. It is successful but it is niche. Even AOC, which is panned by everyone here, sell a lot more boxes in the first week than the entire history of Eve.
LOL! 250k subscribers is a Major succes! It always has been!
Just because WoW came along and managed to get 9 million subscribers (from wich over 3/4 reside in Asia) doesn't mean that all the other MMO's are suddenly Niche!
250.000 times 15 euro = 3.750.000 euro bruto income a month. I call that a financial success!
..
Don't forget, the USD is still the most used currency, so €3 750 000 will get converted to USD, giving you USD 5 905 502... Also knowing that EVE doesn't have that much costs anymore... Yesh, they're successful...
Edit; 3 posts in a row, give me my medal!
seriously, explain to me how eve is NOT a success. their magazine always sells out. their ccg is doing great. they have ZERO box sales, because it's a direct download (which means they're saving on all THOSE costs). they've bought out the world of darkness/white wolf. they're adding humanoid avatars to eve, which we all believe are where they're going to work the bugs out for the avatars which will be in the world of darkness mmo. did i mention they're working on a world of darkness mmo? their yearly parties are always huge successes with people flying in from all over the world to go chill in iceland.
they make millions a month, how much of that is overhead? how well are their staff being paid? seriously, how is eve NOT a success. spell it out for me please; because, by every definition i can come up with, they have more than succeeded, they're the proverbial underdog who was kicked and beaten and abandoned and who came back and whooped many asses and took many names and is now chilling in a luxury style dog house eating steak every night.
for all i DISLIKE about ccp/eve-online, you can't say they're NOT a resounding success. not if you're being factual.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I truly dont understand why this thread is so long and why its such a hot topic.
Sandbox MMos CAN exists because they do exist. As people have said: EVE, Early SWG, early UO, AC1 and prolly some others ive missed were all sandbox. There is just no arguing this, im sorry.
I think the core secret is that Sandbox game must be precisely engineered for and marketed to the right demographic.
By that, I mean players who tend to be more patient, more creative, more social and more strategic. As opposed to players who are more action-oriented, more confrontation-inclined and more impulse-uninhibited. OIn other words, an older - or at least maturer - audience.
By that I mean, the kind of audience currently filling 2nd Life rather than WoW.
Such an audience tends to be far richer and has more time at its disposal, since its inhabitants are masters of their own schedule. However, they are more demanding - they require the game to be calibrated to the same quality of their cars and deliviered with the same level of customer service as they receive at a sit-down restaurant. One of the greatest mistakes that Sony Online Entertainment ever made was to treat its players not as paying adults but as game-playing children.
And, yes, from chess to 2nd Life to paintball to professional sport, games for adults are gigantic business. A time will come when some design company makes a proper sandbox game designed for a mature audience and, when it does, I believe its subs and revenue numbers will dwarf those of WoW.
And, yes, from chess to 2nd Life to paintball to professional sport, games for adults are gigantic business. A time will come when some design company makes a proper sandbox game designed for a mature audience and, when it does, I believe its subs and revenue numbers will dwarf those of WoW.
don't know about that. people like my wife play wow because it's super easy.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
And, yes, from chess to 2nd Life to paintball to professional sport, games for adults are gigantic business. A time will come when some design company makes a proper sandbox game designed for a mature audience and, when it does, I believe its subs and revenue numbers will dwarf those of WoW.
don't know about that. people like my wife play wow because it's super easy.
And, yes, from chess to 2nd Life to paintball to professional sport, games for adults are gigantic business. A time will come when some design company makes a proper sandbox game designed for a mature audience and, when it does, I believe its subs and revenue numbers will dwarf those of WoW.
don't know about that. people like my wife play wow because it's super easy.
There seems to be frequent talk and reference to "sandbox" MMO's being the way developers should go. However, I believe there are many reasons this cannot and will not work, and that an MMO made in that fashion will not be successful. I will, however, concede from the beginning that an "indie" MMO could be made in this way as a small-scale niche game so long as it didn't require much investment or funding to maintain. Here are my reasonings why I think an mainstream MMO can't be "sandbox": Players want/need to achieve/progress - People play games for a variety of minor reasons, but most importantly it comes down to "fun". Social interaction aside (as there are some people who play MMO's just to chat with others), there would be no reason to play a game that didn't offer some kind of progression. In an MMO, players create a character/characters and expect them to change over time in their persistant world. This is one of the main things that sets apart the MMO genre from others such as the FPS games like Halo, etc. Without character development and progression of some kind, there is nothing to demonstrate a reward for the time invested in the game. In single-player games this is also true. There may often be a number of ways to achieve your goals or to progress, but there is ALWAYS something to achieve or obtain. Even in a FPS game the player gains a "fun" factor through defeating others via skill or tactics (or cheating). But in the mythical "sandbox" MMO, players should be able to do whatever they want, whenever they want without the "restrictions" of levelling, points, advancement, etc. Computer programs are not infinite - When considering what a game SHOULD be, players often don't understand the limitations on what a game CAN be. It simply isn't viable, or often possible, for a game to be everything to everyone, or to offer limitless possibilities. Content development alone, such as models, textures, and other physical representations, take a LONG time to create. It's not as if developers can simply create thousands of entities for everyone's possible interactions. It's not as easy as you might think. And it would take a massive undertaking to try and create an "open" world where players could do nearly anything they wanted, and this was possible for all other players as well. The more possibilities you have, the more ways something can be done, the more difficult the programming becomes. And it doesn't simply ADD to the complexity, but it increases it EXPONENTIALLY. It isn't to say that something like that isn't possible, but it would take more time than players would be willing to wait and more investment than a company would be willing to give. Developers have enough trouble with the existing level of AI and options in MMO's. ... So, it's not to say that the MMO genre doesn't need a breath of fresh air and more innovation. But to expect this kind of "sandbox" gameplay is, for lack of a better word, "fantasy". And any MMO claiming to be "sandbox" is either using the term as a ploy to attract bored players, or just plain lying to sound different. Perhaps an indie project could create something PARTIALLY sandbox on a small scale, but even that would take a massive amount of skill and would likely not offer enough incentive for players to remain (aside from those who play for social purposes only). I'm sure there are many who disagree, and I look forward to your thoughts...
Your right, I do disagree. Whether its a linear,sandbox or a combo of the two, all games dwindle and fade simply because of loss of interest or game changes that alter core mechanics too much. There are so many mmo's on the market and coming out that players have a plethora of choice to fall into a game that suits their style. High, long term populations are difficult to achieve. WoW will dwindle like all other games past and future have/will, its just the current market obviously enjoys the style that WoW offers more than any other game currently.
I loved pre-cu SWG, to this day its my all time #1 mmo, others will disagree but again its a matter of individual taste. Now, the question......if SWG was still in its pre-cu core mechanic state would I still be playing? I can honestly say probably not, it would be jump in, jump out simply because loss of interest is inevitable, low population servers on many mmo's are a testament to the curiously unpredictable human condition.
The only reason sandbox MMOs can't succeed is because players refuse to compromise.
People don't want to have to PvP, so as a result, the PKer suffers.
People don't want to have to roleplay, so as a result, the roleplayer suffers.
People don't want to have to travel, so as a result, the explorer/survivalist suffers.
People don't want to have to buy and sell to get their gear, so as a result, the trading player suffers.
And because none of us are willing to do things we don't like, we end up with games that are shallow, and please nobody for very long.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Let's not forget that when SWG launched it was the second most popular MMO in the western world behind only EQ1. The raping of Koster's vision is basically the biggest black eye the MMO industry has, and probably ever will, seen.
And then there's EVE. Clearly sandboxes work. The only reason anyone would think they wouldn't is because of the industry's notoriously poor management of them and the fact that success is now measured in WoW terms so when devs make a game everything, even a 250-400k sub, is a failure by comparison which is an absurd notion.
I'd like to mention that less than half of SWG's content was even functional at release, at least half the game was broken. Somethings were never fixed, yet it is still considered one of the best MMOs to date.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.
I truly dont understand why this thread is so long and why its such a hot topic. Sandbox MMos CAN exists because they do exist. As people have said: EVE, Early SWG, early UO, AC1 and prolly some others ive missed were all sandbox. There is just no arguing this, im sorry.
Right, a sanbox game like SWG still was one of the top North American online games for subscription base. The game was struggling to get back to basics a bit due to the hologrind, but still with 250K subs VERY SUCCESSFUL. What happened was coporate greed and LA arrogance felt the game needed to attract the WoW numbers and sought to reduce the games sanbox eliments, which would hopefully appeal to the EpIII release in 2005. It was a now or never moment on their end and they pulled the wrong button. Much like when a politician is counting on the youth vote....it gets dicey. And we have seen what has happned to SWG, a game without an identity.
Longest running standard MMo to date is Sandbox, and is still running. While UO has undergone more face lifts than Joan Rivers it is still sandbox, and it still exists. How is this not a success?
The only reason sandbox MMOs can't succeed is because players refuse to compromise. People don't want to have to PvP, so as a result, the PKer suffers. People don't want to have to roleplay, so as a result, the roleplayer suffers. People don't want to have to travel, so as a result, the explorer/survivalist suffers. People don't want to have to buy and sell to get their gear, so as a result, the trading player suffers. And because none of us are willing to do things we don't like, we end up with games that are shallow, and please nobody for very long.
The only reason sandbox MMOs can't succeed is because players refuse to compromise. People don't want to have to PvP, so as a result, the PKer suffers. People don't want to have to roleplay, so as a result, the roleplayer suffers. People don't want to have to travel, so as a result, the explorer/survivalist suffers. People don't want to have to buy and sell to get their gear, so as a result, the trading player suffers. And because none of us are willing to do things we don't like, we end up with games that are shallow, and please nobody for very long.
What don't you understand? Eve exists and is a very popular game and it is most definitely a sandbox game? Doesn't that completely shatter your argument to smithereens?
I guess you have a reading deficiency and did not see all the posts affirming that Eve is one and is alive and quite well.
Yes, Eve does not have Wow numbers, but then no one else does either. But then CCP is doing so well they managed to buy Whtewolf and are now embarked with them on another MMO project most certainly dealing with werewolves. Oh and by the way, you don't have to pvp in Eve, I rarely do and when I do, it is my choice. So the ruleset in a sandbox CAN allow people with different tastes to coexist. There are large roleplay alliances in EVE also. If you don't like traveling, EVE is not for you, If you want to get from one side to another of the universe it will take you awhile. There is instant travel in the pvp area, but you still need one of your fleet at the destination, so someone has to make the trip first.
There seems to be frequent talk and reference to "sandbox" MMO's being the way developers should go. However, I believe there are many reasons this cannot and will not work, and that an MMO made in that fashion will not be successful. I will, however, concede from the beginning that an "indie" MMO could be made in this way as a small-scale niche game so long as it didn't require much investment or funding to maintain. Here are my reasonings why I think an mainstream MMO can't be "sandbox": Players want/need to achieve/progress - People play games for a variety of minor reasons, but most importantly it comes down to "fun". Social interaction aside (as there are some people who play MMO's just to chat with others), there would be no reason to play a game that didn't offer some kind of progression. In an MMO, players create a character/characters and expect them to change over time in their persistant world. This is one of the main things that sets apart the MMO genre from others such as the FPS games like Halo, etc. Without character development and progression of some kind, there is nothing to demonstrate a reward for the time invested in the game. In single-player games this is also true. There may often be a number of ways to achieve your goals or to progress, but there is ALWAYS something to achieve or obtain. Even in a FPS game the player gains a "fun" factor through defeating others via skill or tactics (or cheating). But in the mythical "sandbox" MMO, players should be able to do whatever they want, whenever they want without the "restrictions" of levelling, points, advancement, etc. Computer programs are not infinite - When considering what a game SHOULD be, players often don't understand the limitations on what a game CAN be. It simply isn't viable, or often possible, for a game to be everything to everyone, or to offer limitless possibilities. Content development alone, such as models, textures, and other physical representations, take a LONG time to create. It's not as if developers can simply create thousands of entities for everyone's possible interactions. It's not as easy as you might think. And it would take a massive undertaking to try and create an "open" world where players could do nearly anything they wanted, and this was possible for all other players as well. The more possibilities you have, the more ways something can be done, the more difficult the programming becomes. And it doesn't simply ADD to the complexity, but it increases it EXPONENTIALLY. It isn't to say that something like that isn't possible, but it would take more time than players would be willing to wait and more investment than a company would be willing to give. Developers have enough trouble with the existing level of AI and options in MMO's. ... So, it's not to say that the MMO genre doesn't need a breath of fresh air and more innovation. But to expect this kind of "sandbox" gameplay is, for lack of a better word, "fantasy". And any MMO claiming to be "sandbox" is either using the term as a ploy to attract bored players, or just plain lying to sound different. Perhaps an indie project could create something PARTIALLY sandbox on a small scale, but even that would take a massive amount of skill and would likely not offer enough incentive for players to remain (aside from those who play for social purposes only). I'm sure there are many who disagree, and I look forward to your thoughts...
There is a market for sandbox games Darkfall will proof it.
That you OP and so many others are casuals carebears, and only want easy to go rollercoaster ride with no thinking at all thats ok, but there are still plenty hardcore out there who want a true challenge not a kiddy game with difficulty lvl that a 8year old can play.
Your topic fail completely:).
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
The only reason sandbox MMOs can't succeed is because players refuse to compromise. People don't want to have to PvP, so as a result, the PKer suffers. People don't want to have to roleplay, so as a result, the roleplayer suffers. People don't want to have to travel, so as a result, the explorer/survivalist suffers. People don't want to have to buy and sell to get their gear, so as a result, the trading player suffers. And because none of us are willing to do things we don't like, we end up with games that are shallow, and please nobody for very long.
What don't you understand? Eve exists and is a very popular game and it is most definitely a sandbox game? Doesn't that completely shatter your argument to smithereens?
I guess you have a reading deficiency and did not see all the posts affirming that Eve is one and is alive and quite well.
Yes, Eve does not have Wow numbers, but then no one else does either. But then CCP is doing so well they managed to buy Whtewolf and are now embarked with them on another MMO project most certainly dealing with werewolves. Oh and by the way, you don't have to pvp in Eve, I rarely do and when I do, it is my choice. So the ruleset in a sandbox CAN allow people with different tastes to coexist. There are large roleplay alliances in EVE also. If you don't like traveling, EVE is not for you, If you want to get from one side to another of the universe it will take you awhile. There is instant travel in the pvp area, but you still need one of your fleet at the destination, so someone has to make the trip first.
Yes but that could be specious reasoning. Is Eve successful because it's a sandbox game, one of the few pvp games or because it's Sci-Fi?
I don't nesecarily think that evidence points to the fact that because it is a "sand box" game that that is what is making it successful.
Would it be equally (or more?) successful if it was fantasy? Or if there wasn't pvp?
So yes there is a successful sandbox game but because it has other unique qualities, those qualities could be lending to its success.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Sandbox games can definitely succeed. The Sim City and Civ series are sandbox games.
The only problem right now is there's a proven formula for MMO success and everybody's afraid to commit resources to a sandbox MMO because it would deviate from that formula.
Sandbox games can definitely succeed. The Sim City and Civ series are sandbox games. The only problem right now is there's a proven formula for MMO success and everybody's afraid to commit resources to a sandbox MMO because it would deviate from that formula.
So why did the Sims fail? Or Ryzom?
Seems to me that people who know about and want sandbox games are always on the look out for them so it's possible it's marketing but I don't think that's it.
I'm not saying they can't succeed. But I am doubtful that they are in as high demand as people think.
They take up time, they require more from players and becasue of this you aren't going to get a huge amount of players because nowadays most players have other things to do.
More structured games allow for part time players to log in for short amounts of time and have a bit of fun.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Sandbox games can definitely succeed. The Sim City and Civ series are sandbox games. The only problem right now is there's a proven formula for MMO success and everybody's afraid to commit resources to a sandbox MMO because it would deviate from that formula.
So why did the Sims fail? Or Ryzom?
Seems to me that people who know about and want sandbox games are always on the look out for them so it's possible it's marketing but I don't think that's it.
I'm not saying they can't succeed. But I am doubtful that they are in as high demand as people think.
They take up time, they require more from players and becasue of this you aren't going to get a huge amount of players because nowadays most players have other things to do.
More structured games allow for part time players to log in for short amounts of time and have a bit of fun.
Well, how come Asheron's Call 2 failed? Tabula Rasa is on that path too. Asheron's Call 1 was a sandbox that people loved, AC2, was not, and people didn't want that. Tabula Rasa was created by the father of the sandbox MMO, Ultima Online, but its all level based and linear, and its failing.
It goes both ways. There's less of a demand for a sandbox game, sure, but that's because the majority of the MMO market have only played WoW. They're used to their hands being held and everything behind spoon fed to them with their dribble wiped away. If they were to go into a sandbox they'd be confused and scared and have no idea what to do with a REAL MMO.
But, for us vets that have been here since the MMO Golden Age (Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, EQ, AC) we're DYING for a sandbox, or at least SOMETHING with some difficulty.
Comments
UO was a great game pre 3rd Dawn. and it is because you can do what you want when you want. but it also ahd consequences for you acttions. if you were a pk like me you would be guard wacked stact loss and hunted down by many players because they would get rewarded. UO truly knew what the R in MMORPG stood for. ROLEPLAYING. newer mmorpgs are loosing this form of ROLEPLAYING just so the creators can make money. for example the chicken Mechanic in WAR when you pk in a lowbie town you turn into a chicken with one hitpoint so you can't kill other players lower levels than you. No Roleplaying.
Let Them HATE, so long as they FEAR
I would not call a game with only around 250k subscriber a "major" success. It is successful but it is niche. Even AOC, which is panned by everyone here, sell a lot more boxes in the first week than the entire history of Eve.
wrong. eve is a success. just because it doesn't have 9 million subs doesn't make it a failure. and lets see if conan can stand the test of time like eve has.
I would not call a game with only around 250k subscriber a "major" success. It is successful but it is niche. Even AOC, which is panned by everyone here, sell a lot more boxes in the first week than the entire history of Eve.
LOL! 250k subscribers is a Major succes! It always has been!
Just because WoW came along and managed to get 9 million subscribers (from wich over 3/4 reside in Asia) doesn't mean that all the other MMO's are suddenly Niche!
250.000 times 15 euro = 3.750.000 euro bruto income a month. I call that a financial success!
And don't start talking about Age of Conan, as selling boxes does mean jack jit in MMO's anyway. It's all about who sticks around after the first 30 days and starts paying monthly subscription fees to pay for the devs, hardware, maintainance and bandwith and continous ongoing development costs!
It's all nice and dandy to sell 700k boxes, but if over half of them quit the first month, because the game is so horribly broken and lacking, then I call that a Major failure! Not a Major success!
Cheers
How can it be major when it is overshadowed by so many? I am not saying it is not successful. But it is very niche. FIrst WOW now has >10M subscribes. 4.5M in US/Europe so a lot LESS than 70% are in Asia. Get your facts right.
LOTR Online, Guild Wars, even Lineage are much better than Eve. How can it be a MAJOR success when so many are doing better?
what are you quoting to show 45% of wow's subs coming from us/eu? wow's success came, initially, from everyone being sick and tired of all the raiding bullshit which was so prevalent in MMOs. wow promised to not follow suit. wow's success came, initially, from the horde of bliznetters. wow's success came, and still comes, from you being able to run it on very old rigs.
wow introduced nothing new, and turned from casual friendly to raid-grind-stupidity thanks to asshats like kaplan and pardo.
talk about wow all you want, people still rave about uo and eq; but, the graphics in uo are my turn off, and the gameplay itself is my eq turnoff, wow loses me on both accounts.
ccp bought out white wolf/world of darkness.
according to your definition, well, pretty much every MMO out there is niche, every WESTERN mmo, except for wow. so everything everyone plays, EXCEPT wow, only has a niche place/population?
what is the word i'm looking for to describe that thinking...
like stan the man would say -- 'nuff said.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
sony screwed the game up at every turn. they couldn't even publish a useful guide. ignoring the players at every turn. creating new bugs while ignoring old ones. and it still launched with 300k subs. and if you ask me
the way people still hang on to hatred for soe proves that a sandbox is not only a viable game style...but is an untapped market.
swg still has bounty hunters, right? are the BH missions STILL bugged? or did they do away with them altogether in the nge?
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
So by this definition WOW/TBC is a complete sandboxed game and a very good one at that !
1. Professions,enchanters, gatherers, healers, warriors, twinks, vendors, manipulating of the auction houses. WRONG -- pvp is total and complete GARBAGE in this game. this is the most carebear-no risk pvp in the bloody universe. WOW completely LOSES on this one - so nuffin for da killers. what EXACTLY is there to explore in wow that you won't have already done by lvl 70? oopsies, nothing for the explorers. i hope the rest of your reasonings hold water.
2.With my lvl 70 paladin I can take the role of a pure tank, a pure healer, a pure fighting machine with the cost of 50 Gold (meaning doing 4 quests or sell some selfmade stuff on the auction house). Respeccing is a breeze these days in Wow. Respeccing every day. so, how good is your pally at being stealthy? got a bunch of ranged attacks there and you sniping folks much with this uber pally? what about aoes? you pretty good at aoe'ing the heck out of groups? oh, you can only do the pre-defined things that any pally can do, you can't actually make up your own kind of pally. gotcha. that's 2 for 2 where you've shown wow is NOT even remotely a sandbox. do your reasons get better? got something in there that lets you forego the healing and be a great tank AND dps? i would hope you could at least do that, since your pally is gimped for the other things.
3.Wide open? How about a personal flying mount you can fly ANYWHERE and land anywhere in TBC/Outland without ever seeing a loading screen on that land. And at night you go to an opera to watch the lastest shows ...
anything hidden to uncover and explore? maybe something like UO's old school treasure maps/sunken treasures, or Eve's exploration. nope? didn't think so. but yeah, you can fly around and see the same old stuff that everyone else has seen. i'll be generous and call this one a wash. the constraints for this one were pretty broad.
4. In fact last week I assisted in a wedding in our guild. In fact there was some organisation required as there were another couple at the Cathedral of Light that very same night. Everyone was wearing a tox and afterwards we had a party in Goldshire. so, you guys did this in your guild hall? you had special flowers set up? maybe a podium and nice tables/chairs set up for everyone? yeah, wow completely loses out on this one. anyone can go to some static place and pretend. if there's actually housing and items you can manipulate, then you're talking. don't even pretend here. you're 3 losess and 1 draw so far. you're doing a great job of pointing out that even if you stretch it -- wow completely misses on being a sandbox -- in reality. in pretend-crazy-head-land it's anything you want, even peanut butter.
My picnic basket (changing world envirmont???) was a success together with the BBQ and drinks we brought along. seriously, a picnic basket? did the picnic basket take over a city, or build itself a pavilion or something? by this illogical reasoning, anytime i'm walking down the road i'm changing the game environment because i wasn't there before. can i count this is two WRONGS, since you were wrong twice in one answer?
5. Economy? The best Wow crafted items these days in TBC are always on par with the general dungeons progress on the servers. Today blacksmiths craft the gear that suits 95% of all people (only the top 2 gears are reserved for raids in BT.Sun and or super PvP champs with 2200 + ratings). don't even. player-run economy is something NO ONE will say wow has. no one that is being rational and intelligent. this counts for 10 wrongs by itself for being so outrageously inaccurate.
6.Not in the game at the moment but WotLK will have full construcatbel siege systems in open zones. yeah, so people are going to live in this siege system? what is a siege system? a catapult? even with your stretching you're just grasping at make believe. STOP POSTING.
7. End game is completely free. No lineair design whatsoever, not even the end levels from 60 to 70. You can choose what you want at 70. In fact from Nov till Mar I only did BG's and my professions just to have a nice PvP title of Justicar. yeah, nothing directed, unless you want the best goodies. then you either have to do lil arena battles of ******* until the cows come home, or do the raid-grind-dance-of-endless-boredom. yeah, total complete linear play is what wow is known for. you really need to actually play this wow game before posting fancifully made-up concoctions about it. please don't post any more about this game until you've played it.
8. Already present in two forms in Wow (one scripted and one dependant of world PvP. Will get a big extension in WotLK BTW, where the possesion and destructions off Keeps will influence the world. i don't think you understood this question. i know the areas you're talking about and um, no.
9. Live events:?TOO numerous to even sum them up. Both from the designers as from the players themselves. again, reading with comprehension for the loss. he didn't say from the players, he SPECIFICALLY said devs. like when they opened the gates to bug land and um... yeah, that's about it. you know, if i read questions and reply to them, but i don't actually say anything that has to do WITH the question, then i can say anything. i'll do it with number 9.
9. I want to buy a cobra and have take over a Circle K.
did that have anything to do with the actual question? no. did i put a 9 and an answer and pretend like it's relevant? yes.
10.Of course MY paladin has its own story HOW I downed mobs and players in thousands of fights or crafting hours to have HUGE profits on the AH. again, you're not understanding the question.
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So 9/10 is not bad for WOW as a complete sandbox game in YOUR defintion, isn't it.
0/10 and you've shown that you don't understand most of the questions, which leads me to ask if you're a little kid or if english is your 3rd or 4th language?
Of course if you only played Wow/TBC as a leveling experience to level to 46, you have no clue do you ? Or even worse if you never played Wow's end game after patch 2.3 you don't know what I am talking about.
at this point, i honestly wish that you knew what you were talking about. please don't post about this topic until you've played wow and you've actually played a sandbox type game. the two are as far apart as pluto from uranus. i only wish i could charge you for the time i've lost reading this post.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I would not call a game with only around 250k subscriber a "major" success. It is successful but it is niche. Even AOC, which is panned by everyone here, sell a lot more boxes in the first week than the entire history of Eve.
LOL! 250k subscribers is a Major succes! It always has been!
Just because WoW came along and managed to get 9 million subscribers (from wich over 3/4 reside in Asia) doesn't mean that all the other MMO's are suddenly Niche!
250.000 times 15 euro = 3.750.000 euro bruto income a month. I call that a financial success!
..Don't forget, the USD is still the most used currency, so €3 750 000 will get converted to USD, giving you USD 5 905 502... Also knowing that EVE doesn't have that much costs anymore... Yesh, they're successful...
Edit; 3 posts in a row, give me my medal!
seriously, explain to me how eve is NOT a success. their magazine always sells out. their ccg is doing great. they have ZERO box sales, because it's a direct download (which means they're saving on all THOSE costs). they've bought out the world of darkness/white wolf. they're adding humanoid avatars to eve, which we all believe are where they're going to work the bugs out for the avatars which will be in the world of darkness mmo. did i mention they're working on a world of darkness mmo? their yearly parties are always huge successes with people flying in from all over the world to go chill in iceland.
they make millions a month, how much of that is overhead? how well are their staff being paid? seriously, how is eve NOT a success. spell it out for me please; because, by every definition i can come up with, they have more than succeeded, they're the proverbial underdog who was kicked and beaten and abandoned and who came back and whooped many asses and took many names and is now chilling in a luxury style dog house eating steak every night.
for all i DISLIKE about ccp/eve-online, you can't say they're NOT a resounding success. not if you're being factual.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I truly dont understand why this thread is so long and why its such a hot topic.
Sandbox MMos CAN exists because they do exist. As people have said: EVE, Early SWG, early UO, AC1 and prolly some others ive missed were all sandbox. There is just no arguing this, im sorry.
I think the core secret is that Sandbox game must be precisely engineered for and marketed to the right demographic.
By that, I mean players who tend to be more patient, more creative, more social and more strategic. As opposed to players who are more action-oriented, more confrontation-inclined and more impulse-uninhibited. OIn other words, an older - or at least maturer - audience.
By that I mean, the kind of audience currently filling 2nd Life rather than WoW.
Such an audience tends to be far richer and has more time at its disposal, since its inhabitants are masters of their own schedule. However, they are more demanding - they require the game to be calibrated to the same quality of their cars and deliviered with the same level of customer service as they receive at a sit-down restaurant. One of the greatest mistakes that Sony Online Entertainment ever made was to treat its players not as paying adults but as game-playing children.
And, yes, from chess to 2nd Life to paintball to professional sport, games for adults are gigantic business. A time will come when some design company makes a proper sandbox game designed for a mature audience and, when it does, I believe its subs and revenue numbers will dwarf those of WoW.
don't know about that. people like my wife play wow because it's super easy.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
don't know about that. people like my wife play wow because it's super easy.
I didn't say 'older'. I said 'more mature'.
don't know about that. people like my wife play wow because it's super easy.
I didn't say 'older'. I said 'more mature'.
Ouch! that must've hurt
, ROFL.
Your right, I do disagree. Whether its a linear,sandbox or a combo of the two, all games dwindle and fade simply because of loss of interest or game changes that alter core mechanics too much. There are so many mmo's on the market and coming out that players have a plethora of choice to fall into a game that suits their style. High, long term populations are difficult to achieve. WoW will dwindle like all other games past and future have/will, its just the current market obviously enjoys the style that WoW offers more than any other game currently.
I loved pre-cu SWG, to this day its my all time #1 mmo, others will disagree but again its a matter of individual taste. Now, the question......if SWG was still in its pre-cu core mechanic state would I still be playing? I can honestly say probably not, it would be jump in, jump out simply because loss of interest is inevitable, low population servers on many mmo's are a testament to the curiously unpredictable human condition.
[quote]Originally posted by bufford
[b][quote]Originally posted by brihtwulf
I loved pre-cu SWG, to this day its my all time #1 mmo, others will disagree but again its a matter of individual taste.[/b][/quote]
There are more people, however, that agree with you 100%. I don't know of a single person who played it who didnt love it and miss it.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.
The only reason sandbox MMOs can't succeed is because players refuse to compromise.
People don't want to have to PvP, so as a result, the PKer suffers.
People don't want to have to roleplay, so as a result, the roleplayer suffers.
People don't want to have to travel, so as a result, the explorer/survivalist suffers.
People don't want to have to buy and sell to get their gear, so as a result, the trading player suffers.
And because none of us are willing to do things we don't like, we end up with games that are shallow, and please nobody for very long.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Let's not forget that when SWG launched it was the second most popular MMO in the western world behind only EQ1. The raping of Koster's vision is basically the biggest black eye the MMO industry has, and probably ever will, seen.
And then there's EVE. Clearly sandboxes work. The only reason anyone would think they wouldn't is because of the industry's notoriously poor management of them and the fact that success is now measured in WoW terms so when devs make a game everything, even a 250-400k sub, is a failure by comparison which is an absurd notion.
I'd like to mention that less than half of SWG's content was even functional at release, at least half the game was broken. Somethings were never fixed, yet it is still considered one of the best MMOs to date.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.
Right, a sanbox game like SWG still was one of the top North American online games for subscription base. The game was struggling to get back to basics a bit due to the hologrind, but still with 250K subs VERY SUCCESSFUL. What happened was coporate greed and LA arrogance felt the game needed to attract the WoW numbers and sought to reduce the games sanbox eliments, which would hopefully appeal to the EpIII release in 2005. It was a now or never moment on their end and they pulled the wrong button. Much like when a politician is counting on the youth vote....it gets dicey. And we have seen what has happned to SWG, a game without an identity.
Longest running standard MMo to date is Sandbox, and is still running. While UO has undergone more face lifts than Joan Rivers it is still sandbox, and it still exists. How is this not a success?
go talk to the EVE fans
What don't you understand? Eve exists and is a very popular game and it is most definitely a sandbox game? Doesn't that completely shatter your argument to smithereens?
I guess you have a reading deficiency and did not see all the posts affirming that Eve is one and is alive and quite well.
Yes, Eve does not have Wow numbers, but then no one else does either. But then CCP is doing so well they managed to buy Whtewolf and are now embarked with them on another MMO project most certainly dealing with werewolves. Oh and by the way, you don't have to pvp in Eve, I rarely do and when I do, it is my choice. So the ruleset in a sandbox CAN allow people with different tastes to coexist. There are large roleplay alliances in EVE also. If you don't like traveling, EVE is not for you, If you want to get from one side to another of the universe it will take you awhile. There is instant travel in the pvp area, but you still need one of your fleet at the destination, so someone has to make the trip first.
There is a market for sandbox games Darkfall will proof it.
That you OP and so many others are casuals carebears, and only want easy to go rollercoaster ride with no thinking at all thats ok, but there are still plenty hardcore out there who want a true challenge not a kiddy game with difficulty lvl that a 8year old can play.
Your topic fail completely:).
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
What don't you understand? Eve exists and is a very popular game and it is most definitely a sandbox game? Doesn't that completely shatter your argument to smithereens?
I guess you have a reading deficiency and did not see all the posts affirming that Eve is one and is alive and quite well.
Yes, Eve does not have Wow numbers, but then no one else does either. But then CCP is doing so well they managed to buy Whtewolf and are now embarked with them on another MMO project most certainly dealing with werewolves. Oh and by the way, you don't have to pvp in Eve, I rarely do and when I do, it is my choice. So the ruleset in a sandbox CAN allow people with different tastes to coexist. There are large roleplay alliances in EVE also. If you don't like traveling, EVE is not for you, If you want to get from one side to another of the universe it will take you awhile. There is instant travel in the pvp area, but you still need one of your fleet at the destination, so someone has to make the trip first.
Yes but that could be specious reasoning. Is Eve successful because it's a sandbox game, one of the few pvp games or because it's Sci-Fi?
I don't nesecarily think that evidence points to the fact that because it is a "sand box" game that that is what is making it successful.
Would it be equally (or more?) successful if it was fantasy? Or if there wasn't pvp?
So yes there is a successful sandbox game but because it has other unique qualities, those qualities could be lending to its success.
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
Sandbox games can definitely succeed. The Sim City and Civ series are sandbox games.
The only problem right now is there's a proven formula for MMO success and everybody's afraid to commit resources to a sandbox MMO because it would deviate from that formula.
My youtube MMO gaming channel
So why did the Sims fail? Or Ryzom?
Seems to me that people who know about and want sandbox games are always on the look out for them so it's possible it's marketing but I don't think that's it.
I'm not saying they can't succeed. But I am doubtful that they are in as high demand as people think.
They take up time, they require more from players and becasue of this you aren't going to get a huge amount of players because nowadays most players have other things to do.
More structured games allow for part time players to log in for short amounts of time and have a bit of fun.
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
So why did the Sims fail? Or Ryzom?
Seems to me that people who know about and want sandbox games are always on the look out for them so it's possible it's marketing but I don't think that's it.
I'm not saying they can't succeed. But I am doubtful that they are in as high demand as people think.
They take up time, they require more from players and becasue of this you aren't going to get a huge amount of players because nowadays most players have other things to do.
More structured games allow for part time players to log in for short amounts of time and have a bit of fun.
Well, how come Asheron's Call 2 failed? Tabula Rasa is on that path too. Asheron's Call 1 was a sandbox that people loved, AC2, was not, and people didn't want that. Tabula Rasa was created by the father of the sandbox MMO, Ultima Online, but its all level based and linear, and its failing.
It goes both ways. There's less of a demand for a sandbox game, sure, but that's because the majority of the MMO market have only played WoW. They're used to their hands being held and everything behind spoon fed to them with their dribble wiped away. If they were to go into a sandbox they'd be confused and scared and have no idea what to do with a REAL MMO.
But, for us vets that have been here since the MMO Golden Age (Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, EQ, AC) we're DYING for a sandbox, or at least SOMETHING with some difficulty.
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