I don't necessarily think it's just sandbox fans, I just noticed that I never really see sandbox games pushing the envelope.
Discounting EVE? You'll probably get an argument or two from those SWG fans too.
I don't know. It's hard to establish and 'trends' in a non-market that's still waiting for AA. We'll talk about it after AA arrives, mebbe.
Eve is definitely an exception, and it's definitely innovative...but I feel like it's a whole different kind of game. It's a sandbox, for sure, but it's not really in the tradition of UO, DF, MO, etc...
SWG...I didn't play it beyond beta, did it innovate any new sandbox features?
See what I mean? It's true that tech has limits, but you shouldn't let a limit become a brick wall.
Start with the limitations of the wireframe.
How many functions can you pack into that "hand" cursor? Now build a UI that works ideally for it. It may need a new controller, design it.
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.
Yes you've never played lineage 1, it died in west, but in east L1 is the best open world MMORPG, with almost 1 million subscribers nowadays. Eternal is the sequel to this:
Context sensitive objects can turn one button click into thousands of commands .
Uh huh? That's still not complex enough to handle the versatility of a text verb...let alone your own hand. Stop bandaiding it and design the UI that does it right.
(Imagine how many circular context menus you need to cycle through for function #415.)
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I dont see it as living the past. nothing wrong with knowing what you like and expressing what you want. that being said, it's impossible to know if what I want will make a good mmo in this day and age. I can appreciate that. If a game just didnt have housing but was still a sandbox at it's core, that would be fine.
The key though is as anet said and did with questing, someone has to do it 100%. You don't get rid of questing, but then still have questing. Can't remember where they said that, but ...
As for FFA-PVP .. I think that actually has a lot less to do with sandbox than anything else. While I think creating open world pvp is essential for the genre to break out of .. whatever the hell funk it is in .. I think any game that releases with only FFA PVP servers will be entirely too niche of a game.
No idea what the solution to that is.
The only thing I can say is a full FFA-PVP game needs some magical combinations of rewards and penalties .. which can probably never exist. Im no game designer though .. but I think if someone thought it was possible it would have been attempted by now.
Back when 500k subscribers was the pinnacle, it was easier. less competition probably had a lot to do with people learning to live in an FFA PVP world as well.
I love the idea of ffa pvp .. but in practice, I actually dont care for it.
My only thought on how to fix ffa pvp is to make pvp take longer, and offer more escape routes, at least in the initial phases of combat. For example, until you start really attacking (what defines really attacking? idk) you run as if out of combat .. or something. Hide skills comes to mind. Hide would differ from stealth in that you cannot attack from hide. Something like that.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity. I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
As I said, WoW and its clones made people to be afraid of pvp when it involves risks, nobody in west wants to be killed by an enemy guild while they are trying to kill an open world boss and also to lose xp if they die, no one wants to spend more than 1 week leveling, and they want to level alone, rushing to level cap, while in a open world like Lineage 1 you can't do anything alone after level 60. There's no hope for a actual MMO in west anymore. Lineage Eternal will be a success in east like L1 is, but in west there will be few serves, for the small niche of hardcore players.
Context sensitive objects can turn one button click into thousands of commands .
Uh huh? That's still not complex enough to handle the versatility of a text verb...let alone your own hand. Stop bandaiding it and design the UI that does it right.
Wait so are you talking about trying to emulate the actions of an actual human hand?
Why would you do this? It's not necessary. You don't need to try to simulate the "real" way things happen in a game. You only need give the player a way to do things that they want to do...you can ignore the gritty details.
For example, when I go to open a can of cat food, I don't think:
1. Contract biceps brachii to move forearm up.
2. Conduct circumductive movement on thumb to position it under can tab.
3. Conduct adductive movement on thumb while creating pressuing by pushing on can with other finger to open can.
.
.
.
I just think..."open can" and I am on auto-pilot for the rest. That's the point, you don't need to simulate how things really happen...you just have the player right click on the can, and then the character opens it. You don't even have to do an really fancy animation for this.
Originally posted by Creslin321 SWG...I didn't play it beyond beta, did it innovate any new sandbox features?
Ranger: class specialized in higher yield resources for crafting classes
Bio Engineer: extract dna from creatures to create new ones, a crafting class that buffed other crafting classes
Entertainers: social class that danced, played instruments, changed appearance, and could heal fatigue and wounds that doctors could not.
Droid engineers: crafted items that supported not just in combat, but in entertainment, other crafting classes, and even merchants.
These types of classes added layers to the overarching theme of combat. You had highly specialized skills that channeled through multiple classes and could help people indirectly. Thats the key imho. You make a game where yes, combat is the driving force of the world. But you channel and layer your ways of approaching that combat to the point that you never had to pick up a weapon and could still contribute to the overall theme of the game.
Well sure, to some extent we are. There some pretty good game mechanics back in the day that I enjoyed that have been largely tossed out instead of built upon and refined as I would have hoped for.
But it's true, we can't look entirely to the past and rebuild what was, that never works, some newer, fresh ideas have to be added to entice a greater portion of the gaming market so it can be profitable.
Not saying I have the answers, but I keep hoping some folks much smarter than me can come up with some new ideas.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
to me the games of the past are still light years ahead of the games we have now. the genre is going backwards. we are just now starting to see some hints of features that we had 10 years ago and companies act like its somthing new.
take Tera for example, they act like dodgeing skills and makeing combat skill based is somthing new. not even close, Asherons Call did it back in 1999 and did it far better than Tera could even dream of doing it in 2012.
thats just one small example of many hundreds that i can come up with. games from the past such as UO/AC were made by gamers for gamers to have fun in a WORLD not some instanced lobby with a dungeon finder because people are to lazy.
the closest experience i have gotten to those days is in DayZ. you start off the game dropped into the world with a flash light and some bandages and are expected to figure the rest out on your own. and when you die you start all over.
its a little more hardcore than any MMO i have played, but at least it doesnt hold your hand and walk you threw panzy land makeing sure you get everything you want spoon fed to you along the way. ( looking at you wow and all your clones )
That sums up my feelings pretty well. There's just something about being thrown into a world with nothing but a marj melon and survival knife that these games are lacking today, no sense of adventure or wonder. The term themepark has been taken far too literal by these companies as comparatively that's what they feel like as that's what they're creating, virtual disneylands.
The problem is that for every 1 of you there are 10 people who will go "what the heck am I supposed to do? This game is dumb, I'm out." They will quit and not come back. This is the dilemma for game designers and publishers. If it's a AAA development they can't afford to take the chance that people will quit and therefore the type of game you are describing is generally made by the indie companies and made on the cheap because they don't need a huge playerbase to make their money back.
I think this is part of where the OP is going. There needs to be innovation and compromise. A game like UO launched now wouldn't be more than a niche game. They need to encorporate some "hand-holding" if you will at the beginning and probably use some guides, it's really a matter of how much or how little they use.
Yes you've never played lineage 1, it died in west, but in east L1 is the best open world MMORPG, with almost 1 million subscribers nowadays. Eternal is the sequel to this:
I think just by being the first main stream mmorpg in asia and alot of people is making a living from selling virtual goods is what make it popular.
We don't play L1 because it's sandbox. We just play it. Just like another so called sandbox 2D game we have in asia which made alot of money in this few years. It's have a p2w cashshop and alot of people treat it like a job from selling virtual good. Anyway in asia I never heard of anyone discussing sandbox on game forum.
to me the games of the past are still light years ahead of the games we have now. the genre is going backwards. we are just now starting to see some hints of features that we had 10 years ago and companies act like its somthing new.
take Tera for example, they act like dodgeing skills and makeing combat skill based is somthing new. not even close, Asherons Call did it back in 1999 and did it far better than Tera could even dream of doing it in 2012.
thats just one small example of many hundreds that i can come up with. games from the past such as UO/AC were made by gamers for gamers to have fun in a WORLD not some instanced lobby with a dungeon finder because people are to lazy.
the closest experience i have gotten to those days is in DayZ. you start off the game dropped into the world with a flash light and some bandages and are expected to figure the rest out on your own. and when you die you start all over.
its a little more hardcore than any MMO i have played, but at least it doesnt hold your hand and walk you threw panzy land makeing sure you get everything you want spoon fed to you along the way. ( looking at you wow and all your clones )
That sums up my feelings pretty well. There's just something about being thrown into a world with nothing but a marj melon and survival knife that these games are lacking today, no sense of adventure or wonder. The term themepark has been taken far too literal by these companies as comparatively that's what they feel like as that's what they're creating, virtual disneylands.
The problem is that for every 1 of you there are 10 people who will go "what the heck am I supposed to do? This game is dumb, I'm out." They will quit and not come back. This is the dilemma for game designers and publishers. If it's a AAA development they can't afford to take the chance that people will quit and therefore the type of game you are describing is generally made by the indie companies and made on the cheap because they don't need a huge playerbase to make their money back.
I think this is part of where the OP is going. There needs to be innovation and compromise. A game like UO launched now wouldn't be more than a niche game. They need to encorporate some "hand-holding" if you will at the beginning and probably use some guides, it's really a matter of how much or how little they use.
The OP agrees .
Lack of accessibility was a hallmark "feature" of older sandbox games, and is sadly, a hallmark feature of just about every newer one. There is nothing about an inaccessible game that makes it more sandboxy...it's quite possible to have a very accessible game that is free-form as well.
I agree that there needs to be "innovation and compromise" as you say. We need fresh sandbox concepts that don't require players to either spend a month doing menial tasks, or read a book on the internet to understand.
My Sandbox of choice gets two expansions a year included in the sub (how added content should be), as well as smaller additions and fixes included. My Sandbox of choice grows in subscribers every year, instead of going fail2pay oh I mean free2play due to lack of content and players leaving in droves.
Yes you've never played lineage 1, it died in west, but in east L1 is the best open world MMORPG, with almost 1 million subscribers nowadays. Eternal is the sequel to this:
I think just by being the first main stream mmorpg in asia and alot of people is making a living from selling virtual goods is what make it popular.
We don't play L1 because it's sandbox. We just play it. Just like another so called sandbox 2D game we have in asia which made alot of money in this few years. It's have a p2w cashshop and alot of people treat it like a job from selling virtual good. Anyway in asia I never heard of anyone discussing sandbox on game forum.
L1 is P2P east, L2 is also P2P in east. There is no cash shop in these games there. L2 became F2P only in west along with Aion(also P2P in east). None of these games have cash shop in east because all of them are P2P there. Eternal will be P2P according to the news. But in west due to the lack of players L2/Aion had to become F2P, and L1 has shut down in NA. But in east all of these games are full of people.
to me the games of the past are still light years ahead of the games we have now. the genre is going backwards. we are just now starting to see some hints of features that we had 10 years ago and companies act like its somthing new.
take Tera for example, they act like dodgeing skills and makeing combat skill based is somthing new. not even close, Asherons Call did it back in 1999 and did it far better than Tera could even dream of doing it in 2012.
thats just one small example of many hundreds that i can come up with. games from the past such as UO/AC were made by gamers for gamers to have fun in a WORLD not some instanced lobby with a dungeon finder because people are to lazy.
the closest experience i have gotten to those days is in DayZ. you start off the game dropped into the world with a flash light and some bandages and are expected to figure the rest out on your own. and when you die you start all over.
its a little more hardcore than any MMO i have played, but at least it doesnt hold your hand and walk you threw panzy land makeing sure you get everything you want spoon fed to you along the way. ( looking at you wow and all your clones )
That sums up my feelings pretty well. There's just something about being thrown into a world with nothing but a marj melon and survival knife that these games are lacking today, no sense of adventure or wonder. The term themepark has been taken far too literal by these companies as comparatively that's what they feel like as that's what they're creating, virtual disneylands.
The problem is that for every 1 of you there are 10 people who will go "what the heck am I supposed to do? This game is dumb, I'm out." They will quit and not come back. This is the dilemma for game designers and publishers. If it's a AAA development they can't afford to take the chance that people will quit and therefore the type of game you are describing is generally made by the indie companies and made on the cheap because they don't need a huge playerbase to make their money back.
I think this is part of where the OP is going. There needs to be innovation and compromise. A game like UO launched now wouldn't be more than a niche game. They need to encorporate some "hand-holding" if you will at the beginning and probably use some guides, it's really a matter of how much or how little they use.
Thats perfectly fine, sandbox gamers dont want to play with ultra casuals that quit in the 1st 30min anyway. It drags the community down, and in a sandbox the less dumb people the better....you know...full loot pvp and all.
Yes, but if you're a AAA developere who just spent $200 million making a game and more marketing it, you can't succeed by just having the sandbox gamers keep you going. You need more than that. If you're an indie company you might get by, but then again they don't usually have the capitol to add all the bells and whistles in that people want. It's a difficult balancing act.
to me the games of the past are still light years ahead of the games we have now. the genre is going backwards. we are just now starting to see some hints of features that we had 10 years ago and companies act like its somthing new.
take Tera for example, they act like dodgeing skills and makeing combat skill based is somthing new. not even close, Asherons Call did it back in 1999 and did it far better than Tera could even dream of doing it in 2012.
thats just one small example of many hundreds that i can come up with. games from the past such as UO/AC were made by gamers for gamers to have fun in a WORLD not some instanced lobby with a dungeon finder because people are to lazy.
the closest experience i have gotten to those days is in DayZ. you start off the game dropped into the world with a flash light and some bandages and are expected to figure the rest out on your own. and when you die you start all over.
its a little more hardcore than any MMO i have played, but at least it doesnt hold your hand and walk you threw panzy land makeing sure you get everything you want spoon fed to you along the way. ( looking at you wow and all your clones )
That sums up my feelings pretty well. There's just something about being thrown into a world with nothing but a marj melon and survival knife that these games are lacking today, no sense of adventure or wonder. The term themepark has been taken far too literal by these companies as comparatively that's what they feel like as that's what they're creating, virtual disneylands.
The problem is that for every 1 of you there are 10 people who will go "what the heck am I supposed to do? This game is dumb, I'm out." They will quit and not come back. This is the dilemma for game designers and publishers. If it's a AAA development they can't afford to take the chance that people will quit and therefore the type of game you are describing is generally made by the indie companies and made on the cheap because they don't need a huge playerbase to make their money back.
I think this is part of where the OP is going. There needs to be innovation and compromise. A game like UO launched now wouldn't be more than a niche game. They need to encorporate some "hand-holding" if you will at the beginning and probably use some guides, it's really a matter of how much or how little they use.
The OP agrees .
Lack of accessibility was a hallmark "feature" of older sandbox games, and is sadly, a hallmark feature of just about every newer one. There is nothing about an inaccessible game that makes it more sandboxy...it's quite possible to have a very accessible game that is free-form as well.
I agree that there needs to be "innovation and compromise" as you say. We need fresh sandbox concepts that don't require players to either spend a month doing menial tasks, or read a book on the internet to understand.
I kind of thought that's what you were getting at.
The reason I am so excited about GW2 is because they are taking the steps towards a sandbox feel. To me GW2 is like a bridge-game. What I mean is that it doesn't quite have all the sandbox features I'd like, but they are heading in the right direction.
There is a decent amount of hand-holding to get started, but even then I've seen plenty of people complaining that they don't explain enough. They have the heart system and quests to kind of give people an idea of where to go, but at the same time people are free to ignore them and have a watered-down sandbox feel.
I hope that the next developer sees GW2 and takes the next step to totally open up the world, add in some open world PvP, player housing in the world like UO but also maintains some quest givers here and there to help guide people who need it.
The problem is that for every 1 of you there are 10 people who will go "what the heck am I supposed to do? This game is dumb, I'm out." They will quit and not come back. This is the dilemma for game designers and publishers. If it's a AAA development they can't afford to take the chance that people will quit and therefore the type of game you are describing is generally made by the indie companies and made on the cheap because they don't need a huge playerbase to make their money back.
I think this is part of where the OP is going. There needs to be innovation and compromise. A game like UO launched now wouldn't be more than a niche game. They need to encorporate some "hand-holding" if you will at the beginning and probably use some guides, it's really a matter of how much or how little they use.
"Problem"? It is not a problem. It is human nature.
Plus, in this busy day & age, if a game is not fun from the start, there is no reason playing it. There are alternatives.
I don't want a game that needs to search 20 min before something interesting happens.
so... todays MMO-s are plain devolution. We just need little more time and intelligent game design team.
It's questionable how much of that devolution was due to wireframe models (additional dev time, limited ability to object-manipulate, limited to fixed animations, etc.) But certain that some of it was.
But that's ok, it's a one-sided argument. Ignores the (many) ways a MUD would be considered a devolution of a MMORPG.
23 minutes, scripted jogging speed, between two MUD towns, sans ambush. About 35 minutes for the best unscripted map-walkers.
Accent was on features like: Politics, Economic System, History & Mythos, City-states, Great Houses, Religious Orders,...
The main problem with gaming now is that people fall into niche categories.
To give an example, Ultima Online was as fun as it was (for me at least) because it brought all sorts of different player types into one environment and just let them go to it. Crafters, socializers, leaders, pvpers, pkers, newbies, blubies, etc etc. The INTERACTION between these players is what made the game fun. Many modern games really only appeal to one or two of those niches and people don't play the games they don't like. During the days of UO, there was nothing else. It was either UO or nothing. That situation won't exist again until some new revolutionary game comes out and throws all player types together again because there IS nothing else.
I hope that the next developer sees GW2 and takes the next step to totally open up the world, add in some open world PvP, player housing in the world like UO but also maintains some quest givers here and there to help guide people who need it.
No open world pvp. That will certainly lose players. WOW use to have it ... and eliminated it because it was not popular.
Yes you've never played lineage 1, it died in west, but in east L1 is the best open world MMORPG, with almost 1 million subscribers nowadays. Eternal is the sequel to this:
I think just by being the first main stream mmorpg in asia and alot of people is making a living from selling virtual goods is what make it popular.
We don't play L1 because it's sandbox. We just play it. Just like another so called sandbox 2D game we have in asia which made alot of money in this few years. It's have a p2w cashshop and alot of people treat it like a job from selling virtual good. Anyway in asia I never heard of anyone discussing sandbox on game forum.
are you from across the pond, could you explain? what do asian forums look like? Here we hate everything thats not wow but want something thats exactly wow.... in a nutshell.
Exactly, L1/L2 are P2P in east countries since their releases, and they still have a lot of people(L1 with almost 1kk and L2 with almost 600k players) there is no reason to NC to change them to F2P there.
It is just about tastes, eastern people still like open world MMOs like L1 where there are lots of world pvp and player interaction, where there are risks in pvp and you need to grind in groups in order to face rival allies.
Western people only enjoy wow clones: rush to level cap with the speed of light alone while you see some lore. Go to cities and sit down waiting for instances to grind gear, do it over and over in order to make the same instances easier after geared.
Yes you've never played lineage 1, it died in west, but in east L1 is the best open world MMORPG, with almost 1 million subscribers nowadays. Eternal is the sequel to this:
I think just by being the first main stream mmorpg in asia and alot of people is making a living from selling virtual goods is what make it popular.
We don't play L1 because it's sandbox. We just play it. Just like another so called sandbox 2D game we have in asia which made alot of money in this few years. It's have a p2w cashshop and alot of people treat it like a job from selling virtual good. Anyway in asia I never heard of anyone discussing sandbox on game forum.
L1 is P2P east, L2 is also P2P in east. There is no cash shop in these games there. L2 became F2P only in west along with Aion(also P2P in east). None of these games have cash shop in east because all of them are P2P there. Eternal will be P2P according to the news. But in west due to the lack of players L2/Aion had to become F2P, and L1 has shut down in NA. But in east all of these games are full of people.
I'm not sure what youa re trying to tell me. I live in asia. And played L1/L2/Aion on asia server before. I'm just saying during the economy crisis in Korea, alot of people lost their jobs. And you have alot of people make a living simply selling the equipment they find.
And you really don't hear people discuss the term sandbox in Asia game forum. It's alot more divided for the western mmorpg players.
Yes you've never played lineage 1, it died in west, but in east L1 is the best open world MMORPG, with almost 1 million subscribers nowadays. Eternal is the sequel to this:
I think just by being the first main stream mmorpg in asia and alot of people is making a living from selling virtual goods is what make it popular.
We don't play L1 because it's sandbox. We just play it. Just like another so called sandbox 2D game we have in asia which made alot of money in this few years. It's have a p2w cashshop and alot of people treat it like a job from selling virtual good. Anyway in asia I never heard of anyone discussing sandbox on game forum.
L1 is P2P east, L2 is also P2P in east. There is no cash shop in these games there. L2 became F2P only in west along with Aion(also P2P in east). None of these games have cash shop in east because all of them are P2P there. Eternal will be P2P according to the news. But in west due to the lack of players L2/Aion had to become F2P, and L1 has shut down in NA. But in east all of these games are full of people.
I'm not sure what youa re trying to tell me. I live in asia. And played L1/L2/Aion on asia server before. I'm just saying during the economy crisis in Korea, alot of people lost their jobs. And you have alot of people make a living simply selling the equipment they find.
And you really don't hear people discuss the term sandbox in Asia game forum. It's alot more divided for the western mmorpg players.
Jut try to find and play, what country do you live? Most people that play L1-L2 are in korea-china-japan and taiwan. Yes blade& soul is P2P too.
Originally posted by Creslin321 SWG...I didn't play it beyond beta, did it innovate any new sandbox features?
Ranger: class specialized in higher yield resources for crafting classes
Made millions selling resources to doctors and medics.
Bio Engineer: extract dna from creatures to create new ones, a crafting class that buffed other crafting classes
A system that made proffesions interact.
Entertainers: social class that danced, played instruments, changed appearance, and could heal fatigue and wounds that doctors could not.
Ive never seen anything like this in any other game, it was a major social bulding factor since most loners had to interact with other players. Even though thier was buff botts, they still met other players in the canteena.
Droid engineers: crafted items that supported not just in combat, but in entertainment, other crafting classes, and even merchants.
These types of classes added layers to the overarching theme of combat. You had highly specialized skills that channeled through multiple classes and could help people indirectly. Thats the key imho. You make a game where yes, combat is the driving force of the world. But you channel and layer your ways of approaching that combat to the point that you never had to pick up a weapon and could still contribute to the overall theme of the game.
Later on in the game they made people interact in differnt ways, in the beginning I remember joining groups to do missions. Then we grouped to hunt for rare objects, skill tapes and armor attachments. People think the crafters lived off the combat people but it was not so, hunting and looting high end items for crafting was a major part of the economy.
Comments
Eve is definitely an exception, and it's definitely innovative...but I feel like it's a whole different kind of game. It's a sandbox, for sure, but it's not really in the tradition of UO, DF, MO, etc...
SWG...I didn't play it beyond beta, did it innovate any new sandbox features?
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Start with the limitations of the wireframe.
How many functions can you pack into that "hand" cursor? Now build a UI that works ideally for it. It may need a new controller, design it.
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.
Yes you've never played lineage 1, it died in west, but in east L1 is the best open world MMORPG, with almost 1 million subscribers nowadays. Eternal is the sequel to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4f25QJyy3o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6IjHruj2-I
Context sensitive objects can turn one button click into thousands of commands
.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Uh huh? That's still not complex enough to handle the versatility of a text verb...let alone your own hand. Stop bandaiding it and design the UI that does it right.
(Imagine how many circular context menus you need to cycle through for function #415.)
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I dont see it as living the past. nothing wrong with knowing what you like and expressing what you want. that being said, it's impossible to know if what I want will make a good mmo in this day and age. I can appreciate that. If a game just didnt have housing but was still a sandbox at it's core, that would be fine.
The key though is as anet said and did with questing, someone has to do it 100%. You don't get rid of questing, but then still have questing. Can't remember where they said that, but ...
As for FFA-PVP .. I think that actually has a lot less to do with sandbox than anything else. While I think creating open world pvp is essential for the genre to break out of .. whatever the hell funk it is in .. I think any game that releases with only FFA PVP servers will be entirely too niche of a game.
No idea what the solution to that is.
The only thing I can say is a full FFA-PVP game needs some magical combinations of rewards and penalties .. which can probably never exist. Im no game designer though .. but I think if someone thought it was possible it would have been attempted by now.
Back when 500k subscribers was the pinnacle, it was easier. less competition probably had a lot to do with people learning to live in an FFA PVP world as well.
I love the idea of ffa pvp .. but in practice, I actually dont care for it.
My only thought on how to fix ffa pvp is to make pvp take longer, and offer more escape routes, at least in the initial phases of combat. For example, until you start really attacking (what defines really attacking? idk) you run as if out of combat .. or something. Hide skills comes to mind. Hide would differ from stealth in that you cannot attack from hide. Something like that.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
As I said, WoW and its clones made people to be afraid of pvp when it involves risks, nobody in west wants to be killed by an enemy guild while they are trying to kill an open world boss and also to lose xp if they die, no one wants to spend more than 1 week leveling, and they want to level alone, rushing to level cap, while in a open world like Lineage 1 you can't do anything alone after level 60. There's no hope for a actual MMO in west anymore. Lineage Eternal will be a success in east like L1 is, but in west there will be few serves, for the small niche of hardcore players.
Wait so are you talking about trying to emulate the actions of an actual human hand?
Why would you do this? It's not necessary. You don't need to try to simulate the "real" way things happen in a game. You only need give the player a way to do things that they want to do...you can ignore the gritty details.
For example, when I go to open a can of cat food, I don't think:
1. Contract biceps brachii to move forearm up.
2. Conduct circumductive movement on thumb to position it under can tab.
3. Conduct adductive movement on thumb while creating pressuing by pushing on can with other finger to open can.
.
.
.
I just think..."open can" and I am on auto-pilot for the rest. That's the point, you don't need to simulate how things really happen...you just have the player right click on the can, and then the character opens it. You don't even have to do an really fancy animation for this.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Ranger: class specialized in higher yield resources for crafting classes
Bio Engineer: extract dna from creatures to create new ones, a crafting class that buffed other crafting classes
Entertainers: social class that danced, played instruments, changed appearance, and could heal fatigue and wounds that doctors could not.
Droid engineers: crafted items that supported not just in combat, but in entertainment, other crafting classes, and even merchants.
These types of classes added layers to the overarching theme of combat. You had highly specialized skills that channeled through multiple classes and could help people indirectly. Thats the key imho. You make a game where yes, combat is the driving force of the world. But you channel and layer your ways of approaching that combat to the point that you never had to pick up a weapon and could still contribute to the overall theme of the game.
Well sure, to some extent we are. There some pretty good game mechanics back in the day that I enjoyed that have been largely tossed out instead of built upon and refined as I would have hoped for.
But it's true, we can't look entirely to the past and rebuild what was, that never works, some newer, fresh ideas have to be added to entice a greater portion of the gaming market so it can be profitable.
Not saying I have the answers, but I keep hoping some folks much smarter than me can come up with some new ideas.
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The problem is that for every 1 of you there are 10 people who will go "what the heck am I supposed to do? This game is dumb, I'm out." They will quit and not come back. This is the dilemma for game designers and publishers. If it's a AAA development they can't afford to take the chance that people will quit and therefore the type of game you are describing is generally made by the indie companies and made on the cheap because they don't need a huge playerbase to make their money back.
I think this is part of where the OP is going. There needs to be innovation and compromise. A game like UO launched now wouldn't be more than a niche game. They need to encorporate some "hand-holding" if you will at the beginning and probably use some guides, it's really a matter of how much or how little they use.
I think just by being the first main stream mmorpg in asia and alot of people is making a living from selling virtual goods is what make it popular.
We don't play L1 because it's sandbox. We just play it. Just like another so called sandbox 2D game we have in asia which made alot of money in this few years. It's have a p2w cashshop and alot of people treat it like a job from selling virtual good. Anyway in asia I never heard of anyone discussing sandbox on game forum.
The OP agrees
.
Lack of accessibility was a hallmark "feature" of older sandbox games, and is sadly, a hallmark feature of just about every newer one. There is nothing about an inaccessible game that makes it more sandboxy...it's quite possible to have a very accessible game that is free-form as well.
I agree that there needs to be "innovation and compromise" as you say. We need fresh sandbox concepts that don't require players to either spend a month doing menial tasks, or read a book on the internet to understand.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
My Sandbox of choice gets two expansions a year included in the sub (how added content should be), as well as smaller additions and fixes included. My Sandbox of choice grows in subscribers every year, instead of going fail2pay oh I mean free2play due to lack of content and players leaving in droves.
So maybe themepark fans are living in the past :P
L1 is P2P east, L2 is also P2P in east. There is no cash shop in these games there. L2 became F2P only in west along with Aion(also P2P in east). None of these games have cash shop in east because all of them are P2P there. Eternal will be P2P according to the news. But in west due to the lack of players L2/Aion had to become F2P, and L1 has shut down in NA. But in east all of these games are full of people.
Yes, but if you're a AAA developere who just spent $200 million making a game and more marketing it, you can't succeed by just having the sandbox gamers keep you going. You need more than that. If you're an indie company you might get by, but then again they don't usually have the capitol to add all the bells and whistles in that people want. It's a difficult balancing act.
I kind of thought that's what you were getting at.
The reason I am so excited about GW2 is because they are taking the steps towards a sandbox feel. To me GW2 is like a bridge-game. What I mean is that it doesn't quite have all the sandbox features I'd like, but they are heading in the right direction.
There is a decent amount of hand-holding to get started, but even then I've seen plenty of people complaining that they don't explain enough. They have the heart system and quests to kind of give people an idea of where to go, but at the same time people are free to ignore them and have a watered-down sandbox feel.
I hope that the next developer sees GW2 and takes the next step to totally open up the world, add in some open world PvP, player housing in the world like UO but also maintains some quest givers here and there to help guide people who need it.
"Problem"? It is not a problem. It is human nature.
Plus, in this busy day & age, if a game is not fun from the start, there is no reason playing it. There are alternatives.
I don't want a game that needs to search 20 min before something interesting happens.
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The main problem with gaming now is that people fall into niche categories.
To give an example, Ultima Online was as fun as it was (for me at least) because it brought all sorts of different player types into one environment and just let them go to it. Crafters, socializers, leaders, pvpers, pkers, newbies, blubies, etc etc. The INTERACTION between these players is what made the game fun. Many modern games really only appeal to one or two of those niches and people don't play the games they don't like. During the days of UO, there was nothing else. It was either UO or nothing. That situation won't exist again until some new revolutionary game comes out and throws all player types together again because there IS nothing else.
Just my two cents.
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No open world pvp. That will certainly lose players. WOW use to have it ... and eliminated it because it was not popular.
Exactly, L1/L2 are P2P in east countries since their releases, and they still have a lot of people(L1 with almost 1kk and L2 with almost 600k players) there is no reason to NC to change them to F2P there.
It is just about tastes, eastern people still like open world MMOs like L1 where there are lots of world pvp and player interaction, where there are risks in pvp and you need to grind in groups in order to face rival allies.
Western people only enjoy wow clones: rush to level cap with the speed of light alone while you see some lore. Go to cities and sit down waiting for instances to grind gear, do it over and over in order to make the same instances easier after geared.
I'm not sure what youa re trying to tell me. I live in asia. And played L1/L2/Aion on asia server before. I'm just saying during the economy crisis in Korea, alot of people lost their jobs. And you have alot of people make a living simply selling the equipment they find.
And you really don't hear people discuss the term sandbox in Asia game forum. It's alot more divided for the western mmorpg players.
Jut try to find and play, what country do you live? Most people that play L1-L2 are in korea-china-japan and taiwan. Yes blade& soul is P2P too.