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Perfect Definition of a Sandbox Everyone Can Accept
roreux
Member Posts: 15
We've have the perfect model of a sandbox MMO, the sandbox itself.
1. No learning curve, a sandbox can be enjoyed by anyone ages 2 and up.
2. No dev content. No NPCs, no cities, no roads bushes or trees--well, maybe a tonka truck. The players arrive at a blank slate and must create everything.
3. Only the rules of physics apply. Players have complete freedom.
Something like a Minecraft MMO with open PvP would come close. No leveling, no skilling up, no need to grind for money. You don't have to do any of that tiresome stuff to enjoy a sandbox. Maybe with Neverwinter's ability to create player scenarios. Maybe with Second Life's ability to upload textured models designed by players.
Dev content is the opposite of what a sandbox stands for which is player content.
Comments
Now you're thinking like a true MMORPG developer... take what is successful in your predecessors' games and build upon that foundation with your own ideas. That is the true method of evolution within our genre.
Yes that would be a sandbox.
Not sure how much of a game it would be though.
You dont lose everything when you die.
i guess thats it..
This is a bit ambiguous... The ability to do things depends completely upon developers implementing features. It's not as though you can just #include <physics.h> and call it a day. You can certainly make it so that objects have momentum, fall according to gravity, and bounce off of each other (or break) when they collide. But everything that your avatar does in a computer game is possible because some designer said "player characters should be able to do this, don't you think?"
If a player wants their character to walk, jump, crawl, punch, pick up a rock and throw it, swing a sword, or get injured and die, those things are dev content. And everything the developers don't implement is off limits. Complete freedom is impossible within the confines of a computer program.
1. Learning curve doesn't factor into it. Sandbox merely refers to a game characterized by "sand" (malleable elements.) Meaning the player drives, creates, or modifies much of the experience.
2. This is where your definition hits a fork and goes two possible ways.
What players actually want (because they're players) is a game. A game has rules and at least some dev content. You can't have a game without rules and you will at least have player models and a game world, and that's all dev content (not to mention the engine, but that falls loosely under "game rules".)
What a true sandbox is "no dev content" like you said. But that means no game rules, no player models, no starting terrain, no game engine. Nothing. It's not a game, but something like a canvas you purchase to paint on (literally a canvas.) Or a programming language you buy to code with. It's not a game, but a tool which allows you to be creative, of which there are quite a few examples amongst the arts.
Players don't want the latter. They're players. That implies a game to be played.
So a sandbox game will always involve some dev content, but because it's sandbox that means the focus is on player authorship.
3. Rules of physics don't necessarily have to apply in a sandbox. That's just one specific type of sandbox. Honestly none of the sandbox games I've enjoyed even had physics (Don't Starve, ATITD, Haven & Hearth, and Puzzle Pirates.)
--
Skyrim involves both FPS and RPG elements, but we call it an RPG because the RPG bits are the most prevalent.
Sandboxes always involve both malleable and unchangeable elements, but we call them sandboxes because the malleable elements (the "sand") are the most prevalent.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Sorry OP, I'm going to have to disagree.
Sandboxes are generally unguided experiences, yes, but they can have a learning curve, like an initial tutorial, or a wider range of recipes you unlock as you go. Think Minecraft, but it's perfectly acceptable for a sandbox to include crafting recipes, or recipe hints if you prefers.
Sandboxes can have scaled content and still be a sandbox. For example, bigger baddies the further you go, or on remote islands, but they're treated more like a natural part of the environment... like in Ultima Online how there might be a few vicious monsters among far more harmless stuff. Unlike theme parks, they don't lead the players by the nose from place to place, because this ruins the sense of open-worldliness.
Sandboxes can have rules besides the most basic laws of physics and still be a sandbox. These are simply the framework in which a given sandbox chooses to operate. Too many rules can be constricting, yes, but too few rules can also be constricting because the rules are also somewhat something you can experiment off of by being part of the game, so the right selection of rules can actually make a sandbox more sandboxy than a spartan sandbox with less rules.
An empty slate has a huge learning curve.
Complete freedom... It is a perfect defination of a true sandbox... BUT...
There was an article I had read somewhere, about a "sandbox" game where this player actually hijack the server by exploiting a known effect of making slimes multiply endlessly, killing all players and eventually crashing the game. It went like this
The possibility of the universe collapsing into a singularity is higher than the birth of a perfect MMORPG.
My classing games would be from pure sandbox being the Dev, or even programmer and range to the themepark end being watching a video with no input.
The more the devs control things the less it's sandbox, the fewer choices you make the more it's themepark.
The trick comes into weighting game features as to how far away from sand they take you, and how important they are to your enjoyment of the game. Currently the trend is all "sandbox," but there's lots and lots of tedium I don't want that would have to be considered sandbox, such as eating breakfast lunch and dinner, burying waste or finding fresh water.
I'm pro-sandbox because I hate themepark, but they can go back the other way on the pendulum too far.
Asdar