A game composed entirely of themepark content just as well not be an MMO. You can do the same in multiplayer games. You can even queue dungeons and raids. The game will be better gameplay wise and cheaper to make.
Sandboxes were unpopular as MMOs.
name 3 sandbox mmos...
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
I'll just come right out and say it, people generally don't like sandbox games. There! Said it! I wish it weren't true, but it is. People do NOT have as much interest in bringing back a sandbox game as you'd think. For instance, for all the hoopla surrounding SWG, there was never a petition that garnered more than a few thousand signatures to bring it back. The Nost..blah Servers for Vanilla WoW are told to go offline and BAM!! 250k signatures in like a month. If you're able to get 250k people to give enough fucks about sandbox to sign a petition, a game will be made. The reality is that people just don't care that much.
When was the last time a decent sandbox was released? I'll tell you: it was May 2003, when EVE Online debuted (or June 2003 when SWG came out, but given that the developers betrayed that vision within six months, it's hardly world mentioning). There hasn't been an equivalent AAA sandbox title unleased on the MMO community in THIRTEEN YEARS.
So please stop saying that "people generally don't like sandbox games," because something tells me that the last time a good sandbox game made a splash, you were still in grade school.
Lol, so you're saying that for 13 years game developers haven't "figured it out"? With all due respect, that's just silly. Game developers have more metrics about gamers than you might think. The reason that there is no sandbox is that the market is relatively small.
Every game isn't going to appeal to every person. However, the reason that there are so few true sandboxes is pretty simple: everybody has spent the past decade-plus attempting to ape WoW.
Please recall, if you are able, that the formula for how to craft an MMORPG has changed only recently. Up until about a two years ago, there was no serious crowdfunding of these games - all development capital (or the vast majority of it) was derived from major publishers, who invested in ideas (and, typically, bought them out) and then spent millions to see games brought to life. These people were looking at serious metrics that said one thing above all else: that the biggest title in the market was a rigid themepark.
As investors and not artists or game designers themselves, these executive types were less concerned about vision than bottom line - they were going to spend their hard-won capital on the formula that most looked like the proven winner in the field. This is the SAME REASON why you see phenomenons in sports franchises - a decade ago, all NBA franchises worth their salt featured a Shaq-like hulking power forward. Advance ten years, and now all teams are trying to go small and skilled like Golden State. Same thing for football - fifteen years ago, you could still build a team around a pocket passer with zero mobility and a stout defense. Outside Denver (whose defaulting to the old style was forced due to Manning becoming a cripple), nobody adopts this style willingly anymore. Everybody is a copycat.
The point is, you are painting these marketing and executive types as possessing some type of a crystal ball or special knowledge, when, in reality, many of them are far less intelligent, or cognizent of their surroundings, than you or I (well, than I; I'm not at all convinced that you're any smarter than they are. White knighting rarely begets wisdom or wit). The ultimate proof that these bigwigs are grasping blindly in the dark is The Old Republic. Star Wars is a bullet-proof IP, and until TOR flopped, everything Bioware touched turned to gold. Problem was, the game turned out to be yet another WoW-clone, and, whoops! That wasn't what the market was looking for. Where were those precious metrics then, Craz, when the world was burning down their $150 million investment?
Unsurprisingly, most of the MMORPGs in development in the past two years have broken with the rigid themepark approach, instead trying to cultivate new ground in a saturated market by doing something different. So, yes, theme parks are the path to failure right now - Blizzard still commands almost all the dollars contributed to this approach, and there is no room for anyone else in the buffet hall.
SWG, EVE, and UO have been called sandbox MMORPGs because they're much more sandbox-like than the norm.
"are you saying those games are unpopular?"
While SWG is by far my favorite MMORPG I've played.. It really wasn't popular enough to; A: please it's owners, B: spawn more games of it's ilk. I guess you could say UO was popular enough to influence SWG though.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
SWG, EVE, and UO have been called sandbox MMORPGs because they're much more sandbox-like than the norm.
"are you saying those games are unpopular?"
While SWG is by far my favorite MMORPG I've played.. It really wasn't popular enough to; A: please it's owners, B: spawn more games of it's ilk. I guess you could say UO was popular enough to influence SWG though.
'not popular' and 'not the American Idol version of a gaming' is very far apart from each other.
There is an habit in this industry from both fans and developers alike to assume all games must be the McDonalds of games and that there isnt a likelyhood that a lot of people would be happier eating a Taco Bell while at the same time leaving both Taco Bell and McDonalds very profitable.
see if anyone has a clue what I am saying here.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
A game composed entirely of themepark content just as well not be an MMO. You can do the same in multiplayer games. You can even queue dungeons and raids. The game will be better gameplay wise and cheaper to make.
Why say that about themeparks?
It's way more true of sandboxes than themeparks!
The defining trait of sandboxes is the sand. It's the ability to take malleable elements (sand) and reshape them to whatever you want.
The most sandbox experience you can have isn't a game at all. They're things like art, writing, etc, where there aren't any arbitrary rules about what you can or can't do to reshape the thing you're creating.
The most sandbox game is a singleplayer sandbox. You are god of your singleplayer Minecraft world, and you have total absolute freedom (within the confines of what's possible in Minecraft of course.)
If you add one player, your 2-player sandbox is dramatically less sandboxy. You went from having ALL CONTROL to having HALF CONTROL.
If you add lots of players (an MMO), a game is barely sandbox at all. You're sharing control of the world with thousands of other players, so you have almost no control yourself. You barely have any ability to reshape things to what you want.
Which is partly why reality went a little something like this:
Themeparks were quite popular as MMOs.
Themeparks were extremely popular as non-MMOs.
Sandboxes were unpopular as MMOs.
Sandboxes enjoyed moderate popularity as non-MMOs.
The difference is you can't have a MMORPG Sandbox player kingdom experience in a single player game or even really a multiplayer game. You can have the MMORPG themepark or questhub experience solo, with better combat, convenience, graphics and just about any imaginable way.
Yeah of course! UO peaked 250k subscribers, EVE 500k, SWG 300k.
And of course what popularity they did have was positively influenced by their themepark elements, since there was a non-trivial amount of themepark content in these games which wasn't malleable "sand".
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
"There is an habit in this industry from both fans and developers alike to assume all games must be the McDonalds of games and that there isnt a likelyhood that a lot of people would be happier eating a Taco Bell while at the same time leaving both Taco Bell and McDonalds very profitable.
see if anyone has a clue what I am saying here."
I get your point, ideally a game shouldn't have go all gangbusters to be considered healthy (popular).. Something like SWG (250k subs) would have been seen as a success back then, had it been released by an indie as well as didn't feature the Star Wars brand. Much like EVE.
That's the thing though, success isn't just a measure of what it's earning, it's about what it's expected to make, to make a desired amount of profit. That is simply the way companies at that level (SOE) operate. That's all we can really speak to when it comes to them. Because that's the reality.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
"There is an habit in this industry from both fans and developers alike to assume all games must be the McDonalds of games and that there isnt a likelyhood that a lot of people would be happier eating a Taco Bell while at the same time leaving both Taco Bell and McDonalds very profitable.
see if anyone has a clue what I am saying here."
I get your point, ideally a game shouldn't have go all gangbusters to be considered healthy (popular).. Something like SWG (250k subs) would have been seen as a success back then, had it been released by an indie as well as didn't feature the Star Wars brand. Much like EVE.
That's the thing though, success isn't just a measure of what it's earning, it's about what it's expected to make, to make a desired amount of profit. That is simply the way companies at that level (SOE) operate. That's all we can really speak to when it comes to them. Because that's the reality.
Just because there is not tacos on the buffet table doesnt mean people dont want them.
We are just now hitting an era of variety in game design given early access and steam in general. Prior to that pretty much the vast majority of the industry was putting a small set of food items on the table and people where eating them. It does not mean however they would not be more happy with other food items.
there lies the problem and there lies the dagger in the back to a high school understanding of how this so called 'free market' economy works.
The mentality you show is EXACTLY the same mentality that big publishers have and its EXACTLY why companies like Frontier went to crowd funding
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
The way I see it making a persistent, online, virtual world game is something that doesn't take a month, a year, but years and many many years afterwards. Developers have proven that they cannot keep up entertaining their player base with the amount of theme park rides they release as well as their quality, so these games revolve around some repetitive grind over and over, which is bad if your end game is based around this.
The themepark formula is basically like this.
Stage 1 - Generate NPC's across a world that you'll have to visit and do quests to get from level 1 to X Stage 2 - At max level get inside the dungeon with a party to kill Y and Z boss to get gear. Stage 3 - Get in a guild to use that gear to get in a bigger dungeon/raid to kill harder boss with 10+ ppl. Stage 4 - Wait for new dungeons and raids to get released. Stage 5 - Do a level increase every year so new players don't feel "behind" Stage 6 - Add some achievement that reward players with titles and mounts for completing game, that you'll use for some time until you get the new ones. Stage 7 - Make some side PvP arena thing where players can kill each other for some website rating, while waiting for next raid schedule, which usually happens in these themeparks 3 times in the week for 3 hours, and that's only if these themepark rides are high quality like WOW.
So, at the end as you can see this type of game cannot grow to something greater, than just release new dungeons/raids and a class here and there. It's basically remains the same thing, but this is where the sandbox type game has the edge over the themepark.
The sandbox formula
Stage 1 - Generate a world with very few NPC's, since players will mostly be filling their roles in the long run. Stage 2 - Create classes/professions that will help players build the world from nothing into something. Stage 3 - Release the game, yes this is pretty much all you need, but the difference will be the game will feature far more classes/professions because of this.
Regardless how less it takes to make a sandbox over themepark, the developer will have far more space over the years to keep making new classes/professions, which would allow players to generate the world with features. Example, you have animal farmer, who's job is to breed and care of animals. You have some bio scientist who can cross breed to design unique species that some tamer could buy and use. Then you have some witch/warlord, who can transform some of these animals into powerful demons. Then you have some jedi (lol, as example) who will unlock the force and players will have to hunt him down for some bounty prize, if he is doing a lot of unwanted damage to the local town.
Bottom line, see where I'm going with this? What's happening is the sandbox MMORPG can only become something greater through time and with players consistently adding conflicts, drama, and unique experiences to players around them. What's happening is everyone starting to be unique individual with unique experience, story, reputation and this allows players to experiment with unlimited possibilities. Where will I end up if I choose to be the bad guy? Will it worth it or is it better to join a guild, do things in a group, safer but also to share the loot with everyone else.
Then after few years instead of developers worrying about releasing new rides that will override the old, they would have a sandbox world with 50+ classes/professions, that will keep building the world from some jungle or desert to, well it will depend from the players themselves into what they want to build it with the tools and technology the developers are giving them. So, at the end you have one MMORPG with different servers, where every server is a different world to explore with different technologies, different architectures, some torn through wars and diseases, others peaceful and highly advanced.
There is a reason why this genre's been dying, and that's because very few could recognize and acknowledge the potential a sandbox MMORPG has over a themepark. As you can see it takes far less resources to create it and through time it can also become far greater than a themepark can. It's also far less casual, because players can play the game consistently at any time through the day, week and year, not just wait on certain times through the week to get that raid going.
The end game features will only grow through time as well as player driven content will ensure players have endless things to do consistently. It won't be anymore a race to get the best gear, but a journey where the player won't feel he is behind or at disadvantage because he will find himself surrounded by many players ahead of him as well as behind him in whatever he is doing and experiencing. In a sandbox MMORPG with player driven quests it can be enjoyable to just be a peasant or a soldier to some commander, where you can slowly climb the ranks, gain his trust or w/e. Just like in real life it will be up to the player himself to know what he wants to do and experience in the game and how much he wants it to sacrifice whatever else he likes doing.
I have raised 4596 puppies, and sold them 4596 times to a player who in turn paid another player to turn them into 4596 Demons. Rinse, repeat, how long do you want to do this? This sure seems like a grind to me. All you did was replace the NPC for a human element (albeit digitized) and are happily grinding away.
So, in your scenario call wow a sandbox and go have a blast.
To continue the discussion, any game can only add more content to make it continue. Whether player made (Dungeons and Dragons DM's making up their own adventures) or a Themepark (WoW et al) adding content or a "sandbox" game adding content either with the players adding it or the developers, it's still just added content and not much has changed except the title. From theme park to sandbox. Great. Not exactly curing cancer here are we? The only thing a Sandbox does is make the journey longer (not a bad thing imo) but it still is what it is, just a trail to walk and try to have some fun.
So what do you want to see? What are you proposing that is new and ground breaking?
And for the record, RL can suck. Have you ever been in the military? Ever worked for a person you found absolutely distasteful? Ever been kicked in the balls? I have, all of these things and I play games to avoid these consequences. I think all the people that want games to mimic the "real world" need to get out and experience the real world before they wish for it.
I will happily spend my recreation time not doing RL stuff and shooting my fellow gamers in the face or blowing up their star ships, or ocean ships and stealing their packs. Or perhaps just jumping my donkey around the place because I can. You can go get kicked in the nuts and call it fun.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
The difference is you can't have a MMORPG Sandbox player kingdom experience in a single player game or even really a multiplayer game. You can have the MMORPG themepark or questhub experience solo, with better combat, convenience, graphics and just about any imaginable way.
Perhaps you're new to gaming. Single-player kingdom simulators do exist. From Crusader Kings 2 to TW:Warhammer to Suikoden to Dragon Age Inquisition, these games offer varying levels of scale and control of your kingdom.
If you're pretending Dragon Age is the same experience as World of Warcraft, then you must also pretend Suikoden is the same experience as Darkfall.
Depending on which set of decisions you're focused on, one or more of those games (and a few others we could discuss) are the functional single-player equivalent of a "player kingdom" MMORPG. For example if you feel the most compelling decisions is the diplomatic/social relations with players that allow you to achieve strategic goals, then Crusader Kings 2 provides that. Or if it's more about basic strategy to running a kingdom and also the tactics of fighting battles, then TW:W provides that.
Your alternative is to swing things in the complete opposite direction, admitting that both (a) DA:I doesn't provide teammates who are dynamically skilled/unskilled like WOW's Dungeons do, and (b) CK2 doesn't provide characters who dynamically appreciate or are ambivalent to various types of social interaction, as Darkfall players will (giving x gold to Player A might buy their loyalty to get them to come to war with you, but Player B might not care about that much gold.)
But at no point is it reasonable to pretend one game can be simulated successfully and the other can't. There are a lot of kingdom simulators out there, and they tend to be dramatically better at providing an endless series of interesting decisions relative to any "player kingdom" style games out there.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The difference is you can't have a MMORPG Sandbox player kingdom experience in a single player game or even really a multiplayer game. You can have the MMORPG themepark or questhub experience solo, with better combat, convenience, graphics and just about any imaginable way.
Perhaps you're new to gaming. Single-player kingdom simulators do exist. From Crusader Kings 2 to TW:Warhammer to Suikoden to Dragon Age Inquisition, these games offer varying levels of scale and control of your kingdom.
If you're pretending Dragon Age is the same experience as World of Warcraft, then you must also pretend Suikoden is the same experience as Darkfall.
Depending on which set of decisions you're focused on, one or more of those games (and a few others we could discuss) are the functional single-player equivalent of a "player kingdom" MMORPG. For example if you feel the most compelling decisions is the diplomatic/social relations with players that allow you to achieve strategic goals, then Crusader Kings 2 provides that. Or if it's more about basic strategy to running a kingdom and also the tactics of fighting battles, then TW:W provides that.
Your alternative is to swing things in the complete opposite direction, admitting that both (a) DA:I doesn't provide teammates who are dynamically skilled/unskilled like WOW's Dungeons do, and (b) CK2 doesn't provide characters who dynamically appreciate or are ambivalent to various types of social interaction, as Darkfall players will (giving x gold to Player A might buy their loyalty to get them to come to war with you, but Player B might not care about that much gold.)
But at no point is it reasonable to pretend one game can be simulated successfully and the other can't. There are a lot of kingdom simulators out there, and they tend to be dramatically better at providing an endless series of interesting decisions relative to any "player kingdom" style games out there.
You cannot do a game like Shadowbane in a single player and have the same experience single player.
Again themeparks have been trimmed down so far you only need 4-16 players. That can be done multiplayer.
You cannot do a game like Shadowbane in a single player and have the same experience single player.
Again themeparks have been trimmed down so far you only need 4-16 players. That can be done multiplayer.
If you believe you can do a game like WOW single-player and "have the same experience", then you must also accept that SB is exactly the same. To believe otherwise is to pretend multiplayer creates an entirely different experience which cannot even vaguely and abstractly be replicated, which is objectively wrong.
Conversely, if you believe you cannot do a game like SB as a single-player game, then you must also accept WOW is that way too. To believe otherwise is to pretend multiplayer doesn't change WOW's gameplay at all, which is objectively wrong.
You can either admit multiplayer adds a dynamic to both games, or admit both games' core gameplay can largely be captured in singleplayer, but it's completely illogical to pretend that multiplayer only adds a dynamic to Shadowbane, and that only WOW's gameplay can be captured in a single-player game.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You cannot do a game like Shadowbane in a single player and have the same experience single player.
Again themeparks have been trimmed down so far you only need 4-16 players. That can be done multiplayer.
If you believe you can do a game like WOW single-player and "have the same experience", then you must also accept that SB is exactly the same. To believe otherwise is to pretend multiplayer creates an entirely different experience which cannot even vaguely and abstractly be replicated, which is objectively wrong.
Conversely, if you believe you cannot do a game like SB as a single-player game, then you must also accept WOW is that way too. To believe otherwise is to pretend multiplayer doesn't change WOW's gameplay at all, which is objectively wrong.
You can either admit multiplayer adds a dynamic to both games, or admit both games' core gameplay can largely be captured in singleplayer, but it's completely illogical to pretend that multiplayer only adds a dynamic to Shadowbane, and that only WOW's gameplay can be captured in a single-player game.
Not really.
The reality would be the point at which the game interactivity and the multipayer interactivity meets. Why you can say Shadowbane works almost exclusively in a multiplayer context is because the mechanics are built around a large-scale user experience with those players fleshing out many roles and events in the game world.
In WoW as a heavily scripted and finite user experience already built around 5-man teams, there is a bulk of content that simply does not scale with more users. That's part why instanced content (dungeons, raids, PvP) is some of the most readily consumed content in the game. It does not scale up and down, it's already been built like an extended virtual lobby treating much of the user experience as an isolated activity.
When a game is built on the premise of mass-user interaction then it relies on that volume of users to create things like player-operated towns, factions/kingdoms, etc. You can't do that on a smaller scope userbase because you will then have t substitute those users for NPC with a lot of complex coding to emulate what you've just lost in the human element and ultimately have a much narrower game following a more scripted user experience.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
A game composed entirely of themepark content just as well not be an MMO. You can do the same in multiplayer games. You can even queue dungeons and raids. The game will be better gameplay wise and cheaper to make.
Why say that about themeparks?
It's way more true of sandboxes than themeparks!
The defining trait of sandboxes is the sand. It's the ability to take malleable elements (sand) and reshape them to whatever you want.
The most sandbox experience you can have isn't a game at all. They're things like art, writing, etc, where there aren't any arbitrary rules about what you can or can't do to reshape the thing you're creating.
The most sandbox game is a singleplayer sandbox. You are god of your singleplayer Minecraft world, and you have total absolute freedom (within the confines of what's possible in Minecraft of course.)
If you add one player, your 2-player sandbox is dramatically less sandboxy. You went from having ALL CONTROL to having HALF CONTROL.
If you add lots of players (an MMO), a game is barely sandbox at all. You're sharing control of the world with thousands of other players, so you have almost no control yourself. You barely have any ability to reshape things to what you want.
Which is partly why reality went a little something like this:
Themeparks were quite popular as MMOs.
Themeparks were extremely popular as non-MMOs.
Sandboxes were unpopular as MMOs.
Sandboxes enjoyed moderate popularity as non-MMOs.
Something that is, also, problematic is that for every person serious about creating a lush, thriving world, you've got 3 who are mostly just interested in creating big digital penises, lol.
Shards Online is an interesting take on things. It will be interesting to see how their whole player-created shards works in practice.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not offended by this under any circumstance. I just fail to see the point, purpose or even what the creator is even trying to express with this.
Something that is, also, problematic is that for every person serious about creating a lush, thriving world, you've got 3 who are mostly just interested in creating big digital penises, lol.
Shards Online is an interesting take on things. It will be interesting to see how their whole player-created shards works in practice.
You sure what your seeing is what was intended? One person seeing a penis isn't the same as the next always or the creator. Maybe this person also planned this but what about the next?
Funny thing is I played EQ Landmark (back when it was EQ Landmark and in alpha) and other than the 2 rock piles on the ground the rest of the picture is very similar to a build I was doing except mine was on a mountaintop instead of a hilltop. I had a very talk circular tower (far more circular then is rounded square) and had a platform extended like this picture as well except brick colored as it was planned a castle with a tall tower. This would have been similar to early stages of it (I quit landmark only halfway through that build). The other part is I had a cave under it a ways which I used rounded boulders to shape the entrance and the bored out a cavern system and dungeon.
Makes me think that if I would have found the right angle to picture my creation it may have looked like a penis as well.
Comes to mind, who has the problem. The designer or the person seeing penis's everywhere. Wonder how many looked at the Washington Memorial and saw a giant penis when or after it was constructed....
IMPORTANT: Please keep all replies to my posts about GAMING. Please no negative or backhanded comments directed at me personally. If you are going to post a reply that includes how you feel about me, please don't bother replying & just ignore my post instead. I'm on this forum to talk about GAMING. Thank you.
The way I see it making a persistent, online, virtual world game is something that doesn't take a month, a year, but years and many many years afterwards. Developers have proven that they cannot keep up entertaining their player base with the amount of theme park rides they release as well as their quality, so these games revolve around some repetitive grind over and over, which is bad if your end game is based around this.
The themepark formula is basically like this.
Stage 1 - Generate NPC's across a world that you'll have to visit and do quests to get from level 1 to X Stage 2 - At max level get inside the dungeon with a party to kill Y and Z boss to get gear. Stage 3 - Get in a guild to use that gear to get in a bigger dungeon/raid to kill harder boss with 10+ ppl. Stage 4 - Wait for new dungeons and raids to get released. Stage 5 - Do a level increase every year so new players don't feel "behind" Stage 6 - Add some achievement that reward players with titles and mounts for completing game, that you'll use for some time until you get the new ones. Stage 7 - Make some side PvP arena thing where players can kill each other for some website rating, while waiting for next raid schedule, which usually happens in these themeparks 3 times in the week for 3 hours, and that's only if these themepark rides are high quality like WOW.
So, at the end as you can see this type of game cannot grow to something greater, than just release new dungeons/raids and a class here and there. It's basically remains the same thing, but this is where the sandbox type game has the edge over the themepark.
The sandbox formula
Stage 1 - Generate a world with very few NPC's, since players will mostly be filling their roles in the long run. Stage 2 - Create classes/professions that will help players build the world from nothing into something. Stage 3 - Release the game, yes this is pretty much all you need, but the difference will be the game will feature far more classes/professions because of this.
Regardless how less it takes to make a sandbox over themepark, the developer will have far more space over the years to keep making new classes/professions, which would allow players to generate the world with features. Example, you have animal farmer, who's job is to breed and care of animals. You have some bio scientist who can cross breed to design unique species that some tamer could buy and use. Then you have some witch/warlord, who can transform some of these animals into powerful demons. Then you have some jedi (lol, as example) who will unlock the force and players will have to hunt him down for some bounty prize, if he is doing a lot of unwanted damage to the local town.
Bottom line, see where I'm going with this? What's happening is the sandbox MMORPG can only become something greater through time and with players consistently adding conflicts, drama, and unique experiences to players around them. What's happening is everyone starting to be unique individual with unique experience, story, reputation and this allows players to experiment with unlimited possibilities. Where will I end up if I choose to be the bad guy? Will it worth it or is it better to join a guild, do things in a group, safer but also to share the loot with everyone else.
Then after few years instead of developers worrying about releasing new rides that will override the old, they would have a sandbox world with 50+ classes/professions, that will keep building the world from some jungle or desert to, well it will depend from the players themselves into what they want to build it with the tools and technology the developers are giving them. So, at the end you have one MMORPG with different servers, where every server is a different world to explore with different technologies, different architectures, some torn through wars and diseases, others peaceful and highly advanced.
There is a reason why this genre's been dying, and that's because very few could recognize and acknowledge the potential a sandbox MMORPG has over a themepark. As you can see it takes far less resources to create it and through time it can also become far greater than a themepark can. It's also far less casual, because players can play the game consistently at any time through the day, week and year, not just wait on certain times through the week to get that raid going.
The end game features will only grow through time as well as player driven content will ensure players have endless things to do consistently. It won't be anymore a race to get the best gear, but a journey where the player won't feel he is behind or at disadvantage because he will find himself surrounded by many players ahead of him as well as behind him in whatever he is doing and experiencing. In a sandbox MMORPG with player driven quests it can be enjoyable to just be a peasant or a soldier to some commander, where you can slowly climb the ranks, gain his trust or w/e. Just like in real life it will be up to the player himself to know what he wants to do and experience in the game and how much he wants it to sacrifice whatever else he likes doing.
yep, blizzard has totaly proven that themeparks don't work. having a sub based game running for over 10 years with several million users is quite obvious nothing you'd aim for.
uh wait, yes it is, sorry, my bad.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Sandbox games aren't popular, players like hand holding. You are judging everyone by what you like.
A time honored tradition with this particular poster. Each thread he makes pretty much involves him trying to shove his opinion down everyone's throats and selling it as fact. For some reason he simply can't fathom the concept that we're not all mass produced drones with the exact same settings and likes.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
Themeparks made/make hundreds of millions dollars. I wouldn't call that a failure if speaking about profit.
True, but they do have lost players the last few years so some changes are coming unless we just get MMOs from south Korea in the future (where MMOs seems to do far better then everywhere else at the moment).
But I have a feeling OP believes that the next big thing will be FFA PvP sandbox games with full loot and that just wont be how things go.
Adding some sandboxing to themepark MMOs is lekely and more then a few games have already put some into it with player built houses or farms, guild owned towns and similar. Heck, crafting is really a sandbox feature as well.
The thing players don't want is free PvP, if you want to make a sandbox that actually earns money (I know Eve) makes it but it certainly isn't FFA) you either need to focus on a PvE game or one with factions and they certainly don't want to loose their hard gotten loot to some zerging griefers.
I don't really think the themepark/Sandbox thing is the important one here. A Minecraft MMO would certainly sell well. MMOs in the future will have to think differently to still rake in the huge cash but the important thing is good fun games, not the exact model they uses.
I don't even think that a succeessful future MMO need to be PvE even if most successful ones are, but a successful PvP MMO would have to be rather different from Darrkfall, Mortal online and similar games. For one thing would it need to have way fairer fights then the current games with way less impact from gear and level/power.
I think the biggest problem currently are the budget sizes and out of whack player expectations.
If someone makes a big budget AAA MMORPG they have no other chance than to target the mass market, which essentially defines what kind of game they have to make. Every game is designed for it's target audience, thus if every game has to target that same big audience, the games will end up being somewhat similar. No surprise.
People asking for innovations and niche oriented games will have to stop expecting full big budget AAA scope and quality games to fall from the sky and champion the smaller innovative projects even if this first batch is not exactly what they are truly looking for. Supporting innovation is what will keep the ball rolling and will hopefully expand that submarket and lead to better even more innovative attempts.
If someone makes a big budget AAA MMORPG they have no other chance than to target the mass market, which essentially defines what kind of game they have to make. Every game is designed for it's target audience, thus if every game has to target that same big audience, the games will end up being somewhat similar. No surprise.
Clearly not true. LoL and OW are two very different games, and both got huge audience. So there are a lot of gamers out there who want great online games.
Comments
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Please recall, if you are able, that the formula for how to craft an MMORPG has changed only recently. Up until about a two years ago, there was no serious crowdfunding of these games - all development capital (or the vast majority of it) was derived from major publishers, who invested in ideas (and, typically, bought them out) and then spent millions to see games brought to life. These people were looking at serious metrics that said one thing above all else: that the biggest title in the market was a rigid themepark.
As investors and not artists or game designers themselves, these executive types were less concerned about vision than bottom line - they were going to spend their hard-won capital on the formula that most looked like the proven winner in the field. This is the SAME REASON why you see phenomenons in sports franchises - a decade ago, all NBA franchises worth their salt featured a Shaq-like hulking power forward. Advance ten years, and now all teams are trying to go small and skilled like Golden State. Same thing for football - fifteen years ago, you could still build a team around a pocket passer with zero mobility and a stout defense. Outside Denver (whose defaulting to the old style was forced due to Manning becoming a cripple), nobody adopts this style willingly anymore. Everybody is a copycat.
The point is, you are painting these marketing and executive types as possessing some type of a crystal ball or special knowledge, when, in reality, many of them are far less intelligent, or cognizent of their surroundings, than you or I (well, than I; I'm not at all convinced that you're any smarter than they are. White knighting rarely begets wisdom or wit). The ultimate proof that these bigwigs are grasping blindly in the dark is The Old Republic. Star Wars is a bullet-proof IP, and until TOR flopped, everything Bioware touched turned to gold. Problem was, the game turned out to be yet another WoW-clone, and, whoops! That wasn't what the market was looking for. Where were those precious metrics then, Craz, when the world was burning down their $150 million investment?
Unsurprisingly, most of the MMORPGs in development in the past two years have broken with the rigid themepark approach, instead trying to cultivate new ground in a saturated market by doing something different. So, yes, theme parks are the path to failure right now - Blizzard still commands almost all the dollars contributed to this approach, and there is no room for anyone else in the buffet hall.
------------damn MMORPG.COM forums sometimes do not put blockquotes where they should even after putting them where they should
are you saying those games are unpopular?
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
While SWG is by far my favorite MMORPG I've played.. It really wasn't popular enough to; A: please it's owners, B: spawn more games of it's ilk. I guess you could say UO was popular enough to influence SWG though.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
is very far apart from each other.
There is an habit in this industry from both fans and developers alike to assume all games must be the McDonalds of games and that there isnt a likelyhood that a lot of people would be happier eating a Taco Bell while at the same time leaving both Taco Bell and McDonalds very profitable.
see if anyone has a clue what I am saying here.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
And of course what popularity they did have was positively influenced by their themepark elements, since there was a non-trivial amount of themepark content in these games which wasn't malleable "sand".
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
That's the thing though, success isn't just a measure of what it's earning, it's about what it's expected to make, to make a desired amount of profit. That is simply the way companies at that level (SOE) operate. That's all we can really speak to when it comes to them. Because that's the reality.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
there lies the problem and there lies the dagger in the back to a high school understanding of how this so called 'free market' economy works.
The mentality you show is EXACTLY the same mentality that big publishers have and its EXACTLY why companies like Frontier went to crowd funding
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
So, in your scenario call wow a sandbox and go have a blast.
To continue the discussion, any game can only add more content to make it continue. Whether player made (Dungeons and Dragons DM's making up their own adventures) or a Themepark (WoW et al) adding content or a "sandbox" game adding content either with the players adding it or the developers, it's still just added content and not much has changed except the title. From theme park to sandbox. Great. Not exactly curing cancer here are we? The only thing a Sandbox does is make the journey longer (not a bad thing imo) but it still is what it is, just a trail to walk and try to have some fun.
So what do you want to see? What are you proposing that is new and ground breaking?
And for the record, RL can suck. Have you ever been in the military? Ever worked for a person you found absolutely distasteful? Ever been kicked in the balls? I have, all of these things and I play games to avoid these consequences. I think all the people that want games to mimic the "real world" need to get out and experience the real world before they wish for it.
I will happily spend my recreation time not doing RL stuff and shooting my fellow gamers in the face or blowing up their star ships, or ocean ships and stealing their packs. Or perhaps just jumping my donkey around the place because I can. You can go get kicked in the nuts and call it fun.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
If you're pretending Dragon Age is the same experience as World of Warcraft, then you must also pretend Suikoden is the same experience as Darkfall.
Depending on which set of decisions you're focused on, one or more of those games (and a few others we could discuss) are the functional single-player equivalent of a "player kingdom" MMORPG. For example if you feel the most compelling decisions is the diplomatic/social relations with players that allow you to achieve strategic goals, then Crusader Kings 2 provides that. Or if it's more about basic strategy to running a kingdom and also the tactics of fighting battles, then TW:W provides that.
Your alternative is to swing things in the complete opposite direction, admitting that both (a) DA:I doesn't provide teammates who are dynamically skilled/unskilled like WOW's Dungeons do, and (b) CK2 doesn't provide characters who dynamically appreciate or are ambivalent to various types of social interaction, as Darkfall players will (giving x gold to Player A might buy their loyalty to get them to come to war with you, but Player B might not care about that much gold.)
But at no point is it reasonable to pretend one game can be simulated successfully and the other can't. There are a lot of kingdom simulators out there, and they tend to be dramatically better at providing an endless series of interesting decisions relative to any "player kingdom" style games out there.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Again themeparks have been trimmed down so far you only need 4-16 players. That can be done multiplayer.
Conversely, if you believe you cannot do a game like SB as a single-player game, then you must also accept WOW is that way too. To believe otherwise is to pretend multiplayer doesn't change WOW's gameplay at all, which is objectively wrong.
You can either admit multiplayer adds a dynamic to both games, or admit both games' core gameplay can largely be captured in singleplayer, but it's completely illogical to pretend that multiplayer only adds a dynamic to Shadowbane, and that only WOW's gameplay can be captured in a single-player game.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The reality would be the point at which the game interactivity and the multipayer interactivity meets. Why you can say Shadowbane works almost exclusively in a multiplayer context is because the mechanics are built around a large-scale user experience with those players fleshing out many roles and events in the game world.
In WoW as a heavily scripted and finite user experience already built around 5-man teams, there is a bulk of content that simply does not scale with more users. That's part why instanced content (dungeons, raids, PvP) is some of the most readily consumed content in the game. It does not scale up and down, it's already been built like an extended virtual lobby treating much of the user experience as an isolated activity.
When a game is built on the premise of mass-user interaction then it relies on that volume of users to create things like player-operated towns, factions/kingdoms, etc. You can't do that on a smaller scope userbase because you will then have t substitute those users for NPC with a lot of complex coding to emulate what you've just lost in the human element and ultimately have a much narrower game following a more scripted user experience.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Funny thing is I played EQ Landmark (back when it was EQ Landmark and in alpha) and other than the 2 rock piles on the ground the rest of the picture is very similar to a build I was doing except mine was on a mountaintop instead of a hilltop. I had a very talk circular tower (far more circular then is rounded square) and had a platform extended like this picture as well except brick colored as it was planned a castle with a tall tower. This would have been similar to early stages of it (I quit landmark only halfway through that build). The other part is I had a cave under it a ways which I used rounded boulders to shape the entrance and the bored out a cavern system and dungeon.
Makes me think that if I would have found the right angle to picture my creation it may have looked like a penis as well.
Comes to mind, who has the problem. The designer or the person seeing penis's everywhere. Wonder how many looked at the Washington Memorial and saw a giant penis when or after it was constructed....
having a sub based game running for over 10 years with several million users is quite obvious nothing you'd aim for.
uh wait, yes it is, sorry, my bad.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
But I have a feeling OP believes that the next big thing will be FFA PvP sandbox games with full loot and that just wont be how things go.
Adding some sandboxing to themepark MMOs is lekely and more then a few games have already put some into it with player built houses or farms, guild owned towns and similar. Heck, crafting is really a sandbox feature as well.
The thing players don't want is free PvP, if you want to make a sandbox that actually earns money (I know Eve) makes it but it certainly isn't FFA) you either need to focus on a PvE game or one with factions and they certainly don't want to loose their hard gotten loot to some zerging griefers.
I don't really think the themepark/Sandbox thing is the important one here. A Minecraft MMO would certainly sell well. MMOs in the future will have to think differently to still rake in the huge cash but the important thing is good fun games, not the exact model they uses.
I don't even think that a succeessful future MMO need to be PvE even if most successful ones are, but a successful PvP MMO would have to be rather different from Darrkfall, Mortal online and similar games. For one thing would it need to have way fairer fights then the current games with way less impact from gear and level/power.
If someone makes a big budget AAA MMORPG they have no other chance than to target the mass market, which essentially defines what kind of game they have to make.
Every game is designed for it's target audience, thus if every game has to target that same big audience, the games will end up being somewhat similar. No surprise.
People asking for innovations and niche oriented games will have to stop expecting full big budget AAA scope and quality games to fall from the sky and champion the smaller innovative projects even if this first batch is not exactly what they are truly looking for.
Supporting innovation is what will keep the ball rolling and will hopefully expand that submarket and lead to better even more innovative attempts.
They are just not interested in mmorpg anymore.