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Why open world sandbox MMOs are bad for the industry
TheScavenger
Member EpicPosts: 3,321
They degrade the evolution of gaming.
Take for instance. In WoW, you get a quest to kill 10 rats. You do quest, move to next quest.
In a sandbox non-quested MMO. You stand in one spot, kill 1000 rats and most people tend to not even play the game and bot it as it is so boring.
Most people do not feel the need to bot in a themepark, but in a sandbox game there are so many bots. Just look at Ultima Online or Asheron's Call, programs play the game for the person...obviously non-quested MMOs are so boring that the player needs a program to play for them. Everyone says "I bot because its too boring to grind". This means, every MMO NEEDS quests otherwise the players will get bots to play for them. Without quests, the MMO is doomed to be played by a bunch of bots like in UO and AC.
Next is full loot and the developers who make full loot MMOs
This can work actually, but whenever an MMO is full loot...Something Awful (and anyone similar) joins and destroys any chance of there being a community. This is mostly the developer problem because they refuse to ban Something Awful, and only care about the money.
If they banned Something Awful and ANYONE that is like them to ruin the gaming experience. I think full loot MMOs would be a much bigger success (it was in UO before bots took over). However, it NEEDS tons of PvE content like UO, AC and SWG had/has. Both Asheron's Call and Ultima Online had full loot and saw great success, but the developers took care of people like Something Awful until they got greedy and allowed bots.
Take EVE, the community there drives a lot of players away. Developers are very greedy and refuse to do anything about the players, so the playerbase is a lot smaller than it would...the game would be a success, but something awful and others really ruin the community. The devs refuse to ban anyone in fear of losing money, and only do so when the media catches it. Otherwise they turn a blind eye.
Lets take EA or another AAA company. They wouldn't let Something Awful and anyone else like them ruin their MMO (I obviously wouldn't bet on EA making one, its just an example)...but because the companies behind full loot MMOs are so tiny and indie...they refuse to even lose any hint of making money to take care of the horrible community.
Next problem with open world MMOs, and I already discussed every developer behind them and huge non-quested grinds that allow bots.
They charge as much as a regular MMO, but do not charge indie price. Why would I want to spend 15 dollars on a no-name MMO, when there are AAA companies with far more content to offer at 15 dollars? I'd jump in to an open world sandbox MMO by an indie company if it was 10 dollars or even 12 dollars...heck final fantasy XIV is AAA and charges 12 dollars. Instead, all they see is getting as much money as possible and that is very bad for the future of the MMO genre.
That is my thoughts 
I hope I made myself clear and precise, been having a really hard time typing all this as I had lots of whiskey and vodka shots but I was thinking why indie open world MMOs always fail and I knew I had to come here and give you my thoughts.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
Comments
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
Most of these quests/content don't seem fun to me. They generally consist of clicking on a ! mark NPC and following a GPS around. The quest is usually easy to complete and has to risk. There is little mood/story wise to the quests. They only seem to be there in order for you to get to max level and upgrade your equipment quickly.
I believe to enjoy games with limited amounts of quests you need to have better worlds than what are being offered. You also need to be a person of a certain mindset that can enjoy the game without needing someone to tell you what needs to be done every step of the way. The problem tends to be that most people seem to need someone to tell them what to do, like easy quests when playing solo, and don't really care much about the solo experience in general other then perhaps to read the quest text (admittedly some people enjoy this (I don't)).
I don't believe people would bot if the game had death penalties and the content was hard enough. People's bots would die often enough that the characters would actually go backwards in level instead of gaining levels.
I just don't think the game experience draws people in enough these days. If you just plop a bunch of mobs down that's not enough. You need to create an environment for players to have some fun in. Something with danger, risk, reward, excitement, etc.
Right now MMOs are just made of 4 separate games. PvE solo (easy mode), PvE Group, PvE Raid, and PvP esports. They are all segregate into separate experiences. IMO the PvE should be as hard as the PvE Group or PvE Raid at least. That could be achieved by getting rid off separating the parts and having all the mobs be of equal difficulty.
what if in a open world game there was other things to do other than kill 1000 rats? and what if those other things kept the entire map occupied so you dont have huge chunks of the map totally dead like you see in themepark games?
That is my idea of a good open world, and why i dont like " zones ". because in zones you see this huge nice world but as you kill 10 rats you move into the next zone to collect 20 rat tails only never to return to the previous zone because there is no point. so after a month of game play your now in the final zone which turns out to be a little section of the map that is there for you for the rest of the time you play.
I see you bring up asherons call, i played that game for a very long time. and yes i understand what you mean by bots and eventually the bots took over the game.
but think about back before the bots, players where everywhere on that map doing things. it was a huge open world and we allways found things to do. there was areas of the map with harder creatures sure, but you wernt restricted to a " zone ".
>wanting to ban a group of players because you don't like how they play (even if it is something awful)
Please never put yourself in any position where you have to moderate anyone or anything.
EVE is also already a great success, I don't understand what you mean by "it could be" one?
Waiting for:
The Repopulation
Albion Online
lol this
Seems that we have a new shared thought bouncing around the echo chamber.
Rather than participate, I will wait for this new piece of received wisdom to play itself out I think.
There really isn't any point in debating with someone in the first flush of a 'new idea'.
Oh god questing. How I absolutely hate questing. [mod edit] Run here, run there, run back to here, then back to there, collect 100 toenail clippings, run back to motherfucker. Hand in quest. (after you hand in quest, 5 NPCs next to the quest giver suddenly have exclamation marks over their heads.) Wtf is this bullshit. I stopped playing MMOs cuz I saw this happen so many times in Archeage. I'm like wtf I gotta run back and forth x5 times. Ya fuckin right, uninstall!!
Sandbox MMOs are the future, and also what started the MMO genre.
This is a joke right? Have you ever seen the quest bot videos? google it!
Having quests does not solve botting, it does not solve 'some sense of boredom' that you may feel with not having quests. The 'industry' is large enough for themeparks, sandparks, sandboxes, and if someone wants to fork over the time + cash to make a game I hope they make what they want.
No one is making you play them.
Not everyone wants to have their hand held and lead through a path of quest hubs.
Because grinding mobs all day in one spot is so much better. In EQ you just go and grind mobs at your level , repeat a billion times. But that's not hand holding is it? That's next generation gaming.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Open World Sandboxes are bad for the industry?
Funny, its themeparks that have ruled the lay of the land for the last 10 years and the state of mmo's has become stagnant and regurgitated crap. I would say its the lack of Open Wold Sandboxes that is bad for the industry, further more, the players who play themeparks and don't allow open world sandboxes to actually get developed with the original intent in mind because of all the endless hordes of people bitching it isn't like wow are compounding the problem.
The people that are trying to make the world worse never take a day off , why should I. Light up the darkness Bob Marley
The lifeless sandbox pvp mmos that have come out in recent years do not accurately represent the potential of the subgenre. The truth is, there needs to be a balance. To me, the balance lies somewhere in older games where you could enjoy a variety of different types of gameplay and there is no linear path. Both PvE and PvP need to come together to create a world. Players alone are not yet sufficient content in these games with so few activities and agendas for players to engage in.
In reality, the themepark style linear path, rush-to-endgame archetype is just as much at fault.
I find it really odd.
A sandbox game is not for everyone. Especially not for people that look for someone holding their hand all the time.
Sandbox would mean the players can found their own in-game organisations and thus shape the in-game world. You make your own quests instead of being an errand boy. You won't get rewared for every step you do. You'll have to schedule your game time in order to participate in player made events.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
They degrade the evolution of gaming.
Take for instance. In WoW, you get a quest to kill 10 rats. You do quest, move to next quest.
In a sandbox non-quested MMO. You stand in one spot, kill 1000 rats and most people tend to not even play the game and bot it as it is so boring.
There is the problem right there,your comparing using Wow as an example.
If your killing 10 of anything at the level your doing those quests in WOW they would ALWAYS be simple and meaningless.
However if you are killing a VERY challenging mob it becomes intense and fun.
I might also add,that you mentioned standing in one spt,well running back n forth to various NPC's is better?Those NPC's don't even need to be there because the ONLY reason you went to that NPC in the first place is because he had a yellow marker over his head.
So you might as well just remove all the npc's in the game world and just put up yellow markers.
There is yet MORE.When you play a Sandbox design it is YOUR GAME and YOUR choice,you can kill for 20 minutes in one spot and mve to the other side of the game world and kill something different if you want.Following around quest markers is LINEAR,NOT your game not your choice,you have to follow the game's laid out path and so does every other player.
Here is the final part...
WHY are you getting experience that is suppose to be related to your players quality from doing EASY meaningless quests?How are the two related at all?If you were a Hockey player or role playing a hockey player and your mom sent you out on a quest to get bread and milk,would you come back a better hockey player?
It has gone even more shallow than that,now games are handing out xp for stepping into a new area that THEY pushed you to via those yellow markers lmao...really sad.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Huh?? Only real mmos are sandbox games. Rest is limited to few k per server and instanced to oblivion, killing immersion and desire to play. Theme parks are single player wananbe online games so they are the ones killing the industry.
Why do you think so many sandobox games are being developed right now and being financed by everyone? Its because people want them as people know what mmos should be about.
No fate but what we make, so make me a ham sandwich please.
any mmo where the princess can ride me?
OH NO .. we can't do that.. you must raid the castle, kill dragon and save princess, or you won't unlock the next quest chain of:
Marry princess, kill king and take throne.. LOL