Raph can make a good sandbox. But he made the first STAR WARS MMO bomb because he put his ego before the IP. Making Star Wars, an action IP, into a crafting game was his original sin and the title suffered greatly for it.
Had a few fights with Raph, as we disagreed on the need to have player "grind" to keep them hooked.
But Raph got all the rest right especially wrapping everying so one player need another and imposing time sinks to create social hubs.
Yeah, I have a thing against "the grind" too. It's not the grind itself, it's the power gaps that separate players into sub-sections of the game. UO had grind, plenty of it. And players were separated in direct comparison. Yet, they could still play together in anything. SWG, seemed to me from a very limited time in it that there was a separation. I based this on seeing a typical looking (grindy) set of weapons to craft, with some guns of the same type doing far more damage than others as you went up the ladder.
What really intrigued me in SWG was 2 things. First was the set of special play in both the Cantina thing and the Camp set up. Those, to me, can be built on into really great things for a great Sandbox game. Imagine here a campsite where players can not only rest, but have an option to a "warehouse" sort of thing also built by players, with a caravan running into a nearby town. Imagine risk of bandits, guarding the caravan as well as the campsite (with NPC hirelings help, magical glyphs, etc.), making for an expanded game play in the mere aspect of dungeon crawling.
The other thing was the perma-death, the entire ideal, of the Jedi player. I strongly believe that not everything should be easy, that there needs to be special things that are hard to get into, and come with greater risks. This was like the Dragon player of the original Horizon's game design (which was dropped and changed before release), where the Dragon character could grow up to be quite powerful, but had to survive perma-death while it's organs and blood would be highly prized by other players for reagents.
I'm just tired of the boredom of games where every player can be anything, and are, and you have no rarities. No "gods". Or everyone's a "god", if you want to look at it that way. Because that rarity adds a load of interest to the game as a whole.
And lets not forget "rares" too, as a collectors thing of great value. In the real world we have such things, like the Hope Diamond, Crown Jewels, famous works of art, ancient sculptures. This adds a whole new layer to the economics and game play.
And that's just barely touching on what Sandbox games can offer.
Comments
He had his shot with SWG. And how did that turn out?
Had a few fights with Raph, as we disagreed on the need to have player "grind" to keep them hooked.
But Raph got all the rest right especially wrapping everying so one player need another and imposing time sinks to create social hubs.
Yeah, I have a thing against "the grind" too. It's not the grind itself, it's the power gaps that separate players into sub-sections of the game. UO had grind, plenty of it. And players were separated in direct comparison. Yet, they could still play together in anything. SWG, seemed to me from a very limited time in it that there was a separation. I based this on seeing a typical looking (grindy) set of weapons to craft, with some guns of the same type doing far more damage than others as you went up the ladder.
What really intrigued me in SWG was 2 things. First was the set of special play in both the Cantina thing and the Camp set up. Those, to me, can be built on into really great things for a great Sandbox game. Imagine here a campsite where players can not only rest, but have an option to a "warehouse" sort of thing also built by players, with a caravan running into a nearby town. Imagine risk of bandits, guarding the caravan as well as the campsite (with NPC hirelings help, magical glyphs, etc.), making for an expanded game play in the mere aspect of dungeon crawling.
The other thing was the perma-death, the entire ideal, of the Jedi player. I strongly believe that not everything should be easy, that there needs to be special things that are hard to get into, and come with greater risks. This was like the Dragon player of the original Horizon's game design (which was dropped and changed before release), where the Dragon character could grow up to be quite powerful, but had to survive perma-death while it's organs and blood would be highly prized by other players for reagents.
I'm just tired of the boredom of games where every player can be anything, and are, and you have no rarities. No "gods". Or everyone's a "god", if you want to look at it that way. Because that rarity adds a load of interest to the game as a whole.
And lets not forget "rares" too, as a collectors thing of great value. In the real world we have such things, like the Hope Diamond, Crown Jewels, famous works of art, ancient sculptures. This adds a whole new layer to the economics and game play.
And that's just barely touching on what Sandbox games can offer.
Once upon a time....
will be interesting to see which mmo gets honored next year
1st year - UO
2nd year - EQ
3rd year - WOW
4rth year - ?
EQ2 fan sites