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What sandbox game would blow us away?
asdar
Member UncommonPosts: 662
In E3 the sandbox game that impressed me was the Spark Project. So I'm thinking what sandbox things could EQN have that would blow me away. I hear the word thrown around a lot, but I'm not sure if it has meaning. Here's the type of tools I want for a sandbox.
They'd almost have to have some kind of persistent building. I'd be able to build a house for example, or a guild hall, fortress, tower or something. Maybe excavate a real walklin mine. That'd be a start for the building, but there's a long way this could go.
Gear wouldn't have to be crafted for me, but gear that's personalized by me would. Take GW's dye system as a starting point. I'd like to be able to put feathers on my helm, or spikes at the elbows. If it was crafted that'd be good too. The more choices and options to make our character look unique the better. Give us the tools and let us strut.
Things like farming would have to be in game. Set up fields, maybe plant trees and make an orchard. Things like this could get you a return and add to the feel of a real world. NPC farm hands that you hire would be good too. Even as far as hands with attitude that you had to fire or hire playing into AI stuff.
I hope there's boats and I'd like them to be usable, such as fishing, transport or fighting. I like PvP, but if there's pvp then everyone wants to be a pirate and that's a problem if you want to be a fisherman. In PvE you could do it, and have NPC pirates.
I'd like banking to be regional and I'd like players to have the ability to set up markets. I'd like the markets cost a lot to make and the builders to set a fee for every seller so they can make their money back, but also to allow competition to keep them fair.
I'd like for there to be bars and music, like in SWG. I like the idea of a player made bar. I've always liked the concept of gambling in game. I'd like to see it in bars player vs player vs house.
The part of sandbox I'm not sure about is the destruction. If I can destroy things then that's going to ruin someone else's building. My experience in games that allow destruction is that there's more destroyers than there are builders. To that I'd like NPC's to destroy and players to build.
Pets and animals too would be a big part. Capturing and taming would be a start, raising on the farm would be a good thing too.
There's more, but I don't want to have an even bigger wall of text so I'll stop. For me I want all this kind of sandbox stuff in game, and I want the main focus to still be adventuring.
Asdar
Comments
Building, buildings is not something new and something that i am in fact a big fan of, from the building of stations in EvE to Guild cities in AoC a lot more can be done, building these up to allow other infrastructure and increase(or decrease) the population/profit/resources
This is almost a no-no - I have always been a fan of crafting, but there has to be limits, depending how far you allow freedom you will end up spoiling the general feel of any game, because peopel can and will make stupid "pink" or "styled like 'Hello Kitty'"
Having ability to to upgrade via a strict set of rules i have no problem, but im also a fan of nothing in game comes from NPC - yes ok sub par lower level items, everything else has to built, for me the key to any Sandbox is the player driven economy and this cannot happen when loot drops control the market
Again this would come as part of city building, part of the city building would be resource management
Markets again free-trade and consumarism is major part of any sandbox, You cannot possibly think of having sandbox when loot tables would constrict quality of gear, all this should be down to the market - you want the top item, you pay the top dollar and not just farm dungeon.
Free markets will always find equilibrium
THis is something that i have been waiting for in EvE there has been many rooms with the (failed) captain quarters you would be able to walk around stations and visit peoples store fronts and/or inside bars people would host games - Thnk Blink or EveHoldem (for eve players you will know what i mean)
If players can build, players can destroy, you cannot have sandcastles and expect no other children to want to come in and destroy yours to build theirs.
But, as part of the construction process you in fact build defenses from NPC guards, Walls and siege weaopns
In terms of the more destroyers than builders, then you either have a zone where cities have a finite size/resource but are not subject to open world destruction, but the higher resources = higher risk and player destruction - Think pendulam and the Alpha/Beta island scenario
For everything you said doing it on one account, would be nigh impossible but having various alts/friends/guild to help along way makes is possible and then probable
Thing with sandbox you cannot give it rules that say player cannot do this or player must do this, Yes you have rules, for instance no griefing, but to say that player has built this but another player cannot destroy it, takes away what sandbox gaming is about in my opinion
Same with crafting some of the best games for crafting have little to no shinnies drop, so it forces the higher end players to play big dollars, which then filters to the lower end raiders/pvp'ers and creates natural equilibrium, If a player decides he wants to build/craft things then he shouldn't be given a forced ceiling of the loot table.
He should be allowed, not allowed but encouraged to train/work for months to create that one loot item that everyone and his dog wants, but then also have the free market that will give it a true value, no point building something awesome if it will drop of bosses 100x a day
This post is all my opinion, but I welcome debate on anything i have put, however, personal slander / name calling belongs in game
where of course you're welcome to call me names im often found lounging about in EvE online.
Use this code for 21days trial in eve online https://secure.eveonline.com/trial/?invc=d385aff2-794a-44a4-96f1-3967ccf6d720&action=buddy
The only thing missing from every sandbox game in the past was a proper progression beyond city building and pvp. That progression stems from a solid PvE game in addition to PvP and a completely craftable world.
Competition over this progression and contested content (pve) has proven to be the best source of conflict, and the best catalyst for both diplomacy and war. I experienced it in Everquest on Rallos Zek, and never since then. This was obviously because Everquest was heavily a PvE game, and all the other PvP MMOs are almost strictly pvp.
Give us a sandbox where we not only compete over resources and locations, but also over PvE content that has the potential to make players more powerful as well.
That game would blow me away, and make a sandbox worth playing for more than 2 months.
You have to read between the lines at this point. You should have seen David at the E3 dev interview. When they started talking about UGC he just about jumped out of his seat he was so excited to talk about UGC. You can be sure its more then storybricks.
I've seen every interview, read every article.
It seems to me that you expect to be designing the world as some third party entity, and not rather a person in the world, using tools and resources at your disposal. I don't believe this to be the case.
When they talk about UGC, they are talking about players having as much control over the world as possible, as a player within the world. Theres nothing that has in any way led me to believe this will be another half-assed attempt to have players build the game itself instead of the developers (NW2). Having players using development tools rather than in-game mechanics runs contrary to an immersive environment and a fantasy world that promotes roleplay (mmoRPG). Its against the spirit of Everquest.
I think it will be just like Neverwinter but with better tools and more freedom. They are talking about UGC and the next step in the biggest sandbox game ever made.
I've seen every interview, read every article.
It seems to me that you expect to be designing the world as some third party entity, and not rather a person in the world, using tools and resources at your disposal. I don't believe this to be the case.
When they talk about UGC, they are talking about players having as much control over the world as possible, as a player within the world. Theres nothing that has in any way led me to believe this will be another half-assed attempt to have players build the game itself instead of the developers (NW2). Having players using development tools rather than in-game mechanics runs contrary to an immersive environment and a fantasy world that promotes roleplay (mmoRPG). Its against the spirit of Everquest.
I don't disagree. I can't see players making things unless through an in-game method such as buying a shovel to dig or a horse with a plow. I would hate Spark tools in EQN. I was just citing that game as sandbox and interesting. I did know Spark wasn't an MMO.
What Spark did was get me thinking about what sandbox elements would blow me away. I would need a world that I could affect for it to blow me away. A little sand would be freedom to go in any direction, a little more would be one of the items I listed. To blow me away it would have to be a world that I interacted with in a real way.
Asdar