Well ArcheAge comes to mind when thinking of small sandboxes.
The OP has a point though, sure it costs more to make a bigger world, but a sandbox should be massive. Side note, always bugged me how cities in MMOs were little more than a dozen huts...
Originally posted by Arglebargle And if they had to fill Eve with rocks, grass, and trees, it would choke the game at a fraction of the size. It is easy to have lots of blank space.
The fun part is to fill all that space, they call that a sandbox. You have been playing themeparks too long.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Skyrim isn't a sandbox. The overwhelming majority of content is static and unchanging. It's developer-created themepark rides for you to ride on. Writing addons is sandbox content. Stacking cheese wheels is sandbox. A handful of quests which make very minor changes to the game world are....well, they're sandbox enough. But the majority of the game is themepark content.
Remember that while most sandboxes are open world, not all open world games are sandboxes. Sandbox means player authorship (you know, sand that you can change.)
But back on topic, what sandbox or MMORPG even has a smaller world than Skyrim? Skyrim's world isn't all that big, and I can't think of a single MMORPG (sandbox or not) which has a smaller world.
All the Elder Scroll games are sandbox, except of Elder Scrolls Online which is 100% themepark.
I started playing MMOs when Ultima Online was out, which is also 100% sandbox and one of the pioneers in MMOs and sandbox games. I am molded into playing sandbox games, and I know exactly what a sandbox game is. Skyrim IS sandbox. After you do the escape from dungeon part in the beginning of Skyrim, you are free to do whatever you want ingame. You do not have any particular direction to follow. And almost any action you do in Skyrim progresses your character. Alot of people define the main features of sandbox is open world and being able to modify the world, which I think is wrong. The two main features that define sandbox in my opinion is: 1) No particular direction to follow. 2) Skill based (more like any action you do can progress you character).
Being able to modify the world doesn't mean sandbox.
You should play Ultima Online if you want to get a true sandbox experience. There was really nothing in UO that let you modify the world except for placing houses or items. Yet Ultima Online is a true sandbox 100%.
You know, one of the big complains when GW2 was launched was that some people felt lost after exiting the tutorial mission because there was no clear direction to follow (I actually loved that), which is why they added last year an indicator that points you to the nearest thing you can do, and practically any action you do (combat, crafting, gathering, even resurrecting someone) will grant you XP which you can gain levels and advance your character... so I guess that by that definition, GW2 at least at launch was a sandbox.
Originally posted by Vermillion_Raventhal Originally posted by Robokapp Eve space is: 741,198,000,000,000,000 km X-Axis 142,796,685,000,000,000 km Y-Axis 904,787,156,000,000,000 km Z-Axis not counting wormhole-space. That adds up to 9.5*10^49 Km^3
I am not really talkin about a space sim.
Well what game are you talking about exactly because every sandbox game I have played has been the opposite of small.
I've played a few sandboxes, the one I spent the most time with was SWG. it seemed fairly wide open with tons of off the beaten path places.... and really the only people who ventured out to the edges of the border were either crafters who were on harvester runs, or Creature Handlers out looking for new babies to tame. the vast majority of the player base focused around the city's - and cantinas or their player cities, and hardly went out on the vast open world; especially in the beginning before vehicles / mounts were introduced and you had to walk everywhere. even after mounts, not so much time was spent out 1000's of km's away from the nearest space port.
i think MMO players like the idea of a vast open sandbox of space, much more than they actually do in practice.
Huge? You cant be serious. Daggerfall had huge world. Dark and Light had huge world. Skyrim has very small, cluttered world where you cant walk two meters in any direction without stepping into something, which feels extremely unnatural and stupid to me.
I would love mmorpg where i could go explore and actually loose my way.
Does it feel unnatural to you when a movie goes into a travel montage? Are you like "hey, they wouldn't have got there in 10 seconds of montage -- this movie should be forcing me to watch hours or days of travel time!"
Or do you think maybe it's better entertainment to focus on the interesting events, even if it means deliberately abstracting things like travel?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Originally posted by Axehilt Originally posted by curaHuge? You cant be serious. Daggerfall had huge world. Dark and Light had huge world. Skyrim has very small, cluttered world where you cant walk two meters in any direction without stepping into something, which feels extremely unnatural and stupid to me.I would love mmorpg where i could go explore and actually loose my way.
Does it feel unnatural to you when a movie goes into a travel montage? Are you like "hey, they wouldn't have got there in 10 seconds of montage -- this movie should be forcing me to watch hours or days of travel time!"
Or do you think maybe it's better entertainment to focus on the interesting events, even if it means deliberately abstracting things like travel?
If I went into an mmo expecting to experience all of its content in two hours... Maybe? But no.
Game is not a movie. I dont experience movie, i watch it. Regardless, if the world is to be small, i prefer travel maps and several locations, like in Fallout 2 for example, as they feel more real or rather less unnatural. And yes, i like hours of travel. I also hate hours of mindless killing, if that is what you mean by "interesting events".
Games don't magically cause people not to care whether their time is wasted.
"Interesting events" is whatever gameplay the game is about. Gameplay is decisions. Watching a run animation involves almost zero decisions. Combat or dialog trees or puzzles or deep crafting or physical mining (minecraft style) are all examples of gameplay that offers a significant amount of interesting decisions.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If I went into an mmo expecting to experience all of its content in two hours... Maybe? But no.
You didn't experience all of GW2's content in two hours. You didn't experience all of GW2's content period.
So even with the ideal of fast travel (teleports to anywhere you've been with perhaps a little travel time to set the tone and environment,) there is still a lot of content to experience.
Let's talk about real things. Using this "two hours" style hyperbole just makes you look obviously wrong and it's not as fun to discuss topics with obviously wrong people.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Originally posted by sunandshadow Sandboxes that are too big for their population feel desolate and dead, something I've encountered in at least 3 games so far. What sandboxes actually should be is auto-expanding, starting small and getting bigger only as needed.
Of course it could be just due to me being a gamer who loves all type of game genre's that is why I actually want parts of my sandbox experiance feel desolate and or dead. Keep the focus on "parts". It's actually a really immersion factor for me for it to be in a sandbox games.
I already play so many different type of games where action is right around the corner and enjoy them as is. but a sandbox needs to give the feel of immersiveness within it's worlds, aka becoming a more real world then just a game area.
I am not against auto-expanding due to player input either.
Yeah, thats why i dont play much mmos lately. All they offer is constant killing, pointless dialogs and shallow crafting. No adventure, no exploration, no challenge. Everything is sponfed, convenient and artificial. Waste of time.
We could negatively spin Tolkien's work, saying that it was "spoonfed" that he didn't detail every single moment of the year-long adventure. He was only giving us the eventful moments, and so it was spoonfed, convenient, and artificial.
Meanwhile books and games are not real life. They're entertainment. They're supposed to cut out the uninteresting stuff.
That's why there's actually a lot more adventure and challenge, actually. Exploration tends to be rather challenge-less and empty by comparison.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Game is not a movie. I dont experience movie, i watch it. Regardless, if the world is to be small, i prefer travel maps and several locations, like in Fallout 2 for example, as they feel more real or rather less unnatural. And yes, i like hours of travel. I also hate hours of mindless killing, if that is what you mean by "interesting events".
Games don't magically cause people not to care whether their time is wasted.
"Interesting events" is whatever gameplay the game is about. Gameplay is decisions. Watching a run animation involves almost zero decisions. Combat or dialog trees or puzzles or deep crafting or physical mining (minecraft style) are all examples of gameplay that offers a significant amount of interesting decisions.
Yeah, thats why i dont play much mmos lately. All they offer is constant killing, pointless dialogs and shallow crafting. No adventure, no exploration, no challenge. Everything is sponfed, convenient and artificial. Waste of time.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Ever been in the land of Agon? Darkfall: UW creates a huge world wherein travel is still had with peril. As far as fear and a since of exploration, it does it as well as the original EQ and all within a sandbox.
The thing is that space takes time to create, even an empty field needs grass, flowers, rocks and so on to feel somewhat real. And time is money for a MMO. Most sandbox games are made on a pretty tight budget so they tend to be pretty small (or very ugly).
To create a gigantic beutiful sandbox game you need a large budget and to get that is even difficult for casual themeparks who have far more potential players.
It is not entirely impossible to get the funding but at least it is very hard and that is why many sandboxes are pretty small (and many themeparks as well for that matter).
EQN is trying to get past this with Landmark, making the players do some of the work and it is an interesting idea but time will tell if that works or not.
Some games, mainly singleplayer games (ES: Daggerfall comes to mind, it is still the largest fantasy RPG ever made) use randomly created content instead. It works but the quality of the world is affected in a bad way. There plenty of work on creating better random content though and some work on using a kind of AI for it but we are still a long way from where the game itself just can add more areas when needed.
You mean like SWG? Its why I didn't like housing in that game. At one point, Tatooine was nothing but urban sprawl. So unlike the others, I do know what you're talking about. However, I'm not sure what modern game has this that you're talking about.
Talking about uninteresting stuff. Every mmo is 90% about killing. How is that interesting? I mean, its just soooo dumb and boring. I would like to see devs cutting this in the first place.
This has been my biggest complaint about MMORPGs for some time now. Even though I spend all my time in FFXIV gathering and crafting, it doesn't change the fact that the overwhelming majority of the game revolves around combat.
I'm currently waiting for something like AA or AAA A Tale in the Desert, though I do have an eye on Life is Feudal at the moment. Hundreds of virtual worlds, but we can't get more than a small handful that aren't glorified warfare simulators...
Originally posted by Axehilt Originally posted by FoomerangIf I went into an mmo expecting to experience all of its content in two hours... Maybe? But no.
You didn't experience all of GW2's content in two hours. You didn't experience all of GW2's content period.
So even with the ideal of fast travel (teleports to anywhere you've been with perhaps a little travel time to set the tone and environment,) there is still a lot of content to experience.
Let's talk about real things. Using this "two hours" style hyperbole just makes you look obviously wrong and it's not as fun to discuss topics with obviously wrong people.
Ok. I guess I just don't feel like every second of my entertainment must be content that constantly stimulates me. Otherwise it never has a change to create an atmosphere. I enjoy letting something breathe, sink in, peaks and valleys. Those create moments that matter. Plenty of ways to enjoy all types of art and entertainment. In regards to mmorpgs, a good one allows for many types of experience to occur depending on the player's mood. I'm not going to say you're wrong for whatever pace you enjoy. Because that pace changes with mood and it's all valid anyway.
Maybe you could spin Tolkien's work that way - you definitely sound like someone who like to spin things his way - but it wouldnt prove anything. Tolkien books are an piece of art while current mmos are a piece of... well, more or less shallow garbage. Dont make any more of theese failed analogies, they wont substitute legit argument.
Talking about uninteresting stuff. Every mmo is 90% about killing. How is that interesting? I mean, its just soooo dumb and boring. I would like to see devs cutting this in the first place. Regarding exploration, it is challengeless and empty becouse developers make it this way, and they make it this way becouse they cater to people who are fully satisfied with hours upon hours of mindless killing things.... but that doesnt mean that it has to be like this.
Hopefully it looks like the time of shallow themeparks is nearing its end. Maybe there will be some variety in future mmorpgs.
My analogies are not "failed". They're how people generally enjoy entertainment. They're based on years spent playing and making games, and observing players playing, and observing which games succeed in the market. I look for patterns, and make observations. Sometimes in analogy form.
Either way, your ad hominem is just a distraction to avoid dealing with the underlying truth of what I'm saying: good entertainers deliberately avoid boring their audience. The medium doesn't matter. If anything it's even more important to avoid boredom in interactive entertainment.
You probably understand that your dislike of combat is extremely unusual, but I imagine you might have some sense of understanding of why others enjoy it. (It's a mix of factors really.) But for certain if the killing truly was mindless, it wouldn't be nearly as appealing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Ok. I guess I just don't feel like every second of my entertainment must be content that constantly stimulates me. Otherwise it never has a change to create an atmosphere. I enjoy letting something breathe, sink in, peaks and valleys. Those create moments that matter. Plenty of ways to enjoy all types of art and entertainment. In regards to mmorpgs, a good one allows for many types of experience to occur depending on the player's mood. I'm not going to say you're wrong for whatever pace you enjoy. Because that pace changes with mood and it's all valid anyway.
So every single second of GW2 was stimulating content to you? Or do you maybe want to back off on the hyperbole and admit that when a game deliberately avoids these bits of non-gameplay there is still plenty of downtime? (Except it's player-driven -- it's downtime when you want it, so you can play at your own pace.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Ok. I guess I just don't feel like every second of my entertainment must be content that constantly stimulates me. Otherwise it never has a change to create an atmosphere. I enjoy letting something breathe, sink in, peaks and valleys. Those create moments that matter. Plenty of ways to enjoy all types of art and entertainment. In regards to mmorpgs, a good one allows for many types of experience to occur depending on the player's mood. I'm not going to say you're wrong for whatever pace you enjoy. Because that pace changes with mood and it's all valid anyway.
So every single second of GW2 was stimulating content to you? Or do you maybe want to back off on the hyperbole and admit that when a game deliberately avoids these bits of non-gameplay there is still plenty of downtime? (Except it's player-driven -- it's downtime when you want it, so you can play at your own pace.)
Strangely enough, for the first five or six months that's exactly how it was for my son and I. I think it was because we play - and gain rewards/progression - not just in the current zone but in any previous zone that we enjoyed. There was one day that we cycled through the same four events over and over for about an hour or so. That could obviously get repetitive after a while, but we usually like to end play sessions on a high note rather than play til we're bored.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Comments
Man ,EVE is not space sim ,it is sand box MMORPG about players interactions !
Well ArcheAge comes to mind when thinking of small sandboxes.
The OP has a point though, sure it costs more to make a bigger world, but a sandbox should be massive. Side note, always bugged me how cities in MMOs were little more than a dozen huts...
The fun part is to fill all that space, they call that a sandbox. You have been playing themeparks too long.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Adds up to "9.5*10^49 Km^3" of SPACE... of nothing. EVE size is irrelevant to any discussion, ever.
You know, one of the big complains when GW2 was launched was that some people felt lost after exiting the tutorial mission because there was no clear direction to follow (I actually loved that), which is why they added last year an indicator that points you to the nearest thing you can do, and practically any action you do (combat, crafting, gathering, even resurrecting someone) will grant you XP which you can gain levels and advance your character... so I guess that by that definition, GW2 at least at launch was a sandbox.
What can men do against such reckless hate?
I am not really talkin about a space sim.
Well what game are you talking about exactly because every sandbox game I have played has been the opposite of small.
I've played a few sandboxes, the one I spent the most time with was SWG. it seemed fairly wide open with tons of off the beaten path places.... and really the only people who ventured out to the edges of the border were either crafters who were on harvester runs, or Creature Handlers out looking for new babies to tame. the vast majority of the player base focused around the city's - and cantinas or their player cities, and hardly went out on the vast open world; especially in the beginning before vehicles / mounts were introduced and you had to walk everywhere. even after mounts, not so much time was spent out 1000's of km's away from the nearest space port.
i think MMO players like the idea of a vast open sandbox of space, much more than they actually do in practice.
Does it feel unnatural to you when a movie goes into a travel montage? Are you like "hey, they wouldn't have got there in 10 seconds of montage -- this movie should be forcing me to watch hours or days of travel time!"
Or do you think maybe it's better entertainment to focus on the interesting events, even if it means deliberately abstracting things like travel?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Or do you think maybe it's better entertainment to focus on the interesting events, even if it means deliberately abstracting things like travel?
If I went into an mmo expecting to experience all of its content in two hours... Maybe? But no.
Games don't magically cause people not to care whether their time is wasted.
"Interesting events" is whatever gameplay the game is about. Gameplay is decisions. Watching a run animation involves almost zero decisions. Combat or dialog trees or puzzles or deep crafting or physical mining (minecraft style) are all examples of gameplay that offers a significant amount of interesting decisions.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You didn't experience all of GW2's content in two hours. You didn't experience all of GW2's content period.
So even with the ideal of fast travel (teleports to anywhere you've been with perhaps a little travel time to set the tone and environment,) there is still a lot of content to experience.
Let's talk about real things. Using this "two hours" style hyperbole just makes you look obviously wrong and it's not as fun to discuss topics with obviously wrong people.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Of course it could be just due to me being a gamer who loves all type of game genre's that is why I actually want parts of my sandbox experiance feel desolate and or dead. Keep the focus on "parts". It's actually a really immersion factor for me for it to be in a sandbox games.
I already play so many different type of games where action is right around the corner and enjoy them as is. but a sandbox needs to give the feel of immersiveness within it's worlds, aka becoming a more real world then just a game area.
I am not against auto-expanding due to player input either.
We could negatively spin Tolkien's work, saying that it was "spoonfed" that he didn't detail every single moment of the year-long adventure. He was only giving us the eventful moments, and so it was spoonfed, convenient, and artificial.
Meanwhile books and games are not real life. They're entertainment. They're supposed to cut out the uninteresting stuff.
That's why there's actually a lot more adventure and challenge, actually. Exploration tends to be rather challenge-less and empty by comparison.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
mmorpgs are artificial.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
The thing is that space takes time to create, even an empty field needs grass, flowers, rocks and so on to feel somewhat real. And time is money for a MMO. Most sandbox games are made on a pretty tight budget so they tend to be pretty small (or very ugly).
To create a gigantic beutiful sandbox game you need a large budget and to get that is even difficult for casual themeparks who have far more potential players.
It is not entirely impossible to get the funding but at least it is very hard and that is why many sandboxes are pretty small (and many themeparks as well for that matter).
EQN is trying to get past this with Landmark, making the players do some of the work and it is an interesting idea but time will tell if that works or not.
Some games, mainly singleplayer games (ES: Daggerfall comes to mind, it is still the largest fantasy RPG ever made) use randomly created content instead. It works but the quality of the world is affected in a bad way. There plenty of work on creating better random content though and some work on using a kind of AI for it but we are still a long way from where the game itself just can add more areas when needed.
Size isn't everything...
This has been my biggest complaint about MMORPGs for some time now. Even though I spend all my time in FFXIV gathering and crafting, it doesn't change the fact that the overwhelming majority of the game revolves around combat.
I'm currently waiting for something like AA or AAA A Tale in the Desert, though I do have an eye on Life is Feudal at the moment. Hundreds of virtual worlds, but we can't get more than a small handful that aren't glorified warfare simulators...
So even with the ideal of fast travel (teleports to anywhere you've been with perhaps a little travel time to set the tone and environment,) there is still a lot of content to experience.
Let's talk about real things. Using this "two hours" style hyperbole just makes you look obviously wrong and it's not as fun to discuss topics with obviously wrong people.
Ok. I guess I just don't feel like every second of my entertainment must be content that constantly stimulates me. Otherwise it never has a change to create an atmosphere. I enjoy letting something breathe, sink in, peaks and valleys. Those create moments that matter. Plenty of ways to enjoy all types of art and entertainment. In regards to mmorpgs, a good one allows for many types of experience to occur depending on the player's mood.
I'm not going to say you're wrong for whatever pace you enjoy. Because that pace changes with mood and it's all valid anyway.
My analogies are not "failed". They're how people generally enjoy entertainment. They're based on years spent playing and making games, and observing players playing, and observing which games succeed in the market. I look for patterns, and make observations. Sometimes in analogy form.
Either way, your ad hominem is just a distraction to avoid dealing with the underlying truth of what I'm saying: good entertainers deliberately avoid boring their audience. The medium doesn't matter. If anything it's even more important to avoid boredom in interactive entertainment.
You probably understand that your dislike of combat is extremely unusual, but I imagine you might have some sense of understanding of why others enjoy it. (It's a mix of factors really.) But for certain if the killing truly was mindless, it wouldn't be nearly as appealing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
So every single second of GW2 was stimulating content to you? Or do you maybe want to back off on the hyperbole and admit that when a game deliberately avoids these bits of non-gameplay there is still plenty of downtime? (Except it's player-driven -- it's downtime when you want it, so you can play at your own pace.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Strangely enough, for the first five or six months that's exactly how it was for my son and I. I think it was because we play - and gain rewards/progression - not just in the current zone but in any previous zone that we enjoyed. There was one day that we cycled through the same four events over and over for about an hour or so. That could obviously get repetitive after a while, but we usually like to end play sessions on a high note rather than play til we're bored.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre