Mmoprgs are a niche market of video games Sandboxes are a niche of the MMORPG market OWPVP is a niche of sandboxes and devs keep sticking owpvp in their sandboxes
So, you have a niche of a niche in a niche market that can't get enough players to float...not surprising.
This one of the primary reasons.
Would you mind to mention your sources for your statement? I agree that the gaming industry is convinced that the Sandbox is a niche, but would you agree that before Minecraft the industry thought that a brick building game was niche too?
The gaming industry is run by marketing and marketing just base their studies on what is available at the moment, they are not actually good at pinpointing new trends.
Until some big company decides to make a AAA Sandbox and it fails, all those claims are just speculations.
Sandboxes are a niche sub genre in a niche genre, they are not dying, they just dont get released very often due to the limited market, for example although Ark is a sandbox, elite dangerous (single player/mmo hybrid), Xsyon etc. Supply and demand.
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
People seem to want a sandbox but they are all dead compared to other mmo's. Why are these games failing when they seem so ideal? My theory is the developers are making anarchy sandbox games instead of civilized sandbox games. Once they start putting order to the sandbox people cry and start calling it themepark. I feel that anarchy sandbox designs do not work at all. But has anyone made a sandbox where they had civilized towns with guards enforcing laws if you were stupid enough to break them? Mortal Online attempts such feats but the way it is implemented gives much reason for player dislikes. Sandboxers claim they want total anarchy gameplay yet developers know this is just a waste of time because without civilizations to create a box for the sand you just have a sandpile.
The best proof I think, to prove your point comes from ARK. That is what you are referring to anarchy sandbox, if you play on the official servers, even on the PVE servers. All people experience over there is a huge grind, and a bunch of people who try to steal their hard work. So then you look at this.
There are currently 14,617 people surviving on 16,543 online ARK islands! online ARK islands are servers. The majority of those are ran by people, which some are worse than officials, but most are people tired of lawless garbage, where greifers have no punishment.
So, I have no idea why no one makes a civilized sand box. Prolly because, they are greedy, and only make things that have been made before. Then i guess some are just stubborn. If CCP for instance made a eve server, with everything to the T the same, but you couldn't be attacked unless you concent, they would find out their orginal server would be a ghost town, and a bunch of new people would join, and the people who like to steal, scam, and kill would be the only ones left on that original server.
As for Mortal Online, I don't think they ever attempted to make a civilized one. The closest I can remember, is UO. In Mortal the guards are utterly useless, in UO no one could face the guards, it was just instant death, they also had jail time.
People ruin sandbox games with it's all about me having fun especially when most have open world pvp, aslong as i am having fun just going round killing and griefing people who cares, that is why i don't play sandbox games because i know what to expect and it's not my thing, i don't see what people would get from doing that and the weird thing they don't realise that the very game they are playing will suffer from them doing that.
I am at a loss why someone wants to spends hours and hours and put in hard work to have someone else come and kill and steal it from you with no repercussions . The lack of true punishment and policing seems to be the main problem why these sandboxes fail.
If you simply allow the hard working player to be constantly attacked and the fruits of their labour taken away what incentive do you offer that individual to stay in that game. Pretty soon you drive away those type of players leaving those that enjoy stealing and killing others to get their resources to play amongst themselves which of course never works because after the 'sheep' leave the 'wolves' do not want to play with each other.
I can never see these games succeeding in any great numbers they may do reasonably well for a time until another game comes along and steals their player base because it might have better policing or punishments or set up a better system to manage and reduce instances of random ganking , killing and stealing but the bottom line you must have some way of keeping the sheep playing . So many of these sandboxes have very tedious methods for the sheep to work and earn and this compounds the loss when it occurs. How often do you expect a person to accept being killed and looted before they walk away.
Many always say you cannot play alone in these games unless you are the hunter and the hunted have to group up but as you all know games are drifting into people generally soloing so this is another reason why sandboxes that have FFA killing and looting end up becoming ghost towns after launch .
I also cannot understand why developers that make these games cannot understand that people do not want to be victimized by their game style. They however shove these rules down your throat ,you want to play you have to accept it. So people leave after awhile when the new shine wears off but they never associate the failure of their game to the rules .
First there are too many MMOs on the market for what is really a niche market. Until Publishers stop making games and crazy people that think they can make the next great MMO stop making MMOs as well as MMOs shut down all MMOs will feel dead. Its far past time this genera reset itself and that will not happen with messed up kick starters and Asian MMOs thinking hey lets make another game.
Second too many Sandbox MMOs are going to 2 different extremes that just dont work or will never work outside a small niche market. Black Desert for example is basically a Single Player Sandbox game and it will never work. Why play a Multiplayer game where I cannot craft and sell stuff to other players or even play with other players? Hello that is the foundation of MMOs is interaction with other players. As for games like MO and AA, Sorry but open world PVP while it can be fun - its such a niche market that it will not survive outside a bunch of basement dwellers. Sorry I been there I dont have time for these type of games anymore and most people who started playing these games back in the UO days dont either. Having 4 hour castle sieges while fun does not work just like 40 man 4 to 6 hour raids dont work anymore.
No one is taking positive things from Sandbox MMOs like SWG crafting, and UO champion spawns, not being powerful enough to take on the toughest monsters in the game alone and making it into a good MMO. They are going to 2 extremes that just do not work. I am sorry fans but these are the facts if they were not these games wouldnt need to be F2P with P2W elements and yes AA is P2W even if you do not think so. In SWG you wanted the best gear, find a crafter that really understands how the different mats worked together to make great items. Not spend hundreds of Dollars on RNG Crystals that MIGHT get you a upgraded piece of gear. YES THAT IS P2W VS P2P. You Payed to play SWG and your skill at finding players that were good crafters helped you get better gear, not your Wallet.
because we keep paying for junk. because company's are spread too thin. because F2P forces company's to teach to the test so to speak. MMOs are DOA these days. MMOs have always had issues but subscription was at one point $3-6 a month. $15 (+tax) = $180 a year! i expect something for that price and for sure i cant aford more than 1 sub a year now ....
People ruin sandbox games with it's all about me having fun especially when most have open world pvp, aslong as i am having fun just going round killing and griefing people who cares, that is why i don't play sandbox games because i know what to expect and it's not my thing, i don't see what people would get from doing that and the weird thing they don't realise that the very game they are playing will suffer from them doing that.
O i think they understand what they are doing. You nailed it when you said its all about me. They honestly don't care if they ruin the game, make it go out of business, and make every one quit. As long as they are having fun doing it.
So let me get this straight, if you're playing a sandbox game with open world pvp and destruction why would you expect anything other than open world pvp and destruction of your castles/property? #2 through 5 on mmorpg.com hype meter under development are all sandbox games with destruction and open world pvp. If you don't like that type of game don't play it. For those of us who do like it, we like it because death has a meaning. You don't just instantly respawn and hop back into the battle. If your castle gets destroyed you get angry and get even. I understand it has less and less appeal for super casual players, but these games are a niche as everyone and their mother has previously mentioned in this thread.
While EVE might slowly be moving into decline, saying that it is failing would be a strech.
Sandbox gameplay can work and be moderately succesfull, EVE is living proof of that.
As with any game that old burnout is setting in even with the hardcore players. The problem now is that noone else has been able to deliver a viable alternative, this is not a failure of the game type or an inherent problem with the style, it is just a failure from multiple developers to make something that actually plays better than EVE. Thus a fan of the style, like me whom has burned out on EVE, simply aren't playing a Sandbox MMO as no real appealing alternative exists.
Crowfall might change that. Might not. Waiting to see.
So let me get this straight, if you're playing a sandbox game with open world pvp and destruction why would you expect anything other than open world pvp and destruction of your castles/property? #2 through 5 on mmorpg.com hype meter under development are all sandbox games with destruction and open world pvp. If you don't like that type of game don't play it. For those of us who do like it, we like it because death has a meaning. You don't just instantly respawn and hop back into the battle. If your castle gets destroyed you get angry and get even. I understand it has less and less appeal for super casual players, but these games are a niche as everyone and their mother has previously mentioned in this thread.
The problem with that is it isn't what your talking about. This is what happens in those games. Some one who is bored, and literally insane, will go out of their way to make some one feel bad, not because its a game feature, or because death has a meaning, they literally do it, because they want some one to feel bad. Example, ARK, takes 12 something hours to tame something, so some one for no other reason other than to make these people quit, runs over and kills the tamed animal. EVE online, people run around trying to kill miners, not because it has any meaning in the game, only because they want to see if they can get a reaction from the player, ignore them and they go away literally.
UO, is a good one too. So you start mining, and 4 people surround you and kill you. They dont even loot your body, they sit there, and try to convince you to pay them money. If you literally ignore them, they get frustrated and move on.
So your telling me then you are one of those people, who enjoy going up to the weakest person, and trying your hardest to ruin their day, just because it makes you feel better. So yeah it is a niche game, because the majority of people aren't psychopathic bullies. So we end with the fact that psychopathic bullies love these open world pvp games, where they literally want other people to take their bulling, love it, and keep playing. So yeah, i suppose some where in this world, there are people with a victim mentality that could fill that role, but my guess is it is so small that is why, mortal online has 200 people, UO FEL servers have 50, eve online has so few people in the gank areas, i wouldent even call it a game feature any more. With the population when i logged on not reaching over 20k, which that could mean literally 1000 people are on, and the rest are alts.
So, I will give you this prediction. All these underdevelopment sandbox pvp games, are literally bound to fail. I mean what are you a alcoholic? Those are the only people I have ever met, that think you literally can do something over and over, and expect the outcome to be different. If they are following the same thing as eveonline, mortal online, darkfall online, UO fel, Arche Age they will all fail. They will have a few people who become so addicted to the cash shop, they dump grocery money into it, till all those people are gone, and it will be a ghost town, like eve online null sec, uo fel, darkfal online and mortal online entire game, and arche age with less and less people every day.
So yeah, all those games are gonna fail, and we will be left with no developer ever investing in it again.
Which sandbox is failing? Well Arcadia, Mortal Online, Darkfall, Wurm, Anything labeled sandbox is not popular at all. Except for H1Z1 which does not qualify as an mmorpg really.
@rounner I was describing what might be causing sandbox mmorpg's so unpopular.
@seiroth so you are calling skyrim sandbox because you can attack anyone anywhere? Why exactly is Skyrim considered sandbox because you cant do nothing but attack things and talk to things? Skyrim is a horrible example of sandbox.
HAHA! H1Z1. I forgot about that game.
How could you forget? It is the game where SWG fans finally found their long lost home!
Hahahaaha. Just like Mortal online and UO huh? At least though Mortal online was close to the same game.
Most seem to try and push PvP as a core feature. IMO that is what is holding them back. Once / If anyone decides to shoot for a PvE sandbox experience with optional ( if any ) PvP ( duels / arena ) I think we will see a large successful sandbox game.
PvPers have always and will remain the lower population.. especially those interested in open pvp.
Its not only PVP but FFA PVP which is 10X worse....I have zero interest in playing games where jerks come and take everything I have worked for while playing.....That is the least fun feature you could ever put into a MMO.
So from what I am seeing a lot of us think it is pvp that ruins the sandbox. Lets take Archeage and remove 90-100% of the pvp. I bet that would have filled up quite a few servers for them. And another post said it is hard to tell exactly what will determine which mmo will fail or not.
I think the problem more is that the sandboxes don't have the right mechanics for really good and fun PvP. With the mechanics games like AA (as example) have they should stay far away from open world PvP.
The thing is that open world PvP demands specific mechanics, and a far lower powergap then MMOs usually have. Combat need to go either way for PvP to be fun to most people and that means that the powergap needs to be so low that a new player could (at least in theory) actually defeat a veteran player with maxed out gear.
Full loot demands that gear is incredible easy to get with little variation in stats, just like in FPS games.
The problem is that the people who do enjoy the current sandbox games don't want a game like that, but if you want a sandbox that is a hit game you either need to seperate PvP from the open world or make mechanics that makes the PvP more fun for the majority of the players.
So let me get this straight, if you're playing a sandbox game with open world pvp and destruction why would you expect anything other than open world pvp and destruction of your castles/property? #2 through 5 on mmorpg.com hype meter under development are all sandbox games with destruction and open world pvp. If you don't like that type of game don't play it. For those of us who do like it, we like it because death has a meaning. You don't just instantly respawn and hop back into the battle. If your castle gets destroyed you get angry and get even. I understand it has less and less appeal for super casual players, but these games are a niche as everyone and their mother has previously mentioned in this thread.
The problem with that is it isn't what your talking about. This is what happens in those games. Some one who is bored, and literally insane, will go out of their way to make some one feel bad, not because its a game feature, or because death has a meaning, they literally do it, because they want some one to feel bad. Example, ARK, takes 12 something hours to tame something, so some one for no other reason other than to make these people quit, runs over and kills the tamed animal. EVE online, people run around trying to kill miners, not because it has any meaning in the game, only because they want to see if they can get a reaction from the player, ignore them and they go away literally.
UO, is a good one too. So you start mining, and 4 people surround you and kill you. They dont even loot your body, they sit there, and try to convince you to pay them money. If you literally ignore them, they get frustrated and move on.
So your telling me then you are one of those people, who enjoy going up to the weakest person, and trying your hardest to ruin their day, just because it makes you feel better. So yeah it is a niche game, because the majority of people aren't psychopathic bullies. So we end with the fact that psychopathic bullies love these open world pvp games, where they literally want other people to take their bulling, love it, and keep playing. So yeah, i suppose some where in this world, there are people with a victim mentality that could fill that role, but my guess is it is so small that is why, mortal online has 200 people, UO FEL servers have 50, eve online has so few people in the gank areas, i wouldent even call it a game feature any more. With the population when i logged on not reaching over 20k, which that could mean literally 1000 people are on, and the rest are alts.
So, I will give you this prediction. All these underdevelopment sandbox pvp games, are literally bound to fail. I mean what are you a alcoholic? Those are the only people I have ever met, that think you literally can do something over and over, and expect the outcome to be different. If they are following the same thing as eveonline, mortal online, darkfall online, UO fel, Arche Age they will all fail. They will have a few people who become so addicted to the cash shop, they dump grocery money into it, till all those people are gone, and it will be a ghost town, like eve online null sec, uo fel, darkfal online and mortal online entire game, and arche age with less and less people every day.
So yeah, all those games are gonna fail, and we will be left with no developer ever investing in it again.
You're still missing the picture completely. If you're into these types of games you WELCOME the fact that someone is going to try to gank you. If I spend 12 hours taming an animal I damn sure know someone in the game is going to try to kill it. If my guild spends a week building a castle we're going to defend it. You can't just go into these games and destroy the castle at 3 am either. They will employ a shadowbane technique where you basically declare war and have 2 days to muster your guild to defend your castle at a prime time.
You're also pretty ignorant in your overuse of "fail." Every singe game will fail, it will eventually end and no one will play it anymore. The developers will make money off of them, that's pretty much a guarantee these days. The reason there are no significant populations for these games is because there hasn't been a single good one in nearly a decade.
I do not enjoy going up to weak people and ganking them over and over. There's absolutely zero fun in that. I do however enjoy never knowing when a battle is going to land in my lap and knowing that if I die, I actually lose something. You call me idiotic for liking this game type, but I could also sit here and talk crap about anyone who PvE's.
"I mean what are you a alcoholic? Those are the only people I have ever met, that think you literally can do something over and over, and expect the outcome to be different."
^^^ PvE in a nutshell. Same boss fight over and over same mechanics over and over.
So from what I am seeing a lot of us think it is pvp that ruins the sandbox. Lets take Archeage and remove 90-100% of the pvp. I bet that would have filled up quite a few servers for them. And another post said it is hard to tell exactly what will determine which mmo will fail or not.
I think the problem more is that the sandboxes don't have the right mechanics for really good and fun PvP. With the mechanics games like AA (as example) have they should stay far away from open world PvP.
The thing is that open world PvP demands specific mechanics, and a far lower powergap then MMOs usually have. Combat need to go either way for PvP to be fun to most people and that means that the powergap needs to be so low that a new player could (at least in theory) actually defeat a veteran player with maxed out gear.
Full loot demands that gear is incredible easy to get with little variation in stats, just like in FPS games.
The problem is that the people who do enjoy the current sandbox games don't want a game like that, but if you want a sandbox that is a hit game you either need to seperate PvP from the open world or make mechanics that makes the PvP more fun for the majority of the players.
The solution is rather easy if you ask me. A sandbox game, such as AA, where everything is built, farmed, ect by the players. With some higher end resources, for building stuff that has nothing to do with pvp. To get access to the resources, you have to win in a 5vs5 moba, that is linked to the game where you just click it, and it loads your moba characters. It would take alot more tech details, but that would solve the problem. WOW, kinda does it with HOTS, WOW, diablo 3, where all of them are kinda linked together with rewards. Or what eve was gonna do with dust, but just failed to do anything. The concept if executed right would def fix the problem.
It's amazing, Ultima Online figured this out back in 2001 with the release of Renaissance but these clueless indie devs haven't figured it out yet...
SWG? Same thing - no FFAPvP!
Players want to live THEIR story in a sandbox. They want to do THEIR thing.
Having PvP forced upon you RUINS the experience.
The kids are literally coming in and destroying your sand castle.
Sandbox game + FFAPvP = bullying.
It's amazing how easy this is to understand...
The most successful sandbox games of all time have had opt-in PvP with plenty of protections for players who didn't want to PvP.
UO, SWG, EvE.
The second reason they fail? Production quality.
All of these recent "sandbox PvP griefing simulators" have been such piss poor quality, they never had a chance. Indie is not an excuse for poor quality.
I don't expect AAA graphics, sound, VO, or content in an indie title - but I expect the game to actually work.
People seem to forget, what REALLY killed SWG?
It was LONG before the CU, NGE - it was quality!
Everything was delayed, everything was buggy, content was flat out missing...
But the game is so highly regarded because it is Star Wars and what they did do right, they did very well.
So let me get this straight, if you're playing a sandbox game with open world pvp and destruction why would you expect anything other than open world pvp and destruction of your castles/property? #2 through 5 on mmorpg.com hype meter under development are all sandbox games with destruction and open world pvp. If you don't like that type of game don't play it. For those of us who do like it, we like it because death has a meaning. You don't just instantly respawn and hop back into the battle. If your castle gets destroyed you get angry and get even. I understand it has less and less appeal for super casual players, but these games are a niche as everyone and their mother has previously mentioned in this thread.
The problem with that is it isn't what your talking about. This is what happens in those games. Some one who is bored, and literally insane, will go out of their way to make some one feel bad, not because its a game feature, or because death has a meaning, they literally do it, because they want some one to feel bad. Example, ARK, takes 12 something hours to tame something, so some one for no other reason other than to make these people quit, runs over and kills the tamed animal. EVE online, people run around trying to kill miners, not because it has any meaning in the game, only because they want to see if they can get a reaction from the player, ignore them and they go away literally.
UO, is a good one too. So you start mining, and 4 people surround you and kill you. They dont even loot your body, they sit there, and try to convince you to pay them money. If you literally ignore them, they get frustrated and move on.
So your telling me then you are one of those people, who enjoy going up to the weakest person, and trying your hardest to ruin their day, just because it makes you feel better. So yeah it is a niche game, because the majority of people aren't psychopathic bullies. So we end with the fact that psychopathic bullies love these open world pvp games, where they literally want other people to take their bulling, love it, and keep playing. So yeah, i suppose some where in this world, there are people with a victim mentality that could fill that role, but my guess is it is so small that is why, mortal online has 200 people, UO FEL servers have 50, eve online has so few people in the gank areas, i wouldent even call it a game feature any more. With the population when i logged on not reaching over 20k, which that could mean literally 1000 people are on, and the rest are alts.
So, I will give you this prediction. All these underdevelopment sandbox pvp games, are literally bound to fail. I mean what are you a alcoholic? Those are the only people I have ever met, that think you literally can do something over and over, and expect the outcome to be different. If they are following the same thing as eveonline, mortal online, darkfall online, UO fel, Arche Age they will all fail. They will have a few people who become so addicted to the cash shop, they dump grocery money into it, till all those people are gone, and it will be a ghost town, like eve online null sec, uo fel, darkfal online and mortal online entire game, and arche age with less and less people every day.
So yeah, all those games are gonna fail, and we will be left with no developer ever investing in it again.
You're still missing the picture completely. If you're into these types of games you WELCOME the fact that someone is going to try to gank you. If I spend 12 hours taming an animal I damn sure know someone in the game is going to try to kill it. If my guild spends a week building a castle we're going to defend it. You can't just go into these games and destroy the castle at 3 am either. They will employ a shadowbane technique where you basically declare war and have 2 days to muster your guild to defend your castle at a prime time.
You're also pretty ignorant in your overuse of "fail." Every singe game will fail, it will eventually end and no one will play it anymore. The developers will make money off of them, that's pretty much a guarantee these days. The reason there are no significant populations for these games is because there hasn't been a single good one in nearly a decade.
I do not enjoy going up to weak people and ganking them over and over. There's absolutely zero fun in that. I do however enjoy never knowing when a battle is going to land in my lap and knowing that if I die, I actually lose something. You call me idiotic for liking this game type, but I could also sit here and talk crap about anyone who PvE's.
"I mean what are you a alcoholic? Those are the only people I have ever met, that think you literally can do something over and over, and expect the outcome to be different."
^^^ PvE in a nutshell. Same boss fight over and over same mechanics over and over.
You're gonna have to try a different example, then. Yours doesn't fit the bill. Who says the outcome of PvE is expected to be different? Short of different story paths, which does happen but isn't common, the only thing expected is that you enjoy doing something the second/third/whatever amount of time at least as much as you did the first. You know, like an orgasm? You don't expect the next one to be different, just enjoyable enough to repeat.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
In my experience, it is because of poor execution of ideas. FFA PvP that allows noob camping does not help either. If executed well, with a nicely crafted world and engaging activities, a MMO with sandbox elements could be as popular as the next one. Even FFA PvP could be more popular, if there was a way to protect your time investment (like paying insurance for buildings or ships).
The Repopulation will be the next sandbox MMO with low pop. Thanks to its uninspired spreadsheet crafting, world and combat. It looks good on paper, but in current execution it lacks all the community building aspects that for example SWG had (a popular comparison for the repopulation).
I agree. If you enjoy something do it. What I don't agree with is people constantly bashing these types of games saying that all anyone who plays it wants is to grief noobs and they're destined to fail. People who enjoy playing these types of games enjoy them for various reasons, one of them being because they don't grow stale as quickly. You never have the same 3v3 encounter, or castle siege, or group fight in the open world.
Maybe because all the "sandbox" mmo's that keep coming out are PvP based and have little & shit PvE? How about a game developer make a sandbox PvE mmo? Than you would see one be more successful than what weve gotten lately with the ones that have come out. Open world dungeons instead of 123908132 instances. Check out Vanguards open dungeons... Talk about amazing. Do away with all the instancing BS and bring back the feel of being in the world. Put difficult mobs/group/raid type mobs back in the world instead of in a fuckin instance for Christ sake. Bring back massive contested dungeons that can house many groups for both exp/loot ala EQ2. It would bring back whats missing from mmo's these days... a community.
@Araga That hype meter comment shows that the players desire sandbox mmo's that have pvp. Just seems all the developers up until this point don't know how to properly do it. I look forward to trying each of those games and calling one of them my home.
I believe Archeage was the closest and would have been quite the hit if it wasn't for a lot of really bad moderation decisions. If the sandbox has a nice amount of civilized structure it would be a lot more viable then the current situations we are facing. Partial loot pvp or limited pvp helps with most of the problems. But then again we go back to if it was only pve wouldn't there be a lot more players?
They're not as popular as people want to think they are. Either that or they don't have the correct combination of mechanics to make them widely appealing. The fact that a lot of them go for FFA PvP is probably a turn off for a lot of people.
I think pure Sandboxes making it are the exception not the rule. Sure the ones that made it, made it big. Like Minecraft. IMO the winning model will be a union of Sandbox best features and Themepark. Between the two is something that IMO will be the next winning MMO.
It's funny because when I think about the ideal MMO,it is more of a sandbox than anything else. Some are not really sandboxes but disguised theme park gear grinders. Some believe they are great games just because they have unrestricted PvP and ffa loot, when maybe these are two of the reasons they s@ck. A lot of them feel like lower quality products in terms of their art and features. Maybe if a sandbox can be made with the conception that in the end it is destined to offer some enjoyment to the players and not completely drain the life out of them.... CU seems promising. It's a PvP sandbox MMO made for human players and not aliens that don't blink.
Comments
I agree that the gaming industry is convinced that the Sandbox is a niche, but would you agree that before Minecraft the industry thought that a brick building game was niche too?
The gaming industry is run by marketing and marketing just base their studies on what is available at the moment, they are not actually good at pinpointing new trends.
Until some big company decides to make a AAA Sandbox and it fails, all those claims are just speculations.
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
There are currently 14,617 people surviving on 16,543 online ARK islands! online ARK islands are servers. The majority of those are ran by people, which some are worse than officials, but most are people tired of lawless garbage, where greifers have no punishment.
So, I have no idea why no one makes a civilized sand box. Prolly because, they are greedy, and only make things that have been made before. Then i guess some are just stubborn. If CCP for instance made a eve server, with everything to the T the same, but you couldn't be attacked unless you concent, they would find out their orginal server would be a ghost town, and a bunch of new people would join, and the people who like to steal, scam, and kill would be the only ones left on that original server.
As for Mortal Online, I don't think they ever attempted to make a civilized one. The closest I can remember, is UO. In Mortal the guards are utterly useless, in UO no one could face the guards, it was just instant death, they also had jail time.
If you simply allow the hard working player to be constantly attacked and the fruits of their labour taken away what incentive do you offer that individual to stay in that game. Pretty soon you drive away those type of players leaving those that enjoy stealing and killing others to get their resources to play amongst themselves which of course never works because after the 'sheep' leave the 'wolves' do not want to play with each other.
I can never see these games succeeding in any great numbers they may do reasonably well for a time until another game comes along and steals their player base because it might have better policing or punishments or set up a better system to manage and reduce instances of random ganking , killing and stealing but the bottom line you must have some way of keeping the sheep playing . So many of these sandboxes have very tedious methods for the sheep to work and earn and this compounds the loss when it occurs. How often do you expect a person to accept being killed and looted before they walk away.
Many always say you cannot play alone in these games unless you are the hunter and the hunted have to group up but as you all know games are drifting into people generally soloing so this is another reason why sandboxes that have FFA killing and looting end up becoming ghost towns after launch .
I also cannot understand why developers that make these games cannot understand that people do not want to be victimized by their game style. They however shove these rules down your throat ,you want to play you have to accept it. So people leave after awhile when the new shine wears off but they never associate the failure of their game to the rules .
Second too many Sandbox MMOs are going to 2 different extremes that just dont work or will never work outside a small niche market. Black Desert for example is basically a Single Player Sandbox game and it will never work. Why play a Multiplayer game where I cannot craft and sell stuff to other players or even play with other players? Hello that is the foundation of MMOs is interaction with other players. As for games like MO and AA, Sorry but open world PVP while it can be fun - its such a niche market that it will not survive outside a bunch of basement dwellers. Sorry I been there I dont have time for these type of games anymore and most people who started playing these games back in the UO days dont either. Having 4 hour castle sieges while fun does not work just like 40 man 4 to 6 hour raids dont work anymore.
No one is taking positive things from Sandbox MMOs like SWG crafting, and UO champion spawns, not being powerful enough to take on the toughest monsters in the game alone and making it into a good MMO. They are going to 2 extremes that just do not work. I am sorry fans but these are the facts if they were not these games wouldnt need to be F2P with P2W elements and yes AA is P2W even if you do not think so. In SWG you wanted the best gear, find a crafter that really understands how the different mats worked together to make great items. Not spend hundreds of Dollars on RNG Crystals that MIGHT get you a upgraded piece of gear. YES THAT IS P2W VS P2P. You Payed to play SWG and your skill at finding players that were good crafters helped you get better gear, not your Wallet.
Sandbox gameplay can work and be moderately succesfull, EVE is living proof of that.
As with any game that old burnout is setting in even with the hardcore players. The problem now is that noone else has been able to deliver a viable alternative, this is not a failure of the game type or an inherent problem with the style, it is just a failure from multiple developers to make something that actually plays better than EVE. Thus a fan of the style, like me whom has burned out on EVE, simply aren't playing a Sandbox MMO as no real appealing alternative exists.
Crowfall might change that. Might not. Waiting to see.
UO, is a good one too. So you start mining, and 4 people surround you and kill you. They dont even loot your body, they sit there, and try to convince you to pay them money. If you literally ignore them, they get frustrated and move on.
So your telling me then you are one of those people, who enjoy going up to the weakest person, and trying your hardest to ruin their day, just because it makes you feel better. So yeah it is a niche game, because the majority of people aren't psychopathic bullies. So we end with the fact that psychopathic bullies love these open world pvp games, where they literally want other people to take their bulling, love it, and keep playing. So yeah, i suppose some where in this world, there are people with a victim mentality that could fill that role, but my guess is it is so small that is why, mortal online has 200 people, UO FEL servers have 50, eve online has so few people in the gank areas, i wouldent even call it a game feature any more. With the population when i logged on not reaching over 20k, which that could mean literally 1000 people are on, and the rest are alts.
So yeah, all those games are gonna fail, and we will be left with no developer ever investing in it again.
Hahahaaha. Just like Mortal online and UO huh? At least though Mortal online was close to the same game.
With the mechanics games like AA (as example) have they should stay far away from open world PvP.
The thing is that open world PvP demands specific mechanics, and a far lower powergap then MMOs usually have. Combat need to go either way for PvP to be fun to most people and that means that the powergap needs to be so low that a new player could (at least in theory) actually defeat a veteran player with maxed out gear.
Full loot demands that gear is incredible easy to get with little variation in stats, just like in FPS games.
The problem is that the people who do enjoy the current sandbox games don't want a game like that, but if you want a sandbox that is a hit game you either need to seperate PvP from the open world or make mechanics that makes the PvP more fun for the majority of the players.
You're still missing the picture completely. If you're into these types of games you WELCOME the fact that someone is going to try to gank you. If I spend 12 hours taming an animal I damn sure know someone in the game is going to try to kill it. If my guild spends a week building a castle we're going to defend it. You can't just go into these games and destroy the castle at 3 am either. They will employ a shadowbane technique where you basically declare war and have 2 days to muster your guild to defend your castle at a prime time.
You're also pretty ignorant in your overuse of "fail." Every singe game will fail, it will eventually end and no one will play it anymore. The developers will make money off of them, that's pretty much a guarantee these days. The reason there are no significant populations for these games is because there hasn't been a single good one in nearly a decade.
I do not enjoy going up to weak people and ganking them over and over. There's absolutely zero fun in that. I do however enjoy never knowing when a battle is going to land in my lap and knowing that if I die, I actually lose something. You call me idiotic for liking this game type, but I could also sit here and talk crap about anyone who PvE's.
"I mean what are you a alcoholic? Those are the only people I have ever met, that think you literally can do something over and over, and expect the outcome to be different."
^^^ PvE in a nutshell. Same boss fight over and over same mechanics over and over.
Why, FFAPvP of course!
It's amazing, Ultima Online figured this out back in 2001 with the release of Renaissance but these clueless indie devs haven't figured it out yet...
SWG? Same thing - no FFAPvP!
Players want to live THEIR story in a sandbox. They want to do THEIR thing.
Having PvP forced upon you RUINS the experience.
The kids are literally coming in and destroying your sand castle.
Sandbox game + FFAPvP = bullying.
It's amazing how easy this is to understand...
The most successful sandbox games of all time have had opt-in PvP with plenty of protections for players who didn't want to PvP.
UO, SWG, EvE.
The second reason they fail? Production quality.
All of these recent "sandbox PvP griefing simulators" have been such piss poor quality, they never had a chance. Indie is not an excuse for poor quality.
I don't expect AAA graphics, sound, VO, or content in an indie title - but I expect the game to actually work.
People seem to forget, what REALLY killed SWG?
It was LONG before the CU, NGE - it was quality!
Everything was delayed, everything was buggy, content was flat out missing...
But the game is so highly regarded because it is Star Wars and what they did do right, they did very well.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
If executed well, with a nicely crafted world and engaging activities, a MMO with sandbox elements could be as popular as the next one. Even FFA PvP could be more popular, if there was a way to protect your time investment (like paying insurance for buildings or ships).
The Repopulation will be the next sandbox MMO with low pop. Thanks to its uninspired spreadsheet crafting, world and combat. It looks good on paper, but in current execution it lacks all the community building aspects that for example SWG had (a popular comparison for the repopulation).
@Araga That hype meter comment shows that the players desire sandbox mmo's that have pvp. Just seems all the developers up until this point don't know how to properly do it. I look forward to trying each of those games and calling one of them my home.
I believe Archeage was the closest and would have been quite the hit if it wasn't for a lot of really bad moderation decisions. If the sandbox has a nice amount of civilized structure it would be a lot more viable then the current situations we are facing. Partial loot pvp or limited pvp helps with most of the problems. But then again we go back to if it was only pve wouldn't there be a lot more players?
anything else.
Some are not really sandboxes but disguised theme park gear grinders.
Some believe they are great games just because they have unrestricted PvP and ffa loot,
when maybe these are two of the reasons they s@ck.
A lot of them feel like lower quality products in terms of their art and features.
Maybe if a sandbox can be made with the conception that in the end it is destined to offer some enjoyment to the players and not completely drain the life out of them....
CU seems promising.
It's a PvP sandbox MMO made for human players and not aliens that don't blink.