Sandboxes and SOE and the Mainstream

[stormlord]

Link:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/276215/Even-after-what-45-yrears-I-still-want-my-PreCu.html

Bottom line, the mainstream prefer quest-driven gameplay that holds your hand. SOE and any other big name company out there knows this. Most of us know this. I know this. I'm niche. I prefer non-linear sandbox (player owned or run, at least partially) worlds. I prefer to do what I want to do. I hate story-driven gameplay.

What did I want to accomplish with this post? Well, tell me about MMO's that're like sandboxes. Give me links. Let me know what you know.

Games that fit this would have features like this:

1) Custom classes or a skill-based system
2) Player-owned content like houses, cities, forts that can be modified or decorated (1*)
3) Most of the in-game items or a lot of them are player-made
4) Not story driven; players do what they want and progress isn't linear (2*)
...... (1) - The content exists in the world that players adventure in. Not in an instance!
...... (2) - Hard to find any two players that leveled up the same.

Here're a few that I know of (i'll update when I remember others or find new ones):
1) Eve Online: http://www.eveonline.com/background/
2) Wurm Online: http://www.wurmonline.com/
3) Dawntide (early beta): http://www.dawntide.net/
4) A Tale in the Desert: http://www.atitd.com/
5) DarkFall(?): http://www.us.darkfallonline.com/
6) Ultima Online(?): http://www.uoherald.com/
7) Xsyon: http://www.xsyon.com/features

(for the record, i've only tried a tale in the desert and ultima online on this list)
(ultima online should probably be on the list because the houses in that game are/were in the same world that adventuring and socializing and trading were performed. Basically, the world could be changed by players and other players would see the changes because they're not in instances. Not only that, but Ultima Online also is very non-linear too. It's sandboxy, AT LEAST. You do what you want to do. So I'll add it.)
(i'm not sure if darkfall belongs there, but it looks like it does)

I know I'm missing a lot of others. There're probably dozens of them out there in obscure places. I also am not including games that're not driven dominantly by story-driven or quest-driven gameplay. I would say that eq in 1999-02 (as it's here at project1999) is definitely more up by alley and more non-linear, but it's not at the scale I'm getting at in this post. It's still too restrictive. Not enough player-owned content. I am not saying that I only play sandbox mmos either. The fact that I've been playing here at project1999 and played DDO a while attests to that. It's just that for the topic of this thread I'm sticking to mmorpgs that're sandboxes.

EDIT: I'll show here at the end of this post what others have posted in this thread:
1) Linkrealms:http://www.linkrealms.com/
2) Shadowbane: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowbane (Play To Crush, player-run server)
3) Fallen Earth: http://www.fallenearth.com/landing/

[Itchybottom]

Linkrealms (http://www.linkrealms.com/) is sandbox-like for the Ultima Online generation. I'm not a big fan, but I can see the appeal. I like lore driven worlds, where you feel like you're contributing to a battle during a great era. Sandbox MMO are difficult from design perspective, I never even saw a MUD/MARE back in the day that dynamically generated believable worlds. I saw a few that used keywords to populate areas when you reached the edge of a defined map (mostly BaronyMARE) -- but using the keywords, didn't create a believable world. The directional exits in the rooms were always random with no real fluency or meaning compared to a hand-spawned area. Standing in the middle of a desert, to walk northwest and find yourself in a lush forest, then north again to a frozen tundra was completely lame. Sandbox single player games are cake, sandbox building games are also easy enough (just a server hosted static generated world) ... but when it comes down to a large amount of players buying/downloading and installing a client and being dropped in the middle of things, you can't have much dynamic content. The best you can do is let the players make their own economy, and fight amongst themselves for regional dominance.

[stormlord]

Linkrealms (http://www.linkrealms.com/) is sandbox-like for the Ultima Online generation. I'm not a big fan, but I can see the appeal. I like lore driven worlds, where you feel like you're contributing to a battle during a great era. Sandbox MMO are difficult from design perspective, I never even saw a MUD/MARE back in the day that dynamically generated believable worlds. I saw a few that used keywords to populate areas when you reached the edge of a defined map (mostly BaronyMARE) -- but using the keywords, didn't create a believable world. The directional exits in the rooms were always random with no real fluency or meaning compared to a hand-spawned area. Standing in the middle of a desert, to walk northwest and find yourself in a lush forest, then north again to a frozen tundra was completely lame. Sandbox single player games are cake, sandbox building games are also easy enough (just a server hosted static generated world) ... but when it comes down to a large amount of players buying/downloading and installing a client and being dropped in the middle of things, you can't have much dynamic content. The best you can do is let the players make their own economy, and fight amongst themselves for regional dominance.Everyones got their opinions about it. Thanks for stating yours and offering a link.

[stormlord]

Anyone remember choose your own adventure books? I loved reading those growing up.

This one:
http://www.amazon.com/Space-Beyond-Choose-Your-Adventure/dp/0553231804

I actually remember this one. I thought it was so far out and strange. So many things in those books.

Reminds me of this sandbox topic because you never knew what you'd find on your next adventure. Sometimes it was crazy fun. Sometimes it was boring. Sometimes it was surprising. Sometimes it was WEIRD. And most importantly, you were the maker of the adventure. It was more interactive, just like sandboxy worlds.

[KilyenaMage]

Shadowbane was THE single most Sandbox-Style MMO I've played to date -- basically every city being player-owned/controlled. All of these cities vulnerable to attack/take-over from rival guilds at any point. There are only 3 "safe" and NPC controlled cities - placed in the 3 extremes of the gameworld to offer trading posts etc.


One guild, for example, may have had a MAIN Guild city where only tagged members can pledge (bind). However they may also own an open city full of merchants and trainers for revenue etc.


Thieves can actively pickpocket ANYTHING/EVERYTHING being carried by an enemy - at any time - assuming they're not detected. Etc.


If you're into PvP check out Play to Crush - should be up and running soon. It's very quick to level and gear-up in Shadowbane. The focus is on being able to Pvp, and level/experiment with MANY Hero combinations.

I've never played another game with near the character customization of Shadowbane. Somewhere in the realm of 13 races, 25 classes, and 60 different "disciplines" (each Hero can equip 3 of these) which all offer unique skills. Anywhere from being able to turn into a werewolf or werebear, to being able to teleport to any the world's runegatess and everything in between. Wanna make your dagger-wielding Thief a master tracker and a master of unarmed Combat? Take the Sundancer and Bounty Hunter runes. Wanna turn your Elven Cleric into a dual-katana-wielding lawnmower? Take the Blade Weaver rune.

You'll have a specific number of skill points by the time u reach level 70, and you can place then where you wish -- you may have 5 Elven Theives side-by-side each one with a vastly different skillset.

http://morloch.shadowbaneemulator.com/index.php?title=Category:Classes A list of classes. Note that many of these have 2 and some 3 variations. For example an Assassin can be of Mage or Rogue archetype; a Channeler can be of Mage or Healer archetype - and their subsequent skillsets and play style will be very different.

http://morloch.shadowbaneemulator.com/index.php?title=Category:Disciplines A list of all the Disciplines (again, each toon can take 3 of these)

[KilyenaMage]

Again, won't really take away from the your p99 time. Would love to see as many players as possible when the game goes live sometime shortly after Xmas.

Understand that it will likely be a few months before any major Guild cities start to populate the map.

Basically the game failed for the same reasons as Vanguard failed - it just wasn't optimized. When the game released basically no PC was capable of handling the 50vs50+ City Sieges. Obviously now this has changed. If you want sandbox this is the game you're looking for. I hope you'll give it a try even if you're not a fan of PVP -- just play a heavy plate class or a healer as your first toon and you'll basically be 100% safe from 1v1 ganking by Assassins and the like while you learn the game - then the real fun begins !!!!!

[stormlord]

Shadowbane was THE single most Sandbox-Style MMO I've played to date -- basically every city being player-owned/controlled. All of these cities vulnerable to attack/take-over from rival guilds at any point. There are only 3 "safe" and NPC controlled cities - placed in the 3 extremes of the gameworld to offer trading posts etc.


One guild, for example, may have had a MAIN Guild city where only tagged members can pledge (bind). However they may also own an open city full of merchants and trainers for revenue etc.


Thieves can actively pickpocket ANYTHING/EVERYTHING being carried by an enemy - at any time - assuming they're not detected. Etc.


If you're into PvP check out Play to Crush - should be up and running soon. It's very quick to level and gear-up in Shadowbane. The focus is on being able to Pvp, and level/experiment with MANY Hero combinations.

I've never played another game with near the character customization of Shadowbane. Somewhere in the realm of 13 races, 25 classes, and 60 different "disciplines" (each Hero can equip 3 of these) which all offer unique skills. Anywhere from being able to turn into a werewolf or werebear, to being able to teleport to any the world's runegatess and everything in between. Wanna make your dagger-wielding Thief a master tracker and a master of unarmed Combat? Take the Sundancer and Bounty Hunter runes. Wanna turn your Elven Cleric into a dual-katana-wielding lawnmower? Take the Blade Weaver rune.

You'll have a specific number of skill points by the time u reach level 70, and you can place then where you wish -- you may have 5 Elven Theives side-by-side each one with a vastly different skillset.

http://morloch.shadowbaneemulator.com/index.php?title=Category:Classes A list of classes. Note that many of these have 2 and some 3 variations. For example an Assassin can be of Mage or Rogue archetype; a Channeler can be of Mage or Healer archetype - and their subsequent skillsets and play style will be very different.

http://morloch.shadowbaneemulator.com/index.php?title=Category:Disciplines A list of all the Disciplines (again, each toon can take 3 of these)Based on what I put on my first post, I think that Shadowbane would make the grade and you're justified in posting this. So I'll add it to the list.

But I'll add some of my thoughts here. I played Shadowbane in 2003 or 2004 for a month. In fact, I still have the cd and manual for it. When Shadowbane became free in late 2006 I tried it 2 or 3 times between then and the time they shutdown the servers. What I liked about the game was rolling alts. You're right that it was fun to make a new character. I loved the first 20 levels. I think the pre-made areas were higher quality than the PvP areas. I never quite got to the point where I participated in building cities, but I was well on my way to doing that if I had kept to it. It looked fun. Neither did I ever own a house.

Shadowbane was not all fun, though. First of all, it was PvP first, PvE last. It got worse and worse the higher your level was because you had to contest content and you were effectively forced to run or fight other players. If you don't like PvP, tough luck! Compared to other PvE games I've played, Shadowbane is at the bottom of my list. I tend to prefer mmorpgs that're PvE first, PvP second (or last). So as you can see that will impact what I think about Shadowbane and Darkfall. Both of them are PvP games even though I think of them as Sandbox games. I enjoy a well thought out and involved PvE. My last point is that PvP games don't ever seem to do all that well in the market. Showing me a game like WoW that has PvP in the battlegrounds does not change my mind because most of the people playing WoW are not PvPing. Most of the posts i've read are from people leveling up to 80 or making an alt. PvP is restrictive and any implementation of it will have to be watered down in order to have a respectable population. PvP is too hard. (killing someone in real life is never done fairly)

There're a lot of bad things I could say about PvE and other things in Shadowbane.

But I should say that Eve-Online has extensive support for PvP. I haven't tried the game so I can't really comment on the PvE. Most of the games linked here I haven't played so (hard enough just playing one)...

I make it seem like it's all bad (like there were chinese players everywhere or something). But I said not all fun. Shadowbane has pluses and minuses. Ultimately, I would say that for me it falls short. However, I think some people might like it. And versus some games it's a much better tradeoff. I mean, I'd rather play Shadowbane than play a dumb linear story-driven theme park gumball machine mmorpg.

[Aadill]

Eve Online is okay. The PvP and PvE are both player driven from 1500+ player warfare out in the ends of the universe to solo mining in high-security space.

Almost everything on the market place, save a few seeded materials and named drops from random mobs, or "rats," is crafted by players. The market is driven by a few top-end corporations and with that the economy is very politically entangled. CCP has employed a financial analyst at this point to investigate the sheer vastness of the economy in Eve, making it by far a title well worthy of a sandbox MMO. Too bad that most people call it Spreadsheets Online... honestly, it's a really tedious game whose main accomplishments come more from the PvP aspect where only a small percentage of the people actually engage in the gameplay available to them. The rest of the carebears make up the majority of the population and CCP tunes the game towards them, resulting in multiple changes to the game's mechanics that were less than favorable (in most cases it took out the uniqueness of ships and caused every pvp fight to have the same ship makeup... it was dumb).

[Taluvill]

Darkfall is an amazing sandbox MMO. Played for the first few months of release, and except for very limited Neutral towns, everything is player controlled/owned. its MUCH like shadowbane, and everything in the economy is player created, or dropped from hard bosses. PvP is crisp and fights well, with the exception of bind rushing when your city is under siege due to the inclusion of soul bound newb weapons. The game is Full-loot PvP where guilds and alliances rule stretches of territory like countries and "red" PKers are extremely rare as most guilds don't have place for them and they are KoS to most guilds.

Really a great game and from what i've heard, well made at this point today, although it was very unpolished at release, among other things.

Edit: oh, I haven't seen/heard much about it, but that new rift MMO seems sandboxy, as rifts can open anywhere and take over cities, but from a few people who got into the beta, they said its somewhat wow like. *shrug*

[Uthgaard]

Your link mentions Fallen Earth a few times but it's not on your list. I played that for a month. The level of depth in the content was impressive. A lot of thought went into it, you'd have to try it out to really see what I mean. I read their newsletter every time it hits my inbox, and I hope they do succeed. But something about their gameplay bored me so much that I've never felt like trying it again.

[Taluvill]

Your link mentions Fallen Earth a few times but it's not on your list. I played that for a month. The level of depth in the content was impressive. A lot of thought went into it, you'd have to try it out to really see what I mean. I read their newsletter every time it hits my inbox, and I hope they do succeed. But something about their gameplay bored me so much that I've never felt like trying it again.

Think of a poor man's Fallout 3 made into an MMO. Fallen Earth had a lot of potential, but the beta was extremely unimpressive from a directional "where are we going with this" standpoint. Great idea, just poorly implemented imo.

[aggresor223]

Dunno why eve is on this list, half of the game is completely player policed and there are no laws or rules to follow in 0.0 accept trust no one. Also if you have never played eve before give it a shot, it will make your brain hurt. PEW PEW!

[Henini]

I thought shadowbane was no longer?

all servers retired after being free to play for a while...?

[stormlord]

Eve Online is okay. The PvP and PvE are both player driven from 1500+ player warfare out in the ends of the universe to solo mining in high-security space.

Almost everything on the market place, save a few seeded materials and named drops from random mobs, or "rats," is crafted by players. The market is driven by a few top-end corporations and with that the economy is very politically entangled. CCP has employed a financial analyst at this point to investigate the sheer vastness of the economy in Eve, making it by far a title well worthy of a sandbox MMO. Too bad that most people call it Spreadsheets Online... honestly, it's a really tedious game whose main accomplishments come more from the PvP aspect where only a small percentage of the people actually engage in the gameplay available to them. The rest of the carebears make up the majority of the population and CCP tunes the game towards them, resulting in multiple changes to the game's mechanics that were less than favorable (in most cases it took out the uniqueness of ships and caused every pvp fight to have the same ship makeup... it was dumb).

Lame. Of all the ways a developer can fix a design shortfall, those are the kinds of fixes I hate most. In morrowind, for example, if you level up as a thief to 10 you will be weak in combat skills because most of them are thief-based. So, originally, at level 10 you wouldn't be able to kill level 10 monsters using combat skills. Instead, you had to depend on stealth and stealing and backstabbing and things of that nature. The problem is that they were deficient. So what they did was they scaled it so that at level 10 the thief could kill the monster even with low combat skills. What this did was make combat-based characters extremely powerful. They banked (people who made morrowind) that people wouldn't catch onto this shortcoming. Ideally, every class in the game could have their own playstyle so that combat or any singular activity isn't necessary. But this is apparently exceedingly difficult to accomplish in their design because there're so many different classes.

I've always felt that eliminating diversity for the sake of simplicity is just the hallmark of being mediocre.

It's a handout. It favors the new guy. It makes everyone the same. At least it's easy to develop for.

I can see it now too. The loser in a pvp battle whines on the forum something like, "Griefer killed me! He's got Ub3r gear! Unfair! Gear shouldn't determine who wins! Give us the same gear and that's fair!" In this case I'd say that the problem is that power of a player is too linear. 1000 hitpoints > 500 hitpoints. So I'd agree it's kind of unfair. On the other hand, choosing a short (but powerful) range gun over a long (weaker) range gun and waiting in a asteroid belt to pick someone off is just smart gear selection. There's a difference between linear gear and non-linear gear. Non-linear gear means using Neumonium rather than Radianite because Neumonium gives you +2 speed and you need all the speed you can get because your pvp tactic is to come in fast, strike, and speed away before they can hurt you. In this case, power of a player is non-linear and smartness.

Different gear = tactics. Different gear doesn't have to mean he has more HP so he wins.

But naturally, if I have more money than you then I can afford a bigger more powerful ship, right? Shouldn't it have more hp, if I can afford it? Or is that unfair? Who becomes king of the hill? Who monopolizes the systems because they have the most money? Is that what we want? This is where I say different gear can be bad because it might end up with someone monopolizing the playing field. Rich guy = best pvper.

What do you think? I think different gear isn't necessarily bad. Developers have to be smart.

In the real world things get monopolized if they go unchecked. Turning a blind eye to monopolizing in a game world might not be the best choice if you have fairness in mind. On the other hand, fairness does not mean everyone wins. Fairness means not giving one side an advantage on the playing field. Now... if guildmasters only accepted high iq, high tactical knowledge and experienced players into their ranks then they could become a very powerful pvp force. Is that unfair? Isn't that also an example of players monopolizing the playing field? In wrestling, they don't let the 200 pound man compete with the 100 pound man, they instead put him in the 200 pound division. And this hypothetical guild, couldn't they pay the best players to join them? Wouldn't that also be an example of rich guilds being the best pvpers? Not really. Even in the NBA when teams form "dream" teams, there's no guarantee it'll be a working combination. This is because chemistry is so important. If your team doesn't function well as a team, it loses. But I am unsure about this point. It does bring into question whether a perfect fair playing field is even possible, but the whole point here is that a playing field that goes unchecked might very well become monopolized just like in the real world. And monopolized is far far FAR from perfect!

So... a smart developer holds people accountable and watches for signs of monopolizing.

[stormlord]

Your link mentions Fallen Earth a few times but it's not on your list. I played that for a month. The level of depth in the content was impressive. A lot of thought went into it, you'd have to try it out to really see what I mean. I read their newsletter every time it hits my inbox, and I hope they do succeed. But something about their gameplay bored me so much that I've never felt like trying it again.I went ahead and added it. It looked like from the main page it had sandboxy features. Apparently it won't release with player-owned houses/forts/structures but they're working on it.

Here:
http://forums.fallenearth.com/fallenearth/showthread.php?p=172227
zigzag - *[ORK]Gnarlug* Will there be player-owned housing/forts/structures?
FELee - Player housing is a goal, but not something we'll have for release. We'd rather delay it and do it right rather than put something in that's no good. But we eventually totoally want player forts and such.
It does make me worry because if they're this late in development and haven't added player-owned structures than this indicates it's not a core part of their design. That's significant.

[stormlord]

Added http://www.xsyon.com/features to the list.

Muddy27 posted about it here:
http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=27073&highlight=xsyon

[username17]

Mortal Online is a sandbox MMO.
http://www.mortalonline.com/

There are no classes, just skills that improve as you use them.

There is no targeting, no friends, no enemies. It's all completely open, you can attack anyone and they can attack you.

I played in beta and it was ok, but I didn't follow it through to release.

[Vanech]

There was this little game done by (Digital Anvil studios?... regardless) It was produced by Microsoft Games, and it is called Freelancer. The game was released a year and a half early (thanks to M$) but the Modding community has done amazing things with the title since then, including hosting pirated log-in servers in order to keep the game running. (M$ shut down the primary host for the servers almost eight years ago.)

It has always had the ability to be something massive but the coding for multi-player can only handle about two hundred people on at a time on a server, despite the fact that the major systems (all eighty of them or so..) are capable of handling 1,000+ people.

Freelancer is one of those games that has been waiting desperately for the SDK/Code to be released as free-domain so that it could be properly visualized, but true to form M$ wont let loose a single iota of information.

Despite that the community is strong, and the overall dynamics suit a sandbox world, so while it may not be considered a true MMO, it has it's merits.

[Massive Marc]

Guild Wars.

It doesn't bring the Sandbox-Player Owned Content, but does have the multi class feeling you've suggested. What I like about Guild Wars (besides being able to changes classes on the fly) is that it isn't gear or level based. You progress by unlocking skills (spells) and grinding titles. Playing a 55hp Monk was the most rewarding class I have ever played.

Look out for Guild Wars 2. It might be the best MMO I've seen in awhile.

[bakkily]

umm i didnt read all the post skimmed it, i played up to lvl 10 of guild wars, but guild wars 2 from what ive read is going to be a bit easier then guild wars 1, though i would like to try it(will not pay to buy it) but they said that the lvling will be simple for each lvl (so not a whole lot of progression, which is what i like) sounds boring, but im going to give it a try if any of my friends get an account up

[Massive Marc]

umm i didnt read all the post skimmed it, i played up to lvl 10 of guild wars, but guild wars 2 from what ive read is going to be a bit easier then guild wars 1, though i would like to try it(will not pay to buy it) but they said that the lvling will be simple for each lvl (so not a whole lot of progression, which is what i like) sounds boring, but im going to give it a try if any of my friends get an account up

Progression wont be based completely on Leveling, which is good. I can be level 100 and group with my newbie lvl 10 friend. Guild wars 1 and 2 are going to be totally different games. I implore you to hit up youtube and search using the keyword: "Guild Wars 2 dragon raid".

If that doesn't tickle your balls, I'm not sure what will.

[philbertpk]

Edit: oh, I haven't seen/heard much about it, but that new rift MMO seems sandboxy, as rifts can open anywhere and take over cities, but from a few people who got into the beta, they said its somewhat wow like. *shrug*

Rift is point and click hold your hand bullshit. Anyone with an average intelligence should be bored to fuck. I got my account for free and still feel ripped off.