Sandboxes and SOE and the Mainstream

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by Itchybottom [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Linkrealms 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-C.../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.co...tegory: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.co...ry: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]

Originally Posted by KilyenaMage [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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.co...tegory: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.co...ry: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.