Age of Conan

Ok sarcasm /Off

   In response to the guy who said he loved moding out his online house.  I can totally agree with that.  I think a game idea to take the throne from The Sims would be a home design game that took a really great FPS engine like the Unreal engine, but made a simple way to build any custom home you wanted, and fully customize the colors, textures, patterns, lighting, and thousands of styles of furniture With new ones being added as downloadable content.  And then you could connect online and invite others into your home or visit people in there homes. Make the TVs/Radios in the homes actually connect to the web and be able to access web videos or music streams.  With entire neighborhoods built this way and connected by hubs of roads, we'd see the beginnings of the first fully 3D cyberspace. 

And dont tell me Im describing HOME for ps3.  I said Totally customizeable and with near photorealistic graphics.  You could design your own home perfectly for instance in the game.  Sims kinda does this, and it may get there eventually in Sims 3 or 4. 

Originally posted by markoraos

In addition "sandbox" doesn't have to mean that the game has no NPC content at all. In fact, I can envision a game which takes place in an NPC AI driven dynamic world where players may influence the way this "god AI" changes the game state and are given quests based on the needs of the said AI (or AIs). That could be a possible mode of further evolution of sandbox games... In fact I hear that GTA4 actually has something smilar though very rudimentary under its hood and the players absolutely love it.

The day they can put a gameworld like GTAIV in a massively online format.  Will be the day all other prior MMOs lose all their subscribers.   Great point made though.  GTAIV doesnt need levels or even skills, and you could play it for years endlessly.  All it would need is growing aspects of customizeablity, being able to deck out your home, buy bigger nicer homes and even furniture, trophies, and such.  Guilds would be gangs, and gangs could control parts of cities.  I could also see tons of people role playing Drug Dealers, Prostitutes, Gamblers, Weapons Dealers, Undercover Cops, Bounty Hunters, Hitmen, etc. 

   The dynamic AI would control would control npcs & could still have quests and scripted events but you wouldnt have to do the quests, and  I could imagine that many peoples quests would dynamically overlap, and class with other people quests and make a very wild city indeed!  Or you could make your own as well. GTA IV already has the most amazing multiplayer I've ever seen in a full city with all the dynamic AI npcs running intact.  It would already be an amazing MMO if there wasnt a small cap on number of players.  Maybe in 5 years we'll be there.  I hear the game APB being made now by one of the designers of GTA will do alot of what I described, but again it wont be Massively Online, and still be limited by the amount of players in one instance.  But it will have tons of customizeability.

Originally posted by Wolfsheim

    When I was a kid, we didnt have computer games.  We played with Rocks! and to us PVP was us throwing them at each other and we LOVED IT! and the game never ended.  People are so spoiled today and lack imagination!  I miss my rocks.. =( 

 

We didnt have Radios or TVs or even books.  We just made up our own stories in our heads.  People are too lazy today and expect some external device to entertain them.  Pathetic!

Damn that brings back some nice memories.....

Good review from what little I saw of the game in beta. My cure for this situation is to just play in 3 or 4 hours a week. With a lifetime membership ( LoTRO) I don't feel as if I am wasting my money if I don't play daily.

 Also now I remembered that the true value of this type game was the socialization. When log in to LoTRO now it is more to shoot the breeze in guild chat  more than it is to level a alt or grind virtual coin with my lvl 50's. I have know most of the people since early EQII and I feel as if I know them and their families almost like they are neighbors by now..

By the way some good sanbox MMO's in my opinion would be EvE, UO, and the original SWG.

Originally posted by Iijs

 

Originally posted by Deviate

Does this remind you of anything?

 

LOTR is a pretty decent game. Best graphics around and fun to play.

Having said that, I would have preferred the Middle Earth Online (MEO) version that Sierra had envisioned.

Linear games with levels and focused questing is like an amusement park. The rides are fun and cotton candy and soda are great at first. By after a few months, the ride loses its appeal to me.

sandbox MMO virtual worlds have long-term appeal (see Ultima, 10 years old 2d game and its still going)

 

Long term appeal for how many people? 20K? 50k?

Grindfests appeal to a small minority of people... and that's the reason there are so few of them.

A game with quests will hold me for months. A grindfest will hold me for hours, maybe a few days.

 World of warcraft is by example a grind fest. Sandbox mmorpg's that are well designed but still have a story line and quests ( a bit linear) have more diversity , the control is in player hands and diversity is far more while grinding is far less.

World of warcraft gets much faster boring ( the anology of themepark rides) what blizzard did is creating boring time sinks ala a stupid grind , a job.

But trolls like you don't understand that and think World of warcraft is the perfect game.

Originally posted by Velric

 

Originally posted by admriker4

 

Originally posted by zunarn

I agree with everyone that you need to experience more of the game. I honestly don't think Sandbox MMO's exist. I had my doubts about AoC but it delivered, so far...

I have to see the end game to even attemp to review this game.

 

 

EVE is sandbox. Fallen Earth and I think Darkfall in development are both sandbox.

And Ive seen the end of this game's content already in LOTR, WoW, and the many other linear MMO's around. It will be players jumping through hoops like raiding and sieges for gear. Been there, done that...

Folks are already asking on the forums if they can skip past the 1-20 tutorial because theyve read the book and dont want to do it again. The ride is already getting boring.

 

The same could be said about a "sand box" MMO, except instead of wanting to skip the starter levels, you'd want to skip all experience grinding since there isn't a quest structure to give you motivation.

 

In sandbox games you don''t have to do that. You don't have to create a new alt always because there is always something to do.  A well created sandbox mmo that also has some linaer elements like quests and story line and some dungeons is perfect because , the world is always changing, you can achieve som,ething, this isn't possible in linear mmo's. In linear mmo's, people say they achieve something but it isn't, it is just a static thing that improves you but it did not affect the world or anyhing. In sandbox mmo's or games, you have freedom and you make your own decisions while in linear games , the game makes decisions and gets much faster stale and causes much faster a boredom for that player.

Originally posted by reggie

i agree with the above. The thing about pure quest based mmorpgs is that once you've reached cap the next alt you make will just accept quests without reading, unless you skipped parts on your main.

Like i loved lotro quests and storyline but once you done it the alt ride will be alot less fun.

Problem with such games is they leave no real room for creativity from the player. Like in the old games you'd roam around and meet people and decide to group up and hang out together, talk while grinding mobs and add to your friend list.

In currend pure quest based games everything goes much faster. You come to a quest point. see more people there. Ask an invite and finish quest. Maybe do 1 or 2 more quests together and then disband and move on.

Current quest baded mmorpg dont encourage social activity much like older games did.

I mean look at games like lotro. You group up for a quest and hardly anyone speaks. They just finish and move on again. In the older mmorpgs you actually had the time to spend talking and would get to know people.

In older games you had the initiative of what to do, not the game steering you. You'd go to whatever zone and find people to group with and do your thing. While in new mmorpgs everyone is going the same direction following the quest lines. There's a big difference.

Older sand box types of games had quests too, just not that many. They left alot of room for your own creativity of what to do next. It had grind though and noone really liked grind even though it had its good sides also like social activity and exploration and non linear. The answer to grind were quests. Just i do think since wow all mmorpgs are going overboard with the quests. Simply to many of m !

Leaving no room for creativity from the player, no room to socialize, making it to much of a single player experience instead of a group experience like the old mmorpgs. Alot of mmorpgs which are quest based even totally remove any proper xp from monsters in case you dont feel like questing. They in a sense force you to quest removing pretty much all creativity and initiative.

I think its a big shame mmorpgs nowadays have instanced bg's for pvp and are totally quest based only.

Dont get me wrong i do enjoy questing also and i do enjoy both soloing and grouping but i also realize that with this whole quest based system they removed most of what made the older mmorpg special. The time you spend with other players. Old sandbox games rely on communities while new mmorpgs do not at all. They simply provide m some easy to do crafts and basic fun like instance pvp and the likes to keep m satisfied and busy. They keep m busy together which is basically a false sense of community compared to the older mmorpgs where communities were important to get anywhere in the game. Your friend list mattered coz they made the game fun and enjoyable.

Older mmorpgs might sound oldfashioned coz people simply love to be spoiled but while they did have bad things like grind exactly those bad things would add to a sense of real community which new games do not .

Each has its pro's and cons but like the op says the biggest problem is replayability. Its all fun the first ride. After that its just repeating the old story.Quests based mmorpg's are fun but its definately not a perfect system. They rely more on classes being fun and if those lack diversity people will get bored of the game fast enough if there's also no good end game like pvp.

 

 

 

 

 

  I'll have to disagree with your claims that Theme parks MMO's lack a proper social side. I was an EQ2 player from launch right up until the second last expansion. That game is your typical Theme park MMO. The guild community there were very active socially. I had just as much social interaction in EQ2 as I had playing Uo from 1997 until 2002. I left both for the same reason. It was time for something different. There is a big social side to Theme Parks MMO's. The communities within a theme park MMO are there if you choose to get involved. Solo yet another alt through a theme park MMO can grind you down, I agree, but doing it with a community you joined within the game makes getting alts up to scratch a breeze.

A game is what you make it.   I know people that hated questing in Vanguard and they instead grinded out their levels hunting mobs.   They burned out.   I kow people that grinded ou