Sandboxes. Why not?

[Falconeer]

What's a sandbox MMO?

If you ask wikipedia it redirects you to Non Linear Gameplay:

"A game with nonlinear gameplay presents players with challenges that can be completed in a number of different sequences. Whereas a more linear game will confront a player with a fixed sequence of challenges, a less linear game will allow greater player freedom. [...] Some games feature both linear and nonlinear elements, and some games offer a sandbox mode that allows players to explore the game environment independently from the game's main objectives.
A game that is noticeably nonlinear will sometimes be described as open-ended or as a sandbox.
[...]
Sandbox mode
In a game with a sandbox mode, a player may turn off or ignore game objectives. This can open up possibilities that were not intended by the game designer. A sandbox mode is an option in otherwise goal-oriented games, and should be distinguished from open-ended games with no objectives such as Sim City."

I am not completely sure about it, I don't think we really need a definition to determine what's diku and what is sandboxy.

Let me show you my lousy categorization:


Diku:
----------------------------
World of Warcraft
EverQuest
EverQuest 2
Lord of the Rings Online
Age of Conan
Shadowbane
City of Heroes/Villains
Anarchy Online
Dark Age of Camelot
Aion
Archlord
Asheron's Call 2
Auto Assault
D&D Online
Earth & Beyond
Warhammer
Final Fantasy XI
Horizons
Lineage 2
Neocron
RF Online
Ryzom
Tabula Rasa
Vanguard

Total count: 24



Sandbox:
----------------------------
Ultima Online
A tale in the Desert
Eve
Star Wars Galaxies

Total count: 4



Uncertain, maybe hybrid:
----------------------------

Face of Mankind
Dark and Light (not really sure)
Entropia Universe (formerly Project Entropia)
Asheron's Call 1 (in before the cry it's not diku)
Pirates of the Burning Sea

Total count: 5



Hybrids are game I couldn't really place. I didn't play them, or I can't remember how they played or they are diku but with some sandboxish elements or at least that's what I seem to recall.

Brief considerations: one of the very first MMORPG ever, Ultima Online, was a sandbox and it was a good success. Huge success over 10 years if you consider it's still alive and the reason for that is exactly its sandbox nature.

The only two followups I can come up with are Star Wars Galaxies, which maybe collected more money than Ultima Online but still smells of failure, and EVE, which is alive, healthy and kicking.

Now, we spent days on another thread arguing on how large is the market for hardcore PVP and we came up with an imaginative number of 100k

My questions:

1) how large do you think the market for sandbox MMOs is?
2) Will it cost more than a diku? If so, why?
3) How come 23 companies were inspired by EverQuest and just 3 by Ultima Online?
3bis) Actually, what the fuck is wrong with the world if my only option to play a sandbox medieval fantasy MMORPG is to get back to a 10 years old product?
4) Inspiration aside wouldn't it be the right time to develop a new sandbox? Every RPG from PC to consoles is going in that direction anyway.

So sandbox, why not?
The more I think about it, the more surprised I am.

[Venkman]

"Sandbox MMOs" are not designed like Second Life. Each one was intended to be a dynamic world in which players had adventures and could do other things that didn't involve adventuring. That's the point of difference between UO and EQ1. In UO, you could have rewarding game-based experience by doing things other than adventuring. In EQ1 and the sub-genre it's inspired since, you adventured or you were having some fun with emergent gameplay and whatnot.

tl;dr version: Sandbox MMOs are worlds in which most actions you can take contribute to some world reward you can achieve. DIKUs are MMOs in which you are playing a game in a persistent environment supporting random and played multiplayer gaming.

As such, I don't think the question is where there's a market for sandbox MMOs. It's more a question of how long it will be before someone does WoW plus all the stuff SWG got right at launch within an experience with a Turbine/ArenaNet-like polish.

So for that I go back to complexity.

It cost more money to just do a DIKU completely right than the cumulative cost of four sandbox MMOs (numbers somewhat outta my ass but it's close). Sandbox worlds are extremely complicated. You're building more on the faith of your formula and dynamic triggers than on the confident consistency you get from entirely deterministic events. Your development process has got to be very different, at least in the parts of UI development, game testing, and experience writing. DIKUs are not easy games to make, but they feel like they're a hell of a lot easier than trying to make a fun and compelling and content-complet adventuring experience plus an actual player driven experience featuring social-based game systems with player housing (with strict zoning this time, please do this right finally).

That doesn't even get into how hard they are to market. What has been proven time and again by sheer numbers alone is that the vast majority of gamers want a game that guides them and rewards them rather than be dumped naked and ignorant into a brand new world and told to go figure out their virtual lives themselves.

That's not to say it's not worth pursuing. It's just to say that a game that automatically is much harder to make than other types of games with more perceptually-guaranteed success are also potentially for a much smaller market.

[TheCastle]

I have been under the impression that Sandbox game play in the sense of games like UO mostly just suffer from a paralyzing number of choices in what you can do. This has been mentioned to me many times before and I have yet to see it disputed really. Could your answer be as simple as that its too hard for most people to make up their minds on what they should do next? That having or not having one universal goal to work towards can make or break a MMOG?

A part of me feels that if Blizzard made UO we would not be having this discussion.

[Samwise]

I have been under the impression that Sandbox game play in the sense of games like UO mostly just suffer from a paralyzing number of choices in what you can do. This has been mentioned to me many times before and I have yet to see it disputed really. Could your answer be as simple as that its too hard for most people to make up their minds on what they should do next? That having or not having one universal goal to work towards can make or break a MMOG?

No.  I believe the answer is as simple as that it's too hard for most developers to fully implement and balance all of the systems that make up a sandbox game.  SWG, for all the misty-eyed talk of the olden days, was about one third implemented at launch (many skill trees were nonfunctional or useless, crafting skill progression was completely screwed up, combat was ridiculously unbalanced, and the architecture couldn't handle massive player gatherings).  Even Spore, which had a lot of talent, time, and money behind it, and which did not need to deal with all the complexities of a multiplayer game, had very limited options in some stages of the game because there wasn't time to flesh all of it out.  Offering lots of choices is much harder than offering one or two.

A part of me feels that if Blizzard made UO we would not be having this discussion.

Yes, but it wouldn't have.  Don't expect to see a sandbox MMO from Blizzard until someone else gets it 80% of the way there.

[Cylus]

No.  I believe the answer is as simple as that it's too hard for most developers to fully implement and balance all of the systems that make up a sandbox game.

Huh?  The primary goal behind a pure sandbox isn't balance.  As such, there's very little reason to design around that perceived notion that there should be some balance, like the MMO Trinity.

Balances and Sandboxes have absolutely nothing to do with each other.  You're assuming that just because it's an MMO, it has to be "balanced."

[Samwise]

No.  I believe the answer is as simple as that it's too hard for most developers to fully implement and balance all of the systems that make up a sandbox game.

Huh?  The primary goal behind a pure sandbox isn't balance.  As such, there's very little reason to design around that perceived notion that there should be some balance, like the MMO Trinity.

Balances and Sandboxes have absolutely nothing to do with each other.  You're assuming that just because it's an MMO, it has to be "balanced."

Either the word "balance" doesn't mean what you think it does, or you're retarded.  I'm not sure which yet, so explain yourself.   

(edit) I'll help you out a little.  "Balance" doesn't just mean orcs-vs-humans combat balance.  We were talking about sandboxes as being games that offer lots of different choices -- I'm not sure that's what defines a sandbox, but let's roll with it.  When a game offers lots of choices, all of the choices must be worthwhile, or they're not really choices at all.  And that means that you have to make some attempt at balancing the benefits of each choice.  For example, if one of the big systems of your sandboxy game is the game's economy, with the main goal being to make lots of money, and in theory you can make money by crafting, combat, or exploration, but combat yields twenty times more money for time invested than the other options, very few people will bother with the other options (since they're effectively punished for choosing them) and you might as well have made the game completely combat-centric.

[TheCastle]

No.  I believe the answer is as simple as that it's too hard for most developers to fully implement and balance all of the systems that make up a sandbox game.

Huh?  The primary goal behind a pure sandbox isn't balance.  As such, there's very little reason to design around that perceived notion that there should be some balance, like the MMO Trinity.

Balances and Sandboxes have absolutely nothing to do with each other.  You're assuming that just because it's an MMO, it has to be "balanced."

Yeah I can see where Samwise is coming from on this. I see an MMOG as being a game that requiers balance more so than just about any other type of game out there. Think about how difficult it is to make sure almost completely different systems like fishing, combat, and sneaking would need to be balanced with the same kind of fervor you would apply to two different class archetypes in a standard MMOG like WoW. I suppose one of the hardest things about balancing such a system would be that you are forced to balance apples and oranges. I can imagine that most players preferring to have their next goal spelled out for them as being a fairly valid deterrent as well.

[Cylus]

Yeah I can see where Samwise is coming from on this. I see an MMOG as being a game that requiers balance more so than just about any other type of game out there. Think about how difficult it is to make sure almost completely different systems like fishing, combat, and sneaking would need to be balanced with the same kind of fervor you would apply to two different class archetypes in a standard MMOG like WoW. I suppose one of the hardest things about balancing such a system would be that you are forced to balance apples and oranges. I can imagine that most players preferring to have their next goal spelled out for them as being a fairly valid deterrent as well.

The fact that you're such a follower, scares the shit outta me.  Samwise thinks he has some sort of inside-info when it comes to a Sandbox game and I can only laugh

[Simond]

What's a sandbox MMO?

Dikus are games (i.e. something you play), sandboxes are toys (i.e. something you play with).
There you go, tuppence ha'penny's worth of internet philosophy. 

[Iniquity]

What's a sandbox MMO?

One in which a large chunk (pick an arbitrary percentage) of how players spend their time is in some way dependent on player-emergent behavior, rather than on content that's been hand-crafted by the developers to be 'experienced' and then 'progressed through'.

That's just my definition.  I'm curious what holes people will poke in it.

[Wasted]

Yeah I can see where Samwise is coming from on this. I see an MMOG as being a game that requiers balance more so than just about any other type of game out there. Think about how difficult it is to make sure almost completely different systems like fishing, combat, and sneaking would need to be balanced with the same kind of fervor you would apply to two different class archetypes in a standard MMOG like WoW. I suppose one of the hardest things about balancing such a system would be that you are forced to balance apples and oranges. I can imagine that most players preferring to have their next goal spelled out for them as being a fairly valid deterrent as well.

The fact that you're such a follower, scares the shit outta me.  Samwise thinks he has some sort of inside-info when it comes to a Sandbox game and I can only laugh

Few people are going to play your sand box game if one template wtfpwns everything else and certain game elements don't live up to players expectation of how powerful/useful or respected their chosen path asks for.  Player A spends 100's of hours researching a certain crafting line and gets to the pinnacle of the art, they acquire the the obscure materials they need only to discover the items are far inferior to common items available elsewhere.  That is unbalanced.

You cannot have a pure sandbox mmog in the concept of the player having free reign to do anything at all and be unbalanced versus the game elements alone, as you can in single player games.  You are sharing a space with other players and are competitive socially for status as well as whatever game elements are competitive (game currency and market control, spawn points etc).  For players to have unequal access to those elements based on their in game choices is what makes a game unbalanced, and only a non-commercial sandbox purist would defend for the right for characters to be able to easily gimp themselves to maintain a full sandbox with consequences to every action to make it more 'real'.

Mmogs are all about advancement, through access to in game experiences and to social progression.  The smart sandbox, the one that wants to be actually successful will remove some of the 'guided' progression systems that diku's offer such as classes but it will still seek to balance all experiences that the game offers.  The Devs may as well save their time if they are going to introduce features just for the sake of having them but no-one will use because they don't meet expectations or grant the player any social currency.

Quote from: Falconeer on Today at 11:21:37 AM
What's a sandbox MMO?

A sandbox game asks that everyone starts off the same and guides their advancement through their own player choices, rather than through the guided templates of classes.  A sandbox game would generally offer more experiences that allow for more customization options outside of straight power differentiation between the character and the obstacles the game world presents.  A sandbox game gives greater weight to offering a world where in-game knowledge has more social currency than a straight 'raid/gear progression' diku game world offers.

[Falconeer]

So most of you think the reason for the lack of sandbox MMOs is because they are too expensive (too hard to make) compared to the potential market?
We used that explanation for hardcore pvp MMOs already. It kinda says if you do a diku you will be crushed by WoW and if you do something non-diku you will be crushed by dikus (WoW).

Can't be. There must be a way to start small, build a small simple sandbox and eventually let it grow. Companies small and big wasted money on such crap I can't accept no one wants do dabble here at all. I'm not even sure it's a limited market, more like an untapped market! I remember answering a friend in 2003 about why there were no games similar to UO and I used to answer him "they are so hard to make". 5 years later they are still so hard to make that no one even tries? Not even streamlined versions of it, just nothing. That's what really sounds weird to me. While everyone think (and though in the last 4 years) they could make a good diku, and failed horribly, no one is confident enough to even try making a sandbox MMOs?

I really don't know about the market for such games and I think I know little about the complexity as I am not a coder, designer, nothing, not even a armchair one.
But doesn't the relative success and stickyness of the few sandbox MMOs around, not to mention stuff which doesn't belong like Second Life but that definitely share a few genes there, ring a bell to anyone?

Could it be that the failure of SWG convinced everyone that is not possible?
Wasn't hard to make UO 10 years ago? How did it cost? How large was the dev team? How harder can it be to make something similar, without necessarily SWG scope and bulky IP, now?

A word about balance: I totally understand the points about it, and I agree. I just want to add that while it's important, for example, to balance the economy and the different moneymaking professions about it, these games by not being hardgoal-driven shouldn't matter that much about it (or just not as much as straightforward goal-driven dikus). I mean, when I choose to be a dancer in SWG I know that I probably won't be as rich as a diehard hunter, or as dangerous in PvP as a commando. A fisher, a treasure hunter, an architect, a collector, a tamer, a legendary smith, different approaches to a world where I set my own goals. Most of which are SOCIAL, a kinda neglected layer by present industry if you ask me. So you don't really need to balance the efficiency of those profession. You just have to make them significant and rewarding in the game world, especially on the social level. Titles, prestige, fame, recognizability. Finally interdependency (the game world and other players need you for something) and a certain complexity to keep your progression fresh. Well ok, not so simple, I know. But not even worth a shot just because SWG failed? (and about SWG's failure, sure it was a letdown but it wasn't such an absolute failure before the extreme takeover. I think more than 200k were loving the sandbox aspect of it before the forced implosion).

My take is there's a lot of people (alas, can't really figure how many) who'd enjoy a virtual world where you can do things different, or totally different from fighting (in an environment where fighting is definitely present and significant, wouldn't work otherwise) and make your name for it. Why no one is even remotely trying to throw these people a bone?

I think this thread definitely needs more Raph.

[IainC]

For what it's worth I subscribe to the amusement park model when describing a DIKU and a sandbox is pretty much by definition anything that is an actual game that doesn't conform to the amusement park paradigm. In an amusement park your choices are parcelled up for you and you experience them in a sequential and discrete manner. Queue for the rollercoaster, ride the rollercoaster; go to the cafe, eat the hotdog etc. You are guided through the game by the game itself. A sandbox alternative would be 'decide what ride you're going to build next, build it, see if other players want to ride your rollercoaster and leverage that.'

DIKU is easier to design by orders of magnitude, partly for the reasons that Samwise said  but also because you can't make the same automatic assumptions about the player in a sandbox that you can in a DIKU. In a DIKU you pick a target to design for - a number of characters with a predictable power level - and you give them something to do. You can tailor the content to a very high degree because you know almost everything about the characters that will experience that content. With a sandbox, you design some content and many of the assumptions that guided the DIKU designer don't apply.

[Falconeer]

Ok. But then why was it possible 10, no 11 years ago (12, or 13 if you calculate development time) and so hard today it's not even worth a shot?
It's like claiming you can't climb the Everest now with high-tech gear when people did it 13 years earlier with a toga and no shoes.

Maybe it's an empty claim but back in the days what moved lots of people from UO to EQ wasn't the diku model but the 3D model. Now THAT changed history.

[IainC]

Ok. But then why was it possible 10, no 11 years ago (12, or 13 if you calculate development time) and so hard today it's not even worth a shot?
It's like claiming you can't climb the Everest now with high-tech gear when people did it 13 years earlier with a toga and no shoes.

Maybe it's an empty claim but back in the days what moved lots of people from UO to EQ wasn't the diku model but the 3D model. Now THAT changed history.

Because back then RPGs were basically tabletop games (with tabletop systems) ported into a graphical format. Nowadays people expect more of a game than 'Elite with nicer graphics'. It's easier to match the expectations of the modern market with a DIKU than it is with a sandbox.

[mutantmagnet]

Ok. But then why was it possible 10, no 11 years ago (12, or 13 if you calculate development time) and so hard today it's not even worth a shot?
It's like claiming you can't climb the Everest now with high-tech gear when people did it 13 years earlier with a toga and no shoes.

Maybe it's an empty claim but back in the days what moved lots of people from UO to EQ wasn't the diku model but the 3D model. Now THAT changed history.

You indirectly answered your own question. Graphic considerations eat up a large part of the budget and man hours.

Barring that I think making sandbox games (which I'll just call open-ended games from this point on) is relatively simpler.

Open-ended doesn't require the type of continual updates themepark games (which I'll just call directed games from this point) do.


You don't have to worry about rewards being defined by you in terms of numbers but actual goals to be achieved.

OPen ended I'm willing to be ensures there is less risk that people will quit because their friends stopped having fun.

[Zzulo]

Where does Planetside fit in in all of this?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want a Planetside II. But I see no such thing on the horizon  

[Yoru]

Ok. But then why was it possible 10, no 11 years ago (12, or 13 if you calculate development time) and so hard today it's not even worth a shot?

You're drawing a false equivalence here, from "technically and conceptually difficult" to "not attempted". Let's do this in a table.

Criterion	DIKU Style	Sandbox Style
Cost	High	High
Proven Audience	>10 million	~500,000*
Design Risk	Moderate	High
Technical Risk	Moderate	High
# Successes	11+ (western)	~3 (western)

(*) Combining UO, SWG and EVE estimated subscription numbers. Note that the DIKU column is drawn only from WOW's reported subscription numbers.

Now presume you're Investor X with a shitpile of money and a hankering to get into the game industry. Look at the DIKU column and the Sandbox column. The Sandbox column is clearly higher risk - as elucidated above by IainC and Samwise - while having a significantly lower proven audience. Most investors will take a bigger return with lower risk any day, and that's precisely what you see in the market today. More standard-format MMOs are funded and developed than sandboxes by a large margin.

Now, you can go on and on about a theoretical additional audience, but unless you've got some good research to back that up, you're talking out your ass. And believe you me, a VC probably won't fund you if you can't at least produce a convincing argument that such an audience not only exists but is also reachable. Or have a long, proven reputation of delivering the goods, which rather few are fortunate enough to possess.

[Falconeer]

Criterion	DIKU Style	Sandbox Style
Cost	High	High
Proven Audience	>10 million	~500,000*
Design Risk	Moderate	High
Technical Risk	Moderate	High
# Successes	11+ (western)	~3 (western)

(*) Combining UO, SWG and EVE estimated subscription numbers. Note that the DIKU column is drawn only from WOW's reported subscription numbers.

Now presume you're Investor X with a shitpile of money and a hankering to get into the game industry. Look at the DIKU column and the Sandbox column. The Sandbox column is clearly higher risk - as elucidated above by IainC and Samwise - while having a significantly lower proven audience. Most investors will take a bigger return with lower risk any day, and that's precisely what you see in the market today. More standard-format MMOs are funded and developed than sandboxes by a large margin.

Now, you can go on and on about a theoretical additional audience, but unless you've got some good research to back that up, you're talking out your ass. And believe you me, a VC probably won't fund you if you can't at least produce a convincing argument that such an audience not only exists but is also reachable. Or have a long, proven reputation of delivering the goods, which rather few are fortunate enough to possess.

Ok. But in your table, just below "# successes" you should put in "# attempts", hence the resultant "% successes out of attempts".

You still have a valid point of course and I don't dare to disagree. What bedazzles me though, given the "# failures" in the diku department, is the lack of attempts in a different direction. No big investors, nor a indie developer, neither a lone crazy visionary is apparently up to a 13 years old challenge, save for Teppy and CCP (to a degree). But give them 1M $ and they'll all start working like crazy on the next EQ clone just to be commercially killed by WoW.
If the best a diku can do nowadays even with Lotro, Conan or Warhammer funding is about 200-400k customers, wouldn't it be possible to try a lighter, less amibitious (less expensive, not everything has to be AAA, right?) sandbox aiming at 50-100k customers? Isn't basically what EVE did, after all, managing to achieve double that result?
 
And correct me if I am wrong NOTHING is even remotely in production, so no sandboxes for the next 3 years at best. Those investors really know what they are doing with all these succesful dikus 

[Venkman]

Emergent behavior alone does not a sandbox max. The world has to reward the players for actions they take. It's just that there's a lot more options for actions than just which sword you bring to the same battle you've fought countless times before.

Can't be. There must be a way to start small, build a small simple sandbox and eventually let it grow.

Yes. And yes.

The point isn't that sandbox MMOs can't be done. It's the same point about world-PvP games, and you're right to draw the comparison to that other thread.

Every game that tries anything becomes an example. In the wild west days of a medium/genre/industry, anything is (theoretically) possible. Once a medium/genre/industry matures though, the relevance of any example is tied specifically to the business success of that example. Because the medium/genre/industry has become defined by the rules of the most successful in it.

That's the root of the challenge against innovation, and has hit and will hit every industry forever more: once a clear example of a success has come, it's very hard to deviate.

That deviation though is the heart of not trying to outdo the establishment but instead creating a new market in which that competition is irrelevant (popularized more recently in the form of Blue Ocean Strategy. This has worked and will continue to do so, but it requires actual creation of a new market (Club Penguin), not merely the absorption of an existing one (WoW).

No, I'm not comparing WoW to CP as games. They don't compete against each other really. But the CP market is extremely different from the WoW market. I have thought for awhile that if there is to be a "blue ocean" strategy to come, it is far more likely that the new market will replace the old one rather than some indie sandbox or world-PvP MMO coming to replace WoW.

[Yoru]

Ok. But in your table, just below "# successes" you should put in "# attempts", hence the resultant "% successes out of attempts".

You still have a valid point of course and I don't dare to disagree. What bedazzles me though, given the "# failures" in the diku department, is the lack of attempts in a different direction. No big investors, nor a indie developer, neither a lone crazy visionary is apparently up to a 13 years old challenge, save for Teppy and CCP (to a degree). But give them 1M $ and they'll all start working like crazy on the next EQ clone just to be commercially killed by WoW.
If the best a diku can do nowadays even with Lotro, Conan or Warhammer funding is about 200-400k customers, wouldn't it be possible to try a lighter, less amibitious (less expensive, not everything has to be AAA, right?) sandbox aiming at 50-100k customers? Isn't basically what EVE did, after all, managing to achieve double that result?
 
And correct me if I am wrong NOTHING is even remotely in production, so no sandboxes for the next 3 years at best. Those investors really know what they are doing with all these succesful dikus 

Re: %Successes. The small sample size makes that statistic far less useful for sandbox games, and then we get into the fuzzy realm of what should be counted as a failure or not, due to size. For example, Seed.

While there's a fairly high rate of failures on the standard MMO side, I'd actually prefer to know how many were financially unsuccessful, and for that we'd need statistics that businesses rarely release: production & operation costs vs. lifetime revenue. Even considering launch and pre-launch failures, the rate probably isn't above 50%.

Also, about stepping down from "AAA" - that's contradicted by your list, which is entirely AAA-level titles. If you want to step down into the realm of free-to-play titles, your numbers will get FAR more depressing, because the games there - particularly the huge successes - there either hew pretty close to the amusement-park side of things (Flyff, Club Penguin, Maple Story, etc.) or are uncategorizable as either amusement-parks or sandboxes (Gaia Online, Audition Online, Habbo Hotel). You can point to RuneScape and Wurm Online on the sandbox side of things.

And you're wrong about nothing "remotely" in production. For one, there's Jumpgate Evolution, which I believe is going to be at least somewhat sandboxy. We also don't know what WOD Online will be like.

You're also thinking in terms that are far too black-and-white. I think as the traditional market is groomed and expands, we will eventually start to see more freedom on that side, which could make those sorts of games feel more sandboxy.

Edit: Don't get me wrong, I like more freeform styles of game, like you do, and I'd like to see more investment on that side, but until the financials make sense, sandbox games are unlikely to attract major funding. I also think you're getting a bit hysterical along the lines of "omg no one is making the game I want to play!", which means... well, welcome to being the niche market. I think there's a seat over there by the wargamers.

[Falconeer]

I also think you're getting a bit hysterical along the lines of "omg no one is making the game I want to play!"

Yeah, definitely! 100% true. Actually I think I am panicking.

[Aez]

Add Wakfu to your sandbox list.  I'm in the French open beta and it's promising.  There's an ecology system that's already implemented.  Still a good 6 months of development to go though.

http://www.wakfu.com/en

[Samwise]

Samwise thinks he has some sort of inside-info when it comes to a Sandbox game and I can only laugh

Ah, the old "HA HA U THINK UR SO SMRT."  The last plaintive whimper of the guy who said something really dumb and is unable to take it back.   

[Falconeer]

Not sure about Wakfu. It's not out yet and I don't think it's fair to include it in the list, although it's good enough to give me hopes. Plus I didn't know it was supposed to be sandbox although I wanted to play it since it was announced. Could you give us a rundown of its features with a focus on the sandbox aspects?

What I forgot is The Sims Online, but there was no combat there so while it was obviously a sandbox it was more Habbo Hotel (also not included) than Ultima Online.
Finally, I left out WWII Online, Planetside or Motor City Online because they don't fit a bit in any of the two genres. They are basically Quake or Street Rod with some persistency attached.

[TheCastle]

What's a sandbox MMO?

One in which a large chunk (pick an arbitrary percentage) of how players spend their time is in some way dependent on player-emergent behavior, rather than on content that's been hand-crafted by the developers to be 'experienced' and then 'progressed through'.

That's just my definition.  I'm curious what holes people will poke in it.

Only one hole I would poke into this would be to say that old methods of increasing your skills could be made more interesting. Imagine if leveling your woodworking skill involved doing a series of quests instead of making 100 chairs. Then in this case the player would be progressing through content the developers made to be experienced even if it was leveling my fishing skill. I prescribe to the idea that all of the different skills you can level as being mostly the same as leveling different class archetypes.

Ok. But then why was it possible 10, no 11 years ago (12, or 13 if you calculate development time) and so hard today it's not even worth a shot?
It's like claiming you can't climb the Everest now with high-tech gear when people did it 13 years earlier with a toga and no shoes.

Maybe it's an empty claim but back in the days what moved lots of people from UO to EQ wasn't the diku model but the 3D model. Now THAT changed history.

You have to think about tools in the game industry as both a blessing and a curse. Climbing a mountain more easily with better tools is poor analogy. The reality is that once someone gives us better tools we use them to scale a taller mountain and basically end up back at square one again.

The fact that you're such a follower, scares the shit outta me.  Samwise thinks he has some sort of inside-info when it comes to a Sandbox game and I can only laugh

Ah, the old "HA HA U THINK UR SO SMRT."  The last plaintive whimper of the guy who said something really dumb and is unable to take it back.  

Its not as though the opinions above my posts have no value and I blindly followed. I happen to believe they are valid opinions that have come up many times before when talking about how cool it would be if someone took UO and did nothing but update the graphics. Every time the discussions would end with the notion that not only would all of the potential choices you can make paralyze the average player who is used to playing WoW but it is very hard to apply a formula to balancing all of your content. To a dev not being able to come up with a formula is fucking scary especially for devs that are more on the technical side.

Its easy for me to take a couple PVE archetypes and balance them out in terms of power and effectiveness with a basic formula when applied to a bunch of canned situations and I would at least have feeling that my estimations will be in the ballpark. But how in the hell do I apply a formula to making sure that dancing and fishing are equal? Where do I start?? Because as far as I can tell the main consideration here is that every skill is in a sense a class archetype that needs the same kinds of attention yet just trying to figure out a system where you can apply a basic formula frame work around a large list of fundamentally different skills sounds more to me like willfully walking a minefield of fail.

As far as the need for balance in video games I have always felt that the number of players that can play your game at once is directly proportional to the need for all of your systems to be water tight and balanced. Saying otherwise in my opinion goes against all conventional wisdom on the topic at hand.

[palmer_eldritch]

Its easy for me to take a couple PVE archetypes and balance them out in terms of power and effectiveness with a basic formula when applied to a bunch of canned situations and I would at least have feeling that my estimations will be in the ballpark. But how in the hell do I apply a formula to making sure that dancing and fishing are equal? Where do I start?? Because as far as I can tell the main consideration here is that every skill is in a sense a class archetype that needs the same kinds of attention yet just trying to figure out a system where you can apply a basic formula frame work around a large list of fundamentally different skills sounds more to me like willfully walking a minefield of fail.

As far as the need for balance in video games I have always felt that the number of players that can play your game at once is directly proportional to the need for all of your systems to be water tight and balanced. Saying otherwise in my opinion goes against all conventional wisdom on the topic at hand.

Yes, although balance doesn't matter quite as much in a sandbox game. You don't need to make sure dancing and fishing are balanced (whatever that would mean), just that they are both fun and seem to have some sort of use. If the fishing skill lets you make money and the dancing skill just makes your character look cool, some people will dance because they want to play at being a dancer.

[Aez]

Not sure about Wakfu. It's not out yet and I don't think it's fair to include it in the list, although it's good enough to give me hopes. Plus I didn't know it was supposed to be sandbox although I wanted to play it since it was announced. Could you give us a rundown of its features with a focus on the sandbox aspects?

Yeah sure.  I didn't play much but here's what I got :

Eco system
Kill to many creatures of the same type and they'll go extinct. There's even a system of male/female/baby.  For example, you can kill all the low lvl babies of a creature type and it will eventually become instinct. Currently working.

Extensive crafting system
Pretty damn impressive.  The crafted items stay relevant at the hightest lvl.  You can plant seed and harvest the result.  The ecosystem also affect plants. If you harvest all the mushrooms, they will stop growing.  You can also harvest living creature like sheep for wool instead of killing them.  Currently working but not completely finished.  Some crafts are not implemented.

Player economy
No npc vendor, no npc at all.  Everything is there to make it work except a decent selling system.  Right now, you put shit on the ground with a price and you get the money if someone decide to pick it up for the asked price.  The problem is that the world is getting spamed with trash.  It's ridiculous.  It's similar to UO when you could build anything anywhere.  They need a new system.  Nothing has been announced.  Working but broken.

Player politics
You'll be able to vote a mayor for every region.  The mayor will have a couple of interesting powers like the ability to issue zone wide reward/quest.  Those zone challenges will be the main tool to keep a balanced ecosystem (ex: we are out of wheat - 100$ if you plant 25 wheat seed in 15 min) ). Zone challenge are in but automated, the voting system is not implemented.

Skill/level system
It's a leveling system for the stat improvements but the combat and crafting skills grow through use.  You can theoretically master every crafting skill (not restricted by your class) and every combat skill (available to your class) but there is a really hard cap on skill progression.  Only the truest catass will reach 100% in everything.  The retarded part is they have a stat that only affect xp progression (wisdom).  I don't understand the point and it seems to be a stupid way to reward catassing. Working.

[TheCastle]

Yes, although balance doesn't matter quite as much in a sandbox game. You don't need to make sure dancing and fishing are balanced (whatever that would mean), just that they are both fun and seem to have some sort of use. If the fishing skill lets you make money and the dancing skill just makes your character look cool, some people will dance because they want to play at being a dancer.

Its no longer a choice based on preference or personal desire when one of the options is clearly more rewarding than the other. If dancing has no reason to exist because it offers less reward or no actual reward beyond looking cool you would have been better off not including it in the game. If you have a finite number of skill points then providing lesser options that pull from the same pool of skill points is by all means a fundamental design problem with the system. You will see an overwhelming number of fisherman compared to dancers and the populace will consider dancing a waste of resources. What about your min/max players? Don't they deserve to have the option to be either a dancer or a fisherman if they so decide?

[Samwise]

What about your min/max players? Don't they deserve to have the option to be either a dancer or a fisherman if they so decide?

I think it's a mistake to say that having balanced and fully implemented game systems is only of benefit to min/maxers.  Then you end up with a false dichotomy between having a game that caters to "min/maxers" (Bartle achievers) and a game that caters to "roleplayers" (Bartle socializers).  Even someone who isn't a "min/maxer" and looking to "win" the game is going to appreciate their character being able to do something that actually impacts the game world on the same level as everyone else's, and to have the same variety of gameplay available to them. 

If being a fisherman gives you opportunities to see new game content, to interact with other players in the economic game, and to get new skills that let you do these things at progressively higher levels, that's going to appeal to everyone, even if they don't take advantage of all of those opportunities.  If being a dancer just gives you a couple of new emotes, there's just not enough gameplay there to make that class worthwhile, even to a really hardcore roleplayer who really likes the idea of playing a dancer.

I think Wasted really hit it on the head when he talked about being "socially competitive".  Even if you insist on dividing players up into Bartle types or whatever, you'll tend to find that they all want vaguely similar things, but for different reasons -- your socializers want to be able to do stuff that will cause other people to seek them out, your explorers want to be able to do stuff that will let them discover more of the world, your achievers want to be able to do stuff that makes them "win" the game by some measure, and your killers want to be able to strike terror into the hearts of other players.  In all cases, players want the ability to do things that impact the world in some meaningful way, and emoting in a corner isn't going to cut it.

[Cylus]

Few people are going to play your sand box game if one template wtfpwns everything else and certain game elements don't live up to players expectation of how powerful/useful or respected their chosen path asks for.  Player A spends 100's of hours researching a certain crafting line and gets to the pinnacle of the art, they acquire the the obscure materials they need only to discover the items are far inferior to common items available elsewhere.  That is unbalanced.

You cannot have a pure sandbox mmog in the concept of the player having free reign to do anything at all and be unbalanced versus the game elements alone, as you can in single player games.  You are sharing a space with other players and are competitive socially for status as well as whatever game elements are competitive (game currency and market control, spawn points etc).  For players to have unequal access to those elements based on their in game choices is what makes a game unbalanced, and only a non-commercial sandbox purist would defend for the right for characters to be able to easily gimp themselves to maintain a full sandbox with consequences to every action to make it more 'real'.

Mmogs are all about advancement, through access to in game experiences and to social progression.  The smart sandbox, the one that wants to be actually successful will remove some of the 'guided' progression systems that diku's offer such as classes but it will still seek to balance all experiences that the game offers.  The Devs may as well save their time if they are going to introduce features just for the sake of having them but no-one will use because they don't meet expectations or grant the player any social currency.

Who's to say that there has to be a template?  If we're talking about a sandbox, why do we need classes?

My point wasn't that there isn't a need for class balancing.  Rather, it's that there isn't a need for classes.  "Progression" can be handled in ways other than class-specific abilities, as you hinted at.

And Sam, the last response was admittedly a lame "I'm too tired to fucking argue so I'm going to go pass out" statement, sorry.  Btw, who's cock do I have to suck for one of those shiny, red titles?

[Ratman_tf]

Only one hole I would poke into this would be to say that old methods of increasing your skills could be made more interesting. Imagine if leveling your woodworking skill involved doing a series of quests instead of making 100 chairs. Then in this case the player would be progressing through content the developers made to be experienced even if it was leveling my fishing skill. I prescribe to the idea that all of the different skills you can level as being mostly the same as leveling different class archetypes.

I'm not 100% against quests in a sandbox, but for the most part, I like sandboxes in order to get away from quest grinding and do my own thing.

[IainC]

Template doesn't have to mean classes, it simply means a package of abilities or items etc that can be considered together as a vague archetype. For example - a crafting specialist or a PK hunter or even a purely roleplay based 'career' such as a storyteller or explorer. Everything he said holds true whether you take it as 'Wizard vs Barbarian vs Rogue' or 'Fisherman vs guy who designs houses vs policeman'.

[Wasted]

A template is any set of skills or in game form of progression.  It is not linked to classes, though it may very well be how a person would define a 'class' in a free form character advancement system.  For example in eve you could call your character a researcher if they only concentrate their skill progression in the research fields where as a freight mule would specialize in Industrial ship piloting and cargo holds (If I remembered right).  You need to balance that all progression paths give rewards proportional to the time invested in relation to other paths.

[Cylus]

Right, so if you remove classes from said template, what do you supposedly have to balance?  Items?  Abilities?  Without classes, those items and abilities can be used by anyone so it obviously removes much of the dreaded balancing issues.  There's also the assumption that everyone is a min/max'r; yes, there are people out there that will roll a Bright Wizard or Druid to own face or whatever the hell they do but making the game less fun because of those said individuals isn't the way to go.  On the other hand, there are plenty of people out there that'd rather play HL2 deathmatch than TF2 because they know that they'll start on "equal" footing.  Granted, any sort of progression would shake that barley a bit but there's a significant portion of gamers out there that'd rather not be worried about "progression" and would rather just be given the opportunity to cause mayhem (see GTA4 online and, to a lesser/non-sandbox extent, Halo3/CoD4/GoW2).

People get so worked up about balancing and tend to forget to make the game fun.  Sandboxes are fun because of the opportunities presented; the less obstacles you put in the way of getting to said opportunities, the better.