Sandboxes. Why not?

[Falconeer]

I'm with Palmer (and others).

Iain, could you apply your examples to the existing sandbox MMOs? Cause as I said seems to me that what worked in the few released examples wasn't related to xp and/or loot. I made specific examples for UO, SWG and EVE. Of course the results are different (EVE is by far the most goal-driven, and the less social one anyway), but would you say Dancing, House Decorating, Collecting or Crafting were broken in those games (and by extension the games) as they didn't provide decent hard-rewards?

Seems to me the opposite: what made those sandboxes decent ones is the fact they didn't killed the alternative activities (to fighting and moving up) with minmaxing aspects.

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.

If a player do something as stupid as ignoring game objectives, and open up possibilities not intended by the game designer, do you think he/she is the kind of player who looks for xp or loot?
What I loved in the sandbox that was UO, was the fact that everyone was setting his/her own game objectives. The massively multiplayer social environment was providing the "rewards" the sandboxers were looking for. That's why I think "balance" is definitely not so important in a sandbox. Options, and freedom, are top priorities. As unbalanced as they can be.


FAKE EDIT: The goals you are mentioning in your last post Iain don't require balance. As people set their own goals, based on the activity they are measuring themselves on, the rewards are seldom of the "universal" kind. No one was dancing or cooking to get the most money. They were doing it cause that's what they wanted their chars to do, and wanted to eventually excel at.

What's most profitable in EVE compared to invested time? Mining, trading, running missions or PvPing? I doubt anyone will chose his/her profession in EVE based on what's most profitable. They choose out of personal tastes.

[Fordel]

After reading this thread, I have even less of an understanding of what a 'sandbox' game is supposed to be then before I started.



A sandbox is a game minus the game? 

[Falconeer]

Take your normal MMORPG Fordel.
Put in there lots of alternative activities non necessarily combat related, but significant to the game world even if only for asthetical reasons, and you could have a sandbox MMO.
The game can provide rewards for your alternative efforts, but in a sandbox rewards can, and often are, provided by other players.

Crafting is the most used of those alternative activities but it's not enough to make it a sandbox.

[Fordel]

Then what is enough?


Combat
Crafting

and?

[Falconeer]

 

Did you play UO and SWG? Didn't you notice there were a few things more to pass the time other than fighting and crafting?

[IainC]

I'm with Palmer (and others).

Iain, could you apply your examples to the existing sandbox MMOs? Cause as I said seems to me that what worked in the few released examples wasn't related to xp and/or loot. I made specific examples for UO, SWG and EVE. Of course the results are different (EVE is by far the most goal-driven, and the less social one anyway), but would you say Dancing, House Decorating, Collecting or Crafting were broken in those games (and by extension the games) as they didn't provide decent hard-rewards?

Seems to me the opposite: what made those sandboxes decent ones is the fact they didn't killed the alternative activities (to fighting and moving up) with minmaxing aspects.

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.

If a player do something as stupid as ignoring game objectives, and open up possibilities not intended by the game designer, do you think he/she is the kind of player who looks for xp or loot?
What I loved in the sandbox that was UO, was the fact that everyone was setting his/her own game objectives. The massively multiplayer social environment was providing the "rewards" the sandboxers were looking for. That's why I think "balance" is definitely not so important in a sandbox. Options, and freedom, are top priorities. As unbalanced as they can be.


FAKE EDIT: The goals you are mentioning in your last post Iain don't require balance. As people set their own goals, based on the activity they are measuring themselves on, the rewards are seldom of the "universal" kind. No one was dancing or cooking to get the most money. They were doing it cause that's what they wanted their chars to do, and wanted to eventually excel at.

What's most profitable in EVE compared to invested time? Mining, trading, running missions or PvPing? I doubt anyone will chose his/her profession in EVE based on what's most profitable. They choose out of personal tastes.

If you look at the examples I've given, most of those have rewards that can't be quantified or reduced to 'loot and xp'. Notoriety is a reward. Reaching the top of a leaderboard is a reward, maxing out skills you don't use simply for completeness can be a reward, having one of each type of bow in the game can be a reward, fun is a reward too but that's far more subjective than even the other soft rewards mentioned.

Using Eve as an example, let's assume three rough archetypes - PvP pilot, Industrialist, Mission runner. People will of course pick the path that appeals to them the most although there will be a lot of crossover of course and many more niches that players will find for themselves that fall outside those broad categories. Within those archetypes things need to be balanced against each other even though all skills are available to all characters in time - otherwise there will be a 'best option' and the others wil become obsolete. Likewise, careers need to be balanced against each other for the level of investment. Industrialist makes you crazy amounts of money if you sink a lot of time into training for it but isn't very exciting. Combat pilot requires lees of an investment, is more exciting but generally results in a net loss of cash over time if you are a PvP pilot or a modest gain in PvE. In all three cases the level of reward for the level of investment is about the same although reward is measured in different ways and may encompasses nebulous concepts like fun and satisfaction.

Fordel: A sandbox without a game is a virtual world. There's a difference between UO and Second life that isn't related to the number of flying penises. UO is a game and has an overarching meta-narrative that informs the actions of the player at all times. Second Life has no such framework.

[Ratman_tf]

Did you play UO and SWG? Didn't you notice there were a few things more to pass the time other than fighting and crafting?

Hairdressing! 

[Fordel]

Did you play UO and SWG? Didn't you notice there were a few things more to pass the time other than fighting and crafting?

Nope, didn't play them.

So please elaborate 

[Nebu]

Fordel: A sandbox without a game is a virtual world. There's a difference between UO and Second life that isn't related to the number of flying penises. UO is a game and has an overarching meta-narrative that informs the actions of the player at all times. Second Life has no such framework.

I think this helps answer your request to elaborate.  Backdrop is a big difference as are the incentives built into the game mechanics.

[schild]

A sandbox without a game is a virtual world.

I disagree and would rarely clump the two in the same sentence. But I'm not in the mood for essays. In short, no, a sandbox without a game isn't a virtual world. You can't go and plan to develop a sandbox and 3/4 of the way through end up with a virtual world. That's just not how it works. They are two completely and totally separate things. In fact, I'd say, given the freedom in Second Life, it was more of a sandbox than UO. That said, now we're talking about labels and I think half of the genre is mislabeled. Actual definitions have gone out the window in favor of colloquial definitions, which is fine, but it doesn't change the fact that saying a "sandbox without a game is a virtual world" is sorta crazy-talk.

[Arthur_Parker]

After reading this thread, I have even less of an understanding of what a 'sandbox' game is supposed to be then before I started.

This whole thread is serious mental wankery, my personal favourite, balance mentioned as a priority in sandbox game thread.

So anyway, I designed a mini game for the balance nerds.

Warhammer Online Witch Hunter
Combat skills , you have ten points to spend.
Full Confession spec, part Inquisition or Judgment: Cost 10 points.
Full Inquisition spec, part Confession or Judgment: Cost 10 points.
Full Judgment spec, part Inquisition or Confession: Cost 10 points.
Half and Half, any two trees: Cost 10 points.

Crafting skills, you have two points to spend.
Apothecary,  Butchering,  Cultivating,  Magical Salvaging,  Scavenging & Talisman Making
Cost one point each.

Ultima Online

All skills, you have 7 points to spend.
Alchemy, Anatomy, Animal Lore, Item Identification, Arms Lore, Parry, Begging, Blacksmithy, Bowcraft & Fletching, Peacemaking, Camping, Carpentry, Cartography, Cooking, Detecting Hidden, Discordance, Evaluating Intelligence, Healing, Fishing, Forensic Evaluation, Herding, Hiding, Provocation, Inscription, Lockpicking, Magery, Resisting Spells, Tactics, Snooping, Musicianship, Poisoning, Archery, Spirit Speak, Stealing, Tailoring, Animal Taming, Taste Identification, Tinkering, Tracking, Veterinary, Swordsmanship, Mace Fighting, Fencing, Wrestling, Skill, Lumberjacking, Mining, Chivalry, Focus, Meditation, Necromancy, Remove Trap and Stealth
Cost one point each.

From the above, it should be obvious to everyone that Bright Wizards need nerfed.

[Cylus]

I have a feeling the word "balance" may have taken on a negative connotation over the years. It's kinda sad to think that since balance isn't fun, I'm not allowed to like how well balanced Diablo 2 was. :(

Funny you say that, seeing as how Blizzard is the only company that's presently highly successfuly with the current paradigm that people tenaciously cling to

[Ratman_tf]

A sandbox is a game minus the game? 

A true sandbox isn't a game at all. It's closer to arts & crafts.

A lot of virtual worlds have sandbox elements or tend to generate sandbox elements because they try to have open scopes for gameplay.

Ex: Making a cookie stand and selling cookies in Ultima Online.

[IainC]

I'm going to make a snarky comment because reading is hard.

[Falconeer]

Did you play UO and SWG? Didn't you notice there were a few things more to pass the time other than fighting and crafting?

Nope, didn't play them.

So please elaborate 

You can't really ask me to explain you UO or SWG.
I'll make a short list of the first few sandboxy things I can think of from both games.

- Housing (totally non-instanced, and open to everyone), and decorating.
- Real estate brokering
- Gardening
- Treasure Hunting
- Creature handling/taming
- City building and vendoring (trading on site, on player built hubs)
- Collecting
- Writing books
- Stealing
- Entertaining, Dancing, Hairdressing (they were all classes in SWG)
- Mayoring (no seriously, politician was a class too).

This is just obvious stuff. There were so many other subtle sub-activities I can't give a name to. UO for example had a skill called "forensic" which was supposed to let you analyze any corpse and figure out the name of the killer. And we are talking of a game that had player set bounties. The list of UO skills Arthur Parther copypasted could give you a few more ideas.

This list is by no means complete. Not to mention I left out crafting because it's a given but it was major in both games. It's just to give you an idea of what it was like to live in the world of SWG and UO. Sure you could be a fighter, gain titles, rewards, fame, max out skills, become powerful, and eventually beat the game both on PvE and PvP terms. But there was a kind of freedom which didn't have to do with that. Many played for years enjoying their self-imposed self-created roles not really caring about rewards other than self-set or socially achieved ones.

[Arthur_Parker]

I'm going to make a snarky comment because reading is hard.

Not so much.  A real snarky comment would be me asking "how come you're such a balance expert on sandbox games?".

I had previously tried to play UO but it was ugly and hard. I still gave it significantly more than ten minutes however.

[UnSub]

blood sweat and tiers

... and I've just found out what WAR's post mortem should be called.

On topic: the reason that sandboxes are less popular than dikus is to do with the players. Players like rewards, like progression, like knowing they are doing something right. Sandboxes (in general) don't give that kind of feedback. Dikus have level gated content, players are shown the path to head off towards, while sandboxes have to be more open in terms of how a player might act (for instance, they might never leave their 'home base', so how do you develop for that?). Dikus see players at max lvls as a lot more powerful than those just starting out, whereas sandboxes require a much flatter power differentiation.

The key lesson of UO vs EQ is that the more freedom you give players, the more they will exploit it, while the more reward structures and level gating the more controlled you can make the experience. 'Freedom' and 'control' don't mix. Sandbox MMOs require that devs give up a lot of control over the game which can lead to undesirable side-effects (Raph has a story of the most successful PKer in UO who was basically a roadside bomb maker) but that is part of the sandbox experience. It is a reality that EQ was a lot more successful that UO in obtaining players, so during those early days devs went out to develop an EQ beater, which in turn trained more devs to build dikus. UO taught devs that you can't trust your players.

Also, if we are actually looking back at MMOs, we should also be talking about Meridian 59 and Neverwinter Nights and all of the originators. To say that MMOs started with UO is flat out wrong.

[Triforcer]

Its wrong in a technical sense, but right in a practical sense. 

[Slyfeind]

It's funny talking about EQ like it's not a sandbox. Coming back to it after all these years, it feels more like a sandbox than ever before, and the gameplay is relatively unchanged. But compared to the narrowly directed gameplay of WoW or WAR, EQ is downright daunting in how open-ended it is.

So are we saying here that if you put goals and rewards into a game, it's no longer a sandbox? SWG had some pretty firm direction for the different play patterns, and it was a sandbox. It just had an awful lot of different directions to choose from.

Also, I think it's misleading to say that you balance an entire game. You can balance combat, or crafting, other systems, or various pockets of content, or different classes or skill sets, or even the amount of fun in different play patterns. But you can't balance an entire game anymore. As soon as balance is called into question, the game has become too complex to balance the whole thing.

[Iniquity]

(Raph has a story of the most successful PKer in UO who was basically a roadside bomb maker)

Link please.

[Merusk]

It's funny talking about EQ like it's not a sandbox. Coming back to it after all these years, it feels more like a sandbox than ever before, and the gameplay is relatively unchanged. But compared to the narrowly directed gameplay of WoW or WAR, EQ is downright daunting in how open-ended it is.

And it WAS daunting.  There was an element of additional danger that's been scrubbed out of the newest generations.  Some people liked things like "ZOMG Gryphon at the 3rd hut!" and "Shit, Giant to the skeletons."  The 'evil' races first run through Highpass was always a moment of adrenaline and nerves and a hell of a fun memory.  Most folks, however, saw them as tedious ways of fucking over a night's entertainment, especially with Xp and level-loss.   

The over all design was niche, even if the game was popular.  WOW and those after it are 'on rails' as much as any console-based game, and they're better GAMES for it.  EQ tried to keep a lot of "world" and add "game" to it.  It just got a lot of hate at its height because it wasn't UO and some of the game-based decisions (rare loot!) were asinine when combined with world-based ones (your items should stay on your corpse!).

[Pendan]

A “game” that was not listed is Roma Victor. So sandbox that I am inclined to say is not a game but a virtual world. On the other hand I am inclined to label Horizon as a hybrid. The crafting was the most interesting part of the game and this led to a balance issue with the adventure part of the game so that crafters ended up with no customers for their products.

[Cheddar]

(Raph has a story of the most successful PKer in UO who was basically a roadside bomb maker)

Link please.

Yeah - I would like that link also.  I fondly remember a guy who would shove a ton of explosion potions into a box then light them up- went by the moniker "Mad Bomber" and also "Ted Kacynzki (sp?)"

[Bokonon]

If you are going to make an open-ended game like UO, then you need to try and build in some sort of equilibrium mechanism; an algorithm, or process, not some architected balancing framework/scaffolding.

A successful algorithm can be much more responsive to the environment within which it is working, but it's also a lot harder to develop that algorithm (maybe impossible, after a certain point of complexity is reached?), than silo-ing concerns with balance frameworking.

[palmer_eldritch]

You can't really ask me to explain you UO or SWG.
I'll make a short list of the first few sandboxy things I can think of from both games.

- Housing (totally non-instanced, and open to everyone), and decorating.
- Real estate brokering
- Gardening
- Treasure Hunting
- Creature handling/taming
- City building and vendoring (trading on site, on player built hubs)
- Collecting
- Writing books
- Stealing
- Entertaining, Dancing, Hairdressing (they were all classes in SWG)
- Mayoring (no seriously, politician was a class too).

(snipped by Palmer)

Also, one thing that is kind of hard to describe is the way the skills that existed led to other activities which the developers may or may not have imagined (although perhaps they did).

When I talked about having a dinner party above, that was based on experience. You could organise feasts in UO, but there was no specific skill for that. There was the cooking skill and the carpentry skill, which let you make tables and chairs, and put food on the table. Get together, let the guildmasters feel important by having a little talk with each other, and maybe it would all end in a big fight. That's just one example.

[Venkman]

If you are going to make an open-ended game like UO, then you need to try and build in some sort of equilibrium mechanism; an algorithm, or process, not some architected balancing framework/scaffolding.

A successful algorithm can be much more responsive to the environment within which it is working, but it's also a lot harder to develop that algorithm (maybe impossible, after a certain point of complexity is reached?), than silo-ing concerns with balance frameworking.

And that brings us right back to the core problem with developing this type of game. You need to change your expertise to go from scripted content in a waterfall development process to some mashup of life simulators and procedurally-generated task generation and rewards.

I'm with Palmer (and others).

Iain, could you apply your examples to the existing sandbox MMOs? Cause as I said seems to me that what worked in the few released examples wasn't related to xp and/or loot. I made specific examples for UO, SWG and EVE. Of course the results are different (EVE is by far the most goal-driven, and the less social one anyway), but would you say Dancing, House Decorating, Collecting or Crafting were broken in those games (and by extension the games) as they didn't provide decent hard-rewards?

I believe Iain's point was that you need to better separate game systems that channeled player interaction from player tools that facilitated player customization. And if it wasn't his point, it's my point now

Game Systems
Dancing was a system with XP and unlockables and was required in the game for Mind Wounds. Collecting was a requirement for crafting, with a whole system unto itself with built-in tasks and rewards. Crafting was of course a game unto itself too. Other examples like treasure hunting in UO and SWG were also games (get the drop, find out where, go to it and proceed through a multi-tiered challenge, ala a triggered WAR PQ). Same with Politicians in SWG. Gardening in ATiTD is a game too.

Player tools
House Decorating is the exception in that list because it was merely tools that players could use. That would be akin to costume parties in CoX, writing books in UO, stealing, real estate brokering, player auctions before the EQ1 bazaar, etc.

Something in the middle would be SWG city building. You needed the City Hall, strongly desired the main reasons for your core group to show up (cantina, shuttle port, mission terminals, hospital, garage). Those make gameplay easier, and therefore were adjunct to driving commerce for the player vendors and whatnot. But at the same time, you could actively choose to care how the city was laid out and what random crafting accroutrements you chose during the decoration/layout phases.

[Arthur_Parker]

There's an old article from Hedron called The Six Circles of the Adept Game Player.

I believe it helped bring me to the conclusion that there are only two types of endgame, roleplaying and/or pvp.  I still think that, I'd also point to the decreasing resistance to pvp in the games nowadays compared to how it once was as evidence.  It's maybe a stretch to consider rolling an alt in WoW as roleplaying, but whatever.

Not sure I buy into his strictly defined circle idea, but if sandbox is your thing, it's worth read, even if you only want to reflect on how things turned out.

[Ratman_tf]

Not sure I buy into his strictly defined circle idea, but if sandbox is your thing, it's worth read, even if you only want to reflect on how things turned out.

Wow. That red text on black background is kinda harsh.

[Venkman]

I believe it helped bring me to the conclusion that there are only two types of endgame, roleplaying and/or pvp.  I still think that, I'd also point to the decreasing resistance to pvp in the games nowadays compared to how it once was as evidence.  It's maybe a stretch to consider rolling an alt in WoW as roleplaying, but whatever.

Setting aside the business/development state for a second, I actually do think a SWG game done right could be huge. The theory anyway, of bolting Image Design, Housing, Mayors, Player Cities, aesthetic clothing etc atop a combat game of questing and exploration.

I don't know that WoW+SWG would equal WoW+WoW. I suspect that even a perfectly-functioning sandbox game isn't going to be nearly as atttractive as a largely-on-rails multiplayer RPG/character-optimization system. But there's been no way of really proving that to date. UO was so very early that nothing but a sequel will make that top of mind again. And SWG had far too many early issues, has long since been subjugated by WoW, and now there's SWTOR to turn the knife.

Developing an MMO is never just about a single set of systems for day one of the game. It's about planning ahead so you know what's critical to get you there. And that is about both knowing what your playerbase expects in open beta and then knowing how you can keep their interest. New content is easy to add, but after awhile they get bored of the same old thing with new skins.

So another path is to let them permanently customize elements of their characters or their pocket in the world. Would this keep as many people in an MMO as a new level cap and more raid content? So far I think most developers would say no, but I don't think it's adequately been proven.

Which brings us back to the question of why (or why not).

Circular indeed

[UnSub]

(Raph has a story of the most successful PKer in UO who was basically a roadside bomb maker)

Link please.

Yeah - I would like that link also.  I fondly remember a guy who would shove a ton of explosion potions into a box then light them up- went by the moniker "Mad Bomber" and also "Ted Kacynzki (sp?)"

Pretty sure that was the guy. Raph made the comment in a podcast during an address to developers at one of those kind of conferences, probably last year (so 2007). I haven't the ability to listen through podcasts to find the right one.

From memory, he said that the average number of kills a PKer had was 1, whereas the bomb guy had 200+.

[Cheddar]

I ran around with him during my early days in brit and later (once he was red) around Vesper - it was awe inspiring watching him work; he had a ton of creative tricks (like string a line of bombs to just outside the guard zone then BOOM - dead people at bank).   

[Redgiant]

If DAoC is not sandboxy, then I wonder why Darkfall is mentioned as such in many posts.

I recall full-on economics of crafting, merchanting, and sitting on my porch waving to the neighbors and arranging my garden in DAoC. Weddings, funerals, world-wide truces for events like 9/11. And RvR was about as freeform as it gets, non-instanced and world-affecting. DAoC was every bit a living world where you immersed as your avatar as UO was, although the sheer number of mundane and strange things you could do in UO was admittedly higher.

it has Diku elements, but it seems to me that DAoC has a healthy dose of sandbox, moreso than others in the OP's Diku list.

Seems like some of those games are really Diku in framework with very sandbox-oriented ancillary and specialty activities. Maybe that is why it is hard for DAoC fans to find the next DAoC heir-apparent, like WAR was hyped as, since DAoC's particular hybrid combination of styles is not commonly found. The completely unbound and non-instanced RvR is definitely its great hook and the hardest feature to find elsewhere (so far).

[Zetor]

re UO mad bomber:

Are you possibly referring to this guy?


-- Z.

[Arthur_Parker]

re UO mad bomber:

Are you possibly referring to this guy?

Lot of people did that, or similar.

[UnSub]

re UO mad bomber:

Are you possibly referring to this guy?


-- Z.

It's very possible. Raph would be the final arbiter on if it was him or someone else who had the title of most successful PKer of his time in UO.